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  • Beqanna

    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    [private]  came in like a vision, balto
    #1
    Jamie
    He is at home in this strange darkness.
    This darkness that he is certain Beyza constructed specifically for him. She had promised to bring the underworld to Beqanna and, as he sees it, she had made good on her promise.

    It makes the shadow thing almost giddy. The heart pulses with such a wild thrill. He has never known happiness, Jamie, not like this. The kind of unfettered delight that fixes that shark-took smile to his peculiar, featureless face.

    It reminds him of an old friend, this darkness. The cave dweller. The opponent who had vowed to destroy him. Perhaps things might have turned out differently if death had not stolen the shadow thing’s conscience. Perhaps it would have pained him too greatly to harm his friend, perhaps he might have laid down in surrender and let the blue stallion kill him. Perhaps he would have begged him to.

    But the shadow thing has no conscience to speak of, not anymore, and he had fought instead. Under any other circumstances, he might have sought out the cave dweller to apologize for the way things had turned out.

    And yet.

    He does seek out his old friend, but it is not to apologize. He finds him in the forest, which is the first place their paths crossed. And he can feel the memory of that encounter in the cage of his chest. How terribly it had pained him to realize Balto’s lie. How he had wailed with it!

    He approaches the blue stallion without an ounce of malice. He tilts his peculiar head and flashes that same shark-tooth smile, acutely aware of the things that loiter in the shadows.

    Balto,” he murmurs, rasping, “old friend.

    ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
    YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )




    @[Balto]
    Reply
    #2

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    The fighting had taken much from him; much of his strength and it even satiated all that anger that now writhes freely within him. Though the time he had spent in the arena had taken much from him, it seems to now give him something in return.

    Something barely noticeable; something only Balto himself begins to feel the aching of. Something in his bones, instinctual and primal - something unlike his demons and their hushed voices. His head splits with pain, caused more by the darkness that overwhelmingly exhumes all of Beqanna. The darkness of his legs and face seem to spread further into his body, while something much like hunger shakes his ribs and growls incessantly.

    The blue mottled stallion is whimpering into the bark of a damp tree, his forehead pressed heavily into its berth as he attempts to soothe the throbbing pulse of his head. The deep red of the Alliance is branded into his throat, like a bloodied hand gripping him tightly, but it is lost in the starless night - just as he is.

    And then, for a moment, there is clarity.

    Balto,

    And his whimpering stops.

    Old friend.

    The stallion turns from the tree, releasing the relentless pressing of his head to its bark and turning to meet the familiar voice with icy, cold eyes. The terrible smile that greets him is met with the whispering of his own internal demons, flush against his dark ears and speaking dark thoughts into his mind. Can Jamie hear them?

    “Have you finally come to finish the job?” Balto’s voice is weak and dry, brittle as it crackles in his throat. The malice that he had found in the battlefield has long since waned and instead there is the same man that stood before Jamie ages ago - helpless and drowning, yet without the power (or the will) to pull himself from the pit.

    Balto




    @[jamie]
    Reply
    #3
    Jamie
    Oh, how it pains him to see his friend in this state!
    Purged of the wicked thing that had pledged to do to Jamie what Jamie had been unable to do. The static darkness that had vowed never to let him rest, keening at the promise that Jamie had made.

    It is not guilt he feels now, his lack of conscience protects him from any semblance of remorse, but there is something that stirs in the cavern of his chest all the same. He is not innocent in this, he knows, but he had only ever wanted to help.

    Balto lifts his weary head from where he’d leaned it against the bark of a tree and Jamie hears them. He hears them. He does not even have to try, they stream steady into his psyche, these things born from terrible darkness.

    He aches for the blue stallion.
    Balto.

    Come to finish the job?
    The shadow thing’s heart spasms and he lets loose a ragged breath.

    Balto,” he coos and when he touches Balto now, he can turn his edges solid. The same as they’d been on the battlefield. He does not dissolve around the hard plain of Balto’s shoulder. He sighs into Balto’s skin and mournfully shakes his head, just barely. “I only ever wanted to help you,” he mutters, “I never wanted to hurt you.

    He lifts his head to catch the cave dweller’s eye as the fog begins to thicken and swim into the darkness around them. This strange, strange darkness. The darkness Beyza brought.

    I can help you now,” he whispers, “because I never belonged to you, I belonged to Death.

    He had belonged to the dark things that teem in the shadows now.

    Let me help you.

    ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
    YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )




    @[Balto]
    Reply
    #4

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    Jamie speaks his name again and he visibly withdraws, turning away from the sound of his own name and the voice that speaks it. The blue-black stallion lowers his head, the thick darkness of his forelock hiding the bruises and blood that stains his forehead, where two protrusions begin to form just on either side. 

    He shudders and shies away from the touch but, weak and starving, he allows it. Balto ignores the rampant hunger that gnaws at him more intensely now, the scent of Jamie’s solidified muscle and blood attracting something even darker, something that Balto cannot recognize or name.

