"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
Never forget: Violence was the first.
She was the first thing to wrench forth from Cthylla’s ugly womb, the first melding of monster and magician. She lacks the monstrous features of her father, the eldritch beauty of her mother; but none of this changes her blood.
The others came after, rapid-fire, and for a time it seemed her stupid mother was constantly pregnant, swollen like a tick, delivering a variety of odd children (all daughters, all black, all powerful, in one way or another). They’re good vessels, these children, things Violence can warp from birth (mother tries to chase her away, but mother’s weak, in the daylight, and Violence long ago learned how to control her father). In them, she experiences hunting. The sharpness of scents, the taste of venom in her mouth.
Now there’s another, or so she’s heard. Another creature born like her – like their – father, alien and strange, with its malformed language and simple urges.
Violence likes simple. Simple is easy to control.
She isn’t quite lurking – merely lingering near where mother likes to hang out, a shadowy place, private. She suspects mother’s enchanted it, a little, it’s so rarely populated. But Violence knows where to look.
At her side stands her bone-creature, her fine creation. It moves with her, like a part of her, some terrible organ.
Something moves, long-limbed and strange. Violence smiles.
“Hello?” she calls out, soft, “hello, who’s there?”
She still lives within the shadowy cocoon of Home, although she grows much quicker than others born her age (others she has yet to meet, though their interactions might be clumsy and slippery in the end). Mother only lets her past the barrier when the moon is a quarter above the horizon, and some of the time she is under the chittering protection of Father.
They fear something, she’s noticed. Their eyes glance over their shoulders. When she settles among her sisters — whomever might still linger near Mother and Father — they do not protect them nearly as carefully as their youngest. But it is not for the natural predators of the world (the cougar and the wolf, the poison ivy and the swollen river). It is protection from something they have created themselves, the first jealous sister borne from twisted, malicious hips.
There is a different scent today, somewhat familiar and yet entirely foreign. She is settled within the shadow of tightly-woven brush when there is a stirring nearby.
Someone moves.
The girl stirs in return, sliding from between the bramble to investigate further. When the newcomer speaks, she doesn’t understand. It is the language Mother speaks, but there is too many of them for her to comprehend easily. She chitters in return, still a youngster with a curious, expanding mind. Her armored body pulls itself through the undergrowth to come into view of the soft-skinned, dark woman with her bony pet.
The thing comes into being, and Violence sucks in her breath. Another monster, made like their father, like Charnel, armored and dual-mouthed, strange. It’s still small, young, and Violence recalls how Charnel had been, at that age. It doesn’t speak, instead offers that strange, birdlike trill that Violence knows well from her time spent with the family. It’s not a noise her own mouth can easily mimic.
She sighs. It would be easier if the thing could speak, but mother’s failed again, leaving the creature feral and unable to speak for itself, just as she had their father, and Charnel.
(Charnel had learned, eventually, offered mush-mouthed words and simple syllables, but it was still slow and terribly awkward.)
Instead of speaking she coos, instead, a low tone meant to sooth. It’s nonsense, calming, as she creeps closer. She doesn’t touch her sister – not yet – but she inspects her, looks for other powers that might lurk.
“That’s it,” she murmurs, “good girl, good girl. You’d like to talk, wouldn’t you? I can help, I can help…”
There’s a brief clatter as her bone creature falls, as she focuses instead on her possession, nudging at the edges of her sister’s mind. The monsters are usually quite open, simple, but Violence is not as strong in this power as she is in her necromancy, and thus she’s learned caution. She doesn’t want her sister on edge, she wants her open, willing.
She presses lightly at her sister’s mind, offering a thought, I’m your sister. It’s okay, let me in. I can help.
As much as she is determined to be different, she is much the same as those before her.
The rough, bitter language from the newcomer’s mouth is replaced with a sound that warms the corners of her mind. It stills the instincts that fluttered at the linings of her intestines (“Run away or fight! Danger!”) and so she moves closer, an armored shadow moving against more shadow to dance with the light.
