"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
There is pleasure to be found in the smallest of things.
He has no reason to be here. He prefers to haunt other realms of Beqanna, their mortal planes too droll for him. But he visits often enough, keeps the proverbial fields plowed with, well, his less proverbial seed, and this time he’s lingered. There’s no reason, other than the mind-numbing boredom that comes with near-omnipresence and definite immortality. He constantly looks for ways to entertain himself, their dark god, so sometimes, he watches.
He takes in the passersbys, touches their minds, sifts for amusement there the way men once panned for gold in the rivers. They don’t know of his touch, he is cunning and quick. Most of them are terribly mundane, full of feckless worries about their lovers or kingdoms or children, the kind of things he’s just so bored by.
One stallion piques his interest. Not much, but enough. The boy’s mind is rife with memories of a woman who Carnage once knew.
(He remembers her, still, a brief coupling in starlight. And she’d come back, later, answered his call; only to refuse the oasis.)
They’re together now, those two, and Carnage almost laughs as his delves further, realizes the boy’s not only his cuckold, but his own son. Furthermore, this is a fact unknown to him, and the boy has wondered who his father is, or was.
This will do.
There is pleasure to be found in the smallest of things – but the dark god also loves grand gestures.
He turns himself to clouds, keeping an equid shape, but grows larger, taking up the sky. The cloud swirl around the shape of him, framing, dramatic and drawing the eye.
“Warrick,” he says, pulling the name from the boy’s mind, “there’s been a question, in your mind. I’m here to answer.”
Gods must keep busy somehow.
c a r n a g e
@[Warrick] this is brought to you by cbox hubris and pomegranate vodka please let me know if i should change anything
04-30-2018, 07:55 PM (This post was last modified: 04-30-2018, 07:56 PM by Warrick.)
we are crooked souls trying to stay up straight
The air calls to him. The wind of Tephra pulls urgently at his feathers, begging him to take to the skies. The feeling is familiar, so he does not question it as he allows a few wide sweeps of his wings to pull him from the blackened shoreline of his home. It becomes curiouser, though, when he finds his flight path taking him away from the volcanic peninsula and into the meadow. As he soars through thermals of cooler wind, his auburn skin shivers with the frigid cold that has taken over elsewhere as autumn arrives. His eyes are bright yet slightly unsure; he cannot understand why his mind and body pull him here (it had been ages since he had last been in a common, neutral land).
Warrick is searching for something, he realizes. He cannot find it in the skies, so with gentle tilting of the outer feathers, he turns and spirals downwards towards the now-golden grasses of the meadow. His hooves hit the ground solidly, then tucking the large span of his navy wings into his sides. With a huff, the stallion glances around curiously, his lips pulled into a thin line. The meadow is eerily quiet and still, as if hushed by the departing of the warmer weather. He will soon realize that the world around him is quiet for an entirely different reason.
The clouds he had just flown through now grumble with motion and life; but there is no sign of an oncoming storm in such dry weather. The wind picks up - cool and frigid against his sleek skin - and he shivers, glancing up to the sky. His salt-dried forelock flutters across his face, staring up into the heavens like he has done his entire life. He has learned to expect no answer, just silence - but now, he is being summoned.
The Overseer’s features are slack and full of wonder as the clouds form into an equine from nothingness, speaking deeply and truly from the depths of twilight. It speaks his name, this omnipresent being, and it calls to his soul as if it has known him for a lifetime. Warrick swallows, his gaze unwavering as the clouds move and breathe, thinking immediately of Orani, of his sister, of his family. There is only one question in his mind that has been unanswered since their disappearance years ago on the mountain. There are others -
a nameless father Orani never spoke of, among other things.
“Where is my family?” He finally asks, his voice small compared to that of the god, but unwavering and clear.
Little did he know that family is right in front of him.
Carnage was never much for family.
Not that he thinks of them as family, any more. The things that conceived and birthed him were mortal, as was he, once. It was lifetimes ago. The body Thaqib birthed is long gone, immolated, and the body that exists now is a thing of his own making. His own magic (he was born magic, true, but along the way he’s stolen others, stockpiled it).
His children are legion, and he rarely parents them. He appears on occasion, to praise or chastise them (mostly the latter).
Gail is like family, as much a mate as he’ll even have, but she’s in the afterlife, trapped, kept there by a magic even he cannot defy. He visits, sometimes, there on deathly shores, and in those moments he a sweetness that feels strange on his skin.
