"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
My, how this place has changed.
Anaxarete, on the other hand, has not.
The little mare was conspicuous by virtue of her ordinary appearance. Small in stature, battle scarred, but otherwise unremarkable to the naked eye. She preferred it that way, knowing full well that she was more than capable into altering her appearance into something more visually formibitable. However, that had never been her style.
There was only a lingering sense of familiarity that tugged at her senses as the cold woman stepped from the shadows. She’d been spending more and more time among the darkness and less in the world of the living. A soft snort left dark nostrils as the scent of horseflesh assaulted her senses, a visceral reminder that she’d left her solitude behind.
Perhaps it was nothing more than morbid curiosity that drew her back to this place, but you’d be foolish to assume such a thing. Somewhere, buried deep, there was a lingering bitterness for the place she once knew and what had become of it. However, the shadow mare was anything but sentimental. Maybe once upon a time in a different life, a mortal life, she would have had time to value such things. But not now. Not anymore.
She mused, for a moment, how long she’d stay idle in this land before calling her children back to her side. In this land reborn of her home, she had no allegiance to anything but her own will, unpredictable as it was. But before she made her next move, she needed to familiarize herself with this place and those that now called these lands home. I’d been far too long since she’d given herself such a tantalizing project.
So the shadow woman stepped into the afternoon sun, leaving the shadows swirling in her wake.
02-25-2019, 05:14 PM (This post was last modified: 02-25-2019, 05:30 PM by Sinner.)
there is but one rule hunt or be hunted
Hungry.
It groans within him.
The familiar voice that calls him to the hunt. The addiction of the adrenaline he feels every time he chases the kill. The taste of teeth biting through flesh and bones breaking with every crunch is a drug.
But he hungers for more.
He hungers for things he does not yet have. Things that should be the dark hound’s long ago. But he must be patient. Time would give him what he wanted.
Time was running thin though.
The hellhound escapes the comfort and confined space of the autumn kingdom. Leaving behind the thoughts of ruling and the crown. It is the hunt that only crosses his though. The voice within him begging him, dragging him into the wild.
He thirsts more and more for the taste these days. Reliving his old days when he had left Pangea, leaving behind the childhood he had with his parents. The wild was all he had known at one point. The freedom it had given him, the strength it had formed him to be. The darkness made him, but the wild molded him even more.
The shadows had once been his master. A salve to the darkness and the wielders of evil. But he had made his own path eventually. Becoming his very own master that should have always been in the beginning. He may have come as an omen to his father, Rodrik, but he was more than a warning. He was the beginning of a reckoning.
From the shadows, he lurks, concealing himself. His red-yellow glowing eyes peer from the darkness, taking in the familiarity of the meadow. A place he often found his prey. He licks his lips lightly at that thought. There was bound to be something here to get a good fight out of…
But something catches his eyes—the gleaming of the afternoon sun mixed with swirling shadows. The dark beast catches the dark dapple mare, who recently revealed herself into the light. He would have thought nothing of it, but something intrigues his interest. Perhaps it was the darkness of souls that draws him to her—a kinship of some sort of darkness.
He steps from the shadows, prowling forward towards the dapple mare. The hound does not hide himself like he does when he hunts. Not that this mare, wielder of shadows, gave any note of not being able to fend him off.
“Afternoon,” he says when reaching the mare in closer range. His ears flick forward as a canine smirk lifts up on his hard-chiseled features.
The shadowspinner had seen strange things - unspeakable things - happen upon these lands. However, she could detect a palpable shift in the ground underfoot. There was simply more. More magic in the air and imbued within the lands themselves. More unpredictability than before. This place was more alive than it had been in years. She wasn’t sure if this was an advantage or detriment to those that called this place home, and she didn’t particularly care. She was never one who required stability. This unpredictable, evolving landscape suited the shadow-mare just fine.
The cold woman had never existed in a world defined by stability, not even when she was young and mortal. Chaos was where she thrived. It’s where she’d first cut her teeth in the twisted world of politics and had existed ever since. She knew her children - her monsters - would thrive in such an environment. However she would never risk them by calling upon them before she was certain of her next move. The shadowmare was many things, but impulsive was not one of them.
Her ice blue eyes flicked back to her surroundings. She’d been unnoticed by most who continued to go about their business. She could hear the dull thrum of mundane conversation in the background. Her nostrils flared as the musky, canine scent filled her nostrils. She found the sense of the scent immediately. She fixed her cold gaze on the creature as it moved through the tall, dry grass.
She sensed the equine form that lurked below - long abandoned for the beast within. She could relate to that, in a strange way. She’d never demeaned herself to living as a dog but she could relate to leaving behind yourself to become something greater. It was clear that she had caught his attention as well, but she did not move to greet him. She never was one for pleasantries.
“That’s close enough, Pup. I don’t want fleas,” she said, in a cold, expressionless voice. Her gaze remained fixed on the hellhound, her face betraying no emotions. No amusement. No pleasure or displeasure at being approached. Only cold, ice, and shadow.
“Who are you?” she asks, in the same cool voice, with no discernable curiosity in her voice.
Before he had never been one of pleasantries. It was always the call of the hunt that sent him greeting others. With violence and terror, he welcomed others warmly. Giving them friendly gifts of open wounds and broken bones if they could escape from him.
Sylva had changed that all for him.
He had realized the very potential he could have. The difference he could make, molding and changing the world to his very own. The dark creators did not know what sort of potential they had created. What sort of monster that would produce a disaster.
It was only rising into the roles of politics and war that had made him more pleasant. He had to abide to new rules, rules that were not natural for the order of his nature. But he was adaptable and managed quite well since then.
The dappled mare clearly is not welcoming as he is. But her own greeting of stoic only revealed there was more to the shadowspinner than she was letting on. He couldn’t quite leave without his curiosity being satisfied just yet.
A smirk instantly pulls his canine lips wide, revealing a set of sharp canine teeth. “I promise you I don’t have fleas,” he says with humor. “But I’m sure you aren’t too worried about a little bit of fleas now are you?” He offers with a cock of his wolfish head, red-yellow eyes glowing with mischief.
“I’m Sinner.” He says simply. Not needing to offer his allegiance to Sylva and the role he plays in Beqanna. Simple things were left behind now. He had come here to hunt, and the call of the hunt did not care for the politics of Beqanna. “And who are you?” He takes an obvious sniff of the air, inhaling the dappled mare’s scent. “You smell like somewhere else that’s for sure,” he adds before falling silent but his wolfish-smirk remains clearly on his lips.
