curiosity killed the cat // ALL

[Dahmer]

CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
& SATISFACTION BROUGHT HIM BACK

Dewy strands of grass cling to Dahmer's dark legs in the early Tephra morning, though he pays them no mind as he and his winged champagne counterpart journey towards the southern border. He loathes to leave the volcanic island, the place that he has called his home for the duration of his time in Beqanna, and it's with a quick blue-eyed glance over his ebony shoulder that Dahmer regards the volcano in the distance, tucked into the center of vibrant tropical foliage and a gentle morning haze. He sighs quietly at the bittersweet sight before turning to face forward once more ('always forward, never backward', he can hear Desole berate), and it's with a gentle nudge to the taut muscle of Ellyse's neck that he is moving again, hooves falling rhythmically against the soft loam.

"Shall we, kitten?" he rumbles sensually in her pricked ear, the hint of a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth as the next chapter of their lives begins to unfold.

Dahmer is not a stranger to the throne. The Subway had been his own at the turn of his third birthday; his jolly band of misfits ─ some who had been loyal to his father, some that had signed on after he had taken the helm ─ had reigned in those underground tunnels and had controlled the Azza Elite Army until, just after his tenth birthday, the islands of Azza and Kusheth had been lost to the roiling sea. Few had survived the earthquake that claimed both islands.

Even fewer had survived the swim to the mainland.

He remembers the Subway with warm nostalgia as he and @[Ellyse] make the trek to Sylva. Only Tephra had ever rivaled his homeland in the amount of space it took up in his heart, but perhaps in time Sylva could claim its place there, too. With Tephra's sulfur-tinged humidity far behind them and the golden canopy of Sylva finally rounding the horizon in the distance, the black beast gives Ellyse one more gentle nudge at the spot where her feathered wing and shoulder connect before growing visibly more authoritative than she had ever witnessed him before.

Beqanna and Ellyse and Smoak have softened him, but the black beast has not forgotten his mother's teachings and as the pair moves across the invisible border between Taiga and Sylva and into the golden forest, the thoroughbred beast is born anew. His hooves fall with calculated precision against the dry pine needles of the forest floor and they crackle beneath the weight of him. His icy blue eyes rove the shadows of the autumn-colored forest, nostrils fluttering to inspect the scents of those who call this place home even after Gryffen's exodus. He glances to Ellyse every so often and, while his determined expression does not change, the blue-eyed beast can't help but feel a thrill as they move in tandem through their new home. Their new kingdom.

Desole had told him once that @[Scyla] was not his sister, that she was not to be treated as such. Though she shares your blood, she is not your sister. But for all the things that Dahmer had done for his mother without question, forsaking the invisible monster, his half-sister, was not one of them ─ and now, as a testament of his love for her, he has taken the throne of Sylva for his own and shoved her rapist out. He will not blame her, should Scyla decide not to live within the boundaries of the territory that holds nothing but negative memories for her, but at least now the black beast can live knowing that he had avenged her.

They move swiftly, determined, into the heart of the forest and Dahmer raises his dark head to whistle commandingly. The sound echoes through the yellowing leaves, calling for those who still remain to peel away from the shadows and reveal themselves to the new rulers of Sylva. With patience and a readiness to deal with whatever those who remain loyal to Gryffen will throw at him (he suspects they will not accept the news quietly, though this does not intimidate or deter him), the black beast waits with a glinting hardness in his eyes and a sturdy set to his jaw.

When finally they come (and they will come), drawn to the center of their home by an unknown usurper, Dahmer makes silent judgments of each of them. There is one in particular that he searches for, his glacial blue eyes scanning the faces of each until it comes to rest on the blue roan that he had heard so much about. @[Thana] ─ the blue wolf; the true muscle behind Gryffen's rise to greatness. Dahmer had heard stories of her ruthlessness, of her thirst for infamy. She is the epitome of mercilessness and he will not underestimate her, though the black beast hopes privately that there is a way to secure her skills for Sylva's use. She had proven herself unerringly loyal to Gryffen, but he wonders ─ loyal to a single being, or loyal to the idea and promise of greatness? He hopes for the latter.

"Your king has abandoned you!" Dahmer finally addresses them, his brusque tone commanding their attention. His blue eyes rove Sylva's collective, muscles taut and ready beneath his inky coat should their reactions indicate trouble. "And we, Dahmer and Ellyse, are here to take his place. As such, each of you has a very important decision to make." The black beast pauses for a brief moment to convey the gravity of his next statement ─ "Pledge your loyalty now, or join Gryffen in his banishment. For those who wish to follow Gryffen down his newfound path of inadequacy, you have two minutes to leave. We will ensure that you do so." He motions to Ellyse, to the feathered wings at her side, but does not mention yet his own ability to shift.

His gaze turns directly to the blue roan, then. "You, though," he addresses Thana directly, and Thana alone, "have made a name for yourself. All through Beqanna, horses whisper your name in fear and reverence. And I can recognize the true reason for someone's greatness when I see it. I implore you to remain within Sylva ─ I do not ask for you to pledge your loyalty to me, but to the greatness of this territory. And if you do, it's my promise to you that your name will never be forgotten."