But his family isn’t being questioned here. It’s that of the boy. Warrick, who stands there, looking at the dark god in all his strange glory, asking the question. Stranding his ground.
The dark god laughs, and in the sky, it sounds like thunder.
“Well, Warrick,” he says, “your mother, who can say, or care? But your father, well…”
Another laugh. Another peal of thunder.
“You’re looking at him.”
The Overseer is not surprised that it is the heavens that call down to him. Orani had always told him stories of the starlight and galaxies as a child, and how his family is spun from the very fabric of the cosmos. He can feel his heart leap with anticipation, the swell of suspense nearly palpable as the meadow breathes to life beneath the rolls of cloud and gentle rumbling of thunder. There is laughter from the nameless god and it shakes the foundation of the earth, quaking beneath Warrick’s hooves. The stallion keeps his balance, the wind pulling his salt-dried mane and forelock away from his slack-jawed expression, his cerulean eyes wide with wonder as he stares up at the being. The laughter is not benevolent as it reverberates through the meadow; somehow it is callous, almost cruel.
As the sentient god speaks again, a prickle of uncertainty tugs at him inwardly. Not enough for Warrick to disregard anything that had been said, but enough to exude caution in his next few words. This is it - this moment, the bay stallion knew, will be the moment that defines all moments.
‘Your mother, who can say, or care? But your father, well...you are looking at him.’
Warrick can feel his knees quiver at the being’s confession. He nearly could have stumbled, fallen to the ground in both awe and despair. The Overseer doesn’t, however, but there is a lightheadedness that comes over him that makes him sway beneath the clouds, head swimming. It all made sense, it all aligned with everything he had been told by Orani - there was no reason not to believe him. His father has to be a god, one of the cosmos and starlight, of black matter and planets and galaxies who has returned to allow Warrick a semblance of peace to put a face and a name with what once used to be a nameless, faceless idea. His mind swims with questions, though he has no idea that diving deeper into his lineage would reveal more than he would ever want to know.
“Father,” he breathes, though it is almost a question as it passes through his cobalt lips. It cannot be, can it? Oh, but it is - alive and breathing before him, in all of his glory. There is almost as sense of pride that washes over him, to know that his father is no ordinary man but fashioned from stars themselves. A cosmic entity, a powerful being - and his blood runs in Warrick’s viens. “Who are you? Where is Orani, Beyah? Why was I left here alone?”Why are you all a part of the stars, but I remain?
He leaves his questioning there; questions that once plagued him many years ago and were left to lay dormant in his mind, because he knew there would be no answers. But now...now, there just might be.
He is single-minded, sometimes, forgets that they create other gods. He thinks, or pretends, that he is the only, that there is no one, that his name is synonymous with god, with deity. To plenty, it is – he’s had his share of followers, had statues and lands built in his honor, blood sacrifices aplenty.
The sky flashes for a moment with lightning, his frustration manifested, and then it goes back to normal (as normal as a sky can be when playing host to the dark god, at least).
He sighs as the boy continues with questions. He doesn’t know where the man’s mother is – he can’t even recall her, not specifically, she’d been one of hundreds, taken by stars and galaxies. He could find her, easily enough, but he has no desire to. She doesn’t matter, not unless she comes to him again in her heat, ready for another round.
He answers the second question first.
“You weren’t worthy,” he says, “she left, because you weren’t worthy.”
He sighs, again.
“So few of my children are. The blood gets diluted.”
Shame, that biology compels it. Not that he couldn’t clone himself, but there’s a danger, to that – he has learned to keep nothing close.
“Who am I?”
For moment there is silence. Giving the boy one more chance to guess.
“Carnage,” he says, “I’m Carnage.”
The phrase that had drowned his soul since the moment they disappeared - a phrase that he had worked so hard to close tightly and ignore - now plagues his mind with full force, slapping him in the face. It is as if time hadn’t closed the wound at all, but now the sutures are ripped open by the sky-God’s words, and the blood begins to pour again, slowly and painfully. His face breaks, the reality of it heavily slamming into each feature - in his eyes, his mouth, the sharp lines of his jaw. You lie, he tells his father, the cruel man in the sky, but he cannot believe himself even as the words cross his mind. He knew it was the truth; he had known it back then, and even though time had allowed him to forget, he remembers it now just as vividly.
‘She left because you weren’t worthy.’
