"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
Draco is under no illusions, at least that is what he thinks. He sees the cruelty for what it is, and he embraces it. Like his father, his view of the world is gray and hopeless, but that does not mean he does not live deliciously.
Most days, the demon boy treads in shadow, glowing eyes fearsome and curious and ever-seeking the most dangerous prey. Father would be proud of me, he thinks, even if Litotes would be proud in a frightened way. He likes that—that power that sits in being better than his sire. Because he is better than him, so much better and stronger and demanding. That gray way he sees the world is what keeps him alive and ambitious.
There’s already so much ugly in the world . . . why not embrace it?
The curve of his horns sparkles red and dangerous when he smiles, one sure hoof stepping into the dry red of Pangea’s dust.
Father’s scent is long gone, he thinks, lifting his regal nose to the air. Draco is not stupid, and he does not allow his indifference to keep him ignorant, so he knows of Pangea’s new shadow leader. He wonders what this one does with her power.
Perhaps she is not so hopeless as the leaders of before, though he does find their peace and ordinary natures so utterly bland.
Hmmmm, he mumbles, white glimmers lighting up the blackness of his face.
..and the strength of the wolf is the pack..and the strength of the wolf is the pack
It had been raining steadily through the early morning and now as the sun slowly made its way towards its zenith in the sky, the rain switched off, almost as if someone had turned the faucet, and there were signs of movement at the mouth of the small cave jutting out halfway from the cliff face. Meiilyn blinked slowly, the weak sunlight illuminating the stray bits of twig and cave dandruff that clung to her lithe body, her furred tail flicking against her hocks as she waited for her eyes to adjust.
Furred ears flicking back and forth atop her poll she made her way down the gently sloping path, stopping at a small pool of water caused by rain getting trapped between rocks. Droplets clinging to the hairs on her muzzle she snorted and was about to move forward when she caught a brown shape crouched a little further down the path. Obviously she wasn't the only one happy to get out after the two day long deluge and with only a slight yawn she darted towards the rabbit.
Seeing a thousand pound plus horse running towards you would be enough to startle anything, but add to the fact briar rabibit was much smaller AND planned to live to be a cranky old bunny lady, had the mammal turning tail and darting off through the low scrubland. A chuckle escaped Meiilyn as she followed in pursuit, the rabbit leading her a merry dance between trees and low hanging branches that shed their droplets as the duo passed.
The boom that split the sky brought their chase to a screaming halt, the rabbit darting into a small burrow with a flick of its cotton white tail. Meiilyn glanced skywards, the streamers of cloud? mist? that hung heavy in the sky caused a shiver to run down her spine and it was only when she turned to start back to her cave she realised that she had no idea where she was.
Towering red rocks, sheer cliff faces with steep drops and an eerie whistle threaded over and around Meiilyn as she stood, glancing around at the landscape that looked the same, feeling a sense of unease as she sought to remember the way back.
He is perched somewhat oddly on an outcropping of red-gold sandstone, sitting unnaturally on his haunches with one black claw picking at the hard shell of his nostril. He sneezes - once, twice, three times - then returns to the delicate work of pulling feather dust and horse hair from the inflexible cavities in his cere.
The yearling was slow to come to Pangea. It wasn't that he hadn't heard that call as so many of the Others had, it was more that He was not Them, and so he had not assumed it referred to him. When the grey mare met him in the Meadow with her demons and shadows and the ice in her eyes, he had feared her, feared her through and through, and that has not changed. It has not changed, so the beaked youth has come, but he has not announced himself, keeping to the edges where the glossy black monsters hunt their prey through the box canyons. He fears them less, somehow, than the unassuming little dapple grey mare that rules here. Their strangeness make him feel less alone, though he makes no attempt to interact with them, nor they with him.
He has not come alone, Hippogryph is near as always, bristling and bullish and ready to defend, but ready, also, to reciprocate the intimate curl of her son pressing against her side when his loneliness is too great. A year under his spell has made her easy to manipulate, but mostly he lets the mare be, leaves her to her grazing and her quiet muttering. Her heart is soft under his touch, responds immediately when he tugs at it, and he thinks, for a moment, that he will call her, but the thoughts are interrupted suddenly by a rabbit and a dog-eared creature that burst into view near-by with a lick of thunder ringing behind them.
The thunder does not frighten him, but the horse awakens a familiar panic in his breast. The rabbit, though...
Almost without thinking, he reaches out. He cannot see the magic he extends to it, but he imagines it like a tendril, like a snake, slithering down the burrow until it finds the rapid beating heart of the she-rabbit, pulsing with fear from the chase. He cannot calm her fears but his touch lets her know that he loves her, reminds her that she should love him, and he would like to see her. By the time the colt is dropping down near the wolfish girl with a breathy hiss and and a rattling curse in the crows' language, the whiskered nose of the rabbit is at the burrow's mouth, smelling the air. She is cautious of the grey wolfmare, but Dreamscar jibbers at her in his most soothing voice.
