"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.
As the shadows begin to lengthen and warp, when the brisk, frosty air of winter finds your cheek, when the night creeps in — that’s when she slides out of the darkness like a wraith.
Of course she comes when the world is up on its axis and threatening to collapse, when the ruin is settling in around them like ash after an eruption. Over the years she has been collecting dust that now she shakes loose with the predatory, almost feline, switch of her hips (a hint, perhaps, at what lay just beyond her large, dark eyes and silky skin). Of course she comes when there is something to be gained.
She always does.
Because Phasus is a pretty monster, but she has never been a stupid one. She knows better than most that in times of turmoil there is much to be given to those that only ask for it. Preserving her heritage, and His name, is her life’s work and here, encompassed by the contagion, she is granted a perfect opportunity. So perfect, in fact, that she doesn’t even pause to laugh at the irony given Infection is the very name she seeks to cement into society.
Only this time she is more desperate.
This time there are more pressing matters that call her out into a moonlit baptism.
This time it is also a matter of self-preservation. This time fear has burrowed in past her flesh like a parasite, now a tangled knot at the epicentre of her innards. The sickness left no one safe, not even one as untouchable as she has always been.
She could not afford contamination; would not.
It had to be stopped, and it had to be stopped at any cost.
And so she comes, stretching out her macabre wings (as ominous as the rest of her; all black feather and the distinct glimmer of exposed bone) in the thin veil of light the night offers her. “I’m home,” she purrs against the blackness, and there is nothing warm or nostalgic about the way she sounds out those two syllables — like they hold something so much darker between them.
Now, she just needs some like-minded individuals for her cause.
Everyone he loves is dead and now this godforsaken plague has taken a hold on Beqanna, and the forsaken king is angry. It has been years since anything other than loneliness and loss has coursed through his veins, but now there is anger, there is fury, there is rage, and he wants nothing more than to set those that are sick aside. The plague victims are just that—victims, and he wants them to know that. The sickened are the lesser (your own daughter is ill, you fool).
He has found this frozen wasteland by pure determination alone, and here he shall stay. The illness that resulted from raising Pangea has begun to abate (one of the reasons he knew he was free of the plague), but he is still weak; the swim took him hours when it might take a lesser horse a quarter of the time. The entire island is frosted with ice and snow and his breath puffs up around his face every time he breathes, but to him no land has seemed so welcoming since the Valley. The tufts of grass are sparse and bitter to the taste but he doesn’t need nourishment to keep him going. He is fueled by the fire in his veins, urging him to do something.
It is still night and he guides himself by the light of the moon and the ribbons of color dancing upon the sky, but he does not look up nor does he find it beautiful as some might. He has bigger and better things on his mind and he will see them through; it is the only thing that matters.
She is a ravishing vision on the rocky shore, and Oxytocin approaches her smoothly, his muscular legs carrying him swiftly through the snow. “Hello.” His greeting is not particularly warm or friendly, but from the look of her, she isn’t the warm and friendly type anyways. “Why are you here?”
Well, now we know why Oxytocin failed as both a diplomat and a king.
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin
Beqanna is flooded with fear, and it is a delicious thing.
He can practically smell it as it rises thick through the fog and he breathes it in deep, savoring the way that it is steeped in so many layers of nuances. Fear of Carnage’s vision. Fear of what they have unleashed. Fear of what is to come. He wants to feast on it. He wants to gorge himself on it.
He wants to nurse it along until they are bloated on their terror.
Until their eyes roll back in their head and their tongues swell in their mouths.
But, most of all, he wants to protect himself—and so he does not waste time in making his way to where he knows is safe. He doesn’t bother to shield those in his life. He doesn’t bother to look after them. He is a wholly selfish creature, and he uses his alien speed to make his way through the worst of the diseased masses, plucking the threads of the Fear as he goes, letting it consume those already weakened to it.
He doesn’t slow until he is on the icy isle in the north.
He breathes in the frigid air, tipping his head back to drink it in. This would be a good place to find refuge, at least for now. It doesn’t take long before the pair of them catch his eye and he angles his head toward them, narrowing his gaze in thought. Curious as to their intent, he begins to make his way toward them, handsome face drawn up in lines of suspicion. When he is several yards away he pauses, sniffing elegantly. “Please tell me you’re both clean,” his voice is riddled with disdain, eyes darkening.
