"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
09-22-2015, 03:59 PM (This post was last modified: 09-22-2015, 04:02 PM by Carnage.)
and lord, I fashion dark gods too;
He comes to them, and they choose their fates.
Well, some of them. He does not abide by all of them, and some of them do not choose at all. One – his own child, a disgrace, as they are all disgraces – says nothing, and when he reaches into Carlina’s mind there is only a buzzing, like flies. He does not need her. He attacks her, mauls her for a moment, and his jaws close over her left eye and remove it deftly, a practiced move.
(He’s been here before, he knows how to make the equine body do things evolution has begged it not to.)
He sends her away, back to wherever she came, and turns to his remaining toys.
He himself is laughing - giddy, really – for they are a cornucopia laid out before him, marked by him, ruined by him. There is a feral pleasure taken in this, in their pain, the way they succumb.
(They all do, eventually, and this is what he finds most beautiful – they all succumb, to him, he is the unstoppable force.)
One more trick, then, to break them, to show them who they really are.
(They never like it, seeing what they become, the possibilities that lurk like cancer in the bones.)
He thinks of taking them apart, of writing a story on their bones that only he knows. But ah, it is more efficient to harvest their own fears – easier, to take the things that leak off of them like radiation and craft it, shape it with a few words.
The minds are so rich in horrors, why should he bother to create something original?
So to each prisoner, each captive, he sends them themself – an older Self, one that has endured years here. The Self is them, aged, a horrid mirror to be held up.
“I am,” (ledger)
(wayra)
(cress)
(minette)
(raelynx)
(bly)
says the Self. It looks as its younger self, new, fresh-marked. It tries not to remember those days. It tries not to remember many things.
But it must.
Time is strange and there are multiple paths, and the Self knows this, if it knows anything at all. It knows it can escape.
It has a key. I am the key, thinks the Self.
“This is what you become,” says the Self, flat. It no longer feels anything.
“You can escape.”
A promise, a pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel.
“I am the key, use me” says the Self. The words rhyme like a childhood chant and it looks at itself, curious. It is so young. Time is so strange. It exists and does not exist.
“Go,” it croaks, the words dying – all of the Self is dying – and His games continue once more.
NOTES:
HAHA TIME TO GET WEIRD.
First, for failing to reply, Carlina was eliminated and is now missing her left eye She will also be scarred, though you can determine the extent of the scars.
The rest of you are through to the LAST ROUND, yay.
So, to explain wtf is going on: Carnage sent in an illusion/something into the cell. It’s you, from a timeline where you stayed in the lair for years. This character (the “Self”) is the key, in that you must kill it/have it die to trigger your escape (the key is literally inside it, distract the hellhounds with it, it sacrifices itself, whatever makes sense to you and your character).
Your character may talk to its future self for as long as you like, can describe what happens to it/you, or you can get right into the gore – again, whatever makes sense for you. I just want to see the fucked-up-ness that stems from meeting and having to kill your alternate timeline self.
Alternatively, your character may choose to stay, in which case describe how THAT conversation goes, and some highlights from the subsequent years.
Replies must be in by Thursday, 4:00 PM CST. Results should be posted fairly soon after that.
As always, if you have any questions, please email me at acmrshll@gmail.com.
The freezing cold is gone but he still shivers violently. Back in the damp iron cell, collapsed on the ground. So much pain, it devours him. He can’t help the keening wail that escapes from his lips, swinging his head back and forth as the socket where his eye had once been throbs and pulses with agony. Blood drips from the scratches around the open wound, falls from the rips in his neck. How could he ever recover from something such as this. Mauled and disfigured, a disgrace to his father. To himself.
Death. All he wants is death. ”No you don’t.” It’s a whisper and he slowly raises his head, tilted so his good eye could see. There before him is an old stallion, withered and graying. The bits of his flesh that remain are a dull chestnut like his but mostly covered by scars and wounds and blood. It’s flaxen mane is ropey and thin, it’s tail missing as if it had been burnt off. What makes him stare with his mouth agape is the stallions face. A missing socket with three scars across it and the remaining eye a dull brown with gold flecks. ”I am Ledger. This is what you become.” Any hope that young Ledger had left drains from him. He doesn’t speak, only stares at his future self with horror. Years of torture lay ahead for him, he was going to die here. ”No.” His future self shakes his head slightly, the sight sickening the real Ledger to his core. ”You can escape.””How?” He asks with a waver in his voice, still trembling violently on the cold stone floor. ”I am the key.” It whispers, it’s one eye locked on his one eye. ”Use me.”
The younger version still doesn’t understand, confusion clouding over his sight. ”Kill me.” It says simply and once again Ledger is dry mouthed and shaking his head, scrambling off the floor and backing further into the cell. ”It’s the only way.” Says his old self, lacking any emotion in the sentence. ”Give him what he wants.” He encourages with the faintest smile on his gray lips. ”You know what he wants.” Ledger shakes his head again, refusing to do it. ”Fine. Then this is your future. This is all you will know.” Pressing against the bars, Ledger turns his head from the future Self and takes his good eye with him. ”Coward.” Says the old stallion, contempt in his voice. ”You’re nothing but a coward.”
