[open] forty-six & two

[Niklas]

my shadow's shedding skin ...

It starts as only the slightest stir, a trick of the eye that makes a passing lizard skitter back the way it has just come. Then bits of shadow begin to leech up through the pale, sandstone soil, stinking faintly of sulfur. They seep across the earth from a wide radius, drawn towards its center. One joins another; there, another union. They begin to pool together, stacking on top of one another in a writhing sphere before reluctantly confining themselves to the boundaries of flesh and bone. He’s a tall, lanky thing, his black, unblemished hide stretched taut across a skeleton of ropy muscle. With muddy brown eyes set in angular, aquiline features, and ears that curl in toward one another just slightly, he is otherwise unremarkable. Somberly, he takes in his new surroundings.

Shifting his weight, he stretches out his neck and coughs several times, spewing mouthfuls of gravedirt, and takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with air for the first time in some days. The sun is already on its descent to the west, heat radiating up from the baked earth. There are some versions of the afterlife that are similar to Pangea, especially in the dead of summer. He’s been here before, when Ana and her shadows ruled over it. But she is long gone and he is not one to harbor regrets.

It does not bother him that he does not remember the last few days, nor where he’s been since Frostreaver tired of his sedate pace and rushed ahead to the Chamber. Rather than risk Set sending him off on another errand, had turned away at the border of the pine kingdom and sunken into the earth … and then there was nothing. He does not dwell long on this puzzle insolvable, instead turns and starts southward, long legs covering ground quickly in spite of his sedate pace.

[Escence]

Escence & Eviction

~Twin Flame~

Several weeks had passed since they arrived with their father in Pangea.  He had shown them around a bit, but being the free spirit I was, I chose to wander from watchful eyes.  Maybe without their judgement I could muster some sort of control over my powers I had yet to find in their combined training efforts.

The radiating heat of the summer day unfazed me, for I was fire.  Wrapped in it from the day of my conception, it has been a part of me both outwardly and inwardly.  From the living flame that dances across my red and white hide, to the fire that burns within my soul.  I know nothing else as much as I know the flame.

I moved casually about the cracked wasteland that is my father's home.  He spoke so highly of it and yet I question just why.  There seemed to be nothing to extraordinary about the dusty earth and lack of color.  The muted tones of red and yellow left me blended into the backdrop, something I was not used to in the greener lands.  There I was an anomaly, threatening and bold.  But I decided I would make the best of my time here, and without a forest to set a blaze it was the perfect place to practice my magic.

Curling around a bend of canyon my red eyes lift to appreciate the vast height of the stone walls.  Here my flames could be contained, and my attempts concealed.  So, I look down the long stretch and to the opening of blue sky at the end.  I stand giving a slight shake to my nerves before closing my eyes.  I breathe deeply, willing my flames to concentrate at my sides, imagining them stretching from me like the wings I have seen other adorn with.  

But my wings are intangible things; swirling vortexes of flame and nothing more.  They require a focus I have not been able to master and even my attempt now is feeble.  The fire swirls and gathers haphazardly.  Creating larger orbs of flame to escape into the atmosphere before they fizzle into nothingness.  I try to call it back, but that just ends in my frustration as more orbs scatter.  Anger begins to boil beneath my flesh as my teeth grind.

As quickly as it started, it ends.  I snort in annoyance, my forehoof striking the ground, sending flame and dust air bound. "Ugh!  I'll never figure this out," I spit out venom laced words before I am walking with heavy steps that echo off the canyon walls...

@Niklas Not sure your plans for this thread but here is a fed-up fire filly xD

[Niklas]

my shadow's shedding skin ...

The black demon carries along no particular path, bits of dust and shadows trailing in his wake as he moves sedately south. For quite some time, he walks alone. When he begins to angle slightly west and his shadow yawns impossibly tall, there is a shift. His shadow dips and swirls in a disjointed manner; it moves almost independently, bunching together, heaving apart, then reforming until it finally disappears altogether and his ever faithful Hound slinks at his heels. Her tongue lolls from between pearlescent canines in an oddly dog-like fashion, head slung low between shoulder blades that rise and fall sharply beneath a rough, oily coat. He flicks his tail, tipping his ear in acknowledgment, and ever south they tread.

A canyon stretches down to their right. At first he pays the flicker of movement no mind, but as she makes her way toward him - him above and she below - Ramsey sets off after a jackalope, a little horned thing bolting away from the brush it had been hiding in. The hellhound does not typically bother with mortal prey but can hardly resist hunting the mythical ones. He halts abruptly, the elegant sculpt of his head raised high to watch his companion and her prey in unreadable silence. When it's apparent she's not returning any time soon, he turns back the other way, looking for the chestnut mare he’d noticed just before, content to occupy his time observing.

She’s motionless now, staring down the mouth of the canyon as if she expects someone or something to appear there any moment. Rather than follow her line of gaze to find what she’s looking for, Niklas shuffles closer to the canyon walls edge, his breath sending up puffs of dirt, and he eyes her more closely. A curious crow indeed.

Some might assume demons, and certainly archdemons, would be drawn to flame like the analogous moth. But these assumptions would be wrong; even if he were a common archdemon. One's hell is a purgatory of their own creation - a worst-case scenario, if you will. While many do involve fire in some form or another, he’s visited many where flames are no factor at all.. It attracts him as much as anything does - that is to say, very little. Still, with nowhere to be, no one expecting him, he indulges. Red and orange, the fire sparks, rising and falling, then stretching, morphing … she loses control and it’s gone just as quickly as she had summoned it. She emphasizes her frustration with a stamp of her hoof and in that moment he disappears, a black column of smoke funneled swiftly down to the canyon floor.

Niklas blinks slowly, owlishly, in such a way one might miss the black cunning nestled behind the dull brown color his irises have adapted. There was one breath, an exhale, and now he walks alongside her with that same placid stride. “Are all children where you come from as inept as you are?” His tone is not unfriendly, though the delivery is perhaps dry and lacking. He pauses mid-step, head tipped again in that crow-like manner of his to eye her a moment … and continues on, eyes returned to the path ahead.

@ Escence