02-23-2020, 10:50 PM
<div id="dreamy"><style type="text/css">.dreamy_container {background: transparent; width: 500px;border: 2px solid #8B8576; color: #8B8576; font: 14px 'Times New Roman', serif; padding: 15px;text-align: justify;box-shadow: inset 2 2 2px 2px #000;}.dreamy_name {text-align: center; color: #fff; font: 26px 'Times New Roman', serif; padding-top: 10px;padding-right: 10px;}.dreamy_quote {text-align: center; font-style: italic}</style><center><div class="dreamy_container">Dreamscar leaves a trail of blood and gore behind him, dripping from claw and beak, from his dark mane that dries sticky and brittle with the strange, sweet, blood of the False Mother and clings to his neck leaving dark stains as he creeps through tunnels lit only by the near-useless blue glow of slime mold that grows along the walls of the cave. The heart in his beak continues to beat weakly against his tongue as if to remind him that, somewhere, its owner is still living her pointless, deathless, existence far beyond him. He does not know where he is going, only that he is following a feeling, following something that beats and quivers, something that his magic can grip, for all that it seems so much stronger than anything that Dreamscar could ever control. Not like the <I>real</I> Hippogryph, generally so easy and pliable to his machinations, no, this is something different entirely.
Even the thought of his true mother brings a rumble of anger bubbling from his throat. He has not forgiven her for the anger he bears towards her doppelgänger. As he growls, there is a shifting sound and an acrid smell to the air within the tunnel that grows worse the deeper he goes and there is a moment when, suddenly, all the light blinks out, leaving him stumbling in the darkness, blind and scrabbling. In the next instance a white light blazes and he screeches, amber eyes searing and squeezing shut, but the light is inside his brain. He steps backwards, tripping on his tail so that he lands hard in a sitting position, dropping his stolen heart with a wet smack, and clawing at his burning eyes with those great black talons. Bright blood blossoms across his face like flowers.
The stabbing in his brain fades to a million pin pricks. The silver pin pricks turn to a red fog across his eyes when they finally open on yet another dimly lit cavern.
Or is it the same one?
The feathers across his chest ripple with suspicion and he trills questioningly into the silent, empty amphitheater, listening to his voice flutter and echo off the rocky walls. There is a tug, it pulls him further and deeper into the earth, so he turns to gather the somewhat bruised and dusty heart from where it lies, congealing, but he goes to press on and finds his way blocked. Again, horses, but not <I>just</I> horses. He recognizes the black stallion with his copper highlights, the white filly with the spots on her face and the owl perched on her back. The aliens, Ghaul, the Shadow Queen. Set and Draco, and a thousand rabbits and groundhogs and squirrels. There are a handful of fawns, silent, their large, liquid, eyes innocent and accusing. Everyone he has known. Some he has hurt, or tried to hurt, or wanted to hurt. Some he has eaten. All he has wished would fall under the spell of his love inducement, all he has wished were easier to bend under his will.
<I>(His vision shudders and there he is, in the meadow crooning softly to a fawn no more than a week old. The creature comes to him even without the use of magic - ah but they are so trusting, so <B>stupid</B> at that age. He chirrups softly and the spotted creature stalks on stick-thin legs to his side, wide-eyed. It chews at his tail and finding that dissatisfying, noses its way to his chest. The stallion curls his neck to rest the cruel curve of his beak gently against the fawn's back and the gentleness with which he does it creates a touching moment in the orange glow of a summer evening.
Nothing lasts. That murderous beak closes on the back of the young deer's neck, piercing into the flesh so that when the Mimic jerks his head back with a shake he does not lose his grip. The fawn's neck snaps instantly and he lets the body fall limply at his feet.)</I>
"Murderer."
The voice comes from behind and he turns to find Hippogryph. He trills again, curious. She appears whole again, as if this is not her heart he holds. Tentatively, he reaches out, and, for a moment, feels his power respond, latch onto something that should not rest within her deep chest. The dark mare steps forward and Dreamscar pulls his head back, tucking his chin into his chest to make room for her approach.
