"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
08-08-2020, 07:17 PM (This post was last modified: 08-08-2020, 09:35 PM by Cassi.)
lord, I fashion dark gods too;
He does not waste time. Sixteen come, in the end, though he isn’t sure they will all persevere – if anyone perseveres at all. He surveys them briefly, before getting to know them in a more intimate way – through death.
This is, of course, entirely unnecessary – he could have simply cast them to the afterlife without such fanfare. But where’s the fun in that? Besides, he envisions this as a sort of test. And he wants them to truly belong in the afterlife, wants them to be occupants, not voyeurs. It might matter. It might not.
He tears the first apart, leaves her drowning in blood.
The second is a surprise, and he laughs when he sees her. She tries to needle him, and it might have worked, once, when he was younger and his pride was a less steady thing, but now, he is simply silent as he tears her to pieces. He considers taking her magic for his own, but leaves it – he does not want to bother with such old, dusty things.
The third is Ryatah’s daughter – though not by him – and he wonders if her mother knows, or cares. He kills her quickly, and perhaps it is out of kindness, or something like it.
A shadow creature. He’s met such things before, bred them himself, and he is curious to see what happens when such a thing is unmade.
Another magician, then – don’t they know better? – and he kills her most gruesomely, rats pouring from her mouth. He considers taking her magic, too, but when he touches it something sparks in him, like static electricity, and he leaves it be. White magic has no place with a dark god.
The radioactive one – his own daughter - is easy, he simply mutes her power for a moment, and her own body does the work for him.
The next also has ties – his father helped raise Pangea, did he not? – but it does not stop Carnage from taking pleasure in turning the mountain lion onto him.
The next has died before, he senses, and he wonders if it will be beneficial, to have someone experienced in the art. He burns him alive.
He takes a definite pleasure in Ashhal’s death – though Carnage has largely surpassed jealousy, he’s not so evolved that he doesn’t take a certain pleasure in rending the stallion to nothingness. He makes a note to tell Ryatah of this, later.
Another mare, in thunder and colors, wood in her chest, making and unmaking her.
A child, then. He doesn’t hesitate, of course. She cracks beneath him, bones delicate as a bird.
A mare who faces dying with an impotent bravery. He burns her, too.
A old mare comes, one whose name seems almost familiar. He wonders if their paths have crossed before, and then he turns her heart to shards and watches her collapse.
Another child of his, this one star-laced. He remembers her mother, which is more than he can say for many. He’d named this one, had her not? Not that it matters – there is no nostalgia as he shackles her, drowns her.
The next is deaf, and he takes a sick pleasure in letting her glimpse sound, and then killing her with it.
The last to come is a stallion with a dragon inside him, and the dark god makes quick work of him as well, light pouring from him.
Finally, it is over, and he surveys the menagerie of corpses at the beach. There is a pleasure in such heedless slaughter, all in his name. He takes in the massacre a moment longer, and then reaches out to their waiting souls, the ghosts in the afterlife.
The afterlife itself looks much like the beach they have just departed. But it has a certain air about it, the colors washed from it. And unlike the beach they had just stood upon, the beach in the afterlife has a fog in the distance, thick and white. He looks at it for a moment, curious – it had not been there when he’d last visited, and the afterlife so rarely changed. He wonders how it came about, and figures he will know soon enough, once he sends them forth.
There’s a place, he tells them, his voice booming in their minds, where the reality of the afterlife grows thin. Where it’s rubbed up against something, I think. Worn down. It’s not far from here. Just head further down the beach. Into the fog.
What he does not tell them is that he has not stood directly before this spot, only sensed it. He had hated that buzzing noise so! He can hear it now, faintly, through their eyes, but it is more tolerable here, a world removed. You’ll hear a buzzing. Soon, if not now. The louder it is, the closer you are. It’s not…pleasant. There may be other things too, in that fog, so stay sharp. Though what are they going to do, kill you?
He laughs – it echoes in their minds, unpleasant - and does not say that there are so many things worse than death. Good luck he tells them, and then he is gone from their minds, and they are left to find their way to the next door, the next gateway.
NOTES:
- You are in the afterlife, which currently looks like a drab, grayer version of the beach, with a thick fog in the distance. There is a faint, insectile buzzing. Head off into the fog.
- Bad news – the fog has some…. interesting effects. Good news – you can decide what! As you travel through the fog, it must cause at least one (1) obstacle for you. This can be mental (going mad, emotional breakdown), physical (the fog itself starts to poison you), or other (are there…monsters in the fog? Maybe!).