It is not a very soothing sound, actually, if you are not already under his spell.
Come out, Little Rabbit.
She comes, slowly, still cautious of the mare, keeping the yearling between them. When she is close enough, she lays furred paws against the black scales of his foreleg, reaching up, and he drops his long head to catch her black gaze with his amber eyes. Her fur is brown and soft and smells faintly of the fresh earth dusting across her back. Gently, the rabbit touches her nose to his lowered cheek, grooming the long bearded hair that gathers there.
The colt purrs softly, and then he kills her.
She screams as the long talons of his other forelimb grab and crush, but they always scream and it no longer makes him cry. This is love, this is her love of him, her sacrifice. There is no sadness in it. One shining black claw finds her heart while the rest crush breath from her lungs, it is a quick thing. He does not make them suffer.
That is his love for her.
He has nearly forgotten the other horse, but he remembers now and the feathers gathered across his chest stand up in display as though to make him appear larger. He hisses again and pulls the limp rabbit beneath himself, protective of the small meal she will provide, then clambers awkwardly back up to his rocky perch on three legs. It is quick work to eviscerate the rabbit, to consume the innards and unceremoniously flick the remains from his ledge down below. For the wolfmare, for the crows, he does not care who takes the rest, but he takes the time to hiss at her a third time, a sound that dies in his throat as he realizes they are not alone at all. That there is another lurking nearby, dark where Dreamscar is pale, horned where he is beaked, but marked similarly with constellations and stars. The yearling growls softly at him.
11-19-2019, 02:39 AM (This post was last modified: 11-19-2019, 02:43 AM by Set.)
He soars high above their heads, a dark speck in the clear, blue sky of spring. His outstretched wings carry him in a slow, looping circle, lost amongst the half dozen or so other vultures who weave their lazy paths with his own. An easy way to keep track of the shadow Queen’s kingdom, from these heights it is easy enough to tap into each consciousness. Sometimes the distance muffles the sound. Twisting his bald head, he banks south sharply, the sharp curve of his beak leading him around and down the inside edge of his thermal. A palomino with the lion in her belly, the death-stench youngling; a lithe snake with a bad attitude and the awkwardly-horned Pangean heir. He does not stay in their heads – too draining, too confusing – only brushes along their minds and interactions enough to touch the surface, raise those little, telling hairs. No qualms, no boundaries – not anymore.
How the black-hearted children flock to the desolate sandstone, the parched throne of the shadowmare. War, destruction, darkness, it calls to their lost souls (or hollow, empty caverns) like a piper’s flute. The dirty red rock and its sparse vegetation loom closer and he yawns, his eyes closing. They open on a wild grin and his vulture’s body melts.
The sow bug is small, for a bug, but its little potato-body does the trick. He plummets the final thousands of yards with wild hooping and hollering, unheard by even those immediately below because, well, he’s a tiny bug. A bug who will always thrill in the gut-clenching feeling of free-fall. His magic burns like fire in his veins when he strikes the earth, sending up a tiny puff of rust-colored dirt. Antennae twitching, he sets his little legs to motion, the rain-soaked soil firm under him as he scuttles uphill. On his way down, he had felt a curious consciousness, half-creature but not quite like the others. Different. He tops the rise cheetah-sprint fast, careful to keep his zoomie-bug body out of sight as he makes his way down the nearest slope in expedition.
Slowing when he is closer, he creeps around the edge of a small boulder that rests just below Dreamscar, peeking uphill at him. Woodlouse-Set rears back in horror at the sight of the hippogriff-horse picking his nose, legs and antenna waving wildly. Of all the macabre habits. Thoroughly disgusted, he turns away from the sight, ignoring the crack in the heavens signaling the end of the break in the rains. The wolf-mare downhill and the churlish mind-reader just out of sight garner his attention instead. Until Dreamscar performs his little trick, stalking past him in a stinking wake of love me. Even in the safety of his gray-armored body, Woodlouse-Set can feel the breath crushed from his lungs, the pierced matter. It draws no sympathy from him but his miniature body bristles at the eviscerated waste that follows, carelessly flipped end over end. It comes to rest with a soft thud not far from Woodlouse-Set.
