"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
Congratulations! Everyone has made it to round two!
The battle swells and rages and Castor falls. Perhaps it’s immediate, or perhaps it’s belated, but Pollux feels Castor’s death in his very soul. His brother, his twin, is dead. And he knows grief as the rest of the battle ceases to matter. He doesn’t notice the swell of his forces, their enemies beaten back. Doesn’t notice it slowly fade, victory in their hands. It does not feel like a victory.
Even if he hadn’t realized it before, he knows now that Castor had been his other half, as much a part of him as his heart. And he is gone. What had he done?
Before you Pollux falls to his knees, lifting his face as he releases his rage to the heavens. You can only watch, confused or angry or pleased as the warrior who had ridden you into battle screams at faceless, uncaring gods.
Except… are they truly uncaring?
There is a rumble overhead, a grating, unpleasant sound. It hurts your ears, but Pollux seems to understand. What they are saying is impossible to determine, but it soon becomes clear Pollux is speaking to someone. Pleading, bargaining with someone. What bargain he has made, you don’t know, but when the unintelligible voices cease, Pollux rises. He comes to you.
Tugging the bridle from your ears, he releases you. Then, bridle slipping from his fingers, he steps back and announces, “I am ready.”
Ready? Ready for what? But in a moment, it becomes clear. His entire body dissolves into the stardust. If you look where the body of his brother lay, you would see it do the same. For a moment, the two trails of stars gleam as they shoot across the sky. They twinkle as they settle into the heavens, and briefly, the outline of the twins are visible. Then they fade, obscured behind a drifting cloud.
You are left standing in a spent battlefield, the survivors drifting, those too injured to stand groaning where they fell. There had been no prisoners in this war, and the dead litter the beach liberally. You can see a small group of the victors begin to reclaim their injured. The long and awful work that comes in the aftermath of any war has begun, but you are free. Free, and left in a strange and distant land that revels in bloodshed.
Suddenly, the waves swell and bubble. The weary victors grab their swords, but when they see what rises from the depths, their swords fall to their sides and they return to work.
From the sea, something enormous scuttles. It’s meaty claws click in warning as it pokes at the bodies littering the ground all around it. It seems to ignore the living. At least, it ignores the soldiers. When it sees you however, it stops. There is a moment of silence, then a strange chitter erupts from beneath it’s beady eyes as it’s claws click madly. It skitters towards you, suddenly intent.
Without the god-granted bridle to bind you, it does not recognize you as an ally. And now it comes, angry and hungry, filled with purpose. What do you do?
Welcome to round two, my noble crab-bait! You survived the battle and watched the twins get spirited into the heavens, but now one of their allies, a massive crab, has risen from the waves and wants to end you. Without Pollux as your master, it no longer recognizes you as friend rather than foe.
Now, you must kill it. As a creature of the gods, Carcinus has only one purpose, and death is the only way to stop it. Without the bridle, you have all of your abilities back that the bridle suppressed. But beware, this is a strange magical land with gods who are not your own. Your powers will likely behave in erratic and unexpected ways.
Some notes:
You must end your post with Carcinus’ death. How he dies is up to you.
As noted above, all your powers have been returned. However, they will be wonky. In what way is up to you.
Please try to keep your posts under 1200 words (going over a little is fine, but not a lot).
Temporary defects will be given if you fail to respond. If you need to drop out, just let me know and you won’t receive a defect.
Have fun!
You have until Friday, July 16th at 11:59:59 PM CST to respond.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
Red eyes are still fixed on a horizon that no longer hold any sign of the dragon when the heavens seem to grumble above him in agony. Long pointed ears flatten against his skull as he arches his neck and looks over to Pollux, still on the ground and pleading to the skies with his brother’s helmet smoking in his hands. He’s not sure what new hell this is as the earth seems to tremble in response and then suddenly Pollux is at his side, slipping him free of the golden bridle and dropping it on the ground. Suddenly Pollux is no more as he fades into stardust, Castor’s helmet dissolving with him.
He is left in his chainmail and despite the cries of victory and loss around him, he is alone.
Obscene stands still, observing the humans trying to collect their dead or looting the corpses of those that failed to make it. What now? What was he suppose to do now? He can’t help but flick his crimson gaze back to the horizon where the dragon had gone. What had that all been about? Where had Pollux gone? Why was he still here? Whatever dream this was, he wanted to awaken. Immediately. Slowly he begins to amble down the beach, picking up his hooves to avoid the dead, as he looks for another warhorse. Maybe they might be able to answer his questions. Maybe one of the others could help him find his way home. As he searches, all around him are signs of death and he wonders why anyone would crave this kind of destruction. His trickster soul seems heavy in the wake of it all, finding no true delight when it comes to the art of war.
A clacking noise behind him makes him pause and he stops, a hoof raised, as he turns his head to see the ocean creature that breaks from the waves. It ignores the living, large claws poking at the dead and removing small strips of meat to feed. The gilded stallion shudders slightly and this seems to be enough for its eyestalks to find him. It looks upon his naked face and starts to click its claws madly, scurrying sideways across the beach in his direction. It becomes clear very quickly that its intentions are not pleasant ones as a large pincher snaps out at him and he barely dodges out of the way.
