Pollock

[Harmonia]

Harmonia took a few days after her discovery to let herself calm down.
She knew - the way most treacherous things knew - that planning is best done after digesting. It's easy to see the whole picture and everything it entails after you've had a few days to mull it over. She let the taste settle and made sure she was absolutely sure of herself before heading back to Pangea and approaching the new king.
Or whatever he wanted to call himself.

Harmonia traveled over the hills that once looked like bone and ash, surprised to see the hint of greenery around the edges. With Carnage gone would the land flourish? She's almost disappointed, the desolation was so fitting of a kingdom that said 'fuck you' to the fairies. If there was anything Harmonia hated it was those stupid flying creatures.

The thought of them made her want to hit something.

Harmonia approached Pollock then, not giving much in the way of greeting. Harmonia did not like small talk and she did not suspect the king did either. He had kingly things to do, like pretend to coordinate things. Overall boring and not interesting to Harmonia.

"I have two things that might interest you," she says.

HARMONIA

the pied piper

[Pollock]

I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
And now I call you to pray

Growing. Building. He watched, from high up – from a tower of sun-bleached sandstone and sour air – as it came back to life, fed by the bittercold water of faraway melts and inseminated by the easement of Carnage’s passing by. 

Watched it take breaths, like a drowned man does after being pulled from water. Heaving, laborious breaths.

But breathe it does.

Grow it does.

He sees the seedlings for what they are. Treasonous, insidious reminders. In truth, he has always appreciated the finer things – colour and light; fecundity and the damp, dull smell of soil. He grew up in the arms of a forest, presided over a court of moss and bone-white birch trees.

Fed it. Kept it beautiful.

(Betrayal is a bitter wine.)

These, though, are soft, newborn things. Sowed into the cushion of a reanimating womb, some budding thrones from their green skin – Beqanna’s stalwart paladins – well-suited to the waste of their upbringing.

Some, of course, are defenseless.

Fodder for the wretched.

He finds himself marching her perimeters, more often than not. Drawn to the saltwater at her western flank, because it so reminds him of the Beach. And the Beach so reminds him of how unfair the world can be.

And that burns in his gut like coal in a furnace.

He traces the unsteady steps of that damaged land, smelling the air for finer things to play with. But Pangea is big and (more often than not) empty. And so he gravitates back into her center to watch as tender, green things pierce the packed, scorched earth of his kingdom.

His eyes drift closed, and he imagines her arterial river run red. Imagines bones, not from things felled by Carnage’s wrath, but of jewel-skinned maidens and… paradise.

‘I have two things that might interest you.’ He blinks open, turning those dark, prying eyes to Harmonia. “Only two?” Doubtful. Pollock shifts his body to face her square, the cursed, once-wounded, muscles in his haunches and shoulders growling viciously. He remembers her offer, had fed on the idea. Power craves power. 

Ever corrupting, so it is said.

“What is it?” he examines her and finds her to be a puzzle still. He likes puzzles, so long as they yield in time. She does not feel yielding. She feels rumbling and deceptive.

POLLOCK
the gift giver

@[Harmonia]

[Harmonia]

Harmonia wore her heart more on her sleeve now that her magic was robbed from her than ever before. Before this disaster called the New Beqanna she had a mask of stupidity. Simple creature, they'd say, watching her marvel at flowers and speak in riddles. They thought it was fun to trade powers for favors - grant me this and I'll give you that. What could it hurt? Harmonia was a child in the mind, they thought.

Until she came calling, asking for a price much too high for them to pay.

Now? Now she was weak and vulnerable. Even in this state she found a way to defend herself and stay relevant. First it was joining a herd of others who despised the order and calmness of Beqanna, then it was following Carnage into Pangea, then it was the ability to grant powers and then...

Ajatar.

The young creature and her smoky colored child fur stands near her mother, watching Pollock with all the interest of a foal. She is quiet but not without curiosity, not without her own innocence. Even Harmonia couldn't scratch that now.

"My offer from the meeting still stands," she says, her first number of order. She disregards his coy remark to her - she is succinct these days. For the second she turns to Ajatar, narrowing her eyes at the girl. "Come on, child, do it." She orders her with the intensity of a pageant mom. The girl stalls, her eyes widen - it's rare for her mother to address her directly. "W...what?" she asks, her wide eyes darting from the strange creature named Pollock to her mother. Harmonia's face is an impassive one, no love between her and her offspring.

"Now."
"But..."
"Now. Don't be lazy, you insolent thing," Harmonia begins, taking a step toward the snake scaled girl. At first Ajatar takes a step back in shock, her ears pricked forward...then they are back, anger quick and hot flashing through her veins. The veins that carry Carnage and Deimos and a great other assortment of nasty critters. The veins that flare now and release the anger that sits just below the surface. A prick of a balloon and the air leaks out...

pestilence.

The boils start at the base of Harmonia's legs, same as before, large and pulsing under the skin. As they slowly grow up her legs they pop open and release a foul, sickening odor. Ajatar stops as soon as she feels the boils on her own skin, causing one or two scales to flake off. Ajatar is only affected a small fraction of what Harmonia is, but the realization makes her stop. It wasn't like before when her grandfather attacked them, this was softer. This was restrained.

Harmonia turns to Pollock then. "That is the second order of interest," she says, wincing.

HARMONIA

the pied piper