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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    In this womb or tomb - ALL
    #1
    I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
    I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
    And now I call you to pray

    They are a den of rats.

    From above, he watches them scurry into and out of their holes.
    He watches them drink from the muddy cup of their only freshwater source – that thin, lazy, gurgling ribbon that runs, jagged, down the middle of this scar.
    He watches them eat what meager offerings the cursed earth gives them.

    Still, like rats they persevere.

    But, from atop his high throne of diseased stone, the gift-giver grows weary.

    He grows bored.
    He grows tired of watching (studying) his sons mature – perhaps, he grows soft for having ever done so in the first place. (That which must be killed; must be buried.)
    He grows tired of waiting for rats to amuse him.

    It is his fault. He has grown fat, or so he had been told, himself. Fat and lazy and…

    Hungry.
    He grows hungry, too.

    Most of all, he grows distant and neglectful.
    (They must all be fed.)

    He moves from his high cliff, where so often he stands like a brooding, ugly bruise on the sky – sometimes with the company of a son or two, though lately he has been keen to keep them away – passing down the gnarled stairway of limestone, down to the floor of dust and sad looking tussock. He notes the new joshua saplings and spiney, hard succulents that have forced themselves from the brutalized land. 
    Indeed, the moment Carnage had lifted his presence, the verve of the earth and its mistress yawned awake again.

    (Like rats.)

    He follows the stream until he reaches what could best be called the center, where his voice will carry and where, he expects, they will come to him when it does. “Come, let us talk.” He waits for them, watches for their bodies like tiny black flies on the cruel horizon. “I have been absent. At least mindfully so. But I think it's time to come together again and have a chat. touch bases.

    First of all, I’d like to bring some structure… if only to make the chaos easier. Ranks, so that you may all fight tooth and nail to impress me, officially,”
    sarcasm, though nobody would would miss the truth in the gift-giver’s eyes. “Rodrik, Harmonia, both of you have given what I believe to be appropriate promotions through the ranks, as Apprentices,” he looks for both, but looks also for the girl – Ajatar – perhaps her mother’s greatest offering to this land, from Pollock’s perspective, at least.

    “Congratulations are also in order for Bruise. You have been given a most privileged position in this kingdom, Bruise, alongside a promotion to Adept. An Architect of Pangea. You have strengthened Pangea with what you have done,” (‘for me’, but no, he does not say it – cannot) “and I think you most exemplify what a good waste-dweller ought to be,” he nods to the boy, grins his wide crocodilian smile. His Prince. Right-hand, perhaps – his equal.

    “Which brings me to my final points, I think I should clarify what we should all be doing – how we should be doing it, and what we are. 

    As far as I am concerned, that we are outsiders never changed. We’ve always been a bit different. We all know, while everyone was out there bending knees, Pangea was born out of brute force. And still, I think, we are perhaps a curiosity. I intend to finally make my way to the other lands – ease their worried minds. If anyone would like to come, I will go to Tephra first. Bruise, Harmonia, Rodrik, if it so interests you, you may visit some of the others, alone or with others of your choosing. Tell me… what you find. I am most interested, indeed.

    Until we see what lays beyond, I need not mention that we should be recruiting. Sharpening your own skills, whatever they may be.

    Pangea is quiet, my friends. Far be it from me to stop anyone from rattling a few cages, gently,”
    he glances across the sharp, peaks and ridges of lime and sandstone, the air whistles like the ghosts of cries through the carvings of their kingdom.

    He misses real screams. 

    POLLOCK
    the gift giver


    OOC business -
    I am soo rusty it's disturbing. This was garbage, and Pollock still isn't Pollock when he is Kinging. CAN WE JUST BECOME A GROUP OF MURDERERS AND PHILANDERERS SO HE CAN BE HIMSELF ALREADY, FAM?!