As his speech comes to an end, Dahmer allows his gaze to once more rove the group that has gathered before he and Ellyse. "Now, decide," he commands them all, save Thana, who he hopes silently will consider his proposition.

Dahmer

image © celestiene

TL;DR - Activity check! Please respond telling me if your character is staying or leaving. Sylva will become very army oriented in the near future, so keep that in mind!

[Neo]

Ouija slips off into the mists of Taiga.  He never truly cared for the bright forests.

Kasanova had already left for Hyaline.

Dynast has sunk to the depths of the sea.

Karaugh, well now, isn't that a fun turn of events.  She will be back >:[) Sylva has always been her home and she sees no reason in leaving

[Ellyse]

Don't say I'm out of touch with this rampant chaos; your reality.
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge.

  Her heart is torn.

  Never had she felt such a deep and driven tie to the soil as she did on the volcanic island. The thought of leaving it behind, of letting it be little else but ashes to ashes and dust to dust in her mind – it is a heavy weight on her mind. So young, she had been, when she followed Magnus with a son much too small still nursing against her barrel – but Magnus had long faded into the tattered and frayed pages of history, and that little one had grown and left her, too. Reckless and wild – a spitfire with a short fuse and a scathing temperament, she had been a force to be reckoned with, but time and experience had carved into her, whittling away her unruliness, shedding her of her insolence and arrogance.

  But alas, all must come to an end, and eventually the tide would wash away the history she had etched into the soft and supple sand, adrift at sea once more – and she would be nothing more than a memory. There is a tendril of longing that she cannot imagine fading away with time. A piece of her, however small, would always belong with Tephra – but as his dark lips brush across her neck, and her gaze is settled into the deep and unwavering cobalt of his stare, and not even the bubbling magma cradled in the crest of the volcano could rival the heat stirring inside of her chest.

  You are my home, he had said to her.

  Her legs carry her steadily in a two-beat stride beside him, seamless, as if the bond held between them had always been. As if it were eternal - with no beginning, and no end to be seen. Beside her, her tightly bound feathers tuck closer to the curve of her gilded barrel, aching to be spread wide into the vast and open sky – but there is something to be said in the urgency of his stride; in the transformation befalling his dark features as miles and miles are crossed the way, relying on scent and sight and sheer will of muscle, as their ancestors had. The softened compassion she so often saw fell away, unsheathing hardened resolve beneath. Her slender neck is outstretched, and her teeth nip gently at the ridge of his shoulder. A reminder that she is beside him; that she would follow him anywhere.

  And you are all that I need, she had told him.

  Adrenaline surging through her veins, the boundary is crossed, and their legs carry them past the charred remnants of a forest ravaged by Offspring. Deeper and deeper into the woodland, and then suddenly, stillness. Her breath is shallow but apparent in soft puffs of fog, as the golden flecks of her hazel eye roves the dark shadow sheathing the thicket in a low-lying but dense mist. Her stare follows his own, tracing the lithe and slender indigo silhouette of a creature both insidious and infamous. She does not say a word – she merely carries Thana’s glowering gaze with intensity (with a glimmer of an unspoken threat; her posture erect and rigid as diamond sheathes her in a glittering armor while spines of bone rise across the bridge of her nose).

  Now decide, Dahmer demands, and she is steady and still beside him while the warning of what would come to those who fail to stand down – waiting, should she need to, to make a believer of each and every one of them.

Ellyse

(The nightmare) I built my own world to escape

[Thana]

It's in her kiss; the black seal.

  Her rage cannot be contained.

  Writhing, hot and ferocious in the pit of her stomach, her ire began festering long ago in the soiled and sordid blood seeping through her veins. From the moment her son had slipped free of her womb, struggling and suffocating in the thick membrane that encased him, her anger had grown. The seed had been planted, spreading like an infectious disease through her, before being expelled with wide, mismatched eyes – a gleam of red, and a glimmer of gray, sheathed in filth and muck from the heat of her own body. Forced to bear his forsaken spawn; the progeny of the one she had vowed to follow anywhere – the one who had left without a trace, pathetic and lowly that he was.

  Her anger cannot be controlled.

  Her son is nowhere to be found, and for that she is grateful. She can sense the stench of sulfur and ash miles away, and the lithe wolf blanketed in pitchless black moves seamlessly through the dense and dimly lit forest. Each broad paw moves forward with precision, while sharpened talons rake softly at the supple and fertile soil beneath her weight, with grace and refinement uncharacteristic of such a bloodthirsty sociopath. Her breath is soft and shallow, as the frigid wind weaves through the hickory and pine, sweeping over the luscious fur lining her slender physique – until it is all but shed; and she is merely herself again. Swathed in indigo, with her wayward lock of ivory fallen in the way of her glowering stare, she emerges into the clearing – baring her still-sharp teeth.

