"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
You have survived the serum they have gifted you with(or cursed).
Now the work begins...
We must know their plans for you.
Are you just some random experiment?
or...
Do you have a grander purpose?
World domination...
Entertainment...
Medical marvel...
The possibilities are endless really.
Prompts:
*This should be the perspective of your they, mainly
*What is the purpose of your creation?
*Do they act on their own free will or are they controlled somehow,if so how?
*DETAILS
*End your chapter with your subject in action
(destroying the world, curing diseases, a world renowned attraction...)
Word count: 2,500 minimum
Deadline: July 23rd @ 2359(1159pm) board time
Rules: *No editing posts
*No use of existing traits during quest(physical features such as wings or horns will remain intact only until Chapter 3*These are now gone unless your new transformation has them*)
*No extensions- notify me if you must drop out
*Defects can be given but will be temporary
*There will be a 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trait prizes TBD
*Judged on creativity, flow of your story, and following rules ofc
@[Jesper] story ends at Chapter 3. He hallucinates and awakes back on the beaches of Ischia. No remnants of his time here remain but distant memories. (Note: His entry is dropped for lack of a creative transformation)
Unless I misread the entries, only Casia included a description of her weakness. Please make sure all prompts are included!
You have 164 seconds to complete your tasks, my loves. Kill, or be killed; Ascend, or die.
But, as I said, time moves differently Here; as the sound of pleas falling in unison from a thousand mouths smothers my consciousness in a smooth blanket of quiet, memories come to me.
---
Although I guided her to me with subtle magic that first time at the stream, I never needed to again - except once. It was not far into her journey towards 164 descendants, though it had assuredly begun: but this time, something was different. She'd always been a complacent toy for the stallions, a relative sex kitten if I could say so myself, and I knew this. I also knew the names and faces of all her earthly lovers - being as jealous as the cold and bitter winter is wont to be, though it only made our love making all the more passionate. One particular stallion had come to reproduce with her more than a couple of times; Busted was his name. Although a rather jovial fellow, the black-with-glowing-orange-tattoos stallion had an aura that simply put me at unease. When Casia mentioned hoping to bed him once more, I begged her not to: but she would not listen.
Later on, as the day melted away like the snow in spring, I could no longer await her return. I took to the skies, ever a cloud to the Beqannians, and searched for her; it was not hard to pinpoint her general location considering our intimate connection, but even with this advantage my Evil Queen managed to elude me. Descending, I took to the forest floor, my heart racing, my hands shaking. Something was wrong, and for the love of the Matriarch, I could not find her: my baby: my Casia.
Eventually, I did find her. Strewn haphazardly beneath a weeping willow, the purple mare was silent save for a whisper of breath that I knew she wished would stop. When I alighted to her side, worried hands pressing and prodding and searching for harm, she said nothing; what alone spoke were the tears, dried now on those high cheekbones, testimonies to her pride and, ultimately, her downfall.
"I should have listened," came her whisper, shattered and otherworldly as she dissociated herself from the torments of her own body, post-rape. "Please - just let me die."
---
Tick.
She's still staring at me with those watery brown eyes, snot running down her color-drained nose as it had down mine that day long ago: years and days and more than a century. My brow creases, I am still thinking of her as singular; and yet all around us her duplicates blink too, their warbling voices creating a catatonic wall of pitiful sound that reminds me all too much of screaming. She doesn't want to kill me - or is it that she does not want to die?
---
She recovered, of course; with my help, though plenty of the strength required was found first and foremost in her own iron gut. I offered to kill the child growing in her womb, but after a moment's weakness, she threw my offer to the wayside; "I want to fulfill my promise to you," she explained, "Never mind making you work against your own duty." She was always stronger than I was, in will and in might (though not in magic). But in love, we matched each other step for step; our stars aligned themselves without qualms.
And so the foal was born; it's gender is obscure to me now in remembering, as she had so many children that their specific qualities are all but lost to me. She remembered them well of course, reciting their comical names to me and listing those who ascended thrones. Although her mission at the time was strange and full of mystery, she took pride in her children - once they were grown, anyway. She could care less about the infants, what with there being so many of them; but in her own way, she did show them love and attention. Truth be told, she and I rarely had time to ourselves what with her becoming impregnated practically every winter, with a half-yearling in tow to boot; but we always found time to be together.
