feed the fire and burn it slow; laura pony

[sochi]

there are wolves in my head and their howling
there was a garden of evil in the palm of my hand

She has not died, but she has breathed it deep into her lungs.

She has felt it flood through her, the infection and rot of it sinking deep. She has fallen beneath the muck of it—and it has changed her. It has morphed her. The pressure of it has hardened her, shaped her, turned her into something she was not before. In the time before Carnage—before he took and took and took—she was a simple girl with an animalistic hunger for the world. She was ashamed of the darkness that clawed in her throat and the greedy want that spread through her, that turned her into something new.

She is not afraid any longer.

She is not ashamed.

The disease has begun to peel from her, like old bark from an old tree, and it reveals something fresh beneath it. She is stronger in the aftermath. Her silver eyes grow bright, her coat regains its sheen, her muscles come back to leave her strong and lithe. The scars remain, the crimson tiger slashes raked across her chest—a stark difference against the obsidian of her coat and a reminder of how far she was willing to go to survive. How much she was willing to sacrifice to see things through.

She is not ashamed of her scars either.

For a while, her belly had grown swollen with child, but she has since breathed life into her dragon girl’s lungs, and she is grateful for it. She leaves Reia today in a safe place, turning from her and slipping into her tigress form. Hooves bleed to heavy paws, the onyx of her melting into jagged lines across a coat of cream and orange. She lifts her feline head and breathes in deep, the land morphing into something entirely when she gives into her predatory senses. It is no longer the same. She is no longer the same.

She moves quickly through the shadows, stronger now than ever before, and the darkness slips from her as she begins her hunt—searching for something she is not sure she will find.

That is until she finds him.

He is not prey but she is intrigued and she is willing to ignore the biting hunger in her stomach to approach him, her steps mostly muffled. When she emerges from the shadows, her eyes sharp and yellow, she growls low in her throat. For a moment she considers pouncing. Considers what he will feel like breaking apart before her, but she refrains for now, instead discarding the tigress body as easily as she had put it on. She morphs before him, turning equine once more, the glowing sheen of her blaze faint.

She thinks of speaking but instead says nothing.

She no longer feels obligated to do anything.

now I'm broken and bleeding, I’ll never find my way

S

OCHI

stranger in this land

@[garbage]