09-22-2017, 07:59 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">Horrific screams pull Dahmer slowly from his state of unconsciousness. He's uneasy as his blue eyes open, the way one is usually uneasy after a fainting spell, with a sort of wooziness clouding his brain. His obsidian frame is sprawled across the floor, left wing trapped agonizingly beneath his full weight. The thoroughbred groans loudly, not yet aware enough to remember where he is or what had happened (<i>not yet aware enough to be scared</i>), and slides his head across the hard floor to inspect the area around him. It's dark. Too dark... Again. Just as it had been when he'd awoken beside Ellyse in Tephra.<br><br>His heart begins to pound again. His entire body tenses. Another shriek roars through the underground and Dahmer is quick to clamp his ears to his skull; he tries to rise quickly but his wing is still trapped and he panics. The black beast roars and grunts, rocking his dark frame until finally he can free his wing, all disheveled and sore, and rise to his unsteady hooves. Blue eyes dart around the small enclosure and its low-hanging ceiling. The bars erected before him are rusty; the wall behind him stained with dried blood. <i>The Subway,</i> his heart aches as he realizes, <i>Where is the Subway?</i><br><br><i><b>Ellyse!</b></i> The horror-filled cry reverberates through the chamber, and Dahmer would know that voice anywhere. He is immediately pressed against the iron bars of his cage, his dark head turned sideways against them to afford him a better view of what is beyond. <b>"Ledger?"</b> he calls with a mixture of hope and despair, thankful that he is not alone in this hellish place (<i>another scream, this one closer, and a shiver wracks his body</i>) but frightened that his fellow Tephran will also be enduring whatever is out there, whatever or whoever had decided to toy with the residents of his home.<br><br>Dahmer can see the Dark God standing before his one-eyed acquaintance. He can see the amusement that twists across his face and the horror that slowly, and then all at once, rises on Ledger's. There is whispering but Dahmer can't decipher it. Fury fills him as he watches their captor mutter something to the flaxen stallion that twists Ledger's face away from hurt and more towards rage. Their eyes lock then, his own blue one pressed between the bars, as the Dark God directs Ledger to see -- see what? <b><i>Our children!</i></b> Ledger cries out, a roar from his bear-self following swiftly behind and Dahmer's throat tightens in fear at the sound.<br><br>He pulls away from the bars and turns his head to the other side, frantic to see what had caused Ledger's sudden ferocity. <i>Ellyse</i>. Breath is knocked from the black thoroughbred's chest and when he's finally able to inhale, he holds it for a moment before the exhale transforms into a sob and the Commander is throwing himself against the bars between them. <b>"Ledger!"</b> Dahmer calls for the Ambassador, all animosity for the other stallion forgotten, his heaving chest and shoulder still ramming against the cage, <b>"We need to get her out!"</b> If only one of them could make it out and escape back to Tephra, it would have to be her, the Head of War with children between the two of them. Her life is worth the most; more than his own, and more than Ledger's.<br><br><b><i>"He can't hear you,"</b></i> a voice whispers menacingly behind him, causing Dahmer to pivot quickly in the tight enclosure. The Dark God stands before him, suddenly inside the cage (<i>it fleetingly reminds him of Dog-face's Zoo and Dahmer's stomach sours</i>). <b>"Let them go!"</b> he commands, in control of his emotions for only a moment before a terrified sort of pleading erupts from him, <b>"Please. Just let them go. Keep me here. Just let them go."</b> His request is met with unbridled laughter and Dahmer retreats from the star-painted beast, his hind end bumping into the blood-blemished wall behind him. <b><i>"What would be the point in that?"</i></b> the Dark God muses innocently, <b><i>"He already thinks Ellyse has betrayed him again, with you, for another night of pity fucking."</b></i><br><br>Dahmer's ears flatten and he makes to push by his captor to plead with Ledger, to undo the damage that has been done. But the Dark God rewards his effort with burning pain between his eyes, cutting into his forehead, where a star marking would be, the shape of a diamond with a circle in the center of it - the symbol of a <i>thief</i> on Azza. He cries out in pain, unable to stop the noise from escaping. Blood drips slowly from the burning wound, the proximity to Dahmer's eyes making them water involuntarily, and Carnage takes a brief moment to admire his handy work (<b><i>"Now everyone shall know that you are the thief who stole the poor, one-eyed man's lover."</b></i>) before vanishing into the musty, thick air. The black stallion blinks repeatedly, ridding his azure eyes of their unshed tears (<i>another shriek from somewhere in the cavern</i>) before a whinny of frustration erupts from his maw and he sends a rage-filled buck at the wall behind him.<br><br>His legs go through it. The wall has vanished suddenly, as if it had always been a mirage holding him in. He swings his head around in disbelief to be sure that it's gone and comes face to face with a wide open wasteland. Dahmer spins his dark frame towards the exit and blinds himself briefly in the sudden daylight, the stinging pain between his eyes forgotten momentarily. <b>"Ellyse! Come on! Kick th--"</b> he has swung his head to look back at the cage that houses the champagne mare, but the cave and Ellyse and his enclosure are no longer there. The wasteland extends in all directions, daunting and dry and full of dangerous mystery. His heart drops at the expanse before him.<br><br>The winged stallion doesn't expect to find his way out of the wasteland by simply standing and waiting for help to arrive, so he sets off across the desolation at a frantic canter. His tail billows behind him and his hooves fall powerfully against the hard-packed earth; the dull throbbing in his wing and the sharper stinging of Carnage's brand distract him from the long trek, but he abruptly has something much <i>larger</i> to worry about. The creature comes at Dahmer from the cloudless sky, shaped like a raven but as large as he is. The black stallion shies away from it as it coasts closer to the ground with outspread wings, but even his gallop cannot outrun the raven and its massive claws reach for his barrel, just behind his shoulders, and dig.