- Also, and its own unrelated obstacle, as you move through the fog you start to notice an insectile buzzing, kind of like locusts. As you move closer to your destination, it grows louder, then almost unbearable – at the end, you can’t hear anything but the noise, and you can feel it grinding in your bones.
- You’ll stop a cliff, which is not a mirror of anything that exists in Beqanna. Wait there for the next set of instructions!
- Traits are allowed, but they’re noticeably weaker on this side of the afterlife. Furthermore, the further you move through the fog, if you use traits, they will start to misfire (you try to heal but injure yourself instead) or not work at all. By the time you reach the cliff, no traits are useable at all.
- If you have any questions, feel free to message me here or on Discord!
- Replies are due at or before 11:59 PM CST on Friday, August 14th. If you need to withdraw, message me. Failure to reply without officially withdrawing will result in elimination and a defect.
He barely responds to her taunting, but that’s more than she expected. He, of course, would not join them, as he is too good for that, the almighty Carnage. He kills her without a second thought, which is just as much as she did expect from him.
As more join her, Blasphemare looks around, her blood-colored eyes sizing up the crowd that just keeps growing around her. Before her was the Pegasus, whose wings were ripped gruesomely from her body. After her came a young little thing, and thankfully, the beast gives her a quick death. The next was a young colt, though this one slightly older than the little thing that came before him. The young things continue to appear, as another filly appears, this one destined for rats to practically eat her from the inside out. Carnage allows the next mare to be consumed by the her own radioactivity. Then a stallion rips himself to shreds. The next stallion burns alive. Another stallion gets ripped to shreds, not unlike how Blasphemare had been torn apart. An old mare came forth next, and Carnage rips the wood from her body. It was the next little one that really bothered the old mare, for it was nothing more than a babe, and the beast stomps her into the afterlife. Another filly comes forth to be burned alive. Then another mare gets ripped from the inside out, before the next mare gets drowned by the ocean. Yet another mare dies at Carnage’s hands, this one from sound. Then finally, a stallion comes forth and dies from a bright, white light that pours from every orifice in his body.
When it is over, sixteen of them stand as shadows upon the beach, listening for future instructions, as there isn’t much else to do now that they have died. Blasphemare quietly examines her surroundings. She wasn’t much familiar with the Beach, or at least not that she remembers. There were bones littering the sands, many buried, many worm, some fresh, not including those that had just died. All of these were grey and muted, as was the rest of the world now.
She could hear a low buzzing, somewhat in the back of her mind, though annoying nonetheless. She shakes her head, her long, black mane sweeping over her face and neck. This does nothing, however, to make the buzzing go away, so she does her best to try to ignore it, though the sound is nearly impossible to ignore. She uses her magic to damper the sound for a time.
Then his voice filled her ears once more, and she shifts to look at Carnage, his grey figure fitting so perfectly in with the scenery here. He explains to them what would come next, along with the buzzing that already filled her ears. Swinging her head around, she looks in the direction that they would be heading. Indeed, there was a fog, thick and ominous, though this did not scare her.
Without hesitation, she begins her quest, moving with no creaking or cracking now that she is dead. It doesn’t take her long to move into the fog. It licks her hide gently and serenely, though she knows it hides more than the calmness that beckons her forth. Soon enough, she hears the buzzing growing louder. As she moves along, however, the buzzing grows fainter. Confused, she turns back and walks in the opposite direction, and for a time, the buzzing grows louder once more. However, soon the buzzing began to grow more dim once more, so once again, she turned in the opposite direction. She casts her magic into the fog, sensing for the buzzing, and for a time, this works, before her magic flickers and dies.
She began to feel frantic, unsure that she would reach her destination. This was an unusual feeling for the old mare, for she had rarely ever found herself feeling frantic. So for a moment, she pauses and takes a deep breath. It was then that she began to hear the whispers. If up is down, and down is up; if left is right, and right is left, then which way would be forward, and which way back? This had to be a trick question.
Carefully, Blasphemare picked her direction, and indeed, the buzzing grew louder for a time. Then it grew quieter once more, but this time, she pressed on. She pressed on and on, despite the buzzing getting lower and lower, until finally, the buzzing began to grow louder once more, and the feeling of being frantic slowly began to dwindle, though the sensation of annoyance grew, as the buzzing rattles her bones so deeply and without remorse.
The buzzing continued to grow. It grew to the point where her bones felt as though they would rattle from her body–if you could call it that, since, you know, she’s dead now. It grew until there was nothing but that buzzing. She could almost taste the buzzing in her mouth, a dry and disgusting taste. Then finally, the fog lifts, and before her lay a cliff like nothing she had ever seen before. As she stood at the edge and looked down, she could see nothing. It was as if the world ended here. And there she stood, waiting.