He doesn’t manage to evade the other claw completely as the dactyl cuts through the remaining chainmail and slices along his barrel. Instinct makes him draw from his power and surprisingly this time it responds. He doesn’t notice the way his blood turns to pearls and shells when it hits the sand as his skin begins to knit back together, cauterizing with a lick of fire. As if he was somehow connected to this land. What he does notice is that feeling within him, that writhing that had been missing before, as his anger and fear begin to flare again. Except something feels different this time. His insides feel hot as if he is boiling alive from the inside out. (Is this how his father had always felt with those flames lurking beneath his skin?) It’s something more than just rage and in a roar of flames the snake breaks through from his captivity of fur and hooves. A different serpent then the one he had come to know.
Each orange scale holds its own individual flame as the fire serpent wastes no time in wrapping its blazing coils around the giant sea beast, a creature of the gods fighting a creature of the gods. This snake is just as large, hungry, and venomous as the black one but he realizes with a jolt that he has some sense of himself in this one. He is aware of what’s happening, of what he is doing, of what he is. What he wants. He vaguely can hear cries on the beach as the living witness this spectacle and he catches faint words of “Demon” and “Devil” (perhaps Pollux had been right after all) as the giant serpent squeezes its opponent and hisses smoke as the crab’s pinchers seek purchase along his smoldering scales. Finding itself in a losing battle, it starts to scuttle back towards the sea and drags the inferno wrapped around it with him. Steam rises from the wet sand as the tide starts to rush up to meet them but Obscene responds by squeezing harder and harder with his thick coiled muscles. Harder and harder until the bottom-feeder stops moving and his shell begins to crack. Eventually all that’s left of the great Carcinus is roasted crab meat that spills from the shards of its splinted carapace, enough food to feed the remaining soldiers for days. A cry goes out around him as he releases his grip on his opponent (“A sign from the gods themselves! We have been blessed!”)
For once he is in control of this shift and he pulls the fire and scales back into himself until he is simply a dark stallion again, sprinkled in fine gold with the red eyes of the devil of himself. There is a cold realization that settles amongst his bones and smothers the heat around his shriveled heart. That he hadn’t minded the power. That he hadn’t minded taking control of the situation. And that he hadn’t minded taking the life of Carcinus, feeling a justified thrill as well as some worrisome guilt. It had felt good, cracking the crab open like that. Is that what it always felt like to the snake back home? If he wrapped himself around someone like Cheri's beloved Targaryen, would it feel just as good? He forces those troublesome thoughts to the very back of his mind as he dances away from the soldiers that come running towards the dead crab to collect their meal.
With a piercing whinny he rises on his haunches into a rear, his forelimbs punching the air before him, and casts a hard look around with that bloody gaze. A challenge for whatever this strange world wanted to throw at him next.
Although she certainly would have grieved similarly had it been one of her own siblings, Tirza feels no sympathy for her rider as he mourns his brother. The sky where the eagle had disappeared turns thunderous, and her bright ears flatten against her skull at the noise. A conversation that she is not privy to and cannot understand. Her eyes drift back to the earth when Pollux moves closer and her nostrils flare in annoyance. But he is not coming to ride her again. Surprise and then elation courses through Tirza when the bridle is removed and she immediately moves to snap at the stupid man, even though he was the one who just freed her. It is not enough to forgive him for trapping her here, in this strange world, but when her teeth close in his direction they only find stardust. She snorts in frustration and does not watch the twin star trails rise and dance across the sky, does not notice that the brothers have joined one another again.
Her red eyes are observing the surrounding area instead, trying to figure out what to do next. The dead and living soldiers are white noise to her - uninteresting, unimportant. Not worthy of her attention for she doubts very much that any of them will help her. They will catch her as Pollux did, bind her, and ride her as if she could not possibly wish for anything else in this life but to be a simple-minded steed.
How glad she is that whatever had stolen her here did not also take her siblings.
There is little time to form a plan, however, because something new occurs. Tirza’s attention is drawn along with everyone else’s to the sea when the waters there begin to move. She does not dance away nervously, holding her ground to watch as a massive crab emerges from the waters. A snort escapes her and then she sees the large-yet-beady eyes turn to her and it pauses its investigation of the corpses on the beach.
Fear runs through her and it is quickly followed by rage. How dare this scuttling beast inspire anything like that inside of her? Fear has no place in her heart, not any more. Not since she was a filly and decided it would do her no good.
She feels that anger course through her, bright as the colours on her coat, and can feel something inside of her stirring in response. A beast of her own - something she's only felt in fleeting glimpses here and there. Without really even thinking about it, her head morphs into that of a thylacine and her flexible jaw hangs at the full 80-degree angle it's capable of as she screams with all the ferocity burning inside of her. This is the first time she's shifted and she's not very good at it or the trait does not feel like cooperating at the moment - only her head changes completely and there are some deeper and more obvious stripes appear down her back.
