[mature] and the blood just spills and spills; ROUND II

[Carnage]

and lord, I fashion dark gods too;

His collection grows.
First there is a woman he knew so recently - Tang, sweet and sour, she’d come and he’d known her as he’s known so many, left her pregnant without a second thought. He’d never thought he’d see her again, but here she is, beckoned, and smart enough to bend a knee.
Then another one he knows – Ledger, the boy who knew ice and polar bears, who’d been here before. The hounds must have scented it on him, the scars, and found him easy prey.
And then an unknown, a white woman still reeking of the sea, eyes clouded and blind.
A price to a drowned kingdom, then, a thing spat from its ruins as it sank into the sea. He looks like his father, whom Carnage has not forgiven for losing control over the kingdom the dark god himself has made.
A mare that fights, who stabs and scrapes at the wolves, but it’s not enough – it never is. She ends up trapped, too.
A girl, delivered to him with a mark already burnt into her – an offering, but a besmirched one.
A girl who wanders in, a lost lamb to slaughter. Easy takings.
A boy who sacrifices himself to save a girl – nobility is such a stupid thing – who’s welcomed with open arms.
A woman already scarred and breaking, and he wonders about her limits.
A man – a thing - who reminds Carnage is his own creations, who runs with them, who almost belongs. A delight.
The very woman another of the victims had tried to save, who crashes in, and oh, Carnage laughs.

He’s pleased at the collection, toys on the shelf. He separates them, so that they may not collude, keeps them each in their own cell.
He leaves them there, albeit with water and food (he wants them physically well enough, for the next phase), fills the air with artificial sounds of screams. He’d always liked a certain mood. He lets them settle into the despair, lets them contemplate their life here, imprisoned and dying. He visits each one, briefly, and though he is not particularly cruel in these visits, he leaves each of them marked.
And then – he lets them escape. He does not make it easy, and if they are particularly stupid, they might miss the weakened areas, the lapses in guards. But most, he thinks, will find their way out.
However, what they escape to is not Beqanna.
Outside is a wasteland, and one filled with monsters. Across the wasteland – miles and miles away – is an oasis. A light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.

Then, he sits back. He creates more monsters for his wasteland. And he waits, and watches.

NOTES:

Carnage imprisons them in their own cell, where they’re held captive for a time to start testing their mental facilities. Carnage visits each of them, and brands them with his mark – you can decide where, and what the mark looks like, if you want to describe it (I see it as something that changes for each user). You may powerplay Carnage for this section, if you want to have him do anything other than brand to your character (within character and reason, obviously, if you make Carnage color change into paisley and fall in love with your character I’m deleting you).
There is some fault in your cell – a weak wall, a lapsed guard, a distraction, whatever you want. You’re able to escape, but the land you escape into is a wasteland. Scorched earth, little/no water, pretty much a hellscape. You must encounter and fight/skirmish with at least two monsters. Monsters can be anything from classic movie or TV monsters, to something from HP Lovecraft, to a parent who abused them and thus is a monster in its own right.
At the end, there’s an oasis – clear blue water and no monsters. Stop once your character gets there.

In summary, describe:
- Your time in the cell & carnage’s branding
- Your escape from the cell
- Your trip across the wasteland, at least two monster fights, ending at the oasis

Because of my limited computer access, you have almost a whole week to reply. Entries are due Friday, September 22nd, 11:59 PM CST.

Have fun! If you have any questions, PM me.

c a r n a g e

[Ledger]

Bound for trouble from the start
I've been walking through this old world in the dark

Down, down, down he goes into the dark dankness of the pit. Whatever has a hold of him pulling relentlessly until with a final clang, he is released. His one good eye stares at the floor. Already knowing where he has been placed. A flicker of candlelight cuts through the murky air, dancing across his prostate figure. A  slow inhale, the scent of salt, of fear, and metallic bitterness. Looking to his right, seeing the rusty stain in the dirt. Blood. His blood. His cell had been unused since the last time, as if it had been waiting for him.

Slowly he stands, unable to accept that he was once more trapped by the Dark God. He is mostly unharmed minus the burn mark across his leg where the lava wolf had snapped at him. A soft sound behind him makes him reluctantly turn, facing Carnage himself. He looked the same as last time, untouched. Unchanged. Perhaps he would look unremarkable to most but the flaxen stallion knew better. He knew the intentions that crawled beneath his flesh. ”What a pleasant surprise….” Muses the star man, watching him with interest. Knowing what lay in the cages next to him. ”You look… better.” He notes flatly, his gaze caressing the empty socket. The claw marks. The brand on his flank. All because of him, his creation.

Ledger says nothing, merely gazing at him warily. He doesn’t doubt he has a reason to be here. As if reading his mind, the other shrugs lightly, moving towards the entrance of his cell. Looking out as he speaks. ”You haven’t learned yet, haven’t taken my lessons to, hmmm… Heart.” Such a waste of a gift, he would learn to use it one way or another.

”Your children must be worried, being out there all alone.” He whispers softly and Ledger’s blood runs cold. Carnage gestures to come look, come see. Slowly, fearfully, he moves to stand beside the other. Looking out from the bars of his cage. There are others, like last time. He can make out their shapes and groans through the flickering pale light. It takes him a moment before his eye adjusts, before he sees her in the cage next to his. His heart drops in his chest. ”Ellyse!” He cries, pressing his chest against the rusted metal. Wanting to get to her, comfort her. Protect her from the evil that was coming.

”Ah yes. Ellyse.” The Dark God muses behind him, trailing the back of the cell looking bored. ”She means so much to you and yet… She came here with him.” His last word inflecting enough to make Ledger’s eye flick to the cage opposite hers. To Dahmer. A slow dread crawls into his veins, numbing his nerves. His mind thick, refusing to believe. Instead he stares at Ellyse as it begins to dawn on him. Even now he can catch her scent and his from both cells, intermingled. Together.

All he can do is stare at her, the betrayal written on his face. The disgust in the hard pupil of his eye, reflecting orange in the dim light. Suddenly a roar rips through him, a bears roar that echoes through the cavern, rife with his anger. ”Our children!!” His voice filled with pain and agony, filled with the sound of his heart shattering to pieces in front of her. The accusation leaves his lips and there is no regret. The twins were alone, unprotected. Smoak too. If they were harmed... So help her if they weren't ok.

He turns from the sight, unable to look at her… Look at them anymore. Hadn’t he always known though? He had seen the way they had looked at each other. His body shakes with despair and wrath, unable to ground his feelings. Looking at Carnage as he comes towards him with almost pity. With a toss of his great head, a white hot pain slashes across his chest. Ledger grunts but does not move, his grief consuming him. Another toss, another slash. The Dark God admires the dripping red X that now rests just over his heart. ”Lesson learned.” He whispers, the intimidating gaze holding that of the one eyed stallion. Pleasure in his depths for this time he didn’t have to do anything but gather them and watch. They destroyed themselves in front of him. Had he not warned the chestnut of letting his heart take the wheel? Now he would claim it again. X marks the spot.

The Dark God leaves and he is alone, knowing who was next to him and refusing to acknowledge either of them. The soft dripping noise of his blood hitting the dirt is the only sound beside his ragged breathing. He doesn’t care if he ever escapes. What was the point? The pain he feels inside is worse then anything Carnage could have ever done to him. The burning of his anger refuses to subside as he thinks of every touch, every word. All lies. Perhaps she hadn’t even realized it, wanted to believe her own words as badly as he does. She had hurt them all, the children most of all. Slowly he comes to his senses, the twins. Smoak.

Even if she and her winged lover deserved to suffer, the foals did not.

With steely determination, his facial features unreadable, he presses against the bars. The rusted metal cuts at his skin but he doesn’t care. He rams his body again and again until finally, two give way. Just enough that he can fit through. For a moment, he thinks to save her. To release her. Then with a cold last look behind him, he thinks better. Let Dahmer save her now, that’s what she wanted anyways, right?

As soon as he slips free, he’s transported some place else. The cages instantly disappear, the sun is bright in the sky. He’s stepped into an open endless desert, a sea of sand and dirt. There is nothing for miles around. Not a single cactus or plant, not a single tumbleweed. Slowly he starts forward. There’s no other choice. The anger licks at his insides, scorching him with it’s bitter resentment. He tries to force himself to think of other things but it’s useless. All he has is time, time to scrutinize everything that had ever happened in his relationship. To think of Magnus. The twins. It all swirls around him, every step is heavy. Last time Carnage had physically made him a broken man. This time, he had shattered his soul.

It’s only a matter of time before he stumbles into something, before he is no longer alone with just gritty sand and tainted memories. A snake, twice his size, slowly unearths itself from the dunes. It’s serpent tongue darts between it’s scaled fangs as golden eyes narrow at him. Long ribbons of thick sleek flesh coil on top of itself as it prepares to spring. He doesn’t have much time to react. The shift happens quickly, bear ripping through horse, to take his place. The polar bear is out of character here, the heat quickly penetrating beneath his snowy pelt. The bear is too angry, to pent up with all that has happened, to care. The monster pales in comparison to the brutal heartbreak and the bear makes short work of the beast. The snake manages to bite him on the thick muscles of his hindquarters but he doesn’t even feel it, doesn’t care if it’s venomous or not. Instead his claws rip through the sensitive snake belly, his teeth ripping at scales and sinew. Releasing all his frustration and rage into the serpent.

When he is done, the snake is in pieces and Ledger has shifted back to normal. He is covered in blood, it stains his lips and coat. He doesn’t care, even realizing that he enjoys the feeling. That release. Setting off once more into the distance. There is only one thing on his mind now, feeling slightly improved with the warmth of his muscles in motion, and that’s to get back to his kids. An ear swivels, he thinks he can hear them calling and he quickly picks up his pace.

Hooves sink into sand as he plows through the wasteland. Intent on reaching them. Suddenly another figure seems to materialize out of thin air and this time he comes to a complete halt. Her back is turned but he knows exactly who it is. Slowly, Ellyse turns to face him. The shine of her feathered wings seems to shimmer in the heat, making her appear almost ethereal. A sharp intake of air fills his lungs, the pain of her raw within him. ”Oh Ledger…” She sighs, looking sad. He has only one question. ”Why?” He snarls, the bile rising in the back of his throat as his blood pressure begins to escalate. Feeling the stinging burn of the x across his heart. She comes towards him, as beautiful as she was the day he had first laid eyes on her. It sends a pang of grief through him that rocks him through his core. ”It’s not your fault.” She coos, soothing words meant to balm his wounds. ”I don’t love Dahmer either. How could I? How could I love anyone… After Magnus.”