Nothing but emptiness - a void that begs to be filled but is continually emptied, an abyss that has so generously brought him so far deep into it that he is already certain he will not return from it. He closes his eyes, wondering and believing that perhaps a thousand years have already passed in this vacant place in just the few moments he’d been standing there, with grey sand biting at his flesh with a ravaging wind that utters no sound. Of course there is no sound; this place is like a vacuum, sucking any and everything dry, and Svedka feels the same process deep within his soul.
Even the buzzing does not stir the two-toned stallion. He is content to stand here forever in this barren place, to be nothing just as the world around him is nothing. It is not until the dark god begins to speak once again does Svedka begin to rouse awake, bleary-eyed and so very tired as his gaze flickers blankly, expressionless and indifferent as he stares upon the grey stallion. There are instructions but the void has scrubbed him clean of all understanding, so as the others move forward into the fog, he wearily turns his head to watch them. For a moment he considers them, blinking slowly, and finds himself wanting to crumble to the ground and to become no one, for all eternity.
Then, like a hot knife into the back of his head, something jerks him back to life. Perhaps it is the dark god ensuring that all his participants do just that - participate - or maybe it is the second soul within him fighting for its own life. Either way, the beast within him roars in protest, turning Svedka’s eyes flat and black with rage and ferocity. The stallion is too tired to fight and willingly gives into the lion’s demands, succumbing to the darkness that he so readily wishes for.
But there is no shift here in the afterlife.
There is nothing.
So the stallion becomes a beast, but this beast is tenfold - he is furious that he remains in such a weak vessel, but rabid with fury and hunger. The lion craves blood and its pound of flesh, causing drool to drip from Svedka’s trembling pearlescent lips, salivating until it becomes foam in the corners of his mouth. The stallion pants heavily, hobbling forward into the fog with deliberate and staggered steps, shuffling into its embrace unceremoniously.
Svedka’s eyes - still black as night - peruse the fog with unearthly rolls and clicks. His muscles spasm and tremor, the lion attempting to break out of its prison completely, but remaining in this terrible and morbid in-between, snapping at nothing as he walks along, groaning and dragging his hooves. The beast in equine form follows the buzzing, drawn to its sound and the hope that its source would bring him flesh and bone to chew between his teeth, for blood that he can bathe in. He snorts and the foaming spittle on his lips spray from him, each inhale fueling the walking nightmare that he is, his adrenaline at an all time high along with whatever the fog is pumping into his lungs.
Something alerts him - a noise, perhaps, but a smell for sure.
His already disparaging walk staggers into an even slower pace, turning his two-toned head towards whatever poor soul has wandered too close to him accidentally. Hunger fills its eyes and he roars violently, moving suddenly with such speed now that a taste of flesh is so near. He attempts to tear into whatever it is, howling madly with desperation when its hooves do not break skin as easily as claws, and that his teeth cannot sever arteries. He now attacks out of sheer frustration, each blow becoming slower and less purposeful with each passing moment.
Just as quickly as he has attacked he goes still, the insectile buzzing growing louder and distracting him from his feeble attempts to rip this being apart. With a garbled hiss, Svedka falls back into the fog, continuing on his way towards that same sound that had called to him in the first place.
Perhaps the buzzing sound has begun to strip him clean of whatever the fog had created in him, for it now echoes in his bones and grates against him, making his hair stand on end. He shakes his head slowly in discomfort, moaning hauntingly as he stumbles forward in this fervent in-between stage, beginning to weaken and tire once again as his hooves scrape wearily against the grey sand. The fog begins to writhe and contort around the mad stallion as he shuffles along, low growls vibrating vaguely in his throat. As the fog dissipates and the cliffside comes into his view, Svedka’s eyes return to their deep cerulean (somehow they are not as bold; whitewashed and dull, instead) as his salivating slows to a stop with each inhale of clear air.
Once again he is expressionless, devoid of any realization or understanding, perhaps not even noticing that he has made the journey forward through the fog and nearly begins a venture into uncharted territory.
Having just died, the idea of a trek through some fog did not feel like a daunting task in comparison. And her curiosity had returned while she listened to the information they were given - a desire to see whatever it was lay where worlds meet. Surely there will be something fantastic.
“Shall we?” Beyza offers the words with a small smile to Jamie before she moves into the fog. As though they were about to stroll through a sunlit woods or graze together on wildflowers. She doesn't give much thought to the other souls that had passed over, only focusing on the one she really knows. And then, as the thick fog surrounds her, she is not afraid - only wondering if he is. Or does he feel at home in the dense, thick air? She won’t ask, though, not after their last meeting. She is torn between wanting to him to see her be strong and not wanting him to think she’s dumb enough (or reliant on her magic enough) to not even feel fear after death.