He won’t be able to duplicate it many times, not from the confines of his rather small body, but he has enough to do the trick. The small brown, still-warm body twitches and rolls over, getting to its feet. Its questing nose seeks out the nearest patch of brown grass, dragging torn entrails and fresh blood. Set wriggles, trying to see all of their reactions, his bunny-tailed animations casually browsing the dusty earth, seemingly unfazed by recent events and company.
ooc - sorry, not sorry. you guys shouldn't have such fascinating characters. also, MG!!!! -squee-
Perhaps much of Draco’s devilish behavior is rooted in his deep sense of otherness. While his mother loved him dearly and his father found him to be a favorite, the demon knows too well how different he is from his siblings. He and Dove were not random nights of passion, nor were they woven together by family—they were something entirely different, something secretive and tense and unyielding.
It is within his outcast view that he remains staunchly alone. The ground he stands upon is far different from his siblings. They may walk not knowing their father, or walk totally comforted by their mother, but Draco struts in his uncertainty. He would rather die than let those around him know of his hurt and confusion. His bitterness and depression turn to rage and anarchy, especially when eyes of understanding are met with his.
Let them suffer, he thinks, red eyes cast to the graying sky above. I am above that.
Speaking of the suffering of others . . . Draco just barely catches the failed chase of a rabbit. Brilliant red eyes flash with excitement, and then suddenly, they fall with disappointment. He cocks his head to the left and then to the right, reaching out with the fingers of his magic to touch her thoughts. There is not much there beyond the thoughts of the chase, and just when he thinks he wants to turn back, a thunderclap sounds above. The unease that seeps through the wolfmare’s mind catches Draco as he turns away.
This—anxiety, fear, panic, whatever—he can work with.
Draco should have picked up on Dreamscar’s thoughts before the colt made himself known, but he was feeling so introspective that the monotone boy’s arrival startles him. He jumps then checks his surroundings to ensure no one saw his moment of vulnerability.
His angry embarrassment evaporates the moment he drops in on the hippogiff’s thoughts. Predatory, lacking . . . fascinating . . . Draco has yet to encounter one like him. A smile glows white against his black lips. There is potential—but for what, the demon has not quite figured out.
Dreamscar returns to his perch, ultimately drawing the constellation dappled boy from his quiet spot. The glow of his eyes reaches for the half-creature, desperate to feel if the boy is vulnerable to his powers. He then drags his gaze to Meiilyn, dimming that fear-shine just enough to smile and make introductions.
“Afternoon,” he murmurs, deciding on a whim to be charming. He is about to murmur something else when he notices the eviscerated rabbit’s dancing just beyond the wolfmare’s hindquarters. “Hmm . . .” he murmurs, only feeling apprehension because he does not understand. Entrails do not phase him.
“Do you see that?” he finally asks, a faked half-smile on his lips.
omg so many lovely replies!
@[Meiilyn] @[Set] @[Dreamscar]
11-29-2019, 07:31 PM (This post was last modified: 11-29-2019, 07:33 PM by Meiilyn.)
Meiilyn
..and the strength of the wolf is the pack..and the strength of the wolf is the pack
She had been contemplating re-tracing her steps and hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't be stuck here when there was a rush of air, a hiss of breath almost like a balloon letting go and then one gruttural word in some language (if it even was language?) before the shape makes itself known.
Beqanna was home to many strange and wondorous things but even through she herself is one such beast, the horse (?) before her makes her blink once or twice. The question of where she was almost rippled through the air before her attention was caught by the rabbit that had caused her to end up here.
She watches with a child-like fascination as the rabbit crawls towards the horse, her nose twitching back and forth, fluffy tail wiggling almost in excitement. It would have almost been a perfect kodak moment, the rabbit reaching up to brush her nose against his cheek, if there hadn't been a scream and then the rabbit was bits and pieces strewn across the ground.
Meiilyn snorts softly and takes a step or two back, not wanting to draw his attention but with another hiss the creature retreats, taking the rabbit to his lofty perch before feasting on the innards.
She watches as the carcass seems to fly through the air, landing in a broken and discarded heap not far from where she stood, rooted to the spot. Having all but made up her mind to run, hell she couldn't end up in a worse place could she, her attention is caught by another movement.
Another horse had decided to make their presence known and she felt herself drawn to the shifting contellation markings covering his coat and it is with reluctance she pulls her eyes from them as he speaks.
"Do you happen to know where I am and how I can get back home?" She is about to ask again when his gaze shifts and she follows the line of his sight, fear causing her fur to stand on end as the once dead rabbit wiggles to a standing position, nose and whiskers twitching.
Fear is nothing new to Dreamscar. It colors each step he takes in this world and Draco is simply throwing sticks into what is already a blazing wildfire. The knot of ice in his stomach, the clenching fist of his heart - he lives with his fears every single day, and when the red glow of the horned youth's eyes reaches out to him, he feels the stretch of his anxiety reach back in response, two fingers of flame twisting together. The flat amber of his eyes flashes and a low growl rumbles again in the back of his throat.
