"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
He always seemed to return to this place of shadows beneath the thick boughs of stout trees. Though each time it never smelled of the wolves, he still passed through with his nose to the air and earth in hopes of their unlikely return. Again, it lacked their familiar musk, that silent sensation of being watched. He sighed. His pack was well and dead from the Reckoning.
Pale moonlight cast weak rays through the canopy only to be swallowed by his dark coat. His white rump, framed by down-feathers of his wings, reflected as an earthen moon within the woodland. Purple splattered across it in an angry flick of an artist's brush, his appaloosa blanket. Dark blue eyes took in his surroundings passively, dull and dead as the depths of a still lake without his magic to light them from within. They came 'round to settle on a mass of shadow darker than the rest of the forest.
He said nothing, only shifted his hips to face the being squarely. His ears were forward and he waited patiently, calmly, to see if the soul would leave or approach.
He surrendered to the magic that burned at this wretched body of his, and as the thick black blood pumped through his dark veins, he found that he was able to stand upon his own hooves, a thundering sound cracking the earth as they sunk deep into the dirt. And yet, as he pulled further into himself, the heat from his useless heart rattling around inside him, he was still but a collapsed wreck from the man he had used to be. Fire-red eyes that seemed to glow showed from beneath a cloak--a thick tangled mass of black hair that was too long and unkempt shadowed his face. He had never cared for the pleasantries of basic hygeine, but the stench that wafted from him and that weakness he felt were both intolerable to him. He sniffed, the smell of a warm body staining his nostrils with the victim's blood.
Power.
Sleeping power, but power nonetheless. And so he followed it.
Like a thick smog that wound its way between the trees, Deimos rolled forward like the tank he used to remember. A foreboding stench came before him, and as he approached Ruan...he smelled something that made him stop for just a moment. Just a wrinkle in time, and a joker's smile pasted on his face as he realized his quarry. Reagan. That wench that he devoured all those years ago was back, just as he was, and had taken this poor sap. Little did he know...
With a roar that sounded like an engine, Deimos materializes out of the smoke and growls, fangs dripping with black blood as he goes after Ruan with a vengeance. Need drives him, and he covers Ruan, black hooves coming from seemingly nowhere as they attempt to knock the purple spotted one to the ground. Ambush had never been Deimos' modus operandi, but there were other things at work here. A need for revenge.
A need for an old foe to remember...
But he had been given a charge by the fairies, and Deimos was nothing if not obedient--when it suited him. And Deimos without his magic was worth nothing. He knows this. "I shall do you a favor, Ruan," he says, a cold, dark voice coming as an echo that rattles the trunks around them both. "When you go back to her, intact, you tell her that I said hello, won't you? There's a good boy."
Ripping the wings from Ruan's back, Deimos affixes them to his own hollowed out body. white feathers splay forward, the feathers falling away and withering into ash, the bones turning black with char as the flesh is warped and rendered around them like fingers putting on a leather glove. Talons appear and grapple outward towards Ruan, but do not have the clearance to grab at flesh. Unsated, they make their way to Deimos side, the scars stitching themselves together hastily--white marks to signify the gash of where they have been ripped and torn before...Before... Those days were long gone now.
"Thank you for the gift, and now, one of my own---courtesy of those wretched fairies..." And with a kick to the gut, Deimos restores Ruan with his ability to work the ice, to play with it like his bitch, or whatever suits his fancy. Deimos does not care. His only goal--to remind them that he is back.
The first thing he saw through the impenetrable darkness was a thing of foreboding. A wicked and menacing smile with bloodied teeth. Ruan's metaphorical hackles raised, the hairs of his coat standing on end. The wrongness wafted from the beast like a creature from hell. Pale wings lifted slightly, prepared to take flight if -
A roar shredded the peaceful air. Instantly, from the smokey darkness, a form took shape on top of Ruan. He crashed to the ground with a startled yell. Weight and a sickening stench bore down on him, a scent his wolf knew. Blood. Death. He struggled uselessly beneath the burden.
I shall do you a favor, Ruan.
The voice spilled over him, coming as though from the surrounding trees. His ears flattened, but he stopped his efforts and settled with heavy pants, teeth bared in useless warning and eyeing his attacker warily. This one knew his name, knew everything about him without a single breath. He would have a magic like Reagan's, or something similar at the least. She would never use her power this way.
Would she?
When you go back to her, intact, you tell her that I said hello, won't you? There's a good boy.
He knew her. The beast knew his Reagan. In an exchange of magic, he'd seen her life. He thought he'd seen all of it, but this one had not been there. Had she hidden things from him? Or was it just a fault of the accidental magic? She wouldn't knowingly keep something from him.
Would she?
Ruan cried out in agony as his graceful wings were forcefully removed. Bone ripped from muscle. Nerves lost contact. And blood, so much blood. Excruciating pain had him folded in on himself, eyes slammed shut tight and watering, teeth clenched. He rode wave after wave of unbearable suffering. What had she done to cause this? His throat strained, his voice locked uselessly within him.
Thank you for the gift, and now, one of my own -courtesy of those wretched fairies...
No, he didn't want anything from him. Nothing but his absence. Just LEAVE, his mind screamed. Then more pain as the demon kicked out violently to his gut, knocking the breath from him in a whoosh. He coughed from deep within his throat, his face drained of blood. The slick warmth pooled at his sides, gathered and spilled over, staining his white blanket with dark crimson.
Eyes. Once dull and dark. Flared to life with the bright light of magic. Returned to the glacial blue they once were. His magic was restored.