Nothing could be worse then that. It’s as if she has stuck a dagger straight into his heart and twisted it as far as it could go. Without realizing it, he is bear again. Without thinking, he rears up on back legs as both paws reach for her. Claws ripping across her face, plunging across her chest. Over and over. Then she is gone.

He blinks, back in his normal skin. There is no sign of Ellyse. No corpse, nothing. Just him and his invisible ghosts. It’s as if a mask has fallen into place, the golden flecks hard and cold within his good eye as they fall on the oasis in the distance. Wearily he plods on till he has reached the crystal clear water. Alone and heartsore. The things he had faced in the desert are already a distant memory, nothing compared to the monster he had left in the cavern.

Ledger

[Zephyr]

Zephyr

Curled in the darkness of her cell, the mare wishes it all to be a nightmare...just a horrendous, bloody nightmare. The screams of tortured souls fill her satellites for what seems like hours; she can hear the others around her squirming in their chambers (at least she isn't the only one). Her captor gives her food and water, which seems redundant given the smell of rotting flesh around her - its obvious anything that has been here has died. And she plans on doing the same, and she waits for death to envelop her.

"Pathetic..." A voice whispers from in front of her. The alabaster mare stands slowly, wincing as the burn marks across her legs throb. She does not move closer, heart thumping loudly in her ears. "Come closer." The voice demands, and she shakes her head in protest. He laughs manically. ”So be it.” Suddenly, it feels as though a force is pushing upon her back. The weight crushes onto her shoulders, and she screams in agony.

"You let your fear define you." He snaps, as her legs buckle beneath her. "So I shall let everyone know you are a coward." Slowly, the stranger carves into the skin around her right eye. A circle, with a curling arrow coming out from it, stopping right at her temple - the symbol of Deimos, the god of terror. The weight lifts from her back, and she collapses.

"Your blindness has weakened you." The voice seems to be right next to her now, breathing in her ear, looking down upon her, before suddenly it is gone and she is alone once more. His mark pulsates rapidly, blood running from it and seeping into her eye.

Get out. She lifts herself from the ground and moves her body along the perimeter of her cell, pressing her barrel hard against it to find a weakness. Nothing. She moves to the bars keeping her locked inside the prison, and runs into them, finding that the door opens rather easily. She gallops, unsure of where she is going but having only one thing on her mind: escaping.

Then, the atmosphere changes. It is no longer dreary and damp - instead, it feels like her home in Tephra. The pungent odor of decaying flesh evaporates, the smell of sand takes its place. Had she done it? Had she escaped? She sniffs the air for Tephra’s familiar scent, but finds nothing. She trails her maw upon the ground and does not find the tropical greenery she has come to love, only dust. Her heart races, her wounds throb, and she calls out the only name she can think of.

"Krigare!" It is pointless. He is not there. This is not home. Defeated, she walks, sun beating hard on her back, causing her coat to moisten with a thin layer of sweat. Her satellites flicker around her and her nostrils flare, searching for any familiar noise around her.

And then, she hears it. It cackles behind her, and the image of its face flashes in her mind – blood dripping from its mouth, fangs stained with the plasma of other beings, golden eyes glowing, horns twisting out from the top of its crown. It approaches her on two legs, claw tapping against the side of its scaly skin. It smells strongly of Hell – sulfur and fire.

“You’re next.” It informs her. She swallows, her ever-pounding heart beating violently against her breast now. She pins her ears tight against her cranium, and bares her teeth feebly. She cannot fake being tough – it knows she is scared. It swipes at her, catching the skin of her cheek and ripping downwards. Warm liquid drips down her face as she lunges forward, reaching for her nightmare. She finds the skin of its arm and tears, and the creature lets out a squeal. It reaches forward again and she rears up, it catches her chest, slashing to the middle of her barrel. Fueled by the fear, she comes down upon it violently, over and over, until it disappears beneath her feet and she is left pummeling the earth beneath her.

She falls to her knees, crying in agony, pelt stained crimson, the gaping scar across her stomach pulsing harder and faster with each passing minute. She groans, lifting herself once more, telling herself she needs to continue onwards, although her body tells her no.

“You deserved it, you know.” The voice. She knows it; the recollection long since pushed into the back of her mind is now in front of her. Memories she didn’t like to relive, pictures that she had locked away long ago, coming to life. She could not see him, but she remembers who he was.  She hadn’t even gotten a chance to recover from the first monster, and here came the second.

“Daddy...” Blood and tears mix together, streaming down her face to turn her body a dark pink. “Why?” She asks, forgetting this isn’t real – just a figment of her imagination created by Carnage.

“Because. You were useless. You always have been, you always will be.” His words like venom, cutting her deeper than any wound previously inflicted. ”Besides, who could love a blind girl anyways?” Sadness turns to anger, and she rushes forward, pushing her father to the ground, biting at him and ripping the flesh from his skin.

“I FUCKING HATE YOU! WHY’D YOU DO THAT TO ME? I WAS JUST A KID, YOU BASTARD.” She screams as the mirage disintegrates like the first. She is left to heave quickly in and out, wanting to vanish like the monsters did. But she knew she couldn’t do that, so she walked, carrying her mental and physical scars with her.

So chin up and we'll drown a little slower

[feast]

feast.

death inspires me,

like a dog inspires a rabbit.

The son has never forgiven the father for losing hold of the kingdom the dark god had given them. It is what he has to dwell on as he finds himself imprisoned after that first step beyond the bone and into the lair. He does not find this captivity particularly distressing at first - there is food, there is water, as if they are not meant to wither away, yet. Something - no, someone, wants them just strong enough to contend with the sound of screams in the air and the smell of others nearby just as captive as he is. Neither bothers him at the moment because the others are not important nor are the screams that should make his mind break beneath the constant song of pain and torture. That is a certain food of its own kind that Feast well, feasts on.  

He licks his lips, listening to the crescendo of moans that rise into a crashing cacophony of screaming that he closes his black eyes to in bliss. His chin seems to tilt up and back, leaving his throat rather vulnerable as his lips part in breathless anticipation of the next death knell to sound through that cavernous lair. The feeble wing stirs at his side, bent and awkward, tries to give one fruitless flap then settles itself back against his side and the stone floor it spills out onto. His father would love this, he thinks, compelled into thinking of the Krampus and how he thrived on fear.

“Yes, he would have loved this but I’d break him just as I will you.”

Comes the words from the dark god’s mouth and Feast blinks stupidly in the lowlight of the god’s lair. Break him? But he came to obey! Except he does not take a knee in subservience and he begins to feel a terrible weight on his back driving him down nonetheless as the laws of gravity bend to the dark god’s will. The dark god knows his thoughts and Feast ends up taking a knee, forced to it regardless and his head is forced into a position of ritualistic offering that bares his goat-horned head for slaughter. At least, he thinks it is slaughter but it is not - not yet.

It is sacrifice, perhaps, as the dark god comes closer and without touch of hoof or tooth, brands his mark into Feast’s flesh in such a manner as to always be a painful and searing reminder of his time spent there.

It is a beast’s mark, as surely as if any claw or tooth had scarred him except it had the stink of magic for his burnt skin reeked of sulphur and something else, death.

He bears now, the dark god’s brand in the shape of a miniature horse’s hoof imprinted there as if such a tiny iron-hot hoof had been held to his throat until he given up his own scream to the multitude of those that rang out around him. It was a burnt sigil that could almost be mistaken for the letter “C” for the dark god’s name that he fumbled at shaping with his lips as he coughed and spluttered around the scent of his own burnt flesh. But the name was not his to say. “Something to remember me by…” laughed the dark god before he vanished, or sauntered off - neither mattered how he came to leave Feast there alone in the screaming dark of his own cell with his hot ruined throat. Better an ounce of flesh than something else, he thought as his only consolation to the terrible visit.

Which after what seemed like an hour or an eternity because they are the same to him in that place - meaningless, time held in suspension, in a god’s grip - had passed, he began to balk at giving up much more of himself to the dark god and his odd summons to come and be transformed. It filled him with a sense of failure as if he could hear his father’s hollow kingly command now to kill him seeing no value in a son that could not hold his own against the dark god and he began to seethe with dread, recoiling in horror at the failure that deadened his limbs and made the food and water tasteless in his mouth. Feast began to feel madness reaching fingers into his brain, stabbing tentacles of ire that turned cold and hard in his mouth as if a bit had been fitted between his teeth.

That was when he began to search his cell for a means to escape. He must succeed at that if nothing else! Then he can claim to be one of the few that escaped the dark god’s clutches though there was something cowardly in that, he felt or thought, unsure of which as he pressed his weight against a wall that seemed particularly weak enough to give beneath the constant push of his shape against it. Sure enough, that wall did crumble - did break, as the dark god promised Feast would, and he bared his teeth in a small show of triumph until it occurred to him that no guard came after the clatter of stones and bones had fallen to the stony floor. Hm… he thought, paused in his cautious step as he listened and thought even then, that the screams had died down just a little. That couldn’t be right though, but then, what was right here in the god’s own lair? Regardless, he may his way towards a frail offering of light that seemed to him a little like hope - not that Feast had ever tasted an ounce of hope in his life!

He should have known that light was nothing more than a new sense of betrayal.

For he found himself breaking from the lair into a land not unlike Pangea had been - a dry savage tit they had tried to milk existence from in their own way. Feast sighed, of course Hell would be like this. He had been spat out of his mother’s loins onto a similar wasteland though this earth was more scorched than just dry, as if a thousand suns had crashed upon it and burned. Feast raised his head to the hot air and sniffed, scent little to no water and definitely a lack of edible fare not that he thought of feeding himself at this moment. He wanted to know what kind of hardships he was up against and there was always other things than grass and water to attend to one’s needs - he’d survive as he must, even if he became no better than a carrion crow.

Directionless, he realizes he must pick a direction and set off in it. There are no markers to aid him in making a decision and he must use his best judgment. He spins in a tight circle and continues to sniff the air and detects a certain teasing thread of water that smells downright promising. Feast almost doesn’t trust it, not here. Something like the promise of pure blue water is too good to be true and he doesn’t expect it to be that easy. Nothing in Hell is ever easy. Nose up in the air, he follows the scent of water into the ravaged wastes that seems comparable to being on Mars - hot choking air, light that is no earthly light, and wind that blows as hot as any breath off an active volcano.

Feast feels as if he is being boiled alive the longer he walks.

