"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-07-2021, 03:27 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2021, 09:37 PM by Cassi.)
lord, I fashion dark gods too;
He has never much liked the mountain.
It is too symbolic of Beqanna’s own magic, the only power that rivals his own. It came up from nothing and it took and took and took, gobbled their magic down, even made Carnage himself sick, made his magic strange and disobedient. And sure, things quieted down, traits were restored, and the mountain is now a place of pilgrimage.
(He doesn’t like that, either. He’d rather they be on their knees for him, instead. Even if he has little interest in granting wishes.)
Still, whatever his dislike, he has not acted much on this distaste. He has frequented the mountain, on occasion, intercepted some of its would-be grantees to make them do his bidding, instead.
That should change, he thinks. And so, he does what he always has when these urges occur, the desire to explore unknown places – he calls on others to venture forth in his stead, to break the ground, lest things turn out poorly.
(He still recalls those monsters, that awful insectile noise of them. The way the sound had crawled over the bones.)
He sends his summons, that mental echo across Beqanna, to bring forth those who may also dislike the mountain, or who may simply be curious – it’s the same fate, in the end. Come, he thinks, I have a project for you.
The mountain does not want them to come. Does not want this project to see completion. He can feel as much, a low grumble beneath his hooves. But he pays it no mind. The mountain is not angry yet. Not really. If they want to come, they’ll find a way. He’s sure of it.
OOC:
Welcome to another Carnage quest!
- Please describe your character answering Carnage’s summons and making it to the top of the mountain – even though the mountain isn’t so sure you should be doing that. Along the way, you must encounter at least one obstacle from the mountain trying to stop you – rockslide, monster, hallucinations, whatever. End with your character meeting Carnage on top of the mountain.
- You’re aware of the others, but interaction is up to you.
- This isn’t an elimination quest, but you may withdraw at any time, just let me know. Failure to respond without notifying me may result in a defect.
- Per Carnage quest rules, defects/emotional and physical scarring/trait scrambling may occur.
- Entries are due by NOON (12 pm CST) Sunday, November 14 (extended due to my vacation brain!)
- If you have any other questions, message me here or on Discord!
He is still not used to the strange ways of this place. He has not yet figured out all of its secrets or the odd workings of its magic, and he does not yet know the things—or individuals—to be cautious of.
It’s why he obeys the summons, giving into the curiosity and ignoring the nagging discomfort that tries to stay his feet. He has never been especially brash or bold, and to follow the sound of a stranger’s voice was unlike him, but there was something so convincing about it that he finds it easy to push aside what his intuition is trying to tell him.
He goes to the mountain, and how he knows where exactly the mountain is is something he chooses to overlook. After all, he has never been to, or even heard of, this place that so many of Beqanna’s residents sought out. He stands now at the base of it, looking at the well-worn path that winds up the side of it. He does not know what this place is for, but he can see that it is well traveled. Why, he wonders, is this mountain so different from all the others that he has seen on the horizon? The air seems to hum, whether in warning or excitement he is not sure, but there is a strange sense of finality at his presence here—this sense that he cannot turn back now, that he has committed himself to something still unknown.
The further he walks up the mountain, however, the stronger a sense of dread settles over him. It sits in his veins like lead, sinking to the pit of his stomach and refusing to move. Before he has a chance to consider turning back there is a great shaking of the earth, and he is frozen in place as he tries to discern what it means, waiting for a shower of rocks and boulders to come tumbling down the mountainside. Inside, a smooth, sheer face of rock erupts from the ground in front of him, jutting up to the sky and creating an impassable wall. He frowns as the dust settles, and thinking that this must be some kind of test of his determination (which is admittedly weakening at this point, as he tries to decide if this is truly worth the hassle), he immediately takes to the skies.
It was overcast enough that his wings, a roiling mass of storm clouds—dark gray and full, as if ready to spill rain—were mostly fully formed. He only needed to get to the top of the mountain, at least, and it seemed doable.