    Fog curls around them, passionately wrapping around the black of his legs and almost tracing where the deep black now reaches into his shoulders and flank, as if he had swam within the darkness. It’s enough to stir him momentarily, his crystal eyes opening to peer at the familiar tightness of darkness and shadow as it drapes around him like a comforting cloak. 

    His breath is a rattling sigh in his throat, his gaze slowly lifting to Jamie though he cannot find the strength to raise his head at all.

    Death, Jamie says, and at the name, his own monsters writhe somewhere in the shadows. Balto can hear them, always just a breath away, feeding him intrusive thoughts that make him sick to his stomach; make him feel vile and corrupt as if he is one of them. Drink his blood, they whisper to him heatedly, and Balto winces.

    “How?” comes the feeble reply, strained and broken. “I deserve death,” he croaks painfully, “but I cannot die.” 

    In his ear, a disembodied voice chuckles. 

    Balto




    @[jamie]
    Reply
    #5
    Jamie
    He understands now that they can all die.
    Even Jamie, who had been reborn from death once.

    Even Balto, who thinks he is immune. And perhaps he is, but Jamie still believes that he can help. Despite the changes in his friend, the darkening of his flesh, Jamie believes he holds the key.

    He belongs to Death and Death belongs to him.

    He had felt the way that Balto had shied away from his touch but it had not been enough to convince him to withdraw it. No, he goes on touching him. He touches him and gently - so gently - pulls at his life force, lets it slide down his own throat where it pools heavy in the pit of his gut.

    Come with me,” he murmurs and releases his hold on the blue-black stallion’s soul, “come with me to Pangea and I will end your suffering.” He sinks closer still until they are shoulder to shoulder and he can lay his strange head along the sharp ladder of Balto’s spine. He exhales a long, rasping sigh, ravaged by the heat of Balto’s skin.

    I will take care of you if you’ll let me,” he promises. He owes his friend that much, he thinks. He may not be able to kill him in any way that makes a difference, but he believes he can at least ease his misery.

    The fog curls its way up the length of Balto’s neck where it gingerly caresses his throat, the same way it had so long ago. This, too, is a vow. He will keep his word this time, though he knows that Balto has no reason to trust him. He had not kept his promise the last time and how it had destroyed him to have to break his promise! How he had mourned their lost opportunity! But he is not the same creature he’d been then. And neither is Balto.

    They are different.
    And he knows that this time things will be different.

    ( FROM THE DESTRUCTION, OUT OF THE FLAME
    YOU NEED A VILLAIN, GIVE ME A NAME )



    @[Balto]
    Reply
    #6

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    Balto rasps, his breath caught in his throat, those icy eyes stagnant beneath a heavily shadowed brow as Jamie digs somewhere deep inside him. His whole body tenses, shuddering.

    Come with me.

    I will end your suffering.

    The creature’s heart clenches. The weight of Jamie’s head across the broadness of his back is comfortable and though the obsidian of his ears are lost somewhere beneath the tangles of his mane, he does not attempt to move himself or the tall, black stallion. His chin tips upwards (that brilliant red marking closing around his throat ominously), hesitant. The fog meets him there, a gentle press against his blue-black jugular, tempting him with its dark and terrible promises. Balto’s dark eyelids fall across the ghostly blue of his eyes. He can feel the darkness spreading, something vile changing him from the inside out.

    His throat feels as if it is closed shut as he swallows hard, fighting whatever urge it is that plagues him, a thing he does not yet understand. As much as he wants to refuse Jamie (as much as he should), he finds himself unable. The darkness has been attempting to swallow him whole for decades - perhaps now it is time.

    Balto’s tongue attempts to moisten the dry cracks of his onyx lips, the pounding in his head nearly unbearable.

    “Would it even be possible?” He thinks of Sabra, of her promises she’s made him and the ones he made in return. He thinks of their first encounter and how things have spiraled so far since then. Could it be done?

    Balto leans into his friend and whimpers helplessly, suddenly,  “I’m so hungry, Jamie.”

    Balto




    @[jamie]
    Reply
    #7
    jamie
    I CAN’T EXACTLY DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL
    BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
    How terribly fond the shadow-thing is of this cave dweller. Despite the anger that had ripped through him like a flash flood some years before. When Balto had made the dark thing believe that he belonged to him, when it had been revealed that he’d lied. Despite how horribly Jamie had wanted him to suffer. Despite how fiercely Balto had wanted to make him bleed when they’d met again on the battlefield.

    How tenderly the shadow-thing touches him now. How sweet the promises he makes. He will take care of the old stallion, black now with decay. He will see to it that the suffering ends in any way he can.

    It is not a kindness, no, the shadow-thing is not capable of these things. It is something else entirely. Something perverse. Something dark and dangerous. 

    Anything is possible. So much has changed. He is capable of such devastating things now. He draws back his head and he kisses the dark stallion’s brow the same way he had kissed his daughters’ perfect brows. He leaves his promise there and Balto comes willingly back into his embrace. How this feeds his power, strengthens the dark thing until he is almost trembling with it!

    I promise you,” he wheezes and feeds magic into the stallion’s veins, feeds just enough into the gut to try and convince him. See, it says, see what I can give you?Things are different now.

