"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
05-07-2024, 12:55 PM (This post was last modified: 05-07-2024, 12:57 PM by Zain.)
The days begin to shorten as the months pass by. Winter has come much faster than expected, but as usual Pangea changes little with the seasons. Not much grows here, just a cactus here and there. It was really the only form of flora he did not blight with his powers. Something in the way it screamed "fuck off" sent a sensation of pleasure down his loins.
Today the undead thing traverses a long stretch of canyon to the east bordering the sealine. He doesn't care for water and so he often avoids the shores of the kingdom, but today there is a draw to be here.
The long black dreads of his mane swing along his sienna-colored hide. The gaping wounds of his body began morphing again and he thinks to how long it has been since he fed. Much too long he decides. Alas there is little to eat in the way of his preferences. He snorts, head hung level as he walks lazily across the muted barren soil.
Tall rocky ledges reach high above him along both sides. Their mixed layers of yellow, red and gray show the brutal past of the kingdom. Each line a different era with a history as profound as any land in Beqanna.
In the distant horizon he can spot a break in the walls guard. Opening up to the gray sanded shoreline and the warm sea air that kept the snow of winter from enveloping the kingdom in its icy grasp. The undead being didn't care for snow either.
The gulls call overhead as he walks amongst the brushy sea grasses. White specks congregate down the shores, taking off before the waves get too close, landing just as they recede. Plucking crustaceans from the sands and scavenging remains that have washed ashore, unbothered by his presence here.
Another few paces down the beach he finds a spot where some thorny bushes have crept their way onto the lands. He stops to examine them, deciding their faint with a few random thoughts. Thoughts that are suddenly distracted as he realizes he is not alone here.
It had been some time since their experiments on the flora out on the fringes of the kingdom and, admittedly, Oaks had welcomed the mild lapse in his ‘lessons.’
He had continued to practice, though. Determination still coiled itself within his heart like a fist grasping a lifeline, a meager thread of hope. Zain’s words still burned in his mind, to focus and to visualize your power as a limb…feel it reach out from you. The spotted stallion had continued to try, still taking the instruction literally and imagining a phantasmal tree branch extending out from somewhere near his chest. Its fingers would spread wide, seeking to light upon his intended target with specific intent. However, these feeble grasps could never quite find purchase – at least, not consistently.
As winter pressed upon the world, some of the thinner-skinned animals and more delicate plants began to succumb more readily to his attempts. Oaks had not intended to see them to their ends, though; spurred with some optimism from that brief blessing of actual suppression, he had hoped to ease some of their pain – the ailing old fox stricken with a terrible cough, the beautiful primrose shriveling in the cold clay around it – but it seemed that once again the powers of Beqanna had seen fit to shift within him.
Death had returned to him, no longer held at bay by a more amicable force.
He had withdrawn again as a result, back into the depths of the desert where his magic could cause less damage. Wandering within his new home, he finds himself near the eastern edge where the air carries more moisture thanks to the briny ocean water just over the horizon. The winds are more prevalent, gusting through the canyons with the notable saltiness of the sea, and avian life kites along the less tangible waves overhead. Although the sun is bright, its angle prevents much of its heat from reaching the northern coast, leaving a minor chill on the breeze.
This coolness is amplified when he reaches the beach itself where the wind is no longer contained to the corridors of the canyon and left free to tousle his bi-colored mane. For a moment, he revels in the comfort of being alone. A quick survey of the area, however, reveals that he is not the only one here; not too far to the north of him stands the recognizable form of Zain, tall and visibly decrepit even from this distance.
Oaks pauses for a moment, vaguely debating whether he truly wants to approach his unlikely mentor or whether his loneliness suited him more. In the end, he decides it might be worthwhile to share the news of his magic’s reversion to its usual unpredictable and unhappy means. Turning, he approaches the other stallion with a quiet chuff, head held slightly lower in a subconsciously submissive display.
“Zain,” he greets the other man softly, though his attention has turned to the sickly bush of prickles next to them. A sad smirk lights upon his face. “Another casualty of science?” he asks, nodding to the wearied plant to indicate his meaning. He does not bother trying to focus his own magics, having abandoned the pursuit for the time being, but he looks toward Zain as if awaiting instructions even though they had not planned this meeting.
Surprisingly, the plant does not seem to be affected by Oaks’ own power – yet.
Hunger twisted his gut as he stared at the gnarly bush before shifting his gaze to the others presence. Had it been any other, the undead thing may not have hesitated to feast upon it. Oaks though held a power of disease in some form, and he would much rather not remove that from existence.
His face illuminates a bit more than before as the spotted stag came towards him. Tendrils of smoke begin to swirl about the undead things face as his lips part in a devilish grin. It had been months since the two parted ways after Oaks failed attempts to control the magic harbored within him. He could understand how such destruction could plague one's existence; especially someone as kindhearted as the spotted man. Sometimes the chosen needed a push to understand their grander purpose.
"Hello friend," his tone rather lively for a walking corpse. The glow of his eyes do not leave the mans spotted face, "Unfortunately it was expired upon my arrival... Disease perhaps, or age." His shoulder shrugs as he gives credit elsewhere for the demise of the brush.
He examines his comrade and finds something a tad off about him. With a singular peak brow he inquires, "So what is new with you? Still leaving a trail of death in your wake?"I hope, he thinks.
The waves begin to creep closer to where he stands, bringing a decaying form to rest upon the sands not far off. The smell is putrid and causes his focus to shit. "Hmmm what do we have here..." He walks towards the lump of death, coming to stand above it and finding its haunting, blank eyes staring up at him.
