<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lora&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"><style type="text/css">.basic_container {position: relative; /**sets the parent container position to relative - needed in order to use positioning on other elements **/z-index: 1; /** sets the display order to 1, so this element will be the lowest **/width: 500px; /** sets the width of the box **/background: #dddddd; /** sets the background color of the box **/font: 11px 'Lora', serif; /** sets the font; size and then font family (note the use of a font stack, which is to say a specific font followed by a very generic version in case the specific font cannot be rendered) **/line-height: 1.5; /** sets the line height of the text to make it easier to read - do not make this smaller; also note that this is a naked number and is one of the only time you can use a naked number in css **/border: 1px solid #84a9ac; /** sets the border of the main box; size, style, and color **/box-shadow: 0 0 10px #000; /** sets a box shadow; x-axis offset, y-axis offset, spread, and color **/}.basic_container p { /** this section resets the padding and margin to 0 for p tags, useful so you can control these later on **/margin: 0;padding: 0;}.basic_message {text-align: justify; /** sets the text to be even on both sides **/padding: 15px 20px; /** sets the padding using shorthand; first number is top and bottom, second number is right and left **/color: #cccccc; /** sets the text color **/}.basic_name {font-size: 28px; /** makes the font size larger for the name **/color: #84a9ac; /** changes the color of the name **/}.basic_quote {position: relative; /** sets the position to relative in order to move the quote up toward the name **/z-index: 10; /** sets the level of the quote to, which makes this the topmost element **/top: -10px; /** moves the quote to right below the name **/font-style: italic; /** gives the quote an italic font **/color: #84a9ac; /** sets the quote color **/letter-spacing: 3px; /** sets the letter spacing of the quote farther than normal **/}</style><center><div class="basic_container"><div class="basic_message"><center><font color=#838383><i>he put her out like the burnin' end of a midnight cigarette<br>he broke her heart and she spent her whole life trying to forget</i><br><br><p align=justify><font color="#3b6978">There are worse things than dying.
She has been alive long enough to know (though the actual length is fractured - a few years surviving the Disruption and all its perils to die from a trivial thing like foaling). There are fates worse than the one that waits for them behind the Gates that Carnage himself had helped open. There is living life in various shades of gray, devoid of color, bland as the coat she wears.
The Beqanna she remembers had been colorful enough; the one she has come to know now is practically flamboyant.
Mae feels him in the back of her mind. It flutters there as her eyes flutter shut. She has never known <i>Him</i> but the presence that touches her psyche holds strokes of Magic and genius, an artist just waiting for the idea to materialize into the corporeal. <i>There is something I would ask you,</i> He says and she is quiet. (Even the Shades knew of Carnage. Even in the Afterlife, they knew to waif and wisp away when the Dark God brought shadows into their realm.) <i>Meet me at the Beach.</i>
Oh, she knows that Beach. She has died on it once before, bleeding out from her half-heart and then leaving Coca-Cola’s daughter with the stench of death clinging to her newborn coat.
She comes because he asks. She comes because she is a weak creature. She comes because she is curious. He had been the one who had created the torrents in the Afterlife and it had been one of those stray currents that had brought her back. Carnage has been the cause and creator of so many things and the gray mare finds herself just wanting to <i>know</i>. So she stumbles and ambles across Beqanna.
(She will be one of the last to come because she does not know this new Beqanna. Mae wanders the paths and trail of her memories so they lead her nowhere. Not until she finally gives up on remembering.)
Until she finds a group gathered. They are young and old. Some are burdened with sagging shoulders and some hold their heads high as if they’ve never known they could be shoved into the ground. Some look like they don’t care at all - like her, a blank slate of indifference as the Dark God speaks from the center of his self-proclaimed pulpit.
(Her eyes linger on the curve of his cheeks. There is something of him - from Desecration perhaps? - that makes her think of Pawn and even now, centuries later, the thought of him leaves her hollow. Leaves her all the more vulnerable to this Magic.)
Maybe because she is one of the last to come or perhaps Carnage knows that watching the others die will tear her apart slower, the bloodshed ensues. Some torn by limbs, a child who volunteers, another who vanishes like a shadow. One by one they go down, all offerings at this altar that has been conscripted.
Finally, he looks at her. Mae is wide-eyed but she does not shake. What will he do? she wonders. The pale mare thinks of every terrifying possibility but the Dark God does nothing until he smiles.
