[mature] Flash. Give me amnesia. [Open]

[Scyla]

I'm an invisible monster, and I'm incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse. Everything hurt. Her body. Her heart. Her brain. Everything. The gray tovero was now splattered with the red from the cuts and wounds. The red ran down the back of her hind legs, her tail stained pink from it. Her wings were tattered, flight feathers ripped out from the failed escape from the yellow forest. Her mouth dry from a mixture of drunk apples and blood loss. Her wings dragged behind her, her energy too depleted, her mind too broken to hold them close to herself. What protection were they from her brother anyways? What had started out as a fun party seemed to fall into her darkest nightmares, playing on childhood fears and fulfilling them. But why Tephra? Why go back to the place where your rapist lived? Invisible monsters had no where else to go. Who would else would take the broken creature now? What could she possibly offer them? Nothing but broken feathers and the blood dried to her skin. Every muscle ached from the fight she had put up, but to no avail. Scratches lined her hide from the brush he had cornered her in, the scene plays again and again and again in her minds eye. One minute she had bumped into the host of the party, and the next she had seen Dahmer. Oh how excited she had been to see him at such an event! Her heart had soared and her squeal of delight had brought him close in greeting. But her message had been wrong, she had perhaps been too friendly. The apples hadn't been on his breath but familial ties turned to Dog-face threats. Her screams and squeals of protest fell on deaf ears of the lust ridden festival. The warm air feels better, she halts just inside the borders, the tropical breezes and the distant pounding of the ocean calling her. She trudges slowly towards the shore, aiming to clean her wounds with the salt of the ocean. But as she steps onto the store, she collapses, exhausted, depleate. Broken.

@[Dahmer] ? Sorry, not sorry!

[Femur]

I love the way you rake my skin, I feel the hate you place inside.

Blood.

She smells it and it is an overpowering smell that hangs in her nostrils, refusing to leave no matter how much she snorts it out. The scent is cloying and thick, and she blinks the sleep from her eyes, wondering if her beloved has left behind a kill for her to poke and play at. But there is no wolf-caught corpse laid before her nose where they rest about her bent knees curled beneath her small form. No spoiling meat or scent of it to mingle with the blood - just the blood, the blood that brings her to her feet and rouses an odd feeling in her.

Femur could care less if someone was hurt. She’s not a healer, no one in her family has that particular talent. Most of them are either immortal, goat-horned, a shifter, or strange in some other fashion but none of them can make the hurts of the flesh heal up and scar. Still, she sniffs the air and trails the scent to the ashen seashore where a mare lays in what looks like almost death. Her black eyes pick out the scant rise and fall of ribs poking up through the painted skin that signifies the mare is still taking breath, however faint and few in between those breaths might be. She comes closer, lowers her nose to scuff at the bloodied and scratched skin.

Ew.

The mare stinks of apples, blood and sex. Sylva. They’d had an event of late that had drew the beasts out of those that attended and gave them free rein over their darker unexposed selves. Femur had declined to attend. Would have if Longclaw had asked it of her but had followed him into the Tephran deeps instead to his den, a secret that she keeps to herself as his lips had left hot kisses spilling over her needy skin. She thinks that whatever this mare had encountered there, had not been like that - hot and needy and given up freely. Whatever had happened had come through force and pain, not sweet coercion.

Part of that made Femur mad, no one should be had or taken against their will. Pain and pleasure should be agreed upon, not doled out in spiteful fisted increments to be suffered but somehow, this poor mare had endured and Femur is drawn to that. She can only image what a slap in the face that fact must be to whomever did this to her. With as much caution and care as Femur can muster, she tries to tenderly nose the neck and face of the mare in hopes of awakening her though she cannot image the depth of pain the mare must be in to be in this collapsed state on the shore. Nor can she imagine how the salt must sting every cut and bruised part of her.

“Hey, you need to wake up now…” she intones softly near an ear.

