11-27-2017, 11:15 PM
<center><div style="width:500px;background:#42425b;padding-bottom:10px;padding-top:3px;border-radius:50px;"><img src="http://38.media.tumblr.com/1cb7c100466f94ed4604add831f0c619/tumblr_n05abcLpo51sxtsggo1_r3_500.gif" width="496" style="border-radius:50px 50px 0px 0px;"><div style="position:relative;width:600px;height:50px;bottom:50px;margin-bottom:-50px;background-image:-moz-linear-gradient(top, rgb(183,197,214) 0%, rgb(183,197,214) 100%);background-image:-webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%, rgb(183,197,214)), color-stop(100%, rgb(183,197,214))));background-image:-ms-linear-gradient(top, rgb(183,197,214) 0%, rgb(183,197,214) 100%);"></div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 5px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 18px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>lady, runnin' away to the riptide</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 0px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 21px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>taken away to the dark side</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;width:450px;font:14px times;color:#85848b;text-align:justify;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;">
<p><i><s>On the Run, Run, Run</i></s>
When she puts on a quick burst of speed and darts sideways to escape Black and Green, and outpaces them to the edge of the trees, where they fall back while Sloene pushes forward to seek the trail of glowing feathers. For one belaboured instant, she wonders why they don’t continue to follow her into the trees.
After a couple of breaths, a few strides, she doesn’t wonder anymore.
The trees themselves seem to be rotting away, the sickly-sweet smell of rotting plant matter filling her nostrils and making her stomach turn. The maggots are still underfoot and she is terrified of them, the bites they have already inflicted burning with every stride she takes, but they do not pursue her.
There is relief in that, but it is short-lived.
The first monsters are like little monkeys, crawling out of the flesh-like trees, but they are horned in a way no real monkeys are. They tear bits of fleshy, pulpy tree-flesh from the forest and throw it at her – often they miss, but occasionally she spooks sideways at the liquid-y splat of flesh against her body.
They do not pursue her when she keeps running, but Sloene is so <I>tired</i>, and once she has left them behind, the girl slows to a long-legged trot, trying to catch her breath. She is thankful that the feathers are glowing in the dark, inspiring her, because she isn’t sure she could follow a dimmer trail. A growl to her left puts her once more on high alert and she looks over, heart suddenly racing again as she snorts her fury and leaps up and forward. In her world, it might have been a jungle-cat; but here, it has six legs and three tails and it’s glowing too, or at least the spots are. It crouches, prepared to leap, but she has fled already.
Above her, Sloene can barely recognize a battle still raging somewhere ahead. The dragon roars, the macaw shrieks, there is sizzling air and fire and a light show.
She almost trips over the next monster, but lifts her knees at the last moment in a neat little jump, mistaking it for a log – until it moves beneath her, hissing wildly. Her forelimbs have just touched down when the serpent’s head swings around, innumerable eyes a sickly yellow focused on her and a full mouth full of crocodile-esque teeth. Those teeth are moving towards her faster and faster even as her back legs touch down and she leaps up again, angling herself towards the snake so that its head slides under her arc and its body is already following as she continues to race away, shivering when she realizes the serpent has spines all along the length of its tail that she’d mistaken for nubbly branches.
<i><s>Crash and Burn</i></s>
The shrieks are becoming less insistent, the roaring taking on a sound reminding Sloene of satisfaction. She’s quite convinced that the bird is losing the sky battle.
She dodges a few more monsters, too tired to catalogue their particulars, and she slides to a stop as the trees start to crash overhead and she looks up, only to scramble back as the macaw comes thundering down before her, glowing feathers and smoke all Sloene can see for several heartbeats. The bird is masked by the stench of burning feathers and the smoke she can’t even begin to see through. She tries to approach but then backs up again, coughing on the air she can’t breathe.