Slowly he turns towards the old man with gritted teeth. Seething against his pain he snarls. ”I am not a coward.””Then prove it.” Comes the quiet response. With a cry of frustration, grief, pain, and a turmoil of other emotions… He strikes his future self down. His hooves strike out over and over again at the stallions chest and barrel. He knows deep down what he wants. As the old stallion opens up beneath his falling hooves, blood splatters across his face and chest. He doesn’t stop, not till his old self’s chest is ripped open. Not till he can see it’s beating heart. For it is still beating and isn’t this what Carnage wanted all along? His heart? Refusing to allow himself to even question what he is doing, his teeth sinks into the pumping heart and pulls it free from it’s resting place. He spits it to the ground, an offering. ”Here it is! Are you happy now?” He screams into the darkness. The response comes in the form of a quiet click as the metal gate to his cell swings wide open. ”Go…” The dying him says, somehow still alive due to the magical torture it had endured for years. ”Run…” The words die on his lips but he doesn’t need to be told twice.
i love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate
His body is no longer ablaze but still he burns. Every nerve ending screams a protest, sizzling and scorching from his roasted skin. Even breathing is painful, his lungs seared raw by heat and smoke. He cannot remember his cell walls forming around him again, cannot recall the moment he had come back into his dank prison. He knows only that the coolness of the air, the dampness of the room, is a relief upon his charred flesh.
He does not know how much time has passed when he appears before him. The most handsome stallion he has ever lain eyes upon stands in his prison. The massive equine is as white as newly driven snow, sleek pelt covering a body corded in well-defined muscle, limber legs accented with a hint of elegant feathering to decorate his fetlocks. His pale tresses hang long and tangle free, falling thickly against his sculpted neck. His tail is equally thick, settling in graceful waves and long enough to nearly kiss the ground.
The stallion stares at him with eyes the same dull gray as his own, but they are somehow different. Deadened. Cold and listless in a way that his are not. He shakes his head, thick forelock falling away to reveal a single imperfection, a brand in the very center of his forehead. Finally, he speaks.
"I am Raelynx," he says. And the burned colt’s mouth gapes in shock. Surely this could not be him? He is too perfect, too beautiful. It is rather horrifying, really, to think that this might one day be him.
He continues speaking then, but Raelynx is only half listening, too stunned to do much more than stare up at him. A key, he understands. This stunning horse (his future self?) is a key to his escape. But the disfigured colt still lay sprawled upon ground. He can do nothing from this position, so he stands. Or rather, he attempts to. It is an ugly thing, his struggle to rise. By the time his feet are planted shakily beneath him, he is panting, his exposed flesh stinging fiercely as sweat tries to escape his charred skin. In many places he is too burned to sweat, everything the fire could reach having given way beneath its onslaught.
Once standing, he considers the pale stallion before him as he gasps for breath. Does he truly wish to leave, to recover the key and escape? Even if he did, how could he possibly wrest it from this strong and healthy specimen? From himself?
There is a sweetness in his torment, a liveliness singing in his veins even as his body is wracked by agony. He had lived. He had truly survived such a horrendous torture, and it is simply divine. Even as fever burns across his skin a shudder of delight causes his body to quiver. He had thought his enjoyment deadened, but it had simply been dormant. Like a glutton that had feasted on cake, he had filled himself with pain until his body had become sickened with the excess. But as the worst of the pangs fade, his pleasure returns.
His gaze latches onto the angelic specter before him, desperation in his gaze. ”How?” he croaks.
“How had he become this?” he means to ask, but his ravaged throat simply cannot expel further words. Regardless, the future Raelynx seems to understand perfectly well. Perhaps he recalls asking the very same question.
"He remakes you," he says. "Time and time again, he rebuilds you so that he might tear you down again. Fire and ice. His own teeth and hooves. He allows his hounds to feast upon your living body, tears strips from your bones to dangle in front of them as morsels. You die in water, buried in sand, in liquid metal. His imagination is limitless."
Raelynx shivers, envisioning such a future. Most of it he has little concept of, but suddenly he wants to. The fire had been terrible, but there is a sweetness to it. Pain and pleasure growing so intense that they mingle and become one. Sometimes he cannot even fathom which is worse. And in that moment, he understands that he must stay so that he might one day know.
His cracked lips curve into the faintest hint of a smile, resolve in his bland gray gaze.
”I… stay. I… become… you?” The words are ripped out by agonizing persistence. But he has to know. While the vision before him is horrifying to contemplate, he will endure anything if what he promises is true.
"Yes." Those chilling gray eyes (his eyes, yet not his) stare at him. "But you are not worthy. You never were." Confusion comes immediately, followed by dread. He has no time to ask though, as the stunning white stallion bucks, sending his powerful hind legs crashing into his cell door. The door flies from its hinges, allowing his future self to exit, a faint hint of maliciousness coloring his eerie gaze.
Raelynx stumbles after him as quickly as his scorched body will allow him. His head peeks from the broken door just as the stallion throws himself headlong into the pack of hell hounds.
