"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
09-12-2017, 08:55 PM (This post was last modified: 09-14-2017, 09:16 PM by Cassi.)
and lord, I fashion dark gods too;
Fresh from destruction and worlds other than these, the dark god comes, and he comes hungry. His swath of nebulae is gone, replaced with the more iconic gray, the color of stormclouds and gravestones. But what remains is a smile that turns stomachs, what remains is a longing – a need for more.
More entertainment.
The destroyed land had whetted his always eager appetite, so when he returns to his lair – empty, now, devoid of all the things he’s broken there – he decides it simply will not do.
So he creates, again. The same wolf-things he’d left in Taiga, howling caricatures of wolves made of molten lava. These are not his whippet-thin hellhounds, these are a different sort of beast, and the ground shakes beneath their paws as he sends them out to hunt.
It’d be a shame to leave without a souvenir or two.
He expects his terrible creations to bring in some – the hunted - but others, he hopes, will come willingly. He broadcasts his desires like a radio signal: come, and be transformed.
Others still, he will take himself.
He grins, a broad and lazy smile, and their dark god reigns.
NOTES:
ANOTHER CARNAGE TORTURE QUEST CUZ I’VE HAD TOO MUCH BEER. For anyone who read/was in the 2015 one, this will likely be very similar. Also many of these rules are copy pasted because I was a better writer then.
Rules: This is pretty much a “get captured and tortured in Carnage’s lair.” This means you consent to having Carnage’s mark branded on your horse somewhere (you can choose where). I’ll impart some scenarios and you choose how your character reacts. This quest is pretty much for mental trauma only. There may or may not be traits at the end. I want you to enter it because you want your character broken/traumatized, not because you want something shiny. Defects will occur. They will be permanent. However, there will be some leeway. I’m just saying, don’t expect your horse to escape unscathed.
TO ENTER:
You have until Friday to reply (this means until 11:59 PM CST Friday night). In the reply, describe how your character ends up in the lair. Did the lava wolf monsters catch them? Are they a weird masochist? Did Carnage hunt their child down and they offered themselves instead, a la Beauty and the Beast? Something else entirely? THERE ARE NO LIMITS. The point is, describe how your character ends up there, but stop with them entering the lair (the lair is underground, dank, it stinks, there’s bones, etc. – your typical evil villain underground lair).
No limits on entries, but one character per player. You may enter even if you took part in the last writing quest.
Round II will hopefully be posted sometime on Saturday
If you have any questions, PM me.
Be advised, this whole quest has a major trauma/abuse trigger warning.
Bound for trouble from the start I've been walking through this old world in the dark
His bounty overflowed. Ellyse’s love, the swelling of his heart over the newborn twins. His. His children. They were everything and more and he never knew he could feel this way. That fierce need to protect them, to make sure they had a better life then he had. Nothing was more important then their wellbeing. Even Smoak had grown on him despite the tension with Dahmer. This was his family now, the only family that had ever really mattered.
He is alone for now, heading back from an unsuccessful trip to the field. It had been odd, how empty the place was. The one eyed stallion shakes off the unsettling feeling, turning his thoughts to quickly returning home to be with his family. Perhaps he would show the twins the tide pools today, the ocean had been calm with the passing of winter storms. Thinking of these activities, he fails to see the sky darken despite the virtually cloudless sky.
A howl sounds off in the distance but it doesn’t register, not at first. The first is joined by a second, joined by a third. Now he freezes, ears pinning to his skull. A memory, hard to forget, comes back. Warily he looks around him, remembering the hellhounds. Surely these were just regular pack wolves on the hunt. The gold flecks of his eye darkens as he realizes his world has turned to shadow. Rustling comes from behind him.
He bolts.
Fifteen minutes later, his jaw is clenched and his reddish coat gleaming with sweat as the fiery monstrosities of wolves bare down on him. He runs away from Tephra, not wanting to put them in danger. This can’t be happening. Not again. Fire licks at his hocks as he flees, the wolves snapping at his heels. Driving him to that secret place. It had just popped up out of nowhere and it’s no different this time. As the mouth of the cavern comes into view, inwardly he groans. Cries. Screams.
