"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
Like a crocodile that lingers in wait beneath the dark and murky waters for its prey, so did he. Places for him to hide himself in the forest were hard to come by, but when he finds a small and shallow pond, he does not hesitate to step into it, melting into its abyss with ease. It welcomes him with cool and gentle fingers, pulling him apart until he is nothing but the water itself, emptying into nothingness. It is here that he waits, beneath its surface and protection, lurking. His attempt to soothe the grumble in his chest is no longer satisfied by the small game that he so expertly drags into the depths. Maugrim’s hunger was not that of a physical appetite, but something much more. To feel the struggle beneath his powerful grip, to know he held their life in his will – it is like a feast to him. Rabbits, birds, turtles…it no longer brought him any reprieve to watch their bodies become lifeless within the darkness, twitching idly before he releases them from his grasp, to watch them float and rot on the surface above him. He needs more, and so far, he has been unsuccessful. Therefore, he waits, idly swirling within the water. He will stay here for hours, simply waiting. Time passes and before long, a face stares down into the depths, his depths. He feels himself pricking with excitement, remaining perfectly still just as the glass-like surface of the pond that reflects her face. The soft angles of her face give way to a gentle lavender glow, like a pretty pearl hidden away in the shell of an oyster. Her eyes glitter like silver treasures, sparkling and unnoticing of the threat that lurks just inches away from her face. He recognizes her, he knows her, but he doesn’t care. The hunger intensifies. He tenses, readying himself, waiting for just the right moment. The swift and forceful surge befalls her, throwing off her balance and allowing him to carry her into the shallow waters. He holds her down just below the surface, where she could still see the light of day around her but not reach through to sip on the cool, autumn air. In his ecstasy of her struggle, the sounds and sights bringing him to a blissful state, parts of his body begin to solidify beneath the water’s trembling surface, evergreen and pearl beginning to show and give away his presence. It did not matter to him, though. Her struggle would soon be over, and he enjoys when their eyes look to him in fear.
06-20-2017, 12:27 PM (This post was last modified: 06-20-2017, 12:35 PM by Deathwish.)
Deathwish
im a DIY pioneer, they tryna get involved
He has been waiting for her. That is the only explanation for why he has managed to catch her unawares. The time in Hyaline, she watched him. A quizzical brow and a cold look of contentment as he found his satisfaction in positively drowning the area around him. The stink and stench that came as a result of the rotting that took place there. The destruction that he seemed so happy to incur on those he called friends; it was beautiful. And so, after it was all over, they’d gone their separate ways with a promise to meet up again later—much later if Deathwish had anything to say about it. She’d snorted, and gone back to her patch of trees in the forest. Her lavender grey body drew into the shadows. Her travels brought her past the pond often enough, that when it seemed much quieter than usual—more sinister—she should have known what lay beneath the watery depths. And yet, the curse of her father’s curiosity drove her forward. Her silver grey eyes lined the horizon as she dragged her gaze across the pond, looking for the faintest hint of any ripples. She snorted, flared her nostrils. She flicked her tail and turned away from the water’s edge, intent on going to find her collection of dead things… (a collection that was ever growing), when it happened—
Deathwish screeched aloud, feeling the waves raising up like wet, soggy fingers as they picked her up and dragged her into the water, holding her under the water, gripping her belly and covering her mouth as she kicked and flailed, her eyes blinking angrily as she saw the way the grey light of the day rippled from underneath the water’s surface. For a moment, her wits escaped her. She struggled against the ebb and flow. She cussed an explicative, closed her eyes and rotated her body, kicking whatever force it was that held her under the water. FUCK YOU! See how you like it!
Every last thing in the pond, the fish, the plants, the animals… Deathwish crooks a brow as she causes all living things within drop dead, decomposing as their skin is stripped from their bones, their innards turning to watery mush. Everything but the thing holding her beneath. She opens her mouth to speak, taking in more water as she tries to kick against it, rotting it as much as she could. Pounding her legs, DW struggles back to the surface, breaking the waterline with an angry gasp as she struggles to breathe. To be seen so unkempt, dirty and gross as the pondscum covers her back and legs--it was purely undignified! UNFORGIVEABLE
She curls her lip and shakes vigorously, her angry voice showing above the low roar of the water splashing behind her, and a dark cackle that accompanies it. Instantly, she knows who it is, and that she should have known who it had been all along. Her heart quickens, but buried under a layer of pond gunk, she finds that she is none too amorous of the water-wolf behind her.