Tirza moves towards the crab as it comes towards her. It is large and it is armoured but she casts out with a skill she's used dozens of times before. She grasps onto the crab's lifespan as she ducks the snapping claws and latches her thylacine jaw to a leg and pulls it apart. The crab-years sit odd with her, like eating a foul fruit, so she reverses the direction. She pushes her years, all that she had laying in front of her, and restores the youth of the monstrous beast as she tears one of its legs off.
It is a dance, avoiding the claws and staying close enough that she can work her favourite trick. She's given days here and there to Gravy, testing what it felt like, but those minor gifts are nothing like this. It drains and wears on her faster here, where perhaps horses do not live to such old ages as they do where she is from, but as she feels herself begin to wither she sees the crab shrink as its youth is restored.
Grey hairs mottle her not-as-bright coat by the time that crab becomes small enough that she can stomp on it with her hooves - crushing it into the wet, battle-packed sand. Her thylacine mouth pants as she looks around, drained and weary, latching onto two of the strange men and pulling their youth from them to restore hers. This pair that had been only trying to limp away to safety crumple as they age but she doesn't notice or care. Like the crab years, these lives of men do not sit easy with her and she is still older than when she began. But she does not feel so frail and that is enough while she gives the nasty near-infant crab a few more strikes for good measure.
07-16-2021, 12:35 PM (This post was last modified: 07-16-2021, 12:35 PM by Chel.
Edit Reason: fixed bold tag
)
Chel lands smoothly on the beach, safely away from the action, allowing Pollux a moment alone with his grief. She has no full siblings, but she can understand this pain. So, she remains quiet as the man sinks to his knees, overwhelmed. It is peaceful for a heartbeat. Maybe two. And then there is a great rumbling from the heavens that even garners the attention of the Hydra. All eyes turn skyward as Pollux does something beyond Chel’s comprehension. She suppresses the urge to step backwards as he approaches – but finds herself surprised when he removes the bridle. Before she can do anything in way of reaction – she again hears the Hydra scream. The beast thrashes as it backs into the water, retching as it spits up what looks like stardust. Her eyes widen as she watches, and her gaze flicks over to Pollux. She thinks she sees a smile on his face before he, too, dissolves into stars.
The Hydra continues to shriek in fury and pain, retreating into the sea in a fit of foam and bubbles. On the shore, the men let out a small cheer before returning to their duties – helping their wounded and clearing the beach of the dead. Chel can do nothing but watch the angry sea – still bubbling and churning following the Hydra’s departure. She lets her mind wander for a moment – wondering how the hell she’d managed to find herself in this situation. She heaves out a breath deciding that she needs to potentially find a way to get home, her attention returns to the sea. Because the sea is still bubbling. And if her eyes aren’t deceiving her it’s bubbling more than it was before. Before she can even complete the thought, a spray of water explodes across the beach.
Her first thought is that they Hydra had returned. But it isn’t the Hydra that descends upon the beach. In its place, the biggest crab she’d ever seen emerged from the waves. The creature seems to make its way directly towards where Chel stands on the beach – clicking its large claws while making the strangest noise. The thing completely ignores all of the men but seems intent on making a meal of her. ”Shit,” is all that escapes her as she takes a step back and manages to launch herself into the sky as the thing makes its way to her with impressive speed. But Chel can feel something has changed since she’s been freed of the bridle. The familiar tingle of her magic in the back of her mind. ”Well this evens the odds a little bit!” she says, triumphantly as she wheels around to face the crab head on.
The crab raises its claws and again makes the awful chittering sound. Chel knows that hooves won’t do a damn thing against that shell and that the claws are big enough to cause major damage to her wings if she gets too close. But she’s an adept shifter and there are plenty of things in her arsenal that she could employ in this battle. She smirks as she turns to face the crab head on, deciding in advance when she gets close enough to one of those claws she’ll shift into something small enough to slip past it’s grasp and access areas that were less protected. She takes a deep breath and as she chooses her shape – a yellow headed amazon – and just at the right moment she shifts…
…and collides headfirst with the giant claw.
Something had misfired, that’s for damn sure. Because she certainly hadn’t shifted into a 10 inch bird. Instead she was standing as a very large, nearly horse size bird. So, while her shifting was back…it was clearly on the fritz. She let out a very ladylike squawk as she managed to jump away from the crab’s claws and legs and return to the sky – shifting back into her horse form and returning to a safe altitude while shaking off the shock and pain from colliding at speed with the crab. Chel didn’t have a lot of time to problem solve – but she needed to figure out her shifting quickly or she was going to become dinner for a crustation and that really wasn’t on her list of preferential ways to die. So a stealthy approach hadn’t worked. Clearly the time for subtlety was gone.
She wheeled again and this time, landed upon the beach at a full gallop far enough from the crab that if this didn’t work, she could bail out without becoming a tasty treat. This time, she was going for power – so she shifted into a white rhinoceros. However, this time when she shifted – her rhinoceros was about the size of medium dog. “Damnit, this isn’t going to work either,” she said, again shifting back into her equine form.
“So small is big and big is small,” she said aloud. The crab impatiently stamped its legs in the surf = splashing both water and sand alike as it prepared to charge. But then the idea settled in Chel’s mind.