Everything feels hot and tight, as if the skin begins to shrink around his bones. All he can think about now is that water and he is certain this is a special kind of Hell to torment those like him, keeping the very thing he thinks he needs just out of reach. Even his wing dragged in the dust, leaving feather after feather behind him.

He thinks he can feel his brain shriveling up inside his skull, not realizing that is really the light of this land as it blocked out by a beast bigger and blacker than the night itself. It is a giant boar with bloody tusks and when it stamps a hoof, the ground beneath his own cloven feet quakes in response and he feels that quake go all the way up his spine. Mother had told him stories about a beast like this. A dark god in its own right that she knew would come after her and be her downfall. When at last his eyes could move beyond the bloody tusks, he could see two smaller but still equally impressive tusks jutting out from the boar’s massive throat. From that tusked throat there came a strange whistling that Feast understood to be words inside his brain and he thought madness! This is madness!

“It is not madness,” said the boar.

“You shall not pass here.” and he shook his tusks in warning at Feast who backed up a step.

I must, he thought because water is that way and maybe, salvation of some kind. The boar shook with laughter so loud and great it came from way deep in his belly and whistled out of his tusked throat, stabbing right into Feast’s brain and driving him down to his knees. “So like your mother…” he heard the boar whistle-say to him and that more than anything gave Feast the strength to rise and shake his own pathetic goat-horns in attempt to show his prowess. He may never admit that his weakness would be his own bloodline - mother, twin brother, and little sister, but he did not have to admit it to the boar - it knew, and it savored the taste of his sudden righteousness as the fledgling stallion gained his feet and shook his sad little horns at the beast.

“I am the only thing that terrifies her in her dreams. The only thing that she knows will kill her one day.” it whistle-laughs, and maddens Feast further until he charges at the great beast. “Stupid!” it trumpets from its throat and swings it’s tusks at him, gouging the flesh from Feast’s bare left shoulder. Feast is underneath it now and not sure what to do as the boar tramples his big feet into the dirt and the ground behaves as if in an earthquake, heaving and upsetting his balance so that he rolls back out in front of the boar. Disoriented from the sudden upset, he climbs to his feet and shakes his horned head at the boar who does the same back to him in challenge. Feast charges and his goat horns lock with the boar’s gory tusks and he is severely throttled and dropped back to the earth on his now smarting rump as if he was no more than a fly swatted down.

“Stupid!” comes the debilitating roar in his brain and he can barely keep his eyes open and his feet in motion as he charges once more beneath the boar’s broad chin. Feast angles his head just right to split the boar’s belly open with his sad little goat horns but they are sharp enough to do the trick. Entrails and darkness spill out of the boar and Feast collapses beneath the burden of them, hearing laughter whistling in his ears as the boar dissolves all around him. “Your mother will die this way.” comes the promise fading as the last hot steaming entrail falls off him but leaves him stinking of sulphuric offal as if he’d bathed in a lake of it. “Ew.” he mutters, taking stock of the injury to his shoulder that continues to ooze blood down his skin. He cannot think about that now, his brain stumbles back to the thought of water and what good it might do him so he climbs back to his feet and resumes his trek through the wastes.

One monster down.

One more to go.

He has no idea the dark god is keeping score or that his mother’s nightmare had somehow always been his own. The boar was not just Sinew’s death but Feast’s also, that some great dark mythological beast would fell him someday. Or perhaps the boar signified that their bloodline would end themselves. Was that not what his own father had told his mother at the time of their birth? It would be fitting then, that the next monster he should face would be his own disapproving father but it is not the Krampus himself that rises up out of the savage red light of the wastes - it is his older half-brother who tormented him mercilessly as a foal, whom he tried to laugh in the face of and show no fear to.

But that brother had made him fear him.

Once; once had been enough.

Feast narrows eyes upon the silver buckskin stallion, the name of which stops just shy of leaving his lips that curl up in a sneer. How he despises him! Because of how he was made to cower in fear and take his half-brother’s beating all for the sake of the blood they shared - Pollock’s blood. Bruise had beaten him mightily and made him bow to him as if Feast was no better than the dirt beneath Bruise’ own cloven feet. He can feel it now, that same hate bubbling up inside him as the Krampus-stallion smiles in a not so kind way towards him.

“We meet again.” is all Feast manages to choke out around the hate that fills him fit to burst. Bruise does not answer him, just grins that jeering leer of his that makes Feast hate him all the more. It is his hate that undoes him, makes the two stallions paw at the earth and arch their necks in displays of power. Feast thinks that this time, he can take his half-brother on, fear induction or not but it will be a battle of incontestable wills and Feast will suffer fear after fear being thrown at him and taken from him - siphoned from him, against his will.

They snort and scream and rise up against one another, boxing their forelegs together and battering their horns against one another’s heads. Bruise is more seasoned and drives Feast back and into a more preferred stance that leaves him vulnerable to attack but not from hoof, horn, or tooth. He strikes right into the very heart of Feast and seizes in an ironclad fist of fear that drives the breath from his lungs and sends him shivering to his knees. He lives through his mother’s death from the boar in her nightmares; the slow decay of his twin brother as he rots until he is nothing no more; and even foresees his own death from his father’s hooves at the moment he slid from his mother’s flanks - -

“NO!” he roars, shaking his head clear of these visions. He will not be made to cower again! He climbs to his feet and begins to berate Bruise with teeth and cloven feet until he has taken the same beating over again as he had when he was a weanling but this time, he fought back and he stomped his older half-brother into the dust until he was a crushed skull leaking out brains and all that fear induction. Feast is torn and bloodied, and might never know what exactly gave him strength except that he would not be taken so easily - not by the fear, he’d eat his fear as surely as if he could eat his own heart.

Eat his heart, and so Feast does. He rips into the tender exposed stomach with his cloven feet and buries his blunt equine teeth inside until he rips rib after rib out and reaches the heart. He gobbles it up, feeling it slide thick and wet down his throat and fills him up. This is what had to be done - eat the heart, eat the fear, never fear again. NEVER! Knowing that, he stumbled back from the corpse of Bruise and said nothing, scenting only the sweet tangible promise of water on the air.

He doesn’t know what he is supposed to have learned from either of this, other than that he will not cower before nightmares and brothers ever again. They are conquerable things and he is a conquering sort and it will take much more than that to break him. So he thinks as he drags himself at least to the lip of the oasis and takes one long sweet drink before sighing. Feast was tired but he dared not sleep here, dared not even taint the water with his blood and the offal of the boar that still clung to him like a second skin made of shadow. Instead he shook and did not know if it was from a new fear that would never leave him, or the exhaustion he felt or the aftermath of the adrenaline leaving him.

[Asp]

THERE ONCE WAS A KINDLY FARMER WHO FOUND A VIPER FREEZING ON THE GROUND IN THE SNOW. PLEASE HELP ME, THE POOR CREATURE SAID, FOR I AM TOO COLD TO LIVE. THE FARMER TOOK THE VIPER AND PUT IT IN HIS SHIRT, AND THE VIPER BEGAN TO WARM ITSELF AND COME ALIVE. The smell had only worsened, seeping into her liver and white skin. The wolves had continued to pursue her, and though she complied, there were still a few kicks thrown their way. They don't hit, they don't affect her supposed captures but the roots wrap themselves around her legs, and around her horn for the briefest of moments while she's imprisoned. Then they retracted and Asp's anger raged within her. She growls and immediately presses against the roots that so carefully crafted themselves into the bars of her prison. Each time they brought in food or water, it was the vines again to hold her back, to show they recognized her deterimination to be free of the sulfurous confines. She ate, but only to keep up her strength. She drank, but only to keep herself hydrated. Whenever the chorus of screams echoed out throughout the caverns, her own scream was added. Not of fear. Of defiance. It was impossible to know exactly how long she had been in her small space. Th days slipped into nights and the nights slipped into days. Asp barely slept, internally afraid of what she would miss. That she would miss the oppurtunity to leave. She could see other horses trapped, she could see them weaving in their cages. She was silent against her guards, the vines immobilizing her. It was then that a shadow approached them. She watched as the other horses shrank away from the bars, and even Asp took a hesitant step backwards. His smell was distinctly male, and though his frame was lighter there was something dark about him. His laughter penetrated Asp's ears, and he approached slowly...almost deliberately. The fear in the pit of her stomach grew larger with every step he took closer. The ambiance of the cavern changed, the prisoners she could still see remained still and silent. Was this the devil? No, no but it must be the creature that harnessed the power of the hell-wolves that had herded her here. "My little snake, why do you fight so much?" He muses, as he stares her down. "Why not bend a knee and become my pet?" Defiance rages through her, and through her tired lips she mutters one word. "Never." Asp takes another step back, but the vines that had held her still when they put food and water in her cell had other plans. They were faster than she had remembered, two grabbing her front legs and pulling her down upon her knees. Her hind legs quickly quelled as well. She swung her head to try and bite the vines down to be free but she played into his trap. Her head swung to the right and the vines quickly captured her horn, and around her neck. Instantly she screamed, this time a mixture of rage and fear. Dark laughter erupts around her, the grin on the gray's face spoke nothing but amusement and sinister intentions. "You will be my snake in the grass regardless." And that was the last thing she saw out of her left eye. Instead the piercing pain, and the smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. She felt nauseous and as she struggled to get away, the vine around her neck grew tighter until she was gasping for a full breath. The last thing she saw before her world went black was his grey figure walking back into the caverns, and his laughter filling her ears. Asp had no idea how long she had been out. It could of been minutes, hours or even days. When she awoke, the smell of burnt flesh stung her nostrils. She tried opening her eyes, and found that she had clear sight in only the right. The left was where she was burned, the eyelids barely capable of opening, and the sight that eye saw was blurred from the damage. Little did she know that when it healed, there would be a blue mark mixed with white and pink of her natural tone. It would be something that she could come to hate, a reminder of what was to come. But it was with her right eye that she notices the door has been left open. She cautiously rises, scenting the place and straining to see in the dark. Her knees sting and her eye throbs but she stands. She takes a hesitant step forward, relieved to find that her front legs only stung from the superficial wounds. The screams had grown distant, the horses she could see before now disappeared. She ran, ran in the opposite direction of where she had seen the dark God go. She finds herself in a barren wasteland. The ground cracked, the sun scorching. It burns her face to stand in it, and so she ran. Unsure of where she was going, but hoping to find some sort of shade. Some sort of safe haven. It was in the winds she generated that she first heard them. At first just whispers, "How could you do this to me?...I loved you. I was innocent." And the accusations. "You betrayed me for this? You are little more than a snake, the first deceiver!" "No, no, NO." She screams, to no one. To everyone. And then she sees it. A wraith or monster. She recognizes some of their faces. She remembers how they looked before she had slain them. They were merged together, some sort of horrible conglomerate of legs, heads and tails. Their mouths all screaming at her, some pleading, some angry, some laughing. The cacophony was deafening to her and her ears pinned back against her head. She faced them head on, and her scream was silenced by theirs, useless battle cry against those already dead. Her throat raw from the vines. "YOU ALL ARE DEAD." And the mutated creature laughs--the same laugh the Dark God had used. "Yessssss, by your hoof, by your teeth, by your horn..." It crept closer. Her left eye nearly useless did not see a part of them had broken off, and only when pieces of the conglomerate had surrounded her did she notice that there was no fighting this. There was no escaping this. Still Asp's fiery spirit did not break easily, and she would fight until there was no breath in her body. The wind was knocked from her chest at the first blow, and she reeled to the side, gasping for breath before she feels multiple sets of teeth along her flank, her neck, her whithers. She squeals and her horn spearing into one of them, slashing through rotting flesh easily. But it just laughs. She backs up, before the next, the teeth racking her sides while she feels the scrapes of front feet. She bucks, her feet coming into contact with the same rotting flesh before charging ahead. Slowly she cuts them down, until they are little more than laughing mouths or heads still spewing the words that she had buried deep within her. Betrayer. Deceiver. Murderer. The words echo in her head and as they fade, so do the limbs, heads and bodies. Her sides heaving, it is then that she notices that she's bleeding, that her coat had quickly become matted with her own blood, that here and there there's teeth marks, splintering her skin apart to expose the flesh. They sting, and she slowly moves now before a very small breeze promises water. Instinctively she moves towards it, the small flicker of hope still in her that she will survive this. She forces her body forward, flinching and holding her breath with every step that she takes. Asp was used to fights and had weathered her own share of injuries, but she was convinced that there was no place left unmarked, that there was no bone not bruised. However, soon there is a ripple in the wasteland, and a hiss. It was the animal she had named herself after, a snake. But no ordinary snake...no, this was something out of her childhood nightmares. A titanboa. There was little doubt that it would be able to swallow her. It circled her, and she tensed again to ready for the fight before slashing at it, first with a horn, and then with her hooves as she reared up. Her efforts barely broke the skin as the coils came closer. Again she was squeezed, like the vines in her cell. Constricting her movement before the head came closer, rising up above her. The jaws open and extended and there was little Asp could do as it swallowed her whole. Inside the belly of the snake, she began to give up, to allow herself to be eaten. It was fitting wasn't it? For all the crimes she committed to be suffocated and digested. Still, there was a small part of her that still clung to life. It was this small part that urged her forward, that prodded her to fight. She began thrashing, her feet scraping at the lining of the stomach before she began to toss her head, the horn puncturing through the mucosa. Again and again she stabbed upward, her feet scrambling behind her to get any sort of grip. Miraculously, there was a small glimmer of hope, as daylight flooded her eyes. And as she thought she would never escape the belly of the beast, she finds some footing, and pushes herself forward, breaking through the scaly skin. She was covered in a mixture of her own blood and the boas. She rises unsteadily. Trembling from a mixture of pain and exhaustion. And then for all the effort put forward, the boa disappears. Asp's frustration at the whole situation mounts, and her raw throat lets out a stream. It's only then that her eyes find the oasis, just a little bit further. She walks, her head slung low, and her feet picking up just enough to propel herself forward. She was exhausted, but not defeated--her spirit too stubborn for that. The cool water welcomes her, and she cautiously drinks from it. She no longer cared if she was poisoned, or if some sort of water monster attacked her. Dehydrated from the blood loss and the heat, she drinks her fill before the pintaloosa staggers to a tree and shade and stands quietly. BUT UPON COMING ALIVE, IT BIT THE FARMER MOST WRETCHEDLY, AND AS THE FARMER DIED, HE ASKED THE VIPER, BUT WHY? WHY, WHEN I WAS SO TRUSTING OF YOU? BECAUSE I AM A VIPER, THE SNAKE REPLIED. AND ONE CANNOT EXPECT KINDNESS FROM EVIL.