”NOOOO!” He wails at the foolish stallion, the single word breaking and crackling as he screams, ravaging his already wrecked throat further. But it is too late. The hounds attack him with vicious abandon. They tear him to shreds, spraying blood in wide arcs across the chamber, soaking his once pristine white coat (now torn into tattered fragments) with crimson. And, in no time at all, the key is released.
09-22-2015, 10:32 PM (This post was last modified: 09-22-2015, 11:09 PM by Minette.
Edit Reason: spelling errors make me cry
)
She hears the echo of his laughter with dread. Her body is aflame from within. Perhaps all she will ever know is pain. Perhaps that is exactly what she deserves. Why else would she be here? Surely heaven would have intervened if she did not deserve this fate. Steps echo outside her cell. They are strange, lighter and slower than those of the dark god. She cowers in fear of what fresh torture he has fashioned. She is broken. What more can he do? What more can he take from her?
The cell door slides open and a figure enters. She enters. She stands eye to eye with Minette, a mare of middling age with a white coat and black speckles who appears like a wraith, unmarked except for a brand on her left haunch. It is fully healed, red hairless lines shining in bold relief against her pale skin; a triangle encasing a star. The younger mare's brand is still dripping blood. But for age, they would be identical. A kaleidoscope of emotions collides in Minette's heart. She would swear the universe is still, that the stars are dropping from the sky. Nothing she knows about the world can explain the appearance of her older self in this tenth circle of hell.
The wraith mare speaks, saying what Minette already knows to be true.
“I am Minette.”
“You are not me.” the mare whispers, wishing she did not believe. There is a wrongness here, hiding beneath the too flawless skin of her older self.
The elder mare, the Not-Minette sighs. Minette is shocked to see a flash of pity in her eyes. But Not-Minette knows what is to come. She moves forward, speaking softly but without compassion. She has very little of that left after her years as the plaything of Carnage. “Let me show you. I will protect you from some of the pain, but I cannot keep all of it from you. You will experience what I have. You will see the future as I have lived it.”
The two wretched creatures touch. The cell disappears, and a life of torment materializes.
He takes her eyesight and they play a game, she and the dark god. She is held in place with the living chains. He tortures her, asking her to tell him what he is using to rend her to pieces. A correct answer yields a new device, a wrong one begins the process again. Her agonized screams echo through the lair. She is a quivering mass of shredded skin at the completion of the game.
He uses her body to test the mettle of his hell hounds. She is let loose, allowed to taste freedom (this is early days, when she still believes she might escape) before the monsters descend hungrilly, tearing her flesh from the bone . Always, the dark god calls them back just as she is at death's door.
He enters her mind, forcing her to watch the death of her daughter, the only one she loves, again and again. Each time Minette is powerless, watching as various fates befall her child; drowning, murder, hunted by wolves. After one, a vision so dark it cracks open her heart, Minette tries to take her life, but he will not allows his plaything to escape him. He lets her believe she will feel death's sweet relief before rescuing her from the brink.
He transforms, becoming a two legged creature, uncurling a length of metal tipped rope and creating criss cross patterns up her legs and down her back with his whip. He relishes the sound of her begging, her terror a symphony to his ears.
He rapes her. He finds new ways to make this invasion of her self a fresh terror. He likes for her to struggle, and he does not bind her. He is savage, not satisfied until she is weeping tears of blood. Other times he soothes her with false hope and gentle touch, before mounting her, fucking her and shattering her hope with the delight of a sadist.
He tortures her with fire and with ice and with wind and with the sound of his voice.
She will never forget the sound of his voice.
And in every year that comes, the Not-Minette, her future self, follows him willingly to her torment because as each day passes, she believes that she deserves nothing more. This is all there is for her. She was born only to know agony and despair at her master's hand. She forgets who she once was in the reality of who she is.
Each time he tears her asunder he patches her up, remakes her, so she can be repainted as his masterpiece. But even he, the great magician and the dark god, cannot do so forever. Time is disappearing for Not-Minette, and she knows her end of days is coming.
The vision fades. The cell of thorn and iron returns. Tears gather in both pairs of eyes
“This is what you become,” the voice is matter of fact, incongruous with the trickle of liquid dripping from her eyes. “But this fate does not have to be yours. You can escape.”
“How? How can I?” Minette's voice is parched. She feels as if she has lived an entire lifetime in a moment.
“I am the key, use me.”
Cold dread creeps up the younger mare's legs, settling in her chest. She says nothing, only waits.
“It would be a mercy.” The Not-Minette says gently, or as gently as she can manage, “killing me. And when I am gone, you will be free. We will both be free.”
She thinks of Gryffen then. He would kill this mare without a thought, would probably relish the pleasure of blood staining the ground beneath his hooves. Perhaps anyone would kill this mare, especially if she held the key to freedom from hell, but Minette can not. She is not sure what holds her back. The thought of taking her own life fills her with a great revulsion. She has not yet reached the point where despair is so great that only ending it all will satiate her soul. And perhaps, she thinks, freedom will not be any better than what she will endure in the dark god's lair. He will be waiting for her. The white wolf.
Not-Minette would laugh derisively if she could summon the energy or the will. She knows what her younger self thinks. She knows that the white wolf is but a pale imitation of the terror she has known. Her younger self is a fool, naïve. But Not-Minette understands. She was once that mare. She knows what must be done.