The voice changes everything, forcing her to calmness. Her heartrate starts to slow, breathing becomes easier, and she walks right up to the edge, the smoke seeming to cause her no issues now. The macaw’s voice should be soothing, and indeed it has caused the forced calm, but still it makes her skin crawl. It’s thrashing until Sloene whimpers just a little, and then it stills and turns to stare at her instead. The almost-smile and the big gold eye make her even more uneasy and she tries to back away but she can’t. <i>What will be here soon?</i> she has formed the words in her mind, but hasn’t had a chance to speak them when there is another voice.
<I><s>But Who Did the Finding?</s></i>
It’s a familiar voice, despite having a different edge that it usually does. Sloene spins around, relief a sweet taste on her tongue and tears in her eyes. <b> “Thomas!”</b> Her eyes are all for him for many long, long seconds and she catalogues every change. He’s glowing, for one, but he’s her Thomas. <b> “Thomas I’ve been so worried…we’ve been looking…”</b> A pause, as she realizes the rest of the group is arrayed behind him, but they are monsters like the jungle animals now. Not as bad, really, but pieces of each of them have changed. But they are no longer chasing her, no longer look crazy and blood-lusty. The headless body of Scarlet in particular gives her the shivers. She has so many questions, and she tries to sort them in her head while she frowns.
Her savior the macaw speaks again, urging her to come down where supposedly it will send Sloene home. But…she does not feel safe next to the bird anymore. Not since the forced calm.
And she doesn’t want to go home without Thomas. She had imagined going home, but always with Thomas by her side. She hasn’t had such a friend, not since Aranea.
It is her Thomas’ face that softens when he looks to her after snapping at the Macaw, telling her to trust him and not the bird. The bird’s face seems to beg her to intervene, to save her from the fate her best friend clearly has in mind, but she remembers that sense of fear, uncertainty she had gotten from interacting with the bird just a few minutes ago. And the dragon – where does the dragon fit in?
The bird wants her to come down, to ‘go home’. The bird wants her to save it from Thomas.
She doesn’t know the bird. Maybe it was carrying her off earlier to eat her or something. Maybe it’s not a savior.
She loves him.
Sloene walks away from the pit, straight into embracing her friend, wrapping her body around his. <b> “Please let’s just go. You can explain later. We can talk about going home. Please let’s just get out of here.”</b>
</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;font-family: 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 40px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative:900' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>SL<font color=86abe5>O</font>ENE</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -5px;padding-left: 185px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 14px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>I've got a lump in my throat</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -10px;padding-left: 50px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 16px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>cause you're gonna sing the words wrong</div></div></center>
<div style="position: relative;top: 5px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 18px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>lady, runnin' away to the riptide</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 0px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 21px;"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>taken away to the dark side</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;width:450px;font:14px times;color:#85848b;text-align:justify;padding-bottom:0px;padding-top:0px;">
<p><i><s>On the Run, Run, Run</i></s>
When she puts on a quick burst of speed and darts sideways to escape Black and Green, and outpaces them to the edge of the trees, where they fall back while Sloene pushes forward to seek the trail of glowing feathers. For one belaboured instant, she wonders why they don’t continue to follow her into the trees.
After a couple of breaths, a few strides, she doesn’t wonder anymore.
The trees themselves seem to be rotting away, the sickly-sweet smell of rotting plant matter filling her nostrils and making her stomach turn. The maggots are still underfoot and she is terrified of them, the bites they have already inflicted burning with every stride she takes, but they do not pursue her.
There is relief in that, but it is short-lived.
The first monsters are like little monkeys, crawling out of the flesh-like trees, but they are horned in a way no real monkeys are. They tear bits of fleshy, pulpy tree-flesh from the forest and throw it at her – often they miss, but occasionally she spooks sideways at the liquid-y splat of flesh against her body.
They do not pursue her when she keeps running, but Sloene is so <I>tired</i>, and once she has left them behind, the girl slows to a long-legged trot, trying to catch her breath. She is thankful that the feathers are glowing in the dark, inspiring her, because she isn’t sure she could follow a dimmer trail. A growl to her left puts her once more on high alert and she looks over, heart suddenly racing again as she snorts her fury and leaps up and forward. In her world, it might have been a jungle-cat; but here, it has six legs and three tails and it’s glowing too, or at least the spots are. It crouches, prepared to leap, but she has fled already.