“MAUGRIM! You bastard! Ugh, look what you did to me!”
At first there is surprise in her eyes, which is always good because then their breath goes quicker. There is also a scream, which causes him to shiver delightfully; it was so rich in his ears, simply mouthwatering. Then the fear, so delectable and delicious as his mere thoughts hold her beneath the water. She is almost beautiful in her struggle, the pearlescent lavender grey of her coat shimmering beneath the soft ripples of murky water, supple and warm beneath his grasp as the blood still pulses rapidly through her veins. Not for long though; soon, he will feel the shudder of her heartbeat as her lungs take on the murky water, swallowing it wholly as if it was her last hope – and then there would be nothing. Perhaps a twitch or two here from some final synapses firing in the nerves, but then all would be still.
As he allows his body to become completely solid, he cannot keep himself from helping the process along, leaning forward to press his knee onto her neck. There was no need for him to do this, for the water he controls has plenty of force to keep her there long enough for her breath to betray her, but the young stallion could not stop himself from literally feeling the exact moment when the water would force itself down her throat. This is a risk, he knows, and he receives a sharp kick with her back hooves to his scarred shoulder as he did so, and though he winces in pain, his dark eyes glitter hungrily as he continues to hold her there, running his tongue over the pale of his lips.
Something catches his eye. He ignores it at first, the sweet taste of her death nearly on his lips, but then he can ignore it no longer. The smell is what grabs his attention the most, causing him to look up from her with glaring eyes and flared nostrils – how is it that the smell of death has already reached him, while she still struggles just inches below? He snorts as he realizes that his water somehow is poisoned, causing the fish and other creatures to float to the top with bloated, rotted bellies, bursting with organs and bile. He narrows his eyes, at a loss for what was happening, and his grip loosens as his mind releases the water’s control.
This was all she needed.
He backs away with stuttering steps, completely releasing his grip on her. She’s sputtering and coughing, breathing in large gasps – it did not take her long to begin to scream and curse at him, but those words were all ignored as he stares down at the warped ache he felt in the shoulder she had touched, his dark eyes staring at his flesh in wonder.
There was no longer scar tissue and muscle that covers the slope of his two-toned shoulder – bone was exposed, white and dry as the air rushes to meet it. He can literally hear himself rotting, the skin that once was there sloughing off in tattered rags, falling into the murky pond with a wretched plop. The hole is black with infection and disease that she has obviously riddled him with, festering with oozing puss. She’s said his name and his dark eyes draw even blacker under a hooded brow, his lips crackling as he snarls at her in response. Technically, he didn’t do anything to her, now – he had failed.
“Not just plants, then?”
His voice is metal against metal, grating and rough as it leaves his throat. Another piece of his shoulder loosens and falls, its dark evergreen color blending in with the pond’s obscure water. He’s thinking he should try to drown her again and ignore the fact that he seems to be rotting from the inside out, just to punish her. He could make it quicker this time, easier for him, and just shove a spiral of water down her screaming mouth.
However, it is curious how her power works on others; he wonders if it will spread until it consumes him entirely, or if it’s merely centralized to the one area she touched.
Maugrim says nothing else to her, simply waiting patiently to see what more would come from his infliction that she has laced him with.
Didn't do anything to her, my foot. He made her dirty!
He made her so dirty in fact, that she couldn't stand it. The smell of pondscum upon her pristine body, perfectly honed and sculpted to be perfect, wonderful and beautiful. She stared at Maugrim, anger flaring in her eyes, and then she shakes out her body with a fury, dropping beads of water slithering all over his embittered shoulder, looking upon her damage with a glint of success in her eye. Not just the plants, then?
"If it lives, it can die. If it can decompose..." her voice is cold as she continues the rotting process on his body, dehydrating him until the bones of his skeleton are stretched thin underneath his skin. "Then I can do this." A smug smirk is on her face, mud splotches on her face slightly distracting from her normally icy gaze. Looking at him from where he lay there in front of her, dragging his rotting corpse out of the pond and beneath her as if her were knealing at her feet, gave her all the satisfaction her bruised hide needed. With a snap, she relinquished her claim on his body--though how she wanted to claim it for her own, her lust was untenable--and sent his guts back inside him. Pity that, he looked so much better crawling on the ground beneath her, much like a kicked dog trailing behind her.