<br><br>Dahmer squeals and pulls back, but the immense bird has a powerful, unnatural hold and suddenly he is airborne. The claws continue to dig beneath his flesh and Dahmer extends his wings, flailing them in pain. He throws his dark head upwards and bares his teeth, snapping them together in an attempt to bite the bird-monster, but he can reach no part of the skyfowl. He screams in disbelief, just wanting this horrific adventure to end, and just when his body threatens to betray him and drift into unconsciousness again, the bird lets go. Another scream rockets from his open maw as he plummets back to the dry wasteland, his unused wings struggling to open as his large frame turns over on itself.<br><br>Somewhere in the rushing winds, he can hear the raven caw behind him. Its own wings have closed so that it may speed swiftly after Dahmer, chasing his free-falling body to the ground. Finally, at the last moment, the black beast catches a thermal and his feathered wings snap open fully. Wind rushes beneath them and he soars upwards; the raven continues its dive, unable to stop its breakneck speed, and collides with the hard-packed dirt of the wasteland. Dahmer whinnies loudly (<i>joyfully, this time, at his second chance at life</i>) despite the gruesome sound of crunching bones beneath him.<br><br>His left wing aches still but the adrenaline that pumps wildly through his veins keeps the stallion drifting on the hot thermals. He takes a moment to appreciate the wind that floats across his face and between the feathers of his wings (<i>Ellyse and Scyla had been right, he knows, that he had been missing out on something so wonderful</i>), but the sun beats harshly against his dark coat and so Dahmer slowly descends. He keeps his brilliant blue eyes open for another winged attacker, but instead a silhouette forms slowly on the horizon. He lands clumsily as he nears the steel and ice mare, his knees colliding painfully with the ground as he stumbles. His wings are still outstretched, the tips of them raking against the ground, and he stays on his knees as his blue eyes turn upward to the mare before him.<br><br><b>"Mother,"</b> he whispers reverently as his eyes meet hers.<br><br><b><i>"Don't call me Mother,"</b></i> she seethes, causing Dahmer's breath to catch in his throat. He's unable to find words, unable to stand beneath the punitive gaze of Desole, <b><i>"Commander?</i> Only <i>a Commander? What happened to the useful, successful, prideful son that I trained? Or did you forget that you're only worthwhile to me when you're a King?"</b></i> She spits on the ground in front of him, her lip curling upwards in blatant disdain. <b><i>"Though, I can't be surprised, can I? Not with the wretched company you keep, that half-blood sister of yours. How can you expect to be great with that </i>thing <i>holding you back? I should have smashed her worthless head beneath my hoof the moment I birthed her."</b></i><br><br>Dahmer snorts, a mess of mingling emotions - his unfaltering respect for Desole keeps him from lashing at her, but her words are cold and painful and they make him doubt every choice he's made since Azza had fallen into the ocean. He rises slowly to his hooves, his knees throbbing, and as he stands eye-to-eye with his mother, he still feels like the young, uncertain colt she'd trained and molded to perfection. <b><i>"And what of your own son? Have you no standards? I see no drills, no training... what is he, just a common, stupid little boy? He should be in the Army by now, if you had done your job correctly. But instead, he talks back to you and to his mother. Head of War, ha."</b></i><br><br>She spits again, her gaze hardening. <b><i>"You have failed me. You are no son of mine."</b></i><br><br>He is broken beneath her scathing words (<i>this woman who had raised him to be an elite soldier, who had been proud of his successes and unloving when he failed</i>), but a numbness washes over him as he realizes what he must do and how he must escape from here. She is already gone, he reminds himself, as she turns her back on him and starts to leave. <b>"Wait, Mother,"</b> he finds his voice, though it is weak and pleading. Desole turns her painted frame around and settles her hard gaze on him. <b><i>"You do not command me, boy,"</b></i> she spits, but Dahmer is already using his muscled hindquarters to rocket his body towards her, knowing that the only way he will be able to defeat his father's Hellhound in battle is to utilize any surprise he can keep a grasp on.<br><br>She rises to meet him, but the black beast has a millisecond on her and his front hooves collide with Desole's chest. She's knocked backwards, her hooves kicking up dust as she works to steady herself, but Dahmer uses the moment to his advantage and extends a foreleg as he's falling back to earth, letting it collide with her head and then her neck on his way down. The noise is sickening, so sickening, and he clenches his blue eyes closed as he stands on all four legs once more, afraid to see what he has done. <b>"I'm sorry, Mother, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to fail you, never wanted to fail..."</b> his voice trails off into a shaky exhale and finally the winged beast opens his bright eyes again to the sight of Desole's steel and ice body lifeless on the dusty wasteland. Blood seeps from her head, her throat, her chest.<br><br>He holds back a sob, denies himself the comfort of pressing his head to hers, and trudges forth without a glance behind him (<i>no matter how much he yearns to do so</i>). His gait is slow now, the walk of a defeated man, as a vibrant and emerald oasis appears on the skyline. Dahmer's blue eyes lock onto the greenery, unsure of whether or not it is truly there, but he moves to approach it nonetheless. When finally the tired and bloodied stallion arrives at the wellspring, he falls to his scraped knees once more and plunges his muzzle into the clear blue water, drinking and ridding his face of the dried blood from Carnage's brand.</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>
(Example of brand <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZj2y.png">here</a>.... sorry for the novel x_x)
(Example of brand <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/UZj2y.png">here</a>.... sorry for the novel x_x)