The sunshine comes seemingly out of nowhere, and it is unlike any sunshine he has ever experienced.
It is not a warm ray straining through clouds, watery and weak.
It is a beam, searing and unforgiving, and it seems to strike him and only him.
His wings begin to evaporate, and though he starts to lower himself as quickly as he can it is not fast enough and soon he is falling rather than flying.
He hits the ground hard, a sharp pain shooting up his shoulder that causes him to grit his teeth. When he looks up he can see that he is nearly to the top, and with a hard set of his jaw he pulls himself to a stand, and he finishes making his way up the mountain.
He arrives at the top, his storm-colored coat covered in dirt and a scrape on his shoulder, but at least his wings have reappeared, the rogue sunlight seeming to have retreated entirely. He is not sure what he had expected upon reaching the summit but the unfamiliar gray stallion is not it, and he eyes him with a guarded wariness. “Are you the one that called?”
She had been hoping for new experiences, sure, but following a summons that brushes up against her mind seems like a risky place to start. It tugs her inland, further than she’s ever bothered to go, and maybe that is what finally gets her teal legs to move.
This is certainly new.
And she is certainly curious.
Tiasa second guesses her devotion to this project when she begins to ascend the mountain. Being inland was one thing but rising in elevation at the same time just seemed like a personal slight. As though whoever had called her was determined to drag her as far out of her comfort zone as physically possible.
Since she is alone, she does not mind appearing hesitant. And at one point she turns her head to look behind her only to see a slope identical to the one she was walking up. She takes a few more steps, and sees the pebbles she dislodges with her hooves roll down just a foot before bouncing up that other slope. Frowning, Tiasa turns back around and tries to reason with herself that she was just seeing things - that a landscape of rocks looked the same no matter how you sliced it.
She manages to distract herself enough to make some decent headway - until she looks behind her again and sees that the other slope has continued to rise with her, so she is always at the lowest point of a valley.
Frustration comes out as a snort and she shifts her direction to move across the mountain instead of upwards only to realize after a few strides that it’s all become the same again.
Tiasa looks around and everything is the same gravelly slope - she is not in the centre of a V but a cone and everything is funnelling towards her. An instinct she wasn’t aware that she had coats her in scales and gives her sharp teeth, as though these rocks are something she is equipped to fight, but despite this change the mountain remains unmoved. The cone only seems to shrink around her until she cannot see the sky at all.
It is only the grey, uncaring rocks.
They seem to press closer still and Tiasa snaps at them, annoyed and - once again - thinking she was better off on her own and that new experiences were overrated.
When the mountain once again does not react to her threats, she can only do one thing - continue onwards. There is no way to go back down or sideways. The slope becomes more treacherous and this mare who's done so little with her life is sweating and tired before long. The exhaustion adds a fierce, angry glint to her eyes that turns positively wild when between one step and another her ears pop and the sky returns and she is standing farther up than she had thought possible.
That gaze flickers between the strangers there, her flower-adorned mane slick against her neck in some spots and frayed in others as she narrows her gaze to study the others who are there, taking care to stand where she cannot be touched. Which is detrimental to the desire to bite off the head of whoever it was who had summoned them because surely they were responsible for that disaster of a climb. Was it one of these stallions? Or someone else entirely?
Listen close and you’ll hear it.
The soft fold of metal as it stirs.
(It has been quiet in the Cove—
since the dragon visited and sank its teeth into her psyche—
and she quiet with it.)
There have been children, though none of these have eaten their way out of her womb.
None of them have left her in ruins.
(Which is to say that none of them have killed her.)
But she has been restless.
Restless as the sun that circles her head and casts light across her brow.
(Listen close and you will hear this, too,the call that she heeds.
Though it feels as if the words exist only in her own head.)
She has learned to be dutiful.
In all the ways she has died, in all of the terrible ways she has lived.
And so she goes without question, without stopping to wonder if she should.
It is a terribly long journey to the Mountain but she arrives no worse for the wear.
