09-14-2017, 06:03 PM
<link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Bellefair|Lora|Sorts+Mills+Goudy' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'><center><style> .dahmercontainer {background-image:url('http://i.imgur.com/99aaD2y.png'); width: 550px; height: 372px;transition: .3s;transition-timing-function: linear;} .dahmerbackground {background-color: #fff; width: 550px; border: 1px solid black; box-shadow: 0px 0px 20px #000;padding-top: 20px;} #dahmermessage {width: 500px; padding: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; text-align: justify; line-height: 14pt; font-size: 12px;margin-bottom: 20px; color: #000;} #dahmermessage b {font-weight: bold; color: #775e70;} #dahmerquote {margin-top: -10px; margin-bottom: 15px; font-family: 'Lora', serif; text-transform:uppercase; font-size: 11.5px; color: #fff; line-height: 12pt; text-shadow: -1px 1px 10px #000, 1px 1px 5px #000;transition: 2s;background-color: #604c60; box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px #000;} #dahmerquote:hover {letter-spacing: 2px; text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000, 0px 0px 10px #fff;} #dahmername {margin-bottom: 5px; font-family: 'Sorts Mills Goudy'; font-size: 30pt; color: #fff; text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px #000, 1px 1px 1px #000; margin-top: 20px;margin-bottom: 10px;transition: 2s;background-color: #604c60; box-shadow: 0px 0px 5px #000;text-transform: uppercase;} #dahmername:hover {letter-spacing: 10px; text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000, 0px 0px 10px #fff;} </style><div class="dahmerbackground"><div id="dahmerquote">CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT<br>& SATISFACTION BROUGHT HIM BACK</div><div id="dahmermessage">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 <i>too</i> 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.<br><br>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. <b>"Ellyse,"</b> 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.<br><br>The scent of sulfur thickens in the stallion's quavering nostrils.<br><br>Dahmer's heart pummels the inside of his ribcage; his eyes widen in fear. <b>"Ellyse,"</b> he says again, more commanding this time, <b>"Something is out there."</b> 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.<br><br>It doesn't drown out the snarls.<br><br>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. <b>"Go,"</b> he whispers to Ellyse, before his voice grows more frantic, <b>"Go!"</b><br><br>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.<br><br><i>Wings, you fucking asshole,</i> 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.<br><br>He stumbles. He falls.<br><br>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. <b>"Go, Ellyse, fly! Don't come back for me!"</b> 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.<br><br>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.<br><br>The sky has made way for dawn and where he had <i>known</i> 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.<br><br>Everything is silent.<br><br>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. <i>Impossible, impossible, impossible,</i> 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 <i>hopes</i>) he will be able to escape the never-tiring mythical wolves that have transported him here.<br><br>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 <i>home</i>. 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.<br><br>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. <b>"Ellyse?"</b> 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.<br><br>A warm, soggy breeze (one like a breathy exhale, he realizes) sweeps over him.<br><br><b><i>"Welcome home, Dahmer,"</b></i> something taunts from the shadows, and his blood runs cold.</div><center><div id="dahmername">Dahmer</div><div class="dahmercontainer"></div></center></div><font size=1 color=black>image © <a href="http://celestiene.deviantart.com/">celestiene</a></font></center>