Above her, Sloene can barely recognize a battle still raging somewhere ahead. The dragon roars, the macaw shrieks, there is sizzling air and fire and a light show.
She almost trips over the next monster, but lifts her knees at the last moment in a neat little jump, mistaking it for a log – until it moves beneath her, hissing wildly. Her forelimbs have just touched down when the serpent’s head swings around, innumerable eyes a sickly yellow focused on her and a full mouth full of crocodile-esque teeth. Those teeth are moving towards her faster and faster even as her back legs touch down and she leaps up again, angling herself towards the snake so that its head slides under her arc and its body is already following as she continues to race away, shivering when she realizes the serpent has spines all along the length of its tail that she’d mistaken for nubbly branches.
<i><s>Crash and Burn</i></s>
The shrieks are becoming less insistent, the roaring taking on a sound reminding Sloene of satisfaction. She’s quite convinced that the bird is losing the sky battle.
She dodges a few more monsters, too tired to catalogue their particulars, and she slides to a stop as the trees start to crash overhead and she looks up, only to scramble back as the macaw comes thundering down before her, glowing feathers and smoke all Sloene can see for several heartbeats. The bird is masked by the stench of burning feathers and the smoke she can’t even begin to see through. She tries to approach but then backs up again, coughing on the air she can’t breathe.
The voice changes everything, forcing her to calmness. Her heartrate starts to slow, breathing becomes easier, and she walks right up to the edge, the smoke seeming to cause her no issues now. The macaw’s voice should be soothing, and indeed it has caused the forced calm, but still it makes her skin crawl. It’s thrashing until Sloene whimpers just a little, and then it stills and turns to stare at her instead. The almost-smile and the big gold eye make her even more uneasy and she tries to back away but she can’t. <i>What will be here soon?</i> she has formed the words in her mind, but hasn’t had a chance to speak them when there is another voice.
<I><s>But Who Did the Finding?</s></i>
It’s a familiar voice, despite having a different edge that it usually does. Sloene spins around, relief a sweet taste on her tongue and tears in her eyes. <b> “Thomas!”</b> Her eyes are all for him for many long, long seconds and she catalogues every change. He’s glowing, for one, but he’s her Thomas. <b> “Thomas I’ve been so worried…we’ve been looking…”</b> A pause, as she realizes the rest of the group is arrayed behind him, but they are monsters like the jungle animals now. Not as bad, really, but pieces of each of them have changed. But they are no longer chasing her, no longer look crazy and blood-lusty. The headless body of Scarlet in particular gives her the shivers. She has so many questions, and she tries to sort them in her head while she frowns.
Her savior the macaw speaks again, urging her to come down where supposedly it will send Sloene home. But…she does not feel safe next to the bird anymore. Not since the forced calm.
And she doesn’t want to go home without Thomas. She had imagined going home, but always with Thomas by her side. She hasn’t had such a friend, not since Aranea.
It is her Thomas’ face that softens when he looks to her after snapping at the Macaw, telling her to trust him and not the bird. The bird’s face seems to beg her to intervene, to save her from the fate her best friend clearly has in mind, but she remembers that sense of fear, uncertainty she had gotten from interacting with the bird just a few minutes ago. And the dragon – where does the dragon fit in?
The bird wants her to come down, to ‘go home’. The bird wants her to save it from Thomas.
She doesn’t know the bird. Maybe it was carrying her off earlier to eat her or something. Maybe it’s not a savior.
She loves him.
Sloene walks away from the pit, straight into embracing her friend, wrapping her body around his. <b> “Please let’s just go. You can explain later. We can talk about going home. Please let’s just get out of here.”</b>
</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: 10px;font-family: 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 40px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative:900' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>SL<font color=86abe5>O</font>ENE</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -5px;padding-left: 185px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 14px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>I've got a lump in my throat</div>
<div style="position: relative;top: -10px;padding-left: 50px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;color: #bcb5b2;font-size: 16px;"><link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>cause you're gonna sing the words wrong</div></div></center>