We always found time to make love.
---
Tick.
It's my eyes watering now, though I scrunch up my porcelain features against the show of emotion and weakness. Despite the images flashing just behind my skull, a dread begins creeping over me: a realization that this is what the Matriarch always wanted. To exploit my weaknesses, to force me to prove my loyalty to Her and Beqanna's residents as a whole, instead of to one soul alone. Casia's purpose was always to help me Ascend, yes, but I understand now: she is the Offering. The Sacrifice.
The Matriarch's words echo in my mind:
Sometimes - the Sacrifice is nearly more than you can bear.
---
It's spring, and her labor is here; but not in it's usual way. Despite being a large mare herself, at seventeen hands tall and with hips to match, she'd outdone herself this time. A stallion whose name is lost to me had impregnated her with a foal that threatened to buckle her bones like dry grass beneath too quick a wind, twenty hands tall bastard that he was. When she looked to me with fear in her honey-brown eyes, I could no longer stand by: dozens of births later and this had never happened before. Pressing myself to her bulging, contracting stomach, I closed my eyes and peered within her: the monstrous baby was backwards, of all things. Feeling my stomach churn, I opened my eyes and closed my fists.
It's not going to be easy, I said.
I know, she replied.
Casia... The name sounded like a gust of icy wind tossed from my lips. The baby is already dead.
---
Tick.
"Please, please be quiet!" My hands fly up from where they'd been trembling at my sides, covering my ears though it made barely a difference. But although she could not have possibly heard my plea above the chorus of her cries, the thousands of snow-white Casia's fell silent. Ever obedient lover, ever listening dove: she'd do anything for me if I asked it of her. The skin behind my ears grows red from the sharp pressure of my nails digging in there: they dug, because they know.
She is controlled by no one - not even myself. A thread of magic strewn across to her yields me nothing; I cannot coax her to me as I have so many times before. Ten thousand eyes stare me down - they await my command, though one has already been given.
Kill, or be killed. Ascend, or die.
---
The summer should have been glad as we had it to ourselves in the wake of her stillborn child - but of course, even I could not enjoy our orgasmic chemistry with the taste of death upon my lips. Though my wintery nature claimed many lives throughout the course of that season, this felt different: even though the child was far from being my own, it hit me hard. And it hit Casia harder. Like I said, she'd never exactly been a doting mother, but she did care: and I think that she realized just how much when she had been denied even the chance to do so for half a minute.
We spent that summer grieving, holding one another and seeking out the dark places where no one could find us. It was a different kind of intimacy, one I'd never expected to experience with my Offering; despite our instant and electric connection that day at the stream, I'd never once considered that I would find myself so hopelessly in love. And though she never voiced it - never speaking much at all for that matter - I knew that she felt the same way, too. I'd always been a master to serve, the source of another orgasm or at most, where she found fulfillment for her life. But in those months spent recovering from a heartache neither of us'd expected, I think we both accepted how deeply woven our roots had become. As we emerged from our hold, walking briefly again in the light until we gradually left the darkness behind altogether, something new burned across the bridge of our love. An eternal flame; damning in its brilliance.
---
Tick.
"I never knew that it would come to this." My voice, quiet, causes tiny frame to shudder; a ripple like a wave across each of her thousands of bodies. "You know I love you too, you know that I'm - I'm yours."
"But you're not," the babe choked, sounding distant and near all at once. "You own me, Faerie - I am nothing without you. You have the power to unmake me - to kill me."
---
Later in life, it'd been several seasons since her last breeding. In the first few years, I'd chalked it up to nothing more than a desire to be child-free and sex-rich for once in her life since we'd met; that purple vixen was always trying to screw me hard enough to get me to forget about our little deal. It loomed over us, always: a dark shadow that tainted the purity of our love quite terribly. As almost a decade passed us by without her womb bearing fruit, the reality of that shadow took shape. I snapped; I lost my patience.
You're taking advantage of my time, I snarled one morning. I don't have forever and neither do you. I could let you age as quickly as any other whore but instead I'm here extending your life with every year that passes as you waste my time. You know that I'm a pilgrim. Why won't you just do your part.