Femur

@[Scyla]
i owed you a reply from the twins but you get a rather 'nice' femur instead. <3

[Scyla]

I'm an invisible monster, and I'm incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse. Her mind was a blank slate, devoid of the pain that was caused by the one person that she thought would always protect her. Always love her. Dahmer...how could he? Violated, her mind had forced her to stop, allowing her to crumple on the beach. How long she had been there was unclear, but the nudging and the whisper in her ear roused her only slightly. Her mind rebooting and almost instantly replaying the trauma that happened only hours (or was it days?) before. A wing raises and then gives up almost as soon as it was raised, the only sign that her consciousness was returning to the creature. Brown eyes open, and her sight was blurry for a moment, the world swirls and then comes into sharp focus. She startles, stumbling to her feet with her wings flapping uncontrollably before falling down. She didn't bother to raise them to her sides, and instead she allows them to linger on the sand. Everything was sore and the sting of the ocean burned through most of her body, but the bodily pain was little in comparison to thoughts in her mind. Head slung low, she slowly remembers that she got home, Tephra's shores are where she had made it to. Or at least, that was what her mind perceived, though it was unclear if she could trust her mind anymore. She looks at the other, a mare she did not recall or know. Was it the kindness of strangers that Scyla would now rely on? The gray tovero, blood stained, covered in a mixture of wet sand and blood. Sweat and the residual alcohol from the apples. What a mess! Her mother had been right about her. She was good for nothing, a simple pawn in the world's design and destined for nothing but pain and whatever else someone wanted from her. Finally, her dried tongue finds words and she glances at Femur. "Am I in hell?" Destined to relieve everything over and over again. Punishment for her creation. Perhaps this was the creature that would escort her to her immortal prison, or the one to carry out the punishment. Either way, she was resigned to her fate and had no fight left in her.

@[Femur]

[Warrick]

like the sun swallowed up by the earth

Beyond the volcano and high into the lush and green mountainscape of Tephra, heavy rains can be seen in the distance and with a thoughtless expression he watches. The storm would never reach the low-lying land that is home to the residents, (the gray and misty body of it would soon evaporate in the high temperatures) but the sound of thunder still ripples gently across the atmosphere, a muffled shudder against the constant grumble of the volcano. Had the clouds been elsewhere, snow would have fallen instead of crisp, hot rain.

The tradewinds bring warm, sultry air against his auburn skin, playfully tossing the inky black tendrils of his mane and tail out behind him. He is plastered with salty spray of the sea, the rolling waves a gentle rhythm against Tephra’s rocky and bright shoreline. Something in the air makes him anxious; it is not a certain smell nor is it something he could see, it is not the sullen storm that growls behind him. A unprovoked feeling of dread sits heavily on his stomach, knotting uncomfortably. He shifts his weight, flexing the large navy wings at his side as if to settle himself, snorting gently. Perhaps it is the absence of his children (or even Tangerine herself), but something is amiss.

Bright and burning blue eyes shift slowly down the shoreline, catching a movement of white in his peripherals. 

The winged stallion does not hesitate. Swiftly he canters towards the collapsed heap, his great wings outspread to help him reach her quicker. Her body is dulled by the blood and bruises that cover her, and the sudden smell that enters his nostrils now that the constant ocean wind is not pulling it away from him causes him to wrinkle his nose. Another is there, curious and cautious as he, pale gold with a coaxing voice. 

He says nothing, not yet. He has only just returned to Tephra (to Beqanna in general) and the winged bay is still trying to catch up with all of the events that have happened in his absence. The two before him are completely unfamiliar, but besides the rotted stench of Sylva that permeates the red and white mare, they seem to be Tephran residents for the most part. The golden girl’s voice seems to stoke the other awake (is she, though?) and the woman stirs, a pale wing outstretching in response. 

A broken dove. 

Warrick whinnies gently in encouragement (and mostly in concern) as she struggles to stand, losing balance and fluttering wildly. 