The marine creature's body is covered with blistering lesions, a clear indication of its plight. "Isn't it lovely," he says in almost a whimsical way to Oaks, "the way this disease has infiltrated the body's natural defenses, stripping its life away from the inside out and exposing its most vulnerable parts to the threats that surround it."
His mangled face lowers to examine the body more closely. How he wished he could paint their world with such beautiful strokes.
At first he is glad to learn that the plant had already succumbed to its fate before their arrival. While the reality is not a pleasant one, it at least means that they will not have another lesson on how to control his unwieldy magic. Despite his desire for a better grasp of it, he had long ago conceded defeat in the pursuit.
Could one really hold sway over the power of death?
It would certainly take more strength and fortitude than the soft-hearted appaloosa has. In spite of his almost reaper-like appearance, with his tattery wings that wisp and flutter like a phantom and the blood-red of his body, Oaks has always been a tender thing. Born in unfortunate times to an unfortunate sire, his gifts would have been better spent on a man like Zain, whose fascination with death was, while off-putting, much more suitable.
That’s just not the way the world works, though.
He stands upon the beach with his companion, back turned to the still-chilly winds of the ocean as he considers the dead vines before them with a small pang in his heart. When Zain asks after Oaks’ status there is a nearly visible twinge in the smaller stallion’s expression, a slight flinch in his wings at the mention of his plight. A soft sigh leaves him.
“Unfortunately.” It’s all he can think to say, for nothing really seemed to have changed other than those few fleeting weeks where it had seemed that his ill-willed magic had shifted to something kinder.
He knew he shouldn’t have expected things to improve so suddenly.
But there comes some distraction as an odd, malformed creature joins them nearby, floundered by the surf. The stench of it is gut-wrenchingly awful, a scent Oaks is well-acquainted with by now (though perhaps less-so in aquatic form). Hesitant to approach it, he watches as Zain investigates the strange creature, unidentifiable for the terrible boils and contusions upon its unsightly body.
Finally stepping nearer once the other stallion addresses him, Oaks studies it silently for a moment before a decisive huff of breath leaves him. “It rather reminds me of you,” he observes with a tentative smirk, glancing toward Zain with wariness. It is the closest he’s ever come to a jest, a ribbing delivered as gently as the rest of him.
But there is some truth in his words, with the lesions having left some of the animal’s innards exposed, its white meat left ragged by the waves and whatever lesser creatures had scavenged from it. Zain’s words twirl dangerously in his head, brushing up against the ever-present dread of death that loomed there. “I wonder how it came to be so ill-fated,” he muses, knowing well that he cannot be to blame for this loss since he has not even been near this part of the kingdom before.
Daring to bend a little closer, he holds his breath as he examines the strange internal lacerations on its skin, dilated with the gaseous bloating which often accompanied expiration. The image burns into his mind, the vaguely greenish pallor of the skin, the hideously exposed flesh, the brittle bones laid bare. It lingers in his eyes even when he blinks, and he can feel an unwelcomed twist in his chest, a strange surge that he does not identify as the upwelling of his magic as it writhes, overeager to be released from a cage.
Unseen and unknown, it reaches out toward the only other ‘living’ thing nearby – toward Zain – and digs at him with unfeeling claws, probing into his destructed ribs around his lungs and heart. Whether its effects will truly take hold is something of a tentative mystery, though the magic behind it is hungry and craven, wrought with its own perception of the symptoms Oaks beholds in the unknown creature the ocean has presented them. It seeks to spread similar wounds throughout the undead thing’s vital organs, to litter them with gruesome blisters and festers that might impede whatever health is to be found in the painted stallion.
Outwardly, Oaks only shifts a little at the mild sensation in his veins as his own heart pounds just a little harder. As always before, he does not realize whatever effect he may be diffusing to those around him.
Surprise does not find his face when the spotted stallion speaks of his fated powers still at work. He couldn't say that a warmth in his chest didn't plume at Oaks reply. Perhaps it had been by his own hand the stallion's disease accelerating powers still exist just as much before. His expression does not show his true satisfaction though.
Looking upon the corpse of what could be a fish of sorts, Oak's comment causes him to laugh. The observation of their likeness doesn't cause the undead thing to grimace in horror. No, he rather liked the comparison. Even if one was past this world and he was as lively as ever.
The dark tangles of his mane whip about as the sea breeze picks up. The sudden gust of air causes him to choke on the salt forced down his throat, or so he thinks. It is enough of a disruption that he feels nothing of the disease Oaks has unknowingly concocted inside of him.
With a snort, recomposing himself from the upheaval caused by the wind, his glowing eyes find the stallion again. "Just keep practicing your control friend. It'll come only with time and effort," his advice is only offered for his own benefit, fore if the stallion could master such a power he could be of great use to the kingdom of Carnage.
His head turns to look down the beach. Their world had been idle for far too long and there was an itch deep within him that needed scratching. Ideas swirl within his mind and only one tugs at his blackened heart. It was time to rise an altar for the dark God.
A devious grin finds his tattered lips and without another word the zombie drags himself back in the direction in which he'd come.
Zain
ReBeL jUsT fOr KiCkS
@ Oaks So I guess he is going to go find a good sacrificial altar spot for Carnage and die on it from the disease Oaks created lol "I'm a sacrifice!" xDDD
*Be Warned*
Possesses health transference
and may steal your health.
Oaks