After a while, the buzzing steadily grows louder. When it is persistent enough to comment on, she looks to her (what? Friend? Acquaintance? Companion?) she freezes in the action of taking her next step.
The fog billows around Jamie like it belongs on his skin, and of course it does. It turns to black smoke so much like his shadows as his legs and spine elongate and he becomes skeletal, otherwordly. Those bright yellow eyes burn but not with any fire.
They are so cold they scald her as she looks into them.
She is looking into the eyes of Death as it calls to her in Jamie’s voice “Beyza.”
Although there is some doubt, Beyza easily believes that this is why Jamie had been afraid to be whole - why he had not accepted his true self. Because he was harbouring Death - and surely that would be a fearsome thing to unleash upon Beqanna. She tries to remember whether she had met Jamie and Liv for the first time before or after she had revived her sister and the radioactive girl - or was it after? Had Death come to the world and stalked her, waiting for the chance to confront her about what she had stolen.
Perhaps she should have pushed Jamie that day so that they would not be here now, on Death’s home turf.
Beyza isn’t sure what she feels when she turns to face Death but she does not believe it's fear. There’s a fierce sort of pride, perhaps, and a rush of something in the pit of her stomach. A fierce attraction that makes her want to go to him, right here in this fog, if it weren’t an incredibly wrong time and place. So instead she stands her ground, head held high, a fire of her own burning in her white eyes. It is easy to assume why Death would come for her. “I’m not sorry.” She tells him and means it. She feels no guilt - not when Caledonia, of everyone she knows, deserves to be alive. The world needs her light.
“You should be.” Death hisses as he takes a step forward and looms over her, the movement causing the bones beneath his skin to rattle. “You owe me two souls, little magician. Perhaps I will keep you and your friend instead.” The black fog that surrounds him curls towards her, a beckoning finger as it reaches out to brush her skin as the plumes closer to the ground solidify around her hooves into a thick oil, the same that she had choked on just moments ago.
This, finally, elicits a response from her as she stumbles away, her hooves making a suction noise as they pull out of the slick oil. “No!” She did not want to stay here, in death, not now. Did not want to see what tortures wait for her in a place where she cannot die again but instead would suffer through it forever. And she would not allow Jamie to suffer here either. Whether he was just possessed by Death or a piece of it himself, it wasn't fair for him to be trapped here in the afterlife. They just needed to make it to… wherever they were supposed to go. Towards the buzzing, that was it. But before she can move the oil is around her feet again, rising up her legs and solidifying as it does - rooting her to her spot as she twists and watches Death approach - grinning Jamie’s shark grin.
She struggles, trying to use her magic to make her escape, but it is sluggish and slow to come to her call. A flicker of panic makes her eyes widen a little more (though when they are all white, who can tell?). Only for a moment, because inspiration hits her then and she calls out desperately before the oil can crawl up her skin and rise to her throat. “Wait! Wait, what if I send you two souls when we’re back.”
“Three” Death bargains in a rattling hiss near her ears and Beyza accepts without hesitation.
The fog and oil retreat from her. She stumbles at her release and, trembling just a little, begins to move once more toward the sound of the buzzing - believing Death/Jamie would follow. Believing that he’d haunt her steps until this promise was fulfilled. And although maybe there was a flicker of fear in her heart now, she felt a rush of excitement as well. A way to keep him close, a way to prove herself to him. And all it would cost was three souls.
The excitement did not last long, not when the fog grew thicker and the buzzing noise grew so loud it deafened her to all else. She tries to use her magic to shield herself and Jamie from the noise but abandoned that pursuit when it only seemed to make it worse. She's sure she can see the noise it is so loud, that it blurs her vision on the sides from the intensity of it. Beyza thinks she cries out in frustration and pain, but if she makes a noise of her own it is lost in the haze of everything else. Only when the fog ceases and reveals a cliff does she stop - shaking her head and trying her best to focus on the near-nothingness - eyes wild as she turns to see whether Jamie or Death made it through the fog at her side.
Astra gazed around at the grey beach, listening carefully to the words the cruel stallion spoke in her mind. Fear and grief filled her small body, but still she did as she was instructed, and began to move. Sand kicked up behind her as she began a quick pace, wanting to be away from here as quickly as possible, but the sound of the buzzing was already beginning to ring in her ears. Thick fog began to surround her as she traveled, and the mare's pace began to slow down, struggling to see what was in front of her - or around her at all for the matter.
