"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
The Isle had been a means to an end.
The cold had made her untouchable.
Her jaw had ached from clenching.
She had not been meant for the cold.
She had suffered worse things, though, Bible.
And then the sun, the splendid sun!
How spectacular its return!
Carved its way through the darkness.
Same way the child carved its way out of her womb.
And with the sun came her own personal sun.
A thing that threw no heat but orbited her golden head all the same.
And now she returns to the place where the child ruled.
Perhaps if she were more intuitive she could smell him here.
On this beach where his children were hatched.
A clutch of little dragons.
And maybe they are here still, looking nothing like their grandmother.
She will never know as she moves across the sand.
She will never know them as her grandchildren.
Even if they told her the father’s name.
Because she did not live long enough to name the father.
She looks for Chemdog.
But does not look hard enough to be disappointed if she does not find him.
The sand feels strange beneath her golden feet.
She thinks of her daughter, wonders where she’s gone now the sun’s returned.
Wonders if, for once, she was a good mother.
Turns her gaze to the sky.
Thinks this will do.
Doesn’t remember the last time she had a home.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
“We are broken, like a mirror,” it explains in a voice like dry leaves.
“Can we be whole again?” he asks, but the answer is already thrown across his mind before the question is fully realized. All their thousand little pieces can be brought together again, if he only tries.
And he will try. That’s why he came to Pangea, isn’t it? He lifts his blue eyes to stare at the engraving of his predecessor with its burning torch. Ghaul’s corpse slumbers quietly in its tomb and he knows it is there. Waiting. Crowns draws a deep breath before his bones snap and contort into new shapes, until his hooves become talons that tear through the rock with ease. Time has been gentle to the conqueror’s body and left it mostly intact, albeit dry.
The boy forces himself to devour as much of it as he can stand. The taste is much as he expected it would be, but he was not prepared for the way it sets his veins on fire. It feels like the first time his fever took hold of him and birthed the magic that now pulses through him. All the memories, the dreams, and emotions of the Pangean king come crashing against his own even after he stumbles back from the desecrated remains. His chest heaves for breath. Still, his work is not finished. He closes his eyes and his body sways as he summons another to him, dragging him to the desert kingdom.
When his eyes open, his grandfather stands before him. Sage green eyes find his face and they narrow venomously.
“Crowns,” he greets flatly. The boy does not reply. Questions are answered before they are spoken as the old serpent looks to his brother’s body. Their clash is brief, a meeting of fangs and talons that end the way they both knew it would. The old man falls into the cloud of dust they’ve kicked up and Crowns swallows hard as he watches.
“Larva,” he whispers finally before his jaws close over the other’s throat. As before, he gorges himself on all that his ancestor has to offer. He fattens himself with an endless history of deaths, of births, and of loss. There is a pang of guilt in his chest when his grandfather stops thrashing beneath his teeth.
“He will return. Death loves him too dearly to let him stay,” it whispers against the magician’s temple. He nods, but a tear rolls down his sapphire cheek all the same.
He leaves a trail of claw marks that shift to hoof prints in the dirt and clay. Little droplets of blood spill down his face from wounds both his and not. This awful winding path follows him into Silver Cove and all the way to Bible where he stands, trying his best not to cry or shout. His body is engulfed by the delicious agony of all that he has gained today.
“Bible,” he mumbles as he observes her, recognizing her and yet not.
you got me on my knees; i'm your one-man cult.
@[bible] this was a weird post and if you hate it you don't have to reply to it but I love bible
She is alone again.
And she finds that it does not matter.
It does not matter that she is made of gold.
Or that she has her own private sun.
It does not matter because she is a creature who was made to be alone.
There is a heart that rattles in its gilded cage.
Sometimes she thinks it must have teeth.
How fiercely it begs to be let out.
And then, quite simply, she is not alone.
And she drags her gaze down out of the sky.
She turns to look at him, surprised that it is not Chemdog.
Not Chemdog at all, this stranger who addresses her by name.
He looks at her steady with eyes that glow.
She has never seen anything like him.
She thinks something abstract about the things in the dark.
How they had come for her.