<I>(He sees himself, coat still black, he is a twin to his dam but for the white rings around his eyes that promise he will grey. Black as night with a star on his forehead, wide and bright and beaming. He is content enough, sleeping curled against his mother, but she is dull and fitful. Her teats are swollen and purple, infected, and flies gather in the places where his beak has pierced her skin over and over as he cries to nurse. Her eyes are bloodshot and so red that there is nearly no difference between the stained sclera and the dark irises. Her pupils are dilated and she sweats and groans, her body fighting fever.
<B>You did that to me</B>
In the vision, the colt is sleeping, but he wakens and tries to feed. The milk that gathers in the corners of his mouth is tinged with blood, and the supply is small. In anger he lashes out with beak and claw at her leg, her thigh, her belly. This is not the first time this has happened, old scars and half-healed welts re-open under his raking talons. In pain, the mare tries to kick, to run, but she falls instead. The child, angry, squeals and claws her hip in an attempt to get her on her feet again, and she tries, she loves him too strongly not to try, though her body fails her over and over. He leans on that love until the mare's heart seems like it will break, like it will seize.)</I>
"It hurts worse than dying."
He has always been a monster, but all he had wanted was for his mother to love him, and she had been unable to do so.
"You," the word crawls shuddering and stilted out from behind that heart still clenching rhythmically in his bill, "Not. Dead."
How can she know anything hurts worse than dying when she refuses to do so? She is backing him again into the center of the circle, again to his destruction. Will they do this, over and over, killing one another in anger and hatred and rage? He tries to lean on the love for him that he has bred inside her over these last four years, but the mare laughs, and it is cruel and harsh and strange, true to her, as if she had been plucked from the long distance and dropped before him, freed of her madness, freed of her devotion to him, of his control.
"Well that's just not going to work on me any more, Son."
Behind him, the fawns call for blood and the crowd closes in tight, but Dreamscar refuses the shame and misery that they try to thrust upon him. No. Once, maybe once there was a time when he felt shame and sadness and disgust for the things he was forced to do to survive, but those days are long past. There was a time when he cried as he disemboweled the creatures he ate, that he snuffled apologies into their bloodied coats, but those days passed long ago. He does not regret that his life has come at the price of so many others', and he does not regret the cruelty he directed at his mother in his anger and sadness and angst. She is his mother, it was <I>her job</I> to soothe his hurts and make things better, and she had failed. Failed <I>repeatedly.</I> He growls a warning, biting down on the cool heart so that black blood oozes thickly out of it.
"No. You. <I>Your</I> fault, Mama."
His eyes scan the cavern for the way out. He will kill her again if he must, he has already done it twice.
<div class="dreamy_name">Dreamscar</div><div class="dreamy_quote">Carnage x Hippogryph</div></div></center>
Even the thought of his true mother brings a rumble of anger bubbling from his throat. He has not forgiven her for the anger he bears towards her doppelgänger. As he growls, there is a shifting sound and an acrid smell to the air within the tunnel that grows worse the deeper he goes and there is a moment when, suddenly, all the light blinks out, leaving him stumbling in the darkness, blind and scrabbling. In the next instance a white light blazes and he screeches, amber eyes searing and squeezing shut, but the light is inside his brain. He steps backwards, tripping on his tail so that he lands hard in a sitting position, dropping his stolen heart with a wet smack, and clawing at his burning eyes with those great black talons. Bright blood blossoms across his face like flowers.
The stabbing in his brain fades to a million pin pricks. The silver pin pricks turn to a red fog across his eyes when they finally open on yet another dimly lit cavern.
Or is it the same one?
The feathers across his chest ripple with suspicion and he trills questioningly into the silent, empty amphitheater, listening to his voice flutter and echo off the rocky walls. There is a tug, it pulls him further and deeper into the earth, so he turns to gather the somewhat bruised and dusty heart from where it lies, congealing, but he goes to press on and finds his way blocked. Again, horses, but not <I>just</I> horses. He recognizes the black stallion with his copper highlights, the white filly with the spots on her face and the owl perched on her back. The aliens, Ghaul, the Shadow Queen. Set and Draco, and a thousand rabbits and groundhogs and squirrels. There are a handful of fawns, silent, their large, liquid, eyes innocent and accusing. Everyone he has known. Some he has hurt, or tried to hurt, or wanted to hurt. Some he has eaten. All he has wished would fall under the spell of his love inducement, all he has wished were easier to bend under his will.