The buzzing wasn't the only thing she was hearing, those horrid familiar voices began to swim through her ears, lacing her thoughts with ideas and realizations that to most were not true. The things they told her shook her to her core, and sprung tears to her eyes; and, mixed with the insect-like buzzing, made her feel as though her very skull was being shaken rapidly, her head beginning to pound. The voices weren't usually this strong, this loud, but the further she traveled into the fog, the more demanding and harsh they became, and Astra's legs began to shake from the overwhelming emotions they brought.
Though her head pounded with yelling and buzzing, she lifted it once more, pushing onwards and squinting in a futile attempt to make out any details at all among the heavy veil. A tall, white outline shone through it, and her eyes became wide in disbelief. At first her heart sank, knowing that if she was seeing her mother here in the afterlife, it could only mean one thing. Shaking the thought away, she forced herself to sprint, blackened hooves pounding against the sand as she made her way to her mother's side, desperate to press her face against the familiar warmth and feel the safety that only her mother could bring her.
White corrupted to an oil-like black though as she drew close, and her mother's form was mutilated and twisted into a creature she had only seen in her nightmares. It bore its teeth at her and let out a growl that made her blood run cold. Tiny heart pounding, she swerved to other side of it, bolting as fast as she could away from it, but she could hear a horrible pounding behind her that told her the demon was close on her heels.
The deeper she went into the fog, the louder the buzzing got, until eventually she heard no voices, and the foot steps of the demon were drowned out; however, she could feel the buzzing all the way to her bones, her ears and her head aching and pounding, and tears stained her face as she desperately screamed, yet she could not even hear her own cries.
Astra halted in her steps, causing a cloud of debris and sand to sting her teary eyes. She had stopped just in time; her hooves just barely lingering at the edge of a cliff. There was no wear to run now, and she felt trapped and hopeless, and couldn't run away from this awful buzzing. Her tiny frame sank to the ground, and she lay there in fear, trying in earnest to hide away from the horrors this place had brought.
She’s not sure what she expected death to be like. She’d thought about it enough. But this? This was nothing like she’d imagined. She’d always imagined something more peaceful. Quiet even. She knew immediately she was naïve to think so, like so many other things in her short life.
The fog looks like that she had known in life. Such was common in Pangea – given the climate of the unforgiving land. But she knew better than to think that this task would be simple. That this fog would be normal. She can hear the buzzing when he mentions it – faint, like the humming of an insect’s wings. Her glowing gaze doesn’t deviate from the undulating mass of fog – doesn’t look over to the others who had been brought to the afterlife. It was hypnotic, almost, watching as the earthbound clouds moved lazily across this strange version of the beach…
Good luck, he says, but Anomaly does not feel very lucky. That doesn’t stop her, though. She’d been given this task. She’d see it through. Determination was something she’d inherited from her mother. Stubbornness too. Or perhaps that had come from him? Her father? Or perhaps there were latent bits of him dormant within her broken body yet to emerge. Or maybe they were just hidden away in the fog?
The fog is cool against her skin when she reaches the edge. A strange sensation, but not an unwelcome one. She can’t see anything, so all she can do is follow the sound. She does her best to follow the buzzing – to try to orient herself in the direction it sounds like its coming from. She’s not sure how long she walks before she hears something.
Someone.
”Hello?” she says, her voice immediately evaporating into the void. Perhaps it was just one of the others. But her gut told her that this was something else. Shapes begin to form in the mist. Equine shapes. Ghostly, corporeal shapes with faces she doesn’t recognize. She turns away from them – her first instinct has always been flight. But as she puts distance between herself and the figures, the reappear in front of her. She slides to a halt. ”Go away!” she spits, knowing that she sounds like a petulant child. They are undeterred. They step closer as she steps back. She flattens her ears against her skull. ”Let me pass!” But with each moment the shapes become more and more solid. More lifelike.
She’s surrounded now, and can feel the panic rising in her chest. She grinds her teeth as she considers her options. She’s not a fighter but she knows she has a means to hurt them. She’d never used her ability intentionally. She knew, theoretically, that she could but it had never crossed her mind to do so.
Until now.
So she charges, reaching out to touch the creatures knowing that the radioactivity would do its lethal work. She brushes her muzzle against the closest figure and the fog-equine screams out in agony, but as she touches the creature, fire erupts on her own skin in the very place she had made contact. She looks at her shoulder to see an ugly lesion appearing. Something strange was happening. She again turned to another of the fog-equines blocking her path, this time running her muzzle across its flank and sure enough searing pain erupted in her own. Her ability was backfiring. Each time she used it, she too paid the price.
The buzzing was growing louder now, and she knew she was heading the right direction, but as far as she could see there was a wall of foggy bodies blocking her path.
She knew she couldn’t stay in here. She had to push through.