Her eyes, shocked and hurt, flinched to me as though I'd whipped her. The children of my children are doing the work I promised to far more quickly than I could ever hope to on my own, she said after a moment. I'm sorry for wanting more time with you. But the way you talk - it makes me wonder if you even cared when Busted raped me. You probably cared more when I gave birth to a stillborn - that's why you mourned. Because you would have to wait another year to Ascend. You fucking bitch.
We slept separately that night. She wasn't right, not about all of it... But I never brought up her chastity again. One shouldn't, when they use their magicks to convince their Offering otherwise.
---
Tick.
"I am not going to kill you Casia," I sputter, hands dropping from my ears as my expression twists to one of incredulity. "I couldn't."
Shakily, a single version of herself steps forward; my heart leaps to my throat, the question of whether this one is really her swarming my mind. A steam of cold sweat rises from this filly's back, a telltale sign of hypothermia, the disease which had brought on my own demise.
"I'll die in vain then. Everything I did, all my life, was for you." That little voice, so innocent and pure, darkens my heart. My hand reaches out for her instinctually. She flinches away. "I don't want to die. But without you, there is no place for me back in Beqanna."
"Shut up." My hand goes towards her again, with more force this time. Equally determined, little Casia peels back her lips and bites my fingers. The bone bruises instantly, the skin tearing and revealing silver blood that drips from me. It's metallic sheen mirrors the thousands of foals gathered around me, though upside down, as if in a parallel universe where this wasn't actually happening. My thumb slides forward into the blood, swirling it around and painting my white skin with it dazedly.
"You bit me."
"Please, Faerie," came the warble of a thousand voices. "Kill me."
It's not the first time she's changed her mind so flippantly.
---
"I want out." It's early on in our pact, one of the first half dozen pregnancies swelling my Evil Queen's sides. She'd been restless lately, full of strange hormones that hit her particularly hard due to a slight sickness on my behalf. Experimenting with freezing temperatures during sex while pregnant was probably not advisable of us, but we'd never been exactly rule followers before.
"Too bad," I scoffed in return, incredulous. "I'm not letting you out of my sights for the rest of eternity, and if you don't think that these five children will do the job of reaching 164 descendants eventually, then your damn wrong."
"So what?" She huffed, turning her shoulder towards me. "At least I won't have to be this fat ever again."
Smirking, I took the proffered shoulder as an invitation to come closer. With the most delicate of touches, my fingertips slipped along the slope of her hindquarters, tracing the sinews of her violet muscles along her spine, across the planes of her shoulder, until the found themselves lightly grasping the thin membrane of her ear. She tried to look away from me, but it didn't last long. I waited a moment longer; forced her to stare at me.
ZAP.
Whimpering ecstatically and in full submission, my little princess barely managed to stay standing as an orgasm burst through her instantaneously at a single one of my whims. The smirk I'd unsheathed morphed into an outright grin as I gazed at her trembling figure, my own stature completely unphased.
"Don't tell me you could go an eternity without that, my love," I chuckled.
"You're right," came her heaving, shuddering reply. "And damn you for it."
---
Tick.
"Fuck you," I yell, a surge of anger and passion raising my voice far past what I'd meant it to be. Stepping towards her again, I reach for her ear in a vain attempt to remind her of what I'd promised back then, and every day from there on out: paradise, her and I, the World. But the sniveling foal only pins her ears at my advances, the thousand duplicates bristling their hides as I fight against her for once, instead of the other way around.
"If you don't, then I will." It's still the same one slightly-forward standing filly that speaks: but in the next moment, their actions are unified.
In the same breath, the sea of white foals steps towards me. Their advance is not quick, but it doesn't need to be. In her desire to force my hand and to force my Ascension, the one thing she thinks I want more than her, Casia clambers atop herself. Foal after foal clambers and climbs atop the one in front of it, forcing it to collapse, and on and on until a solid wall of dead and dying mini-mes build itself around me. Her mouths reach for my skin and tear at it incessantly, higher and higher as the mound of bodies rises; I raise my arms to protect myself, silent at first but then protesting and then, screaming. Silver runs across the bodies at my feet, and down the white of my skin, casting me in a grey I've never worn before.
