"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 call him the devil because he makes me want to sin (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
He was enjoying this—perhaps too much.
Having his father as King of Pangea certainly opened up a world of possibilities to him, but he knew that even if Pollock had not stepped up to claim the wasteland after the dark god had deserted them, he would have found a way regardless. Having Pollock there simply…reduced limitations. He was free to bring his pretties home as he saw fit—free to use his powers to mold the world around them, chase them down the empty corridors of his making without interruption, without having to answer to someone higher.
If anyone was to understand the hunger that brewed within Bruise, the dark need that clawed at the inner workings of his stomach, it was Pollock. He was nothing but a shadow of his father. He understood.
Still, as much as he found the land convenient, it was not always enough. Lately, Bruise had enjoyed peeling away from Pangea to find more material, to hunt down more who he could test on, feeling out the malleability of them. It was how he found Heartfire, the metal mistress who he planned to weld into his latest masterpiece. Perhaps he could find others here; perhaps he could find more material.
So he left Pangea in the middle of the day, the chill of winter settling in and putting his teeth on edge, the frost of it almost more than he could bear. It did not take him long to find the forest once more, the trip helped by an alien speed and agility, his endurance carrying him longer and faster than he had any right to travel. When he finally reached the border of it, he dipped his head down, sniffing at the ground with the focus of a bloodhound, with the discernment of a maestro. Now the only question was where to start.
For the first time in his short life, he is free - free!
Sinew does not look after him and Famine does not follow him;
Feast can do as he pleases.
His pinkish upper lip curls away from his baby teeth and his gray lower lip.
Feast bares his teeth in a grin, but there is no good nature in it - just glut and greed, as he savors the idea of having no sickly twin to stalk his side, or the overbearing eyes of their mother upon him. He can do as he pleases, and the idea sinks into his brain in rich wormy pleasure until he is fat and happy from it. Feast thinks of a grand adventure away from the dusty spine and sallow stomach of a ravaged Pangea, a prince’s kingdom of rot and ruin - he loves it, as best as one like him can love a land as dry and disgusting as that, but the idea of the dark forest and her sable temptations curls a twiggy finger at him and he can do little more than give in to her suggestion.
Come, the forest beckons, fat and full of promise of things like beetles and skeletons.
Feast goes to her, loses himself in the crooks of her thorny and bracken-y arms and becomes crowned in the bloodied scratches and dirty kisses of her hard love. His eyes, black like his mother’s, are hard and bright like berries in his face as they leap from shadow to branch to rocks on the path before his cloven feet. He moves brutishly, uncaringly, though the forest’s dark gut until he emerges in a great showy cloud of snow thrown upwards by his sudden halt. Feast laughs aloud, pleased at himself, his own gut fit to burst in a prince’s first foolish taste of pride.
(Colts will be colts; a proud and foolish lot that think there are no limits to their life and strength of self. No limits, no ends, only them - large and overripe.)
Feast turns his black eyes to a beast he almost takes to be his father, but the shape is a tad smaller as if it has not achieved its full height and it certainly has none of the roughness of father’s ilk - a life lived fully, completely, gluttonously and gloriously. No, not quite, he tells himself because he is smart enough to realize that this must be some relation of his, halved only because it is no foal of Sinew’s - he knows their like, strange beasts, all of them. Strange too, this silver-dark goat-brother of his that sniffs the ground like a dog, how beneath him!
“What are you doing?” he asks, lacking a trace of curiosity in his tone.
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
Bruise does not like being interrupted—not when he has his mind on greater things, on mapping out the constellations of his next masterpiece, the image of it hazy and forming on the edges of his mind. So it is with irritation that he responds to the voice that crackles across the space between them. His black eyes sharpen and he rolls his heavy-horned head toward the colt’s direction, taking in the size and shape of him but not recognizing him, not knowing him as one of their own. Perhaps he would have been softer for it.
But probably not.
He does not respond to the question that sounds like a demand, instead only lifts his head upward, his flat, shark eyes appraising him, studying him, lip curling into a smile that lacked any of a smile’s warmth. “I don’t see any reason to tell you that, boy,” his voice as hard as his gaze, low and guttural. Bruise never did enjoy raising his voice much. Let him whisper and let the world strain to hear it. Let them suffer for it.