“Am I in hell?”

He glances quickly to the pale girl and then back to the woman, head lowering as he stretches towards her, brilliant blue eyes finding hers empathetically. 

“You are safe now,” he says solidly, his robust voice heavy and clear in the ocean’s strong wind. Fearful that she might lose strength and collapse again to the wet and sandy shore, he steps closer to her side so that he might be a support for her, just in case her legs fail her. He does not know her and has no idea what has happened, or how she may react to his standing beside her, but his concern for her safety outweighs the chance that she might place a well-aimed kick or bite to his shoulder. 

He looks to the other helplessly, his stoic blue eyes searching hers. He too, has no extraordinary talents to fix what has been done. “Let’s get her to fresh water,” he suggests, the cries of gulls echoing above them.

Warrick

@[Scyla] @[Femur]

[Femur]

The poor dear only stirred the slightest bit at Femur’s nudging and murmuring.
She did not take that to be a good sign…

It meant the damage was massive. More so internally than what had been done to the flesh and bone of the mare lying in the sand. Femur cannot imagine how that must be - to feel destroyed inside and out. Could not even fathom it despite the fact that it was something her father did time and again to those he coveted, except for her mother - Sinew had been spared Pollock’s attempts to induce fear in her, mostly because Sinew lacked fear as much as she did most feelings besides lust and love. So she could grasp the concept of such destruction but to find the mangled aftermath of it here on the sand?

One wing halfheartedly rising than falling back to the mare seemed like a signal of defeat to Femur. She could only look on and continue to encourage the mare to not give up through touches that were for Femur, rather kind and hopefully not too obtrusive to the broken skin. Then she sees the eyes open and try to focus, and the mare is up and stumbling to her feet. Femur backs up, giving the mare space as she realizes she is startled. Poor thing probably had no expectation that someone would stop and help her after the things she’s been through… But the mare falls down again and gives up, wings splayed without much care as if she was staged for flight but bound to the earth in a terrible manner that suggested gravity had taken too strong a hold of her.

“Am I in hell?”

That lone question lances through Femur. She may not be the most forgiving character to stand on these shores or the nicest, something about this poor mare’s plight had struck a chord in her that made her linger there, uncertain of how to help but knowing that she needed to do something. She cannot blame her for asking though. Femur, fanged and unknown, is perhaps a bit hellish at times but not now, she is about to give a sad demure shake of her head when the two mares find themselves no longer alone --

Femur does not know him, but then she would not know anyone that was not her lover. She has kept to the places that Longclaw has shown her that are private and mean something to her. But the blood and the pain had drawn her out. Things she would adore if meted out under the right circumstances but nothing about this had been right for the mare lying on the sand, defeated and questioning if she is in hell now. She gives him a cursory glance as she sniffs him out; he smells of here but elsewhere, a mix of scents that suggest he has been away and now come back.

He also doesn’t appear to be a threat to either of them, not that Femur would mind if he was - she’d just turn invisible and slowly disappear until he lost her scent and her track. But something tells her he’s here to help and besides, she can’t leave the poor dear defenseless on the shore! She is anything but a champion, least of all one of broken and abused mares and so, all she can do is watch the empathetic reaction the stallion shows towards the fallen mare. “Is she though?” she questions softly, because how are they to know who did this to her? Her black eyes pin him with a questioning stare, knowing he is trying to help but they’ve no information as to what happened or who did this to her.

Femur is not one to try and question the mare now. It seems too personal, too traumatic to pry into things like that. She does not doubt his intentions about ensuring the mare’s safety but whoever did this had been certain to drive home a point from the amount of abuse she had sustained to just her skin alone. Shaking her head, she takes up a stance on the other side of the mare, her feet just barely kissed by the tide creeping up the shore. She drops her nose into the messy tendrils of bloodied and knotted mane, as tender a touch as Femur can muster, is pressed there to let the mare know that she is here, and not alone.