It's a slow death that she has planned for me, as weak and hypothermic as she is. As I'm struggling against her, something inside of me twinges; she deserves a quick death. Despite the flames in my stomach that warn me against any harm dealt to her after all we've been through, the rest of me solidifies. My empathy drains, or at least, lessens; a dead-hearted, sacrificial expression occupies my eyes.
"Fuck you."
With a breath, the mound of bodies and all those that were approaching and blown away by a powerful gust of winter wind; it relieves the pressure and the biting for a moment, and though they duplicates stagger and moan as they attempt to regain their footing, it's as if my attack has only produced more of them.
"You always have, my love..."
casia
Word count: 2671
Prompts answered:
*This should be the perspective of your they, mainly (written from Faerie's perspective)
*What is the purpose of your creation? (Casia is the Offering; the Sacrifice; the tool for Ascension)
*Do they act on their own free will or are they controlled somehow,if so how? (Acts of her own free will)
*DETAILS (Up to your discretion)
*End your chapter with your subject in action (She tryna kill the Faerie)
the first time he calls you holy, you laugh it back so hard your sides hurt.
the second time, you moan gospel around his fingers between your teeth.
Their star-skin abruptly extinguishes when she utters those words, proclaiming herself worthy of their gifts. A sister reaches out in the pitch darkness and drags her clawed finger against the lake’s floor. The mud and sand part like cheap fabric to perfectly sharpened scissors as faint light glimmers through. Huddled tight around their new portal, they drop through in groups of four or five while Virgo follows like an obedient child, like one of their own. They delight among themselves as they each land with a soft thud on the new ground, dry and warm in this strange new world of theirs. When the last cluster slips through, the rip through space and time mends itself with a quiet hissing noise.
The swarm children watch their new sister take in her new surroundings – the glimmering silver sand all around them, the lavender-colored clouds of gas above, the stars twinkling so brightly in the distance. Two moons hang in the sky amid the stars, one tiny and pearl-colored while the other is large and faintly blue. This was the first planet they ever tried to call home. The air is light and crisp in their lungs as one might imagine mountain air to be despite the warm climate and gravity behaves much the same as it did in Beqanna.
“Safe here. Go. We’ll watch.”
Without another word, each child begins to burrow down into the soft sand with surprising speed until only their glowing eyes show beneath the little mounds that mark their place, like little crocodiles in the water. They follow at a distance as the six-legged monster obeys, searching for some sign of what’s to come. The children keep the hivemind hushed as they had practiced before. Occasionally, she stops to look back at them, but their unblinking stares offer no answers for her. She swallows hard but her new shape has made her bold, just as they had thought it might, so she begins to drop her careful pace and elects to run instead. This body was built for speed and they watch in awe as her lithe body bends with each step before springing forward in great leaps. They giggle amongst themselves as they hurry to keep up with their creation.
Soon. Soon. Soon.
The children feel themselves tense in anticipation as they approach the stage for Virgo’s performance, though she couldn’t know it from any other sand dune. As that ominous word sounds across the pool of their collective consciousness, however, she slows and squints at the area around her for some clue. Her sensitive ears can pick up the sound of the sand shifting all around them. She’s just in time to see the new creatures crawl up from the sand.
A wide paw parts the sand and a short snout protrudes through, with jaws that cut vertical up the strange creature's face rather than horizontal. Others begin to reveal themselves from the sand as the first had until they form an audience before Virgo and the hive. The creatures sniff curiously at the air and snap their tiny teeth together excitedly as they exit the sand to stand on their short four legs. The children hear her compare it to a malformed mole in the hivemind and chuckle at the thought. She is disgusted by their lack of eyes or fur on their wrinkled skin but intrigued by the glittering silver camouflage that matches them perfectly to their surroundings. The blind xenomoles are the perfect companion for the children as only they can offer true safety to the swarm without avoiding their gaze entirely.
The twenty or so silver mole-creatures hurry to Virgo, crowding around one another to be in her presence while maintaining a respectful distance. Likewise, the children are all huddled together to watch her reaction from behind. She seems frozen in place as her thermal eyes swim across her chest and shoulders to search for more of the monsters beneath the sand. No more of the creatures arrive but they begin to chitter and croon to one another excitedly. The sound sends a shiver up Virgo’s spine.
