I tried to make a home out of you.

[vulgaris]

VulgariS

take me, take me back to your bed. i love you so much that it hurts my head.
say, i don't mind you under my skin. oh, let the bad parts in, the bad parts in.

With the sun just beginning to paint the sky in muted golds and soft blues from just beneath the horizon, he rises from the ground where he sleeps. The midnight dew is starting to dissipate and add to the humidity of a clear summer day but he has no time to appreciate this. When Leliana stirs and looks to him for answers, he assures her he simply has work that must get done today for Wolfbane. If he told her the truth, that he’s going to the mountain, he’s sure she would try to beg him to stay and not risk such journeys. But this is for her sake and so he can’t let her convince him that the benefits are overshadowed by the cost. After all, he’d do anything for her.

He kisses the girls as they continue to dream and heads for the border of the sanctuary. While he’s never been to the mountain himself, he knows the direction and continues his way east, where it looms in the distance. Vulgaris passes through Loess and the forests neighboring it until he comes to the river where he first met Leliana. By now, the sun has reached its zenith and it is merciless in its heat, but he slips into the river and smiles to himself as he recalls finding his wife here a few years ago.

But in the back of his mind is that moaning and gnashing of teeth, that relentless doubt that reminds him how he found Dovev standing over her here. He lifts himself from the river and snorts, annoyed at the memory and himself. But the need for her to venture off to save others will not come again and he’ll make sure of it. Vulgaris shakes his head enough to fling some of the dripping water from his mane and face before continuing on.

He travels easily up the mountain at first, being sure to test the rocks before he trusts them with his weight. The serpent scoffs at the challenge, unimpressed as he continues his ascension toward the peak. The change in temperature is gradual enough that he doesn’t seem to notice until his breath begins to puff in front of him. If there is anything in this world he truly hates, it is the cold. But he carries on, eyes now scowling at the circumstances. She is worth the temporary discomfort. She is worth a lifetime of misery.

He finally comes to a stop and peers over the other side at Pangea. That was where she tried to save her friend and caught the plague in the first place. He sighs slowly and turns to face the path he just came from. “I want to be able to heal others. Leliana nearly destroys herself by saving everyone who comes asking for her help and I want to share the burden, to keep her safe.”

And then he listens, straining his ears for some reply. The seconds feel like eternity and he snorts at the disinterest of the fairies.

@[Carnage]

[Carnage]

and lord, I fashion dark gods too;

The fairies loathe his presence on their mountain, which drives a particularly petty part of him to haunt it all the more. He does not do much, mostly just watches as they come, sniveling with their requests.
Today is no different - should be no different – but the path of the snake-boy catches his eye, and that’s all. There’s nothing else to it – he doesn’t know this horse, and any blood they share is tangential and too far diluted for him to be interested in that way, the way Warrick had piqued his interests.

But he is bored, their dark god, has been too well behaved on the mountain, and this is an easy enough creature to intercept.
So he does – one second the path before Vulgaris is clear, and then he crowds it. He appears not as his regular, corporeal form, but as mist, larger than usual, solidifying into an evanescent, equine form.
“Vulgaris,” he says, plucking the name from the boy’s mind, “you pretend to be so noble.”
He feels further, plucks memories like ripe fruit, turning them over in his hands. He bites.
“You think you’re worthy of powers, like her? You know you’re not. So many terrible things, so many…”
As if he’s one to judge.
“You’re no healer.”

He steps closer, and his body dissolves, mist all around the boy, enveloping him. His voice, though, still rings clear.
“You would do better to just forget it all, I think…”

And he, the kind, caring god that he is, helps. He wipes Vulgaris’s memory, clears him of the names and faces that haunt him, leaves a blank slate. He buries the memories like corpses in the recesses of the boy’s mind – to be recovered someday, or perhaps not.
The boy is staring now, slack-jawed, and Carnage remakes himself once more, a dark god made of little but fog and mist.
“Go, Vulgaris,” he says, “you are not wanted here.”

c a r n a g e

@[vulgaris] im SORRY this took 100 years!!! please let me know if you want me to change anything <33