The wolves stopping at the edge of the woods, watching. Waiting. He stands before the dark open maw of the cave but this time he does not seek refuge. ”No…No…” He whispers, wide eyed as he throws his head, looking for a way out. He knows better, he knows what’s waiting for him down there. The bear within seems to tug lightly on his ribs as if to say “Remember me?”. You aren’t alone anymore. He put that anger in you with reason, didn’t he?
Without another thought, he shifts. The beast breaks through his equine skin with a ground shaking roar, the massive polar bear all snowy fur, sharp claws, and gnashing teeth through his long snout. He turns on the lava wolves and barrels down on them, singeing his pearly white fur as he tumbles into one and they fall to the ground together. Flickering teeth grabbing at his leg as the one eyed bear swipes his claws across it’s face. It’s a losing battle, they both know it. Besides the wolves are only here to gather, not to kill.
There is deep laughter echoing out of the cave behind him. The Dark God, amused. Suddenly the wolf he is fighting crumbles to ash and charcoal, the bear left confused, burned, stunned. A wind seems to pick up and something invisible knocks him flat on his stomach. The bear becomes contained, retreating back inside him as the flaxen stallion returns. He tries to find his footing but something has him by his back legs. It drags him slowly towards the cavern. He struggles, fights. It’s pointless. The laughter grows, increasing and ringing in his ears as with a final scream, he is dragged into it’s depths.
Again.
Ledger
(Just a heads up, I’m playing with his timeline a bit since Cassi had to do this SO QUICKLY, YOU KNOW I COULDN’T RESIST. Also, I’m not looking for traits or super brutal physical defects, he's def here for mind torture so feel free to cut him if needed to make room for someone else. I just need some character development, hope that's ok! <3)
09-13-2017, 05:30 PM (This post was last modified: 09-13-2017, 06:17 PM by Zephyr.)
I’m holding on to a fairytale…
I'm a slave to all these voices in my head and I'm afraid they'll walk with me until the end.
Nightmares come in a coherent picture - no haze, no darkness, just the screams of tortured souls rattling her mind until there was nothing left. She had never been able to figure out why the pictures were always so fucking clear when the world was invisible around her - the gods were playing tricks on her...they had since she was born.
The demon came to her more often now, blood oozing from its mouth, grinning with crimson-stained fangs, eyes a deep, eerie gold. Laughter emerges from the bottom of its throat - a cackling so loud it made her ears ring, then it growls through clenched teeth, before sinking its hooks into her alabaster flesh. It causes scream to rise from her mouth and into the air, until finally she would awaken.
A week had passed since she last rested, for any time she would begin to close her eyes, the image of her deepest fear would appear again. The demon, it haunted her, it followed her, it wanted her...and she knew, if she fell asleep, it would patronize her once more. On Tephra's gray beach, she stands, milky eyes red from sleep deprivation. She blinks rapidly, desperately trying to keep her body from falling into the demon's trap. Stay awake. She demands. Repeatedly, she stomps her hoof; she had to move to keep her force alive. Water laps at her feet as she stares into the nothingness. Every once in awhile, her eyes would linger closed for longer than a second, and she'd force herself to open them again.
"Come, and be transformed..." A whisper on the wind. It hits her satellites and she jumps, legs splashing in the water. Her heart pounds hard upon her breast.
"Wh-who's there?" She hisses, turning around and listening for the voice once more.
"...be transformed, Zephyr..." The voice is coming from the atmosphere around her, dark and menacing. She cannot tell if she's dreaming. She backs closer to the ocean, breaths becoming rapid and weak. "Stop it...stop!" She screeches, trying to find her footing as the tide begins to grow more rapid. A waves pushes her, and she stumbles slightly.