Something that seems far more awful than anything she could have imagined (not that she was the most creative of mares). Her heart races and his smile grows, ghastly. The pace goes frantic and wild until it - her heart? - feels heavy. It feels weighted like it is full of stones instead of fear. And then it does the impossible because this is the Beach and here, they are only fit for dying. Because they are in the presence of a God and He crafts their Deaths to his delight.
It bursts in serrated shards. It cuts her from within. Her weak, fickle heart is no match for a Magician's grasp.
Like before - with Ashlynn - she bleeds out on this Beach. Mae is dead before her body even hits the sand.
When she opens her eyes to the haze of the Afterlife - back to into the world of mists and half-light - the others are here on this desolate beach standing with her. And now, perhaps, some of them know as she does (or will come to know): there are far worse things than dying. </div><p class="basic_name"><font color=white>-- <i>mae</i></p><p class="basic_quote"></p></div></center></font></font></font>
She has been alive long enough to know (though the actual length is fractured - a few years surviving the Disruption and all its perils to die from a trivial thing like foaling). There are fates worse than the one that waits for them behind the Gates that Carnage himself had helped open. There is living life in various shades of gray, devoid of color, bland as the coat she wears.
The Beqanna she remembers had been colorful enough; the one she has come to know now is practically flamboyant.
Mae feels him in the back of her mind. It flutters there as her eyes flutter shut. She has never known <i>Him</i> but the presence that touches her psyche holds strokes of Magic and genius, an artist just waiting for the idea to materialize into the corporeal. <i>There is something I would ask you,</i> He says and she is quiet. (Even the Shades knew of Carnage. Even in the Afterlife, they knew to waif and wisp away when the Dark God brought shadows into their realm.) <i>Meet me at the Beach.</i>
Oh, she knows that Beach. She has died on it once before, bleeding out from her half-heart and then leaving Coca-Cola’s daughter with the stench of death clinging to her newborn coat.
She comes because he asks. She comes because she is a weak creature. She comes because she is curious. He had been the one who had created the torrents in the Afterlife and it had been one of those stray currents that had brought her back. Carnage has been the cause and creator of so many things and the gray mare finds herself just wanting to <i>know</i>. So she stumbles and ambles across Beqanna.
(She will be one of the last to come because she does not know this new Beqanna. Mae wanders the paths and trail of her memories so they lead her nowhere. Not until she finally gives up on remembering.)
Until she finds a group gathered. They are young and old. Some are burdened with sagging shoulders and some hold their heads high as if they’ve never known they could be shoved into the ground. Some look like they don’t care at all - like her, a blank slate of indifference as the Dark God speaks from the center of his self-proclaimed pulpit.
(Her eyes linger on the curve of his cheeks. There is something of him - from Desecration perhaps? - that makes her think of Pawn and even now, centuries later, the thought of him leaves her hollow. Leaves her all the more vulnerable to this Magic.)
Maybe because she is one of the last to come or perhaps Carnage knows that watching the others die will tear her apart slower, the bloodshed ensues. Some torn by limbs, a child who volunteers, another who vanishes like a shadow. One by one they go down, all offerings at this altar that has been conscripted.
Finally, he looks at her. Mae is wide-eyed but she does not shake. What will he do? she wonders. The pale mare thinks of every terrifying possibility but the Dark God does nothing until he smiles.
Something that seems far more awful than anything she could have imagined (not that she was the most creative of mares). Her heart races and his smile grows, ghastly. The pace goes frantic and wild until it - her heart? - feels heavy. It feels weighted like it is full of stones instead of fear. And then it does the impossible because this is the Beach and here, they are only fit for dying. Because they are in the presence of a God and He crafts their Deaths to his delight.
It bursts in serrated shards. It cuts her from within. Her weak, fickle heart is no match for a Magician's grasp.
Like before - with Ashlynn - she bleeds out on this Beach. Mae is dead before her body even hits the sand.
When she opens her eyes to the haze of the Afterlife - back to into the world of mists and half-light - the others are here on this desolate beach standing with her. And now, perhaps, some of them know as she does (or will come to know): there are far worse things than dying. </div><p class="basic_name"><font color=white>-- <i>mae</i></p><p class="basic_quote"></p></div></center></font></font></font>