"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
There’s no one to blame for Fazia’s lack of progress with the tasks given to her on the mountain except herself — but that hardly matters. It’s so much more satisfying to blame everyone else. They’re not interesting enough to try to possess so what is she supposed to do? Lower her standards? Absolutely not.
She was interesting and she deserved to float around in some interesting minds. Or possess someone. However it worked. If she was going to exist in the body of someone else for a while they could at least spark something inside of her.
This evening, she decides to stop being the bait, hoping to lure someone in, and focuses on being the hunter. Taking a more active approach in this whole quest thing. You know, just in case it makes a difference.
Just in the small, miniscule chance the lack of progress is her fault.
The sun is just beginning to touch the horizon, the shadows long and cold as she walks along the bank of the river. Red light projects from her body, touching the frozen ground and water. She cannot wait for spring, when the water will flow once more and not be so stagnant and rigid. Water was her friend, it flowed around her in a caress. Ice? Slippery and incredibly rude.
There’s still enough immaturity in her that she gives into the temptation to pause and stick her tongue out at it, the indifferent ice, and give it what she thinks is an excellent snarl for good measure.
She doesn’t find them especially interesting, but she finds that she likes watching them anyway.
She likes the way they convince themselves their mundane lives are not, in fact, mundane. That their politics and quarrels matter, that their love will last or that anyone will even remember their name once they are rotted in the soil. But there is little else to hold her attention, and so here she lingers at the river’s edge in the shadow of the trees, pulling a cloak of it around herself to hide the glowing silver of her eyes.
From here she sees the encroaching red glow that soon reveals itself to be a mare. Curiosity snags like a hook, and her eyes narrow in on their new target, her pulse quickening just slightly. She likes the transparency of her skin — likes that she can see the puzzle of her bones and the way they fit together, and marvels at what it might be like to watch them break. Severe is not typically one to relish in physical pain, but, she also has never been presented with someone that looks quite like this.
“Hello,” comes the soft, nearly serpentine-like sound of her voice, the single word somehow coiled and slippery. She sheds the shadow like a snake sheds its skin, her eyes shining and bright in the dark, and she fixes her best impression of an easy smile to her face as she steps forward. It is difficult to appear friendly, she has found, when there is nothing at all soft about her — not her twisted horns or her scaled skin, her unsettling eyes or the sharp point of her tail. Perhaps the mare will not notice any of that though. “I take it you don’t like ice?” she asks her in an attempt at light-heartedness, gesturing to the slick, frozen surface of the river, that smile still unflinching.
INNOCENCE DIED SCREAMING, HONEY, ASK ME, I SHOULD KNOW
The mare that approaches Fazia could almost be a Baltian, there is undeniably an otherworldly aura to her — and not like the angels in the sky. Something earthy, dark, and beautiful. A fine distraction from the ice that had delayed her from her hunt. Which she feels put out about having not truly completed – she was looking forward to playing the hunter.
Then again, hadn’t her parents taught her there are many ways to hunt?
Content with her ability to spin the situation back into one where she feels as though she is in control, Fazia relaxes. Anticipation is coiling up within her heart. She pictures it as an eel, vivid yellow with rows of sharp teeth, though another animal may be more apt for this situation.
If she paid enough attention to herself she would know this means she doesn’t have long before she does something to snap the boredom. Before actions leap without adequate thought and she enjoys another freefall created from her own rash behaviour. There’s little enough reason to learn about consequences and her own behaviour when every bit of trouble she has gotten into so far has been bested.
“The cold is disgusting.” She wants to sound more eloquent, but Fazia doesn’t know the right words to weave together to present such a facade. So she has to settle for honesty and the bluntness of her own voice. That, at least, comes easily. “I like when the water flows and I can slip beneath its surface rather than across it.”
And there it is, the moment. The idea pops into her head and Fazia doesn’t hesitate. She doesn’t wait to see if another, better opportunity might come up. This one is ripe and right in front of her and the translucent mare takes it between her sharp teeth eagerly.