“They worship you, though they do not know you. They will do anything for you. They will obey.”
They offer her their memories of the mole-things, of towering statues sculpted from obsidian and massive fires, piled high with offerings in their name. The hive-children watch her face change from awe to horror and back again. One brother offers up the image of her loved ones here, rebuilt from what little pieces they could find of them, reigning with her here forever. The thought makes her ache with loneliness and an involuntary tear rolls down her cheek before it lands in the sand. Her pain echoes across their hearts and they suppose now is the time.
“Gifts for you. Demand your offerings.”
Virgo glances back at them and they wait patiently, knowing she will obey them despite her trepidation.
“May I have my offerings?” she asks them softly, lowering her head to their height so they can hear her easily. The moles scatter and hurry to dig up the precious sacrifices they had prepared and kept hidden away for the day their goddess came. The children watch as some disappear entirely beneath the sand while others scramble to grab several items just beneath the surface. With only the moonlight to see by, it is difficult to discern exactly what each one carries, but the swarm already knows what’s in store for their new sister.
The first servant returns and delicately places a sun-bleached leg bone before Virgo before scurrying back to wait for her praise or damnation. The second deposits a lock of black hair beside the bone and a third offers up a few teeth. One by one, this continues until there is a heap of remains stacked before her and the congregation patiently awaiting their verdicts. Confused, she turns to the white eyes of the hive peaking above the sand.
They repeat the names over and over, echoing over one another endlessly. The children demand a resurrection but Virgo feels as though she is paralyzed by her horror aside from the trembling of her muscles. She turns back to her offerings and steps closer, carefully moving the bits and pieces of her family aside with one claw. The fish in her belly pace up and down her ribs anxiously. She could have them all, forever. Would they love her just the same or would they be something new that she must teach to care for her? Would it be wrong to rip them from their afterlife to live here with her? How did they die in the first place? A hundred questions flow through her brain and the children silence themselves as they listen.
Still, she misses her only child enough to try, at least. She delicately picks a lock of his mane and the handsome little skull from her offerings using her middle limbs. The children collect the rest of the gifts and pull them beneath the sand to keep them out of the way before moving back to their viewing stance. Once cleared, she places the pieces of him back on the ground and lowers her black and glass head to kiss his skull lightly.
Just as she had when giving herself a voice, she concentrates on what she would like to change. The sand forms all the missing little bones piece by piece – the ribs, the spine, the legs and hips. The moles chirp quietly to one another as they witness her miracle. Her head begins to ache with the effort but she has missed him so terribly that she can’t bear to have a mangled corpse of him instead. She shapes the muscles, organs, and skin before returning his coat to him. The silver black colt remains curled up in the sand, sleeping soundly despite the chaos around him. He is as beautiful to her as the day she gave birth to him, her one and only child.
Pantheon had always been her most treasured love. For years, she believed she would never give life to a baby of her own, and she grew bitter with that idea. Eerie had given him to her with the hopes of a strong child to retake the jungle and grew furious when he was born ‘normal’. But Virgo, in her infinite adoration of her son, named him Pantheon, because he was everything to her. Would her appearance scare him now, though? She bites her lip as the thought occurs to her and the children begin to mumble amongst themselves. They hadn’t considered this question before and find themselves worried that his response may taint the results of their testing.
“Different test. Take him away. Start again.”
The words make her turn to them with a snarl befitting of her new shape. Her beautiful tail curls up in a display of aggression as she stands over her slumbering child, teeth bared and ready. Not again. Nothing would take him from her a second time. The fish in her belly rush excitedly around one another as they wait for her to feast on one of the children and deliver meat to them.
A brother rises from the sand and climbs onto his feet before her, arms raised to show he means no harm. Still, Virgo shares thoughts of the silver sand covered in his blood. He hesitates for a moment before stepping closer to her and gingerly placing a hand on her muzzle as he had when she peeked into the lake before. The brother leans his forehead against her face and sighs softly against her smooth skin. It was a mistake to offer her such things and risk the happiness of those involved. The stumps where wings used to be flex for a moment before he leans back up.