Was it reckless?
Hell yeah.
Was she doing it anyway?
Also yes.
So she charged. It continued to chitter and move side to side so Chel adjusted course appropriately. When she was finally near enough to smell the algae that lived on its back, the crab swung a giant claw at her and when it did – she shifted once more. This time into a tiger, only the dysfunction with her magic meant that she was house cat sized instead of hundreds of pounds. She grabbed at the claw with her paws and used her feline agility and balance to leap from claw to shell to the ground beneath the creature – safely out of sight.
Then she performed her final shift – shifting into an octopus beneath the creature – and taking full advantage of her on the fritz magic. If he could be giant, so could she. So from under the belly of the beast rose a horse-sized octopus, clinging to the most vulnerable part of its shell. The octopus was the natural enemy of the crab. Chel had seen them pull much, much smaller crabs out of tide pools on a regular basis. This was sort of like that only…bigger and more magical? She held fast to the creature and speared it’s underside with the sharp beak of the Octopus. At the same time she wrapped the strong tentacles around the arms containing claws – seeking to remove the weaponized arms from the beast. She felt the satisfying pop when the limbs gave way and discarded the now harmless claws, moving to the next set of legs and the next until only the shell remained.
The crab made horrible noises as she rid it of its legs and the beak opened up its underbelly. She tried to ignore the awful taste, but was more focused on surviving the encounter at this point. She was so single-mindedly focused on destroying the creature that she didn’t pay attention to the fact that she removed the last two legs sending the body of the crab down atop her octopus body. With a huff she used the strong tentacles to turn the beast over, leaving the exoskeleton upside down in the surf. The beak had made quick work of the underbelly of the beast and upon seeing the injury she knew that the crab was no more.
She finally felt safe enough to shift back into her own form again, but all she can do is stare and watch as the body of the crab rocks in the surf and wish she had fresh water to wash the briny taste of crab out of her mouth.
Guilt is such a vicious thing. Gravitas knows this, though he does not know the depth of the well that opens in his rider’s gut as they charge back toward the battle. He does not know the pitch of the clarity that steals through Pollux as he pulls his mount up short there on the beach.
(Pollux turns his gaze back to the ridge.
What has he done?
The battle continues to rage on the shore, swelling, but he can no longer hear it. The cacophony falls by the wayside as he looks to the place where his brother fell.
What had seized him? What bitter, putrid jealousy had grabbed him by the throat, manipulated his hand? His head swims as he slips from his mount’s back.)
Gravitas skitters backward, trembling, red eyes rolling as Pollux hits his knees in the sand. He watches, gasping, as the man throws back his own head and lets out a savage cry. It occurs to him then that perhaps he does not understand the whims of men and his skin glints with diamonds as Pollux weeps.
(“Please,” Pollux cries at the heavens, head thrown back, hot tears cutting rivers down his dirty cheeks.
“Take me,” he begs, his fingers curled into his chest, as if he might reach into his chest and pull out his still-beating heart. As if he might somehow replace his brother.
And then he rises, chest heaving, and releases his mount. One last mercy, his penance.)
Gravitas watches him retreat, watches him dissolve. He is free and his rider is presumably dead, stardust. He blinks, turning to survey the bloody stretch of beach. The battle has ceased, nothing left here but the dead and a few stragglers, riderless horses. No one pays him any mind, concentrating instead on their work as they comb through the dead in search of survivors.
He is paralyzed by indecision. How does he get home? He does not have time to decide before the seas begin to swell and something surfaces. Something monstrous, heinous, wretched. Something with its terrible eyes trained on him. His pulse jumps and he shuffles backward as fast as his feet will carry him, stumbling, clumsy, panicked.
For the first time since he awoke in this nightmare, he wishes the man were here to guide him, to provide him with some direction. What a coward he is, Gravitas. Dreadful thing coated in diamonds that will do nothing for him now. There is nothing he can do except run, he realizes. So, he turns and races up the beach but the crab gives chase. The crab’s strides are massive and it occurs to Gravitas that he will be outrun in a matter of minutes.
He will die.
So, he surrenders.
For the first time in his life, he will not be a coward. He stops, turns. He will face his death head-on. The crab is upon him in seconds, sweeping him up in an enormous claw. The crab tries to crush him, but he is indestructible, the diamonds unyielding beneath the claw’s crushing grip. So the crab pushes him into its mouth and Gravitas sucks in a large breath as he’s swallowed down, realizing suddenly that perhaps there is hope for him after all.
He tumbles down into the crab’s stomach, desperately holding his breath, tumbling, disoriented. It is dark but he swims through the acid and the bile, heart hammering, listening hard for the origin point of the crab’s own heart. And when he finds the wall of the crab’s stomach, he kicks with everything he has. He hammers at it with his hooves and his diamond crusted head, tearing at it with all of his might until it begins to give. He digs viciously for the heartbeat, desperate for the sound, wanting so terribly to sink his teeth into the meat of it. His lungs seize and spasm with the effort and his temples throb but the wall of the stomach finally ruptures and he tumbles through into the heart.
