Hell had spat up another one. He was a pile of viscera and sinew that was loosely wrapped around bone and he cracked when he walked. He dragged himself across the sorry meadow, his flesh burning as it created scars in the flesh of the earth. This was not his Beqanna. This was not the land that he had left.
To be fair, he had never belonged anywhere. These were just the places he found himself congregating the most, before he told them all to fuck off and had plunged himself back into the cavernous depths. And now, without the power of his magic to support him, the true form of his age showed his weakness. He was without his wings--those magical pulsating things that longed to taste blood and rip flesh--and he walked with a swayback, contorted and ill-formed. He was an old man who struggled to make his way across the land, his body rotting and his flesh falling from him. His eyes, they were red and wreathed in flame--it was by his eyes that he would be recognized if there were any left to have had the good misfortune of having met the God of War.
Deimos exhaled, that consistent black smoke pulling away from him and wafting up into the air as the dust of his body continued to decompose into the ground. He was old, and without his power he was defenseless. Almost.
Without power? Never.
The war machine was angry, and he was about to turn this world on its head to return himself to rights.
11-16-2016, 01:26 PM
(This post was last modified: 11-16-2016, 01:27 PM by Quark.)
God, his body was right again. Or mostly right, at least. There was still a hell of a lot missing in his head, and he couldn't play with fire, and there was still this confounding, infuriating pull that happened in his chest sometimes, but Pyre could shift again. And shift he did; the moment he was able, he shed the garishly painted canary-sunshine-dandelion yellow and white mare's shape he'd been stuck in since he came down from the Mountain. Instead? Male, definitely male. Something about being female made his skin crawl, set his teeth on edge, left him feeling...off. There was this lingering feeling of...of vulnerability, almost? that made no sense, but there it was.
So he was male.
And he'd missed his damn dragon wings, so drew a breath and stretched muscles that hadn't been there a moment before as his wings regrew, black over the bones that stretched to orange on the thinnest areas of the wing membranes, with darker streaks of veins and arteries running through. His body recolored itself to match, black with fiery orange in the ends of his mane and tail. His eyes stayed the same mismatched blue and gold, though, even if he would have liked them to take on a more coordinating color scheme. Dark red around the outer edge of the iris, bleeding into orange. That would have been acceptable.
Alas.
As soon as his body cooperated and bent to his will, Pyre could breathe again. He walked through the meadow with less of the weight of the world pressing down on his broad shoulders, but not everyone was so fortunate. In fact, the first person he came across was in far worse shape. That indefinable something pulled at his chest, leaving him restless to fix the stranger, to repair flesh damaged by age and more.
Pyre had become intimately familiar with the pain that could come from one's powers being stripped away and he recognized it in the other man. Pain, and anger as well. "You look about as shitty as I felt before today," he said, giving the black stallion a once-over. If there was anything he could have done to help, he might have offered. But since there was really nothing he could do for the other man, what was the point of offering? Instead he tilted his head and introduced himself. "I'm called Pyre." True enough, though who really knew what his name was, anyhow. Pyre would do well enough. It served its purpose, and left him feeling closer to the fire that was sill so out of reach.
"Got a name you're willing to divulge?"
And so it goes. The wealth of the fairy that had stretched out a pathetic horn to renew the hapless heap of flesh knew what she was doing. But as she was bound by her word, she had had no choice. The bent and cracked black carcass had left the plains in pieces, torn asunder from the lack of magic to his bones, rolling over the dirt like a clumsy obsolete tank from a war gone by. He leaves a burning trail behind him as he heads to the meadow, the fairy shaking her head, knowing what she had just loosed upon the world.
The god of war had returned.
The smoke cleared and the darkness that made way for him was slowly enveloping the lump that had become his body. That trail that made scars upon the world pushed deep and cracked even further, producing a flame that wielded a strength that only comes from the bowels of hell. Deimos gathered to him the demons and memories from a land plunged into darkness, and he felt the recharging of his body--slowly, he would be as he was.
He was in the process of rebuilding himself.
His bones were snapping into place, the muscles reknitting themselves with the power that magic would aid them. He snarled then, when caught in his pathetic state, someone would happenchance upon him--perhaps unaware of who he was; or whom they were dealing with. The wings he sported were so familiar, and Deimos snorted, snapping outward enviously--though in his current state, it more resembled a stumble upwards than anything else. His mind was sharp and his eyes were keen. This fellow. He was not all what she seemed. "I bear a name that you would not remember. Though I think that must be going around."
“I bear a name that you would not remember. Though I think that must be going around.”
Pyre snorted. A name he wouldn’t remember indeed. Get in line. And the line started with himself. “Sorry, honey, doesn’t take much to bear a name I wouldn’t remember at this point. There’re about two people whose names I do remember right now. But if you don’t want to tell me, that’s fine.”
