<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Amatic+SC" rel="stylesheet"><style> #waltbackground{position:relative;z-index:1;width:550px; padding:20px;padding-top:40px;padding-bottom:0px; background:#261a28 url('https://i.postimg.cc/hjZp94x4/fire-man.jpg')no-repeat;background-size:100%; box-shadow:0px 0px 15px #000;border:2px solid black;} #waltcontainer{position:relative;z-index:3;width:500px;margin-top:300px;padding:10px;background:#b2bac7;box-shadow:0px 0px 6px #000;opacity:0.6;border:1px solid black;border-top:0px border-bottom:0px;}#container p{margin:0;} #waltmessage{position:relative; z-index:10;text-align:justify; padding:30px 20px 10px 20px; font:12px 'Times new roman', serif; line-height:1.25; color:#020a20;}#waltname{position:relative;bottom:20px;font:52px;font-family: 'Times new roman', cursive; text-shadow:2px 2px 2px rgba(0,0,0,0.3); color:#000;letter-spacing:6px;text-align:center;}#waltquote1{z-index:35;position:absolute;top:288px;right:px;left:40px;color:#c5cdd8;font:40px 'Amatic SC', cursive;opacity:0.8;}#waltquote2{z-index:35;position:relative;margin-top:-20px;margin-bottom:14px;color:#020a20;font:15px 'Dosis', sans-serif;opacity:0.4;}</style><center><div id="waltbackground"><p id="waltquote1"></i></i>Sabrael</p><div id="waltimg"></p></div><div id="waltcontainer"><div id="waltgradient"></div><p id="waltmessage">The fog curls at his heels (the fog that had jellied around him, suffocated and subdued him) but it is behind, at least. He catches himself from falling down the cliff, but soon realizes there had been no real need to do so. A small part of him wonders if perhaps he should have just continued falling down, down, down the precipice into the everdark below. Maybe his head, his skin, and his bones will then be free of the incessant rattling. Maybe the quiet will be worth the price of his own very warm blood he hopes will again surge through his veins after this. But truth be told, that darkness scares him more than anything. The unknown vacuum is not a tangible threat he can conquer. The space beyond is full of questions he has no answers for.
No, he waits on that cliff – clings to that cliff – for as long as he can.
The wait, it turns out, is brief.
A low rumble starts at his feet. Sabrael instinctively tries to begin the shift into his reptilian shape in preparation for flight, but catches his mistake almost immediately. <i>Of course you’re not there when I need you,</i> the thought is bitter and unspoken on his tongue. But then his eyes are shifted instead, though only in the direction they are looking. Unwittingly, he sees the wavering spot in the distance. He sees it against the nothingness, sees it <i>grow</i>.
<i>No.</i> He thinks, when it is clear what the dark god intends for them to do. <i>No.</i> All the scenarios of him making it down from the cliff had involved those familiar leathery wings sprouting from his back. But jumping without them? Jumping into a vat of emptiness with the likelihood of it being far worse than the fog he’s just somehow emerged from? He agrees with that grey guy from the Afterlife beach; Carnage can fucking suck it.
Sabrael backs up a few steps even as the hole widens in anticipatory hunger. His feet scramble against the rocking motion of the compromised cliff and the bone-rattling buzz. <i>Through there. And hurry.</i> He shakes his greying, ghostly head in either defiance or absolute irritation or both. <i><b>It’s hungry</b></i>. His eyes widen at this, because it is obviously not Carnage alone giving the orders anymore. He leans deeply into his haunches as the cliff starts to buck wildly, tipping him towards the open mouth waiting to devour him. Sabrael defies his marching order as long as he can.
In the end, he too falls.
In the end, it takes him.
The darkness envelopes him as the last of the rock comes out from under his feet. It blots out every trace of light, disorienting the stallion as he spins madly down. Then, it is as if he is not alone in his fall. The sensation of touch spreads all across his body, searching, claiming. He feels tendrils of darkness poke into his ears, his eyes, his nose, reaching up and wrapping around his brain. Like the fog, it is suffocating in its intensity. But the darkness is not done with him. It finds what it wants in his memories, finds what it will satiate itself on.
<i>No!</i> Sabrael feels the press of it at his haunches, pushing and holding him where it wants him. He thinks of Wallace, then, as it grips him tightly. It fills him and he fills it intimately, unwillingly. He thinks of all the years – decades - he’s waited to share this experience with her and her alone (to tell her how much she means to him, to tell her he loves her and always will). He remembers the way they’d found her in the woods after she’d been taken with force, remembers the way the dragon had fully ignited with rage for the first time seeing her the way he had. He remembers the blood, even as he feels his own dead blood waking within him as the emptiness both fills him and finishes him simultaneously.
It takes his first time from him (a treasure the dragon has been hoarding almost his entire life) and leaves him with something, too.
The ghost continues falling through the dark even after the moving darkness slips from him. He is glad. He wouldn’t be able to stand on such shaking legs anyway. As he falls, there are three blows he takes to the gut. Three children after this first that will be born stillborn. Three more heartaches to follow. Eventually, he crumples to the ground. Firm ground, at least. It makes it easier to rise when he can bring himself to. He feels raw though, exposed. He is sore and violated and still realizes in an instant that the buzzing sound is gone. That had been a constant, something to expect in a world that was spinning so exponentially towards entropy. But no, it was there, just different. <i>In</i> him like –
Sabrael realizes he is quaking despite the solid ground.