"BE TRANSFORMED." It cackles - a noise she has heard too much of. A cry rises from the bowels of her throat, and another wave rushes in, colossal and rough, sweeping her footing from beneath her and pulling her inwards. Her legs desperately push upwards, trying to reach the surface for a breath, but she cannot emerge. Her yelps come out as pathetic, muffled bubbles. She cannot reach it, she cannot breathe, she cannot...she...
* * *
When she awakes, she can see. She blinks several times, adjusting to the sudden change. The world is no longer black - she observes the trees, bare from the winter cold. She stares at the grasses, browned and unappetizing. She looks at the snow beneath her hooves, powdery fluff as white as her own pelt. For a moment, she smiles...the world shows her things she has never seen before.
And then they come.
The creatures swarm her; growling, molten beasts that are unrecognizable. She steps back, her chest thumping once more. Her breathing grows shallow and her ears hide beneath her cream mane. She glances over to a path of trees, she bolts. The wolves follow close behind her.
"Be transformed! Be transformed! Be transformed!" The voice taunts over and over. She runs as fast as her legs can take her, monsters following her as if it's a game. Tears stream down her face, the voice becoming louder."COME AND BE TRANSFORMED.
"SHUT UP! SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!" Zephyr sobs, unaware of the hole forming in the earth in front of her. Her foot catches it and she trips, body hitting the ground with a resounding thud. She is unable to get to her feet fast enough. One of the wolves grabs her by the back of her leg, fangs sinking into her flesh. She screams, using front legs to try to escape its grasp. But the others come too, dragging her to mouth of the cave.
"No, please wake up! Please god, wake up!" She howls the smell of rotting flesh hitting her nostrils. They drag her inside, the cackling laugh she has come to fear reverberating off the walls. She catches a glimpse of the bones around her; it is the last thing she sees before her vision blurs, and she is plunged into darkness once more.
Zephyr
(Basically, she's being tortured by Carnage, and she can't sleep. She accidentally falls asleep on Tephra's borders, and he makes her imagine herself being pulled in by a wave. He transports her to where his cave is but he lets her see to fuck with her, wolves get her, drag her in, he makes her blind again just to fuck with her more xD Hope that's okay with you, i'm excited for the next round!
She'll take torture, and any defects. If she gets traits cool, if she gets messed up that's fine. I'm here for her character development and to have some fun on my first quest )
Fallen long enough ago to be but a memory in the minds of most, except his. He remembers, somewhat of a prince to it though Pollock, the goat-king, had never voiced as much to him or the sick-sad twin of his, Famine. But he knows his place amongst them, or did - no Pangea, no princehood, no place or sense of belonging. That invisible brat-sister of his has managed to exist without these things, why can’t he? Because nothing compels him half so much as that wasteland had or his supposed entitlement to it even though it was a thing fashioned by a dark god.
A dark god that comes, makes and unmakes as gods are wont to do.
A dark god that fashions wolves of lava that slap the ground with their too-large paws, making it tremble in small earthquakes that announce their arrival as much as their vociferous howls do.
Feast turns a head in the directions of the howls and the earth-tremors that rock beneath his cloven feet. His ears are pricked atop his goat-horned head as he looks for the source of it all, be that a dark god or the wolves themselves. Before he can even heed the imminent danger of lava-wolves, a sinister murmur interrupts his thoughts:
Come, and be transformed.
Hm, transformed? He wants to know how and by who. Those are natural thoughts. He is not beyond a state of curiosity to respond to the inherent desire in that call. More like a summons, he thought, dangerous and desirous, and he knew his would not be the only heart that flickered into life at such a heady mix of feelings. Danger and desire, who could resist that combination? It spurred him to motion just as the lava-wolves broke from the nearby treeline but he moved ahead of them, unafraid even if it seemed that they herded him towards a destination only they knew about. Along the way, his broken wing dragged and sometimes, his right back foot pulled more and more feathers out of the bedraggled thing so that he spilled a trail of small blood droplets and feathers behind him.
