"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
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
There is nothing but the cool darkness against his scales.
Nothing but varying shades of gray and shadows seen through those slitted pupils set in bright red diamond eyes.
A tongue tests the air, forked and thin.
This way. A sixth sense that seems to speak to that overwhelming hunger.
This way. This way.
This way.
The rustle of dry crumpled leaves. The soft hiss of breath. Gold and black, smooth and damp. Thick chorded muscles that curl and extend.
This way. This way.
This way.
There is never enough. Fangs slipping through buttery skin, gushing blood, snapping bones. It's not enough, it never ends.
The craving intensifies, that tongue darting quickly, sensing for direction. And there, in the corner of a bloody eye, there is the light in the shadows. He can’t make out its shape, blurry but warm. Oh so very warm. He can smell the blood. Warm, wet, dewy.
Fresh.
It wants it. It craves it,
It needs it.
With a hiss the large serpent coils around and on itself, raising its slick ebony head over the blurry shape. A deer, a fresh kill. Where was its hunter? Why had the feast been abandoned? That forked tongue tentatively tastes the air again, looking for a threat. When it finds none, it lunges for the bleeding corpse, for the sweet release to this never-ending hunger.
obscene
*Currently in shifted state as a very very giant black mamba type snake. Mood: Hunting*
It is an ugly thing, horrible. Not the beast itself, whose black scales gleam dark and bright at once like the wide empty gloss of her own near-black eyes. No, it is not the snake that is terrible but the Hunger and the violence of its feasting. Bone and sinew crack and blood pulses from the deer's nostrils and mouth, cherry bright, like holly berries, where it drips to the snowy earth. Still, the Child watches.
She does not flinch or tremble, no. Not her, not the Everchild of Pangea. Soot still clings to the nearly-transparent curls of her tail, the ashes of her own body, burnt to dust and cinder, and she steps into the dappled light curious, drawing noisy, deep draughts of air through delicate nostrils. Fear. She feels it, but not like the Others. It is hunger needing to be fed, parched soil begging for rain, and she is the storm.
The doe had been afraid. It was what drew the filly in closer to her, the taste of that fear, the shape of it screaming unformed in the depths of the cervid's mind. She had given the nightmare shape as a Medium gives ghosts a voice, and the blood is cherry bright, like holly berries, where it splashed across her snowy breast.
What do world-eating snakes fear? Do they fear empty little children with dark eyes, as her mother did? Do they fear claws or beaks or red-eyed grey stallion-gods? Perhaps an endless winter; she has never been The Cold before. What is the shape of such a thing? Hunger stirs her eager bones, too, the Magic woven into them yearns to take a different shape. It is something they have in common, perhaps, the Child and the Beast.
Don't look back, nothing left to see I can feel you though, wake me from this dreamin
Blood drips down sleek scales, dark red blending into black and gold. The Serpent unhinges it jaws, it wastes no time in devouring this morsel of meat that’s been left for it. There is only the cracking of bones, the soft sounds of swallowing, as the overgrown snake begins to consume the corpse whole.
Something is watching but the Serpent is busy.
Not enough. Not enough.
The blood is still warm where it oozes against the back of its throat. The doe works its way further and further and for a moment…. For a moment.
Peace.
It never lasts. Hunger is never Satisfied.
More.
It calls. MORE.
Like chasing an elusive high, the Beast can’t ever find a stopper to this craving. Nothing can fill this Hunger.
It wants it. It needs it.
It needs more.
Forked tongue tastes the air again and this time… Something warm. Something close. Slowly the snake curls in on itself as it turns towards the source of the smell. Small. White. Blood. It tastes again. Yes, blood and ash and all things good. Somewhere beneath the scales, something stirs and the Hunger is quick to smother it.
Just one more morsel. Just a little snack.
Dessert.
The Serpent considers The Child, still moving its jaws as the last meal finally settles. The Child wonders what might it fear and the answer would be surprising to the Child. A simple word. Her.
This is not Her and the Hunger is calling.
Slithering through damp leaves and cold snow, unblinking red find glossy dark. Almost as black as the scales that slide against hard earth as the Serpent begins to curl around the Child. There is warmth beneath the fur, it doesn’t mind the bitter taste of ash. Tasting the air again, that pulse of life.
Need it.
Want it.
There is a second where it seems the Serpent smiles down at The Child. It isn’t of course. Just a brief pause where its mouth begins to open, revealing the fangs hidden there as it releases its venom in the moment before it attacks.