He knows that he cannot relent. He does not have the luxury of time. He continues his assault, flailing wildly against the beating muscle as viciously as he can until the beating stops and he can feel the shock of the crab’s body hitting the beach ripple through the cavernous insides.
But this is not a victory yet, he knows, because the only way he knows to get out is the way he came in. His lungs ache with their want for air and he must find his way back through the hole he’d punched through the wall of the stomach and back up into the mouth. He had resigned himself to death only moments earlier but he is desperate to live now that there is some small glimmer of hope. He feels blindly for the opening he’d made for himself between the stomach and the heart and his own heart leaps when he finds it and forces his way through it, trying to remember his way back to the mouth. Had it been straight across? Had there been some strange turn? Would it be easier to hug the wall of the stomach until he found another soft spot and forced his way through?
He opts to stick close to the stomach’s lining lest he get turned around trying to find his way across. He can feel his consciousness beginning to soften as he feels his way around, everything beginning to fade before finally, mercifully, he finds his way out. He barely has any strength at all left as he struggles his way back into the mouth, using his diamonds to his advantage to force his way out. The crab had fallen with its mouth parted and he can see a slip of bright sky as he sucks in a world-swallowing breath and staggers back out into the world, swaying on his feet as he blinks himself back to consciousness and turns to look at the monstrous thing.
None of the figures further down the beach have even looked up.
I need you to be a monster which is to say, I am trying not to love you
He has almost tuned out Pollux’s grief. Maybe it’s callous – this is the man Rapt served, his temporary master, should he not grieve alongside him? – but Rapt is so damn tired, and so the wailing and gnashing of teeth blends with the sound of the waves as endless, tuneless noise. Rapt keeps looking out to sea. To that floating monster.
There is a hand on his neck. Pollux. He looks like a different man, now, grief having laid its infinite weight on him. Pollux’s hand reaches up and frees the bridle from Rapt’s head, lets it drop into the ocean.
Shame, that. It had been a lovely thing, and Rapt had worn it well. He grieves that more than he does Castor, which he knows, faintly, is a blasphemous thing. But Castor had not mattered to Rapt. Castor had slit his mount’s throat to chum the waters for a beast who couldn’t even manage to kill him.
Pollux gasps, then, a small, sharp intake of breath. Rapt can’t tell if it’s joy or pain – maybe both – because he looks over and Pollux is changing, dissolving, and at their feet Castor’s body is doing the same. From skin to stardust, Rapt watches this transformation, watches the twin trails of light take off for the sky. This is impossible, thinks Rapt, as he watches the stars settle in the sky, resting above the still floating body of a monster.
Rapt steps out of the ocean, finally. He is so much heavier on the beach. Sand sticks to his damp skin. He realizes faintly that his healing has returned, and the wound on his neck has scabbed over. But the healing can do nothing for his exhaustion, for his loss.
The bridle washes to shore at his feet. He touches it. It feels like the only tangible thing left, maybe.
He looks back out, still drawn to the slain monster.
Except it is gone.
Instead, the waves are churning again, frothing, and Rapt thinks oh, it’s alive.
Thinks, oh, this was all for nothing.
But it is not the previous monster who rises from the sea, it is a new beast. Its claws knock out their warning, and Rapt thinks of rattlesnakes. He’d nearly stepped on one, once, and when the air filled with its knell a strange feeling had rushed over his skin, the adrenaline of skirting so close to something so deadly.
The feeling now is not so potent – he has already faced so much death – but adrenaline fills him nonetheless, because this strange beast has locked its beady eyes on him, and is moving closer.
To be clear – Rapt is not a fighter. All his life, he has preferred to wear the bruises rather than give them. He knows nothing of how to wield his body like a weapon, to make use of the paltry tools he is equipped with.
(For he has no powers, save for the ability to heal himself. And even that is weak, here – his wound had already reopened, as if the magic cannot maintain its hold.)
Rapt is not a fighter but he is not yet ready to be a corpse, either – not like this, at least – so when the crab swipes a heavy claw at him he jerks his body backward. It’s clumsy, and part of it still thuds heavy against his chest. It doesn’t break skin, but he already feels the bruise of it.
The crab moves again, pursuing him. He tries to call for help, but the war-worn soldiers who remain don’t seem to recognize his words, they only stare curiously at the spectacle of it.
Rapt runs back into the carnage of the battlefield. The crab follows, claws still clacking. Rapt moves as quickly as he can, worn by the exhaustion. He is still more nimble than the crab, but he knows he will tire soon, he will have to stop and make some final stand.
(Is that better, then? To stand and face death head on, rather than collapse before it, no longer able to run?)
Every breath is hell. His lungs are burning, the intensity of it strong enough that he imagines he smells smoke. It takes several more strides of this before he realizes it’s not a fantasy, and there is smoke drifting at the edge of the battlefield, the pyre built for dead soldiers. The smallest spark ignites in his mind, and Rapt moves to the smoke. He can see the fire now, smell the stench of smoke and burning flesh, and he makes his final sprint.
He makes it to the pyre and the crab is behind him, chittering louder now. Rapt faces it for a moment, lets its eye lock on him, make a target of him. It charges.