“Not like this. Let him go,” he whispers softly before easing his hand from her head. The hivemind is flooded with words like ‘please’ and ‘no’ as the thought of losing him again tears her apart. The children begin to weep as they realize the gravity of their mistake but they know this test cannot continue, not like this. With shuddering, sobbing breaths, they allow the sand to swallow Pantheon before picking him apart once more. Virgo’s pain roars through them and they huddle tightly together as they mourn her loss. The moles ease back, wondering if perhaps their offerings were insufficient for their gods.
The brother kisses her brow before slipping back beneath the sand to join the other swarm-children. Virgo turns to the moles with fury still pulsing through her veins and she wants nothing more than to destroy them for what they’ve done. The children cry out that they did not know, could not possibly have realized what their sacrifices meant to her.
Even amongst her thousand siblings, she feels so small and weak, so very alone in the universe.
“I never got to tell any of them goodbye, you know,” she mumbles to the children as she begins to cry. “They were all gone so quickly. I thought we would always have each other.” Her voice cracks in several places and her tears begin to fall on the sand again. None of the children know how to urge her to continue with their test and none of them really want to try. They wait patiently and wipe each other’s tears away as anger and sorrow float through them all. The children had also never said goodbye to their gods and so they understand her pain of being severed from what they so dearly love.
“Move on. Move on. Carry that weight.”
They watch and sniffle as Virgo glances back at them and nods in agreement.
“Bring me food,” she commands in her ragged voice. The hive’s eyes turn to watch her subjects rush forward to lay before her feet, offering their bellies for her to devour as repentance. The children grip one another’s hands tightly as they wait to see how she might respond to such a gesture. The moles, they know, would equate being eaten by their god to being one with their god. There is no greater honor in their society.
“Now you must eat one. Must not crush their dreams. Must not break their hearts.”
The children have never needed to eat and so they had never thought to deliver such a command. There is something like remorse and terror on her face as she realizes how zealous her new worshippers truly are. More tears flow from her eyes as she looks down at her offerings, each of them no bigger than maybe twenty to thirty pounds at best. She towers over them like something terrible and regal all at once. Her thoughts echo across the swarm’s mind as she tries to decide which little life to end and the anticipation is killing them.
The moles seem to smile with their strange sideways mouths and chirp excitedly to one another as they prepare to be devoured. A few of them wiggle their paws as if trying to look more delicious than the next. It makes the children’s stomachs churn. Life has become so precious to them over the centuries whereas others might grow more callous to the plights of others. They imagine each mole as a brother or sister, mother or father. They wonder if a mole might prefer to be eaten over its mate or if the honor is too great to deny their lover as an option? Would they allow their children to be a banquet for the divine?
These thoughts send a shiver up their spines but they say nothing on the matter. Still, their thoughts and questions have reached Virgo. She begins to wonder the same and grows more hesitant to select a member of the laity. The swarm begins to wonder if the lives of the moles are as complex and heart wrenching as their own. Suddenly, this test seems just as terrible as the last. There is too much power for them to wield here and regret looms over them all, yet they know they must continue. A new sister must be added to their number so that they might know some relief from their torment.
Virgo racks her brain for some solution to their problem while the hive remains hushed about any possible answer aside from their idle musings. Finally, it dawns on her. The children listen intently to her thoughts as she rewrites the nerve endings in one of the moles until it can feel only euphoria in place of pain. Suddenly, it is as though someone has opened the floodgate and allowed countless chaotic thoughts to flood the hivemind as they all try to make sense of what they are witnessing. Cheating! Brilliant! Cruel! Divine! The cacophony of their opinions consumes the hive as she sinks her teeth into the nearest mole, spilling its navy blood across her mouth and onto the sand. The other zealots roll back over and begin a choir of joyous chirping as they circle their dying brother.
The bleeding mole weakly coos his praises and thanks as he reaches up with his wide paws. His sideways smile makes the swarm shiver as they watch him begin to fade. Virgo’s sides flex with each panting breath, though the fish within her glass belly seem content to nibble the meat that floats inside her now. The swarm watches to see if she will save her worshipper or if she will allow him to pass on as payment for the pain he and his kind have caused her.
Virgo
you will ruin him and he will thank you; he will say please.
2,620 words
Virgo's purpose is to be the god of the creepy mole things.
She is connected to the hive but has her own free will.
The hive wants to see if she takes revenge or if she forgives so they know what sort of god she'd be.
