"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
He falls upon Beqanna like a comet, a meteor, like end times.
(He’s always been one to make an entrance.)
Gone is the stormcloud gray he so often wears. Instead, he is a walking nebula, the galaxies moving across his skin, alive, a piece taken back with him.
The eyes are the same, though. Wine-dark and gleaming. The laugh is the same too, when it comes – a gruesome noise, like rats scampering on broken glass.
He feels the change in magic as he enters. It has shifted, divided across the lands. There is no divide between them, now, the magic shared from communal wells. This does not bother him, they are all below him. As long as his blood rules the Valley (the only land he cares for here, the land where he was born mortal, where he had begun) he does not interfere with Beqanna’s trivialities.
Not much, at least.
There had been the realm, of course, the afterlife where his morbid angel now sits, but that had been Beqanna and Gail’s own foolhardiness as much as it had been him.
He falls upon Beqanna like a wolf to prey. He’s soaked its lands with blood before, even given his own, in a death (iteration)
or two. He falls upon it because he is bored, because the land holds mortal pleasures the galaxy beyond does not.
There is little to be said of him that has not been said before. Though he no longer thinks of himself as equine (to do so is to consider himself mortal), his body holds the shape of one, a faint dish of the face and length of leg that speak to his mortal heritage.
(Though truth be told, the creature who was born to mortal flesh has died – he is the dark god, reborn.)
The fire from the comet subsides. Around him is scorched earth and ash. He is unburnt, untouched by the flames. All across his body, the stars glimmer. Colors swirl – purples and teals and colors yet unnamed – across his flank, drip into his tail. His gray body might be his normal body, but ah, sometimes the costume is wonderful.
Besides, better to draw them in, is it not?
So he lays the bait – the comet, the fire, the stench of smoke – and he waits, a nebula made flesh, a god.
I've never told a lie and that makes me a liar
I've never made a bet, but we gamble with desire
I've never lit a match with intent to start a fire
There is arrogance in his heritage, although he knows his bloodline has been shared amongst Kings and peasants alike. Son of the dark god and the snake-eyed mother with a thirst for magicians. He did not voice such thoughts often, but he carried it in his heart—a promise he would whisper to himself when the world was silent: you are a son of Carnage. It was this that composed the core of him—the cruelty, the intelligence, the quiet ambition. By nature, his blood was demonic; by virtue, his soul was too.
So it is not without interest that he watches the comet crash unto the earth and rise as a horse dressed in the stars. He feels his pulse quicken with understanding as he makes his way forward, dragging the thorns that draped along his back with him. His coal-black eyes flash and his mouth forms a solemn slash, but he stays silent for a moment—taking in his father before him (although he understands that word rings hollow for someone who has brought life to so many others before and after him).
“You return,” he finally says quietly, his elegant voice lowered in respect. He did not know what to expect from the dark god before him, whether the heavens made horse would even acknowledge his blood before him. All he knew was that he would not have this chance again; he would not pass up this opportunity to stand before immortality in its truest form. So he does not. Instead, he stands silent before the nebula with perhaps the only reverent expression that he has ever worn in his life.
{ W E E D } carnage and glenna’s plant manipulating monster
Escaping the jungle (or more like avoiding?) in her usual spot amongst the dying heather. It’s a normal day. Till the sky begins to fall. Golden eyes turn upward, surprise written on her features. The world has suddenly gone dark as something streaks as fast as lightning, hurtling towards earth. Towards the meadow. Towards her. The laughter in the air squeezes at her heart. Fear. It’s such an uncommon emotion for her, she almost doesn’t recognize it. As broken as she is these days, she has never felt fear that freezes her to the bone, making her reactions sluggish. Wide eyed, as the comet continues to fall. This is it. She’s returned for nothing. Nothing but death. Eyes close, bracing herself for the impact. Unable to even think of those that had mattered once. There’s only a brief glimpse of the dream that had recently terrorized her, when she had been ripped apart and stuffed with snakes and suffering….