“I can't.” Minette repeats, breaking their silence, her voice stronger.
“I know.” Not-Minette says, her body weary and her mind broken. She feel stretched over time and space, every cell of her being invaded and subdued. “Foolish girl. And so I will make the choice, and save us both from hell.”
Not-Minette closes her eyes for a long moment, and then whirls out of the cell and begins to run, leaving the open door behind her.
The hell hounds catch her scent immediately. They are always prowling, waiting for their master's playthings to be made available to them. Without his command to stay them, they will hunt to the death.
Minette follows at a short distance, as if drawn by a leash. Her fate is inexplicably tied up with the mare she could have become. She will not abandon her other self in her darkest hour. It will be her shame, held tight to her chest until the day she herself dies.
The wolves catch Not-Minette quickly. She is not a match for them. Even as she screams her anguish, she kicks and bites and bucks, spurring the hell hounds on to greater blood lust. They tear out her eyes, they rip chunks of flesh from her bone, but still they want more. In a final concentrated attack they pull the older mare to her knees, and then to her side, ripping open her stomach and devouring her steaming intestines. Long moments pass before Not-Minette's screams fade and her body stills.
Minette's soul feels shredded. She cannot tear her eyes away from the murder scene before her. She can only watch helpless from the shadows as the wolves feast, and wonder if her refusal to murder her Self was truly the right one.
Her last sight of Not-Minette is a broken, half eaten body sprawled on the ground, torn to pieces by hell hounds. She cries as if she will never stop, scrambling out of the cave to freedom.
[Some believe that fate is absolute, that it is preconceived, that it can not be changed. That any motion against it, will result in the same outcome regardless. That does not keep some from trying, those that know this fate, that hold desire to change it. Those with power.]
What does she love? Nothing.
What does she know? Nothing.
Bly simply exists, her colorless world, and cold, hard heart. A reflection stares back at her from a polished surface, His mark stands red and true. Red. She knows it should be red, she remembers what red looks like, but she doesn’t see the color. The edges of the laceration are crusted, the rough brown of an emerging scab. The blood flow has stopped, now the red simmers, pooled between forming barriers. She knows what this should look like, what colors it may be, and she pictures it-because that was all she had left.
For a time she stands there, staring at the girl that looks back. She wonders if the torture has ended, it has been quite some time since her last ordeal. And like her question is heard, there begins a stir. A humm in the air catches her ears, they turn before she does, because she does not know what to expect. She knew it would be bad, but just how bad? She starts, having completed her 180, for a moment she thinks it is all one big mirror. Upon closer inspection she see it is not, the thing that stares back is different.
It is still while she looks, taking in the entirety of its form. A greying mouth was accompanied by drooping lips, its eyes were adorned with obvious hollows above them. The face was raked by an old, aged scar, with a pearly sheen to the thin layers of skin. Its back was dipped, the withers had become bony, and she could see this horse’s muscle mass was deteriorating. It’s coat was dull, with a spotted-blanketed like hers. Hers. Me. This is me, she breathes.
The mare nods, a motion that is stiff, apparent in the discomfort it caused. Yes, she replies simply and she waits, as though she expected Bly to do something.
The little appy blinks, taking in this revelation, not sure as to where this was going. She took notice though, of the older mare’s unwavering gaze, coming from her own aged eyes. “Why are looking at me like that?” She finally decides to ask, because she simply can not riddle it out. Don’t you wish to leave?” The elder asks her, a tone which is absolute in her voice. “Yeeess,” Bly prolongs the word, tilting her head, and lifting a brow. What did she mean by leave, this older version of herself “This is what you become,” says the Mare, flat. It no longer feels anything. “You can escape.”
Escape It brings a spark to her mind, hope, had disappeared with the freezing of her heart. Yes, escape, she could do that. ”Well come on then, what are we waiting for?” Her response is met with another pained head shake, wisps of creamy mane falling to the floor. “I said You can escape, not We.” Everything is matter of fact, there is no deviance to her statements. ”You will not like your stay here, you will wish for death, you will pray. Yet still, day in and day out, you will continue to wake.” The last sentence is followed with a flicker, a disturbance in the form of this Mare before her.
“Okay,” she says just as slow and drawn out as before. “I am the key, use me” says the Mare.
Use me, she pondered, everything was a riddle. ”The key is inside me” again the older Bly was speaking to her, exasperated by her youthful musings. Bly’s eyes find the Mare’s, she knows what that means, because here, it could mean nothing else. “Of course it is” the young girl says, knowing now what must be done. How would she be enough to take on this version of herself? Sure, it was old, decrepit, weak - but she was young, and small. It would take forever for her to reach inside, maybe that’s what He wanted.
She rears, standing high, as high as a young girl can stand, and lashes out. She aims for the woman’s breast, and watches as her hooves meet the body. She felt them connect, could have sworn she felt flesh give. So why is it that when she returns to all fours that there is not a mark, not a single scratch on the other? Old Bly does what she does best, a simple shake of her head. “No Bly, you know that is not enough. You must use me, show him that you know how, show him the darkness of the heart he made you.” Oh thoughts, how they always come and go, how they never end and continue in the cogs of one’s mind.
