11-11-2019, 02:35 PM
<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel&display=swap" rel="stylesheet"><style type="text/css">.dote_container{position:relative;z-index:1;width:540px;background:#3d3d3d;border-radius:0 0 0 0;border:1px solid #142020;}.dote_container p{margin:0;}.dote_image{position:relative;z-index:4;margin-bottom:0px;border-radius: 0 0 0 0;}.dote_message{position:relative;z-index:10;width:480px;background:#191919;text-align:justify;font:12px 'Times New Roman', serif;padding:15px;color:#3d3d3d;}.dote_name{position:relative;z-index:15;text-align:center;color:black;text-shadow:0 0 4px #B5B0AD;letter-spacing:16px;font-size:36px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;bottom:20px;}.dote_title{position:relative;z-index:11;text-align:center;color:black;letter-spacing:2px;font-family: 'Cinzel', serif;}</style><center><div class="dote_container"><div class="dote_title">( i'm just here to fight the fire
oh, a man ain't a man unless he has desire )</div><div class="dote_message">
<p>
It is the roar of some great river that finally rouses him.
His oak tree is gone, as is the figure whose approach had set his nerves to riot in the first place.
He is joined instead by a rather large congregation of horses, none of whom look familiar. Somehow, he can sense the peace in them. Briefly studying their faces, he knows without having to be told that the whole lot of them are comfortable in their deaths. And there, across the river, the ferocious and the noble and the heroic, whose eyes still blaze with a fire he never cared much to hold himself.
He could wonder why they are separated this way – or why they’re separated at all—but he’s not totally convinced he cares. He’s more focused on working out exactly why he’d been summoned here in the first place. This is surely some kind of punishment. Did someone rat on him for being a less than welcoming welcoming committee? He doesn’t want to believe that any of his progeny are snitches, but he’s been dead so long he has absolutely no concept of how diluted the bloodline has become. It could be absolutely full of snitches by now.
He does not notice the grulla mare standing in the river until she splits into two identical versions of herself. He blinks his muted surprise – that’s certainly the first time he’s ever seen that. He glances at the horses standing to either side of him, trying to gauge their reactions but everyone seems to be staring past the grulla mare to the far side of the river. He has fancied himself something of a lone ranger in death but his bitter want to be left alone does not immunize him against herd mentality and he instinctively squints across the water’s churning surface, too. He doesn’t see anything worth jaw-dropped wonder. Certainly nothing more arresting than the fact that the woman in the water has just cloned herself. Until, finally, he lands eyes on a familiar figure. He hasn’t seen her in two centuries, but he’d still know her anywhere. Cuerva Lista.
His brow furrows in confusion. “<b>You’re dead?!</b>” he shouts, but she does not seem to hear him. Convenient. How long has she been dead and he hasn’t known it? How long has she been dead without seeking him out? His indignation swells at the base of his throat. She’d known he was dead, of course, she’d been standing right there when he’d laid down and died. And it’s not as if it’s hard to find the dead, there aren’t that many places they can go.
He is so focused on his mounting irritation that he doesn’t hear the grulla mare. If they reach the other side, they’ll return to the living. Had he heard her, surely he would have turned tail and tried to make his way back to wherever he’d come from. He has no interest in returning to the living. He’d lived his unremarkable life and he’d been happy enough to call it a day. He does have a keen interest in making it across the river to confront the woman standing across from him, though. He can feel it itching in the marrow of his bones. Had she gone and shacked up with somebody else when he died? Is she shacking up with him in the afterlife, too?
He mutters darkly to himself, catches his tongue between his teeth in concentration. The grulla mare had waded into the river and the current had been strong enough that it literally cloned her. The last thing he wants is a clone, so he thinks better of trying to swim. He closes his eyes and tries to envision the river smaller, shallower, less violently powerful. But when he opens his eyes again, the river is the same as it was. Apparently he has been spirited to the only corner of the afterlife that he can not manipulate to suit his fancy. Great, that’s just great.
Well, isn’t this just a son of a bitch of an unsatisfactory situation?
It is admittedly the most action he’s seen in all the time he’s been dead.
But that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
He could just let it go, he thinks. Toss up an, ‘I think I’ll pass’ and call it a day. But he knows he’ll spend the next thousand years stewing over it if he doesn’t get an answer as to why she had not even made one single, solitary attempt to find him. So, he grits his teeth and thinks. Really thinks. Which almost immediately gives him a headache because his brain has been mostly dormant for the last two hundred years.
He glances in the direction of the waterfall, aware that the water gains both speed and ferocity as it approaches it. So, as his anger rises to a faint boil, he stalks along the edge of the river in the opposite direction. The river slows but does not settle entirely, but this is as good as it’s going to get.
“<b>Somebody should really build a bridge,</b>” he mutters bitterly. He still has absolutely no idea how he’s going to get across, but at least the water is a little bit calmer here and that in itself makes him feel like he’s accomplished something.
He inches closer to the river’s edge, squints into the water. His mouth turns down at its corners as he registers the life within it. Fish, primarily, swimming hard against the current, their bodies all muscle. Further down the river, the whole lot of them are trying to make their way across the river but he pays them no mind, focusing instead on his own personal dilemma.