The language again, this time with a soothing undertone. Her knife-tail flicks behind her heels, scattering dead leaves around them. There is something burrowing in her belly, warning her that she is not safe.
Danger.
It’s the instincts again, painful and loud in the wilderness of her mind, but the voice is gentle and pleading and she is a child. When the thought floods in (“sister; let me in; help”) and she can understand it, her large dark head shakes roughly. She can faintly sense the prodding sensation at the back of her mind — it feels like the soft patter of rain on her shoulders or perhaps the weight of a heavy frond across her back.
She trills again, but it is more confused this time. Her teeth grind together but she steps closer again, tall legs bringing her within touching distance of whoever this “sister” is.
(Sorry this took me so long, I've been so busy D: I hope this is alright for you! I'm fine with taking this in any direction, just as a little fyi haha)
Instinct is a bitch.
Violence would have more fun without it. Many a creature has turned from her, has ended a conversation abruptly, due to something they saw in her. A danger, a warning sign in her smile. And they are right to do so – most things are below her, thus most things are meant to be used as she wishes, as entertainment or practice for her powers, fodder. She does her best to mask her immediate nature, to find a persona of a sweeter thing, the kind who makes others want to stick around, drop their guard. And though she is cunning, she has not yet found a way to portray this in much of a convincing way. She tires quickly of niceties, is too quick to revert to more coercive methods.
But, she practices. She improves. Baby steps.
So she tries to keep her calm with the alien, keeping up her sing-song tone. She notes the head shake, the tension in her muscles. She’s more of a fighter, this one – Charnel had given in almost immediately, as had their father (who was quite used to it, bred as he was for their mother). Here, there is some resistance.
But she is ultimately rewarded – the thing steps a bit closer. Promising. Violence tries another tactic.
Still pressing at the girl’s mind, gentle but unrelenting, she coos, let me in, and we could hunt, you and I. You’d like that, hmm? Hunt? Meat?. Hunt. Help. Meat.
Pressing harder. For a moment her view changes, and she’s staring at herself, full of new instincts and wild desires.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
if you're cool with it violence likes possessing them to go hunting; if not just say nexu kicked her out of her mind immediately and violence will try something else
It is a precarious dance. The stranger’s voice is soothing in the girl’s ears and with each further push into the depths of her mind Instinct’s sirens are quieter.
“Leave. Run. Dang” —
The promises of meat and hunting encourage her closer to the stranger. Mother had only released her from the confines of Home hours ago. Father, who normally took her hunting when she was too clumsy or uneducated to take herself, was nowhere to be found. Her stomach feels hollow and cold, bitterly mewling for fresh meat (blood dripping off muscle, tendon pulling from bone, intestine sliding from a crevice of her own creation).
There is more saliva in her mouthes than there was a moment before. Her vision blurs for a moment and her muscles quiver. There is a strange sensation — the feeling of being pushed to the corner of her mind, caged like a fluttering bird — and Instinct is screaming.
“DANGER, RUN, LEAVE!”
But she can’t. She is clawing at the metal bars of her cage, trapped from within the membranes of her mind. She trills, long and sharp. A scream of her own, one that does not leave the confines of her brain.
Like a dam broken, she is in her sister’s mind. It’s exhilarating, thrilling, the sudden swell of new
sensations, new instincts. She feels a heart pounding wildly in a chest, adrenaline flooding. She doubles down on her grip, clawing at the edges of the monster’s mind, trying to keep her hold. She’d never had the instinct for this the way she had the necromancy (which had come easy as breathing), and it was work.
But the girl is caged. For now. She hears her crying out, feels her pressing back. Hush, she says again. This time, her tone is less sweet.
She turns her attention back to this new body, reveling in its strength and poison. She opens its mouth, tries to laugh, but laughter is not meant for monsters so instead there’s a birdlike noise, trilling. She inhales – god, its sense of smell is so much better than her own – and tastes the air for blood. For meat.
She sets the body to moving, an easy walk, trails where she knows game is rich and plentiful. You know, she says, as it – as they – walk, you should consider yourself lucky, that I’m here. I can guide you. I can make you better. Mother won’t do anything with you. Father’s useless. But you and I, we could have fun.