He shrugged, not especially concerned with bumping into someone whose name he wouldn’t know, or someone who didn’t care to share a name. “Makes no difference to me whether or not I know your name. Odds are Pyre isn’t mine anyhow.” Didn’t really feel like his, but it would do. Close enough, when he had no damn clue who he was to begin with. What was a name, really, but a few sounds someone used to clarify who they were addressing?
He was, though, idly curious as to how the other man was even moving, given the state he was in. “So what’s your deal, anyhow? Or is asking that about as likely to get a straight answer as asking about your name?” He gave the nameless stranger’s...body, so to speak, a once-over, fascinated by the way he was reforming. There was something familiar about the process, something he could almost feel in his gut, and it called out to that odd little pull in his chest. A body knitting itself back together, muscles reforming, the crunch of bones reshaping and grinding back into place. Maybe it was just the shifting? But it didn’t feel the same…
Tilting his head, he took a step closer, drawn to the rebuilding of a body in a way he couldn’t explain. That pull tugged him forward, and he watched unblinking. “And how’re you doing that?”
 She moves toward him. He moves toward him.
They. It.
Doesn’t matter. His last is here, the coming puzzle piece. His body is churning, the muscles are snapping into place—it is all coming together. The servant. The heart. The body. The strength.
And lastly—the magic.
This one—the confused sack of flesh who preferred to dress as a boy—was not worth the body that was wrapped and contorted around the sheer amount of power she he contained. The scent was wafting off of him in fragrant waves, and it was intoxicating. He snarled, and slid a black hoof forward toward Pyre, eyeing the body up and down; pitiful. “Magic, my dear boy. I can give you some if you like—I have that ability you know.”
He sounds very much like the ice cream man in a circumspect van. Come hither children—onward to your worst nightmares. No, that is not chocolate. To be done with this and back to the world he knows—the shadows that dwell in the valley of Pangea. The smoke that emanates from him beckons Quark Pyre to him, curling its fingers in a suggestive manner. His voice speaks inside the other’s mind—as if he had a secret to share that was worth repeating.
Death becomes us all. Some of us, better left in Hell, have been resurrected. I’m sure you know someone like that in your life. I’m like them—one better off dead, brought back to life; just like magic. Give me yours, and I will return it all back to you. You will be as you were before.
DEIMOS cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war… HTML by Call
OOC: oh my god this is hideous... but its almost midnight :/
Pyre’s mismatched eyes narrowed at the mention of magic, and the predatory look in the stranger’s eyes as he stepped closer. Pulling away, he snorted, unease prickling down his spine as the word hung in the air between them. It was, he supposed, meant to sound tempting. Appealing. A shiny red apple proffered by a forked-tongued serpent slithering closer, closer.
Pyre had never feared serpents. Hell, he’d worn their shape before. But something about the word magic stiffened his spine, set his heart racing, his blood simmering, hissed subliminal warnings in his ear and trailed an icy finger along the back of his neck.
“That’s alright, I think I’ll pass,” he said, voice quiet and calm despite the warning lights going off in his skull, the sirens screaming get away, get away! He took a step back as the smoke that rose off the stranger’s body coaxed him forward, as that soft, sibilant voice whispered promises inside his head.
Give me yours, and I will return it all back to you. He had nothing left to give, nothing but his body’s ability to reshape itself. And that was something he’d hold onto with his last breath, though the reasons behind his white-knuckled grip were lost to him.
You will be as you were before. His stomach clenched, his body freezing in place as panic flared up in his chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. As you were before. He tried to shake his head, refusal catching in his throat and clutching, squeezing, choking. He fought to make his petrified body shift, his frozen flesh to melt and twist and shape itself into the shape of safety a dragon, breathe fire on the threat, but he could not move.
Not again!
((Uhhh idek? Don’t mind Q’s little freak out moment, as s/he was before is a less than appealing prospect and apparently that means panic. This feels not quite finished but Q says call it, soo...))
The dragon in him wanted to let loose. He knew that he was stuck, but he was shunted, his magic stunted until he had the ability to let loose. And in those moments when Pyre was wriggling, Deimos allowed himself the pleasure of slipping inside his quarry’s mind, finding the surprising fact—Pyre was not all she pretended to be. And those memories, safely locked away even from Deimos’ purview. The smell was intoxicating. Pungent. Carnage
Why it hadn’t been clear to him before, Deimos is uncertain. But a dark smile peels across across his face and his features go dark. His voice rumbles, and his body completes its form, drawing power into itself, demanding completion.
Demanding Satisfaction.
“Return to yourself, and give me what is mine.” Deimos takes a bite out of the male’s hide, the magical blood transference completing the transaction. What the consequences of the mismatched stallion/mare would be, Deimos does not care.
He has become whole.
Disengaging, his body is made perfect, and the skeletal remains of his body are wrapped in black hide. Deimos takes a breath, and takes one large step back, running his tongue across his lips. “Tell Carnage I said Hello.”
And he turns, leaving the Pyre burning. His task complete, he has been set free.
He will bring chaos.
DEIMOS cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war… HTML by Call
|