He is lost in thought when some great thing surfaces several feet away. The muscles tense and he sucks in a sharp breath, startled by the creature’s sudden – and, quite frankly, intimidating – appearance. The thing is huge, at least four times bigger than he is. The skin is smooth and brown – or gray, he can’t tell because it reflects the light and he can’t see past it all that well – and the head is enormous. It opens its mouth, reveals its blunt teeth. He does not allow himself to wonder if this is the correct environment for a hippopotamus. It doesn’t matter. They’re all dead and he reasons that they can all go wherever they want and it doesn’t have to make sense
“<b>Hey!</b>” he calls out and the creature turns its great head in his direction. “<b>Hey, hey, hey, I need your help!</b>” He tries to sound friendlier than he feels. Charming. He tries to sound like someone who deserves helping. He doesn’t know if the creature understands him, but he’d had a rather lengthy conversation with a leopard once and had come to believe that the dead – no matter the species – all spoke the same language.
‘<i>With what?</i>’ the hippo asks and Antidote’s dormant heart soars. They <i>do</i> speak the same language!
“<b>I have to get across the river but I’m a lot smaller and weaker than you, so I can’t do it on my own.</b>”
The hippo considers it, takes his sweet time in doing it, too. ‘<i>What will you give me in return?</i>’ it asks and Antidote does not hesitate in offering up his answer.
“<b>You can eat her,</b>” he says, gestures vaguely in Cuerva Lista’s direction, “<b>just as soon as I get some answers from her.</b>”
It does not occur to either of them that the hippo is dead and no longer needs to eat. It’s none of Antidote’s business if the hippo still likes to hunt for sport. The hippo seems to shrug before it glides smoothly to the edge of the river.
“<b>Should I… do I just…?</b>” Antidote murmurs, trying to work out how to best climb onto the hippo’s gleaming back. His hooves haven’t grown much in the time he’s been dead, but he still can’t imagine it’d be comfortable for him to dig them into the space between the hippo’s shoulders. He’s a bit of a prick, but he’s not totally unreasonable and the hippo is doing him a favor. The least he can do is try to make it as comfortable as he can for the both of them. In the end, he perches himself on the hippo’s back on his knees, the back legs straight and the feet planted on the firm flesh above the hips.
“<b>I really appreciate this,</b>” he says, suddenly self-conscious, as the hippo starts across the river.
Antidote cannot help but notice that, as the hippo moves forward it also moves sideways, the current dragging the pair of them back toward the waterfall.
Antidote swears under his breath, trying to gauge how far from the opposite shore they are in regards to how far they are from the waterfall.
Which one will they reach first? </div><div class="dote_name">a n t i d o t e</div><img class="dote_image" src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5b6717ca6f37becaaee0bb26702920c0/3ff082c05113270c-6c/s640x960/cff037fdfc6c4fdcccb1a843c1f458c706f3a5f1.png"></div></center>
oh, a man ain't a man unless he has desire )</div><div class="dote_message">
<p>
It is the roar of some great river that finally rouses him.
His oak tree is gone, as is the figure whose approach had set his nerves to riot in the first place.
He is joined instead by a rather large congregation of horses, none of whom look familiar. Somehow, he can sense the peace in them. Briefly studying their faces, he knows without having to be told that the whole lot of them are comfortable in their deaths. And there, across the river, the ferocious and the noble and the heroic, whose eyes still blaze with a fire he never cared much to hold himself.
He could wonder why they are separated this way – or why they’re separated at all—but he’s not totally convinced he cares. He’s more focused on working out exactly why he’d been summoned here in the first place. This is surely some kind of punishment. Did someone rat on him for being a less than welcoming welcoming committee? He doesn’t want to believe that any of his progeny are snitches, but he’s been dead so long he has absolutely no concept of how diluted the bloodline has become. It could be absolutely full of snitches by now.
He does not notice the grulla mare standing in the river until she splits into two identical versions of herself. He blinks his muted surprise – that’s certainly the first time he’s ever seen that. He glances at the horses standing to either side of him, trying to gauge their reactions but everyone seems to be staring past the grulla mare to the far side of the river. He has fancied himself something of a lone ranger in death but his bitter want to be left alone does not immunize him against herd mentality and he instinctively squints across the water’s churning surface, too. He doesn’t see anything worth jaw-dropped wonder. Certainly nothing more arresting than the fact that the woman in the water has just cloned herself. Until, finally, he lands eyes on a familiar figure. He hasn’t seen her in two centuries, but he’d still know her anywhere. Cuerva Lista.
His brow furrows in confusion. “<b>You’re dead?!</b>” he shouts, but she does not seem to hear him. Convenient. How long has she been dead and he hasn’t known it? How long has she been dead without seeking him out? His indignation swells at the base of his throat. She’d known he was dead, of course, she’d been standing right there when he’d laid down and died. And it’s not as if it’s hard to find the dead, there aren’t that many places they can go.
