"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
She feels her skin actually crawl towards his damned touch. He is caressing her tender features and grinning, grinning, grinning. Helle 's mind is clouded and hazy. The lavender of her eyes are dulled and ugly and all she can feel is the sting of cold from the chilled bit of the cursed halter.
In her mind's eye, she can feel herself drifting out of the stall like a stupid fucking puppy. A-ok! The nasty little fucker is manipulating her and she is powerless to anything. The warmth of the stall she was occupying is seeping away like a nightmare and Grumble is leading her towards a heavy door.
It creaks effortlessly open as they near the entrance and once through, slams shut with a heart stopping thud. The room is dark and her eyes will not adjust. All she can feel is the bite of cold steel of the halter. All at once the floor softens, thick and acrid. Helle cries out in surprise as she begins to skin and Grumble is laughing, laughing, laughing. His sick little laugh is echoing in her ears as she is sinking in the blackened room.
Just as the stickiness has swallowed her chest deep there is a shock of light and Helle can see once again. Grumble is standing next to her, untouched by the bloo-BLOOD! Helle is stick in blood. Her head is swimming and she feels herself passing out but oh no, Grumble would not have that. Instead he drifts close to her head. One twisted little hand is caressing her smooth cheek while the the other removes a small pin knife from behind him. It was no more than 2 inches in length but it feels much larger when the little man drives it over and over again into her cheeks, her neck, blinding her by slowly digging it into her eye sockets and apply enough pressure for the screaming mare to feel the -pop!- as they are dislodged. The finally her blood is draining away and mixing with the red liquid that holds her.
The lights flicker back off.
The light flick back on.
She is crumpled in a heap on the floor. The striped woman is a child again except she is human and her smallness is what first occurs to her as she now can move her legs again. She is free of the floor and she can see again...the holes in her body are gone. With awkward and unsteady movements, the now child finds her feet. Grumble is standing in the corner grinning savagely as he stars at her. Hot tears are spilling down her cheeks as fear is choking her and she turns around desperately for an exit. But there are none.
Helle spins back to look at the little demon man and in his place is a large, greasy old man. An ugly, high pitches giggle is coming from between fat blistered lips. He is stroking himself as he walks towards the girl. She shrinks away to the corner as she begins to cry. Her body is sore as the man runs his fingers over her cheeks, stroking her hair. He is picking her up and pressing himself against her and the throb of his manhood is angry and hot. Helle shrieks and claws her human fingers against his skin but the man puts up with none of it. She sees stars when he bashes her skull against the hard concrete of the floor and everything goes into the sweet serenity of darkness.
When she wakes again, she wishes she was dead. Her body is her own again...equine through and through but she is sore, bloody and torn. With a heaving breath, she finds her feet. The zorse woman is panting heavily as the tears dry in salty trails upon her damp cheeks. Grumble is sitting there now with a crooked smile. Helle can not even bare to speak. Little Miss Sassypants is quiet.
Such a good little girl.
With the snap of his twisted fingers, the heavy door opens slowly. Helleborn is shaking and she feels the sting and warmth of urine down her legs when she releases it out of fear of what lay behind it. She is wimping quietly when the rotting corpse of herself enters the room. The undead animal is Helle. Mirroring her every move as the stinking rotting flesh is melting off of her face...her intestines slithering across the floor in a bloody train. The dead mare begins to giggle through the gaping hole of where her throat once was. Black liquid oozes outward as maggots crawl around the opening.
"Helle..." It croons as it nears her, the squirm of maggots eating the sagging bits of flesh. "Helle..." The voice is hollow and empty. The right eye (the only one still in tact) is black and soulless. The slimy remains are backing her into a corner as the yellow teeth are exposed and the remains of the left side of it's mouth are grinning much too big and wide till Helle can not longer move. She is trapped against the corner but the dead woman does not stop.
Helle is screaming madly, savagely when she feels the yellow fangs tenderly at first, seek her throat before closing down...the scream muffling to a gurgle. The death muscle and sinew smell like spoiled meat, riddled with pus, infection and decay. The single eye is glittering like a silver bullet. It is the last thing Helle sees before everything goes black once again.
With a heavy, agitating screech, the stall door is hauled away from its bearings - and from it emerges a two-legged man. A man (can he be referred to as such?) of small stature and a smile so wicked that it holds the promise of something demonizing and cruel beyond the aging stallion's wildest imagination. With a mere tick of an index finger, he lowers his crown to submit himself to his affection, though by no willful desire of his own. Though he cannot express his displeasure, his frustration is deeply rooted within his searing red eyes, which burn with a loathing that is all-encompassing. The shrill screams and pleading terror that endlessly rattled on for many hours previous still rang within the deepest recesses of his mind. As he stares with such vehement abhorrence, the ex-fairy godfather's spindly fingers reach out to touch and caress his flesh, which feels hot with the seething rage bubbling beneath the surface.