A movement in the distance catches his gaze, but he is slow like molasses to force his molten eyes to focus. Even then, it is too far away. He sees instead that it is an even stranger place he has now landed. Trees rise (or at least some semblance of trees) but they rise at odd, jutting angles. The grass waves nauseatingly quick in a field nearby; he has to look away just after noticing the movement. The light shining from…somewhere makes everything look artificial and sallow and sick. Sabrael feels sick himself just being here, just surviving what he has so far. Thoughts of saving his father are long gone. He only hopes now that he can save himself.<br><br></p><p id="waltname"></p><p id="waltquote2"></i></p></p><br><br></div></div></center>
ooc: Sabrael's virginity was taken (that he'd been saving for a v. long time to share with Wallace). It also took his next three children. After this child, the next three will be stillborn.
No, he waits on that cliff – clings to that cliff – for as long as he can.
The wait, it turns out, is brief.
A low rumble starts at his feet. Sabrael instinctively tries to begin the shift into his reptilian shape in preparation for flight, but catches his mistake almost immediately. <i>Of course you’re not there when I need you,</i> the thought is bitter and unspoken on his tongue. But then his eyes are shifted instead, though only in the direction they are looking. Unwittingly, he sees the wavering spot in the distance. He sees it against the nothingness, sees it <i>grow</i>.
<i>No.</i> He thinks, when it is clear what the dark god intends for them to do. <i>No.</i> All the scenarios of him making it down from the cliff had involved those familiar leathery wings sprouting from his back. But jumping without them? Jumping into a vat of emptiness with the likelihood of it being far worse than the fog he’s just somehow emerged from? He agrees with that grey guy from the Afterlife beach; Carnage can fucking suck it.
Sabrael backs up a few steps even as the hole widens in anticipatory hunger. His feet scramble against the rocking motion of the compromised cliff and the bone-rattling buzz. <i>Through there. And hurry.</i> He shakes his greying, ghostly head in either defiance or absolute irritation or both. <i><b>It’s hungry</b></i>. His eyes widen at this, because it is obviously not Carnage alone giving the orders anymore. He leans deeply into his haunches as the cliff starts to buck wildly, tipping him towards the open mouth waiting to devour him. Sabrael defies his marching order as long as he can.
In the end, he too falls.
In the end, it takes him.
The darkness envelopes him as the last of the rock comes out from under his feet. It blots out every trace of light, disorienting the stallion as he spins madly down. Then, it is as if he is not alone in his fall. The sensation of touch spreads all across his body, searching, claiming. He feels tendrils of darkness poke into his ears, his eyes, his nose, reaching up and wrapping around his brain. Like the fog, it is suffocating in its intensity. But the darkness is not done with him. It finds what it wants in his memories, finds what it will satiate itself on.
<i>No!</i> Sabrael feels the press of it at his haunches, pushing and holding him where it wants him. He thinks of Wallace, then, as it grips him tightly. It fills him and he fills it intimately, unwillingly. He thinks of all the years – decades - he’s waited to share this experience with her and her alone (to tell her how much she means to him, to tell her he loves her and always will). He remembers the way they’d found her in the woods after she’d been taken with force, remembers the way the dragon had fully ignited with rage for the first time seeing her the way he had. He remembers the blood, even as he feels his own dead blood waking within him as the emptiness both fills him and finishes him simultaneously.
It takes his first time from him (a treasure the dragon has been hoarding almost his entire life) and leaves him with something, too.
The ghost continues falling through the dark even after the moving darkness slips from him. He is glad. He wouldn’t be able to stand on such shaking legs anyway. As he falls, there are three blows he takes to the gut. Three children after this first that will be born stillborn. Three more heartaches to follow. Eventually, he crumples to the ground. Firm ground, at least. It makes it easier to rise when he can bring himself to. He feels raw though, exposed. He is sore and violated and still realizes in an instant that the buzzing sound is gone. That had been a constant, something to expect in a world that was spinning so exponentially towards entropy. But no, it was there, just different. <i>In</i> him like –
Sabrael realizes he is quaking despite the solid ground.
A movement in the distance catches his gaze, but he is slow like molasses to force his molten eyes to focus. Even then, it is too far away. He sees instead that it is an even stranger place he has now landed. Trees rise (or at least some semblance of trees) but they rise at odd, jutting angles. The grass waves nauseatingly quick in a field nearby; he has to look away just after noticing the movement. The light shining from…somewhere makes everything look artificial and sallow and sick. Sabrael feels sick himself just being here, just surviving what he has so far. Thoughts of saving his father are long gone. He only hopes now that he can save himself.<br><br></p><p id="waltname"></p><p id="waltquote2"></i></p></p><br><br></div></div></center>
ooc: Sabrael's virginity was taken (that he'd been saving for a v. long time to share with Wallace). It also took his next three children. After this child, the next three will be stillborn.