(Because she is indestructible now, this mare cast from gold.)
Come, the voice had said and so she goes.
And it echoes when she arrives at the base of the Mountain and looks up.
She squints, trying to catch a glimpse of the peak.
But it is shrouded in clouds.
(She has never visited the Mountain.
Or, if she has, she does not remember whatever particular past life harbors this memory.
But she knows, just as every soul in Beqanna knows, of its power.
She knows, just as everyone else knows, that it can be just as cruel as it can be kind.)
Alas, she has been summoned.
She feels no trepidation.
She understands that this is what she must do.
And so she begins her climb, though she still cannot see the summit.
(Ah, Bible, what a good girl you are.)
She has not been climbing long when the air goes thin.
So impossibly thin.
Until her breathing becomes labored.
Until she’s not breathing at all.
(Or, rather, she’s trying but no air gets in.)
Her vision strobes as she staggers forward, stumbling through and over boulder fields.
And she is gasping still, the heart clenching in her chest.
(Turn around, the Mountain says, you are not welcome here.)
These words exist only in her mind, too.
But this is a warning instead of an invitation.
She sways on her feet, sinks to her knees.
Were she not cast from gold, she might have begun to bleed.
And the Mountain, perhaps seeing that this will not deter her, allows her one world-swallowing gasp of air.
But it is polluted with poison.
Poison that pours blood from her nose.
Poison that immediately begins to eat at her lungs.
She coughs so violently that her heart seems to seize.
“No,” she gasps fiercely, teeth gritted.
She lurches to her feet, lunging forward, scrambling now.
And where the blood from her nose drips onto the rocks, the rocks spring to life.
They grab for her ankles, they yank, they grapple to stop her.
But she can breathe now and she has encountered more savage beasts than this.
She is not afraid, this mare cast from gold.
She has died many times before and she will die many times again, she’s certain.
But she will not die on this mountain.
Not like this.
Not even as the rocks try to sink teeth into her flesh.
(But it is flesh made of gold. There is no meat.)
The poison burns her lungs.
Blood continues to bring the rocks to life.
The rocks try in vain to stop her.
She scrambles.
She scrambles and she lurches and all she can taste is the iron of her blood and the bitter poison.
Still, she cannot make out the summit through the dense cloud cover.
But there has never been any quit in her.
She was never made to yield.
And when, finally, she breaks through the clouds and finds the summit, the air is thin but it is pure.
There is no poison here.
She pauses to swallow as much air as she can here.
Her vision is still black at the edges.
Her sides heave as her vision clears and she sees that she is not alone.
She says nothing.
She couldn’t even if she tried.
ever since i heard the howlin' wind
i didn't need to go where a bible went
(i'm so sorry i know this format is so annoying but i can't stop it)
The summons is like an itch along his skin, prickling with an uncommon intensity. There is chaos in that call, crackling in his mind where it forks into the future. Yet, he can’t see beyond it. It stirs curiosity, unimaginable and enticing. More than that though, it stirs a warning.
If he were someone else, he might have listened to that warning. But he is not someone else.
Still he answers despite the way common sense rebels against it. He has never been very good at heeding common sense, and everything in him tells him this is a moment in time he would want to be witness to. That whatever they are being called forth to do will be as fascinating as it is dangerous. And if the way the very land seems to heave against him is any indication, it is something they should most certainly not be doing.
It should frighten him. Should send him back home. Instead it draws out the most destructive parts of his soul. The parts that crave turmoil above the peace that seems to have fallen like a heavy cloud, spreading boredom over the continent.
The trembling beneath his feet only intensifies the further he walks. The closer he climbs to whatever disaster awaits, the louder the earth groans, making Reave wary of his every footstep. A less persistent creature might have given up already, but if there is anything Reave lacks, it is not determination.
Despite his watchful gaze, he nearly tumbles right into the crack that opens in the uneven stone before him. He stumbles, scrambling quickly backwards to avoid the crack that yawns into a widening chasm far too swiftly to be natural. It shudders across the path, seeking to block his road forward.
