01-12-2020, 10:12 PM
<center><table bgcolor=262626 style="border-color:#262626; border-width: 2px; border-style: solid;" cellspacing=10 cellpadding=10 width=620><tr><td><center><font color=e6e6e6 face=times style=font-size:9pt;line-height:8pt;letter-spacing:2pt;>here comes a candle to light you to bed
here comes a chopper to chop off your head</font></center><p align=justify><font color=bfbfbf face="times new roman" style="font-size: 10pt">The mom she had been thinking about is suddenly standing before her. Ryatah is not as Ripley remembers her - she now has angelic adornments. Ripley does not focus on the changes, however, just on the face and the eyes - the parts she knows. And those parts make Ryatah, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Ripley has ever seen. The first face she had ever known, the first voice she had ever heard. The first face she sees now, returned to her natural body, without the eyes of a hunter. The love that this dappled mare feels for her mother is strong, amplified more so in comparison to the pit of emptiness of before.
This love doesn't bring joy. Ripley would slay herself right here and now to spare herself from this overwhelming feeling she doesn't have the ability to comprehend. All she knows is that it brings pain with it, brings sadness and loss over a life she did not get to live.
Over the foals she did not embrace the way her mother embraced her.
“Mom.” Comes the hoarse voice again, cracking under the weight of the emotions swelling within her.
She doesn't have time to break, though. A ring forms around them and Ripley’s head snaps to watch, her heart pounding as the light rises up and connects until they are trapped within a dome. She's marveling at the strange sensation of her heart racing, whether from fear or anticipation she cannot possibly know, when she hears the bloodthirsty scream coming from where Ryatah had been standing.
Brown eyes widen in surprise and confusion. This isn't the mare who raised her - Ryatah was no warrior. Neither of her parents were even close to being fighters. She wouldn't have even guessed that they knew how to fight. But she doesn't retreat, doesn't so much as stumble backwards, from the horrifying sight of her mom coming to attack her.
It is not so horrifying when placed next to the nightmare she has lived through, after all. In the same moment that she knows that this cannot <i>really</i> be her mother, just a mutated duplicate here to torture her, she becomes aware that she cannot suppress the memories of her life and the instincts they have installed within her. They are already calculating what must happen next.
Those great, white and gold wings unfurl and Ryatah beats at the air with them, not to take off but forward to land a devastating blow. Ripley moves, feeling the loss of her usual body. No knife tail to slice, no dual jaws to crack into those fragile bones and rip the appendage off of this false-mother’s body.
Her teeth snap towards the brim of the wing but, without her usual jaws, they fall short and she receives a glancing blow from those wings. It’s still enough to make her head spin and she makes a retaliation almost immediately - those large, solid horns moving to collide with the head of the false-mother, waiting for that satisfying crunching noise of breaking bones. But Ripley’s head moves <i>through</i> Ryatah’s. The white angel laughs at the confusion over her daughter’s face as she rears to strike again. The blow sends pain through Ripley’s body and she circles away for a moment.
This girl who lived as a monster is no longer panicking. Her heartbeat has slowed and her breathing is steady. She has a hunter’s mind, and she’s already on the next step.
So when Ryatah attacks again, Ripley’s hooves strike at her in the same moment that she feels the blows on her own body. This time, she feels the impact she has made. They begin matching blow-for-blow, each one Ripley takes she gives back before that intangibility can slip back into place. Although she can feel the impact this tactic is having on her own body, the scent of the false-mother's blood stirs her on. She might have been stripped from the monster's body, but it is not gone. She feels the frenzy stirring her the longer the fight drags out.
There is no way for either of them to win the way they are going, fighting and biting as they are, they are tearing each other down in equal measure.
Until, finally, she cannot take it any longer.
Until the presence of blood has permeated Ripley's senses so thoroughly that she becomes ravenous. Her next strike comes quickly, and in such an unexpected fashion that the back-to-back blows land. First, she slams her thick ram's horse into Ryatah face. As the other mare's head spins and facial bones fracture, Ripley's head snakes forward and her teeth latch onto the fragile part of Ryatah's throat. Pupils dilated so far that her eyes nearly match those of her mom, Ripley is no longer seeing what is truly before her.
For a heartbeat, they are both still.
And then she tears with a savage jerk, the weight of her whole body behind the movement, and flesh and chunks of Ryatah's windpipe coming free with her mouth. Blood foams instantly as air leaks from the gash. Ryatah tries to inhale but the air leaks out instead of going into her lungs and they cannot expand. Back she stumbles until she collides with the red barrier and falls to the ground.
This is when Ripley's heart rate finally begins to climb, when her own breathing shakes. In grief, not fury. What has she done?
She lowers herself to the ground beside the gasping body of her mother and goes to drape her neck across that of Ryatah's. To sooth them both, to have one last embrace from her mom.
When she does - Ripley's head smacks against the blood-soaked earth instead. She roars as she tries again and again, but it's not until the last bit of warmth, the last bit of comfort, has gone out of Ryatah's body that Ripley is finally able to touch her.