She catches the scent of something. A deer, grazing. She slows. Slinks. Still, she talks to her sister. Ask the others. Ask Charnel. I taught her to speak! She has friends, now. You’d like friends, wouldn’t you? Mother would let you waste away on the mountain. But I think monsters should run free.
They are closer to the prey. To the meat. The kill.
She lunges.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
feel free to...poweprlay violence powerplaying her? which is what i guess is happening lol
04-02-2018, 08:21 PM (This post was last modified: 04-02-2018, 08:21 PM by Nexu.)
She is trapped. She feels heavier than she ever has, as though the entirety of an ocean were pressing down on her head. For a moment, the pressure wanes and she is clawing toward the surface (just a thin, bleak little pinprick in the darkness), but it is gone before she can reach the sweetness of air.
She is subdued into silence as her body moves without her doing, as a voice sings inside her mind without her voice. She can understand perfectly now, as this creature drags its claws inside her head. The scent of blood scrambles the hollow of her belly and so when they begin to hunt, she does not resist.
Kill.
They do.
They are two in one body (jaws shredding at deer-skin, blood splattering across the broad plane of their armored forehead, grumblings silenced in the depths of the stomach) and for a few moments she fully enjoys the heat of the hunt and meal after. But it isn’t long before she is reminded of the heaviness pressing on her shoulders, pushing her into the floor of her own thoughts.
I do not trust you.
She is strong (perhaps stronger than Mother or Father, perhaps stronger than Charnel) and with her vicious thought the sister is flung from the monstrous depths of her thoughts. She has the clarity of her thoughts back, her eyesight shifting back into place and her muscles snapping back into her control. She is wheeling around quickly, sliding through the undergrowth quicker than they had while hunting.
She reaches Sister quickly, threatening growls rumbling from the blood-slick of her throat. And then she is lunging, maroon-stained teeth bared for Sister’s throat. She will not fall as easily as the rest of Family, she will fight for her own mind.
God, but she loves this.
She is a taker, by nature, inherent selfish and wanting. So wanting. She wants power, wants magic, wants to be terrible and terrifying, wants them to kneel before her.
They are easy enough to take, the monsters. These fleeting moments where she becomes, wrapped around the folds of their minds, taking in the heightened senses, the strange body, using them for whatever whims she dreams.
It’s fleeting. It’s always fleeting. But god, the first few seconds are so good.
The hunt is good – quick – over, and there’s blood on her - their - mouth, and she is savoring it, enjoying herself, when a thought comes through, cold and articulate. I do not trust you.
And then she is flung from her own sister’s mind, projected like vomit, and suddenly she is back in her own body, stunned, and that same monster she had coveted lunging towards her.
Without thinking, she steps back, hurls her bone-thing’s skull forward, its wolf-teeth bared in long-dead savagery. She pieces it together, quick, and it paces in front of her, a protector.
“Oh, sister, we were having such a good time,” she sighs, “but if you touch me, I’ll have to punish you. You’re being a very bad girl, you know.”
Her lunge is cut short by both the pacing of the bone-protector and the drive of her own instincts. There are more words, slippery and cool on Sister’s tongue, that she doesn’t quite understand but the message is clear enough.
“Do not touch me.”
Although she could probably take down the bone-creature with minimal damage, she’s still too young to know what other tricks Sister might have up her sleeve. It’s a tricky game they play (one Sister might love, in fact) and it’s one that she doesn’t want to meddle with. She snarls again, a low clicking throat in the back of a throat still slick from the hunt, and her dangerously-pointed tail flicks against her heels twice.
But while her position is threatening, her eyes are calculating, weighing her chances. Eventually, she decides. She might encounter Sister later on, but she’s had enough with this interaction. Another couple of clicks and chirps blossom from her mouth, but they are not the curious, friendly ones from before. They are the sounds of words mostly everyone understands in any given language: Fuck off.
And with that, she turns and slips into the background foliage as easily as a shadow, tail thrashing menacingly in case Sister might choose to attack her rear as she leaves.