    Anyway.
    - re: ranks/promotions: I just bumped everyone up to Novice, at least, because I love you. Then I tried to do the math myself and anyway, I think everyone is mathematically where they should be, given the point system I concocted. I am still very open to suggestions with ranks. In truth, I just found it really hard to do and so kind of settled with this in the end. Bruise is also first Architect, yay!
    - some ponies I shoved in Residents because I didn't ask in the Roll Call thread, please let me know if I missed you, or if you want to be in Ranks, or vice-versa, from Ranks to Residents, I just assumed in some cases; this goes with babies, too.
    - Pollock doesn't want to say it, but he (I) really just wants Pangea to be a group of degenerate scum who steal peoples duaghters and sons willy-nilly. For now, stealing and challenging is open season, just know that if things so belly-up for some reason and a kingdom comes to have a fight that we can't take, Pollock may just give you up if he can. Because he's a snake.
    - I am momentarily posting some info on points for promotions and rank information/some extra stuff. I'd love input, like I said.
    - PM me if you have any questions/suggestions/plot ideas/fun!

    Also, this isn't a mandatory IC reply, but definitely reply if you'd like points/have ideas, or reply OOC if you want your pony or baby added.

    <3
    [Image: kkN1kfc.png]
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    #2
    I am waiting on a new reply to Siba's post, but I was wondering if she and her dam, Nitika, could be added? They'd join the Warrior ranks (or whatever you call it here) but if they can only join as residents right now that's fine.
    Reply
    #3

    Pangea is nothing but a small glimpse of what hell is like. It is infested with the lowest of the low—liars and murderers—and only those that think for themselves. It would hardly ever be for the good of the land, to bring honor and glory in the name of her. No, Rodrik knows this was not the Chamber. It would never be like the Chamber where servants gave their loyalty freely and wholeheartedly to the kingdom and home each one loved. Pangea was not birthed and created in the same manner as the Chamber was, but uprooted by force and filled with greed and pride.

    Nevertheless, he remains here within this hellhole like place. The red stallion is no different from the many rats that gnaw and feast upon this wasteland. He has become a waste-dweller from the beginning. He has filled this land not once, but twice with bodies. And finally he has been recognized for his efforts—efforts that hopefully will come from something of value. He would not settle for anything less, and would not provide if he was not provided with something in return.

    Rodrik would not be enslaved again.

    He answers the call of their so-called leader. A leader he has finally met face to face with, but surely kept an eye on the wasteland they all called home or whatever else. There is little respect for someone who calls their self a leader and does not show their face, but he gives give some respect for supposed leader named Pollock on keeping an eye on everywhere.

    The red devil nods when he is mentioned, and continues to listen to the message. Rodrik is careful not to miss a word and he is sure none of the other so-called rats of the wasteland are either. There is greed and pride here, it stinks so much it is expelling off of all of them.

    “I will go to Ischia,” a distant island sounded more thrilling than this moment did and spending any more time in this wasteland too. “Anyone may come if they wish, but I am capable on my own as well.” So, when this meeting is over he will be off swimming in some water to some unknown island.
    character info: here | character reference: here | image © rostyslav zagornov
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    #4

    I call him the devil because he makes me want to sin
    (and every time he knocks, I can't help but let him in)


    Bruise, too, grows fat on the ease of life in the wasteland—on the relative comfort to be found within the grey and the dust, on the bodies that persevere despite the lack of commodities. He, however, has not grown compliant. He had spent his time mastering the Fear, practicing on the prey as they fall into his lap, hunting them down with a fierce and a singular determination. He has mastered his skills as an artist, taking the different materials and shaping them beneath the power of his own will, the pressure of his very palms and the sweat of his brow turning raw clay into something resembling art, resembling beauty.

    Still, although the Fear grows within his belly like the wretched thing that it is, although he himself grows tall and broad and wicked, there is an air of boredom in his flat eyes. There was more to life than just this. There was more than taking these crumbs and savoring them between his teeth. He longed for real meat to enjoy, to satisfy his appetite with the blood and the gore, the ripping of flesh until he was swollen with it.

    So his smile splits his handsome face when he hears his father call for them, the resulting grin wide and cold. He turns from the crevice upon which he stood to make his way toward Pollock, his body of soot and gold moving forward to place himself near the front. His shoulders roll, the muscles that rope over them notably no longer juvenile, and he inclines his heavy-horned head, the thin, watery light glinting off their gleaming curves. He doesn’t say anything at the promotion, at the acknowledgement, but whatever heart he has clenches in his chest with pride, with the need to earn his father’s approval.

    “I will take Nerine,” he says with a spark burning in his coal eyes. He would love nothing more than to enter the sea-locked kingdom, to find the roost of women. He has heard stories of the Amazonian women and their strength, their might, but he does not feel Fear when he thinks of them. Just hunger.

