"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
”Such a feisty queen you are,” the low drawl of its voice is a sudden surprise as it inches forward from silence. The shadows are at its back, crooning to the nightcrawler as it breaks the bonds and eats away the distance separating them. Its shackles hang loose, jingling, but it still holds itself back. It had spent so long in remission, in solitude, that it lacks its former savagery. The girl is safe for now, but it isn’t just its subdued appetite that preserves her; that crown is a shield because it’s the inclination of the Chamber’s acceptance of her. The kingdom always knows what she wants – needs – and she is never deprived of it. Apparently, Malis is what the Chamber wants. What Infection wants (blood, chaos, murder) is moot.
It can feel her body heat spreading across its tattered flesh. For a fleeting moment she reminds it of when it had truly been alive, unscathed but for the battle scars it boasted, but that was long ago. It had been whole then, but still a monster. It was a king of chaos as blood always stained its hands red. The memories rush back in waves, and there is one face that is most memorable above them all. ”You remind me of someone,” it growls while its eyes narrow in thought, ”A former queen of the Chamber.” Starlace, it thinks but never says. How fiery they both are – were – but Malis likely doesn’t care (her snarls and distaste were made obvious in their first meeting) but it also doesn’t take into consideration her thoughts. It cares for itself and the Chamber, nothing more.
It looks like a breath is drawn in, but it’s merely the wind funneling down its opened throat and rib cage. Its skin sways, its talons unconsciously kneading the soil underfoot. She doesn’t want it here, no one does, but it hasn’t budged under their piercing stares. The Chamber knows what she wants; she will eject anyone of uselessness, scorn those that are shameful, and yet it still stands here. Decades ago it performed its service to the kingdom, and she remembers. That’s when shackles were clamped onto its soul and its appetite was finally caged.
But the irons have rusted and the bars of the cage have finally broken.
”I’m rather useful,” the voice is raspy, inviting, but it doesn’t elaborate.
infection
infection by aeris | html by insane | picture c darkcloud013.deviantart.com
There is nothing surprising about nightmares crawling out of the shadow, not for Malis, not for the mare who nightmares loved best of all. So when his voice finds her in the silence, she does not startle. Instead she turns to face him, cautious, curious, but no longer violent in the way she had been when they met. He is arrogant and unsettling, but there is nothing that makes her feel as though his presence puts her in any immediate danger. Besides, if he is here with her, then he is not with her King, their children, or their people. That in itself is enough to settle the prickling unease that blossoms beneath her skin when he comes to stand so close.
But it does nothing to soothe the way she roars internally at the stench of death on his skin, at the rotted out places filled with wriggling maggots and tatters of skin peeled back like gaping mouths. The carnage reminds her of the girl Pollock left in the forest, of a body torn open and wasted, the stink of sour meat and old blood. He had taken her over this body, put life in her belly and then meant to end it, to end them both. Infection makes her remember all this, makes her remember Pollock’s weight against her back, how it felt with his horns buried in the soft bone of her face, how it felt when her spine split beneath his hooves. He reminds her, and she cannot help but loathe him for it.
’You remind me of someone.’ He says, and she cannot help but see the irony in that. It seems he is not the only one stirring dark memories, dredging up pasts better left forgotten. She smiles, but it is not the same one she reserves for Killdare, it is one that curves as wickedly as the horns atop her face. “Did you not like her either, Infection?” The smile softens a little, bemused, and she moves to close the distance between them despite the way his stench turns her stomach. Ever so carefully she pushes the tip of the uppermost horn against his skin, careful to avoid the places filled with rot and filth, and draws a line from his throat to his chest before backing off again. It isn’t a threatening gesture by any means, not the warning she had meant for him earlier when she offered to bury those horns in the soft meat of his throat, but it is a promise, a reminder that (even immortal) he would do well to heed.
“You’re falling apart just standing here.” She says in regards to the rasp of his words, her eyes narrow and incredulous, though somehow she believes him. “How useful could you possibly be?” But she isn’t doubting him, and this much should be clear by the way her eyes glint in the dark of the approaching shadows, she’s daring him to show her. She shifts again, turning languidly to face him, close enough to touch though he would find her earlier promise fulfilled if he tried. And then she settles, disgusted with the way she already grows used to his rotting smell, and with a curiosity that few are ever privileged to see, her guard drops a little. “You die as I watch, even now your flesh falls away, and yet you stand here as proud and arrogant as ever,” she pauses to cock her head at him, her voice thick with the shadows that drench them, “what kind of creature are you?”