So that’s exactly what she did. She lurched forward – physically pushing the fog-equines out of the way. The pain stole her breath at first. Glowing green blood again began to drip from her nostrils. Eventually she began to scream – she’s not sure whether from the agony or the anguish but eventually she became numb to the pain.
Had it simply overwhelmed her or had it stopped? She couldn’t be sure, but surely it had to have stopped or she would have been overwhelmed by now. Ultimately, all that she could concentrate on was the sound of the buzzing. It sounded as if it was coming from inside her head, and maybe it was. She was beyond the point of knowing at that point.
She stopped only when she reached the edge of the cliff, numb and overwhelmed, and though briefly about throwing herself over the edge before she realized…
She was already dead. What good could that possibly do her now. Instead, she lowered her nose to her foreleg and wiped the now-drying blood from her nose.
i'm breathing in the chemicals.
WARNING: Anomaly is radioactive. Those that touch her may experience metallic taste, nosebleed, nausea, headache, hair loss and/or skin lesions. Symptoms become worse with prolonged exposure and onset is accelerated when exposed to her blood.
you have forsaken all the love you've taken sleeping on a razor there's nowhere left to fall
Others fall, one by one appearing in the dim underworld, and he again does not cast them a glance. His jaw is set like stone, the watered-down anger surging in his veins. He regrets responding to the call even if he won’t admit it. He debates trying to find a different way out; to go the opposite direction of this dead army, let them run this fool’s errand on their own.
He has nothing to prove, least of all to a man who does not care whether he lives or dies or exists at all.
But most of him is too proud to take the easy way out. Too proud to admit he is afraid, too proud to admit he would rather be alive than to be trapped here again.
He listens, like some whipped dog, and he disappears in the direction he is pointed to.
He follows the shoreline, listening to the waves as they roll across the darkened sands. It even sounds different (dull, a whisper), and it’s why he had always hated it here. He has heard that for some, the afterlife could be a kind of paradise, but that wasn’t his experience. It was more like a mockery of everything he had when he was alive; a sun that shed no light, a night sky that never held stars.
He focuses his attention on the buzzing, though, until the sound lulls him into an almost trance – until every other sound fades away. He drifts from where the water meets the sands, moving further inland, further into the fog.
He isn’t sure when his reality begins to shift. Trees erupt from the sands as if they had always been there, tall and dense. Through the haze in his mind, he thinks there was supposed to be a beach, and he turns to search for the shore he is sure he had just left and finds nothing but the infinite dark of trees and shadows.
The mist itself begins to spin into threads, thickening from fog until the entire forest is laced in the sticky strands of spider’s web.
He presses onward, and the further he goes, the thicker the web becomes; a suffocating curtain of wispy silk that clings to his face, covers his eyes and threatens to crawl down his throat. There is nowhere to go, but through it, the trees themselves growing so close together that it does not afford him the room to move between them.
The spiders themselves come soon enough, eager to see what kind of prey they have caught - and seemingly delighted at the size of him. They come, too many to count, abnormally large as they crawl up his legs and across his back, attempting to weave him into a trap. He thrashes, breaking the web apart with his legs and breathing fire into what is in front of him. He watches them wither and burn, sees the fire catch the delicate filaments of the web and race across them until the flames leap to the branches of the trees.
He runs and he burns, he runs and he ignores the panic that squeezes his chest when his fire begins to weaken and fade the further he goes. He ignores the pull of branches at his mane and his skin, he outruns the feel of spiders and webs tangled at his legs.
He runs until the forest spits him out at the cliff’s edge, scrambling to keep his hind legs beneath him as he slides to a stop, sending a shower of rocks over the ledge. Sweat flecks his dark brown skin as he dares to peer over before he takes several steps back. The buzzing is relentless now, and he flattens his ears against it, a frustrated growl rumbling in his chest.
He turns his head to look over his shoulder at the forest that he had just escaped, and a chill races up the ridge of his spine when he sees only sand and fog.
Dacian
your body's aching, every bone is breaking nothing seems to shake it, it just keeps holding on
I tried to sell my soul last night Funny, he wouldn't even take a bite
His voice is an unwelcome intrusion, causing Ashhal to pin his ears and ruffle his wings irritability. Though, really, what the fuck is he actually going to do? He has never been idiotic enough believe he’s a match for Carnage, even before he’d been ripped apart like it was nothing more than another Tuesday morning.
“Fuck off,” he growls under his breath. Well, who really thought that knowledge would actually be enough to make Ashhal hold his tongue? Still, unappreciated humor aside, he does take some heed of what Carnage says. Though he never said it explicitly, he hadn’t needed to; Ashhal already damned well knew there were things worse than death.