Rune shrieks in the sky overhead, demanding Reave turn around. Demanding he give up his foolish quest. Reave ignores him (as he too often does), instead studying the growing split, calculating his options as quickly as possible. There isn’t time to waste. Isn’t time to consider the ramifications of his decision.
Retreating, he gives himself enough space to get a running start. Lurching forward despite the trembling mountain, he commits himself to his forward sprint. He would either fall into the chasm or leap across it. Adrenaline surges as he launches himself over the abyss. It’s barely a heartbeat of time before his feet are scrabbling at the stone on the other side. An unfortunately timed heave nearly sends him crashing backwards, but talons grip bloody furrows into his neck as Rune latches on, wings sweeping powerfully as he steadies Reave. The bird, large as he is, can’t hope to lift anything as big as his soul-bound. Still, it is enough to allow Reave to scramble over the edge to safety.
Breathing heavily, Reave shakes his head, ignoring the pain of the gouges in his neck. Rune takes to the sky again, giving up whatever hope he had of convincing the bone-clad stallion to turn back.
When he finally reaches the peak of the mountain, Reave allows a broad grin to spread across his lips. He has no doubt this adventure has only just begun, but already he can feel the heat of the thrill to come.
kissed my penny and threw it in
prayed to keep my soul
S
Your silence will not protect you. She reminds herself of this when the call comes. She goes, because she thinks this is the only thing she can do. She could stay quiet (Elliana has always been very good at hiding) but there is something. She hopes this bring her something. (Those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous, she remembers, and she dismisses the thought, she was not the danger.) She rises from her sleep, not an orphan only because her parents are not dead, even though neither of them are there anymore.
Her minds feels entirely too quiet now within that voice booming in her head. She fills the silence in her mind, singing eulogies to those who have been lost. There's a religion in her silent song. She still thinks about turning back, but every muscle in her body contracts as she realizes she needs to keep moving forwards. And she sobs, deep in her heart, at the realization that she has no defense against whatever it is that is coming. She wonders if this is it, if she will be led to the grave the unicorns once showed her, dragged her to, promised her. But now, the shaking in her limbs, the sweat that hide behind the frost of her mane tells her otherwise, that this could not be it. “When you will go into it without fear, you will be. And we will find you when you are.”
“Until then — you can keep dancing.” Said as if a permission granted from a god.
So Elliana runs. She runs like a deer, leaping over rocks and trees with a careless sort of abandon. She runs like a sea over the sands, a star falling across the night-sky.
‘Elliana, what are you doing here?’ Comes Aeneas from the shadows as she makes her ascent up the mountain. He emerges, bright as ever, as if he were birthed from the sun and not from Day and Dusk’s matriarchs. “Aeneas?” She asks him, not believing, and maybe if this were a church and not a mountain she would clutch a cross to her chest and send a heaven bound prayer. ‘Come to the meadow with me, get away from here, it isn’t…safe,’ he says and she wants to believe him, wants to sink into that light of his skin. He is right, she knows beneath the whites of her bones and down, down, down, she knows he is right. ‘Turn back, Elliana—now.’ And it is the command in his voice that sends her mind back, back, back and she imagines herself screaming, but when she comes to her lips are as silent as the trees on a day without wind.
“I have to go, Aeneas,” she says and it breaks her, it breaks everything. She wants to stay, with him, with whatever light and warmth he offers her in this morning. And the expression on his face, it is too real to be just ordinary magic. (The space between a breath and a heart beat she thinks this is really him). She steps back, away from him, closer to the summit and to whatever call had summoned her. The shadows feel like a blessing from a god she does not believe in when they fill up again the space between them. “I’m sorry,” and she almost thinks she is as he dissolves into fireflies and is gone at just the same time she turns with a whip of blonde hair.
She summits and despite the weariness in her limbs, she manages to maintain a mask of composure and forces a diplomatic grin onto her face. She realizes she is not alone. Far, far from alone because there he stands like the skeleton of a fallen soldier in the sunlight.