He noticed with flat black eyes that the way became darker and darker. Feast did not mind the dark, nor the way the air began to grow damp and dank, almost fetid. He paused to suck in a heavy breath of it and couldn’t help the cough that came out despite himself. It was the kind of air that caused sickness in the lungs, he knew that, but he couldn’t resist pulling more of it into them. It smelled of… death and decay. Feast liked those things, as few could or did and he almost wished Famine was here with him, thinking the half-dead twin would enjoy this as much as he did.
The way grows steep and takes a gradual but noticeable turn downward as he notices the earth starting to rise up and cover him in a tunnel that it is not without it’s pitfalls. Sometimes, the going is narrow so much so that his barrel rubs raw against the earthen walls and other times, rocks jut out and bump his head so that he blurts out expletives in between painful objections and he has to wonder just why it is that he is doing this. Danger, his brain tells him. Desire, his heart beckons. He stops just short of the underground cavern;
No, lair. He thinks, that is more appropriate but he has stopped because his foot has knocked against something and as he looks down, he expects to make out a rock of course in the dimness of the underground. But this rock has a gleam to it, an unnatural shine of smooth white that is more like… bone. The smell hits him again, square in the nostrils, riper - fresher, recent death and new decomposition. He can feel his jaws almost slaver but he is not a creature to pine for things like the kill, like the sensation of clamping down with pointed jaws to feel skin and fur rip and blood pool in the mouth.
No, he is a horse albeit a strange one - goat-horned, cloven-hooved, dragging a broken wing that has left it’s share of blood and feathers on the trail here as he looks at the entrance to the lair then back down to the bone jutting from the earth. “Who were you?” he wants to ask it, but would the bone answer him - could it? Feast thinks not, it is just a bone and he is just a horse of some kind that has been summoned and driven both, to come here. Here, to hell because he thinks that is an apt enough name for what awaits him though he has no true concept of how fitting that thought shall come to be. He looks back down at the bone and some eldritch light seems to catch against it, making the whiteness of it wink as if in invitation and thus, Feast crosses the threshold into the lair.
She had been picking her way through the woods when it happened. She scented it first. It smelled like a decaying carcass, mixed with the scent of a skunk that had been threatened. Almost like a rotten egg. Also burnt. She couldn't figure out exactly what it was. She had stopped, barely breathing and listening. It was almost as if the ground shook beneath her hooves and she quickly moved to a more open landscape. Whatever emitted that smell was nothing that Asp truly wanted to deal with. Her compact body shot off towards the Field. Anywhere to get away from it, but the shaking ground only followed her.
Her eyes were wide when they stepped out of the forest and into the Field.
Wolves.
But these were not like any wolf she had encountered before, these glowed and seemed to not be of this world. What magic was this? She squeals in defiance, as a voice echos in her head and the empty feel penetrates her being. Asp was not one to go down without a fight. They slowly circled her, and she felt the air warm as they got closer. She lowered her head and swung the sharp horn around raking the side of one of Carnage's monstrosities. She had not been here long enough to know of the dark God. She had not been here long enough to know much of anything. But the burning, the smell of her own hair singed was enough to know that this fight was more than what she could take on by herself.
And so she ran with the wolves nipping at her heals, charging as they encircled her enough to perhaps startle them for the briefest of moments. Asp was positive that this would be the end of her and she did not appreciate that. Anger surged beneath the liver chestnut spotted pelt mixed with the mortal fear of death. All it did was lengthen her strides and blind her to the fact that they were herding her.
When they stopped, she stopped, her nostrils flaring and brain barely registering that she had run herself into hell. The voice that shook her bones now echoing louder than anything else. Come and be transformed. More ominous words than Asp could ever guess.
(<3 torturing my pretties. Also will give her a reason to be a bad pony! Game on!)
Don't be afraid when the night wolves cry, feast on their bones, suck the marrow dry.