“Be on your way,” he growls, motioning toward the trees that blanket the area behind the boy, the trees from which he had come. The silver of his tail snaps behind him, the edges of it cracking along the curve of his haunches, the muscle there hardening, maturing. He has no real desire to prey upon someone so young, but he also has no moral argument against it. He can feel his hand upon the edge of the Fear, the beast of it bucking and roiling beneath his palm, but he quiets it for now, soothing its temper.
If the boy does not listen, then they would play. If the boy does not leave, then he would have his fun. But for now, he presses his tongue to the back of his teeth, expression hard and unforgiving, and he waits.
(He is a boy - still a colt, and barely weaned off his mother’s tit but it eats at him, to be called such by this goat-brother that he recognizes but is too slow [maybe stupid?] to lift his head and recognize that same goat-ness in himself.)
Feast cants his hornless (hornless, light, but there is a phantom heaviness that tickles his brow every so often like an itch that has gone too long without being scratched and starts to subside but still exists) head to the side, as he regards the other. His regard is flat, hard, like the stallion’s before him and more so, because he is being shooed away as if he is nothing more than a pest (he is! He just fails to recognize this) but that does not rankle him half as much as being called a boy does, as if he is some common whelp like the all the rest that decorate the landscape (pretty fat fleshy yard ornaments, he thinks).
Yet, he stays.
Tempts fate (tempts Fear, but like his mother, he is unafraid).
“I think not,” he drawls lazily, mirroring the tail twitch even if his tail is still but a stub of short hair. He is entirely brash and equally stupid, in the way that colts can be - so fearless, so free. What could possibly go wrong? How could one son of the goat-god possibly fear another? Feast though, he looks around then back at the other as if taking his measure before looking down at his own cloven goat-feet. “There is room enough for both of us here, despite how ridiculous you look sniffing at the earth like a dog.” He scoffs, unafraid of a possibly rabid mutt let alone some dirt-breathing almost-stallion.
Still, he is bold and sly and slinks ever closer. “What are you hunting?” he asks, recognizing the stance of a hunter despite his initial thoughts (doggish, dumb).
Predator, he thinks, curious as to who is the intended prey.
(Not him, but probably some other.)
(Stupid colt.)
ooc: I don't know what this is but it is long overdue and I'm still trying to figure him out. :/
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
He snarls, ashen lips peeling back to reveal the yellowed, blunt teeth beneath. Ears pin back and find their home amongst the vines of his mane, his expression turning ugly with annoyance. “Then you can go enjoy your space over there with the rest of the pups.” His voice is pointed, flat, dismissive, and, for a moment, he takes a second to focus on the colt, the yellow of his coat, the split of his hooves. The resemblance causes his stomach to roll, a jealous possessiveness rooting in his belly as he thinks of their father. He has worked too hard, done too much, to share Pollock’s haphazard affection with some brat.
“If you think I was sniffing the ground like a common dog, then you’re more idiotic than you look,” a flat growl, ears never leavening their place against the curve of his head. He shakes his head and the light glints off the heavy horns that adorn his skull, their weight regal. The next question that comes though brings a smile to his face, the curve of lip flat and wide and cold. He was not a hunter first and foremost (he was an artist, he was a master of his craft), but to make art, you sometimes needed to root out the very material. Bruise was not afraid to crack the bones between his teeth to reach the marrow.
His nose twitches again as the smile settles onto his angular face, as he takes a step forward to the whelp, to the half-brother who is a threat with every breath he draws into his youthful lungs. “I am hunting,” he acknowledges with a dip of head, his mind reaching outward and finding the threads of the Fear that race over and above them. “You will not like the answer.” Without a sound, without another word, he lunges forward, the motion faster than any horse has the right to move, the grace of it like running water.
He grabs at the Fear and begins to pull, begins to dance the landscape around them, manipulating it to the beat of his own pulse, to the dreams that beat against the back of his skull. His flesh peels back to reveal the skull beneath, the gore that drips from between undead teeth, the eyes that roll in bony sockets. “Run,” he hisses to his flesh and blood, snapping his jaws near the boy’s haunches and then dancing out of sight again, dipping in out and of vision as he continues to thrum the strings of Fear he knows so well.
Let the boy know terror. Let him quake. Let him recognize the Krampus before him.
(Boys will be boys. Let him experience this brotherly love.)
1 - I love Feast. :|
2 - Totally up to you how / if he reacts to the fear induction. <3
He is quick to spot it - the instant sick recognition that roils in the stallion’s eyes.
Because of it, Feast smirks and ignores the insults hurled his way. What can this half-brother do to him beyond the insults and the annoyed looks? Nothing, he thinks. Nothing, now that he knows they are kin to one another.
