"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
you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
They’re even further from Loess now, she thinks as she glances over her shoulder in the direction of her home. Vulgaris will begin to wonder where she is and who she’s with. She’s his little prodigy, after all. She convinced Aziz to erect the dungeons for their prisoners and then he sent her out to find healers to lure back home with her. “Please help me, my sister is sick,” she’d say with those pitiful doe eyes staring up with all the hope and desperation she could gather. But Eight had other plans for her and she follows him as the needle follows thread.
She swallows hard and hurries forward to keep up with his strides when they finally cross the borders into Pangea. Neither of her parents would tell her of this place but she knows the smell of rot and death the moment it touches her tongue and nose. Sabbath coughs, unnerved by the little fish bones laid out beneath the sun beside the equine remains. A carrion feast for vultures and crows alike. The smell makes her eyes water a bit and she glances up at him uncertainly. But still, he moves further into the kingdom.
“Why are we here?” she asks with a quivering voice. His blood is still caked to her face but she makes no effort to wash it clean, especially not in these waters. She tucks herself against his side in some sad attempt to find comfort in his warmth. For the first time, she notices that he smells faintly like forest fires and salt, like danger and comfort all coiled into one another. Her tongue runs across her lips just to remember the taste of his blood in her mouth and its enough to send a shiver down her spine. The ravenous hunger to tear him open, to rend him down to bones and fill her belly with him rears its head once more.
She pulls herself from his side and pauses, taking a step back. Her bones hum their final warning and she stops long enough to listen this time.
“They’re going to come looking for me, Eight.”
And this time there’s a sliver of her spine coming through in her words as she refuses to carry on further. Perhaps she needs convincing, gentle coercion to lightly tug the noose like a leash further from home. Or maybe he could drag her kicking and screaming, force feed her the pomegranate seeds in their private section of hell.
01-25-2019, 09:48 PM (This post was last modified: 01-25-2019, 09:55 PM by Eight.)
@[Sabbath] how DARE you - Eight is always nice! I already have an idea for this - but it was getting to be a long post.
also @[The Plague] 'cause, sorry Sabby ):
no matter what they say, I am still the king
You are further away than you have ever known (farther from home; from security; from reality). Your stage has been swept clear - your mewling child voice begging for aid has been lost to the wind (can you feel it? Feather light on your sides - the stench of death and glory). You walk, so diligently by His side (- but you don’t quite know why, do you?). He plucks your thoughts like ribbons from a basket - thisone, thatone - and you are none the wiser. Your mind is ripe and bursting (slick blood, pulsing membrane) - you are nearly begging Him to come inside, yes Sir, right this way. And so He does - Vulgaris and your one character play, your portion in the Plague, your past and present and future - His, His for the taking. “Come, girl.” His voice urges you on throughout the journey, when he feels your mind bending against His will - when He feels your hesitancy, feels your past pullingpulling at your hooves. And so you follow. Farther and farther into the birthplace of the Plague- your mind still spilling out like a reel of film for Him to watch. He tries (really, he does) - to make it momentarily bearable as you stray further from what you know. Flowers sprout from the rib cages of the dead - a measly welcome to the land of the dead (and just as quickly fade away). The waft of rot is occasionally broken by the sweet smell of grass and soil. (HetriesHetries).
And you follow. Closer and closer to His dark skin, like you are seeking a cocoon (to save you from what?) - He feels your tremble, your lust and desire (no, not for His skin, but for his blood - for the silvered liquid flowing inside, the lifeline to living for you). He does not touch you in comfort, but He does not shirk you off (no, you eventually do that yourself). Why are you here? Why has He brought you to this dessicated land - empty of all souls? There are none here it seems but you and the magician - are you fearful? Do you still taste the liquid he spilled for you? Or are you only tasting death?
He does not answer you quite so quickly - and you spill forth another declaration. They will look for you. They ; He sees the dappled gray figure that he plucked from your mind (ahh, so that is where you finagled your viperous form) - they, the land of Loess (thank you - for your home so easily named from the recesses of your thoughts). This thought has solidified you - you are certain to go no further, because you are quite sure there are others out there that will come crawling through the words (flashlights winking, your name called across the barren plains). You will go no further - this much He can read from the brief skim of your mind.
And so He stops abruptly as you pull away. Instead of a question, or concern, a small smile douses His face (He could be beautiful, if it did not strike such fear in your soul). “My darling Sabbath - we came here for you to live!” There is laughter in His eyes as He tilts his chin up slightly - pointing towards your face and what you will become. There is blood sliding from the cavern of your nose (brightbright, like what you drank from His body). Is it really Him? No - it is father! - his grey and snake-type body before you. (Was that ‘live’? It sounded like die.) “Please help me, my master is sick” Father pleads, his eyes desperate in the haze of Pangea. And then it is His face before you, his nose leaking red, dripdripdrip. “Drink up, my lovely Sabbath.” His words seep from a mouth that looks rotting and wicked, beckoning to you like the lull of a siren. The world is hazy, dizzy, spinning.