Brief Summary:
Carnage's mark: Around the left eye the skin around the eye will be scarred and pigmented with different shades of blue.
Injuries: Scraped knees, multiple cuts all over, voice is raw, left eye is burnt and barely usable (after it heals it will go back to full sight--unless something else happens to it)

[Diorae]

-Diorae-

She does the only thing she can do: follow him to her cell without a fight. Not without slight hesitance or shaking knees of course. Diorae – no, it’s Marigold now – knows she cannot fight him, and she wouldn’t. Like Longclaw, he’s the more dominant one, as the submissive she follows. Even if she’s scared. But honestly, the golden mare is more scared of his wrath if she angers him by fighting him, than for what was waiting for her.

There is food and water, she can smell it, but she doesn’t ever feel calm enough to even look at it more than a quick glance. The darkness creeps on her and with the darkness, the ever watching eyes are back – or is it just one pair that keeps an eye on her? But this time, they don’t only watch. The screams of their – its? – victims fill the air. And there is no place Diorae can run to, to escape them – it? No, hím.

What doesn’t mean she stands perfectly still. Turn after turn after turn. The cell is barely big enough to allow her to keep walking around in circles, a tad bit smaller and she would’ve been turning around her center. All while she’s still limping from Longclaw’s branding. Sweat coats her golden coat, her flanks, her chest, her neck. Her ears dance around nervously, but no matter what, the screams seem to come from everywhere. Sometimes she thinks the screams come closer, but the next moment it sounds like it’s further away again. You can guess that it doesn’t help Marigold’s – or Diorae’s? – state of mind. Distressed in every possible way, already a wreck before the games even begin.

So by the time hé enters her cell, she crawls towards him like a kicked puppy. He might be her captor, but at least she’s not alone now. His presence scares away the watching eyes that send shivers own her spine and finally she’s able to breath. He’s calm, unworried and not at all worried by all what’s happening – well duh. To Marigold he’s a calm and assertive presence, the one of a leader and a leader is what she desperately needs.

Since she cannot tell him with words, she cannot ask him to not leave her, to stay, Marigold dips her head. Body language relaxes and her ears flop sideways as her eyes are half-lidded. For a while he does nothing and eventually her breathing even out – only then making her realise that she had been pretty close to hyperventilating. He doesn’t speak either. The white ghost moves to circle her, as to watch her up and down. Passing by her recently branded left shoulder disgust appears on his features, disapproving really. His new toy, his offering, marked by another.

He steps closer, as if to inspect the fresh wolf print brand on her left shoulder blade. Or, that’s is what she thinks he’s doing. Again she first feels his hot breath on her skin, then the burning sensation follows. Unable to move, she’s forced to endure it. Marigold is all tensed up, pain holding her in its gasp and tears clouding her vision slightly before they roll down her cheeks. But, she’s silent, she’s simply not able to scream her lungs out.

Across Longclaw’s wolf print now lays a wolfsangel. The wolf paw ruined, the anti-wolf symbol completely covering the previous brand that had been on her shoulder. A clear message to the wolf, and to Diorae herself. She was hís plaything now, no longer Longclaw’s.

The pain leaves her immobile and silently she has to watch him leave, unable to move forward to block his way or reach out to him in a silent plea. Eventually she’s able to move again. There is a slight limp in her step as the raw flesh of her brand stretches across bone, but she gets back to her circling nonetheless. Only sometimes stopping her endless pacing in favour of a small sip and quick bite.

Screams fill the air again, or had she simply not paid attention to it while he was visiting her, making it only look like the screams continued after he left. Like he was with his next victim. The sudden sound startles her nonetheless, making Marigold accidentally kick over the bucket that held the grain. Almost in slow motion she watches the thing roll towards the door, gently bumping into it and – to her own big surprise – opening her cell door a few centimeters before it fell closed again. She’s left gaping at the door in utter shock and surprise. He had left her door open?

No, that couldn’t be right. Why would he leave her cell open? That has to be a mistake, this shouldn’t be happening. Should it? Swallowing the dry lump in her throat the palomino mare slowly moves towards the door, step by step. Her hazel eyes widen as the door indeed moves at her touch, making way for her. With a sharp intake of breath Diorae – Marigold – stumbles backwards, crashing into the wall behind her. Her eyes never leave the door, her mind unable to wrap itself around this discovery. Was this a joke? To lure her out and to have her captured all over?

No, she decides, she won’t fall for it. Even though she’s uncomfortable and in pain and afraid and so incredibly alone, she won’t take the bite. She won’t fall for the trap, would she?

Of course she does. Staying locked up in a cell was one thing, but staying in a cell while the door was actually unlocked was something entirely else. And maybe, just maybe, she would be able to find another passed her door. But, what would she find at the other side? Swallowing the dry lump in her throat she moves back towards the door, one carefully calculated step before the other. A quick peek into the hallway makes it look empty, makes her think its empty. Of course it isn’t. The guards are there waiting to see if she would take the bite in their little game.

Like expected she does take it. Although she tries to be soft, all sounds sound extra loud in the eerie silence. Her hooves leave a rhythmic sound on the stone pathway, echoing into the distance. Marigold moves slowly, hesitant and unsure, wondering if it wasn’t better if she would turn back to her cell. But no, her desire to be with someone was bigger. And hadn’t Longclaw told her to come back to him?

A sound in the distance has her frozen, except for her nervously flickering ears, and holding her breath. Someone, something, was behind her. Had they noticed her already? Ever so slowly Diorae turns to glance across her shoulder – the right one of course, bending over her left would hurt too much – and she can see them right away. The guards grin at her, silently laughing at her stupid mistake, at their joke. She doesn’t need much more to bolt.

They hunt her down like a wolf wold hunts its prey. As she runs, tries to flee, her hooves slip across the ground, finding little to no grip. She bumps into a wall rather roughly, slowing her down before she’s able to recover herself. The guards much closer on her heels. Too close for her liking.

For a moment she thinks about surrendering, she had never been one to fight and go against rule. Marigold probably would have too, if not for the little opening that is offered to her. Another loud sound, echoing through the hallway, coming from somewhere behind her. It’s sudden and loud enough to make the guards pause and look back, she can even hear them mutter a curse under their breaths. The brief hesitation is enough for Marigold to sneak away, hiding behind a couple of barrels around the corner.

All she has to do is hold her breath and keep still as they rush by. What was left was to sneak out silently and unnoticed. Somehow the sun touched mare manages, without further obstacles, to sneak out. But it’s not Beqanna she escapes too. Not the eerie path Longclaw guided her down. A wasteland lies before her. Not that it stops her.