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    #5
    He punishes her with his disapproving looks; he cannot see beyond Feast & Famine’s appearance of plainness.

    (She has; she has beheld the dark majesty of those creepy colts because Sinew dreams, and in her dreams, she knows things - not from a witchy precognition that she does not possess, but in the most basest of ways: blood and mother’s intuition.)

    His punishments are small slights that cause little to no grievance; Sinew does as she pleases, flaunts the colts before him as she denies him his fear-fest and only sneers every time he looks at her in mistrust and denial. She knows that he cannot see it - not yet, but given time, these two will be twin forces to be reckoned with. So she keeps to herself, to the twins, and often goes to the meadow in the middle of the night.

    Sinew always comes back, always to him and here, this abject waste of wilderness.
    (She always comes back, and again, she is to grow heavy with his get. He might not think the colts are much, and tries again, in hopes vain and proud to produce something extraordinary from her painted loins.)

    He beckons to them from on high;
    She listens, almost thinks to ignore but perhaps not this time - she’ll give him no open challenge, and just comes, like some of them do, curious more than anything. Sinew was never much for participation; she chose to keep to herself and the colts that trail her, one hardy and the other sickly, but both so full of promise (because she knows, they cannot be disappointments - not yet).

    “I think I should like to join you in going to Tephra.”
    She does not speak loudly, knowing that he will hear her and knowing that she gives him little to no choice in turning her down. Sinew has her reasons for joining him, mostly because she is curious to see how much longer he can keep his hunger in check and it has been a long time since he has fed off others, or tried.

    (Feast and Famine stand behind her, flanking her to either side and she can feel the small press of their shoulders against her hindquarters. One feels eager, almost too eager from the tremor in his skin and the other, thin but not shaking but it is not time for them to explore - not yet, because she does not trust Pangea’s ilk around her.)
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    #6
    She is late to the party, green eyes of disinterest, her steps speaking of her anger at the Mountain. How long had it been since she approached those winged whores and gave them what they wanted? How much longer would she have to wait for one of those power hungry creatures to grant her what she truly deserved? She could stay on the Mountain forever, feel the magic in her veins, breathe in the great escape of her true self. Not this shallow, hollow, empty creature the fairies decided to make her.

    She is angry.
    She is not equipt for diplomacy.

    But to the meeting she goes, mostly because she stumbles upon it, mostly because she is looking for that child of hers. She did not take her to the Mountain, mostly because she feared what would happen. The girl was stronger than Harmonia cared to admit and if she took angry on the way down, well - Harmonia couldn't exactly heal herself, now could she? Plus, it would be to admit she was missing something (magic).

    She couldn't have that.

    It's with a shrug she accepts her position (She'll do nothing to garner more favor, just protection until her magic returns) and says, in her lazy way, "To Sylva I go."
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    #7
    I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
    I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
    And now I call you to pray

    He looks at him—Rodrik—with narrow, shrewd eyes;
    He can see recalcitrance. He can see his distaste.

    So be it.

    He has never asked for their unconditional loyalty—he wanted it, in the way any egotist (inebriated, spent and gold-dripping) would, of course. He could demand it, but he has seen them tear his flesh like a hoard of dogs in his dreams, night in and night out—they are unruly; they are violent and bloodwashed, many of them. And the Pangean king isn't stupid, besides, he has always appreciated the spirited—remembered Sinew for years because she had show him hers, even as a girl—and despised the impotent.
    And what he told the God-king, Carnage, that he loved the lawlessness of this ruinous nation, he meant it.

    They are the feral—they’ll come to like him, tolerate him, or fuck off into the desert to plot or perish,

    Rodrik, he hoped, would do one of the former. The gift-giver can recognize an asset when he sees one. They are not so different, the two of them. “You do that, Rodrik,” he says, deliberate and gravelly, “I’d like to to speak with you some more. Unless you have something pressing to tell me, I suggest we meet after you visit Ischia; tell me what you find there.”

    His lips twitch upwards, he turns from the red stallion to the prince.