Young Bly gives a half smirk, she played at the display of emotion that was stolen from her. The emotion that was taken with the heat of her heart. The Mare, the Self, tilts her old, shaky head. “Do not interrupt” is all young Bly says to the look, knowing how her Self would be used to orders by now. Used to following them. “You know I can not”
Bly thinks that if they had hands, arms even like a human, that her Self’s would be outstretched as if to say, ‘Do what must be done, go ahead.’ She will. She might not ever get back what was stolen, she could end this though, she could escape. First she must test it.
“Mother does not love me, not the way she loves the twins. I wish I were Romilly-wish I could take her place.” She can almost not finish her truth, a great ripping sound splits the cell, along with a scream. Her scream, young Bly’s. Her flesh is torn, across her hip, the blood spilling to the floor, running down her leg. She turns to look at it, her breath labored, gasping from the pain. She whips her dial back, finding her Self, the old Mare. It makes a step, lurches forward, “What are you doing?” The Self can not comprehend what young Bly has done, but it sees it, so very plainly before them.
“I said do not interrupt” Little Bly growls, overtaken with her suffering, her anger, her hate. Things that lived in everyone, deep, deep down. Those evil little thoughts that were tucked away as if they had never occurred. The ones that no one would utter out loud, but that did not mean they had never happened. Bad things you did, and pretended you did not, no one would ever know. Things that you treated as if they did not exist- somewhere. The elder heeds, stopping in her tracks, and backstepping to where she stood before. Even if Bly killed her Self, this Mare, it would still exist somewhere.
Time is strange and there are multiple paths, and the Self knows this, if it knows anything at all. It knows it can escape.
Young Bly decides she will take away the wheel, leaving nothing to travel along the path in the first place. She would end her own suffering, and thus, the suffering of her Self as well. She would bare everything, and suffer the consequences- no matter what she became in the end.
“Tioga frightens me. She does things that Mother does not know about, she hurts things sometimes. She is like her Father, a ticking bomb. I wish she were dead.” Another gash, another rip explodes across her neck, down her shoulder. She bellows, the Self watches, trembling despite itself.
“One time she played with a dying bird, but she did not end its pain. When she left, I finished it for her.” A gasp, she had never told anyone these things, these awful thoughts and actions. She did notice though, through her failing colorless vision, that each time she revealed herself- her Self faded and flickered. Old Bly was becoming weaker, transparent, little Bly could see the outline of a golden key within it.
“My Father never loved my Mother, she says he did, but I know he didn’t. I am glad, I’d rather have her all to myself. She may suffer heartache, but I am happy.” A gouge splits down her breast, she screams, she breathes, so very heavily. The cell floor is a mess, her blood and her life wets the damp earth.
On and on, the dark truths spill from her mouth, it does not take forever, soon she collapsed. A wet bed to caress her damaged body, a rock to rest her head. One more, it will only take one more, and she knows.
“I want to be the only thing Mother has left in life. I want to be the most important. It is better when she is alone, she has me.”
“Go,” it croaks, the words dying – all of the Self is dying. The Self disappears altogether, gone in a great flash of light. It would have been beautiful if she could see it, truly see it. Bly can barely make out the clang of the key as it falls, before she slips away- finding death, and in it escape
Blys ear twitches against the breeze, fresh air fills her nostrils, a fly lands on the fresh scab that adorns her face. She shudders for a moment, because somewhere in her-all is cold, all is ice. On the verge of waking she does not notice the grass against her body, the light of the sun against her flesh.
Yet still, day in and day out, you will continue to wake.
I hope that was okay XD. If it is not understood (which I hope it is) Bly is not truly dead.
Wayra felt the water fill her lungs. She felt breath abandon her. She had felt herself die. Tears slipped down her cheeks. It had felt so good, to die. It had felt peaceful and warm, long awaited after months on the ice. Yet, she had woken up. Somehow she lived again. Wayra knew that she was alive, not for a moment did she doubt it. She hadn’t opened her eyes yet, but she knew she was alive. She didn’t, for a single moment, believe she had died and gone to paradise. She could feel the dank wetness of the cave, and the sour smell of old blood. A cold thought came over her.
Maybe she had died. Maybe the hellhounds had killed her in the Chamber’s pine forest all those months ago. What if she was dead, and instead of paradise, eternal damnation was to be hers?
Wayra shivered, the very idea made her blood run cold. She shivered hard enough to make her teeth chatter and her knees knock. She shivered so hard she couldn’t help but folding her legs up as tight against her body. It wasn’t just her thoughts that was cold. She was cold.
Finally, Wayra opened her eyes. It hadn’t always been this cold, had it? Around her she could feel the air, it was almost warm. She shouldn’t be this cold. It felt like the cold was coming from inside her. Wayra whimpered. Behind her a voice croaked.
“It’s you, girl. You’re cold. It’s not the cave.” Wayra jumped, and scrambled to her feet. You would think, after all this time, that a voice in the dark would hold no power of surprise.