Her first steps into the bare lands are hesitant, but each step takes a bit of the hesitance away and before she knows it, she is running away from her captor’s lair. Right into the hands of her previous shepherd, or wasn’t that Longclaw?

Or not entirely. It’s a wolf, head dipped and ears standing up that’s growling at her, but he looks exactly like Longclaw. Instantly she’s aware of the eyes again, and on a clue, a couple of more wolves appear behind Longclaw. Unlike him they are bland, normal blacks and browns and greys. Nothing like the iridescent blue roan one in the front. Even the navy blue of Longclaw’s mane and tail is there, down the wolf’s back all the way from its head to its tail. And the way he looks at her, it’s all so the very same.

Sand, carried by the harsh wind, scratches across her now healed legs, as she backs away a few steps. It’s him, but at the same time it isn’t, and she doesn’t know what he will do. As to apologize for his covered brand – not that she really had a choice in that matter – she dips her head. Her ears flick back and there is this sudden need to lie down and roll on her back, to show her stomach in submission. Exactly what a wolf would do. But Marigold is no wolf. And it’s not Longclaw who stands in front of her. The growl followed by a loud bark snaps her out of that haze.

A rollback is all she needs to dash away again. Sand kicks up all around her, some directly into the wolves’ faces, but it doesn’t blind them for long and they are nipping at her heels before she can get far. Her nostrils stand wide as her breathing quickens, ears flat against her neck and eyes widened in fear. Not knowing what else to do, Diorae – because Marigold would never even think of hurting Longclaw – kicks out. The blow lands, she can feel her hoof connect to a sharp canine jaw, but it gets her too. Claws slice up the calf of her left hind leg, but the claw disappear upon the impact of her hoof. All it lacks is a ‘poof’ when the wolf disappears.

Her new injury makes it impossible for Diorae to continue her attempt to flee. There was no way she would be able to keep ahead of the couple of wolves that are left. The Longclaw one is gone, but that doesn’t stop the other two from approaching her. Now facing them she backs away again, ears still back and head dipped slightly. Her blonde tail is up in the air, her muck trampled underneath her hooves and mixed right with the wasteland’s sandy ground and she nervously dances on the spot.

She doesn’t really know how she makes the other two wolves disappear, but they just go like the Longclaw wolf had gone, only lacking the ‘poof’. The first had gone after she had tried to evade the coming attack, but failing due to her hurt hind leg. Diorae had been forced to keep her weight on both her right legs, her left foreleg kicking out and hitting the wolf on its shoulder. Not without a couple of clawmarks across her left flank, but unlike the injury of her hind leg, this one is only superficial.

That leaves one wolf. Would he disappear just like the prior two? Well, not just like that of course. She guessed she would have to land a hit on this one too. One to one now, the wolf snarls in rage and hesitance. This time Diorae doesn’t try to evade, instead she dashes forwards herself too. Determination is in her eyes and her teeth are bared to take a bite out of the wolf. She does, the fur in her mouth proof of it even when the wolf has poofed. Just as the small superficial wounds on her face, scratching her face.

Diorae stands in the middle of the wasteland panting. Her sides heave with each breath she takes, head dipped towards the ground. Each time she breath out, the sand moves a little, to fall down somewhere else. She doesn’t know how long she stands there before she has caught her breath, but when she looks up, hé stands beside her. The shock and surprise – she hadn’t heard him coming – startles her and she freezes. For a moment she can only look at him. Little does she know he’s only a imagination of her own mind – fuelled by the dark god himself. He doesn’t speak, but he doesn’t have to. Marigold is back and would go back without a fight. And thus she turns without him having to mutter a word.

In submission her head drops as she moves in the way she thinks is back to his lair. Emphasis on the ‘thinks’. Instead of going back, she walks into the opposite direction, only thinking that she’s going back. Hé has disappeared, though she can feel his eyes still on her, which makes her not look back. For all Marigold thinks Carnage is following behind. They journey is long and slow. Only now she realises how far she has gotten, how close she had been to … to what exactly?

She definitely hadn’t had this oasis in mind. A pair of hazel eyes take in the sight. Water, in the middle of the wasteland and trees growing and providing a little shade. The sun burns down on her back, as Marigold simply stares ahead amazed at the oasis. A shudder runs down her back. Not like before, not because of watching eyes, but simply because of the beauty of it.

A beautiful face is a mute recommendation.

OOC: The Wolfsangel is a German heraldic charge inspired by an actual historic wolf trap consisting of two metal parts and a connecting chain. The top part of the trap, which resembled a crescent moon with a ring inside, used to be fastened between branches of a tree in the forest while the bottom part (the brand), on which meat scraps used to be hung, was a hook meant to be swallowed by a wolf. The simplified design based on the iron "wolf-hook" was often heavily stylized to no longer resemble a baited hook hung from a tree or an entire wolf trap.

I figured to have Carnage brand her with an anti-wolf symbol . Not to be mistaken for the Nazi symbol.

In summary:
- Wolfsangel brand that covers Longclaw's paw brand
- Injury to her left leg calf, slash of wolf claws
- Small injury on her left flank (superficial wolf claw slahs)
- Small injury across her face, superficial scraps of teeth against skin.

[Tangerine]

tangerine

face to the sun

So this is what he is, your supernova. Stupid girl, power like that didn't come with a smile. Welcome him-  your jailor forever. He is your god now. 

He came to her then, after days of solitude, with no fanfare or warning. He is a plain gray this time. He did not need to lure her with a peacocks show - she is already his. A warm smile is on his black lips, he is pleased by his work, he is pleased by the wealth of flesh he hoards. 

Blood looks black in the dark. 

He comes at her then, sweet smelling and violent, the dank humidity of the cavern replaced with crisp ionized air. Like a good pet, she had waited patiently and without contributing howls of her own to the terrible music playing in the dark around her. But the walls of her prison melt away as he approaches, she does not stir, not until he calls her by name.
"Tang" he purrs into the space between his mouth and her skin. She tries to smile, a valiant effort, but she cannot manage it and grimace takes shape on her lips as her eyes focus on the wall behind him. 
This is a god they are dealing with.

"Hmm, I see how it is." Was that disappointment in his voice? She is frozen. He moves again, sending waves of energy and ice ripping through her veins. His lips touch her neck, right below the crescent scar he had left her with after their first meeting. He hums into her skin.  A flash of pain blinds her before he is whispering again, soothingly calling her back to the present. 
"I know it hurts," he coos as he leans in closer. She grits her teeth and forgets to breathe. 
"Don't move."

Her neck is burning and tearing, but no flame is being used, she knew what true burns felt like. With dark magic, he carves into her hide and muscles with precision. And the pain grows as he gives a final push- one last sip and a brilliant agony. She is glad that the dark god is so close, focused on her flesh, that he can't see the tears which wet her face. 
Then, like a dam breaking, she breathes a torrent of fast and shallow breaths 
- and the blood just spills and spills. 

Tangerine decides to move away, to fight, to flee, but her body disagrees. 
She falls, a pile of burgundy and gold into the dirt of his grotto as hot teas mingle silently with her blood. From the fog, she can sense him withdrawing, and she is again, alone. But she dares not to blink nor move, she simply fades. 

Tangerine awakens to a pounding in her skull. The blood is gone but the skin on her neck seems the crackle as she rises to stand. She drinks deeply of the water he has so kindly provided. Maybe he did care for her in some strange way, she consoles herself.
He didn't have to give her water.

She paces, anxiously for the rest of the morning taking note of the different sounds her footfalls make on the ground of her cell. In the back of her now home her hooves create a deep -thump- which reverberates in her cell. Out of boredom, she strikes the ground harder there, and then again. Something moves. With both front hooves, she bounces, almost comically if the situation was not what it was, and the ground crumbles under her weight. 

She tumbles, falling into a dark passage. Fear strikes her like a blow to the heart and she is tempted to crawl back into her cell and patch the hole before the dark god finds out what she had done. But a thought of her children, born and unborn, spurs her on to see what may lay at the end of the tunnel. 

Soon, a new world opens up before her. It is a bright world, and the light blinds her. She half stumbles half trots forward blindly- she has made her decision and she has to keep moving. Her vision returns and when it does she gasps.

A massive sand cat stalks her, its hackles raised as it tastes her fear. Out of the pan and into the fire, her mother's voice laughs in her mind. But Tang fortifies herself, she had done this before, she had killed a grass loin before. Not many knew, but she knew and she knew she could do this. 

She lowers her skull and leaps towards the creature. The cat is caught off guard and Tang snorts and pulls her knees up around her face before stomping the ground where the cat had been. She catches its tail under one hoof and the feline spins towards her with one wide paw lashing out. The claws wrack her face but she does not retreat. As her nostril tears under his talons, she drives a hoof into his exposed ribcage.It gives under the force of contact. But she had not a second to spare for celebration. She champs the creature hard behind his skull, taking his scruff between her teeth. With all the force she can muster she shakes the cat's body until he no longer resists. His lifeless body crumples in front her and their blood marries in the sand. 
I wonder if Carnage bleeds red.

She waits for her heart to slow as she looks at him, committing the image to memory. Gently, respectfully, she lays his body out - head high and tail flying behind him in a final leap into eternity.
 
No vultures fly in the white-hot sky above her. 
Valiantly, she moved on. She only had two choices, lay beside the cat and waste away or move on. She chooses to continue. Miles pass under her hooves without passing a single structure or life form to let her know she's making progress. Her mind whirles in the blankness of the empty landscape.
 
The desert is scentless, void and very dry. She licks her lips and they burn. But then she is not alone. The wind rises and the heat seems to clear away, there is another woman, and she looks into Tang's eyes with a brash defiance she has never seen before. Tang smiles in self-defense - the other woman frowns.

Celest. What was her baby girl doing here in this land of monsters? 
'Hello' Tang murmurs in the shadow of the great woman who has not been born yet. Maybe this was her way out, maybe her daughter had somehow come to save her. 

'You poor, stupid bitch.' The woman states without feeling. 

Tangerine recoils as if she has been struck. Instantly she is moving backward as fast as she can in a shuffle, refusing to take her eyes off her daughter. The dark amethyst of the woman's eyes burn with a purple fire, and Tang knows her child is not hers, but her fathers. 

"Stop." Her teal lips part to speak the word with a cool power. "It's embarrassing."
Tang freezes.

Celest does not hesitate, yet none of her movements seem rushed, and soon she stands before her mother. "You know, this is the first time I've seen you with your sanity." She tilts her head ever so slightly, her violet forelock cascading down across one eye. "I'm disappointed, honestly." 

