"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
It is easy to believe that this is her doing. That her sacrifices have brought this darkness - and though it does not love her, it loves him and that’s enough. She stands out even in the near-blackness. The lack of light softens her contrast but she is still whiter than light itself. The glow around her is faint because her mind is distracted.
The darkness has claimed the world and the creature growing inside her, the one that has been festering for nearly two years, is alive in a way it has not been since she first noticed its presence.
It wants out.
Uncertainty clouds her excitement. Beyza had meant to be in Pangea when this happened but she buckles from the pain in the meadow instead and cannot bring herself to move or teleport any further. Her glow flickers with the waves of discomfort and there’s a feral cry that escapes her that is unlike any other sound she has ever made. She’s not even sure it is her making the sound. Perhaps it is the demon.
It does not tear out of her chest, does not break her ribs, does not give her more scars to match the iridescent ones she carried from the world beyond worlds. She gives birth to it. And though she is in the open, the darkness is close around her - almost suffocatingly close. It is just them, her and this demon, as her body finally expels the thing that had been haunting her. The darkness that had curled inside of her.
Beyza’s never witnessed childbirth before and has no memory of her own - but even she knows this is not normal. It feels as though she’s being set on fire and the pain is so intense the darkness in front of her eyes dances with spots as she’s blinded with it. The waves are gone and there are no separate contractions - everything blurs together until finally, finally it slips from her with unnatural grace and ease.
She’s breathing heavily when she turns to look at it - a hazy shape even blacker than the world around them. Both her and the demon’s attentions snap at the sound of someone approaching. It’s a stranger coming to investigate, maybe even to help, and Beyza watches as the creature that had been inside of her moments ago moves. With no limbs she can make out, just a blur of supernatural strength, the head of this bystander is separated from the body and swallowed whole.
Pride swells in her instead of the fear she should feel.
Her baby. Her firstborn.
And it gifted her the final sacrifice.
She stands, still watching her child, and she's sure that it is watching her back even though she cannot discern any features. For a moment, they stare at each other in the near-silence of the meadow, the decapitated body between them.
And then the creature flees and Beyza is left alone with a flurry of emotions she cannot even begin to comprehend.
01-02-2021, 04:43 PM (This post was last modified: 01-02-2021, 04:43 PM by jamie.)
Jamie
He emerges victorious.
And the dark electricity thrumming in his veins is unlike anything he’s ever felt before.
More profound even than what he’d felt when she’d touched him some years ago.
The heavenly warmth that had spiraled through him then, her elixir.
In the days when he had been afraid of what he might be capable of.
But he knows now what he is capable of and there is no room left for fear. He understands now that he is a thing built for destruction. He was built to sow devastation.
He emerges to find the whole world plunged into that same strange darkness. How he delights in it now! How seamlessly he blends into that darkness, the freakish yellow eyes and the deep red “V” carved into his chest the only thing separating him from the creeping shadows.
And he sees them, the things that have escaped the Afterlife. How deeply this thrills him, too! To think that Beyza has made good on her promise! She has brought his home to this world, just as she’d said she would.
He pulls his fog -- the only thing that is still familiar -- around him like a shroud and moves swiftly through the darkness. He catches sight of the things (he does not, will not, call them monsters) just out of the corner of his eye as they flee from him. They do not try to devour him now as they once had, as if they, too, understand that he belongs to and with them.
He does not understand the magic yet, has no real control over it, but he thinks of her and his feet carry him to the meadow as if they know he will find her there. He drags in a breath that still rattles like death when he catches sight of her through all of the strange darkness.
He does not see the thing that twists away from her. He finds her alone with the decapitated thing, to which he pays no mind, and exhales such a contented sigh.
“You did this,” he whispers, “just like you promised.” And there, that same shark-tooth smile.
( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )
The eclipse suits the reaper, of course. His yellow eyes stand out but only just, and Beyza is aware he is close before she can even see them. It feels as though the air has become charged and the pressure rises with every step he takes.
And yet, for a moment, her eyes do not shift from where her child has disappeared into the darkness. As though she could will it to come back, to meet Jamie. They are kindred spirits, she knows, the creature that she had birthed and the one standing before her now. More alike than she will ever be to either of them.
Jamie’s whisper brings her back into the present, causes her eyes to shift from the general darkness to the solid wall of it he creates. She steps towards him, anticipation and an intoxicating calm mixing inside of her, and she meets his shark-tooth smile with a gentle one of her own.
