The fountain's black waters ripple and swirl,
rising from the darkened depths like a miniature typhoon. Spilling over the sides, cascading down each tier like waterfalls of ink that
race across the stones the moment they touch the ground. Keening, crackling, crystallising as ice sprouts in its wake. Before you so much as have time to cry out the black water has encircled you and Jun-ho, a thick curtain wall of ice sprouting like some bizarre plant. Rising, rising, meeting the cave ceiling above and biting deep like jagged fangs. Trapping you in a rough oval cylinder of black-veined frost, filled with dull, dark shadows. Your next breath mists as it leaves your maw.
A shape half-emerges from the spout of black water. Maram's true body no doubt but even knowing it must be her the state of the marid jars your mind like an unexpected slap. Her skin is the colour of the sea, that ambiguous shade between blue and green that can have you arguing for hours, splashed in darkness that seems to grip at her like jealously clinging claws. She was covered in molten jewellery like Makram once, but whatever is still visible is tarnished as black as the water, as black as night. One half of her face is almost completely covered, her single visible eye like a blazing poison-yellow star in a pool of ink. Her long white hair lies stuck to her in matted, drowned clumps, her legs bound together in the darkness like the tail of a mermaid. You just barely glimpse what you think may be her lamp stuck half-submerged in the tarry substance by what used to be her ankle.
"Iiiiiiii have
waited-
waited-waited sooooo long," she hisses like a crashing wave, head twitching madly at each stumble over the word. "We never have to be
lonely-lonely againnnn..."
stay with us prince
More black fluid pours from the fountain, thickening from water to the consistency of tar as it splatters heavily across the stones. Drawing itself together into shapes, into semi-solid forms, squirming together like colonies of fat-bodied worms. The remainder flash-cools, crackling and creaking as black ice forms, armouring the figures as they slowly force themselves to rise. Higher, higher, taller, broader. Warriors, knights in fullplate of black ice, wielding weapons that billow black mist. Colonies of writhing, viscous eels held together only by their black-tinted prisons.
"Be my
mas-master," the marid calls, gesturing at the pair of you with one black-clawed hand. "Join with us-
with me- with us
makeitstop"
we know your pain
"I don't like this one!" Jun-ho exclaims, shrill and tight-voiced in panic. "I
really really don't like this one!"