(and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
Glaciers melting in the dead of night and the superstars sucked into the supermassive
It doesn’t stop with the algae mare, of course.
Of course it doesn’t. So he stays that night on the island, guarding it. Breckin wants it, so he wants it - alright maybe he kind of likes it here. It’s cold, and he seems to be the only one who doesn’t need to get accustomed to it. It has ice, and ice has been his weapon since he first got a little fairy magic. By now, it had been warped into this draconian kind of ice, much colder than his previous frost aura; probably because the Ice Fairy had talked to him, and not, say, a flower-based one. He’d been gifted with magic he didn’t know about that day, and when the scaled creature had touched him, he’d become what he is now.
Scaled. Toothed. And with vision beyond compare.
And so he sees the gathering, blobs of heat in the icy night, and makes his way over quickly. Catches up on their conversation, for what it’s worth, and addresses them all in one go.
”They say home is where the heart is, but I suspect you only want the magic protection.” The ice of his eyes stares them down, as he continues. ”You’d be welcome to stay as a subkingdom or herd. But if you’ve come to lay claim, get in line, you are the third. This fucking icecube,” a short stomp of his feathered hoof emphasizes the this, ”is mine.”
He doesn’t know that he wants to have it until he says it. Would have sworn he could have said ‘Nerine’s’. But he has been living with kings and queens as their second for so long now, or at least, only unofficially so perhaps, that now he wants something for himself. For his children; the ones still wandering and the ones in Nerine, as well as the unborn one, that Breckin so neatly informed him of at the day that this fucking Plague broke out.
And even if his whole damn family can’t make it here to vouch for him, he has a whole kingdom to back him up, or share it with should they choose someone else. But not this bunch of nightcrawlers. Not as leaders anyway.
He might have been willing to share with Cam, even though he feels righht now, that he has more rights to claim on this icy isle - he’s the only one defending it currently. Heartfire could have it if she so choosed but, he didn’t think she would.
So if there was no-one else really wanting it, then it would be his.
Or at least not theirs.
you set my soul alight
HTML by Vanilla Custard
@[Heartfire] @[Djinni] @[Camomila] @[Castile] I assumed you’re the ones most likely still hanging around but, tag anyone from Nerine please xD
@[Sarkis] I think he ICly said for her to come here so, tagging just in case you want her in,
Two things I know I can make: pretty kids, and people mad.
and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was
”An icy wasteland to match your attitude,” Castile quips as he arrives shortly after Leilan, his reptilian eyes flashing first at Breckin’s toy, then toward the strangers. His adrenaline has since calmed, but his mind continues to feverishly race and wonder the welfare of his family. They aren’t here, not yet. They remain lost and distracted, eluding him with practiced ease. Nerine called to him then, and he heeded the call with urgency after having at least checked on Solace, Valdis, and Velk. They have a sanctuary to retreat to, but it doesn’t ease his worries.
Santana, Raul, and Sabra still highly concern him.
It’s the core reason why he joins this group, inwardly hoping that his sons will soon arrive, drawn by life and conversation. Sabra, he left on the rocky outcropping, but he will tend to her soon enough. For now, the strangers have lured him close. None, as of yet, exhibit symptoms of the sickness plaguing the mainland, but Castile remains wary as he scrutinizes them closely. ”He’s actually second in line. First is a random mare,” a sideways glance finds Leilan quickly before continuing, ”but yes, what purpose brings you to this spit of land? A refuge or something a bit more… combative?” Underneath his taut skin, the sinew ripples in anticipation. With tensions high as of late, Castile actually has to apply effort in remaining agreeable.
11-03-2018, 12:55 PM (This post was last modified: 11-03-2018, 08:19 PM by Phasus.)
A sick thought can devour the body's flesh more than fever or consumption.
She isn’t waiting long.
They come to her, flies to honey, from across the ice and out of the shadow. The first is perfect, and her heart almost flutters to know she is as lucky as she is. She eyes him hungrily, mapping the contours of his muscle and thinking quietly that he is likely more brawn than brain which is exactly as she likes them — with strings long enough to pull. He asks her why she’s here, but he ought to see the thirst that writhes like disease just below the surface of her skin.
“To take back what’s ours, of course.” She answers, and the words are honey on her lips. They confess a secret that is perhaps too bold for strangers to be sharing, but there is something clouding the fractures of his irises that she thinks she can recognize. She is busy learning it when the second comes, and the way that he spits the word clean like it’s venom, like it sizzles as it hits the ground, acid, sounds like music in her ears.
