08-30-2017, 07:10 PM
THANA.
(as black as your soul)
There is a frigidity clutching to the remnants of dusk as the sun, somewhere beyond the dense copse of deciduous trees, rises into the morning sky – and though dawn has descended upon much of the world around them, there is still a dark shadow lingering with the haze of a low-lying fog. The sunlight has yet to touch the woodland floor, and she is at ease with it. Quietly, her slender figure has weaved itself past each winding branch and over each dry, bristling bush lining the once forbidden border, delighted by the mist enveloping her.
The tranquility of daybreak is no more, as the ground beneath her rumbles and stirs. The sky is blackened, as if sheathed and kept from the pale light of day, and there is such little illumination in the darkness of Her shadow that she is forced to pause for a moment, to allow her eyes to adjust to it. Her heart is roused from its complacency, thundering roughly within her rib cage as her two-toned gaze darts to and fro. All the while, the dense woodland withers and dies, pine needles falling all around her as if each were a twisted, twirling snowflake, draping itself over the slope of her spine.
Enough, a voice murmurs to her, and then - run! The ground is not only moving, it is changing - and with each passing moment, Taiga becomes more unrecognizable, while weak and brittle pine trees sway and fall all around her. When the soil sifts beneath her weight, she is awakened, and with quiet prowess, her heavy equine body is shifted into that of a lithe, agile canine, draped in black. A deep, guttural howl emerging from the tightness of her throat, meeting the call of the wraith that had brought her here; to the one that she would follow to whatever end.
She does not wait for his response – she is surging toward the border, her long and languid legs carrying her swiftly through the dark copse of shaking, wavering trees. A flush of boiling seawater mixed with roiling magma heaves itself up onto the distant shoreline, and she has no choice but to flee towards the southern border. She can taste his scent, enveloping her in its entirely – but he is elsewhere; little else but an echo and with each rumbling quake, the landscape is enveloping her, threatening to steal the breath within her lungs and the beating heart inside of her chest.
She cannot to go him, much as she yearns to – but when she is left heaving, panting, before the great bramble wall that had been forged by Deimos’ own craft and skill, a wave of white hot rage emerges within her. Oh, such irony that the wall would be her undoing! But oh, no – not today. Not today.
The slender, wolfish form is soon shed once more for her lissome equine skin, and she is searching for a way out – a way under? No, it would take too much time – there were wolves of scalding magma, of unmistakable darkness not far behind her; she could not wait. Breathlessly, and desperately, she tugs at the tightly wound bramble with her thoughts, urging it apart, longing to break away the tightly knit branches left behind as Deimos, somewhere far off, escaped with his own life.
With a deep and jarring cry of anger, her gaze settles upon a tall and towering oak – one of the last remaining, standing erect despite the Earth twisting and turning beneath it – willfully tearing it from its deeply settled roots, slamming it upright against the wall carved of wood and sharply jutting thorns. With a soft breath, she is once more the wolf, as her deft and graceful paws grip the trunk of the oak, effectively climbing her way out and over the wall – leaping to the soft and supple soil below, pausing only a moment to catch her breath before leaping and bounding through the darkness of the woodland, and far away from the Hell that had been her own.
The tranquility of daybreak is no more, as the ground beneath her rumbles and stirs. The sky is blackened, as if sheathed and kept from the pale light of day, and there is such little illumination in the darkness of Her shadow that she is forced to pause for a moment, to allow her eyes to adjust to it. Her heart is roused from its complacency, thundering roughly within her rib cage as her two-toned gaze darts to and fro. All the while, the dense woodland withers and dies, pine needles falling all around her as if each were a twisted, twirling snowflake, draping itself over the slope of her spine.
Enough, a voice murmurs to her, and then - run! The ground is not only moving, it is changing - and with each passing moment, Taiga becomes more unrecognizable, while weak and brittle pine trees sway and fall all around her. When the soil sifts beneath her weight, she is awakened, and with quiet prowess, her heavy equine body is shifted into that of a lithe, agile canine, draped in black. A deep, guttural howl emerging from the tightness of her throat, meeting the call of the wraith that had brought her here; to the one that she would follow to whatever end.
She does not wait for his response – she is surging toward the border, her long and languid legs carrying her swiftly through the dark copse of shaking, wavering trees. A flush of boiling seawater mixed with roiling magma heaves itself up onto the distant shoreline, and she has no choice but to flee towards the southern border. She can taste his scent, enveloping her in its entirely – but he is elsewhere; little else but an echo and with each rumbling quake, the landscape is enveloping her, threatening to steal the breath within her lungs and the beating heart inside of her chest.
She cannot to go him, much as she yearns to – but when she is left heaving, panting, before the great bramble wall that had been forged by Deimos’ own craft and skill, a wave of white hot rage emerges within her. Oh, such irony that the wall would be her undoing! But oh, no – not today. Not today.
The slender, wolfish form is soon shed once more for her lissome equine skin, and she is searching for a way out – a way under? No, it would take too much time – there were wolves of scalding magma, of unmistakable darkness not far behind her; she could not wait. Breathlessly, and desperately, she tugs at the tightly wound bramble with her thoughts, urging it apart, longing to break away the tightly knit branches left behind as Deimos, somewhere far off, escaped with his own life.
With a deep and jarring cry of anger, her gaze settles upon a tall and towering oak – one of the last remaining, standing erect despite the Earth twisting and turning beneath it – willfully tearing it from its deeply settled roots, slamming it upright against the wall carved of wood and sharply jutting thorns. With a soft breath, she is once more the wolf, as her deft and graceful paws grip the trunk of the oak, effectively climbing her way out and over the wall – leaping to the soft and supple soil below, pausing only a moment to catch her breath before leaping and bounding through the darkness of the woodland, and far away from the Hell that had been her own.