Rapt thinks god, I hope this thing is stupid, and leaps into the pyre.
(Drowning doesn’t always look like drowning. Burning alive always looks like what it is.)
Flames lick over his skin, singeing hair and flesh, and he keeps running, moving through the flames, stumbling over the kindling, the bodies, and he doesn’t look back, he runs, and every step seems to take an hour, and maybe he’s aflame, maybe he’s burning, and he thinks he might give anything to drown.
And then he is out of the flames and there is a scream behind him, the flames eager on the crab’s flesh, catching hold. Rapt’s own blistered skin begins to heal, but in an ebb and flow, the magic still scrabbling to work on him.
But the crab is burning. It emits a horrible, high-pitched noise, an aching noise of unmistakable agony. It is out of the pyre but still burning, still making that horrible scream.
Rapt watches it with a queer fascination. There is a soft thud as its charred body hits the earth. It is quiet, now.
Rapt turns, and begins to walk back to the ocean.
which is to say, I am still dreaming of kissing your claws
Aela had heard him pleading to his Gods and Aela had watched because she has always been a curious thing.
Will they heed him, she wonders?
And if they did, why?
She is still bridled; the bit feels foreign in her mouth. The palomino had thought that once he had jumped off her back that she would leave him. She would go and find a way to rid herself of all these horrid contraptions. But Pollux is crying - bargaining with something - and it beckons Aela to take a step towards the kneeling man and the still corpse of his fallen brother. The sound that follows grates on her gilded ears and they flick back into her mane again as she lifts her refined head. Pollux comes towards her and while Aela pins him with her fierce blue eyes, she lets him approach in hopes of learning what kind of pact he had made with the source of Magic nearby. (Aela knows whatever it is, is a powerful being; she knows it is there but she can feel nothing from it. The feeling of an odd sort of sentience but there are no permeable emotions for Aela to sink in her Magic into.)
"I am ready," Pollux says and Aela flares her pale nostrils, jerking her head back as his deft fingers untie the bridle. His lean shoulders have sagged and he motions towards the slender mare like he might pat her neck as Pollux's skin starts to glow with starshine. The hue of an Immortal. Her eyes widen, revealing an edge of white as she gazes out. He looks back to his twin - Castor - who shares a matching shine and then the pair dissolve, undertaking a journey that is only revealed as Aela looks up to the sky.
Castor and Pollux become written in the stars.
And Aela - the fiery mount of Pollux - stands on a battlefield, reeking of sweat, blood, and shit.
There had never been any doubt in her mind that she would survive, but what was she to do now? This was not Beqanna. This place was strange, and the more time that Aela spent here, the more she was coming to loathe it. She needed to get back home, needed to figure out a way back to the world she knew -
Some time passes. A few of the men have started to gather the bodies that litter the beach. Some have started to slap each other across their backs in congratulation, others raise their blood-covered swords to their brethren as they pass by each other. They are all looking towards the tents in the distance, where they will receive their due in wine and women; the reprieve they might find in both. Aela turns her head, eyeing the camp as a possibility for answers when the ocean churns angrily. Something rises from its depth - a familiar creature that she has seen on the shores of Ischia. But never this large. She's never seen anything quite like it before, the way that it crawls towards one corpse. One claw reaches down and prods at the human as a vulture plucks at carrion and bile burns at the back of Aela's throat.
Scavengers have always disgusted her.
The men pay it no mind, which she finds odd. Have they encountered this thing before? Is this creature not terrifying to them? (And doesn't that lead Aela down a dangerous trail of thoughts: if they do not fear this mammoth beast with claws, what did they fear? Are there things more terrifying than this monster?) The two stalks atop his head move and the beady-black eyes lock on her as Aela tried to move away. There is little light as the day dies and stars emerge overhead (though the constellation of the twins remained hidden behind storm clouds). Her stripes - the only part of her not covered in mud or blood - glisten and the beast makes a noise.
Her first instinct is to hide her glow. But as it grows darker, Aela becomes brighter. Her stripes, her white socks, the proud blaze on her lovely face - all radiate with a kind of silver-blue light that doesn't dim no matter how hard she tries. It makes her a target and the giant clawed beast moves towards her, its pincers declaring their intent.
The next instinct that comes is to run.
(No matter how she fights it, Aela does share the age-old intuition that says run in the face of danger.)
But Aela wills herself to be bigger than that.
To better than the generations of her kin that might have cowered from such a terror.
First, she casts her emotions out like a web. Aela hopes to catch some of the two-legged creatures on it and then use anger to encourage them to attack the crab. If they could pick up their spears and draw their swords, they might be useful to the empath. But even free of Pollux's damned bridle, her powers do nothing. A few of the men glance their way but the large crustacean is no concern of theirs. It moves forward in an erratic-like dance, driving her towards the waves, and the palomino tosses her head. She tries darting to one side of it but the monster uses its bulk to block her and reaches forward again with a claw. Back, and back, and back, they go. She keeps trying to find a way around the crab but there is always a claw swiping at her from the encroaching darkness.