On her feet, Wayra groaned, and instantly collapsed back to her knees. She felt a sharp pain, like someone had pricked her heart. The blue girl sobbed in exhaustion, and each gasping breath brought its own pain. Had her time on lake been real? Had she really been run through by the ice? She cried for long minutes until, eventually, she was too tired even for that. When the tears had run out she looked for the voice.
The voice was a mare, and by the looks of it, a very old mare. She had once been a blue roan, like Wayra, but her coat was almost white with age and starvation. Her mane was long and tangled in places, and patchy and falling out in others. Wayra recognized nothing but the eyes. She had seen those eyes reflected back at her in the ice for months. They were her eyes. Her big doe eyes, once filled with mingled hope and fear of the future held nothing but pain and loss. In the old woman’s eyes, Wayra saw the years of suffering that made them bleary and dull.
“What’s wrong with me?” Wayra asked. She knew the old woman would know. She felt like she was speaking to a mirror, and in that mirror she saw her soul. The hag answered her in a world weary voice.
“It’s your heart, child. The great gray bastard left a piece of of the ice imbedded in it. The pain, that will lessen, but the cold will never leave you. I’ll spare you the torment I’ve known, and tell you now that the cold will never go. You will always, always be cold.” The mare’s voice was wheezy by the end, and it seemed like she had used every ounce of strength she possessed.
“How long have you been here?” Wayra paused, reconsidering her question.
“How long have we been here?” The mare sighed, and her eyes floated shut. For one long moment Wayra thought she had died, but eventually, the bleary eyes fluttered back open.
“I don’t know. Long enough for youth to leave me. Long enough for an eternity of rats to grow old and died, long enough for him to lose interest and leave us to rot.” Wayra swallowed hard. She had expected as much. If she had learned anything on the ice, it was that time was an illusion. A single moment could last a lifetime, or be gone in the blink of an eye. Perhaps, it was because her heart was frozen, but Wayra didn’t feel the hot flush of anger or despair anymore. All she felt was the cold. She was beginning to numb, beginning to turn into the creature of cold lay before her.
“Who is he?” Wayra asked, not knowing why it was relevant, not knowing what she would do with the information. The mare snorted and wheezed, something that might have been a laugh, many many years ago puffed from her throat.
“He never does tell you. Don’t waste thought on it, a name means less that nothing.” Wayra nodded, accepting this as easily as she accepted the mare’s presence. The old, dying creature spoke the truth that was buried deep in Wayra’s thoughts. It never would have occurred to her to doubt it.
With a sigh, Wayra titled from her knees, to her side, and felt the comfortable feel of stone against her cheek. She had laid like this once, when she still had tears left to shed, when she still had warmth enough to feel anything at all. She closed her eyes, and waited for an eternity to pass.
From the corner of the cell the voice croaked.
“Do you intend to die here, girl?” Wayra opened one eye and fixed the hag with a flat expression.
“Don’t you?” The hag nodded, and Wayra was certain she saw her bleary eyes gleam.
“Aye, I intend to die here, and very soon. If you’ll help me.” Wayra sat up again, rocking to her belly to look at the crone more carefully.
“Why would I do that? Why would I kill you, who is myself?” The old mare rolled her eyes.
“And why do fools fall in love? Get up you lazy girl and let me show you something.” Wayra sighed and struggled to her feet, wincing, as she felt the sharp stab in her breast. On shaky legs, she wobbled over to the mare. The crone, it appeared, couldn’t stand, but she lifted her neck a little higher. On the mare’s breast, Wayra saw the brand, a circle with a stake driven though it.
“What does that look like to you?” Wayra squinted, it looked just like her own brand, or how hers would look after many lifetimes had passed. She didn’t understand. The hag could tell as much, and growled softly.
“Look at the wall you little fool.” Wayra did as she was told, and looked at the wall. What she saw there caused her heart to quicken, and that caused a sharp pain each time it pulsed. Her own little metronome. There, on the wall, was the brand. Beneath the brand was a slot. Wayra staggered over to inspect it. At the far end of the slot was a button, a button that could be pressed. Slowly, hesitantly, as if it would bite her, Wayra stuck her head inside. She could almost reach the end. If only, if only her nose was a little longer, she could reach it. As she craned her neck towards the button, the giant stone door the of cell rumbled slightly, but it did not open.
Wayra staggered back to the crone, and sank to her knees beside her.
“If we could push the button, would the door open?” The ancient mare nodded, the edges of her movements tinged with excitement.
“It would. I’m sure of it.” Wayra felt her pulse quicken again. Some feeling she couldn’t understand, some feeling she used to know flickered. It was hope.
“Okay,” She said, some excitement in her voice. “What do we need? Something to push the button. A rock perhaps?” The crone shock her head.
“There are no rocks, none that are loose. There never will be as long as you stay here.” Again, Wayra nodded, not for a moment did she doubt the mare’s words.
“Okay, well, you’re so very thin. Perhaps your neck would fit, if I helped you to stand?” The old mare shook her head.
“He will never allow you to get thin enough. Your neck will never be small enough to reach the end.” Wayra puzzled it out of a moment.
“If you were to lean against my back, would you be able to put your front hoof through the slot?” The mare didn’t bother to shake her head, she simply looked deep into Wayra’s eyes.
