Tags: Elden Ring, Tarnished OC, Tourma the Unknowable | Tourma the Eclipse, Omen OC, Morgott the Omen King | Margit the Fell Omen, Roderika (Elden Ring), Smithing Master Hewg (Elden Ring), Omenkillers (Elden Ring), Canon-Atypical Pacifism, Found Family, Adoption
While polishing their skills against the denizens of the golden capital, Tourma takes a moment to seethe after felling a foe with a familiar face.
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Tourma stared into the empty, gaping eye sockets of the omensmirk mask as she tore a strip of cured meat in half with her teeth. A subtle wind stirred the ashen sand of the courtyard around where she’d sat down to rest, dusting her boots and cloak as if to paint her in the same, somber funerary grays that blanketed the capital. The dry, clean scent of death tickled her nose, but the mask’s odd expression held her attention transfixed. At first glance, the lightweight stone helm – adorned with impressively crafted, twisting horns – was not so unlike her own fanged imp helm. In the Lands Between, symbols held influence near comparable to their inspirations. She had, for example, been terrified by both masks’ at different points, which had doubtless been intentional in their designs. However, the impact of such stone mimics relied on that fear of their subjects to function as intended.
In the case of the imps, the sheer number they had to deal with while delving into catacombs combined with the growing gap between their strength and the puny golems' limited programming had numbed them to their uncanny ferocity. She had taken up the in-tact head of one early on as a helmet both for its sturdy construction and the intimidation factor, though few she encountered acknowledged its presence. Even so, the fact that it completely covered her face was comforting and reason enough to continue utilizing it. Socialization was a battle in its own right for her, and she would take every advantage she could in both arenas.
By contrast, her perception of the omenkillers had been a slow slide from shock to indifference into horror. She had been taken off-guard in her first encounter with one near the albinauric village, but being set upon suddenly by a giant dual-wielding massive, spiny cleavers and flanked by several, manic hounds would do that to just about anyone. Despite the initial shock and the fight that ensued, she had neither thought overmuch about it nor held any particular ill will. Her opponent’s mask hadn’t even registered to her as frightening; in fact she had assumed it to be their true face. It wasn’t until she’d encountered a second - identical in uniform - at the Perfumer’s Grotto, that she had become aware of their true nature and the history tied to their garb.
By the time the one patrolling the streets of Volcano Manor’s eternally burning prison town had fallen to her blade, dropping their cleavers miraculously in-tact, she had pieced together exactly the shape their crooked crusade took. Staring at the massive blades as the flames’ flickering, orange glow danced across their lengths, she had reached out a trembling hand to brush along their convoluted protrusions, if only to confirm her suspicions beyond a shadow of a doubt. Indeed, the cleavers’ spikes were horns, stolen from the killer’s victims and maliciously affixed to the very weapon they would raise against others of the same kind. It was mockery heaped upon cruelty, and it made her as sick to her stomach now as it had when she’d first realized it. After that, her duels with these murderers had lost all pretense of the respect de rigueur she afforded honorable opponents.
Later on, in the capital, they could hardly believe their luck when, finding their skills in need of sharpening before challenging the city's lightning-wielding guards yet again, they had found a steady supply of these genocidal slaughterers to spar with. The church even contained a convenient site of grace, and its courtyard made for the perfect arena. Now knowing their true nature, the caricatures they wore disgusted her, fueling her rage and spurring her to greater ferocity in combat than ever before. She had always found fear a poor motivator; it unsteadied her hand and unfocused her mind to the point of sloppiness. Fury, however, had become her cleansing fire.
Popping the remaining bit of sour, pickled jerky into her mouth, Tourma pressed an open palm flat to either side of that rueful stone grin and squeezed until it shattered, sending fragments scattering to the far ends of the courtyard. Standing, she dusted off the palms of her thick, fur-trimmed gloves before unsheathing her trusty dagger once more. For a moment, she studied its jagged, organically shaped blade. No matter how often they cleaned it, the red tint never truly faded from the bone.
When it had first fallen into their hands, it had been a simple matter of convenience to take up Nerijus’s forfeited blade considering the emphasis their fighting style put on blood letting. But when they had later become aware of the lord of blood’s machinations, they had begun to feel uneasy wielding a symbol of his followers. They had as little fondness for the blood cult as the omenkillers did for their prey. However, if there was one thing she was willing to take from those butchers besides their lives, it was their notion of adding insult to injury. She was aware of the dangers of hypocrisy – the thin line between utilization and revelry – but there would always be a comforting chasm between them. The omenkillers must have known, somewhere in the depths of their rotten hearts, that what they were doing was evil. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed numbing droughts to dull their guilt on their hunts. She had no such need for intoxicating concoctions in facing either the omenkillers or the reviled, sanguine assassins of the Bloody Fingers; both of which occupied the same layer of hell in her heart. Besides, while just about everyone they came across would come to know their impish helmet for their face, few who saw Reduvia lived to tell.