She can feel the stallion looking at her and he looks as helpless as Femur feels. It makes her like him, for the moment since she knows nothing about him, but it pulls a smidgen of trust out of her. “She’ll need more than fresh water, I think.” she concedes in a gentle murmur, not surprised that she is in agreement with him but that she had not thought of this herself. Femur was thinking more or less of how the mare needed a healer, except that she did not know any or who to even ask if there was one around. Healers seemed to keep themselves a secret. Then she remembers the mare’s question from earlier, the one that no one seemed willing to answer so she bit the bullet and did - “No, not hell though it might seem like it to you.”

Femur gives her another encouraging nudge. “You should try to get up again, we have to get you away from the tide or the salt will sting like hell. We’ll help you.”

ooc: nice Femur is weird and awkward. :/

[Scyla]

I'm an invisible monster, and I'm incapable of loving anybody. You don't know which is worse. She becomes almost manic, laughing quietly at the whole situation. Two strangers willing to help her while her brother raped her. How ironic. She rolls herself sternally, and then with much effort, she forces herself up, leaning against Warrick though her mind does not process that he's a warm, living creature. Trembling, she hold her wings depressed at her sides, not caring if the previous plumage stays clean. What was the point? He would find her no matter where she went, why not stay here with him? "Hell on Earth seems appropriate." She half-heartedly laughs again as her mind bends and cracks beneath the pressure of it all, though it falls flat. "The salt will clean the wounds for all it's pain. And what's a little more pain?" Her voice was raspy, cracking from exhaustion of her previous screams. She turns to walk into the water, but stumbles and falls to her knees. Wings arch up, flailing and trying to keep herself balanced. She pauses, her sides heaving with the effort. She had lived on her own to know that with the stinging would come healing given enough time. She forces herself up and glances towards the other two with a defeated, forced, and insane smile creeping towards her mouth. Still not convince that she wasn't dead, her mind cracked further from adding insult to injury. Scyla had never been particularly sane but the thought that her beloved brother could do this to her tore her down beyond her foundations. Scyla forces herself to stand, and takes a wide based stance this time, her wings held out just slightly to steady herself. Slowly she forces herself against the crash of waves, uncaring if she drown but thankfully the tide isn't super high yet and it when the water covers her whithers she turns back, wincing but the blood was dissolved from her back and wounds. Only the slightest of pink tinged her mostly white body. "Are you angels or demons?"  If not Hell, she had to be close, but perhaps these two were her unexpected salvation. Perhaps invisible monsters were worthy of redemption.

@[Warrick] @[Femur]

[Warrick]

like the sun swallowed up by the earth

For a moment, he wishes desperately that the faeries had gifted him with something besides his fumbling wings at his side. In the moment he realizes how useful so many other traits and abilities could be - healing, for one. He snorts softly, contemplating this despite many other thoughts whirling through his mind. He had been trying to not raise the alarm with the two unfamiliar mares, but when the pale golden woman gently asks ‘Is she though?’ he knows that she is thinking the same as him: who has done this? He meets the stranger’s eyes with the same helplessness he had before, his stomach churning with dread. He says nothing, but inwardly he tells himself decisively: I will make sure of it.

Peace never lasts, and the bloodied and beaten winged woman is a sure indicator of that. 

His feathers ruffle unsettlingly at his sides, thankful for Femur (though he has yet to learn her name) because between the two of them, they should be able to help Scyla. He looks to Femur with an agreeing nod, and glances around the beach to see if there is anyone else in the area, someone with a bit more than they could offer her, one ear trained on Scyla as she murmurs to them in response, his heart aching as the pain she feels become vocalized.