Maybe she is not as good at hiding as she thought.
11-14-2021, 09:54 AM (This post was last modified: 11-14-2021, 09:59 AM by thorax.)
The Mountain giveth.
The Mountain taketh.
So does the Dark God.
He gives and he takes.
Or so the stories go. Fables. Myths. Legends. Things that go bump in the night and speak of caution. Of heart’s desires and a thousand other sordid things. Gods and Mountains.
Almost like men and monsters.
Theirs’ is a long history entwined with the Dark God —
It began with the fashioning of Pangea. Pollock becoming king. Sinew, his consort for time immemorial (despite any kingly discretions). Then came the twins: Feast and Famine. Princes and paupers both, for their blood made it so. Neither would govern any throne but the one of their own passions’ making. Feast though, would quest once or twice at the Dark God’s summons. He sacrificed a pale perfect wing for it.
From there, it spawned chapter after chapter in which the Dark God trampled through the pages of. A quest. Or two, who can rightly remember? Then, a season in which magic made possible the impossible - turned fathers into mothers, let stallions have wombs instead of sperm (well that too, but instead of balls fit to burst, there were teats full of milk and stallions tasting a bit of mare’s pain at birth). From that, came her:
Thorax.
The daughter of the Dark God and Feast.
As we all know, blood often calls to blood. So as he sent his summons, she stirred from whatever reverie she was caught up in and lifted her head to the wind as if it whispered something to her. “Come along,” it might have said, to which her blood stirred, raced, coursed until it became adrenaline-rich and her heart seemed fit to burst. Much like her taut flesh suddenly so full of need to outpace the stars in the sky to answer this wild wanton call that said come, come, come.
So the rainbow-slick girl ran through the dark, over hill and dale, until she found that mountain trail that gave her a moment’s pause —
What if?
Do I go?
Come, came the call like a beat of something strange and thrilling in her blood.
But the Mountain had other ideas, enough to meekly challenge the Dark God’s summons (though she couldn’t have known it was him at the time, as a plethora of other scents permeated the thick air at the mountain’s base). It felt like small slaps and stings - enough to discourage but not really harm or fell. But she might have imagined all of that too, as strange new fears arose in her. Ones she put no names too, and ignored.
So up the Mountain she dared to go, or tried at least. But the way grew hard, thick, tangly even as if she found herself in a mire of muck. It sucked at her legs and sapped her strength. Worse, she could see that it was only rocky outcroppings and darkness - not muck at all, but it was much she slogged through, even bearing the sucking squelch of it at her hooves.
Go on or quit? Those thoughts chased themselves through her mind but Thorax persevered because she had no quit in her. She moved sluggishly up that mountain, each step agonizing and time-consuming until it seemed the last star would burn itself out in the coming dawn. Still, there was only rocks and dark, and somewhere up ahead the source of it all —
That call.
This trek.
The challenge.
Others, even. Because she smelled them as she tried to suck in deep breaths of air that choked her lungs. Thin and unsatisfying, as her legs trembled from exertion and her skin shook with exhaustion. But at least, she crested the Mountain and it’s imaginary muck to glance at them all and stand off by herself.
She’d made it, but at what cost?
Only time could tell, and the quest.
But she didn’t know that; trembling and blowing, and tired but somehow mastering a look of something impenetrable or impending.
He hasn't yet found the limit of his anger and his hurt, though it no longer blazes and blinds him, instead it pulses like a heartbeat, slipping through his veins and across his skin like a blush. Wherewolf has lost count now of the number of times that his mother has come back and been killed again, he's lost count of the number of times that neither of them apologized (he knows that her debt to him has long since been paid, but he is selfish and takes more than his share,) yet still he's angry and unwilling to let go.
He's always been so good at wallowing.