Phasus doesn’t bother masking the delighted smile that creeps along the edges of her lips then.
These are her people.
But the third leaves something to be desired. He is large, and gaudy, glinting gold and barging forward with accusations that have hardly been invited and leave a sour taste in her mouth. She doesn’t need his feigned generosity, and beyond that, he is in no position to give it. He presumes to know her agendas, and the truth is that he is wrong — at least at first.
The truth is that she hasn’t intended to take anything until this moment, when the audacity of his assumptions ignites something forgotten in her bones.
Of course this will never be her preference.
She is too well-kept, too spoiled and self-indulgent to ever want a frozen wasteland for longer than it suits her immediate needs. This is only a beginning. This is only the start of something much bigger, something she hopes will grow and consume like wildfires do. As she draws her wings close against her sides in a fruitless effort to trap the heat in against her waiflike body (an attempt that goes mostly in vain as an icy chill slides down the length of her back) she wonders what that will mean.
She doesn’t speak though, not yet. She bites her tongue to keep her secrets buried underneath her skin. She isn’t ready to reveal her cards just yet, though parts of her wonder if the large stallion before her would comprehend them regardless. And as that thought concludes the fourth comes — an obvious gamble, but she admires at least the tact he is capable of presenting. She laughs even at his joke, and it might be the only warmth for miles.
“Gentlemen,” she purrs into a sea of faces then with a smile that rivals the moonlight; so bright and so sweet that it aches.
“It was only ever my intention to seek refuge from the sick,” and this is true, she hadn’t come for anything beyond the salvation of her own hide, though she is not beyond taking what falls onto her plate without hesitation or second thought. She lifts her head to meet Leilan’s gaze squarely and the ends of her mouth curl upwards, reprisal evident in every centimeter of her clever smile. “But after such a warm welcome, I’m honestly feeling a little hungry for something more…” Here she pauses, tasting different words, spelling them out across her tongue until she finds one she likes the shape of.
Finally, she settles on one: “Tangible.”
“Or perhaps, you are?” Briefly she spins to the second, the one who spat clean like it meant something. She is powerful enough, certainly, but in the quiet cunning ways you don’t expect or see coming. Quite simply, Phasus has always preferred to pull the strings of kings and dictators with the gentle swing of her hips rather than brute force, her best work generally done behind the flanks of a different face.
She doesn’t linger on the thought long, however.
There is still so much labor ahead — if she must go solo, so be it.
“In any case, tell me, King,” the derision that permeates her honey-sweet voice is palpable, but she is still careful when choosing her words; severe ones, the ones that taste the sweetest on her tongue, like infest, or infect, or ruin, she sets aside for the time being. It is too soon for them — even if they’re building up stone-by-stone like walls at the back of her throat, even if it hurts to swallow them down.
“Will you allow the sick refuge, too? Like the rest of the safelands? If so, you are as big a fool as I believe you to be.”
There is a note here that will ring true for all of them regardless of where they stand, be it behind her or in her way. It is too soon to know if the contagion will spread in the safelands if the sick are allowed entry. The fairies have promised immunity in these places, certainly, but the fairies have also stolen from them before. What is needed now is a refuge from all of the sick in the event that things in Beqanna backfire, as they have always had a healthy habit of doing.
What is needed now is salvation.
What is needed now is a kingdom that was pure.
“Let’s all take a moment and think about our families, our children. Are you willing to risk them becoming infected by allowing the sick passage when they already have it in other lands? We need a guaranteed safety. Can you deliver it, King? Because I can.”
phasus
okay, well she's officially running for it now - unless bruise or @[Oxytocin] or someone else wants to banish the sick.
11-03-2018, 10:43 PM (This post was last modified: 11-03-2018, 10:44 PM by Oxytocin.)
He knows it will not take them long to come. They are always drawn like moths to a candle when there is something new and shiny to be discovered, and he is not surprised to see another stallion stalking towards them. He pauses nearby and tests the air as if sampling them for the plague, and though Oxytocin’s ears flick irritably—if they were ill, it would certainly be more obvious—he makes no move towards the newcomer other than to nod. “Soon enough,” he grumbles, shifting his weight from hoof to hoof.