Whatever his plan, it is interrupted immediately by the wriggling of the eviscerated rabbit. The growl cuts out, black-tipped ears sweeping forward and his head tilting in a distinctly avian sort of way.
That has never happened before.
If he has noticed the segmented pill bug that lingers nearby, he ignores it, the insects always come to him. The love inducement draws them in, like pheremones, moths and crickets, beetles and pill bugs and mantids. This is as much a reason why the crows follow him as the small bodies left in his wake, and they - noisy, watchful sentries - are waiting in the bare trees and lining the cliff edges. They, too, watch the dead rabbit lope clumsily along, leaving a blood trail behind it in the sand. For half a moment, Dreamscar lets a tendril of his power drift across the creature, brushing... something, but not the consciousness that was there before. He would remember the feeling of her, but this is unfamiliar, this is something with no love for him, and he cannot grip the slippery thing that inhabits his rabbit's body so he pulls away for different prey.
Draco draws the mare's attention to the shuddering corpse and Dreamscar takes the opportunity to return the favor of boundary crossing. He croons softly as the heartsick rush of his power snakes out arrow-fast, seeking to press into the young stallion's dark chest, to make the heart skip in his breast. He rubs either side of his beak nonchalantly against the sandy edge of his perch, wiping away the dried bit of blood and hair that remains, then leans forward slightly to see what, if anything, happens between mare and stallion and rabbit, but does not leap down among the trio. He prefers the advantage of height.
12-14-2019, 12:20 AM (This post was last modified: 12-14-2019, 12:22 AM by Set.)
When Set was born, magic in Beqanna was still relatively rare. Once it had been the traited and the traitless; they lived in kingdom counterparts, good and evil and all the in-between. Beqannans could never be satisfied with black and white, though, not when the gray area purred and beckoned. Mixed and mingled, their world has evolved - they have evolved. It renders the odd macabre puppet theater not nearly as entertaining as it had been when he was young. Sowbug-Set yawns and stretches (felines know how to stretch the best), arching his armored back. The rabbit pauses, nose twitching, hazy eyes jumping from one observer to another. Its head whips around with a loud snapping sound, pupils wide and dilated as it locks on the creature peering down from above. It stares him down accusingly before crouching down to hop closer, - once, twice, standing up every few bounds or so, its intestines trailing behind like little bloody snakes, nose and whiskers twitching wildly as it studies him.
Woodlouse-Set can feel it when Dreamscar’s magic flies downhill past him. It is different from the love-me smog that hangs around the beaked youngling. He watches it until it disappears into the demon mimic’s chest, then turns his attention back to the perpetrator with a curious tilt to his head.
Dreamscar’s fur is teeming with lovesick insects. When he slips into the beetle’s body, tucked warm along the stallion’s crest, it is like slamming into a noxious wall. Beetle-Set’s stomach turns with the adoration of it. Absently, he reaches out to the mindreader, Dreamscar’s target. It’s the stomach-eater, Set thinks, wrestling with the now indignant and flailing beetle. It rears and bucks, desperate to get even closer to its addiction, resistant to Set’s grasp. Disgusted, Set withdraws, flinging the beetle to the ground as he cracks back into his own body, materializing next to the wolf-girl. With a crooked grin and a wink in her direction, he turns to see how the attacked will counter. Opposites … he muses from behind a well-fortified wall. Fear and love … or the same? He glances sideways at Meilyn. “Where’s home?”
Draco almost wishes the entrails and severed limbs disgust him. As he watches the once-dead creature do its sickening little dance, he feels almost nothing other than amusement, and for a moment he realizes something might be wrong with that. All it takes a simple shrug and sly smile to shake that feeling, and he is dragging his crimson gaze back to the wolf-girl.
Warmth flares sudden and unwelcome in Draco’s chest. His eyes whip up to the beaked creature perched above them, wanting to feel anger but finding he cannot. Instinctively, his eyes begin to glow a furious red, whipping out waves of fear just as Dreamscar sends out tendrils of love. The air feels thick with thoughts and magic and Draco grows nauseous, incapable of taking his gaze away from the hippogriff. It all grows too much—
Too much until an entirely new equine appears next to Meiilyn and the demon is finally capable of tearing his gaze away from the love illusionist. He whips his head around to peer suspiciously at Set, still feeling the calls of love, therefore incapable of turning down the fear aura of his eyes. They frantically consider the magician as he questions Meiilyn, then return to the hovering hippogriff.
“I know you’re doing something! Please stop,” Draco calls gently to Dreamscar. What he wants to come out is “what the fuck is wrong with you” and “I’ll make you regret this” but the constricting magic keeps his request polite.
Still, though, his eyes glow erratically, and he is so focused on the hope that this will sway the hippogriff that he can barely comprehend the crowding thoughts of the others.
Set