    He nods, his own crude, weighty head at the stallion—certainly ‘boy’ no longer— the upturned lips become a fiendish smirk, unlike the cold straight line he usually wears, but no less hostile. The boy had earned his place. He knew it better than anyone else and while his father brooded over stone and saltwater, he was busy ferreting playthings from their holes—sharpening his skills, skills the king valued very highly. Truly his father’s son.
    “Of course,” he replies, and he knows the thing that draws Bruise over the rocky spine that separates the two kingdoms intimately, himself. “Have fun. They have travelled here, but their Queen had precious little to say when they did.

    They’ve seen ours,  it is only fair.”


    He turns next to Sinew. Like things hewn of iron, they clang and they clatter—he punishes her with his coldness; she punishes him with starvation. They do not draw blood, but perhaps both would be pleasantly sated if they did. He certainly would, though only enough to fulfil his covetous needs; only enough for her to see he could be as exacting and as attentive as Tarnished had been. 
    (When they become stilled, finally, they are both rewarded once again.)
    He nods at her, giving each of the boys a glance. He believes her when she says they are more—she refuses to enlighten him, though, she keeps the details she had scried out on the Mountain close to her breast. He might even come to appreciate them (Feast, at least) when they begin to show their proclivities to him plainly, as Bruise had. 

    He is glad she opts to come with him. He much prefers her near or in sight than otherwise. “We will go tomorrow.”

    When, Harmonia offers herself to Sylva, the gift-giver gives her the same stern nods, “good. I’d like to hear what you find out, too.” He takes the apathy from the little golden mare as being what to expect of her, at this point. From the beginning, he has suspected something stormy in her, so unlike the exterior she presents—she has failed to reveal it, thus far, and so she puzzles him all the more. Makes him aggravated—lustful to peel back the pallid outside to get to the testier things within.
    That was until she offered him something shinier to fixate on.

    POLLOCK
    the gift giver
    [Image: kkN1kfc.png]
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    #8

    He is late. He does not care.

    And yet, of all the situations that could possibly have been marked, it could not have been a better choice if he had manipulated it himself. He stands off to the side, his presence pressing inwards into the Krampus’ mind. Taiga, it says, ever menacing. Ever darkening as the shadows between them seem to draw the two closer together. Taiga is ripe for the taking.

    He growls, his voice like scraping gravel against sand. He does not approach—he has no love of Harmonia, and his distaste for Ajatar is not one he looks to repeat. And yet, her usefulness is one that he sees the Gift-giver using. A weapon.

    Cry Havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

    He cares not for rank or prestige—he knows it is his for the taking, should he so desire.

    Does Deimos belong? No. He is nowhere.

    And yet he is everywhere.

    Taiga. Give me Taiga, and I will give you the blood of power.

    DEIMOS
    cry ‘havoc’ and let slip the dogs of war…
    HTML by Call
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    #9
    I called you to announce sadness falling like burned skin
    I called you to wish you well, to glory in self like a new monster
    And now I call you to pray

    He watches then leave, scrabbling away like so many plague-carrying rodents.

    He watches the others that still come to gather, too, neither incensed nor please by their ‘lateness’—he has yet to figure out what he wanted to, or even could, demand out of them. For now, the gift-giver is content to let them enough rope to hang themselves with, if they wanted to. This is a place, perhaps, where even those unwilling or unwitting could find their place—he’s the sort of king who would reward handsomely for the things some of these beasties liked to get up to.

    If such proclivities could be twisted to his benefit, or to their collective benefits.

    Some leave a big, heavy silence when they are missing, however.
    Some, he cannot help but hope to see on days like today.
    Some, he believes, are better suited to his chaos than others.

    The war machine.
    Weapon, by any other name.

    His ears flick, but there is no direction from which that voice comes. He knows, at once, that it is meant for his ears only, for it fills them perfectly, simultaneously disquieting and soothing; it elicits a shiver, quaking down his neck and back. Pollock turns his head to face where Deimos stands, alone and impressive, flat eyes unblinking, lips, unmoving—he knows without knowing that this will work well enough, that monster has his hooks in his brain, already:

    ‘Go.’

    It was someone else's to take. But someone else was too slow.
    Everything is anyone's to take—should they so desire.

    ‘Find me her weaknesses; them them see our faces.’

    Power. That single word runs through his mind, seizing him like a libation does a violent drunk, the king turns away, his heart thumping. 

    POLLOCK
    the gift giver

    @[Deimos]
    [Image: kkN1kfc.png]
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