Oh my little lost Sabbath - the chair has been kicked - you are dangling now.
∞
and now the storm is coming, the storm is coming in
you've got to move slowly, take and eat my body like it's holy.
She’s too young to recognize the strange feeling of someone dragging their fingers through her thoughts and emotions, tugging at the loose threads of her to influence her decisions. The girl assumes that it is her growing confidence that makes the journey more tolerable as time goes on rather than her traveling companion. Of course she thinks her new strength is her own doing, as the young often do. But the laughter in his voice when he explains that they have come so that she may live? It sets fire to the calm and the serenity that he had given her just moments ago.
Fear gathers up in her throat like storm clouds and silences her while the warm trickle of blood begins at her nose. But then he conjures Vulgaris, all sad and pleading with her for her help just as he had once taught her to do. In the blink of an eye, it is Eight again, bleeding just as she is while she stands there trembling. Drink up, he commands. Drink up.
If someone bothers you, ask them to stop.
She remembers her father’s words, his true lessons, and she mumbles the word over and over like Eight might actually listen. “Stop.. Stop.. Please stop..” But everything just keeps spinning and turning red while her mouth goes numb. Is she even speaking anymore? Her bright green eyes shut tight and she tries to block him out, but his voice pervades even her thoughts until she remembers the most important lesson of all.
If they do not stop, destroy them.
And then she’s opening her eyes, moving forward before she even knows just what she’s doing yet. Her jaw unhinges with a nauseating pop, spreads wide as she pushes off with her hind legs, driving her straight for his throat. Her tongue is coated with the blood streaming from her nose and the mouthful of ruptured artery between her teeth. Rend. Slaughter. Devour your enemies. There is no other way to survive. She cannot escape her hunger.
She clenches her mouth shut, all those little teeth curved backward to keep him stuffed inside her mouth like a sacrificial lamb. He is the enemy, her enemy. How blessed she is to have found him so early on in her life. His blood pours down her throat like fine wine from a year with heavy rains and gentle summers, but it burns like wildfire and salt.
@[Eight] if you want me to edit this just let me know but i thought it would be fun!
It is a tricky thing, to stand so close next to Him. Your emotions become something tangled and dangerous - (calmcalmanger, strengthstrengthweakness, lustlustlove) You cannot know what is real and what He is giving to you on a golden platter. What have you created and what has He decided you deserve? You are placid and following - a mewling kitten, languidly following that little ball of yarn (blood red, it is - perhaps a foreshadowing?). You are content to bolster yourself with the strength He has given you (yes, yes, of course you brought this brawn to yourself, not He). And then - you burn, you explode, you are a ferocious feline in the wake of His comments (angerangerfury).
You are murmuring, mumbling, a mess of unspoken words thrumming in your parched throat. Speak up, speak up - your father’s voice twines through your teeth, bolstering your flustered words of stopstopstop - speak up he says, encouraging, cajoling. Speak up, little serpent - for He cannot hear you. (Or perhaps, he chooses to ignore your timid voice?) Your frustration seeps, tendrils stirring twisting out into the atmosphere. Tighter and tighter, they lash to hold on to (to grip to smother to suffocate). Building; tension like a spring. He knows, He sees the tension, He hears that whisper in your head. (desiredesiredestroy).
You leap forward, like the coiled and striking thing you are - but he does not falter back. He saw the plunge in your mind, the anger and hurt and injustice. He knows, you are a snake, you will strike. You are so hungry (for what? For who?) - you yearn for that metallic sweet and sickly taste once more. You have sipped from the cup, and now you cannot stop from coming back.
You two paint a masochistic picture. Your lips wrapped around Him, drinking to your life (and death, do you not know that?); and He stands, solidly waiting for you to finish, for you to drink your fill and for your fury to subside. There is a shadow of a smirk on his face, the sting of your venom coagulating his blood into mud (His magic fighting tightly against it, flowing it further and further into your mouth - will you drown on it? Can you swallow it all quickly enough?). The acrid burn, the salty lick of your lips; that sweet slip of His blood down your throat- drink your fill. (thirstthirstquench).
And then - he has had enough. His blood turns poison - a vicious mix that no longer tastes like salt honey wine rain - it is sinister in your mouth, a burning, flowing river that will not stop pouring into your mouth, down your throat, into your lungs. Choke on it, see what greed tastes like. “Enough.” (as if you had a choice) His voice is flecked with authority, but not anger. “You live here now, Sabbath.” The rest of His blood that trickles down your body turns back into the saccharin taste it once was. “You are mine now, Sabbath.” Can you feel it? That pull in your body? The chair has been kicked from under you, the wolf has settled on your hearth. Your body yearns for what he carries. “Any questions.”