When the summons comes, Wolfbane's son looks down at the sullen girl and she sneers at him but holds her tongue. There's a thought shared between them, not by magic but by habit, a pattern established over the year (two? he cannot remember now,) that they have been locked in this cycle. He kills her, she returns - why? Neverwhere has never been an optimistic creature, she cannot expect to be saved, so why does she bother to return to this? He suspects it is spite alone that draws her back to make herself a prison to her jailor. They are more alike than he is willing to admit.
Like so many times before, the Pampaian Lord leaves the broken child's body of his resurrected mother among the persistent tangle of vegetation, but this time he sets no duplicate to guard it when he sets off for the Mountain, trusting instead to Aela's dragonish greed to keep his investment safe.
The Dark God's voice makes the foothills tremble underfoot. Or maybe it's the anger of Beqanna, lurching and bucking to keep those that would answer Him from climbing their Mountain, but Wherewolf is not easily swayed. Like his mother, he is spiteful and contrary, and the Fairies' warnings only deepen his resolve - and his sharp-toothed scowl. It is with that scowl still fracturing the hard lines of his face that he finds himself face to face with the Mountain's defense. It's his mother, tall and serious, frowning down at him from an enormous height - no, not an enormous height, it's him that's shrunk. His wings lift lightly from his sides but the familiar weight seems so small and he turns a greenish eye back to see them, wingless and downy and frail. Neverwhere is not a giant, she is simply grown and he is the child.
"It's not safe to go, Wherewolf." There's no kindness in her voice, and no anger, only the gruff matter-of-factness that he remembers from his childhood. The dappled mare steps forward to embrace her son and he recoils. That isn't right, but some part of his heart stretches out in response. Their lives might have been so different, if only they had been different, if they had been better, but neither of them is. The colt's protestation quiets against the brush of warm skin and the gentle tug of teeth pulling at his tufted mane, but he cannot forget that dark body he left lying deathly still among the winter-hardy grasses. He cannot forget the memory dredged from obscure depths of those same bright teeth buried deep into the S-curl of his downy wing, jerking him upwards into the air, the memory of dark knees making his ribs crack. No matter how badly he wants this, he can't have it, and the Mountain cannot give it to him.
The illusion makes him furious. The boy rips himself away, filling the cold air with curses as he does, and the Mountain only watches impassively through those ice-blue eyes as he races further up the path. Neverwhere does not chase him, her magic spell now broken, and when he rounds the next bend he is adult again with an abruptness that makes him stumble and pause to gain his bearings. The ground still shakes, every step he takes makes it growl and shriek and he pins his ears back against the curve of his poll as if it will help but the piercing sound reverberates through his skull until it feels like it will crack open and spill its wicked contents onto the broken stone and snow underfoot, but the pegasus trudges onward, perversely, too obstinate to ever do what is good or even just better in the face of so much pressure.
Blood trickles from his nostrils and his ears, leaving a trail of poppy-red droplets on the frozen ground until his magic heals the broken web of arteries. His scowl is grisly, white teeth smeared with red, his face twisted with pain and petulance when he finally reaches the peak with bloodshot sclera that makes the blue-green of his eyes a startling contrast. Carnage is waiting for him there and he adjusts his path to bring himself closer to the magician-god, to the one that cursed Wherewolf's ancestors, that set his own creation into motion. That Wherewolf would not exist if not for Carnage is indisputable. Whether or not he feels any gratitude for that existence is far less certain.
She is beneath the waves when the summons finds her, tracing shimmering refractions of golden light with eyes too blue to be anything but a shade borrowed from late summer skies. At first she thinks she must be dreaming, that her mind must be wandering like the tides that tug at tangles of her mane and set free the knots that the winds place there, that something is pulling old desires from her childhood back to the forefront just to see if they are yearnings that still wound her.
They are, of course, but she is good at lying to herself.