He is so focused on his mounting irritation that he doesn’t hear the grulla mare. If they reach the other side, they’ll return to the living. Had he heard her, surely he would have turned tail and tried to make his way back to wherever he’d come from. He has no interest in returning to the living. He’d lived his unremarkable life and he’d been happy enough to call it a day. He does have a keen interest in making it across the river to confront the woman standing across from him, though. He can feel it itching in the marrow of his bones. Had she gone and shacked up with somebody else when he died? Is she shacking up with him in the afterlife, too?
He mutters darkly to himself, catches his tongue between his teeth in concentration. The grulla mare had waded into the river and the current had been strong enough that it literally cloned her. The last thing he wants is a clone, so he thinks better of trying to swim. He closes his eyes and tries to envision the river smaller, shallower, less violently powerful. But when he opens his eyes again, the river is the same as it was. Apparently he has been spirited to the only corner of the afterlife that he can not manipulate to suit his fancy. Great, that’s just great.
Well, isn’t this just a son of a bitch of an unsatisfactory situation?
It is admittedly the most action he’s seen in all the time he’s been dead.
But that doesn’t mean he has to like it.
He could just let it go, he thinks. Toss up an, ‘I think I’ll pass’ and call it a day. But he knows he’ll spend the next thousand years stewing over it if he doesn’t get an answer as to why she had not even made one single, solitary attempt to find him. So, he grits his teeth and thinks. Really thinks. Which almost immediately gives him a headache because his brain has been mostly dormant for the last two hundred years.
He glances in the direction of the waterfall, aware that the water gains both speed and ferocity as it approaches it. So, as his anger rises to a faint boil, he stalks along the edge of the river in the opposite direction. The river slows but does not settle entirely, but this is as good as it’s going to get.
“<b>Somebody should really build a bridge,</b>” he mutters bitterly. He still has absolutely no idea how he’s going to get across, but at least the water is a little bit calmer here and that in itself makes him feel like he’s accomplished something.
He inches closer to the river’s edge, squints into the water. His mouth turns down at its corners as he registers the life within it. Fish, primarily, swimming hard against the current, their bodies all muscle. Further down the river, the whole lot of them are trying to make their way across the river but he pays them no mind, focusing instead on his own personal dilemma.
He is lost in thought when some great thing surfaces several feet away. The muscles tense and he sucks in a sharp breath, startled by the creature’s sudden – and, quite frankly, intimidating – appearance. The thing is huge, at least four times bigger than he is. The skin is smooth and brown – or gray, he can’t tell because it reflects the light and he can’t see past it all that well – and the head is enormous. It opens its mouth, reveals its blunt teeth. He does not allow himself to wonder if this is the correct environment for a hippopotamus. It doesn’t matter. They’re all dead and he reasons that they can all go wherever they want and it doesn’t have to make sense
“<b>Hey!</b>” he calls out and the creature turns its great head in his direction. “<b>Hey, hey, hey, I need your help!</b>” He tries to sound friendlier than he feels. Charming. He tries to sound like someone who deserves helping. He doesn’t know if the creature understands him, but he’d had a rather lengthy conversation with a leopard once and had come to believe that the dead – no matter the species – all spoke the same language.
‘<i>With what?</i>’ the hippo asks and Antidote’s dormant heart soars. They <i>do</i> speak the same language!
“<b>I have to get across the river but I’m a lot smaller and weaker than you, so I can’t do it on my own.</b>”
The hippo considers it, takes his sweet time in doing it, too. ‘<i>What will you give me in return?</i>’ it asks and Antidote does not hesitate in offering up his answer.
“<b>You can eat her,</b>” he says, gestures vaguely in Cuerva Lista’s direction, “<b>just as soon as I get some answers from her.</b>”
It does not occur to either of them that the hippo is dead and no longer needs to eat. It’s none of Antidote’s business if the hippo still likes to hunt for sport. The hippo seems to shrug before it glides smoothly to the edge of the river.
“<b>Should I… do I just…?</b>” Antidote murmurs, trying to work out how to best climb onto the hippo’s gleaming back. His hooves haven’t grown much in the time he’s been dead, but he still can’t imagine it’d be comfortable for him to dig them into the space between the hippo’s shoulders. He’s a bit of a prick, but he’s not totally unreasonable and the hippo is doing him a favor. The least he can do is try to make it as comfortable as he can for the both of them. In the end, he perches himself on the hippo’s back on his knees, the back legs straight and the feet planted on the firm flesh above the hips.
“<b>I really appreciate this,</b>” he says, suddenly self-conscious, as the hippo starts across the river.
Antidote cannot help but notice that, as the hippo moves forward it also moves sideways, the current dragging the pair of them back toward the waterfall.
Antidote swears under his breath, trying to gauge how far from the opposite shore they are in regards to how far they are from the waterfall.
Which one will they reach first? </div><div class="dote_name">a n t i d o t e</div><img class="dote_image" src="https://66.media.tumblr.com/5b6717ca6f37becaaee0bb26702920c0/3ff082c05113270c-6c/s640x960/cff037fdfc6c4fdcccb1a843c1f458c706f3a5f1.png"></div></center>