“I’ve tried that. It can’t be a hoof, it must be a nose.” Wayra huffed in irritation, but did not question her. The women were silent for many moments. For the first time in a long time, Wayra remembered what it felt like to have another heart beat beside her own. She knew what it was like to feel the warmth of another’s hide, even if that hide was as chilly as her own. They sat like that for what seemed like a long time. Finally, the hag spoke.
“Child,” She said, slowly, hesitatingly, as if the words she spoke were as important as the earth its self.
“Do you know how many times we’ve sat here together? Do you remember how many times I’ve seen you fresh from the ice?” Wayra, her eyes wide, shook her head. The mare sighed, and answered her own question.
“A dozen times, I’ve told you this story a dozen times.” Wayra’s eyes got wider. She didn’t know what to say. With an inch of frustration the crone continued.
“A dozen times I’ve helped you, and a dozen times you’ve refused to give me the one thing that I wanted. Each time you’ve wasted away and died, each time he has come for your body.” Wayra didn’t say anything immediately. She didn’t know how, but she knew the mare spoke the truth. She recognized the words as her own. Finally, very quietly, Wayra murmured.
“And what is it that you want?” The crone looked at Wayra intensely through bleary, squinted eyes.
“I want you to rend my head from my body and use it to open the damn door.” Wayra scrambled to her feet, tripping over herself in her urgency to escape the image of her hooves sinking into the mare’s neck.
“No!” Wayra shrieked.
“I cannot, you cannot ask it of me.” Wayra wheezed with the strength she was exuding, breath came to her in shallow, short gasps. Each breath felt frigid, cold as ice. The crone simply waited for her to finish. When Wayra had calmed the old mare spoke again.
“I’ve been here too long, daughter. Do you know what he brought us? Years and years ago?” Wayra shook her head mutely.
“He brought me father’s body. Dad died of old age, as we rotted away in here. Do you know what he brought us after that?” Wayra could guess, but she refused to do so. The crone growled out the words.
“Mother, he brought me mother, as a sad old corpse. He brought me everyone we knew and loved until there was no one left. Each time he told me they died of a mortal wound. Can you guess what that wound was, Wayra?” Wayra refused to meet the mare’s eyes, but she didn’t need to, the crone’s voice was harsh now.
“A broken heart!” The mare all but screamed. Wayra winced visibly, and cowered in the corner of the cell.
“Everyone in the world, Wayra, dies of a broken heart. You will come to know that, if you don’t do this thing I ask.” The tears Wayra thought had left her began to trickle again. For a very long time she said nothing. Finally, when she couldn’t stand it any longer, Wayra slinked back to the mare, and laid down beside her.
“I will do what you ask.” Next to her, Wayra felt a heavy, relieved breath. Wayra continued.
“But, before I do, can I sleep? I’m so tired, I didn’t know I could be this tried.” The crone hummed, almost happily, beside her.
“Yes, lay your head on my shoulder, and we will sleep, one last time.” Wayra did so, gratefully. She draped her neck across her own back, except this back was withered with age. For the last time, Wayra feel asleep an innocent. For the last time her sleep was peaceful. Wayra didn’t know it yet, but the crone did. The crone knew that never again would Wayra be able to close her eyes without dreaming of him, the gray, nameless god.
She wouldn’t always remember those dreams, but they would be there, silently lurking in the darkest corners of her mind.
When daylight came, Wayra only knew it by the slight weakening of the dark around them. The crone was already awake, an expectant smile on her face. For a sickening instant, Wayra recognized her own face, the face that had belonged to her before she found this lair.
That face was happy, hopeful.
Without a another word, Wayra ripped into the mare’s neck. They lay as close as lovers, their legs entwined, but instead of kisses, Wayra tasted blood pouring in around her teeth. Wayra heard the groan that escaped the mare, but she, herself, was beyond feeling. Her heart hadn’t woken up with her this morning. It was cold as ice. It was at the bottom of the lake she had died in.
It took a very long time to rend the head from the body. When she got it free, the neck was mutilated, barely recognizable as flesh and muscle. Wayra had needed to stomp on it before the spine would break.
Numbly, she carried the head by the forelock and carefully inserted it into the slot. Wayra made sure not to look in the eyes. The next part was almost worse than the one before. In order to push the head far enough into the hole, she had to press into the destroyed flesh with her nose.
Wayra was surrounded by a world of blood and pain as she sunk her nose into the flesh. But, inch by inch, the head scooted towards the button. With an audible pop the door sprang free.
The exit to the cave was so near, maybe 50 feet away. All she had to do was walk out. Somehow, she knew the gray god wouldn’t stop her. She had played his game, and while she hadn’t won, she had completed her task. Wayra staggered towards the entrance. Feeling more like she was walking into a dream, than waking from a bad one.
When she had fallen into the lair she had been a creature of light and life. What staggered out was a dead girl, smeared with her own blood. Her cold, cold heart was only waiting for the moment it could return to its watery grave.
It was not Wayra that staggered out of the cave. Wayra was back on her cell floor, her head rendered from her body by the shadow puppet that had lived on. Wayra had lived many lifetimes in the dark, and would never see the light.