Diorae doesn’t say yes or no. She never will, so Longclaw realizes with alacrity that he will decide for her. Could it be this way, he wonders? Could he lead her to hell and yet still retain mastery after she returned? He doesn’t know (how could he?) that she’s already been there, seen things that might even give him cause for unrest, and come back only to be swept into his path of destruction. It would seem that poor Diorae’s life was fated for ill use; her being a mute could only make it worse.
How much worse she has yet to find out.
Longclaw’s final act had been to ask her to follow - well, ask her to come with him, technically, but he doesn’t even give her the opportunity to nod before turning away to plunge into the ocean. Step by step the two wade through the wide berth of brackish water while the tide sucks sand and sea backwards. Their passage is only daunted by the water at their breasts, many had made the trip from the field to Tephra with little difficulty and still, for some reason, they seem to be making no headway.
On and on the blue-black sea roils, steady rocking their bodies while they continue without so much as a glance back. Longclaw says nothing; a stoic blue guide that glimmers atop the crest and bough of each passing wave and still, Tephra evades their advances. Something … something is at work here. Perhaps it’s at this very moment when Diorae realizes the wrongness of it all, how the absence of a seagulls cry makes the silence all the more crushing. Her fanged sovereign stops, stands tall and unmoving while his navy tail spreads into an undulating fan around him, and slowly turns a handsome visage over his shoulder to peer at her with sclera-white eyes.
“Come,” He says, but his voice and body are no longer his to control, only something of a puppet held by godlike strings. “and be transformed.”
He turns away. They move ahead. The shore of what might have once been Tephra is now suddenly right beneath them, inclining upwards and leading them both to the gaping mouth of an ancient cavern. It’s there that Longclaw stops - this is not his fate, he realizes - and with eyes blinking wide in sudden realization of where they’ve ended up, turns aside to where the innocent Diorae waits. “Go.” He nods to her, meaning that she should pass underneath the teeth of stalactite at the entrance of this strange lair. “For me.” The shifter explains with a broken smile.
“My golden Marigold.” He whispers with a strange air of possession, leaning in to smell her sunkissed skin before his lips press hungrily to the flat of her shoulder. His mouth lingers, begins to burn until the intensity is almost unbearable, and then withdraws so that the image of his handiwork might be revealed. The outline of a wolf’s paw is evident, branded into her flesh with his own power. A parting gift, of sorts. “So that he might know who to return you to, silent canary.” The blue devil chuckles.
“Now go.” He commands.
She does.
Longclaw
ooc: Full disclaimer, Sapphire has read and approved this post. Longclaw is simply here to drop Diorae off at Carnage's fun-time kiddo playground for the god's approval. Diorae will be the one entering and replying to all future prompts
It was happening again. The nightmares of abandonment. Where I watched my mother disappear into the ocean waves. Leaving me with nothing but a name on the granulated beaches of Nerine. Ruby eyes watch again as the scene replays in my mind. Screeching gulls call out in what sounds like laughter. I look up in disgust, a scowl apparent of my features. Upon looking back down she was gone, again...
With a winded gasp I draw in a deep gulp of air. Flinging my crown upwards as my ivory legs gather beneath me. My hooves dig into the earth as my weight is thrusted upwards. Standing square now I shake my head, tossing my dark tresses to settle on my neck. Nares flare as an irritated snort is expelled. Scarlett gaze shifts about to acknowledged I was still in the Forest.
They had left me here, soon to return they said. They had business to attend to, the ruby eyed stallion and his blueish grey companion. I had no quarrels with being left to my own vices - I was quite capable of being alone - I had a need though. A need to find some saltwater. My nares inhaled deeply and faint to the north was the smell of the ocean. I smile happily as I move forward at a quickened pace.
As I near the water this time there is not the usual sanded beaches of Nerine, but cliffs of various sizes. I halt at the edge to look out across the vast abyss. The updraft whipped my dark tresses as I stood now eyes covered. A spray of the crashing waves below blanket my flesh.