His skin rehyrated, and she set forth to repair his shoulder in full--no traces left of any wounds or scars. The decomposition of his skin was back to normal as it had ever been, and his body was put to rights. The pond... Well it would take care of itself. For DW to always undo all the death she incurred... Would the daughter of Ecco be who she was without a little chaos?
I didn't think so either.
"You sought me out here. Was there more damage to incur with your friends?" her heart is slightly pounding. That he had looked for her privately put her young girlish heart aflutter--a young girlish heart that she would forever deny existed within her. "Though I am glad for the company. Family is not what it once was for me."
She is bothersome. All those he comes into contact with normally are, but he merely lacks the social constraints that so many others were familiar with. He doesn’t understand why she’s shouting at him or why his little trick in the dark water causes her so much ferocity. He remembers her, but he doesn’t know to act like he does – there is supposed to be some type of reaction for nearly drowning an acquaintance, especially one who had just recently stood beside him as they tore Hyaline to shreds. He snorts. Hyaline was not a very satisfying endeavor for him; it only increased his hunger and implored him to seek out satisfaction – which he still hadn’t found. However, when her voice lowers to match the steely coldness of his own, when the emotions subside and he is met with darkness and a haunting, powerful stare, a twitch of a grin pulls at his pale lips. Her words echo soundly in his rotted mind, hovering and lingering there. If it lives, it can die. The words make his skin crawl.
Maugrim feels himself becoming gaunt as his muscle and tissue seemingly begin to disappear, melting into his organs and insides with a mere blink of an eye. The delicate skin on his face rips with the absence of muscle and tissue, revealing ivory bone in a repulsive, permanent grin. The pain is excruciating, so much so that words cannot leave his lips, not even a groan. Emaciated with boiling insides, she pulls him before her like a puppet, bones clicking sickeningly beneath his torn skin, a near corpse fallen before her.
With a gasp, he feels his liquefied lungs now fill with air as the rest of him begins to solidify, the smell of rotting flesh now only coming from the poisoned water that stands stagnant behind them. He slowly stands, the muscles and sinew still patching themselves together as he did so. The tear on his face was the last to stich itself together, the green and lavender meeting each other without nearly a sound. He glances downward, curiously looking at the shoulder that once held the gnarled and twisted scar from the sea scraping him against rocks and coral, that had been soldered by Levi – it was gone, no longer causing him a terrible limp with the tightness of muscle that had impacted it.
His dark eyes flicker up to her, his sides expanding as he continues to breathe in the crisp air around them, heavy with rotting stench. “I sought death,” he says metallically, his voice rough and deep compared to the ice of her own. He steps forward, his head tilting a few degrees. He is older now, growing – he was no longer the small yearling that wanders the open lands with no purpose. He is filling out, growing taller and more muscular from hours spent in the water, his mane and tail becoming longer and framing the sharp angles of his painted face. “I seem to have found it.”
He grins, pale lips pulling back to reveal teeth, muscles twitching as they still realize they are no longer melting off his bones. She could have easily killed him – but she didn’t. She is dark and foreboding, a bringer of death and pestilence, but there is – somewhere deep and barely noticeable – weakness. He would be her weakness if it meant being on the right side of her ability. He’s closer to her now, and what appears to be him absentmindedly brushing away some of the dried mud from her face, was his idea of testing his boundaries with her. He had already tried to drown her – were there really any boundaries he couldn’t cross? Perhaps she too, felt the edge of death, and is enamored by its power and strength, just like him.
He brings his head back to himself as she mentions family and a single brow rises in amusement. “Family,” he says roguishly with a deep chuckle that sounded like bone fragments being crushed. “Family means nothing.”
Family means nothing, he'd said with a snort of derision. A laugh, even. He laughed off the concept of family in such a way that would proclaim he'd never had anyone. Deathwish looked at him then, forgetting herself and her darkness--her perfection--for one minute, and simply let herself be. She dropped her cool expression, and tilted her head at Maugrim with all the interest that she could muster, wondering just what his life had been like--to lead them to this point.