She steps around the decapitated corpse, bleeding midnight black blood into the earth at their hooves, until they are close enough to touch.
But she refrains from it for now, though it is all she wants. “It’s all for you, my reaper.” She whispers back. It’s bold, that term, but considering they are standing beneath an eclipse. Considering she has just birthed a monster, considering her sacrifices - she thinks she’s earned that small word.
My reaper.
She’s proud of him just as much as she is proud of herself. They're perfect equals now. Her white eyes dance as they meet his yellow gaze. Her voice coming again in a whisper, gentle with reverence.
He had been confused in the days after they had emerged from the Afterlife.
She had told him then that she knew what he was, told him before he ever knew what he was.
He had known then that he belonged to death but had not yet learned that death belonged to him, too. But there is no denying it now, no shadow of doubt left in his mind. While he was once only Darkness, he is now also Death.
He is what he is because she is what she is, he thinks. Because she had seen him for what he was long before he saw it for himself. And she had tried to show him but he had been young and afraid and resistent. He had denied her.
But he will not deny her again. Will never deny her again.
My reaper, she says, and something dark twists and writhes in the pit of his gut.
There had been a time when he could not look at her, when he had hidden his gaze behind his sister. There had been a time when she had made it plainly evident that they were not friends.
But he stands here now, her reaper.
This new power. His only thanks to her, thanks to the sacrifice she had made but he had been unaware of. And he is unaware of it still, when he sinks closer and he is solid enough to touch her. The edges immediately soften back into that same dark vapor and they make again that fog-like gray.
“Will you show me how to use it?” he asks, quiet. Ironic, certainly, that she should be trained by his mother and he should ask her for help.
( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )
Beyza wasn’t sure what she would have done if he did not ask this of her, if he had gone to someone else. She’s surprised by the relief that she feels, the joy of being wanted. Even if it is just to show him how to wield his magic. Her pale muzzle moves to brush against his and her edges are white mist as they do. She does not expect him to feel the touch, but her barely audible words may stir the vapour of their blurred edges as they carry a pledge on her warm breath. “Of course.” She’s still so young herself, really, still has so much to learn. Beyza will teach him all she knows and together they will learn more. Together they will be more.
With no small effort, she turns from him and her white gaze finds the nearby body once more. The glow returns to her, gentle and as unoppressive as she can make herself despite how much she already contrasts the world around them. The pale light catches on the blood and the shape of what was once a living soul.
Her eyes are still tracing the lines of it when she speaks again, her voice still quiet but stronger than it had just been. “While you were at the plains, I found my second sacrifice. And today, during the eclipse, the third found me.”Found us she thinks - but though her body is weary from the birth, and though her heart swells with pride to think of this child she has brought into the world - she cannot find the words to explain that strange creature that had slipped from her or the experience itself.
“You can do anything you want, Jamie. Anything at all. You only have to think it.” And now she looks to the reaper again, her heart skipping in anticipation as she does - eyes bright with excitement. “His death is recent, the energy still lingers. Can you find it?” She does not know that his magic is tied to death, but it’s what she believes. Nothing would be more fitting for a reaper than the ability to harness souls and the energy that leaves a body once it has died.
It is easier to believe that she had ever owed him anything now.
And he follows her gaze to the headless figure, a tangle of bloodied limbs.
He wonders if he should feel something, some sense of finality, now that her debt has been repaid. She had promised him three souls and she had delivered them. Perhaps the crushing darkness and the dead that accompany it are the reward, this shift in the world the prize for paying off such a debt.
He cannot help the smile that itches across his peculiar, featureless face just to think it.
Beqanna has been shifted into its rightful order thanks to her and he feels such a terrible fondness for her then. Such a far cry from the crippled thing that had resisted her, fought her efforts to help him. He plainly asks for her help now and feels no creeping sensation of embarrassment for having asked it.
She is powerful. She will make him powerful.
He can do anything, he only has to think it, and he has no reason not to believe her. He moves closer to the headless figure, dips his strange head and presses his ink-black mouth against the shoulder. He sighs, relaxes into the magic, and lets the story come. He sees the dark thing and he feels the fear that had gripped the stallion in the last moments before his death.
He lifts his head then and turns those freakish yellow eyes on Beyza. “Did you see it?” he asks, “the thing that killed him.”
( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )
Beyza’s gaze is intent on him, eyes unblinking, as he moves towards the body. She doesn’t move from her spot - all the better to watch him, to give him a chance to explore his new power for himself. Jealousy twists in her stomach when he touches the dead body without hesitation, and she finds her gaze lingering on the point of contact.
On the corpse that would have felt his touch, such as it was anyway.
She manages to stop this unpleasant feeling from showing on her face, at least, and there’s just a tightening of her jaw as she attempts to lock it away with all the other feelings she does not want to deal with. When he turns back to her, she forces herself to meet her gaze and not let her eyes linger on the corpse, on the shoulder.
It helps to distract her when he asks his question - a soft smile appearing. “Yes. It was beautiful.” She’s not worried that he’ll think her odd for saying it. There is, however, a slight hesitation before she continues - and her pale head tilts slightly to the side as she watches him. “I birthed it.” She states this simply, but there’s a sweetness to her voice. A fondness.
“Something I carried back, from when we went beyond death.”
She had birthed it. It had come from her, sprung forth from her loins, killed and dissolved into the shadows. What a thrill it is!
He closes his freakish eyes then to better picture it, this thing she had brought back with her from beyond the reaches of Death. How feverishly it had killed. But he can only see it from the perspective of the dead stallion, he cannot go back far enough to see the way it came into this world, the way she had made it so. There is some mournful pang then before he opens his eyes again and turns his focus to her.
He can do anything, he only has to think it.
So he goes to her because he wants to know. It is such a deeply personal thing, though he has no concept of this as he approaches her, extending his nose to touch her. Will she let him in? Will she let him see? It does not occur to him that he could mine through her thoughts without touching her, though perhaps it is better that he does. The magic is still new and he likely would not have enough control over it to sift through her thoughts from a distance.
“Will you show me?” he rasps into her skin. He closes his eyes again, waiting to receive whatever images she will not hide from him. The birth, the thing seeking out its first victim, the pride of it all. What it must have felt like to know that she had brought such a destructive force into the world. It makes him wonder, too, if all of the things in the shadows had been birthed the same way.
( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )
A shiver courses down her spine when Jamie draws close and it doesn’t ease when he extends his nose to touch her. Her white eyes flutter shut and Beyza thinks she’d say yes to anything with his breath on her skin. Even this one thing that she had meant to keep private. There’s only a small hesitation before she touches him back in return and lets the memories flow between them. The arrival of the eclipse, the unbearable pain, the birth, the creature itself, the unfortunate soul that had come over out of concern, the love and admiration she felt for the strange creature she had brought into this world.
She doesn’t mean to, but her emotions pulse within the imagery, propelled by something newer than her magic and wild, for with it she was far less practiced. Everything slips from her - the pain to the joy to the love.
Her breath hitches a little when they reach the point of the decapitation but it’s not in fear or disgust. A strange sort of pleasure spreads through her - this culmination of everything that has been on her mind since they moved through death together. Since she saw her first glimpse of everything that Jamie could be.
“What do you think?” She asks quietly, aware of the nerves that cause her voice to tremble very subtly.
The shadow thing is a fool.
He understands that now.
Such an ugly thing to realize.
But there is such a soft warmth that rolls off her when he touches her and he remembers. He remembers how desperately she had wanted to help him, how wounded she had been when he’d denied her, how clear she had made it then that they were not friends.
What are they now?
They are bonded. They are intertwined on a visceral level.
Together they have seen Death. Together they have conquered it.
He feels it now when he never could have before. The shiver that steals down the length of her spine. The surrender. And there is only the space of a breath before she reaches for him and offers him this gift. And his own body twinges and spasms with her pain, a phantom pain that tears through him, reminds him who he was once.
(Funny that he had not allowed her to help him in their youth but it had been her who had ultimately rescued him after all. Her sacrifice that had brought the darkness, her sacrifice that had brought him victory.)
How splendid a thing it is to watch it unfold through her eyes. To feel it as she felt it. He does not understand these things: joy, love; but they pulse in his chest all the same. He exhales a rattling breath and forces open his own freakish eyes as the shadows writhe around them, grappling. There, a shark-tooth smile as he moves to press his ink-black mouth to her forehead.
And then he tries something new. He tries to press his thought into her mind, “you are extraordinary.” Then, as if this experiment has dug up another memory, he pulls his mouth away and asks out loud, “when did your voice return?”
( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )
jamie