“It seems I came in contact with a small illness while raising Pangea, but I have mostly recovered. I certainly do not have the plague,” he reaffirms, glancing to the mare. “Oxytocin.” They will realize it is his name he is offering them, and if not that is on them.
Naturally, there is hardly a lull in the conversation—as slight as it is already—before yet another turns up, and Oxytocin can feel his anger start to swell. This one is rude, threatening; Oxytocin simply does not have time for it. His powers may not be as glorious as this one’s, but he gathers his strength anyway, feeling some of the already-scarce grass crumbling to dust beneath the snow. “You need to back off, boy,” he snaps, lowering his head in the beginnings of his own threat. “I can destroy this land and make it as uninhabitable as the hole you crawled out of.”
A third stallion appears, quips and all, and the white-maned stallion sighs. Before he can address this one, though, the mare begins to speak, and Oxytocin steps back to let her talk.
Her voice is honeyed poison as she addresses the would-be king, the scaled stallion before them who even had to stamp his hoof for dramatic effect. He chuckles as she calls him a fool, watching the draconic men to gauge their reactions. “The sick will not be welcome here,” he declares, dark eyes glinting as he looks around to the gathered horses. “I don’t care what you call yourselves—King, fool, fucking princess for all I care—but the ill will not be allowed to cross the channel that connects us with the rest of Beqanna.”
He pauses, but it is not for dramatic effect; let the words sink in, let them realize what he is saying before he continues.
He can be eloquent if he wants, but for now he is just being brusque.
“Rest assured this will be a place that is a safe haven from any of those that are sick. Only the pure of body will be allowed to reside here.
“I will kill any infected that dare cross these borders.” Is it a challenge? Perhaps. But he means every word.
Under normal circumstances, she would be content to leave the handling of this particular group to Leilan and Castile. They are capable men, with the power and ability to protect this land from whatever threat may come. They could do what needed doing without her oversight.
But these are not normal circumstances.
The moment the yellow buckskin had crossed these borders, a feral growl had escaped her throat. Even illness could not stop the cold determination that had infused her. She had been perfectly content to let him be, so long as he had stayed well away from her. From what is hers. But he had chosen to intrude, to stake his claim on a land that does not belong to him. And that she would not abide.
Their threats only add fuel to the fire, and for the first time in her life, she longs for the taste of death. Perhaps it is delirium, or perhaps it is merely an ancient beast that has lain dormant inside her too long. Only twice before had she stained herself with blood and death, but if they did not leave, and quickly, this might make a third.
The illness rattles inside her chest, but she ignores it. She had been bolstered, for a time (not long, she suspects, but long enough for her to see through what she needed to). And so she ignores it as her steps carry her across the frozen soil. Carry her to the group that had already formed.
The black stallion’s final words send an icy wash of fury through her, and her blue eyes sharpen, her gaunt features setting into a dangerous mask. It is rare for her ire to be so stirred, and though she does not look imposing with her gaunt frame and slim build, only a fool would believe her truly weak. She does not discount that they may be fools however.
“Will you?” she rasps in response to the foolish man’s final words, the simple syllables a challenge of their own. She would slaughter him where he stood before she allowed him to keep any part of his promise. That the sick already inhabit this land is ironic, given their mission. Disgusting as it is.
For a moment, she considers simply ripping their hearts from them, watching them turn to dust before her. Ridding themselves entirely of this problem. For a moment, she nearly does, when her eyes come to rest on the yellow stallion that likely had no memory of why she wished him dead. He might never know, as she has never felt the need to inform her victims that it was her vengeance that had brought about their death. The simple completion of the task is sufficient for her.
But there would be ramifications to such an action, and so she thinks better of it. But that does not mean she wouldn’t change her mind.
“As I see it, you have two options here,” she continues, her voice low and hoarse. “Leave, or die.” There is no sense of false promise in her tone. Any who knew her would know how deadly serious she is. Would know that she, a woman so very well versed in the art of negotiation, is not trifling with threats. “Your twisted ideals are not welcome here, and threats against my own will not be tolerated.”
If they had not threatened those she loves, perhaps her response might have been different. But they had. And there is no return from that precipice.
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin
They swarm the group and he finds he dislikes the closeness of them all. His lips peel back to reveal his blunted teeth and he swings his heavy-horned head toward the first to arrive, the dragon stallion. His words are sharp but Bruise isn’t deterred. Instead he just watches with his black shark eyes, his face completely unreadable except the disdain that paints it sharper than even the other’s words.
