The world burned - and she with it. How fitting. Let it burn.

Pain seared through her shoulder, the crisp, charred wound shrieked as she collided with her foe. The scent of roasted meat clung to her, a reminder of how close she’d come to death. A lesser creature would have fallen. But she was githyanki - spawned in astral war, honed in the hate of a thousand battles. Yielding was not in her blood.

Yet still, darkness hovered at the edge of her vision, a pulsing nothingness eager to reclaim her. She had already dragged herself from its clutches once today, waking half-dead and alone. She would not surrender now. Rage steadied her limbs where strength failed. Fury became her shield, her blade, her breath.

She had braced for a mental assault against her charge. The ghaik - illithid filth - were famed for their psionic weaponry and cruelty. But no such attack came. No mind-flaying intrusion. No suffocating grip in her thoughts. Only a low, contemptuous chuckle, slick with derision.

It was worse than silence. It stoked the embers of her wrath into a full inferno. She snarled, feral and bloodied, froth rising as her rage overtook pain. Blood and sweat slicked her hide, but her opponent still did not retaliate. No strike. No spell. Nothing.

Insulting.

She tore away, stumbling from the unworthy wretch. The pain was immediate, blinding, and hot as forge-coals. Her vision swam. Her limbs, thick and unfamiliar, trembled beneath her, threatening to give out. This cursed form - this warped, equine body - lacked the precision and litheness of her true shape. Gone was the grace of a blade-dancer. In its place lumbered a creature bred for raw destruction.

“Damn you,” she spat, her voice raw as flayed muscle, her breath a frenzied gasp. Another stumble. She turned on her forelimbs, flanks bunching with the effort of movement. The weight of her new form fought her every step, turning once-deft attacks into brute-force bludgeoning. It sickened her. She bared her teeth, slick with ichor and spittle.

“Fight! Hta’zith!” she roared, the words a blade in the void.


🗡️ githyanki 🗡️
chraith'kan zharn