[Story] Origami

[Okiba]

"Fear comes from the world around you. Terror creeps its way out from within."

Origami.

One step at a time...

Mara said to herself, taking the next step down with the upmost care. The slightest misstep would only end badly, only ever badly. The skin of a bare sole made contact with cold, rigid oak. Her weight applied itself as her other foot came down too, so carefully, but with a creak of strain all the same. This building and its cellar was old, but the next step had to be taken. And so it was.

Spill nothing...

Don't spill a precious drop, Mara my dear, not a drop.

She shuddered, the simple wooden platter rattling in her hands, all of the fine porcelain it held shaking from base to rim. The sweet smell of tea filled the air, its source threatening to spill with any wrong move. The only course of action was another step, and then another, until she reached the bottom of the wooden staircase where they, and he, awaited.

The whole room was murk, every corner of the basement held silhouettes in the shadows, boxes filled, discarded and forgotten. Though at the back, sat a lonely light, nearly smothered in the black, its tiny flame struggling to keep alive atop a short candle. Now with her bare feet supported atop cold, hard stone, she began to approach with nervous steps.

Don't tarry now my dear, some of us are thirsty.

Her whole body convulsed with revulsion, but obedience was all she could summon as each syllable coursed through her mind. The gentle sound of her feet padding across the ground hastened while the noise of chattering fine china intensified.

Don't drop it now, please...!

Stop.

She halted halfway between steps, the candle sat before her. The chattering came to an end. Her tired, bloodshot eyes twitched and eyelids blinked as they adjusted to the dim light. Around the candle in the murk sat three figures...

The first on her left was a goblin who slumped upon his knees, male and young though you could barely tell it. His raiment was that of a mechanic, oily overalls and thick boots all smeared with stains. His head was shaved and eyes wide open, sightless and locked upon nothing. From his mouth came a torrent of drool.

Light have mercy --

Silly child.

Mara restrained a grimace, turning her gaze right to the figure opposite the goblin. A Forsaken, also a male, writhed on the ground hissing as he gripped his skull. His bony arms exposed from beneath the sleeves of his fine silk robes. She thought him perhaps a cleric, a priest? He resisted more than the others, that much was known. Much good it was doing him, he was tearing what was left of his skin off his skull.

"The sha- ... The shadow! it is divine! divine, I will resi--" Hissed the forsaken, kicking his legs as he thrashed. The pain of what was likely in his mind pulling at every strand of him it could.

Just give in, give in... please

She had no sympathy for the forsaken, or their cause, or their dammed Horde. But nobody deserved that, nobody.

Nobody Mara? tsk, Everyone deserves something.

Mara snapped her gaze up, a panicked breath passing her lips. Her hazy sight shifted to the shadow opposite her across from the candle, between the other two. Half a mound, half a shape. Deft hands moved within the dark, cloaked and hooded in the dark. With each swift movement of its hands, a long claw like nail prodded, applied pressure and pinned his handiwork. He folded pieces of paper.

Why does he do this...

You know the answer to that.

Mara gulped, a strand of short auburn hair falling across her right eye as the shape shifted its 'head', two cold blue eyes looking up at her from under a hood. He sat cross legged, arrayed in black robes of many fabrics. Around him objects made of paper, shaped into all manner of item. He was folded paper to make Origami.

"Y-your tea..." She croaked, bowing her head as a vile smile of brown fangs flashed under that cowl. Without command or her even willing it, she set the tray of tea cups down on the ground and sat upon her knee's.

"My dear, how kind and diligent of you. We cannot have a party without good tea, can we?" The figure spoke, its vicious grin setting to pursed lips.

"O-oh yes! We must have tea." she agreed, hastily, this time her own doing followed by the over eager bobbing of her head. Though the Vegetated goblin and forsaken did not follow suit, this drew his ire.

"I said, Mechanic, we -must- have tea, mustn't we?" Came his voice, like silk and honey wrapped in venom. More a command, spoken this time, rather than a suggestion.

To her shock, that little green head bobbed several times and even gargled a 'yes', though his eyes still held no focus to them, dead to the world.

"Very good. I only wish Our cleric friend here had your manners master Goblin, but he needs to be house trained first." He spoke again, casting a glance to the Forsaken, his writhing and hissing coming to an abrupt end.

"Tsk, seems he broke first." He shook head hooded head, a clawed hand extending from the gloom to snap up a tiny tea-cup with tender care. Mara watched, her heart beating at a marathon pace, the forsaken falling still with foam around his lipless mouth and black blood dripping from the sockets that once held eyes.

Shifting her gaze to the retracting paw of her captor, she spotted his latest parchment creations. Three figures sat in front of him near the candle, each made of fine, crisp paper. The first was a man, or at least a humanoid, hunched and robed. The second was a beast, four legged and tailed as a feline. The last, had wings, though short and folded.

"Hmm, you are getting better Mara my dear, at making tea, though more practice is certainly needed." He spoke, finishing a curt slurp, lowering the cup from his mouth.

I just want to go ho--

You Are home.

She flinched, feeling his thoughts forced upon hers, resonating inside her head. That smile returned, those filthy fangs flashing under those cold azure eyes. She couldn't run, he controlled her, commanded her. she had to wait, make a run for it when the time was right--

You would not get far.

She grimaced, he could hear every thought. What else could she do other than obey? Resistance was becoming more and more futile, less and less possible.

"Good girl." He spoke, running his wide tongue across his lips, extending that clawed paw to snap up the third of his creations, its rigid paper wings not moving an inch.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" He smiled, looking from it to her, and back again.

She nodded, out of self compulsion rather than forced obedience, keeping him happy, doing as told.

"Fascinating and wondrous, intricate yet so simple..." He smiled, running the point of one of his lengthy claws down the neck of the paper bird he had made.

"I like the bird most of all..." She uttered, trying to take part, wanting to play the game.

Nobody Asked you.

His gaze flickered up to her, filled with cold disdain. Ringing bounced off the inside of her ears for half a moment, a rebuke to keep her tongue still. It hurt, it always hurt.

"...A shame, my dear, a shame. You see..." He began, extending his arm to hold the paper bird over the candle.

"...You can only truly understand something..." He continued, fire catching a wing, then the belly and head. Spreading and creeping to every corner as he set it down between the paper cat and man. Fire spread, embers reaching out and finding purchase. The room grew brighter for a moment and a half. His full form was on view now, a male Pandaren clad and sat in black robes. He watched the fire ripple through his three creations and tear them apart, while sickly tendrils of shadows danced around the room... unnatural, unclear.

"...When you pull it apart..." He finished as the fire began to die. The gloom crept back, obscuring him and the walls once more until all was as it had been before the light had visited the place for brief moments.

Mara didn't understand, not the paper toys, the strange talk, the mind tricks, the pain that shot through her at the slightest glance. His eyes moved to her now, all that could be seen of him in the shadows.

"I-i d-don't understand..." she whispered, as if the sound of her own voice was be snuffed out in the dark.

"My dear sweet child... You don't need to." He smiled, before blowing from pursed lips toward the candle.

And the Light died.