He remains quiet though, preferring to watch as it unfold instead piling on his own opinions. Even when the first mare turns to him, elegant and cold, he only answers her question with a cruel twist of his lip. He has no desire to rule—at least not this frozen wasteland. Perhaps some day. Perhaps somewhere.
But not this. Not yet.
Although he would be damned if was going to let someone take it from them now.
Of course, all of this matters little when the final mare joins the group and he practically shivers with the pleasure of the memory. He remembers her alright. He never forgets a plaything and her Fear had been particularly delicious for how rare of a thing it was, steeped in her anger and hatred. She is not a toothless thing now though, and he finds that he’s all the more intrigued for the danger of her simmering on low.
Like painting with poison. Sculpting with thorns.
She would be beautiful when she broke apart.
“What a pleasure to see you again, darling,” his lips spread wide across his handsome face, dark eyes glittering beneath the sooty cream of his forelock. “Have you missed me terribly?” Casually, he throws his glance around the group, at his two loose allies, the two overgrown lizard boys, and then her. With an almost languid touch, he begins to pull on Fear’s threads, stroking the strings to make them hum.
“If you think the faeries will uphold their promise and keep this land safe while infected with the sick then you are all fools.” He plucks the Fear further, wondering how it will affect them—if it will affect them. Perhaps they will fear what seeds he plants in their mind. Perhaps they will fear him. The reaction is always the most delicious thing. “Beqanna needs a place that is truly safe from this disease.”
He looks wickedly at Heartfire before turning his gaze to Phasus.
“I intend to support those who share that vision.”
(and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
so bruise doesn't play well with others and is using his fear induction.
it is COMPLETELY up to you how it affects, if it affects you, etc. etc.
it's mostly aimed toward leilan, castile, and heartfire but oxy and phasus could potentially feel it too.
your eyes are lined in pain, black tears don't hide in rain
Words, and anger.
She listens as she approaches: she slows to try and comprehend; but the girl is little more able to do that than she is able to recognize the danger she wanders into. Naivety is a blessing; but also a curse.
Soft baby-hair and fuzz all coated in oil have become frosted, and she shivers in the wind as she tracks and follows after Heartfire. With wide eyes her head turns and she goes to the louder voices: steps closer and sees them… all of them.
For a moment the fever pulses and she hears the familiar voice of the King of the Valley, and he coos- chatters, and whispers things she recalls. Briella smiles, walking, hoofprints in the snow and her small body closer as she bounces the last few paces. “Aunt.” she states, though if any heard it- who knows.
Pause, and she hears yelling: hears rage and a word she knows- die.
Something inside of her stirs, something ancient and primal, something of fear and of strained contempt: confusion. Her small mind cannot fully comprehend the logic; but her body responds and she drives forward suddenly on spindly limbs and a with maddened speed.
“NO.” she barks loudly, sliding nearest Heartfire and coming to stop as the tensions start to rise. The Weanlings nose is bloody and yet, she stomps a leg, as if her small figure would be obeyed… as if she could do something.
Perhaps she imagines she can.
“No more hurting.” direct as she can be her tiny eyes narrow, and she has admittedly not heard all of it; but she responds to what she has heard and suddenly: all of her strength begins to sour.
It is not true cowardice; but rather a suddenly inflicted wound that forces her mind to open and explore itself: to be pushed into a place that she hadn’t ever wanted to go back to.
Darkness, the void.
She cannot see the end of the blackness, of the murk and gloomy- she does not feel time nor wind, and there is neither heat nor cold: merely an existence of both and neither. Shapes too perfect to be real form in the loamy swamp, and non-euclidean geometry rises in the grime. She feels spongy stone beneath her feet and hears whispers: she dreams.
Oh god how she dreams.
In the sliver of light she sees corpses, rotting carcass and bloody water: she sees bile and wound, smells the rank and festering sickness. Dovev, Heartfire, the unborn child, Expelliarmus, Vampyric… names and faces she has left behind: and they are dead, and gone.
Fear is primal and she feels it, the grief and the rage: the abandonment.
Briella strains and beside Heartfire she stares at Bruise- at the others, her frail mind forcing itself to and from- in between. “Who will have mercy on your soul.” she mouths, growling. “Monsters.”
For a moment, she sees them again: the echoes of her past, of the Chamber and of the Valley.
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