I am home.
I notice a cavern along the cliffs a bit further down. Nestled between more towering rock formations. My head tilts in curiousity. Nerine had cliffs but I had never seen a cave before. With a flick of my tail I again move forwards. Ebony ears flicker back and forth in uncertainty but I continued. That is until I was peering into the darkness inside. I could make out nothing with the lack of light. Raising my crown then lowering it to adjust my eyes... Still nothing. I contemplate if I should step into the gaping mouth or turn back to the sea...
I step forward. Curiousity getting the better of me.
Dynast
Friends with the Monsters
Dynast stumbles upon Carnage's lair hidden in the side of a cliff. Sry about HTML malfunction
Strange how quick one could become dependent on another. At the same time, she had been in a very dark and lonely place to begin with. He had been there when she had needed him most, almost like he was her personal super hero coming to her rescue. So Diorae – or Marigold as she was called now – doesn’t even think before following when he asks her to come with him.
The longer they walk, the closer she creeps towards him. Though she does trust Longclaw, he kept the watching eyes and darkness that haunted her at bay, she cannot help it but to grow a little uneasy. Something is in the air, sending unpleasant shivers down her spine. She hoped to get rid of the feeling by just be near him. If she only dared to touch him without permission. But no. It had always been up to Longclaw to initiate a touch and Diorae doesn’t want to overstep unspoken boundaries by showing initiative. Her slightly dipped head spoke enough about the dominant and submissive roles between them.
When he stops, she stops too. All the golden mare can do is look at him and shudder slightly under his gaze. The world around them is eerie silent and shadows creep too close for her liking. The darkness still spooked her and the feeling of being watched even more. It makes Diorae eager to follow him, even if he brought her to Hells’ Gates.
It’s his idea of her going in alone that frightens her. Her hazelbrown eyes search his and as tears well up, they shimmer in the darkness. She wordlessly pleads him to not ask this of her. They both know he wouldn’t need to force her.
She finds herself leaning in to the touch, her breath stocking and her eyes are already closed before he actually touches her. The warmth of his breath on her shoulder had been enough to anticipate his touch. Not the burn she gets instead. Diorae sharply inhales and her ears press flat against her skull as manages to stumble a few steps away from Longclaw to look at him with wide shocked eyes. The ‘harm’ was already done though, a fresh scar, or more like a brand, on her left shoulder. It burns, just like her legs and lungs had in the darkness reality that was Beqanna and wasn’t at the same time. Burns like ever watchful eyes in the shadows, burns like the things she had tried to flee from in his presence.
His. She was his. He was willing to share. And Diorae didn’t have a say in the matter. Not that she was able to form words.
For a moment her teary eyes linger on his bluish form. Betrayal, hurt, pain, fear, all swirl within her. But not only that. Hope too, just as he had offered before. Like she hoped he would offer her once this would be over, whatever it would be. She’s not sure what is coming for her, but she knows she’ll go. Simply because he told her to. Just as she will go back to him.
She makes sure Longclaw doesn’t need to repeat himself and enters the lair. Once again, there is darkness all around her, clogging her, wrapping her up. She’s been afraid of the dark ever since she had gotten back to Beqanna. The damp air and horrible sent doesn’t make it any better. Ears flutter around her head nervously and her eyes never stop moving, afraid to miss even the smallest movement.
In a futile attempt to lose the tension that holds her, she snorts.
CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT & SATISFACTION BROUGHT HIM BACK
Water crashes against the rock-ribbed shoreline of Tephra, ferocious and unrelenting. It jostles the black beast awake from his slumber, prompting his turquoise eyes to open slowly, begrudgingly. Ellyse still lay sleeping beside him with her champagne body curled upon their grassy plateau just as she had been before they'd both drifted into their dreams. Dahmer lifts his dark head from her shoulder and his ears press forward intuitively as he turns his gaze to inspect the waves that crash against their volcanic island. It's dark (almost too dark beneath a starless, moonless sky) and Dahmer purses his lips together in irritation as his eyes squint to find any indication of where land ends and raging sea begins.