    But will he kill him or will he resurrect him?


    AND IT LEAVES ME COLD



    @[Balto]
    Reply
    #8

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    As it had been years ago, the old stallion flutters helplessly into the embrace of shadow, unable to relent to such darkness. His body and mind craves it, lusts after it, desires it; even though it hasn’t worked before, even though he has lived decades in torment. He is willing all the same, a lamb led to the slaughter.

    Despite the tipping of the scales (with Jamie’s limitless power and Balto’s feebleness, his mind filled with cobwebs and ghostly whispers), there is something kindred between the two; something that keeps bringing them together, something like fate, perhaps. Either way, Balto is too tired to fight any longer, slipping further up and further into that pleasing balm of darkness, shrouded across him like a burial cloak.

    The blue stallion, riddled with growing darkness, trembles as a sinister kiss is placed upon his blood-stained brow. He hears the familiar clicking of his monsters through the pine needles, watching them both with bated breath, silenced.

    Something stirs within him, placed there by Jamie, and the ice of his eyes comes into focus. Balto tilts his chin upwards to look into the face of his executioner, the brilliant red V that wraps around his throat now visible. He inhales deeply, his lungs shaking.

    “End it, Jamie.”

    End me.

    Balto




    @[jamie]
    Reply
    #9
    jamie
    I CAN’T EXACTLY DESCRIBE HOW I FEEL
    BUT IT’S NOT QUITE RIGHT
    How easy it would be to kill him.
    (Is it bloodlust that lives in the cage of his chest or something else entirely?)

    And he had meant it, Jamie, when he’d told him that he would take care of him. But he is not a merciful thing. He is a thing that feasts on death, yes, but not like this. Not when they beg for it. And Balto has always begged for it, desperate for a reprieve. 

    There are other ways, though, the reaper knows. There are other ways to drag oneself away from the brink of madness. 

    There is no reason for the old stallion to trust him. They have been here before. The shadow thing has made him promises before and broken them, left the blue stallion worse off than he’d been before. (Will Balto feel the same way this time? Will this drive him even deeper into madness?) 

    Jamie presses his ink-black mouth to the stallion’s temple again, murmurs something unintelligible. Perhaps it has some meaning, perhaps it doesn’t. For a moment, he is still, exhaling his rattling breath across the stallion’s mottled skin. Listening, listening for the clamor of his demons. Will they be pleased? 

    There, in the quiet, the shadow thing closes his eyes and channels all of his focus into the blue stallion. He relaxes his magic into the space between them. He draws all of the color out of the blue stallion, lets it slide spectacularly down his throat. Lets it pool in his gut. Until there is nothing left until the same deep black that stares back at him. Is it the soul he swallows next? Or something else? The thing that dictates his hunger. He does not relieve it, he only changes it. 

    How diligently the shadow thing works until, finally, he draws away. And when he opens those freakish yellow eyes, he no longer recognizes the thing looking back at him.

    Oh, Balto,” he sighs. 
    AND IT LEAVES ME COLD



    @[Balto]
    Reply
    #10

    i’ve been both a saint & a viper

    Jamie’s voice is familiar against his skin and the stallion stills beneath it. The darkness of his lids close around those icy eyes, veiling the desperation within them from the dark world that shelters them both. Despite the uncertainty and the voices that whisper (are they Balto’s demons, or something more sinister that he hears?) in his ears, he clings to the ray of hope that shudders in his chest. Yes, this will be the end. Jamie will finally untether him, letting his blood seep into the damp and brittle forest floor just beneath his hooves.

    The lull of Jamie’s voice keeps Balto standing as the cackles of his own imaginary demons reverberate in the air. They do nothing to show approval nor any protest for what the taller, black stallion begins to do and the elder wonders briefly if that should frighten him - their sudden silence now loud and unnerving in his ears.

    The darkness that had begun in the center of Balto’s belly continues to grow, sped up by Jamie’s terrible magic. It spreads until there is nothing left but empty blackness, Balto’s form nearly abysmal and neverending in its sheer darkness. The antlers that had begun to break through the skin on his forehead stretch and splice like gnarled fingers, sharp and twisting as they grow upwards with sinister creaking and groaning. Balto’s already gaunt body grows ever thinner, as if the skin would split against the sharpness of his hips and shoulders, protruding grotesquely from beneath inky-black fur. Even his eyes, as they slowly open, are endless - as black as the darkness he had come to know so well.

    The stallion blinks slowly, glancing around warily before his pupil-less eyes click onto Jamie’s when his name is expelled from the stallion’s lips.

    He feels different - there is no despair in the sharp bones of his face; merely blankness, devoid of the same desperation that once flooded his entire being. His shadows croon in the darkness, drawn to the terrible creature that he now is, mewling at his feet like pups.

    When he finally speaks, his voice is a low hiss, coupled with the mixture of awe and disbelief. “Have I been reborn?” The sharpness of Balto’s muzzle stretches forward to scrape delicately across Jamie’s cheek, resisting the urge to bite down on the thin, vascular skin of his creator.

    Balto




    @ jamie
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