Wordlessly, and with a humorless chuckle, Grumblesnakes slides his icy fingers along the length of his neck, tangling themselves into his matted tresses, traveling down the length of his spine. Quietly, the man admires the puckered pink scars that mar his shining, glimmering pelt, causing his own nerves to rattle. Immobile aside from his sight, he wallows in his own feeble incapability, but soon he stares with the same ferocity as the twisted man moves again within his line of sight. Now in his grasp is a pile of constructed leather and metal, clinking heavily in his lanky hand. He has never seen such a contraption before, but there is something that urges him to move away, to resist - but he cannot. He is powerless as the sneering man effortlessly slides the imprisonment device along his broad cheeks and along the wide bridge of his nose.
Immediately, a soothing calm begins to wash over him. Gently crawling along his flesh and even deep beneath the surface, it penetrates the insatiable desire for vengeance and consoles the rumbling beast from within. His eyes now stare tiredly, and the tension within his muscles and bones releases. He can move, but now feels no physical urgency in doing so, though his mind itches to maim. He tilts his skull slightly, observing the crooked, uncomfortably smug smirk on the strange looking man's face, and he simply flinches slightly as he gently presses his flat palm to his whiskered nose. He inhales his scent deeply, stirred by the lingering stench of vanilla, blood and something he could not quite decipher. His mind pushes against this strange serenity, urging him to strike out, to bite, to trample, and yet not a single fiber of his being complies.
He is caught in limbo; trapped between two states of being with little to no control over it. The man leads him, and he emerges from the stall, his behemoth weight painfully grazing the metal frame of the door as he follows quietly behind him. His massive weight and stature cause an abrupt echo with each step, and his dark eyes peer around again, his restless soul stirring as anxiety begins to slowly simmer beneath the surface of his placid stare. He aches to pull away, to flee, to launch into an assault – anything, anything. The stench of blood overwhelms him now, drowning him in its metallic copper scent, driving his mind into the madness of trifling through the many possibilities of what lie ahead. Others had bled here, had they died here as well?
A thick sweat begins to bead along his imperfect coat, and this evokes a wry chuckle once more from the facetious fairy, who seems to wriggle with absolute delight upon seeing his obvious distress. He begins to hum a gentle tune, musing to himself as he looks upon his newest victim and latest masterpiece with vigorous glee. His heart begins to pound once more, rattling raggedly against his rib cage (or had it ever ceased its endless panic?) as the man begins to withdraw a long, gleaming knife from a well-knit cover that lay across his hip. He reaches forward, gently grazing it along his obsidian coat, and a sharp intake of breath fills his lungs as the full force of his trepidation begins to settle in the marrow of his bones.
And all at once, the unsettling calm washes away from him in a flood of torment as the sharped blade of the knife penetrates his hot flesh, prying painfully at an age-old, deeply-set scar. He splays it open, pressing it deeply within the scar tissue, sinking into his tissue which now burns as if it were melted butter, seeping along the steel as a rivulet of blood begins to cascade down along his pelt. His jaw clenches and his teeth tighten, but he merely exhales sharply with a loud snort, nostrils flaring in discomfort. He will not cry out, he will not relent. The snickering man withdraws his weapon, plies apart a newly healed scar along his shoulder to pull the puckered pink flesh tautly beneath his touch, before plunging the knife in yet again. It tears at the tender flesh, searing it with an unknown heat source as he callously chisels away at the blood vessels and muscles beneath.
And he does it again. And again. And again. Agonizing minutes roll by, and each and every scar is violated; pummeled by the scalding weapon - torn apart and soon he is left bleeding, with warm metallic-scented crimson liquid flooding down along his heaving sides. Still, his eyes remain steady and fierce and his voice is quieted by his stubborn resolve. He will not relent, I will not relent.
"Stubborn, are we?" Grumblesnakes asks, with a small trace of both amusement and irritation in his sing-song tone. "I have only just begun, my dear boy. I will break you yet."
He lays the knife down at last, but he does not wipe it clean. It gleams beneath the dim light of a hovering lamp overhead, which sways with a breeze that does not come through. The air is stagnant and he swallows it whole, awaiting the next move in this otherwise twisted game. Suddenly, with a sharp gasp, he can feel a massive needle press into his supple flesh and piece through delicate tendons and between pliable tissue that lay between his splayed ribs. It strikes a main artery - some sort of magic ensures it is a solid hit, and something icy and frigid begins to seep through his blood. It travels swiftly, crawling rapidly along every vein and capillary within his body, seizing the tissue and freezing it from the inside out, swelling the blood platelets into solid fragments of sharpened ice. Soon, it reaches his heart, encasing it as swiftly as snow often does his skin, freezing it instantly beneath its assault.
He cannot breathe; he cannot move. He merely trembles as his nerve set themselves on fire as scattering, panicked neurons fire off within his short-circuiting brain. The pain is so overwhelming, it causes his heavy knees to shake and his very bones to jolt with uncontrollable spasms. He shivers as the ice seeps out from the very corners of his whiskered mouth, crawling along his bloody pelt as it penetrates every inch to his very core, solidifying the entirety of his massive frame into one rigidly painful block of ice. He cannot escape, he can only scream silently from within, shrieking with an indescribable, ceaseless pain that he has never felt before.