As it turns out though, some things are unavoidable.
Forging ahead into the fog, he moves with a nearly forgotten limber ease, gaze wary and watchful rather than angry and bored for once. Hell, he’d forgotten how good it could feel to have a purpose. Not that that was nearly enough to erase fucking centuries of apathy, but it was start. Enough so that even the faint, irritating buzz resonating in his ears couldn’t quite set his teeth on edge like it might have this morning.
Until, between one footfall and the next, he stumbles from the fog into a quiet, sun-dappled meadow.
Immediately, the scowl is back on his lips.
God-fucking-dammit. Of all creatures, he thought fucking Carnage would at least be able to make him stay dead.
Shifting, his gaze catches on a nearby figure. One he recognizes immediately. Ryatah. For a moment, she distracts him from another realization: the fact that he’s still a grown-ass adult. “FUCK!”
Her laughter startles him. He recoils faintly, brows knitting as his scowl deepens. Undeterred, she closes the distance separating them, her voice soft and amused as she replies, “Eloquent as always.” Then, as though she’d done so a hundred times before, she presses close, lips brushing the hollow below his cheek with an alarming sweetness.
For a moment, he freezes, a veritable deer in the headlights, before skittering abruptly sideways. “What the hell?” This couldn’t be fucking real. Could not.
But the concern, tinged by hurt, looks real enough as it flashes across her lovely features.“Ashhal, are you alright?”
Damn it, that couldn’t matter right now. Especially when she couldn’t possibly be real. “Who are you?” he growls. “What the hell are you?”
The pained devastation written across every line of her body is nearly enough to make him wish he could bite back the words. Enough so that when she takes a tentative step closer, he doesn’t retreat. “What do you mean?” she whispers almost brokenly. “It’s me, Ryatah.” When he shakes his head, she continues on a shaky breath, blinking back tears as she does, “We’ve loved each other for years. Don’t you… remember?”
“That’s impossible,” he blurts, unable to help himself even as his blood rushes erratically and muscles burn with the need to move (to run). Except that he cannot see to force his fucking body to obey. He misses the way understanding seems to dawn before Ryatah presses closer once more. “Oh Ashhal,” she replies, her voice warmer now. Reassuring almost. “Something’s happened, hasn’t it? Please, let me help.”
And gods fucking help him, he does let her help.
------
There’s no doubt he’d been a fucking idiot to believe it was real that day. But it wasn’t something he’d learn until years later (or moments, depending on how one looks at it). After all, life is never that kind, is it?
It isn’t until he finds her dead (days, years, decades later - it hardly matters) that he remembers why he had resisted caring for so long. First is the disbelief. She couldn’t truly be gone. And, like some sick fucking joke, he waits. He waits until her body is bloated and unrecognizable. Until even he couldn’t stomach the thought of watching her wither until he forgot what her true face looked like.
And then, he dies. Over and over and over again. So many times he loses count. But, always, the end is the same. He wakes up a child, only to start another shitty, miserable life all over again. Eventually, he searches. An answer, an end, for her. Or something. Until there is nothing left. Until his mind has grown so old and senile, he sometimes forgets the reality of his own miserable existence. Until one day, he stumbles into a quiet hollow and does nothing except simply exist. His body withers to a husk until death comes, a brief respite. Then it all begins again. An empty shell, the soul so torn and ragged and ancient there is almost nothing left.
Not even memories.
------
He stumbles and the fog surrounds him again, the buzzing of some godforsaken insect rattling is eardrums. A cold shiver races down his spine as his memories slowly filter back into place. Thick dread fills his chest as he jerks to a halt, jaw clenching, a vein pulsing in his cheek.
Fuck.
Shit.
Suddenly he’s not quite sure why the hell he should continue. He’s dead. He could stay dead.
But as the incessant buzzing jarrs his senses, he suddenly wonders if even death would be safe. Goddammit all to hell. For the first time in so long, he is drained of the anger that had defined his existence for decades. So drained that he can see almost clearly. And naturally, the first fucking time he actually succeeded in dying, he couldn’t even enjoy it without some cosmic cocksucker coming in to threaten it.
Why couldn’t they just leave the fucking gates closed?
And just like that, the anger is back, giving him just the vitriol he needs to press forward. Ears flattened against the violent buzzing, he moves through the fog until his hooves are nearly at the cliff’s edge. Until his very bones vibrate with the force of the sound coming from beyond.
“ I will love you until we run out of mornings. Then I will love you in the dark. ”
The air feels cold and stale across her skin, like an old cellar that has fallen into disuse. She perks her ears at his words and tilts her head as he explains her goal just a little further ahead, in the thick fog looming before her. A shiver crawls through her bones when he laughs but she steels herself against the building fear. She must not sink into the despair of this world.