<I>(His vision shudders and there he is, in the meadow crooning softly to a fawn no more than a week old. The creature comes to him even without the use of magic - ah but they are so trusting, so <B>stupid</B> at that age. He chirrups softly and the spotted creature stalks on stick-thin legs to his side, wide-eyed. It chews at his tail and finding that dissatisfying, noses its way to his chest. The stallion curls his neck to rest the cruel curve of his beak gently against the fawn's back and the gentleness with which he does it creates a touching moment in the orange glow of a summer evening.
Nothing lasts. That murderous beak closes on the back of the young deer's neck, piercing into the flesh so that when the Mimic jerks his head back with a shake he does not lose his grip. The fawn's neck snaps instantly and he lets the body fall limply at his feet.)</I>
"Murderer."
The voice comes from behind and he turns to find Hippogryph. He trills again, curious. She appears whole again, as if this is not her heart he holds. Tentatively, he reaches out, and, for a moment, feels his power respond, latch onto something that should not rest within her deep chest. The dark mare steps forward and Dreamscar pulls his head back, tucking his chin into his chest to make room for her approach.
<I>(He sees himself, coat still black, he is a twin to his dam but for the white rings around his eyes that promise he will grey. Black as night with a star on his forehead, wide and bright and beaming. He is content enough, sleeping curled against his mother, but she is dull and fitful. Her teats are swollen and purple, infected, and flies gather in the places where his beak has pierced her skin over and over as he cries to nurse. Her eyes are bloodshot and so red that there is nearly no difference between the stained sclera and the dark irises. Her pupils are dilated and she sweats and groans, her body fighting fever.
<B>You did that to me</B>
In the vision, the colt is sleeping, but he wakens and tries to feed. The milk that gathers in the corners of his mouth is tinged with blood, and the supply is small. In anger he lashes out with beak and claw at her leg, her thigh, her belly. This is not the first time this has happened, old scars and half-healed welts re-open under his raking talons. In pain, the mare tries to kick, to run, but she falls instead. The child, angry, squeals and claws her hip in an attempt to get her on her feet again, and she tries, she loves him too strongly not to try, though her body fails her over and over. He leans on that love until the mare's heart seems like it will break, like it will seize.)</I>
"It hurts worse than dying."
He has always been a monster, but all he had wanted was for his mother to love him, and she had been unable to do so.
"You," the word crawls shuddering and stilted out from behind that heart still clenching rhythmically in his bill, "Not. Dead."
How can she know anything hurts worse than dying when she refuses to do so? She is backing him again into the center of the circle, again to his destruction. Will they do this, over and over, killing one another in anger and hatred and rage? He tries to lean on the love for him that he has bred inside her over these last four years, but the mare laughs, and it is cruel and harsh and strange, true to her, as if she had been plucked from the long distance and dropped before him, freed of her madness, freed of her devotion to him, of his control.
"Well that's just not going to work on me any more, Son."
Behind him, the fawns call for blood and the crowd closes in tight, but Dreamscar refuses the shame and misery that they try to thrust upon him. No. Once, maybe once there was a time when he felt shame and sadness and disgust for the things he was forced to do to survive, but those days are long past. There was a time when he cried as he disemboweled the creatures he ate, that he snuffled apologies into their bloodied coats, but those days passed long ago. He does not regret that his life has come at the price of so many others', and he does not regret the cruelty he directed at his mother in his anger and sadness and angst. She is his mother, it was <I>her job</I> to soothe his hurts and make things better, and she had failed. Failed <I>repeatedly.</I> He growls a warning, biting down on the cool heart so that black blood oozes thickly out of it.
"No. You. <I>Your</I> fault, Mama."
His eyes scan the cavern for the way out. He will kill her again if he must, he has already done it twice.
<div class="dreamy_name">Dreamscar</div><div class="dreamy_quote">Carnage x Hippogryph</div></div></center>