Yes, we are still stuck in this mindless idiocy known as me being beyond what should be my breaking point and still walking it off. I don't trust that I'll be same for the rest of this, but, perhaps I might come out of this. But for the sake of all that is my progress, the elven children are still asleep in their tree house, and I intend to tie them up.
Will I assume that they can get out of the rope and not be harmed the bone knife in my hand? No. I do not trust that. And is the concept of me being within the fucking confines of my sanity slowly but surely going away? Yes, definitely. I cannot believe that the first fucking death that I've had to handle was at the hands of toddlers.
Fucking toddlers.
Amazing, I know that there are accounts of children somewhat being called "The closest thing to the devil himself." but seriously, they willingly consumed my flesh. And they ate a lot of it. HELL, THEY'RE MAKING FUCKING JERKY OF ME. How do they know preservation techniques? Is there something that makes this skeleton tree special?
Is it something to do with how they looked sadly at the tree in the first place? Maybe maybe. But first, attempting to pacify them. Climbing the tree was difficult enough, and all I had in my hands were the rope and the bone knife. My back was killing me, despite being revived a few minutes ago.
Should I wait? Absolutely not. They could be nocturnal for the sake of safety. A good portion of possible predators are going to be awake at nighttime, and I do not intend to have to deal with children that are going to most likely kill me in low visibility.
I've read some odd things in my life, and I suppose I'm glad that I did. But back to what I had. The knife in my mouth, the roped slung onto my shoulder, and my hands feeling the pressure of the odd wood as I did my best to do get up on it.
It's texture is, odd, to say the least. It feels like it was just freshly grown, and yet it looks like it's been growing for years.
Again, this is a world of fantasy, I wouldn't quite know what anything would do if were to try and investigate. I don't even have parchment, oh wait, I technically can make it, but that's another thing for another time.
And I was fucking up the climbing as well. The branches weren't that many, and they were mostly flimsy. Those children were smart, they were small and light enough to just be able to get up onto the thicker parts.
They're lucky little shits, I'll say that much. But I wouldn't just stop there. I can't completely use my knife for this, they're most likely going to wake up if I even try to stab the trunk. So, keep attempting.
And eventually, after what felt like the most strenuous minutes in my life, I was actually on the tree already, and there they slept, resting their bodies on one of the larger branches as they quite literally wore my fresh skin for a blanket between them.
Amazing, I feel terrified. My hands were clammy, the sweat coming from my neck and forehead was almost enough to make was lose my grip form having to wipe it so often. So, what's my plan?
They're not weak, they killed me after all. If I were to come at this from the side of a reader of a book about this, I'd say to just carefully get the rope on top of them and then jump downwards and try to keep them stuck to the tree.
Their muscles were essentially "fresh" but it was strong either way. I don't know about their bones, but for them to have that much strength AND light-footedness it would be a nightmare to think which possible idiot chose for this to happen?
But I digress, I had to deal with them. And so, attempt. I don't wanna wake them up, but I need to get them tied up. So I got as close to them as possible, put the rope against my still-fresh-but-no-longer-part-of-me skin, and then gnashed my teeth and jump off in the proper direction, downwards.
I sure as hell gave them a jolt as I could hear the air get thrown out of their lungs. Good, my skin would be the only real thing that gets chaffed from all of this. So I did my best to ignore the burning sensation in my hands as I climbed up the rope and tied them up as tightly as I could without killing them.
I will be real and very transparent, it was hard to not want to kill them. Was I getting more heartless within the last few hours? Extremely so, to the point where I would say that I was already becoming mad. I wasn't always this sociopathic, I was just mildly psychopathic.
There's a key difference within those two, but the two in front of me were already awake and trying to get out of their restraints. "Children." I spoke to them as I gripped the knife in my hand, but closed my eyes and took a deep breath while pinching the bridge of my nose.
'This shouldn't be like this. We still have some morals.'
'NO, THEY KILLED US, THEY'RE STRONGER THAN US, AND THEY ATE OUR LITERAL FLESH AND GUTS. WHY WOULD YOU POSSIBLY STILL COUNT MORALS IN THIS?'
'BECAUSE THEY WERE ALSO FUCKING HUNGRY YOU MANIAC! IT'S AS CLEAR AS NIGHT AND DAY. They're not hostile for no good reason, and they may have tricked us, but they wanted to live as much as we do.'
'You're foolish! It's obvious enough to describe this falsifying internal conversation between us! They WERE willing to kill us. They might as well still be, seeing as they're terrified of the man whose body they just ate come back from God knows where! They're going to use those little child brains of theirs to assume that we're some sort of vengeful deity!'
'SO DON'T TAKE REVENGE YOU DOLT! IT'S SIMPLE.'
'I can assure you it really fucking isn't.'
'Oh spare me your overthinking will you? You and I both know damn well that we can go at this peacefully. We're not saints , we can make something out of this. Perhaps a beginning?'
'. . . . I hate and love the fact that we make sense at times like these whenever we tap into the darker aspects in our head.'
'That's just how it is. Now don't do anything dumb, I'm serious about this one.'
And after all of that internal conflict, I think it's decided. Indoctrination techniques. HAH! As if I actually read about anything like that. I may be manipulative, but I'm terrible at that. Obviously enough there are other possibilities that I could give them.
But right now, I placed the bone knife in my garter as I carefully got closer to them. Alright, children, elven in nature. Stature isn't talk, a solid 4 or so feet? That's an odd thing to try and think about. Elves, or at the very least what I've been reading up on them, are usually talker than just four feet.
Wait a fucking moment, they're children, at four feet tall.
Wait no, they're elves, they could be older than just the normal six or seven.
Ah fuck, this is getting more and more annoying to me as it goes on. No sense for me to try and overthink for now. I then got closer as I made damn sure that they couldn't move as I looked at their blood-stained mouths and shook my head.
Their stomachs were bloated from eating so much of me, gods that's a sentence to say alright. Real fixer fucking upper that one is.
"Now then, you cannot possibly understand what exactly is it that I'm saying, but I'll make some very basic assumptions.
One, you're orphans, and this tree is your mother or parent, whichever it could be. I assume it's your mother for the sake of that you look saddened, and that your hairs are rather odd.
Genetically, I would not have a clue as to whatever the hell makes you tick, but whatever it is, it's working damn good.
Two, you're here to escape from something in the woods, and this tree is protecting you from it. You don't seem like you were extremely malnourished for however long it would have been, but making sure is making sure.
Three, you don't know what I'm saying. And you seem to be slowly understanding what I say. Your intelligence and adaptability is exemplary, for a species that's so different from us."
Once my assessment was finished, I took a moment to breathe as the two were still looking at me with some fear as they tried to make sounds. And so I sat in front of them, on a bough opposite to theirs, with my knife in hand, and enough will to try and figure out what my current limits were.
I can freely die, that's a possibility that can exist for me. But I don't wanna gamble heavily. I can only have one life a day.
I don't know if that's a twenty-four hour cool down in-between my deaths, but whatever it may be, it's my second best card. The first, most obviously being my ability to literally go into what was a separate dimension that allows me to conjure some of the more basic tools and materials with some mental fatigue being the obvious cost.
I have little to no clue as to how this ability of mine even works, since Cressentia literally made things a live experiment for me to perform, both on myself and on the inhabitant of this world. I'm not a smart man, I'm just inquisitive is all, and more questions about how this world works are popping up than how many are being answered.
This, well, this is fine by the standards of a few people. I.e. literal children who see the good of having to be thrown into a world with not that much information to work with.