[open] you can hear when the heart stops - anyone

[Anaxarete]

HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND She can feel the presence of the others. The press of their minds. The sound of their heartbeats. Her monsters had been given free reign of this land, the residents protected from the predators by her will alone. She knows that next on her agenda would be to visit the territories of this land, and ultimately the other kingdoms.  But for the time being, she is content to remain within the borders of Pangea. She considers, for a moment, checking up on the child she’d left incubating in one of Pangea’s many caves.  This land held many secrets that had been carefully been tucked away into the shadows.  In one such place, a child grew.  Anaxarete sensed early into the pregnancy that this child could not be safely incubated internally - not without exhausting herself.  She knew that it was possible for her to incubate her children externally - she had tested this with Ciara.  So tucked away in one of Pangea’s crevices was an egg wrapped tightly in shadows - glowing eerily in the dark.  Anaxarete had charged Ripley with looking after the child. A child born of Pangea herself.  The combination of her own magic and Carnage’s limitless magic had been peculiar, but that did not put off Anaxarete.  This was the kingdom that Carnage built. She would contribute her own blood and flesh to this cause. Her gaze slips towards the canyon where she knows the child grows, but instead the shadow mare redirects her attention to the river. A quiet moment. Or so it seems. The shadowmare’s mind is never quiet. A N A X A R E T E

image credit 

[Set]

Pangea. He knows little about the land - little about any of this new landscape that his world has become. He vaguely remembers a sickness, some contrary entertainment in a frozen wasteland … When Niklas had come to him with news of his mother’s return (much like his sire, the hollow-eyed demon was inexplicably bound to his dam), it had been Set’s intention to seek the gray magician out straight away. Ana has always held a rare place of esteem in his eyes. His lusts affections for her are not tempered by love, but he is otherwise rather fond of the vicious creature. He has not missed how they flocked to her, ghost and mortal alike, and he is too self-important to chase anyone who would not cleave to he and only he.

He slows his galloping pace along the river’s edge, breath burning gloriously in lungs long-accustomed to sprints across unfamiliar territory. It is his own skin that he wears today, an unusually set piebald hide, criss-crossed with the silver and white of battles and lessons past. Eyas had pummeled his vision and compelled him to shift back; back to himself and now he remembers. Remembers what it was to be when he was little but an heir, before the wars and the alliance had changed him.

Leaving the main riverbank at a slow jog, he swings eastward. The aquaphilic vegetation of the southern parts of the river give way to hardier grasses, sparse and brown in nature. It is sand that sucks at his hooves now as he moves across a winter-dry streambed, the scent of the otherworldly servants of Pangea’s Queen growing stronger as he bypasses protocol and crosses territory boundaries. Lifetimes ago, borders mattered, but his crown now lies cracked and moldering at his feet, just another token of accomplishment.

He can feel her eyes on him before he discerns her location. An ice cold burn, it thrills in his veins, a sensation headier than all but the drunken frenzy of battle. Swallowing, he spins to meet her gaze, rusty laughter in his throat, golden eyes dancing with mischief. Though she is several hundred yards from him, it is easy enough to sharpen his vision and drink her in. “Ana,” he breathes, and then his dual-toned muzzle twists and jerks in lighthearted teasing. “You never waste time.” She toiled for none but herself. Why should they, when the world - and all others - is theirs for the taking?

@[Anaxarete] <333

[Anaxarete]