Warrick can feel the sway in his legs as he manages to keep himself upright, the awe that had once filled him for this God-king (his father) slowly leaving him as the cold feeling of foreboding twists in his stomach, no longer wrapped in reverence but a feeling of sickness. His cerulean eyes are wide with disbelief, but he does nothing to attempt to correct the swirling mass of cloud and stars. He did not have it in him to protest, because his heart silently sings: Told you so, told you so.
‘Who am I?’
His his head is swimming, feeling dizzy as his eyes continue to remain steadily on the figure above him, a pained expression on his face. Did he want to know, now? Did it matter who is father was, truly? It is too late now, to turn back and run, and his legs feel like lead in the meadow grasses, melting into the earth slowly.
“I am Carnage.”
The bay stallion can taste the acrid bile on his tongue, his once sorrow-filled eyes narrowing with not only distrust but with the soft embers of growing rage. “You lie!” This time his words come to life in his mouth as he spits them at the mass of swirling clouds and galaxies, unfurling his wings. There is no way that Carnage is his father - he knew of Carnage, of the terrible feats and torture given by the dark God, and knowing of him, Warrick knew that he is also the God of lies. Bravely (stupidly, fueled by adrenaline and anger, and the knowledge of Tangerine’s captivity by him) his large wings beat heavily at his sides, pulling himself from the ground and attempting to meet this Dark-God face to face.
“You lie,” he tells him again, his wings bringing him closer and closer to Carnage. There is no doubt this is him - the dark God that has plagued Beqanna since the very beginning - but there is no way he is Warrick’s father. There is no way that his blood could be part of the epitome of darkness and shadow, no way that he is in relation to such evil.
Warrick
@[Carnage]
Yesssss, he's the perfect jerk.
Carnage has permission to do whatever he would normally do if a mortal protested him and called him a liar.
It's an easy cruelty, to tell them of their uselessness, how unworthy they are. A faultline running through them – the bone-deep knowledge that they are imposters, that any day someone will come along and pull back the curtain, expose them for fools.
He is here to do just that. To pull back that curtain.
He sees the words hit, landing as solidly as any physical blow. He grins. There’s a sweetness in finding the nerve. Salt in the wound.
You lie, croaks the boy, but doubt flavors the words, and even if it didn’t, who’s he to care? He’s the god in the sky, and Warrick’s the fool on the ground.
He says it again, stronger this time, defiance languishing on the proclamation. He rises up, wings beating, as if he’s some kind of equal, as if this is something more than a mild amusement for the dark god. Carnage sighs.
Children are so damn stubborn sometimes.
“Do I really have to spell it out for you?” he says, “your mother wanted my pretty colors and my power. She got a bit of each with you – not much, but still.”
He pauses. Another handful of salt.
“Your little girlfriend, though – she got more with her brat, didn’t she? I don’t remember much of Orani – forgettable – but Tang, she just kept coming back…”
He pauses.
“Still think I’m lying, I’m sure. Want to see? Here, son, let me show you –”
He projects the images into the sky, shows Orani, but only briefly – he recalls so little of her – but lingers long enough so her identity is unquestionable, and then shows Tang, how she’d come to him, seeing him as a god – and then she’d come back, his willing captive. He cuts away from the most intimate acts – he’s not crass - but he lingers on the aftermath, when his teeth had cut into her neck, the way the blood had blossomed on her withers.
“Everything you’ve had,” he says, “was mine first. You owe your very existence to me. You should thank me, really.”
c a r n a g e
tl;dr
carnage: "yeah im your dad" *projects softcore porn into the sky*
The God - Carnage, his father - grows impatient, thunder rumbling idly within the bellows of the cloud and lightning that roil and illuminate beneath it. Warrick can feel a similar feeling boiling inside his own soul, though it is nothing compared to the ferocity or power of the being that presents itself before him. The osprey-King is defenseless, save for the feeble accusation that sputters from his lips, but he nevertheless faces the God-King with a pridefulness that could easily be his own undoing. It is not possible and Warrick would not accept it - there is no way that the blood of Carnage runs in his veins, the one who took eyes out of his closest friends and succumbed Tangerine into a chamber of torture.
It cannot be possible.