For a long time, the Child had one shape. It was natural, at first, frail and white, pink-skinned, knobby-kneed, with eyes like black pools and a pelt full of curls. Her dam line is written across every inch of her, along with innocence, dependence; it was that last item that the pallid mare feared most, the responsibility. Starlust's daughter gives no careful thought to the fear that caged her into this delicate shape, not even to consider that it was that formative time that trapped her in what appeared to be a defenseless body.
But not entirely defenseless. No, after all, the Everchild is her father's daughter.
The Mother rarely spoke to her, and when she did, a response was unnecessary, so the Child rarely speaks. When Draco found her at the River, more enchantment than equine, she had simply parroted his own words back - or stole them from the image of his dying sister-love that she found in some crevice of his heart, spitting his name out along the river of lifeblood that poured from her mouth. The Snake, like the Mother, does not speak to her, and so it does not occur to the Child to cry for mercy or for help when the creature coils tightly around her, when he grins at her and plunges great fangs into the porcelain skin at her throat. There is no resistance, there is only The Game.
The magic that changes her bones is tricky. Some of Them are afraid of concepts, not things. Sometimes their fears are hidden well behind their own powerful magics, or behind cold and unnatural instincts. She must guess, and guessing is an imperfect art, but so many are afraid of the same things, really. It is not exciting to become simply a larger version of what she already is, not even for someone that cannot become that shape naturally. However, like the insatiable Hunger of the Snake, the Child's soft bones are not choosy. A mare of black and green is still a new face to wear, even if it is not an exciting one. Her blood-spattered chest turns raven-black, her neck willowy, lithe and long - a touch too narrow. She's been ill, perhaps, but getting better, slowly, slowly. But for that illness, she might be strong enough to break free from the bonds, to neutralize the toxin coursing her veins, but she is not, and so she can only turn her green eyes to his red ones. There is no fear there (of course, the Everchild does not fear Death, but she is a masterful actor when the magic is right) because there is no fear in the mare's love, only ferocity.
An accident. It's an accident, of course, it's their bad luck - his bad luck. Built up only to fall again and again. The scent of lilies and rainwater softly lingers in the cool air around them while the minutes tick closer to death. Failure after failure - parents, kingdom, lover, ah! Can he pick himself up from failing her? There is so much hidden away in the corners of Fear that cannot be easily shaped, but it's there, in the forgiveness in her bright eyes as they dull and grow heavy-lidded, and in the rueful smile on her lips before she presses them numbly to the side of that black mouth brought them here.
Don't look back, nothing left to see I can feel you though, wake me from this dreamin
Pulsing. Squeezing. The delicious movement of bones shifting against straining muscle and coiled scales. The Serpent is pleased how the prey does not resist, doesn’t try to run or struggle, the poison released into her bloodstream and Death will be quick to follow. It doesn’t register what is happening, bones usually shift, bend, break when the Serpent wraps itself around them.
Devour. Hungry.
Not until eyes of red search the face of The Child (looking for the tell-tale signs of poison at work) and finds a different face instead. There is a rumble deep within the snake. Like thunder. Lilies and rain. Those green eyes. The squeezing stops. The Serpent is confused, something is wrong. And that is wrong in itself, it only knows the Hunger. Not confusion.
It’s not coming from the Serpent but from the Fae thing that it constantly tries to smother and trick into forgetting. Scales fall away. Click, click, click. Rushed, panicked. There is only forgiveness in her gaze, alarm in his own, when she presses a kiss to his mouth that is no longer serpentine but his own. There is no indifference, no mask. Just pure unadulterated horror written along the lines of glittering gold, etched in every crevice of his face as he looks at Cheri, the fang marks on her dark neck, and instantly knows that he is responsible.
His worst fear come to life.
He steps to her, to hold her to him when she is bound to collapse, and presses his muzzle to the wounds he had made as his golden light seeps beneath her skin and seeks to undo the damage he had caused. In the back of his mind, he thinks of what had happened between him and Rosemary. A kiss with fangs. That had been a sign and he hadn’t listened.
He was truly losing control if he had attacked her.
“Stay with me.” He pleads, a low whisky tone that’s raw and gruff with grief and remorse where its murmured against her dark skin. He throws the full weight of his healing power into the mare, into his mate, and closes his eyes so that he will not accidentally find that forgiveness that he doesn’t deserve. Can he pick himself up after she is gone, when he is responsible? No. He cannot. "Stay with me." Every word broken beneath the weight of his guilt.
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