Feast takes pleasure in that, can feel it hot and pleasant in the low of his belly where it slinks and sits.
But the smirk fast fades as the bigger of them makes a move towards him, just a half-step but it is enough to cause him to bare his own blunt teeth in retaliation. There is something entirely too predatory about the stallion now, as if he has turned the hunt upon him and Feast finds that he takes no pleasure in that thought or the feeling that accompanies it.
The feeling is a queer unfamiliar sensation of panic, reactionary and primal as it takes hold of him. It shows in the whites of his eyes as they roll, his head ducking as he clacks his teeth upon the air to show his half-brother that he is just a small thing, harmless really. Feast knows better, he is not so harmless but if he achieves success through the lie, he’ll cling to it - for now. Except the half-brother lunges forward, preternaturally fast, and Feast gets his first taste of fear as it slithers up his throat.
He stumbles backwards until he lands on his rump and stares up at the krampus-creature in a mixture of fear and bright, hot hate. Feast looks on as the flesh peels back layer after layer to reveal the skull beneath and then, the fear in him changes and he starts to scoff. A grinning skull is hardly terrifying, mother has shown him as much. Laughter bubbles up in his throat but wait! It is changing, so that gore drips from betwixt the teeth and the eyes roll in the sockets. Beautiful! He thinks, and fascinating, as he rises up off his sore rump (he hit the ground hard in his hasty scramble backwards, there will be a bruise in its wake).
The krampus-creature snaps his jaws at Feast’s haunches and he flinches, but does not run. He stamps his inborn terror down; nature says slavering snapping jaws should be cause enough to flee, but Feast is either smart to stand his ground or stupid, very stupid. “How are you doing that? Why can I not see you as you originally are?” Stupid boy! He gets right up in his half-brother’s bare-bones face and peers up at him a hard squint that has a curious glint to it. “You’ll have to do better than that.” he challenges.
Stupid boy.
1. I love Bruise too.
2. I am completely happy for Bruise to induce more fear and possibly maim his little half-brother in some way that makes Feast respect him haha. Or that turns him into Bruise's flunkie. <3
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
He snarls, ashen lips peeling back to reveal the yellowed, blunt teeth beneath. Ears pin back and find their For a moment, brief and hot between his teeth, Bruise is pleased to see that the boy reacts, that the Fear begins to drip down his throat and curdle in his belly. And he is pleased. Incredibly so. His mouth splits open, the naked skull grinning in this illusion of his creation. But it does not last. Because the boy is not just annoying, he is idiotic—he stands his ground and bites back. Bruise suppresses a growl in his throat.
His hand pauses on the Fear, eases his control of it, but the illusions remain, and he speaks through the gore as it gushes between his rotten teeth. “Because you are blind,” crimson spittle flying forward, his head cocking to the side and giving him a gruesome smile. “Because you bear father’s colors and his shape but not his true self.” He does not have the Fear rising up within him like smoke, like poison.
It is a victory for the young Krampus.
“You will have to pay for that,” Bruise counters and when the rage rises within him, it is sweet, and he savors the taste of it, playing it around his jaw. But he has had enough with this pleasantries. He’s had enough of conversation so he pulls the Fear again, manipulating the natural emotions and amplifying them. With alien grace he rushes forward and strikes out, teeth against flesh, before dancing away again.
Then on the other side, he rises up and over the colt, striking out with ragged, cloven hooves. His nostrils flare to drink in whatever of the Fear he can reach and he laughs low. Another blow, this time aiming to hit the young boy’s shoulder, before he comes down and lunges, blunt teeth snapping at any area he can find purchase: his neck, his ear, his eye. He breathes steadily but says nothing—only continues to sculpt.
How can he fear a grinning horse skull that is like those he has played amongst in the deeps of some of Pangea’s caves? Sinew taught him to never fear the bones, only the intent behind them if they shake and move by some other means than flesh and tendon. Fear, she said, can be healthy and motivating and so, Feast ate his fear and leered at his half-brother.
The illusion is still maintained, strong and beautiful in the way the gore rushes from between the teeth to puddle at his half-brother’s cloven feet. Specks of spittle and gore fly at his face and he feel stringy globs stick to his lips and cheeks. His licks his lips clean of the illusion, and it is so beautifull crafted that the globs of gore that he swallows even taste real. He ignores the brotherly snubs; he’ll take being what he is than being just another krampus.