But there is - within the anger of his auburn face and gritting of his teeth as he hovers and darts before Carnage’s eyes - a glimmer of hesitancy, of unsureness. A flicker of doubt, suppressed behind adrenaline and rage, but enough that Carnage easily finds it, and holds onto it with a dark and terrible grip. Words are merely words as they come from the lips of a false god, and Warrick holds his unwavering gaze as he riddles off about Orani. The stallion’s lips tremble with anger and his blood pulsates vividly beneath his skin, silent. It’s when the thundercloud-stallion brings up Tangerine - a very real being, who he indeed suffered at Carnage’s mighty power, that he could no longer bear it. He’s nearly done with the whole act - a god like Carnage could prattle on about many things and still be a liar, so it is not until images play before him that Warrick’s aggression begins to fade, leaving a wide-eyed boy staring into the depths of despair.
Orani was unmistakable, even if only created out of memory. He is not longer the Overseer, but a child as her appearance fades in and out before him. But Carnage has defiled the memory, ruined it for the sake of a laugh.
“Enough,”
Warrick’s voice is deep and solemn, his cerulean eyes hooded beneath his furrowed brow. But Carnage has not had enough, and quickly the image changes as Carnage’s own memories of Tangerine are set before him, to relive them not only in Tangerine’s mind but now in his own. It plays out differently, seeing it instead of only imagining what she had told him - how he had lured her, how she had gone to him…
Everything you have, was mine first.
White hot anger and hatred - something that Warrick has never truly felt until now - boils over and turns him blind.
“Enough!”
He bellows, propelling himself forward into the only figure of Carnage (of his father) that he knew. There is no logical reasoning or thought behind it as he sends himself into the fray (would Carnage dissipate, would he die?) but the outcomes didn’t matter, nothing mattered;
The boy begins to protest not long after the images arrive, but Carnage pushes on, salts the wounds. The boy had been stupid, to question him, and stupidity must pay. The dark god savors the images of Tangerine, to whom he thinks of fondly (there was a fire to her, when she’d come to his prison, part of his game, she had been the only one to turn her back on the oasis, a measure of spine that had momentarily impressed even him). Eventually, though, he cuts the images off, and the sky is empty, save for his own ethereal form. His son is still hollering, and then – oh! – he charges, wings beating, a futile charge into the sky.
Children are exhausting. They don’t learn. Warrick is foolish, willing to pit himself things so much greater than he, and for what? For things already done, women already taken.
“Enough,” Carnage mimics, though there is a warning to his tone. Yet the boy – surprise – charges forward still, and the dark god sighs.
Spare the rod and spoil the child, the saying goes. He spares nothing.
He reaches out, tendrils of magic, grabs hold of the boy as if he was restraining a naughty child. He holds him for a minute, looks him in the eye.
“You’d be wise not to challenge me, son,” he says, “you’ll find the results are not in your favor.”
He slams him down, them, throwing his body into the dirt with his invisible hand. Not enough to kill, or even damage overmuch – the action is meant mostly to embarrass. To serve as a lesson, though Warrick seems quite unwilling to learn.
“Respect your father,” he says to the boy’s crumped form, “especially when your father is a god.”
c a r n a g e
HEY i powerplayed him i hope that's okay and if you want it to go another way holler and i'll edit!!
In that moment, Warrick begs for an ability - a power beyond his wings to lash out at the dark god who holds him steadfast and tightly, cold tendrils of magic spiraling around his barrel and clipping his wings to his sides. He struggles for a moment, anger and rage fueling him for a few more moments, the sounds of curses and strained shouting falling from his cobalt lips. He wants to kill him - the thing that cannot be killed - and inflict pain onto a being that cannot feel anything. He doesn’t care that it’s pointless or futile, for he cannot erase the need for pound of flesh from his mind.
The dark god tosses him away, like the forgotten son he is.
Cold earth rushes up to meet him and the air escapes his lungs in one desperate exhalation. The powerful magic leaves him, facedown in the dirt with bruised legs and a broken mind. There is a shadow cast over the osprey-King, one not only from the brooding and powerful thunderstorm god that is his father, but a change that is evident on the once distraught mahogany face. On his side - defeated, a mere ant compared to the dark god - Warrick’s gaze flickers up to him, oceanic eyes cold and burning. “You are not my father - not in the way that matters.” Nostrils flare as a sharp snort escapes him, his breath a wheeze as he notices the soreness in his ribcage. He lifts his head then, finding that though his legs are not broken that there is a struggle for him stand; but he does it anyway.
“A god, hm.” Warrick murmurs to himself, his voice low beneath his breath as he glances at his father from beneath a hooded brow, teeth clenching as he strains to remain standing. “Even as a god, you deserve no respect.”