That alien new presence in her body, the one she got from the Mountain, reaches out. Silver-pupilled eyes are intent on the mare but in her mind she is imagining possessing this elegant stranger into taking a step on to the ice to prove how slippery it is.
11-08-2025, 04:28 PM (This post was last modified: 11-08-2025, 04:29 PM by Severe.)
S E V E R E
She despised small talk, and despite having asked the mare a question she is hardly listening to the answer. She is still staring at her translucent skin, her mouth aching in that strange way when her teeth get the need to sink into something. “I dislike the cold, too,” she answers, half-heartedly pretending to play this role she had signed herself up for. She did prefer a warmer climate, that much is true, but she didn’t feel particularly strongly about the cold, either. Lying came easily enough for her, though, and she would lie her way through this interaction until she decided exactly where she wanted it to go.
The intrusion of the stranger is so surprising at first that it almost catches her off guard.
Fortunately, she had been born this way, and her reflexes are faster than her mind, and in half a heartbeat every entry is slammed closed in the other mare’s face.
But Severe does not take kindly to anyone trying to take the upper hand, and locking her out is not enough.
Turning her sharp eyes to the intruder, she deftly takes a hold of her. “You’re going to need to at least ask for my name before you try to just dive into me like that,” comes that sultry hiss again, a serpent’s smile on her dark lips. It is not a full possession, but even with Severe only using part of her strength it is still relatively easy to overpower this girl that so clearly did not actually know how to use this type of magic yet. Not against someone like her, who had been born wielding more power than most could dream of. She freezes her to one spot, locking her jaw as well, making it incredibly clear that she is the one in control now.
In the stillness she listens for the other’s heartbeat, curious if she will panic at all. Sometimes they don’t; some are too stubborn to show their fear, and occasionally even too stupid to recognize that she is going to kill them. Admittedly, those were not her favorite, but she did like to think it counted as doing the gene pool a favor by getting rid of them.
There is a tilt to her head as she contemplates what she wants to do — the possibilities are actually endless, and she so hates having to make decisions. Luckily for this stranger, her own curiosity gets the better of her, and instead of doing anything she asks, “I’m dying to know what your plan was.” She loosens her hold on her tongue, but nothing else, keeping her frozen as she walks in a slow half-circle around her, silver eyes glittering with something like mirth.
INNOCENCE DIED SCREAMING, HONEY, ASK ME, I SHOULD KNOW
So far on this quest, Fazia had not thought ahead enough to consider what possessing someone else's mind would feel like to them, or what she would do afterwards. She could happily plan a trap or a prank but beyond those steps? None of those thoughts even cross her mind to consider. Whatever happened, she would take it on just like she did everything else in life. So far, this method had been working out pretty well for her.
Of course, as great as it is to not exist with anxiety — there are occasionally consequences that she didn't try to foresee.
Like trying to possess someone who maybe was a bit, or a lot, of a demon themselves.
Fazia doesn't even have a chance to pout about being shut out before the roles are reversed and she finds her body commandeered. Her body will not budge and her jaw is incapable of moving to voice any complaints.
A myriad of reactions flood through her. She is all at once enraged at her body being captive (and hopelessly unaware of the irony), a healthy amount of frightened at waltzing herself into the trap of a bigger predator, and so incredibly impressed with and curious about this sharp-eyed mare. So yes, her heart is racing. From fear and excitement.
She does try, of course, to throw herself at this problem the way she would anything. Her consciousness is wiggling in a way her body cannot — shrieking and snarling. This ability is so new to her she had not even considered the idea of learning how to keep someone else out from doing the exact same thing, and had no idea how to evict them once they were in.
Escape and Fazia can feel her tongue loosen. She wishes she could move her head to keep the intriguing stranger in her sights - instead her silver-slit eyes watch her as much as she can.
"I'm flattered you think I had a plan." She replies with frank honesty. There's no reason to lie — it seems unlikely this mess she charged herself into could be solved with a silver tongue. She doesn't even hide how impressed she is. Whatever happens next is no longer up to her. "I've been practising. Haven't accidentally picked a viper as a target before, though."