(Controlling the fear though and manifesting it in others, he thinks, would be a dream - a powerful dream and for a moment, he is jealous of Bruise. But there are other ways to inspire fear.)
Feast has temporarily lost focus of Bruise; that is the moment in which the krampus strikes --
It is a definitive moment, to be sure.
Only Sinew has taken flesh from him in motherly chiding nips, but not like this - never, like this.
He is shocked by the sudden brutality, and the shock amplifies into fear as Bruise rains blow after blow down upon him. His ears are boxed until there is a strange ringing in them, and his skin breaks underneath the repeat beating from cloven hooves and blunt teeth -- the tender areas give way first; a rip in the ear widens like a grin, a gash in the neck grows, and the eye feels brutalized in a socket that sings rich and heavy from unfamiliar pain.
Feast stands there and takes it, torn up and terrorized but he takes it.
He makes a meal of it as Bruise continues to sculpt him into something that Sinew will not recognize nor seek recompense for - her son is learning his lesson, becoming hardened and brutal as he was always meant to be. Feast never lashes out - the fear immobilizes him enough not to do so, but he swallows lump after lump of it until his belly feels fat and full.
“No more,” he gasps, ragged and rich in both pain and pant.
He asks for an end only because his body cannot stand the abuse any further and it is through sheer determination that he remains upright, albeit swaying.
I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)
She comes and his attention is drawn to her, to the hardness she wears like armor, to the sharpness of her Pleasure races up and down Bruise’s spine—pleasure at the Fear that runs thick around him, as tangible as the oxygen that pumps through his lungs. He can taste it, each hit licking up his side and radiating through his brain. The boy is like clay, so malleable, so perfect, and as he rains down blows, as the blood begins to flow from Feast, Bruise begins to feel what he can only assume is some level of brotherly love.
His eyes glaze over and he ignores the words that come simpering from Feast.
“More,” he growls as he comes for him again, as his teeth lash out, as he pulls upon the terror—a mad man intent upon sucking the marrow dry. This is nirvana, he thinks, as the boy breaks open before him like ripe fruit, bruised and splintered and ready. Still—still. Bruise has enough control that he does not continue forever; he does not continue until the boy lays wasted and cold at his split hooves.
Eventually, he comes to a stop, breathing hard, his golden sides dark with exertion. His eyes though, those are sharp and glittering in the darkness as he considers the boy—still standing, despite the obvious gashes and wounds. He does not respect him for it, but he does appreciate it. The boy would be ready for another lesson eventually and Bruise would be all too happy to oblige. Pollock’s kin could not be weak.
He considers demanding that the boy kneel, but decides against it, instead tilting his head and considering him, expression clean of any mercy. “You are loyal to me now,” his voice is hard and unrelenting. “Blood is thicker than water,” he reminds, “and I am your blood. Therefore you will show the proper respect.”
A growled murmur that slips through the roar of his pulse in his ears, even his terror and his pain seem to have a sound to them - a scream, then silence and nothing. The nothing is beautiful and black, deeper than an ocean and darker than the space between the stars. That is where Feast is, or has gone - far far away from the way Bruise snarls, rains blow after blow down upon him, and breathes heavily in the end.
In the end, it is the heavy breathing and the cessation of violence that brings him back to himself. How he is still standing, he cannot be sure but he is Pollock’s son (and Sinew’s) and there must be something in the gift-giver’s blood that allows his sons to remain upright, backs unbowed and spirits unbroken. He lifts his black eyes to his brother’s as he talks of loyalty and blood being thicker than water - things he understands, but in love there is also hate and they stand on a razor fine edge of it.
(Feast loves him for making him tougher, harsher but he also hates him for breaking him down so mightily and one day, he thinks to himself, one day he’ll exact his own revenge - blood or not.)
His chin tucks to his chest, over blood and scratches, as Bruise advances on him one step. That lone step is authoritative and mesmerizing - the intent is clear, the warning heeded but also pushed deep into his heart like a thorn, full of poison. In the days to come, he is certain it will fester and he’ll forever love and hate this older brother of his, no matter the cost of loyalty and blood - heavy prices to pay, but they are the gift-giver’s children and what is given can be taken away.
One day, he vows to himself as he looks up at Bruise through damp strands of forelock that spiderweb down his face. One day.
“Yes,” he states rather eloquently (and whatever vehemence ought to sour his tone is not there, though he feels it in the sharp thorny poke of his heart’s natural shudder) for one having been so thoroughly beaten as to be no better than a collared and cowed dog.