<p align=right><font color=e6e6e6 style=font-size:10pt;line-height:8pt;letter-spacing:7pt;>ripley <s>& nostromo</s></font>
<font face="times" size="1" color="e6e6e6" style="letter-spacing:1px;line-height:14pt">XXVIII<font color=262626>-----</font></font></center></p></font></tr></td></table></center>
here comes a chopper to chop off your head</font></center><p align=justify><font color=bfbfbf face="times new roman" style="font-size: 10pt">The mom she had been thinking about is suddenly standing before her. Ryatah is not as Ripley remembers her - she now has angelic adornments. Ripley does not focus on the changes, however, just on the face and the eyes - the parts she knows. And those parts make Ryatah, without a doubt, the most beautiful thing Ripley has ever seen. The first face she had ever known, the first voice she had ever heard. The first face she sees now, returned to her natural body, without the eyes of a hunter. The love that this dappled mare feels for her mother is strong, amplified more so in comparison to the pit of emptiness of before.
This love doesn't bring joy. Ripley would slay herself right here and now to spare herself from this overwhelming feeling she doesn't have the ability to comprehend. All she knows is that it brings pain with it, brings sadness and loss over a life she did not get to live.
Over the foals she did not embrace the way her mother embraced her.
“Mom.” Comes the hoarse voice again, cracking under the weight of the emotions swelling within her.
She doesn't have time to break, though. A ring forms around them and Ripley’s head snaps to watch, her heart pounding as the light rises up and connects until they are trapped within a dome. She's marveling at the strange sensation of her heart racing, whether from fear or anticipation she cannot possibly know, when she hears the bloodthirsty scream coming from where Ryatah had been standing.
Brown eyes widen in surprise and confusion. This isn't the mare who raised her - Ryatah was no warrior. Neither of her parents were even close to being fighters. She wouldn't have even guessed that they knew how to fight. But she doesn't retreat, doesn't so much as stumble backwards, from the horrifying sight of her mom coming to attack her.
It is not so horrifying when placed next to the nightmare she has lived through, after all. In the same moment that she knows that this cannot <i>really</i> be her mother, just a mutated duplicate here to torture her, she becomes aware that she cannot suppress the memories of her life and the instincts they have installed within her. They are already calculating what must happen next.
Those great, white and gold wings unfurl and Ryatah beats at the air with them, not to take off but forward to land a devastating blow. Ripley moves, feeling the loss of her usual body. No knife tail to slice, no dual jaws to crack into those fragile bones and rip the appendage off of this false-mother’s body.
Her teeth snap towards the brim of the wing but, without her usual jaws, they fall short and she receives a glancing blow from those wings. It’s still enough to make her head spin and she makes a retaliation almost immediately - those large, solid horns moving to collide with the head of the false-mother, waiting for that satisfying crunching noise of breaking bones. But Ripley’s head moves <i>through</i> Ryatah’s. The white angel laughs at the confusion over her daughter’s face as she rears to strike again. The blow sends pain through Ripley’s body and she circles away for a moment.
This girl who lived as a monster is no longer panicking. Her heartbeat has slowed and her breathing is steady. She has a hunter’s mind, and she’s already on the next step.
So when Ryatah attacks again, Ripley’s hooves strike at her in the same moment that she feels the blows on her own body. This time, she feels the impact she has made. They begin matching blow-for-blow, each one Ripley takes she gives back before that intangibility can slip back into place. Although she can feel the impact this tactic is having on her own body, the scent of the false-mother's blood stirs her on. She might have been stripped from the monster's body, but it is not gone. She feels the frenzy stirring her the longer the fight drags out.
There is no way for either of them to win the way they are going, fighting and biting as they are, they are tearing each other down in equal measure.
Until, finally, she cannot take it any longer.
Until the presence of blood has permeated Ripley's senses so thoroughly that she becomes ravenous. Her next strike comes quickly, and in such an unexpected fashion that the back-to-back blows land. First, she slams her thick ram's horse into Ryatah face. As the other mare's head spins and facial bones fracture, Ripley's head snakes forward and her teeth latch onto the fragile part of Ryatah's throat. Pupils dilated so far that her eyes nearly match those of her mom, Ripley is no longer seeing what is truly before her.
For a heartbeat, they are both still.
And then she tears with a savage jerk, the weight of her whole body behind the movement, and flesh and chunks of Ryatah's windpipe coming free with her mouth. Blood foams instantly as air leaks from the gash. Ryatah tries to inhale but the air leaks out instead of going into her lungs and they cannot expand. Back she stumbles until she collides with the red barrier and falls to the ground.
This is when Ripley's heart rate finally begins to climb, when her own breathing shakes. In grief, not fury. What has she done?
She lowers herself to the ground beside the gasping body of her mother and goes to drape her neck across that of Ryatah's. To sooth them both, to have one last embrace from her mom.
When she does - Ripley's head smacks against the blood-soaked earth instead. She roars as she tries again and again, but it's not until the last bit of warmth, the last bit of comfort, has gone out of Ryatah's body that Ripley is finally able to touch her.
<p align=right><font color=e6e6e6 style=font-size:10pt;line-height:8pt;letter-spacing:7pt;>ripley <s>& nostromo</s></font>
<font face="times" size="1" color="e6e6e6" style="letter-spacing:1px;line-height:14pt">XXVIII<font color=262626>-----</font></font></center></p></font></tr></td></table></center>