The world shakes and she falls to her knees. This is it. “It” doesn’t come although the smell of ash and smoke stings her nostrils. Warily her lids pry open, golden iris’s filled with uncertainty. Flames flicker not far before her, catching quickly at her beloved heather field and ripping it apart greedily. Her thoughts are far from the fire, no, it’s what emerges from the large dark hole the comet has left that leaves her breathless. Slowly she rises, not able to look away. For he is of the stars and the galaxies, color swirling in her vision. A shaky step forward, entranced. Tantalized. The fear gone, for how can one fear something so beautiful? Others come but she is blind to them and their words. The jaguar captured by something so much bigger than herself. ”You are…” Lost for words, unable to express exactly all thats rapidly firing in her head. ”Everything.” She gasps at last.
Worlds beyond these drift across his coat. It changes, unsteady – this time he has not just taken the colors of the nebula with him, but he mirrors it. Somewhere, light years away, there is a form, a shell of himself, that drifts through space, projecting the colors onto him.
It’s extravagant, a waste of magic, but gods have magic to spare – the years made it strong, honed it like steel to a whetstone.
(He’d tried space before, centuries ago. It had been beautiful but he had fallen, had failed. Now, he rules it as he does any other place.)
He sees the boy first – his son, draped in thorns like the sinner he surely is. You return, he says.
“I return,” he affirms, the words strange in his throat after so much time spent in space, the vocal chords gone to dust.
Another one comes, a mare – not his child but still his descent (as most of them are, he saturates Beqanna). An old queen, past her prime, though he takes a brutal pleasure in the way she falls to her knees, in the supplication that follows: you are everything.
It feeds the ego and he thrives on it – he’s missed the worship, missed the creatures laid prostrate before him, missed carving his mark on them.
(He will again, to those who wish. He is always happy to mark his property.)
“I am,” he says, and laughs, slightly.
“Tell me Weed, Tantalize,” he says, plucking their names from their minds, the plant-child and the jaguar, “how has Beqanna faired, in my absence?”
I've never told a lie and that makes me a liar
I've never made a bet, but we gamble with desire
I've never lit a match with intent to start a fire
Weed almost does not notice the once Queen come from behind him and fall to her knees; he almost does not pick up on the soft voice (you are everything), but he does—and, for a moment, it breaks his focus on the dark god before him. Angling his head toward her, his elegant mouth pulls into a sneer. For all his reverence, he still viewed himself above groveling; he viewed himself above everything.
But the derision does not last for long—it is but a fleeting annoyance—before his coal black eyes catch on the gaze of his father. “It has been quiet,” he growls lightly, the word a snappy bullet of a judgement. It had been quiet; too quiet. What some may have seen as peace, he saw as a boredom. The kind that he could not help but scratch at until it festered. Their world was not made for such quiet.
Ignoring the other, he takes a step forward, the thorns tightening and sinking their teeth into his shoulders. “Perhaps we can change that,” he says quietly, looking up beneath his forelock. He knew that whatever was to happen would happen on Carnage’s terms or not at all; while he did not enjoy waiting on the whims of another, he also knew that it would be impossible to fight it. In one way or another, they were all waiting under Carnage’s thumb—waiting for him to squash them like the ants they were.
{ W E E D } carnage and glenna’s plant manipulating monster
Her golden eyes narrow on that of Weed and his sneer. She did not fall to her knees in reverence, she fell from impact. The jaguar had never been one for groveling and she doesn’t like the way Weed looks at her with such haughtiness. However her amazement at Carnage’s sudden appearance is genuine, quite taken by surprise by the whole thing and not quite her usual stoic self. Not to mention she had never had the pleasure (if Carnage and pleasure could even be in the same sentence) of ever meeting this relative before. How was she to know who the hell he was and that falling from the sky or crawling from the earth or a million and one rebirths was the norm for him?
She doesn’t know him but he knows her. And if she knew that his thoughts grouped her in the “has been” category she would have simply thrown herself off a cliff. Or maybe it would have brought back an old spark. Who knows. Instead she simply observes the nebula man, taking in the exchanging of words before finally adding her own simple nod. ”Quiet indeed.” She murmurs, almost thoughtful. ”Is that why you’ve returned?”