Except even as she blinks those bright, luminous eyes, the summons is a thing that tethers itself like a hook inside her belly and coaxes her forward, nearly tangible in a way that those ancient daydreams are not. She thinks, as she climbs from the depths of her ocean hideaway, as water runs down her sides in curving rivulets and the pale silk of her mane clings to her neck, that it must be odd how her heart is a thing unraveling inside her chest now, how it perches like a bird within a cage of delicate ribs and waits to see what exists just beyond this moment. Just beyond the sameness of daily rituals. If life will be different after meeting her father.
He is the only reason she goes to the mountain, finding herself paused at the base and looking upwards into a sky that feels almost like a different world to her. She is of the sea and those dark depths, and this place is towering heights and openness, it is bright in a way that makes her feel exposed. But she climbs anyway, climbs because this ache inside her is only growing stronger, and even though she’s spent her whole life building walls around it to protect herself, she can feel the fissuring inside herself the further she goes. Did he know she would hear his call, did he know she would be so willing to answer it? Probably, and there is something inside that truth that flares inside her like a shade of burning shame. A kind of vulnerability she would rather die than face.
She pretends that she is little more than surface deep, that she is bright eyes and dancing smiles, an empty tangle of beautiful, simple amusement. That she is nothing more than pretty, because pretty is underestimated. Pretty isn’t someone who hides her selkie skin in secret places lest it be stolen from her, lest she be bound in debt to a thief. Pretty isn’t someone who, as a girl, wondered why her dad wasn’t the kind of man who came home to his family, why he didn’t try to know her when she was so willing to know him. Pretty doesn’t have burdens, doesn’t have pain, because pain is a thing so easily weaponized and she wants no weakness in her armor.
Alleria is nearly to the top of the mountain when the magic in it wakes beneath her trespassing feet. It starts as a feeling at first, a sensation of watching eyes, but when she turns a circle there is only her shadow behind her. For a long moment she is still and quiet, the only sound in her ears that of the wind weaving over stone and ragged mountain growth. There is no movement, no scent but that of the sea on her own skin and the dry earthy odor from the ground churned beneath her hooves. Still, her skin prickles uneasily until it is something she cannot ignore, something that forces her back down a few yards the way she had come just to be sure - but sure of what? She knew there would be others here, others summoned, yet this feeling is something more sinister, something predatorial that she associates with the deepest parts of the ocean, the places she hardly ever goes.
“Are you a predator, or are you prey?” The question, the voice, the face she finds when she turns sharply to the right to face him all stir a sense of immediate distaste as her eyes refamiliarize themselves with a shade of dun and blue she has not seen in a long time, remembering a mouth that had tried to bite down on the curve of her neck. She had hated him instantly and those feelings are quick to rekindle now. Of course he of all people would be here. “Or are you just stupid?” She is taken aback by that question, and as her eyes turn a shade of blue too cold to be anything but glacial, she realizes what it is he has laying at his feet.
Her selkie skin laying in a damp mound in the dirt, half wedged beneath one hoof.
Horror has cold hands that squeeze too tight, she knows because she can feel them reaching inside her chest now. “How did you find that?” She takes a step closer, and in this moment she is both predator and prey, furious and terrified, but he picks up the skin between his teeth and retreats further down the mountain. She follows on reflex, a tangle of pale steel gray and burning white fury, chasing him for longer than she would later admit. It is only when she realizes that he is always the same distance away, always the same length of just too far between them, that she understands that he and her stolen skin are nothing but a hallucination. Nothing but a nightmare come to find her outside of sleep.
She is the stillness of a brewing storm when she lifts her dark face and turns from the wavering image, she is fury in it’s quietest form, raw to the depths of her core. But she returns to her task, to the summons of her father, and pretends that there is not a constellation of invisible fractures spread across her skin. When she reaches the top she is not surprised to find how many others have beat her there - she lost time chasing a hallucination, lost some dignity too.
Alleria joins them quietly, but there is only one horse in the gathering that her eyes fall on, one God. Her father. She had imagined him about a dozen different ways - the shape of his face and the color of his skin, if he had dapples and steel like she did or something different. But looking at him now she understands that in a million years and with a million guesses, her imagination would have always been wrong, lacking. She thinks of all the questions she had asked Ryatah about him, thinks of the last one. Do you love each other? There had been something in her answer, something in her face and in the sound of her voice, something that kept Alleria from asking those questions again.