DW had been raised this way. Groomed from infancy that chaos was the way of life--and that without family you were nothing--her power came from knowing who her family was, and what they accomplished. She knew her father--moreover, she feared him. Grandmere had always hated that man, saying magicians don't know their place in this world, and that it was Great Grandfather's will that would govern. Of the two, It had been Grandmere that had been wrong--all the while Mother was off in the shadows shamelessly fornicating with her father for the fun of it. They played dark games together that the other enjoyed, and even within the grim outlook on life, she knew that there was love and affection to be found.
Even if it was twisted.
Her father had gone off into the Forest, and Deathwish had accompanied him there, like a silent vigil. While love was not exactly the world she would describe when asked how she felt about Deimos, it went without saying that his influence in her life, as well as being an indoctrinated member of the Coven, she would not be who she was. Even her Grandmere, who impressed image before all, had sculpted her body and aged her to perfection. She had grown before time and had been primmed and prepped to be perfect. They were beneath her, Grandmere had said. They were beneath them all.
Deathwish sighed, the silver streaked hair of her mother's lineage showing in every move she made as she stood to consider this orphan child, the one whom she knew immediately was one of their own. And yet, in her heart, she could not bear to see him walk away. For there was a thing about purple Coveling babies.
They always stick to their own.
"Well of course you would think that, Maugie. You didn't grow up with an overbearing family that was bent on world domination." Deathwish tossed her head and shook out what mud she could from her pelt, intent that getting the mud off was her first priority. "I guess that just shows how much better I am." She did a hair flip and had managed to insult the poor boy with no parents and a water gun. Not terribly wise, but DW is not immune to the atrocities committed when one is trying to flirt with a cute boy who is--at least she feels--way below her league.
Grandmere would be so ashamed of her, despite the family link.
"If you truly seek death, however, I'm sure I can accomodate you." A smirk settles on her twisted lips then, her eyes flashing as she pulls her body closer to his, bumping him slightly with the curve of her hip. She is perfection walking, and she knows it.
She tilts her head at him, just a few miniscule degrees, but it was enough to be noticeable. He brings his muzzle from her, the gleaming hunger in his eyes diminishing as he watches her carefully analyze him and study him. The pale of his lips twitch, threatening to turn into an unflattering snarl as her eyes search into the depths of his, but he keeps himself expressionless for the time being – save for the constant crease of his hooded brow.
They all look at him this way, eventually.
A look of curiosity, a look of slight wonder as their eyes narrow just so, trying to understand why.
Why must they have to know? Why must they have to understand?
Truth be told, there was probably just something that had gone wrong during his mother’s pregnancy; the neurons didn’t connect properly and thus fire inadequately, his brain didn’t fully develop its frontal lobe – whatever the case, here he is. He didn’t care that it made no sense to others (it doesn’t even make sense to him, but he has long since given up on trying to understand himself and his thought processes), and sure as hell didn’t care that he is an orphan, forgotten about and most likely hidden away out of sheer shame and fear.
She sighs, and he does not refrain from sneering at her to show his distaste in the (most likely involuntary) action, a sharp snort leaving his nostrils. He did not come here for pity or sympathy, which is what she seems to somehow be caught up in as she stands before him, silver skin shimmering in the autumnal sunlight and reflecting, smooth and shining like a pearl.
Maugie.
His teeth grind together, his jaw muscles jumping beneath his evergreen and pearlescent skin on his face. “Careful, Deathwish. Pity doesn’t suit you, even if it’s just for your own flattery.” His voice is rough and unpleasant as it gurgles in his throat, hissing through his teeth with venom laced on its words. Maugie. He couldn’t even believe it.
She tosses her head like the sweet little angel she pretends to be, flawless and faultless yet deadly as a viper. Is this how all women are? “If you are so much better,” he begins icily, his thoughts briefly turning to the stagnant water behind them that he could so easily throw her into again, “why are you still here?”
Maugrim tilts his head, mirroring her same very gesture that she had only done moments before.
“Death is power. Unfortunately, it’s all wrapped up in a pretty porcelain doll, hell-bent on making me play nicely.” As she presses into him, he reaches out with open lips, teeth bared, imagining her supple skin breaking beneath his tight grip and tasting the metallic of her blood on his tongue. He is not keen on becoming a pile of rotting flesh, so he does not make contact. But the intention hangs heavily in the air.