The shadow dropped to its knees in the snow. They belonged together, shadow and snow. A child of summer had gone in, a corpse of winter had come out. Behind her the cave entrance melted away, burying the real Wayra in her tomb.
let go and make believe, we’re singing in the streets
For a long time Cress can do nothing but stare at the dark god’s Mark that he left upon her breast, aching and burning and still glowing red hot. The fire in the chest gradually dulls to an idle burn but does not fade away completely, even as the Mark fades to a deep black. She knows that the Mark will never fade and she is unsure about the fire in her heart. Will that ever go away? Only time will tell, she supposes, and so far, it has hardly died down at all.
After a while she notices the blood still dripping down her face, and only then does she make a conscious effort to knit the stumps of her ears closed. She wills the flesh to close but she does not make any effort to totally heal the wounds—she doesn’t have the energy either way. They will scar like this, she knows, but she almost doesn’t mind. The Mark will never let her forget the torment she was exposed to in this dungeon, but the ruined remains of her ears will tell everyone that she endured a great suffering and she survived. She could have been hurt much worse; she could have really died and been left as dead. Maybe some of them will not make it out at all.
Of the exposed flesh of her skull, she does nothing. Let that remind her every day of the pain she endured. Let it create an ugly, unsightly scar. She does not care, cannot care.
Mother and father are dead. She is a failure.
Eventually her brown eyes open, and they fall upon a frail old mare who is now sharing her cell with her. She is golden-bodied, like Cress, but much, much older. It is almost impossible to see the color of her coat because so much of it is hidden beneath scars and half-healed wounds, but she can see a glimpse of golden hairs on the mare’s cheek, one of the only places she has not been torn apart. The mare is emaciated and old and Cress wonders how she is still standing—and, more importantly, where did she come from? She can tell that this old woman is on her last legs—maybe she has come to warn Cress. Or help her.
It is not until she speaks that Cress recognizes her. “I am Cress,” she says, and her voice is flat and without feeling. With a gasp Cress takes in the jagged stumps for ears and the dragon-Mark—rent apart by multiple wounds, but still barely visible—adorning the old woman. “This is what you become.”
Cress is frozen, unsure of what to say, when her future Self speaks again. “You can escape.” Only then does Cress find her voice again. “What about you?” she cries, stepping forward to brush the unmarked cheek of her older counterpart. “I cannot possibly leave you here.” Cress is crying, she cannot help it; she cannot leave another horse, even a horse that is herself many years in the future, at the dark god’s cruel mercy. She cannot.
“I have endured many years here, Cress,” her future Self says, and brown eyes meet milky ones. “There is only room for one of us to leave. If we both leave, the very fabric of the universe would be destroyed.” Cress does not understand, but she gets the gist of what future Cress is trying to say. They cannot both leave. “How do I escape?” she chokes out, hardly able to see for all the tears blinding her. “I am the key,” future Cress whispers, and Cress can feel an eternity of suffering in those words.
“Use me.”
“How?”
“You have to kill me, Cress.”
Cress is frozen again, but her future Self marches on as if Cress had not reacted at all. “I know it is an agonizing decision, Cress, but it is one that must be done. I have suffered for many years and I will suffer for many more if you do not make this decision. Or, worse, you will be chosen to take my place and He will release me, release back into the Overworld where I am sure to die within the hour anyways. This is not an easy decision and I know that it will change you.” Briefly Cress wonders how she could possibly know that, but of course she can—she is Cress, a Cress who has spent millennia here, only kept alive by the dark god’s magic and her own healing.
“Why haven’t you kept yourself healed?” Cress murmurs, her nose running gently over the other’s wounds. There is a fresh wound near her future Self’s chest, one that crosses over one of the dragon’s wings and still seeps fresh blood. If she can keep the Self talking… she doesn’t want to think about it.
“He took away my powers for a time,” future Cress admits, and she embraces the younger Cress’ touch with a sigh. It has been so long since she has felt a gentle touch. “He wouldn’t let me heal myself; he wanted my pretty coat marked with scars. Any time that he thought me too ugly he would bring back my dragon and burn me away and force me to heal again, force me to be pretty enough to scar all over. He would—”
Her words are cut off suddenly and replaced with a scream as young Cress shoves her head into her future Self’s chest, deepening and widening the cut that was already there. The blood is hot and it gushes into her mouth and nose, threatening to choke her, but she cannot stop now. Perhaps the heart is hotter than it should be, lit by the dragon living within, and when she finally clamps her jaws around it, it feels as though it will burn straight through her gums and lips.
She cannot stop; she has to escape.
She grasps the heart as firmly as she can in her jaws and pulls, feeling the old and tired organ give way and tear from the older Self’s chest. Future Cress is dead before she pulls away, and as she pulls the heart from the dragon-Mark, the older, broken mare falls to the ground. I’m so sorry. She has failed everyone; even her Self.
Trembling, she drops the burning heart on the ground at her hooves, where it lies smoldering. “Here’s your fucking key,” she says, knowing that He is near to hear it. “Let me go home.”
What is home anymore? She isn’t sure.
cress;salaam of the valley
you’re only happy when you’re making a scene