But she can feel those curiosities welling again, the damnable desire that he sees her and knows who she is, that she mean something slightly different to him than the others standing here with her - and the fear, the heavy weight of knowing that he is not that kind of a father. That this want is a daydream and she should know better because she is not a silly girl. So she lifts her chin and allows a little steel to slip into her eyes when she finally meets his gaze and waits, just like the rest, for what comes next.
What was it that you were doing all those years ago? So much simmering and simpering, you think. It was so much harder then. Your recent years have been so simple. Gentle, welcome monotony made you quiet—made that wildfire in your belly fall dormant.
But you forgot.
You always forget.
Beneath the ashes, around the blooms bursting forth in rebirth, your maddening embers sizzle. They do not call to you, but they burn the soft lining of your intestines. You bear scorch marks so well-hidden even you do not know they are there. Perhaps the anger and sadness will consume you once again. Perhaps you will triumph.
There is nothing you can do when the flames burst forth, answering His summons. They claw at your soothing words. They purr at his invigorating voice. You are helpless, but not listless. Your steps are measured with a quiet fight, but you listen to Him. You come. Thoughts of the project he has for you swirl and eddy in your mind, inciting your excited flames. You try to part yourself from the fire, calling them it. But each lick of flame is a piece of you just as much as the peace you no longer find foreign.
If you do not conquer this madness, it will conquer you.
He knows that, you’re sure of it. Just as He knows of all else. Perhaps He does not call you specifically, but His voice lilts for beings just like you.
You’re charred by the time you reach the foot of the Mountain. The wings at your back hiss and crackle angrily, chattering with the wildfire inside you. Like calling to like.
You’re scared. You’re so scared that you quiver, that your steps stutter and your eyes grow wide and bright. He frightens you with that beckoning voice and that ominous project. You don’t want to go any further, but the moment you turn around the flames inside you will devour you from the inside out. You will never return.
The Mountain is angry as you climb, unyielding as it pelts you with uncertainty and terror. Mindgames, you know. Endless mindgames, between the landmark entity and the Dark God. When you only hesitate, when you do not turn back, the Mountain goes quiet. You stop entirely in the discomforting silence.
“What are you doing, Brunhilde?”
Within the blink of an eye, a white lion appears. He watches you with golden, placid eyes as another lion (this one as black as night) steps around him. A mountain lion accompanies him.
You say nothing in return as the three cats peer at you. You watch, holding your breath, as agitation begins to show on the felines’ faces.
“You’re so insane, Brun,” laughs the mountain lion, wild voice so achingly familiar that you stumble backward. Your gulp is not measured. You choke on it, eliciting a chuckle from the midnight lion.
“I know you are not real,” you manage to sputter out as the flames inside you grow crazed with the nearness of such magic.
“What do you mean, daughter? Your brother and your lover and your father stand before you, trying to warn you, and you spurn us?” The white lion tilts his head curiously as he speaks. Your quivering grows violent. You cannot fight them off (you’ve never been a warrior, no matter how Vastra tries to teach you—it’s those lessons that you think of, that almost make your resolve capsize, as you stare at the perfect duplication of her wiry muscles).
“Really, you should turn back,” Draco murmurs, red eyes twinkling with cruelty. He leans forward, black fur shimmering ethereally beneath the moonlight. “Leave projects like these to the whole minded.”
You gulp again, knowing your fate. You must keep trekking upward, lest the fire take you completely. One step forward, two steps forward, three. The cats watch you with impassive faces. When you are within brushing distance of your father, you stop.
“My father would never speak to me like that,” you whisper viciously. The steps you take through him are unyielding and reckless. You run up the Mountain, up to face the Dark God and His bidding; but your father’s last words manage to echo through you as you face the grayed creature.