  She does not need to say her name; her name is heavy and laden on the tongues of many! She is revered, feared and the mere mention of her name is enough to make so many quiver and tremble, with urine trickling down the length of their pathetic, shuddering legs. She can still the taste the metallic blood of her latest kill caught between her teeth, and her muzzle is stained with the demise of another, as it so often is. Her shoulders move with predatory sleekness, as if she is anything but prey herself – as if she is the wolf, and nothing more.

  She is closer, ever closer, until her breath is a warm caress across the cheek of the diamond-laden Head of War – the scent of magma and filth is heaviest on her, and a grimace of disdain crosses her lips – neither intimidated, nor deterred by her display. Should she want a fight, she would have one – she would find a way past that pretty, glittering armor, and spill her blood like she had all the rest.

  But she does not linger – her roving black eye set on Dahmer instead, as her parted lips and clenched teeth near his cheek – and what is he, aside from arrogant, foolhardy and predictable? He was like all the rest. Nothing more, nothing else. The scent of his testosterone and sex lingering across his blackened skin is enough to make her stomach turn; did his precious male ego need to partake in sins of the flesh before coming to conquer? Did he need to feel another beneath him to make him feel more like a man?

  ”You come to me, making demands – as if you have anything but your precious arrogance to back it up,” she breathes, coy, with a sneer drawn at the corner of her dark lips. ”I could fucking kill you and leave you wasted on the ground before she could even try to stop me –“ she croons to him, her hatred – not for him, but for another – boiling over into a white-hot rage she can barely contain. ”you would never even see it coming. Take this wasteland,” she snarls at last, her proverbial crown of thorns tossed long ago – she would not bear the burden of Gryffen and his failure; if Dahmer yearned to have what was left of an empire left burning, so be it. ”have at it. I have no need for it,” she muses , coiling around him, like a serpent – like a boa constrictor, aching to suffocate the absolute life out of his gasping lungs. ”I am greatness; I do not need you or a pathetic piece of land to reassure me of it. Flounder on your own, heathen,” she growls, shifting into the wolf that had never hidden beneath sheepskin – ever the wolf, always the hunter. ”Sylva is your burden to carry.”

  And then she is gone.

Thana.

It runs deeper than you can dare to dream it could be.

[Modicum Mortem]

The clown is torn. 

As the black beast before him announces that the wraith king has been exiled from his position in Sylva, and that he and another will take his place, he grows angry. A quiet swell beneath his chest, threatening to rupture or burst any second. 

A king abandoning his post? How pathetic. Gryffen had showed his weakness, fronted as some kind of "power." A sheep in wolves clothing. 

But Mortem guesses he knew that all along. 

The joker stares at the pair before them. He had been gone so long doing lacky work for the wraith, he feels like Sylva had been a waste of his time. Icey eyes drop as his Nightmother also abandons the land. 

Well, he had always been a wanderer, hadn't he? 

The clown does not give well wishes and he does not wait for his flame or children, he retreats into the shadows. He will lurk elsewhere...and maybe when his time came, he would return. Until then, Sylva is just a failure to him.

[Celest]

Celest

The seafoam filly lurks below the protective arms of an ancient walnut tree - on the perimeter, where she had always been. She was still bitter about Crevan's departure, and she had kept out of the way of all the other adults. 

If the dark stallion looks her way he will see her vibrant coat and two violet points of light from her hard gemstone eyes, but she does not come forward. The yearling had only come to observe. 

As they speak, she decides she will stay, for now.  She couldn't care less about kings, old or new, and she had never met the last one - she only had no reason to leave. At least this was better than wandering the Riverlands alone.
Probably.

If he looks again, Celest offers him a small nod, before disappearing into the dense forest. The daughter of Carnage would find this King or his Dimond Woman later - when they were established.

i'm not a girl, i'm a storm with skin

She is just a yearling & not looking for a position. Just a little spooky kid lurking around the woods. She will be interested in being apart of kingdom life and amry training when she is a little older

[Lillith Elvira]

Her sons are gone.

Gone into the night to make their own lives, though she is left here. She is left in the woods with a girl who reminded Lillith endlessly of herself. Eindridi, a flame burning bright with potential, but not the flame her father had wanted. All the speckled child had wished for was love, all she wanted was to be happy. It wasn't hard for Lillith to hide such wishes from Modicum, not when the girl was so young. Though by the time Gryffen had been banished, it was growing tough. The new monarchy arrived in a blaze, demanding loyalty or department. She watched with a wild gaze as the nightmother banished, and a cream mare took her place beside an ebony stallion. In horror she watched her lover flee without a single glance in even the child's direction.

Had he not been concerned for their welfare? For his daughter's at least?

"The girl and I shall stay."

Even she was baffled by the words that flew from her mouth, she couldn't look away from where he had been. Eindridi pushed restlessly at her mother's legs, begging to play. Her pale gaze lingers upon them for a moment more before the pair drift silently into the trees. Maybe they would last longer than the last.