A wave surges past her pasterns and then her hocks and finally, the water reaches her girth. The crab chitters again and Aela tries to feel any emotion at all, to press it away with something like despair or dismay. It pauses a moment and then furiously swipes at her. This time it comes too close and sends Aela reeling beneath the waves.
Sends her and her emotions sinking deep.
Something stirs.
She can feel it. Something ancient, large, and... destructive. Unlike the thing from the world above, it can sense her magic. Her desperation to reach the surface drives it as well and one long arm propels from the murky depths followed by another and then another. It is curious as to what she is and deciding to take the risk, Aela reciprocates the feeling. Come, she thinks, beckoning this strange being like she might a friend with her mind. She can feel it following her to the surface and one tentacled limb breaks free just as Aela's head does. The still-glowing horse is gasping for air and the crab - having not given up on his hunt - can clearly see her struggling in the surf.
It only stills because of what looms behind her.
Those arms reach out, past Aela and towards the crustacean.
In a matter of moments, the Kraken rises out of the water and wraps itself around her attacker. The sound of breaking shell crackles like thunder while Aela weakly manages her way through the shallows back to the beach while her new friend enjoys its favorite meal, crab.
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aela tries using her empathy on the crab, it fails. while almost drowning, she does a volcan mind-meld thing with the kraken; they become insta-bff's and he gets to eat carcinus, as a treat.
She is dead-weight on Castor’s crushed body, though the magic of her flesh makes her seem light. The mangled shapes of his shattered limbs where they lie disorganized beneath her are visible between her ribs, and between the blades of her shoulders whose bright glow slowly fades with each minute that ticks by, the edges of the spearhead that killed them both glint like cruel mockery in the harsh, flickering, light of bodies burning on pyres.
Sintra does not hear Pollux’s bargaining, no longer hidden within the bounds of her skin. The growl of thunder reverberates in stilled muscles and the taste of lightning that flavors the air sets flyaway strands of her mane and tail to dancing in the air like living things, but there’s no consciousness left to notice, only bright blood seeping slow as molasses from her nostrils and the hole in her chest. Sintra does not notice the bridle pulled roughly from her head, nor the way Pollux and Castor dissolve away to stardust like smoke, mortal and immortal set against the darkening arc of the sky. She does not feel the way the spear in her breast dissolves, leaving a golden scar.
For Sintra, there is only nothingness. Until there isn’t. Until, from that golden scar, a bolt shatters the nothingness to pieces and Life floods in, washing the peace away. The smell of burning bodies floods in, of dried blood and fear, the sobbing moans of men who lay dying, praying to gods that don’t answer them. The burning shock of Life stabbing through her chest sends her reeling back to wayward, coltish, legs that buckle and twist and stumble over rock and bone and lost bits of armor. Her gasping adds to the cacophony of this spent battlefield, draws attention from the victors as they pick and stab their way through the dead, as they add more bodies to the wicked flames and the greasy black smoke churning up into the sky blots out the bright gleam of a new constellation. The men gesture with their hands when, on still-shaky legs, she passes by. Cursed, they call her, and the little ghost-mare can only agree, though when they see her seem to understand them, they only fear her more. Demon, they cry, and throw stones to chase her away.
Rainbow light pours form her shimmering skin and the rocks skim across it in a shower of colorful sparks, but she feels each blow in her pierced heart just as if they bruised her flesh instead. There are no kind words, no gentle touches to be found here (and Sintra is not sure why she would expect them, except that her heart is a broken thing full of longing,) and she pulls back, out of range from their simple projectiles.
Dejection makes her hooves feel heavy, even as she shakes off the last shadowy remnants of death. Sintra pauses at the water’s edge with her head slung low. The salt on her lips could be water, or sweat, or tears. The battle had given her purpose, but it’s gone again, like a dream that she can’t quite hold on waking, and there’s nothing now but homesickness for a land that was never a home and the loneliness that is her constant companion. Even the water seems to draw back, away from her, evading her touch. The sea recedes, revealing the horrors of its shallows where tiny crabs devour the men and horses and the occasional hound, and Sintra, raised well away from the seas and knowing nothing of the water’s moods, only lifts her head curiously and takes a forward step like a question.
The water recedes and the horizon becomes a mountain, a massive mound of salmon-red, of horned shell gleaming in the final burning light of day, and she, foolish girl, is too dumbfounded to move. A sound like scratching and bubbles accompanies the disappearance of the scavenging crabs, beneath the sand as the king of them all rushes headlong to land. He feeds on the bodies left in the shallows, devouring them (and any of the small crabs too slow or stupid to hide,) plucking them apart with huge, tearing, pincers as if they were not whole men, as if horseflesh were frail as autumn leaves, and Sintra, also too stupid, too slow, watches with fresh horror as his attention land on her.
He might be forgiven for not realizing she is alive, with her glassy flesh and her bones, and that heart that clenches harder and faster than the stillness of her body suggests.