It has been quiet, says his son, a light growl. No surprise, there, the land ebbs and flows but never changes overmuch. He regards the son further, tries to recall her mother (there are so many, a blur of names and bodies). In earlier days he might have tried to take him, shape him – but those days are gone, his children are always disappointments, though some more than others.
(Most disappointing are the ones who try, providing a stark relief for their failure. Elite had tried, had summoned him in death and gore, an altar, and he had come – but then she had descended into the open arms of madness and he had no more use for her, left her lost and feral in her limbo.)
“What a shame,” he responds. He thinks sometime of burning the land alive, just to see if he could – Beqanna is not like other lands, there is a magic in the heart-veins of it that does not exist in other worlds. There is a tenuous respect there, forged in the centuries he’s walked the lands, so he leaves it standing, and it lets him persist, evolve.
“And what do you have in mind?” he asks. He does not expect miracles. But still, he is bored, the breeding season passed (and in its wake, another wave of star-children, marked his in ways the others were not).
The jaguar woman speaks then, ruffled, and he watches her steadily. Quiet indeed, she assents, then asks the question: is that why you’ve returned?
Truth be told he doesn’t know why he returned, only that his bones called for the place and he obliged. Though an idea is forming in his queer and dangerous mind, thinking of his lair, of its emptiness.
Ah, but such plans are not for their ignorant ears, so instead he plays the role of dark and mysterious god.
“Perhaps,” he muses, “Beqanna could use a bit of life to her.”
Weed does not expect his father to take a vested interest in his life; he was arrogant, but he liked to fancy himself intelligent. He knew that Carnage’s offspring were as frequent and common as seeds on soil or stars in the sky (how fitting). There was little reason for the dark god to pay attention to one of the many. Weed did not take it as an insult, he simply took it as fact. His mother—snake-eyed, glass-boned lover of magicians that she was—simply lusted for Carnage because the magic in him reminded her of Core. His full siblings tumbled forth, and he paid as much mind to them as Carnage did to him.
It was the way of the world.
But Carnage does not dismiss the soft offer that Weed places on the table, and he therefore does not turn away yet. Instead he takes a step forward, black skin pricked with red from where thorns had dug too deep. “I have plenty in mind,” he murmurs, coal-black eyes flicking to Tantalize, “but perhaps it would be best discussed without an…” he searches for the word, his lips pulling into a cold smile, “audience.”
The world was quiet, silent, slumbering. To Weed, it was dead. Kingdoms made alliances with one another that served no purpose other than to puff up each other’s egos. Challenges were issued, steals were made—all in the name of good fun. There was no fear in the hearts of the living—only shadows of memories from the days of old. Even kingdoms that opposed one another did so in a resentful, passive way—swatting at each other lazily without ever putting an elbow behind the swing.
Weed, frankly, was tired of it. He had tried his hand at politic and found them a bore (“Smile at the visitors, Weed.” “Play nice with the other kingdoms, Weed.” “Don’t upset the Queenie, Weed.”) but that did not mean he had stopped lusting for power—and, more so, for chaos. It was time to sink his teeth into the land in the way he had always wanted to. If he accomplished that with the help of Carnage, all the better. If he accomplished that alongside the Chamber’s Raven Queen, all the better.
But with or without them, Weed would light a match to bring it all burning down.
The sky god and the dark stallion seem to have a connection, one she is not privy too. The jaguar mare is well aware that she is an outsider in this meeting. She’s unfazed by this, observing something so significant, for she is certain that this is significant, has it’s purpose too. Although whatever she’s not included in leaves her curious and her feathers still ruffled (specially when Weed once more glances at her as if she is nothing, unworthy of hearing such plans) but she doesn’t press for more details. Part of her wishes the scheming dark stallion hadn’t shown up at all, a selfish wish to investigate and learn more about this fallen man who had hurtled to earth. A soft sigh escapes parted lips, knowing she’s being pushed out of this conversation. He is swirling darkness and fiery orbs of gas and the offer Weed is giving seems to be drawing him in. So she simply asks a last question before she would leave the two alone, as they wished. ”Where will you go now?” A subtle edge to her words for they merely mean, when will I see you again?
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