Confusion flickers in Tang's amber eyes. She doesn't want to understand what her child is saying to her, and for all her dreams she has never seen anything like this in her future. She shakes her torn face back and forth. No. "Stop, I don't know you."

And the creatures composure breaks. She laughs, a melodious laugh, and tilts her teal head back in exhilaration. "And that always was the problem!" She manages to say through her laughter. "It's not really your fault, I know. It's not your fault you were created so simple." Once again, she is composed, but the smile lingers - her fathers smile. "But that's no excuse, or at least not a good enough one to get you out of your punishment. I see he had already left you marked, but you still owe me." 

Celest seems to be glowing now, a faint light emanating from the teal of her coat and the black and purple of her eyes. A thread of light materializes between them and unfurls to touch Tang's face. "Don't fucking move." The teal mare threatens, so like her father. And for the second time, that day Tangerine stands motionless at the mercy of the merciless - unable to fight her own child. Unable to fight a god. 
That did not make her weak. 

"Celest, please. I can make it better, when I go back, I can change the story." The gold and cream mare winces as the thread of light touches her face below her eye. "Burn me if you want! But tell me how to make it better for you!"  Steam rises and obscures her vision as the light melts away her skin. Tangs voice rises an octave. "Tell me, what I will do wrong! So it doesn't have to come to this."

Celest pauses momentarily only to look into her mother's other eye. "Once upon a time... nobody gave a fuck." She smiles. "How do you like that story, mother. It's better than all of yours." 

The branding complete, Tang lets her head drop low between her knees. Celest steps back to admire her work and her grunts in displeasure. "Well, this was anticlimactic. I always imagined you differently." She turns to leave but pauses when one last remark comes to mind. "I guess I should say thanks anyway. Maybe if you had done your job as a mother I would be the way I am." She is calm and collected once again, her vengeance satisfied. "Those are tears on your face, they will scar nicely. A fair exchange, I think, for all the tears I couldn't cry as a child. For all the tears you should have wiped from my face - but you weren't there and so I never cried them." 

And the daughter of Carnage walks away, into the nothingness where she disappears into the waves of simmering heat. 

Tangerine has nothing left. Her mind is devoid of thoughts, she has felt too much in one day. But as her unborn daughter leaves her to trudge along alone, one thought continues to rise between the long stretches of blankness. "Is she the monster, or am I?" 

In this pattern she walks miles, head low and feet dragging. Her face is torn and burnt and along the crest of her neck Carnage's mark throbs dully.  It is not until the sand below her feet begins to clump and change that she notices the oasis. A few more steps bring her onto the grass around the water and her muzzle instinctually reaches down to tear tender shoots from root. Mechanically, she chews and swallows as if this were a normal day by a normal pond and not the nightmare it is. 

>

OOC: Carnage carved a spiral on her neck which will scar raised and white. The bite scar he gave her when he bred her is in the top/middle of the spiral. The panther scratch her face, tearing one nostril and Celest (CarnagexTang) used her light beam emission to burn some rough teardrop shapes under her left eye. Let me know if anything needs changed - I plan on Celest being a dark character in the future and so this is one possible outcome for how she may turn out with the current chain of events. This was probably not actually Celest but just a version of her Carnage created to torment her mother. 

[Dynast]

As I moved deeper into the lair I could now see bone littered across the floor.  Each one bare as time had stripped the flesh away, or something had consumed it.  A shadow dashed across the dimmed lighting of the cavern wall.  Stopping abruptly I listen.  The eerie stillness surrounding me sent a chill up my spine and just as I stepped to turn back, a growl was emitted from behind me.  I spin around to face the entrance. Scarlett eyes fell to look at the blackened figure of the creature blocking my path to freedom.  I pause in thought at what to do and in doing so I feel a force dragging me backwards.  "Noooo... Let go. Let me go!" I scream, kicking violently.  Gripping my flank it pulls me deeper into the darkness.  My efforts to go forward are met with pain and to no avail I am thrusted into a small nook in the cavern wall.  My hooves scrape on bare rock as I lift myself back up.  Eyes frantically shift to find what has captured me.  Seeing only darkness.  I see nothing but rock walls in all other directions.  I pause and look forward.  No iron clad bars contain me so upon seeing no reason to stay, I motion forward.  

Met with a demonic tsk I stop.  Eyes straining to see beyond the shadows.  My gut screams for me to run but my mind overrides my natural instinct.  Onyx ears lay flat as I lash out, "What do you want from me?" It was a question anyone would ask in the given situation.  I glance about, awaiting an answer. Blood trickled down my hindquarters and pools at my hoof.  The pain was numbed by fear, three deep gashes ran across the length of my hip.  Whatever had dragged me in had left a permanent mark.  I twist my nape so I can view the injury.  As I look a cackle rises from the shadows.  Such a shame, it tsks to me again.  Returning my gaze , a beast emerges.  Canine like, its hunched on all fours. Blood stained fangs dripped froth from it's jaws.  It's smaller than me and looking to me with expressionless sockets.  Claws scraping along the rocks as it moves nearer.  I snort in protest, striking out at it with my forelimb.  "Get away from me!" I demand.  It seems to grin at my protest before it begins shifting...

The scruffy grey fur slicks against it's body, claws become singular and cresent shaped.  It's begins to grow taller, straighter.  Legs lengthen, along with neck and soon it is canine no more.  Standing in my way is something much similar to myself. Taking a step back, my rump presses against the back wall.  Dynast, he calls to me.  I want to answer but my voice is stolen from me.  I am Carnage. Do you want to play a game with me? He asks.  My insides scream no but somewhere inside me, a hesitant yes escapes my lips.  He grins wickedly and leans into my ear... Run, he whispers in challenge. 

 With no thought process I leap forwards.  Brushing past the shape shifter and knocking into a wall.  My hooves scramble to gain momentum again.  I head in the direction I believe I entered.  The winding tunnel seemed longer than before, never ending.  Everything was a blur and just when a light came into view I heard a growl echo from behind me.  It was back, I thought, so I ran faster...

The light was blinding, closing my eyes, I broke out from the darkness within the cave.  Upon reopening them, the world isn't how I had left it.  Laying before me was no longer a thick tangle of tree and brush, but a desolate wasteland.  The soil was grainy, unsustainable for most flora to survive.  It seemed to be a valley, long and narrow.  Cliffs of sand rose on either side, too steep to climb.  A small creek twisted along one side.  I hadn't realized I stood frozen in place until a voice coos from behind me, You do not know this place Dynast but it is very much a part of you, as it is of me.  The greyed stallion motions to the distance.  I match his gaze to the horizon.  Making out a gathering of equines, four two be exact.  Two adults, two children.  

The pair teleport nearer and I can see now the finer details.  Two colts stand, watching as a dark dappled stallion rips flesh from the other.  Piece by piece until blood stains the sands.  I gasp in realization of who it is, "Mother!" I yell but my words fall on deaf ears.  I gather my limbs under me, rushing to her side. Again he rips into her flesh, What do you see boys? Will your mother bleed out? A satisfied grin cuts across his lips and my eyes - filled with rage - look into his face for the first time.  My eyes are met with the same blood red.  Again I gasp as I piece together what was happening.  My gaze shifts to the colts forced to watch their mother, my mother, being ripped apart.  They plead for him to stop.  One in particular catches her eye.  A colt similar to me in color and markings but with icey blue eyes and silver locks like the stallion.  My brother... I question myself but the voice of the grey stallion confirms my thoughts, Yes Dynast.  And that is your father.  I round the group, unaware that I exist.  It is nothing but a piece of a bigger puzzle.

A single tear streams from my eye as all I can do is watch.  What do you wish to do Dynast? He taunts me.  All the emotions within me boil as my eyes lock onto the blood red of my Father's.  "End this," I nearly growl.  Teeth clenched as every muscle in my body tensed.  As you wish... He coos with a hint of amusement.  The ground shifts, cracking the entire length of the land.  Water seeps from the crack, gushing into the valley. "Wait! Whats happening?! What did you do?" I look to Carnage then to my family.  As more fills in, the turbulent force captures anything in it's path.  Watching in horror as my family scatters.  It doesn't take long before the water reaches them and is pulling them under.  The colts are easily succumbed to the depths as I cry out to them. "Stop. Please!" She pleads.  This is what you wished for Dynast. Come. Watch. He cackles, rising them above the waters.  Quickly the rushing waves capture the stallion then the mare.  For sometime they fight against the currents taking them under but the outcome is inevitable.  I watch as the land and everything in it is consumed to the depths.  My family, gone with it.  

The water begins to drain into the crack in which it came.  I can do nothing but watch helplessly.  He returns me to the grey sands and disappears.  I am left to call to my family.  I know they are gone but I cry out to them anyways.  I had lost them before and now I had killed them all.  My front knees collapse as I tremble.  What have I done?  Exhausted I nearly fall over, but then a rumble comes from behind me.  I muster whatever strength I have left to stand again.  Scarlett eyes shift to see the canine from the cavern licking it's chops.  It snaps the air, mock lunging at me.  I jolt.  There was a burning inside me as I feel the tentacles sliding down my neck and hocks.  My eyes glow a burning red as I stare down the hellhound before me.  Ebony ears flattened atop my cranium.  "Not this time," I mutter under my breath.  Swinging my rump to the creature my tail of tentacles hit it in the face.  I hear a yelp as they send pulsating shocks of pain into it.  Pairing it with a swift kick to it's chest, I wasn't going down without a fight.  Not this time.

The dog scrapes at it's face with it's claws.  Ridding itself of the few that had stuck into it's fur.  It was enough of a distraction to give me a head start.  In the valley there is only one way to go and I go it, as quickly as my legs will take me.  There is a glow ahead and I squint to shield my eyes.  A now distant howl echoes throughout the wasteland.  I snort in satisfaction as I now slow.  Looking out across a much different terrain now.  It's almost peaceful here... An oasis if you will

[Dahmer]

CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT
& SATISFACTION BROUGHT HIM BACK

Horrific screams pull Dahmer slowly from his state of unconsciousness. He's uneasy as his blue eyes open, the way one is usually uneasy after a fainting spell, with a sort of wooziness clouding his brain. His obsidian frame is sprawled across the floor, left wing trapped agonizingly beneath his full weight. The thoroughbred groans loudly, not yet aware enough to remember where he is or what had happened (not yet aware enough to be scared), and slides his head across the hard floor to inspect the area around him. It's dark. Too dark... Again. Just as it had been when he'd awoken beside Ellyse in Tephra.