(Oddly she does not think about the child that had clawed its way out.
She does not think about the child she left.)
There are so many things she does not remember.
But he is too young to be one of them.
She blinks her gilded lashes at him.
She tilts her fine golden head and the sun tilts with it.
She does not know what he has done.
(What would she do if she did?
Would she flee? Would she cry out?
Would she mourn those children?
Most of all, would she fear him?)
“Yes?” she asks, already trapped between his teeth.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
05-23-2021, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 05-23-2021, 08:51 PM by Chemdog.
Edit Reason: because now im confused
)
He watches her for a few long minutes as if she is not real. From a grassy cliff behind her, he looks down quietly. The glowing smoke that usually only appears at night curls and dances in erratic fashion around his dark feathered feet. His tail tossing with agitation. He pushes his aggravation away, it’s a delight to see her; to see the dusk’s light shine across her smooth golden back. She is brilliant against the obsidian sand.
A pair of large white owls call out from their high perches. They look down from the height of a huge pine, the pair’s piercing yellow eyes casting down to the ‘intruder’. He’s about to tell them to hush when a stranger slithers forward. He lets the owls call out eerily. His scars from the last intruder have yet to heal completely. His daughter brought him back from the brink of rotting away, immortality kept him from death, but still the deep slashes flash pink and fresh across his chest and sides. His jaw tightens, clenching. Really?
He rolls his eyes, his body pushing forward with a trot, approaching from behind Bible. He wants to reach out and touch her hip, but he does not own her and such a gesture might scream that he may mistake her kindness for true affections. He’s not so dull, usually, and tries to avoid that sort of thought. He’s not particularly welcoming or gruff, smiling to Bible, saying hello silently. His smoke spills out thick from around his ankles, drifting outward, and as it does Irisaen emerges from his thick forelock, flicking her tongue at the sapphire stallion.
“Hi.” his teal eyes level with the other stallion, his tone without expression; heavy and flat. He’s not sure what was being said before he arrived and ignores that he may be interrupting it. “Just visiting, or?” and just then he breaks his restraint and reaches out to breathe against her golden neck, the hard metal of her skin only centimeters away before he pulls away and settles his eyes and his focus back onto the tobiano.
so this seems like something poetic and beautiful,
a fragile moment really - let chemdog come ruin it D:
@[bible] @[crowns]
edit: wait...shit... is this some chaos week stuff? i assumed it was metaphorical and such? now i'm wondering if crowns is suddenly eating bible and chem just rolls up, "sup"
There is a typhoon of emotions all raging inside him as the pieces try to reconcile into one. Larva’s rage for Bible seethes and chews at him while Ghaul’s endless adoration muzzles the fire. Crowns, meanwhile, can only breathe and watch as it all clashes together. And then the ancient basilisk begins to swallow it all whole, reclaiming the bits and pieces of itself as it coils around it all.
“I’ve come to thank you,” he says in a voice that is not his own. He steps closer and his blunt teeth turn to fangs, jaws parting with a string of saliva connecting the razor edges.
And then, just as quickly, his mouth snaps shut when the ritual is interrupted. His glowing eyes watch the stranger come crawling up beside his other missing piece. None of the cursed men know him, and so Crowns reaches his prying fingers into Chemdog’s thoughts. A quiet series of clicks form in the back of his throat as he drinks it all in. Somewhere in the swirling storm of tapped souls, Ghaul finds his way to the surface and gnashes their teeth.
“I should ask you the same,” he answers with a drooling grin. Crowns spreads his dripping wings and draws closer to the pair. “Uninvited. Unwelcome.” A reptilian growl rumbles in the depths of his belly, blue sparks licking up his fangs with every word.
“Unworthy,” he says as he spits at Chemdog’s hooves. The fox-fire picks up speed in its orbit and each bulb of fire’s path becomes unsteady, teetering as they circle Crowns. “We - I have come to take what is mine,” he rasps as he circles the pair. The heat of his own skin cauterizes the fresh wounds across his face, sealing the slashes shut. He comes to a stop before them once more as his glowing eyes return to Bible.
“I will bring you back. I will make you whole,” he promises, and the smile he wears is anything but kind.