He is trapped, encapsulated inside the isolated confinement of his own mind. Unable to express the torment of his own pain, incapable of fighting against it, he finds himself wavering between reality and what he is certain must be madness. And it has only begun.
Soon, the blade returns, twisting and shining with drying streaks of his own blood, and Grumblesnakes grins wryly once more as he slams the sharped edge against one ear, slicing it off with ease. Offspring is powerless to express his anguish, but his eyes - even his eyes are frozen, but beneath are crimson-tinted eyes that stare with unspoken, restrained misery. Again, another ear. A chip off of his shoulder blade. A slice taken from his cheekbone, and another cuts a grave wound into his blunted nose, carving the entirety of his left nostril away. Each piece falls to the cobblestone floor with an uneasy shattering. Then it is a thick, jagged piece of his leg - and finally, he circles him and cuts away a thick chunk of his hindquarter, leaving him in mangled pieces all around. He is in excruciating pain, but he begins to fall away from himself.Pieces of him, cut away - he braces for his eye sockets to be drawn from his skull, for his brain to be extracted - but none of it occurs.
Instead, the aging ex-fairy godfather throws the blade across the stone floor, and Offspring can do nothing but watch as it rattles away. With wild abandon, his mind begins to race as he silently wracks with sobs inside of his encasement of ice. He is worthless, useless and impotent - a vulnerable fragment of another's plan. Any semblance of self-control is lost, and he begins to think of his precious children. His sweet Argo and his weak heart and larger than life mentality - his gentle Neverwas, and his insatiable desire to protect and love every delicate soul so it may not suffer the way he has. His sweet Australis and her shining doe eyes, and Lieschel with her loving touch and endless flow of affection. He dwells on Maribel, how she has grown and how beautifully she has molded into someone his heart could not be prouder to love.
He thinks of Isle, of his sweet Isle, of her shed tears, her boundless woes and her aching desire to be immersed as deeply within his soul as she can. He longs for her touch, for their presence, if only for a final few moments.
He wonders if he will ever see her sweet smile again.
As his mind begins to descend into the very darkest recesses of itself, the ice begins to fall away from him, trickling into a thick puddle of muck and his heart and blood begin to pound again with such vigor he finds himself dizzy from the very impact of it. The shards of ice cut away from his body are no more, and he is whole again - albeit struck by such reflexive pain that he can hardly remain upright. With a heaving breath, he inhales the very stench of his own sweat, blood and tears, which now flow heavily as they stain his charcoal-painted coat. He stares angrily, woefully at the stubborn man, who draws forward a thick oak stand with a deep sage pot. He places it near to him, and he can only glance with a wandering red eye to see the shimmering pool of water within.
Still, he remains silent. He will not be broken.
Until ..
Another sharp gasp exits his lungs, which begin to plunge in and out as he breathes with ferocity. He bellows out, his shriek cry echoing against the cobblestone walls with such force that it provokes a cackle from the small man standing beside him. All the while, his twisted, disfigured hand looms near the base of his skull, drawing forth a thin, shimmering streak of silver from his mind. It unravels from the depths of his memory, and with each catastrophically agonizing moment, he cries out with hot, streaming tears that trickle along his cheeks.
He is left empty, weakened and broken - a fragment of the stallion he had once been.
He begins to chant beneath his baited breath, and all the while, Grumblesnapes amusedly speaks to him.
"You are a stubborn one, I must say .. the most stubborn I have encountered yet. But I have something special in store for you! Yes, I do," He promises in a sinister tone, pooling the thick streak of silver within the bowl below. He dangles his fingers within it, tampering with the most bittersweet of his memories, all the while staring at the breaking husk of scarred equine before him. Gathering the delicate tendrils within his hand, he begins to infuse it with something dark, perverse and malevolent. It is now tainted with deep shades of coal and crimson, and with a flick of his wrist, it begins to crawl back into his vulnerable brain matter.
Isle, sprawled across the ground with a thick, pool of blood festering beneath her weighted, bloated body. Her skin has begin to decay, rotting before his very eyes - her brown doe eyes lifeless and oozing with maggots. Beside her lay Neverwas, a decrepid pile of bones and festering wounds, with pus bubbling from every orifice. His precious Argo lay mere feet away, his chest splayed open with his heart and eye sockets burst from within, covering his splattered body with streaks of red tissue. Lieschel, gasping for air, with her body matted in mud, feces and begging with breathless gasps for her father. Maribel is left as nothing but a mass of lifeless, multicolored bones, and Australis is left as nothing but a pile of ashes, marked where her deceased body once lay.
No. No.
"NO! NO, MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE, end this!" He screams shrilly, grimacing with such wracking pain that he begins to tremble with his own sobs, which choke the very life out of him as he collapses in on himself. The images flash before his mind, over, and over, and over until he is reduced to a pleading, blubbering husk of what he had once been. Please, enough, I have seen enough - p-please .."
And all at once, it is over. It is done.
He is repaired, mended from his terrible wounds, with nothing but the seething memories of pain and anguish remaining.
With a smug smile, Grumblesnakes folds his arms across his chest, satisfied at last. "I knew you would see it my way."
