02-07-2021, 03:20 PM
it's a mystery to me
we have a greed with which we have agreed. you think you have to want more than you need; until you have it all you won't be free. and when you think more than you want, your thoughts begin to bleed.
The snarl that rips from Wishbone’s mouth is feral. White-hot pain blossoms where the monster’s teeth sink into her skin. This bite is nothing like Ivar’s mouth marking her skin, or the sting of Tephra’s lava on her heels, or the rhythmic discomfort of childbirth. The monster’s mouth is searing as acid seems to drip from its rows of shark-teeth to burn away her skin and what lies beneath.
She doesn’t see Mazikeen melt into the osprey or the gorilla because her eyes are closed tightly while her face twists into an expression of pain. It is all she can think — all she can feel — and even the desire to scramble away is drowned beneath the powerful force of agony. Wishbone catches her breath enough to think past the acidic burn, yet she finds that she can’t even escape the jaws of the monster. It holds her in a strong, tight grip that makes her feel lightheaded.
The monster’s upper jaw shifts slightly, loosened by Mazikeen’s efforts, and Wishbone groans as the pressure eases. Yet she is still burning up from the inside, the monster’s acid eating away the soft tissue that lies within her ribcage. Blood gushes from her sides and paints her dark body in deep red. The liters that leave her body make her feel sick and weak. “Oh no,” she whispers, but the sound is a droplet in the sea of screaming, snarling, and blood splattering the ground. Wishbone has felt like this before — the way her body suddenly feels heavy and tingling, the way her head swims, the way she struggles to drag air into her lungs — and her heart beats even faster.
She isn’t ready to die again.
And as Mazikeen pulls with renewed strength, the obsidian mare hears a sharp, bony crack and eerily feels nothing.
Nothing becomes a shattered feeling, as if she has splintered apart like a frozen lake on a warm day. When she opens her eyes (though really they are not eyes — not yet), she can see a million different ways. Wishbone is in the grass, on the puddle of her blood, high in the sky, nestled among the trees, atop Mazikeen’s silvery head, inside the writhing mouth of the monster. She is everywhere and nowhere, and Mazikeen might see only a faint, ethereal glow where Wishbone’s body should have been.
It lasts only long enough for Wishbone to wonder if this is what it means to die while conscious. A fierce warmth spreads through the shattering sensation, pulling her together like she is waking from a deep dream. She reforms just past the monster’s reach (whose mouth now remains empty and gaping), and Wishbone’s head swims when her vision pulls back to normal.
She knows something is different; her legs and head tingle with a childlike newness that she has felt before. “Oh no,” she says again, this time louder, and she is at least thankful that her voice sounds the same — even when she knows her body looks different. Though she cannot see herself just yet, the lanky obsidian is now a purple pangare, with a build that speaks more of war-like tendencies than speed. But Wishbone can’t dwell on her changed appearance now, not when Mazikeen is straddling an angry, levitating shadow.
So Wishbone drags bones from the soil — dinosaur-like ribs, jawbones from a family of bears, the femur of a moose — and slingshots them toward the monster. She wields them in an attempt at caging the shadow-monster, bringing it closer to the ground and pinning it with no room to escape. She grits her teeth (a mouth set into a nearly-black muzzle that quickly melts into soft purple followed by a deeper, eggplant purple) and channels the renewed energy that comes with a new body.
She doesn’t see Mazikeen melt into the osprey or the gorilla because her eyes are closed tightly while her face twists into an expression of pain. It is all she can think — all she can feel — and even the desire to scramble away is drowned beneath the powerful force of agony. Wishbone catches her breath enough to think past the acidic burn, yet she finds that she can’t even escape the jaws of the monster. It holds her in a strong, tight grip that makes her feel lightheaded.
The monster’s upper jaw shifts slightly, loosened by Mazikeen’s efforts, and Wishbone groans as the pressure eases. Yet she is still burning up from the inside, the monster’s acid eating away the soft tissue that lies within her ribcage. Blood gushes from her sides and paints her dark body in deep red. The liters that leave her body make her feel sick and weak. “Oh no,” she whispers, but the sound is a droplet in the sea of screaming, snarling, and blood splattering the ground. Wishbone has felt like this before — the way her body suddenly feels heavy and tingling, the way her head swims, the way she struggles to drag air into her lungs — and her heart beats even faster.
She isn’t ready to die again.
And as Mazikeen pulls with renewed strength, the obsidian mare hears a sharp, bony crack and eerily feels nothing.
Nothing becomes a shattered feeling, as if she has splintered apart like a frozen lake on a warm day. When she opens her eyes (though really they are not eyes — not yet), she can see a million different ways. Wishbone is in the grass, on the puddle of her blood, high in the sky, nestled among the trees, atop Mazikeen’s silvery head, inside the writhing mouth of the monster. She is everywhere and nowhere, and Mazikeen might see only a faint, ethereal glow where Wishbone’s body should have been.
It lasts only long enough for Wishbone to wonder if this is what it means to die while conscious. A fierce warmth spreads through the shattering sensation, pulling her together like she is waking from a deep dream. She reforms just past the monster’s reach (whose mouth now remains empty and gaping), and Wishbone’s head swims when her vision pulls back to normal.
She knows something is different; her legs and head tingle with a childlike newness that she has felt before. “Oh no,” she says again, this time louder, and she is at least thankful that her voice sounds the same — even when she knows her body looks different. Though she cannot see herself just yet, the lanky obsidian is now a purple pangare, with a build that speaks more of war-like tendencies than speed. But Wishbone can’t dwell on her changed appearance now, not when Mazikeen is straddling an angry, levitating shadow.
So Wishbone drags bones from the soil — dinosaur-like ribs, jawbones from a family of bears, the femur of a moose — and slingshots them toward the monster. She wields them in an attempt at caging the shadow-monster, bringing it closer to the ground and pinning it with no room to escape. She grits her teeth (a mouth set into a nearly-black muzzle that quickly melts into soft purple followed by a deeper, eggplant purple) and channels the renewed energy that comes with a new body.
@[Mazikeen]