Echis steps forward into the fog with her chin held high. It doesn’t take long for that insectile buzzing to find her. Initially, she doesn’t find it so bad. Why had Carnage seemed so hesitant about it? She squints as though it might help her see better when she feels a pinch at the back on her thigh. A squeak of surprise finds her lips and she spins to see what has assaulted her. Yet, there is only more fog. Her small ears lay flat against her head.
“Please do not do that,” she insists, slowly turning to continue on her way. A second pinch, then, to her side. She skitters away from the nip and a shameful whimper leaves her. The thick feeling of terror oozes over her. “I’ll bite you! I really will!” Her voice quakes noticeably.
Somewhere in the fog, a shriek cries out in pain. Echis startles and bursts into a run in the direction of the buzzing noise, as its maddening tune is decidedly better than whatever pursues her. She can hear its footfalls galloping behind her as the beast continues howling in agony and rage. Sobs rattle through her as the buzzing burrows deeper into her mind and devours her every thought. It leaves no room for her to think or plan, only to flee with fat tears rolling down her small face. Her scales emerge in waves across her body but the afterlife peels them from her skin so they scatter like flower petals on the wind. There is no safety to be found here.
Echis spares one look behind her and the terrible beast is only a few paces behind now. It looks like it had been a normal creature at some point, but that horrible buzzing chews the thought apart as quickly as it occurs to her. Her basest instincts tell her only of its snapping jaws and the sickly sweet smell of rot. It would have her become one with it, to share in its despair.
The buzzing grows too great until she can hardly focus her eyes on the steps ahead. She tumbles to the ground just a few steps shy of the sudden cliff. Echis cries out in fear and braces herself to be devoured by the awful thing, but its lumbering form is too dire to stop in time to snatch her up. Instead, her pursuer throws itself right off the edge. Somewhere between the deafening buzzing and her spinning head, she can hear it as it plummets to some infinite descent, crying out for help until it has fallen too far to be heard any longer.
Echis lays there a while longer and lets her aching sobs roll through her still. The buzzing consumes the last of her mind as she dumbly stares over that cliff’s edge, not even realizing she’s rising onto her hooves.
She thought she had known death. In her dreams, she had watched her life end, with the magic of that precarious gift of her mother's. She had seen, and felt, herself dying enough times to believe herself invincible until the series of events that came before it took place. But such a gift was petty witchcraft in the shadow of Carnage's magic.
Humbled, she listens.
She listens to his voice, even as the buzzing makes her wince.
He commands, and she obeys. She steps into the fog, but her obedience is no longer a choice. There was no other option now. With flattened ears and sharp eyes, she warily wades through the mists, holding her breath as she prepares for whatever terror is surely waiting for her. It's too still. The fog twist with a surreal beauty in a way that makes the terrible buzzing all the more offensive, but her progress down the beach is uncontested. That is, until the unpleasant echo of his laughter rattles in her head, morphing into the heckling yips of wolves.
With a snort she plunges into a gallop, trying to reach the cliff before the pack has a chance to encircle her, but the wolves are eager for the hunt
They chase her. They sink their teeth into the flesh above her knee, sending rivulets of dark-cherry red done her once white leg. She kicks and runs, and kicks again. One strike hits true, and with the sound of their comrade's skull breaking, the wolves disperse. But they are not gone for long, and soon they appear again through the fog to gallop beside her. A dark wolf comes astride of her, his wild eyes locking onto her throat, and she knows she needs to fight back. She doesn't want to use her magic, but her skin begins to glow regardless, and as he launches towards her, she is ready.
With a guttural yell, she whips her head in his direction - teeth bared and light pooling on her brow. She commands the light in that instinctual way she had never had to learn, already counting him for dead. But the blast doesn't behave that way it should, the way it always had. There is no lethal beam of light to split her attacker in two. The power of the blast backfires, sending the teal mare tumbling backward. Her body is tossed like a cat's dead mouse, but by fate or stupid luck, it falls still just before the cliff's edge. Her tail drapes over the ledge, causing her stomach to churn as she realizes this, and she pulls it tight to her haunches as her head lifts to look back over her shoulder. With a groan, Celest collects herself. Carefully, she gathers her legs to stand, despite her bodies pleading to be allowed to be still, and turns to face the terrible, other-worldly sound.
![[Image: celest_by_cowgirlconrad-dcolc1l.png]](https://orig00.deviantart.net/bc93/f/2018/277/3/d/celest_by_cowgirlconrad-dcolc1l.png)