She has seen such strange things.
Crawled through the underworld on her belly and back out again.
(And she thought herself indestructible, here, now.)
She had mistaken him for a boy, just a boy.
But this is not a boy, this thing that had addressed her by name.
(There is nothing left for her to fear.
She has died so many times before.
She does not fear the pain or the darkness.
She understands the message.
She knows that here, now, a thanks is not a thanks.
It is something else altogether.)
A shame, she thinks, that she tried to be a good mother only once.
And she will not get to say goodbye.
But then, a voice from behind her.
She had looked for him and here he is.
(Is she relieved? She doesn’t think so, not really.
And yet, there is some strange satisfaction in it.)
The boy who is not a boy at all but must be something left over.
Left over from all the things that had leached out from the underworld.
It snaps its jaw shut and she watches, head tilted.
(Unaware that the son had almost killed her a second time.)
The golden eyes flit between Chemdog and this strange thing.
Perhaps this is just a dream.
She has never seen fire like this.
And the thing circles them and she thinks she should be afraid.
(Shouldn’t she be afraid? But she has died so many times before.)
When the thing addresses her, she looks steadily back at it.
“I won’t be going anywhere,” she tells it.
She had thought it just a boy, but it is not just a boy.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
It was all very dramatic, slithery, spooky. Annoying. He wasn’t quite sure what the goal was, but he had a sneaking suspicion this stallion wasn’t here to be ‘super chill’. Really? He prods himself; more? He lets out a long groan, “Listen, pal,” he feigns laughter when the man begins his little dialogue. It seems to ensnare Bible, it only scratches at Chem’s delicate little nerves.
And then he spits. A wad of drool hitting the black sand.
Chem’s lip curls back, “Huh?”
If he had eyebrows they would be quirked and uneven. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at.” He looks to the sea, to the hills and forest, and then back to the tobiano. “What is yours, exactly?”
He leaves Bible alone for the moment. He wouldn’t hold it against her if this were a lover, a dear friend – anyone to her. She’s come to visit him, to live? He wouldn’t know, he’s not gotten the chance to even ask his metallic friend. For a moment it flashes through his mind this stallion could have been a comrade, a champion, a second, an equal, anything other than immediately a rival; but, the moments gone. Obviously, with the spitting and the narrations, he’s not here to make any friends.
He can feel the uncomfortably prying. The static the stallion creates is unearthly, and not a joke, despite Chem’s inclination to make everything so. Like a parasite beneath the skin, something moves in him that isn’t his. Reaches in, fingers breaking the surface, scraping down the walls of his mind. Twirling playfully, cruelly around with his dim soul magics, he growls, he can feel it but he cannot shake the stallion out of him. Its never a good feeling to be…outnumbered.
Her voice curls around his ears, drowning out the muffled sounds of the world.
“She stays.”
He tries his best to disguise that he’s confused, rather disarmed.
But if a shark can taste blood in the water, so can this one.
okay so im still not exactly NOT confused, but i love both of these characters so much that i'm just diving in haha
I WANNA PLAY xD
Anyway, this seems like some spooky shit so FEEL FREE to manipulate his Soul Summoning and make some freaky ghosts surface through him or what have you (if you would like) - i dont mind at all
His smile does not falter or lose a single watt of its brilliance when she refuses him. They misunderstand. So Crowns takes a few steps closer, leaving claw marks in the dirt beneath him.
“I don’t need you to go anywhere. I just have to eat your memories. Make them my own. Make us whole,” he explains in a gentle cooing voice. And then he reaches into Chemdog once more to pry at that quiet strength in him. He forces the Cove’s ruler to summon the fractured souls from the magician’s heart, just because he can. Larva emerges first, his face torn and dripping with blood as he gnashes his pointed teeth. Then Ghaul arrives with his skinless body and horns still sprouting from where his eyes should be.
“Give them to us, and I will return the favor tenfold,” he promises, but it’s hard to tell if he’s being honest at all. “You’ll only die for a moment, and then I’ll bring you back.”
He folds his wings slowly and the fire circling him calms.
His glowing eyes watch them both carefully, calculating his next moves.