The smell of sulfur around them is strong, though not unfamiliar. And yet... there is something about it that makes the Commander uncomfortable and ill at ease. He's quick to his hooves as his vexation grows, hot and alarming in his muscled chest. "Ellyse," he says gruffly, willing the Head of War to wake quickly as his hard blue eyes continue to rove the darkness before them. Smoak is out with Solace and Svedka tonight - a sleepover in the heart of Tephra - and the black beast is fleetingly thankful that their son is not here to be awakened suddenly by Dahmer's paranoia.
The scent of sulfur thickens in the stallion's quavering nostrils.
Dahmer's heart pummels the inside of his ribcage; his eyes widen in fear. "Ellyse," he says again, more commanding this time, "Something is out there." His tongue feels thick and dry and he can hear the blood pumping through his ears - it drowns out the sea, it drowns out his own breathing.
It doesn't drown out the snarls.
Dahmer shies sideways into Ellyse's winged frame as the lava-wolves peel away from the darkness, the only source of light in an otherwise overwhelming blackness. They round the bouldered shore, encroaching methodically and unhurried. Each step is calculated as they move closer to the black beast and the mother of his child. Dahmer knows instantly that they cannot stay and fight the over-sized molten canines, that their pride will need to suffer if they have any hope of escaping the otherworldly beasts. "Go," he whispers to Ellyse, before his voice grows more frantic, "Go!"
His hooves dig aggressively into the grassy knoll beneath them as he wheels his sleek frame in a semi-circle. Dahmer is quick to find his stride; his lanky thoroughbred legs swallow up the earth as he sprints into the inky night, directed only by his knowledge of Tephra and the fear that swells like acid in his mouth. He turns his blue eyes to find Ellyse, to be sure that the mare has found her footing and her stride as well. The fire-wolves are swift, though, having abandoned their measured walk for the thrill of the chase, and Dahmer's blue gaze catches a sudden glimpse of Ellyse's wings as they run.
Wings, you fucking asshole, he berates himself frantically as the winged appendages at his side unfurl quickly. The heaviness is unfamiliar and awkward but he gives them his all as he begins to flap once, twice, three times - air catches beneath the feathers of his wings and hope swells in Dahmer's chest. Darkness, though, is a fickle thing, and as the wolves come nearer, the ground reverberates beneath their massive, simmering paws and darkness keeps Dahmer from maintaining his steady stride.
He stumbles. He falls.
The stallion cries out, his dark wings splayed against the earth and his knees digging into the unforgiving soil. He can't hear hoof beats nor the flap of Ellyse's wings and his eyes search wildly for her as he forgets his own safety. "Go, Ellyse, fly! Don't come back for me!" he screams into the night as the snarls behind him begin again - he will not have her forsake herself to rescue him. The thoroughbred finds his footing once more and, though his knees ache from the fall, he is quick to run again. The wolves snap at his heels, their mouths hot and hungry, forcing Dahmer to stretch his stride out and run with all of his might.
His terror distracts him from his surroundings. He knows only that he needs to run, to escape. It's when the heat no longer singes his legs and the pounding of paws has disappeared that Dahmer realizes something has changed. Something big. Something... impossible.
The sky has made way for dawn and where he had known Tephra to be, despite the pitch black of night, no longer stands his volcanic home. Instead, he's greeted with a view from another life. The expanse of an ancient city block sits before him, its buildings crumbling and dilapidated. Where a street had once been now grows a carpet of green grass, though the color is muted beneath a gray sky. The ruins are gray, the faint fog that begins to roll in as Dahmer tries to slow his whirring mind... all gray.
Everything is silent.