He’s coming for her, each leg a piercing dagger in the sodden sand. Sintra shudders in response to the chittering, to the ecstatic bubbles bursting ardently from his mouth, and she, as repulsed and beguiled as the frothing sea that swirls around him, does not wait for him to reach her. All the adrenaline and the fight that burned in her heart during the battle is gone, she is tired and she is alone, and if this is death, Sintra will not fight it, now, not even as the larger of his two claws closes over her and he lifts her to a dizzying height. The smaller, thinner claw, the poking, prodding, cutting claw, is a dagger through the flesh of her shoulder. Someone is screaming, but she isn’t sure who. That rainbow light curls out of her skin again, but instead of protecting, it bubbles and foams and falls and the lucky dead watch with gaping mouths as he plucks her to pieces, the scent of her living flesh driving him mad.
It’s okay, she thinks, a final thought in a foggy brain, full of death’s reeling shadows again, and she tries to smile at her murderer, as if to say she knows; they are all the toys of the gods.
This death takes an eternity, but she marvels distantly at the way she feels no concern, no pain, when he tears away some tender piece of her, and she does not bother to watch it disappear into the narrow chasm of his mouth.
I forgive you.
She does not see how the water boils where her blood joins it, where it mixes with the iridescent foam that remains of her rainbows. She does not see when the ocean revolts against him, how the half-eaten Dead rise up, each wearing a thin film of seawater and rainbows and blood. They run and limp and crawl towards their devourer at an impossible pace, climbing and scrabbling, biting and tearing, until he is so coated with relentless attackers that he drops her in a rage and tries to flee, but they rip him to pieces with all the inexorable tenacity of Death.
Finally, from her bed in the shallows, she sees, and she would frown if shecould, but there’s no feeling in her lips, anymore, there are only the screams and the terror from the Men behind her. Poseidon! they shout and their voices are tinged with fear. Carcinus is Hera’s, not his, and the Sea God will always favor horses.
I’m sorry, she thinks, and she is, for a moment, but then there’s nothing, again.
Oh, you forgotten beast. You terrible, jealous creature. If you had known the outcome of your jealousy, would you have changed your course? Would you have carried Pollux safely at Castor's side?
No, Galadriel, you would not have. For the jealousy that turns your throat into a volcano of erupting emotion tells you that you would have made sure Castor died, had the thought occurred to you. Even now, as you watch Pollux's wails with rapt attention, you crave such passionate emotion. You almost wish you were dead so that he might mourn you. (Never mind that he would never mourn you as he mourns his twin. Even such a valiant horseman takes beasts for granted.)
It reminds you of the lackluster emotion you felt. Of the mother that tried desperately to understand you. The siblings that could not help. You are as helpless to your emotions as Pollux is to the will of the gods. For a moment, you understand. You feel so deeply the grief, the loss. You know that what your master is feeling is beyond what you can see.
But it doesn't matter. You are lost in it.
"Oh, please. Please, return me to my brother. Please, return me to my twin. I am nothing without him. What is an immortal without pleasures, without a will live for all eternity? He was my other half. My soul has been torn asunder. I cannot be. I cannot be without him."
The cries fall on deaf ears. You stand numbly as Pollux removes your bridle. The weight of obedience, the utter heaviness, it leaves as the metal removes itself from you tongue. You lap lazily at the roof of your mouth. You think, quietly and entirely to yourself, Is this it? This blood, these vessels, the familiar flavor of want and hunger . . . Is that all there is? Naked, now, you are alone. The stars return to the sky. Was that all they ever were? Just stars? Imagination? Was your quiet cohesion just some simple will of the gods?
You hardly register the monster as it rises from the sea. Clicking claws, gnawing hunger. You have been like it. You are like it. Wanting bloodied flesh, the diminished version of complexity in its rawest form. It doesn't notice you for now. You watch as it rummages in the vestiges of war. There is nutrition in blood, in dying passion. The crab, vulture-like in its hunting, picks apart what is left of Pollux and Castor. Or the emptiness of thoughtless violence. You wonder if it has hunted greater things, if its feasts are more magnificent than the bodies that are just that now: vessels void of passion, mere meat and bone.
But you cannot wonder for long, no. The creature wants you, now. Hunts you, now, Galadriel. And what will do, dear desperate and empty girl? What is it that you will do, without your power? You have no bridle, no master. You bend to what you once were, sweet Galadriel. You remember the crying girl, the power that lies within. The magic you forgot you wielded.
With a scream, a guttural cry that sounds like a horse to mortal ears but a lesson to the divine: you screech. You fall to the earth as the beach tears in two. You have no control of the living beings that fall in the cracks, the endless and inevitable cries of man. Both living and dead fall to the whims of your terribly pained fancy. As the crab rushes you, swipes a claw to your side and knocks you fully to the ground, you sob. The crack in the earth, one that in your true reality would be just a mere illusion, swallows all that may defy.
It swallows the monster. A creature so dear to the gods you feel their rage as you lay there, on your side, heaving. The gods love their monsters for that is what makes the mortals so obedient, so patient. You erase what makes them lay down offerings in an instant, on a pained, screeching whim. It was never about the physical battle, no. You're convinced this is about your transgressions. The gods want you to learn about your immortal might, your magical wit. How dare you end their sweet leviathan?
Are you not one of them, Galadriel? The thought echoes in your mind as your sides rise and fall in desperate repetition.
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