His heart begins to pound again. His entire body tenses. Another shriek roars through the underground and Dahmer is quick to clamp his ears to his skull; he tries to rise quickly but his wing is still trapped and he panics. The black beast roars and grunts, rocking his dark frame until finally he can free his wing, all disheveled and sore, and rise to his unsteady hooves. Blue eyes dart around the small enclosure and its low-hanging ceiling. The bars erected before him are rusty; the wall behind him stained with dried blood. The Subway, his heart aches as he realizes, Where is the Subway?

Ellyse! The horror-filled cry reverberates through the chamber, and Dahmer would know that voice anywhere. He is immediately pressed against the iron bars of his cage, his dark head turned sideways against them to afford him a better view of what is beyond. "Ledger?" he calls with a mixture of hope and despair, thankful that he is not alone in this hellish place (another scream, this one closer, and a shiver wracks his body) but frightened that his fellow Tephran will also be enduring whatever is out there, whatever or whoever had decided to toy with the residents of his home.

Dahmer can see the Dark God standing before his one-eyed acquaintance. He can see the amusement that twists across his face and the horror that slowly, and then all at once, rises on Ledger's. There is whispering but Dahmer can't decipher it. Fury fills him as he watches their captor mutter something to the flaxen stallion that twists Ledger's face away from hurt and more towards rage. Their eyes lock then, his own blue one pressed between the bars, as the Dark God directs Ledger to see -- see what? Our children! Ledger cries out, a roar from his bear-self following swiftly behind and Dahmer's throat tightens in fear at the sound.

He pulls away from the bars and turns his head to the other side, frantic to see what had caused Ledger's sudden ferocity. Ellyse. Breath is knocked from the black thoroughbred's chest and when he's finally able to inhale, he holds it for a moment before the exhale transforms into a sob and the Commander is throwing himself against the bars between them. "Ledger!" Dahmer calls for the Ambassador, all animosity for the other stallion forgotten, his heaving chest and shoulder still ramming against the cage, "We need to get her out!" If only one of them could make it out and escape back to Tephra, it would have to be her, the Head of War with children between the two of them. Her life is worth the most; more than his own, and more than Ledger's.

"He can't hear you," a voice whispers menacingly behind him, causing Dahmer to pivot quickly in the tight enclosure. The Dark God stands before him, suddenly inside the cage (it fleetingly reminds him of Dog-face's Zoo and Dahmer's stomach sours). "Let them go!" he commands, in control of his emotions for only a moment before a terrified sort of pleading erupts from him, "Please. Just let them go. Keep me here. Just let them go." His request is met with unbridled laughter and Dahmer retreats from the star-painted beast, his hind end bumping into the blood-blemished wall behind him. "What would be the point in that?" the Dark God muses innocently, "He already thinks Ellyse has betrayed him again, with you, for another night of pity fucking."

Dahmer's ears flatten and he makes to push by his captor to plead with Ledger, to undo the damage that has been done. But the Dark God rewards his effort with burning pain between his eyes, cutting into his forehead, where a star marking would be, the shape of a diamond with a circle in the center of it - the symbol of a thief on Azza. He cries out in pain, unable to stop the noise from escaping. Blood drips slowly from the burning wound, the proximity to Dahmer's eyes making them water involuntarily, and Carnage takes a brief moment to admire his handy work ("Now everyone shall know that you are the thief who stole the poor, one-eyed man's lover.") before vanishing into the musty, thick air. The black stallion blinks repeatedly, ridding his azure eyes of their unshed tears (another shriek from somewhere in the cavern) before a whinny of frustration erupts from his maw and he sends a rage-filled buck at the wall behind him.

His legs go through it. The wall has vanished suddenly, as if it had always been a mirage holding him in. He swings his head around in disbelief to be sure that it's gone and comes face to face with a wide open wasteland. Dahmer spins his dark frame towards the exit and blinds himself briefly in the sudden daylight, the stinging pain between his eyes forgotten momentarily. "Ellyse! Come on! Kick th--" he has swung his head to look back at the cage that houses the champagne mare, but the cave and Ellyse and his enclosure are no longer there. The wasteland extends in all directions, daunting and dry and full of dangerous mystery. His heart drops at the expanse before him.

The winged stallion doesn't expect to find his way out of the wasteland by simply standing and waiting for help to arrive, so he sets off across the desolation at a frantic canter. His tail billows behind him and his hooves fall powerfully against the hard-packed earth; the dull throbbing in his wing and the sharper stinging of Carnage's brand distract him from the long trek, but he abruptly has something much larger to worry about. The creature comes at Dahmer from the cloudless sky, shaped like a raven but as large as he is. The black stallion shies away from it as it coasts closer to the ground with outspread wings, but even his gallop cannot outrun the raven and its massive claws reach for his barrel, just behind his shoulders, and dig.

Dahmer squeals and pulls back, but the immense bird has a powerful, unnatural hold and suddenly he is airborne. The claws continue to dig beneath his flesh and Dahmer extends his wings, flailing them in pain. He throws his dark head upwards and bares his teeth, snapping them together in an attempt to bite the bird-monster, but he can reach no part of the skyfowl. He screams in disbelief, just wanting this horrific adventure to end, and just when his body threatens to betray him and drift into unconsciousness again, the bird lets go. Another scream rockets from his open maw as he plummets back to the dry wasteland, his unused wings struggling to open as his large frame turns over on itself.

Somewhere in the rushing winds, he can hear the raven caw behind him. Its own wings have closed so that it may speed swiftly after Dahmer, chasing his free-falling body to the ground. Finally, at the last moment, the black beast catches a thermal and his feathered wings snap open fully. Wind rushes beneath them and he soars upwards; the raven continues its dive, unable to stop its breakneck speed, and collides with the hard-packed dirt of the wasteland. Dahmer whinnies loudly (joyfully, this time, at his second chance at life) despite the gruesome sound of crunching bones beneath him.

His left wing aches still but the adrenaline that pumps wildly through his veins keeps the stallion drifting on the hot thermals. He takes a moment to appreciate the wind that floats across his face and between the feathers of his wings (Ellyse and Scyla had been right, he knows, that he had been missing out on something so wonderful), but the sun beats harshly against his dark coat and so Dahmer slowly descends. He keeps his brilliant blue eyes open for another winged attacker, but instead a silhouette forms slowly on the horizon. He lands clumsily as he nears the steel and ice mare, his knees colliding painfully with the ground as he stumbles. His wings are still outstretched, the tips of them raking against the ground, and he stays on his knees as his blue eyes turn upward to the mare before him.

"Mother," he whispers reverently as his eyes meet hers.

"Don't call me Mother," she seethes, causing Dahmer's breath to catch in his throat. He's unable to find words, unable to stand beneath the punitive gaze of Desole, "Commander? Only a Commander? What happened to the useful, successful, prideful son that I trained? Or did you forget that you're only worthwhile to me when you're a King?" She spits on the ground in front of him, her lip curling upwards in blatant disdain. "Though, I can't be surprised, can I? Not with the wretched company you keep, that half-blood sister of yours. How can you expect to be great with that thing holding you back? I should have smashed her worthless head beneath my hoof the moment I birthed her."

Dahmer snorts, a mess of mingling emotions - his unfaltering respect for Desole keeps him from lashing at her, but her words are cold and painful and they make him doubt every choice he's made since Azza had fallen into the ocean. He rises slowly to his hooves, his knees throbbing, and as he stands eye-to-eye with his mother, he still feels like the young, uncertain colt she'd trained and molded to perfection. "And what of your own son? Have you no standards? I see no drills, no training... what is he, just a common, stupid little boy? He should be in the Army by now, if you had done your job correctly. But instead, he talks back to you and to his mother. Head of War, ha."

She spits again, her gaze hardening. "You have failed me. You are no son of mine."

He is broken beneath her scathing words (this woman who had raised him to be an elite soldier, who had been proud of his successes and unloving when he failed), but a numbness washes over him as he realizes what he must do and how he must escape from here. She is already gone, he reminds himself, as she turns her back on him and starts to leave. "Wait, Mother," he finds his voice, though it is weak and pleading. Desole turns her painted frame around and settles her hard gaze on him. "You do not command me, boy," she spits, but Dahmer is already using his muscled hindquarters to rocket his body towards her, knowing that the only way he will be able to defeat his father's Hellhound in battle is to utilize any surprise he can keep a grasp on.

She rises to meet him, but the black beast has a millisecond on her and his front hooves collide with Desole's chest. She's knocked backwards, her hooves kicking up dust as she works to steady herself, but Dahmer uses the moment to his advantage and extends a foreleg as he's falling back to earth, letting it collide with her head and then her neck on his way down. The noise is sickening, so sickening, and he clenches his blue eyes closed as he stands on all four legs once more, afraid to see what he has done. "I'm sorry, Mother, I'm so sorry. I never wanted to fail you, never wanted to fail..." his voice trails off into a shaky exhale and finally the winged beast opens his bright eyes again to the sight of Desole's steel and ice body lifeless on the dusty wasteland. Blood seeps from her head, her throat, her chest.

He holds back a sob, denies himself the comfort of pressing his head to hers, and trudges forth without a glance behind him (no matter how much he yearns to do so). His gait is slow now, the walk of a defeated man, as a vibrant and emerald oasis appears on the skyline. Dahmer's blue eyes lock onto the greenery, unsure of whether or not it is truly there, but he moves to approach it nonetheless. When finally the tired and bloodied stallion arrives at the wellspring, he falls to his scraped knees once more and plunges his muzzle into the clear blue water, drinking and ridding his face of the dried blood from Carnage's brand.

Dahmer

image © celestiene

(Example of brand here.... sorry for the novel x_x)

[Ellyse]

Ellyse

I have the tendency of getting very physical,
so watch your step 'cause if I do you'll need a miracle.

The iron confinement keeping her enveloped in the tight, unforgiving embrace of his torment is bitter and metallic across the surface of her tongue, and unbending beneath the incessant prying of her blunt and yellowed teeth. There is water, and there is sustenance (the scent of it is intoxicating; alluring to every single one of her senses) – but she is no fool, and she is loath to believe he has not poisoned it. Her mouth, dry and parched, is parted, while her pale, pink lips brush across the metal binding holding her in the enclosure. No amount of force had yet give any weakness away.

The cries of the suffering do little to unnerve her – she is stoic; an unwavering presence of hardened resolve and disdain – at least, so it would appear. Within, her blackened and shriveling heart is pounding with vigor, agitated by the sheer level of noise, by the ire and wrath festering inside of her the golden flecks of her hazel eyes gleam in the dim light – she does not care look beyond the boundary of her confinement. There is a knot of dread slowly building up within the pit of her stomach, stirring her into an irate restlessness – and her indifference is shattered, splintered into a thousand pieces, as her teeth are bared and a shiver traverses the length of her spine.