HELLO DARKNESS, MY OLD FRIEND Pangea was nowhere near as familiar to her as the Chamber had been.  It was growing on her, to be sure, but she was more attracted to the potential that these undbaked lands held.  And it seemed that  making her plans more public had a secondary effect. She was easier to find now that she’d stepped out of the shadows and into the sun.  And with what, familiar faces had begun to appear.  This, more than anything, emboldened the shadow-mare. And it was familiarity that she detected today. She’s not surprised when she sees him. The familiar painted shape was the same from her memories. She began to close the distance immediately, even though such was unnecessary when magic flowed through their veins. Magic they had both won in the name of a kingdom that now lay dead somewhere deep beneath this new Beqanna. “Would you expect any less?” she asks in reply, a small smile blooming on dark lips.  Time was precious, even to those it does not touch. She was tired of letting such an important resource just trickle past.  She was never meant to be an observer. The shadowmare is genuinely pleased to see him, which in itself is significant.  There are few she holds in such high regard - few she has fond memories of.  Set is certainly counted among the few. As time drags on, the list dwindles.  Time has not been kind to them - those born of the old world.  But here they stand in Beqanna born anew, living and breathing as they had before. Things with Set had never been complicated.  Anaxarete luxuriated in the fact.  Too often relationships became muddled and confusing.  But the pair had never breached such territory. He was never hers to love, and she was never his.  It had been apparent from the very start. But respect? Lust? Admiration? Power? Surely that wasn’t a foundation to be scoffed at.  It was that ease that trickled back now - even after so long. “We may be creatures of the old world, but that doesn’t mean we need to sit quietly and observe, now does it?” It had been a revelation of sorts for her.  She couldn’t bring back the Chamber, nor could she fully cope with the loss of it.  The shadows had sealed the wound, made her strong.  She may as well build her own place in this strange new world than simply become a relic living within it. With her strength restored, the ambition came flooding back.  She wasn’t one to stand on the sidelines.  And she knew he wasn’t either.  Which did make her wonder why he had come.  For companionship? Or for something more? “It’s good to see you, Set,” she says, wearing the same dark smile. It was a simple sentiment, but genuine all the same. “It’s not the Chamber,” she says, inclining her head towards the somewhat stark landscape of Pangea, “But we’ll make something of this place. One day.” “We could use you.” she adds, simply, her icy gaze returning to Set’s golden eyes. The invitation is not subtle. I could use you, is what she could have said. But she knew Set better than to assume she knew his intentions. A N A X A R E T E

image credit 


YAAAAAAAS!!!
@[Set]

[Set]

Her response, wrought from dark lips his body knows carnally, draws a low chuckle of fondness. No, he does not suppose he would expect anything less from her. Bright eyes trace her shadow-ordained curves with primitive appreciation. She has not changed much; physically, both of them have been suspended in perfection, the magic augmenting what nature had already given them. The same scandalous gleam still lurks in her cold stare, its steely edge untempered by her wintry smile. It has always been effortless between them. Now, as before, slips back into the shadow queen’s presence as easily as he breathes. Old friends, old lovers - they had blurred the lines a few times, producing rather excellent offspring, but both have always remained content with what they have. At that thought, the ghosts of lovers past - the complicated, hardly comparable ones - drift in and out of his mind’s eye as he reaches down to scratch dried sweat from his muzzle. Sobered for a moment, he shakes out his coat with a low groan.

Ana has always been more ambitious than he. He had been king once, ruled the Chamber for a good part of his first life. But, the inflexibility of the throne, the demands of being king … well, winning the Alliance has given him a more entertaining means to pass the time, with all the freedom he could ever ask for. Not that he faults the shadowmage for her keenness. He admires it, in fact.

He grins at her warm ( warm for the ice queen) greeting. He had not realized how much he had missed her presence until Niklas had told him that she had returned. Stretching out, he chucks her under the chin with his own muzzle, finding her gaze with an inscrutable expression. “ I would never betray you, Ana.” He speaks the cryptic words quietly, almost absently, belied by the fierceness burning in the gold of his eyes. Almost as quickly as it has come, the seriousness is gone. His features melt into the boyish countenance she well knows. “It’s good to see you again too, wicked lamb.” He shoulders her roughly and nips at her withers playfully before wheeling away, skipping over the shadows that worship at her feet to jog deeper into the Chamber’s stead.

It is a sparse land, dotted with gnarled copses, split by a lazy river that ebbs and flows with the seasons. Stark, not nearly as forested as the kingdom they had bled for. The god’s reek still lingers in the cracks and crevices and he supposes it will always be so. Though the vegetation is scant, the canyons and bracken waters are thick with life, the hardiest of creatures not only surviving, but thriving. He might do just fine here. “Alright, sweets. You’ve convinced me.” As if it had ever been a question. He turns on her with that incorrigible grin. “What now?”