A commanding and earth-rumbling snarl sounds, then, from behind him once more. The wolves have found him, and Dahmer bolts down the grassy street towards the only protection he had ever known here on Azza: the Subway. Impossible, impossible, impossible, his mind screams as the black beast gallops desperately through his homeland; the island he had seen sink beneath roaring waves, swallowed into the water after an earthquake had rendered it uninhabitable. His blue eyes find the ruined entrance to his Subway home, the arching atrium with its shattered glass dome, where he knows (he hopes) he will be able to escape the never-tiring mythical wolves that have transported him here.
The blue-eyed Dahmer runs faster through the dilapidated doorway than he ever had before. The air is stale and heavy, pregnant with the scent of mold and dust, and he coughs with watering eyes as his crescent hooves scramble for purchase on the ruined floor of the subway lobby. Concrete debris mingles with the hard-packed dirt and he nearly stumbles again as he scrambles for the Subway tunnels, his beloved network of underground passageways. The entrance is a wide mouth, dark and dank and inviting, and he is home. The snarls stop as he dives into the cave, his nostrils flaring to inhale the scents of his homeland that he has missed so, so much.
And yet, somehow, he is not home. Ivory bones litter the flat expanse before him and the metallic scent of blood stings his nose. His heart hammers uncomfortably and his chest heaves from exertion, and as he moves forward tentatively, the blue-eyed stallion knows this nightmarish mystery is anything but finished. "Ellyse?" he questions into the heavy darkness, meek but hopeful that she has somehow found her way to the same place as he. And, if she hasn't, that she had escaped.
A warm, soggy breeze (one like a breathy exhale, he realizes) sweeps over him.
"Welcome home, Dahmer," something taunts from the shadows, and his blood runs cold.
She should be dead. She should have never escaped the prison he had fashioned for her. She should still be there, strewn through the fingers of uprooted trees with the rest of the dead that lied in the wake of a crazed man. Raelle should have been one of them.
She had started to converse with the corpse he had left her for company after days past and she was still trapped beneath the fallen trees. The smell of death had started to bring scavengers of every kind. But, her prison was also her savior from hungry teeth. Unfortunately, her friend had not been so lucky. She stared back as the wolves and foxes watched her whilst they fed from the belly of the dead gray. Raelle did not know the name, but the face still bore the fear and surprise from seconds before the life was ripped from them (even as they began to shrivel and sink into the skull). The crows plucked them out like grapes on the second day.
By the time night fell on the third day, there was naught but bone and hair and the residual stench of death left of her friend. The scavengers were sated, even merry with full bellies on too thin frames.
Weak as she was, Raelle managed to worm her way from the fallen tree roots that had held her captive. With the weight of the dead now resting in the bellies of beasts, Raelle was able to lift the old fallen tree just enough to struggle, inch by inch, towards freedom. But every inch came with blood. Raelle clenched her jaw so tightly that her teeth cracked at the surface. By the time she was birthed through the gates of her prison, her right side was lined with jagged cuts and her left eye encrusted with dirt.
Then the mist came, more terrifying than the beasts that had taken her dead friend into their jaws. The air was suffocating, heavy and full of decay. Raelle ran. She ran blindly, foolishly through fallen trees. At least, she felt as though she was running, after having spent days trapped beneath the trees. Her pace was more a dragging walk, though the effort was evident enough in the way her muscles strained, the flare of her nostrils, and the whites of her eyes. It didn’t take long before the mist swallowed her up.
She remembers her friend’s eyeless face somehow staring at her through the mist. “Come, and be transformed.” it had said in the voice of many. Raelle had followed the hollowed figure into darkness.
Then, suddenly, she is here at the entrance of yet another prison. There are no fresh bodies, no uprooted trees, the damage of the madman erased (or perhaps this is the work of another madman entirely). Hopeful, Raelle looks to the deep cuts along her barrel. Though they no longer bleed, pink scars still line her painted body. Her expression furrows in confusion.
“Do dreams leave scars?” she thinks aloud, unaware of the danger she is in yet again.
)
![[Image: sScEgld.png]](http://i.imgur.com/sScEgld.png)