Beneath the calm, there is a tempestuous storm roiling and raging, festering into a hurricane of destruction and wrath. An irritated snort emerges from her flaring nostrils, as a gust of frigid air brushes across her skin from the left (what should be east, west, north, and south is lost to her – the air is damp and heavy; the darkness stifling). Her gaze searches the nearly impenetrable shadow, blinking to forcefully chase away the vertigo that inevitably befalls her within the disorienting obscurity – the lack of sunlight, the pure blackness enveloping her gilded body is almost enough to steal the breath away from her lungs.

She can feel a distant warmth radiating through the thick, heavily guarded barrier between her and her freedom, breaking through the icy stillness of her enclosure – a stench of wretched death descends upon her, embracing her. It is a scent she had come to know many a time over the course of her youth. Born amid a violent, hateful war, she had grown among the flora, the fauna, and rot – decaying bones amid festering tissue, clinging precariously to the skeleton in death that it had clutched onto in life.

She had never shied away from death – oh, far from it – she had reveled in it, poking, prodding, tasting the bitter and acrid palate of bereavement, of putrefaction. It had driven to near obsession, drawing long spears of bone from her own body to thrust into the proverbial heart of the dead – testing her weight on dry, decrepit bones that had bleached beneath the heat of an unforgiving sun (remembering too well the delight of crushing even a fragment of a skull under her forceful trampling had elicited a cry of glee, then – a wicked one, was she).

And death, death had come for her, a wraith of silver sin and depravity, with a glowering gaze that stills her hammering heart and catches her breath within her throat, suffocating her slowly. When he is upon her, it is instantaneous, sudden, and there is no heavy clanging nor any grating of metal against aging cobblestone to break the insufferable silence filling the void the darkness had left. His breath is warm across her cheek, and he drinks her in with reckless abandon, feasting off of her fear, partaking of her anger, and oh, how he laughs - a dry, cutting laughter that causes her to gasp – to be filled with unshakable, unbearable rage.

”You –“ she begins, but he has silenced her, a rumbling chuckle roused from his throat and settling upon his pale lips and crooked, parted teeth.

”Look,” he whispers to her, urging her to look beyond, to see within the darkness to the hatred, to the seething revulsion etched into the features of the one she had come to know and love. She is breathless, shaken beyond her feigned apathy with a trembling fury she had not thought herself capable of – there is a moment of hesitance, in which the sliver of hope – the tendril, so fragile and delicate, tying her heart to his own – is tight and strained. It is fleeting, and at last he has turned away from her with abhorrence gleaming in the golden rim of his single eye, leaving her – leaving her to perish -  to rot away within the confinement of her imprisonment.

Leaving her to die – her heart –
(she never would have left his side; the father of her children, the one her heart longed for)
–  shattered,

– and she is gasping for air, with hot tears streaming down her broad and tense cheek, staining the gilded flesh that lay over the taut muscle and hardened bone. She has not even had a moment to catch her breath when the searing, scalding pain of some unseen force begins above her right brow, digging into the shallow flesh and dragging over the tissue of her closed eye, leaving the deep, gaping claw mark of a bear – the brand of a dark and sadistic God; a reminder of her sin – of a love lost. She can taste her own blood trickling into the crevice of her thin and straightened mouth, as the salty brine of her own tears mix with the metallic copper of her own bodily fluid, with her breath coming out in small, rapid puffs, rife with burning anger and white-hot betrayal.

”Look at how easily he has gone without you,” he murmurs to her, his breath hot against her ear, but she barely flinches, even as the darkness descends once more – stealing the sight of Ledger retreating away from her loathsome stare. ”you meant nothing to him – you never have, but then again, you already knew that, didn’t you?”

And then, scalding oil poured into the open wound of her bleeding, broken heart –

”Meanwhile, another – so selfless - so foolish!” His voice is booming then, crawling beneath her skin, guiding her to look once again – against her will, though a groan of protest is strangled from her pale lips (and there, in the darkness, is Dahmer crying out to Ledger, crying out to her – pleading for her,  but she cannot hear him and he cannot hear her). ”Foolish enough to follow you to the ends of the Earth.”

(no, no -)

”What a pity it would be, should he die –“

(he won’t, he can’t)

”and all because of you.”

With a strangled cry, she is wracked with spiny bone protrusions across the length of her body, along the slope of her spine and down the bridge of her velvet-soft nose, rising in a rounded curve between her darkening hazel stare, boring into his own with a ferocity as she lunges for him. She wayward, vibrantly beating heart yearns to plunge an elongated spike from the hearth of her chest into his own – but she is thrust through the darkness as her impenetrable cell is disintegrated into dust, falling all around her as she plummets forward and to the harsh, dry, and unforgiving ground.  

The light of day is blinding and blistering against her skin, and she is writhing in anguish – the bony protrusions have retracted, but not before rebounding against her broad bone structure, leaving her with a sharpened ache where each had once risen proudly. She is trembling upon her long, slender legs, as she rouses from her crumpled position, peering out into the painfully bright, bleak expanse of nothingness that lay before her. Hidden within her tired, swollen eyes is an anger burning brighter and hotter than it ever had before – a flickering ember blossoming into a blistering inferno, pushing her forward, urging her onward.

The ground is pliant beneath her weight, sifting and giving her an unsteady footing, while the sky overhead is austere and dreary, with nary a cloud in the sky to shield her from the searing heat of the glaring sun. She can hardly see out of her eye, swollen and bleeding, with blood seeping from her still-oozing wound, trickling down the length of her jaw and traveling the column of her neck, drying into tangled ivory tresses that lay haphazardly over her cheek. it leaves her dazed and weary, wandering across the desolate and barren wasteland, her memories heavy and laden with anguish and longing. 

Her children, left without a mother, without a father – guilt, shame, writhing alongside the blinding fury seeping into her veins, churning the adrenaline through her pounding heart. Her gaze (bleary, hazy) does not look for any other – she is certain that she is alone, taken elsewhere to die, to waste away into nothingness in a sea of her own misery and regret. Her loathing rampant and meant to consume her – oh, but there is glimmer – a faint sheen of hope (a fickle thing, hope is – it had crushed her before; her tired heart is wary) in the form of an oasis. 

It is close. So close.

There is movement, and she is soon still and motionless, a lump forming within the heart of her throat. The sun is suddenly eclipsed with small, infinitesimal flecks of light bleeding through the mass obscurity hiding her from the blatant glare of its glow. When her single eye can at last focus upon the force behind the abrupt shadow, her breath is stolen again from her, as a massive raven with a wingspan four times the length of her own body sweeps over the girth of the sun, before tilting to the left, encircling her slowly – carefully. 

With a loud, rousing caw!, it is upon her, sweeping down from its perch upon the empty sky above, and her long, powerful legs are carrying her through the desolate desert, fleeing the menacing claws outstretched, seeking to grip her supple flesh within its sharpened talons – to gouge her, to spill her blood upon the wide and open plain before her! With each forward stride, the shadow looming behind her slowly envelopes her own, and the realization is upon her – she cannot run, she cannot hide – she can only fight.

Despite the anguish of forcing her sore and aching bones to reshape themselves, she is once again clothed in thick, sharpened spikes of bone, end to end with smaller thorns covering the more pliable surfaces of her gilded body. She does not turn abruptly (it would be catastrophic, should she attempt to), but rather rounds toward the great, flying bird, only to find it has split into what must be a hundred, a thousand ravens! Each of them are clawing at her and gripping at her body, digging into her back, clutching at her knotted mane – pecking angrily at her swollen eye, seeking to gouge it out, to devour it and leave her bleeding and broken in the finely ground sand, to rot and decay with all the rest. 

She writhes, bucking and rearing in desperation to rid herself of their sheathing cloak of feather and flesh, but there are too many –

(pecking, plucking, pulling)

Her voice is lost amid their screeching, screaming her deepest and darkest sins, scolding her for her sordid heart – 

(you whore, you bitch, you harlot – no one can love you)

Her rage takes hold, roiling with a furious force from within before breaking free with vigor and fury, and she is no longer lithe, nor slender. She is entirely reformed, recreated from the very tender marrow of her bones into a powerhouse of muscle and bone, eighteen hands high – each broad and pointed spear impaling a wayward bird, while the mass of her body thrust many others out of the air and to the soft, sifting ground, where her powerful legs crush their delicate, bony bodies with rapid, furious progression. 

As the last, cawing raven screeches and encircles her, it is gone as quickly as it had come, fading away as dust into a sudden powerful updraft of wind, weaving its way through her bloodstained tresses, blinding her from the roaring, barreling creature bounding toward her –

A cry of anguish erupts from her throat as the massive polar bear lunges onto her – (Ledger!) – grasping her shoulder between its sharp and ravenous teeth, tearing at the gilded flesh that lay beneath. A grasping paw clutches tightly onto her folded wing, tearing away at the bristling, ruffled feathers that cling to the hollowed bone beneath. She is becoming tired, exhausted by the sheer force of her constant motion and desperation to live, to thrive, but she does not falter, throwing her behemoth, redesigned body to and fro – before spontaneously shrinking to her ordinary height and weight, throwing the snarling, voracious bear off kilter and onto the silted sand. 

(you’re nothing, you’re worthless – I never loved you)

With a deep and guttural bellow of exhaustion, grief and indignation, a great, elongated spear bursts forth from her chest, and with a great surge of force, she lunges toward the rousing, growling body of the polar bear as it rises onto its hindlegs – thrusting it through its great, beating heart, leaving it to crumple to the ground, bleeding, dying – fading away into dust carried away within the whispering wind as her own body crumples onto the ground in a bleeding heap of rage and despair, as her bony protrusions retract tiredly into her body once more.

Gently, so gently, her pale lips brush across the surface of a crystalline pool of water –

The oasis she had so desperately sought lay before her, as if it had been there all along.

You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone;
you're not fit to fucking tread the ground that I am walking on.

Her brand is bear claw mark over her right eye; a reminder of Ledger and of her own sin. 
She is not yet blind in that eye but may/can become so.
She has exhausted her bone-bending ability and will not be able to depend upon it in future posts.

Monsters: 
Giant raven that burst into (in reality) dozens of shrieking ravens, representative of Dahmer and his black wings
Giant 12 foot tall polar bear, representative of Ledger and his polar bear shifting