She stumbles forward into the gentle and frothing waves, (he had begun to try and stop her, ‘Are you sure -?’, but his voice falls on deaf ears) and Warrick is there to be sure she does not collapse into the surf, walking with her.  She allows the sting of the salt to penetrate her wounds, and the stallion watches her empathetically with a silent, blue gaze. Her pale wings stretch out to help her keep her balance, a stark white against the deep indigo of his own, and for some reason unknown to him, he gently begins to groom the ivory feathers, setting them in place with soft tugs of his teeth - as if this could somehow help her.

“Are you angels or demons?”

Her question makes him stop preening the dirtied and bloodied feathers, glancing over the pale and scarred withers of this stranger to his other companion, concerned.

“Neither,” he admits, before continuing, “I am Warrick.”

“You are in Tephra,” he mentions quietly, just in case she didn’t know. A pause, a flicker of his gaze towards the golden woman before back to the ivory mare. “Your wounds have stopped bleeding. You’ve cared for the outer parts of yourself. Come, let’s find a place for you to rest and begin to heal the inner part.”

There are many secluded spots on the Tephran island, he’s sure there is a close one nearby that would be a quiet shelter for her to rest.

Warrick

@[Femur] @[Scyla]

[Femur]

I love the way you rake my skin, I feel the hate you place inside.

More than just the flesh must be damaged, she thinks to herself as the mare laughs maniacally. Femur could not blame her though for a mind just as broken as the flesh is torn. Whatever had befallen the mare had been more traumatic than either herself or the stallion could ever guess at. But the mare goes on talking about how this is now hell on earth and how appropriate that is. Femur holds back a laugh; Tephra is rich in heat and sulphur, and is perhaps the closest thing to hell at the moment but she knew otherwise, having been spat out of her mother’s loins upon the desolate wastes of a kingdom ripped from Beqanna’s breast than taken back in as a rude fashion as it was snatched in the first place.

Nothing could ever quite compare to Pangea.
The land had been an utter ruin and Femur, for the first time in a long time, misses it as she looks upon the ruined flesh of this mare.

The tovero is a hard creature and Femur can only nod her at the mare’s assessment of salt in her wounds and more pain. She agrees despite the fact that she had offered a gentle protest against causing more pain because the mare looked as if she could hardly suffer it but the quiet stoic suffering is what impressed Femur the most - Scyla, even in the face of whatever hardship she has just endured, remained full of determination to overcome it if for no other reason than that she had to. Despite all of that, the mare falls to her knees in the surf and Femur moves to assist her as best as she can, offering a shoulder and an encouraging bump of her maw to the mare’s neck.

Scyla’s question gains a sly smile from Femur’s fanged lips as her black eyes slide to the stallion and back again, “A bit of both?” she surmises, toeing the line of whichever felt appropriate for her at the time. Right now, she was walking the fine line of being downright kind and helpful which was so not like Femur - not that she was characteristically mean either, just that she kept to herself and preferred it that way but something about the brokenness of the tovero had pulled at her and spurred her to an action she’d never otherwise think of.

On the mare’s other side, she can see the stallion grooming the feathers of those once beautiful wings as she looks over the painted and torn skin of the tovero’s back. His answer had been more honest than Femur’s own wry attempt of one and she was inclined to agree with him that neither of them was angel or demon - they just were. He goes on to introduce himself and she gives him a nod in return before uttering her own name to them both, “I’m Femur.” his ministrations are far more kindly and helpful than Femur has been until he mentions that it might be a good idea for her to rest and attempt to heal the fractures in her mind, and suggests finding a place. Femur perks up at this, she has a spot in mind that is guarded and suitable.

“I know a place,” she offers;
She’d not knowingly breach her beloved’s sanctum for them but she’d bring them close, knowing that he’d slink by in either shape - horse or wolf, and nothing short of a fly would come to bother the mare as she recuperated.

Femur

@[Scyla] @[Warrick] I know this reply was super delayed and we'll probably want to wrap this thread up and move on to a more current timeline since Scyla has given birth and Warrick is the new Overseer. Still wanted to reply and let you guys know I hadn't forgotten about it! <3