"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
All Violence has ever wanted is to be a monster. She is the one thing in her odd family that resembles a horse. Her father and sister are alien creatures, beautiful in their horror, with beaks and a strange, birdlike language that she cannot decipher. Even her mother has used magic to sharpen her features until her bones could cut glass until her body is almost something abstract and strange. And then there is Violence – a black mare whose body is all too boring. Of course, the things she can do are far from boring, and she hones them. The necromancy came easy, like breathing. Within days she could draw forth bones, make them walk and dance and set upon her mother’s head until mother would sigh and shatter them. She can bring forth the freshly dead as well, drippling corpses, but she prefers bones. She makes creatures, a bone menagerie that walks alongside her like a friend. Her current – her favorite – one wears a wolf’s skull with a pair of antlers affixed to it, a crown of rabbit’s skulls on its head, snarling along on the body of a bobcat. It’s sleek and strange and she’s practiced so it moves almost like it’s alive itself. She loves it, her puppet, her pet, her creation. The possession did not come as easy. She finds their minds odd and fitful, is often kicked out as quick as she enters with naught but the faintly salty taste of their memories on her tongue. That’s changed with the birth of her sister, who is pliant and open and stupid, so Violence practices on her, pilots her like a machine, enjoys the feel of the alien body, its heightened senses and the way the world spirals down to simple things, like hunt and meat and feast. All Violence has ever wanted is to be a monster, so imagine her delight when she comes across a thing entirely different, a creature of ink-jet blackness with queer eyes. A creature who stares at her while a grin curls like smoke on Violence’s lips. “Hello,” she coos, “who are you?”
Anastasia does not see the world as the others do.
She does not see it with the mind of a conquerer—the craftiness, the politics, the romance beyond her. She does not understand their feigned evolution; the lies they tell themselves about how they have grown beyond their feral predecessors. Anastasia sees that as it is: a falsehood. But neither does she live as the most basic of Beqanna’s residents; they who, like Violence’s siblings, have devolved into nothing but instinct and desire and need. Instead, she walks a fine line in between.
It leaves her alone more often than not, although the isolation has never resulted in loneliness. Instead, she busies herself with learning everything there is to learn about the shadows. It took every piece of her mind to try and study them, testing herself with how quickly she could move through the portals and how quickly she could guide them into things of use. She was pleased with her progress, pleased with the way the shadows were learning from her too.
Pleased enough that she does not mind when her time, her space, is interrupted by the other. Instead, she simply tilts her dark head, yellow eyes peering out at the mare.
“Hel-lo,” she parrots, tongue thick and disobedient in her mouth. “I am Ana-sta-sia.”
Of course, the better question would be what is she, but that question was not asked and Anastasia was not in the habit of offering up more information than was necessary. Instead, she turns her attention toward the bones that danced next to the mare’s side. Almost absentmindedly, Anastasia calls to the shadows until they spiral out from the earth, molding themselves until they perfectly mimicked her pet. She smiles, revealing sharp teeth, giving the shadows a nod of approval. What good little beasties.
She turns back to the mare. “Who are you?”
like the moon, we borrow our light {I am nothing but a shadow in the night}
She views the world not in politics, but in things to be taken – she views them as wells from which she can draw forth amusement. Of course, her enjoyment often comes at their cost, for she is entertained by fear and submission, by their eyes growing wide and the acrid stench of fear emanating from their bodies.
She has no kingdom allegiance, but if asked, she would call herself a queen. Queen of bones, ruling court over a whole host of them, jesters and plebeians who dance for her amusement, who obey her every whim, for she is their creator as well as they queen.
(It’s almost like they’re alive. Almost.)
The slow and deliberate way the shadow-thing speaks reminds her of her family, though she doesn’t look much like them. She thinks about trying one of their strange trills, to see if the shadow – Anastasia – speaks that language, but Violence is not fluent in that tongue, her lips too soft, so she does not try.
Her grin widens when the shadows obey the girl, form a mimicry of the bones at her side. It’s something she’s seen her mother do – draw forth shadows into shapes – and she wonders for one delirious moment if this girl is some long lost sister, another mixture of monster and magician.
“I’m Violence,” she says. She loves her name and its implications – that she was born for cruelty, mayhem.
“Were you born like this?” she asks, curious, perhaps still idly wondering if there is some connection between them. She thinks about trying to slip into the girl’s mind, to delve for her own information there, but she doesn’t yet know if the girl is as stupid as Charnel is, as open. So she waits, patient, watching the shadows and the bones pace and circle one another.
Anastasia thinks on the name, wrapping her primitive brain around the meaning of it—the things it could mean. Her life was not devoid of violence, but she did not hunger for it as her companion did. Don’t mistake, she enjoyed it. She liked the rush of fear when she was hunting—the way that their blood hammered in their throat when she sunk her teeth into their flesh. She appreciated the massacre and the kill as much as the hunt; she liked feeling the tension like lightning rods in the air when she appeared out of nowhere. It fed some part of her, soothed her, reminded her of the control she had.
But she did not put a name to it. She did not crack bones and suck their marrow for its sake so much as she did it because that is who she was. She was created from the shadows and molded by her father. She was taught to harness her abilities and unleash them, rain them down on others like unholy vengeance should the mood strike her. So it was not a hunger so much as a need. Part of her. As much as the dark.
She tilted her head at the question, confusion displaying blankly on her face. “How el-se wou-ld I be?” she croaked. It was difficult to grasp other possibilities: that in some other reality, she might be as pretty as her name. That in another reality, she may soften and sweeten. It was an impossible question for her and therefore a stupid one.
“Dumb,” she snorted finally, shaking her dark black head, eyes narrowing.
Without thought, a portal opens to her left and she steps through, coming up Violence’s side, sniffing at her like a wild dog. She pushed back her mane, bumping the mare’s neck. One time, she had sunk her teeth into another mare here, but the mare had tasted of rubber and death. She was hesitant to do it again. “How we-re you born?” she demanded, wanting answers now that they were being asked of her.
like the moon, we borrow our light {I am nothing but a shadow in the night}
She is tasting mayhem, sampling it. She has not hunted the way this girl has, rather, she has settled into their feeble minds and piloted their bodies. Piloted a girl off a cliff, the neck snapping with an oddly simple sound. And she has hunted in the alien bodies of her father, and her sister, chased down deer and other simple meat. It had thrilled her, that control. She has yet to actually taste fresh blood while in her own form (she’s tasted corpses, curiosity more than cannibalism, but the rancid stink of them had caused her to spit the meat back out); but she is in no hurry, the years stretch out languid before her.
The creature then walks into darkness, swallowed up, and Violence moves to follow her, but before she takes more than a step the creature is beside her, unerringly close. For a moment her black ears pin back, and the bone creature beside her rears up, shrieks (it’s instinctual, now, the way it behaves, she barely controls it consciously anymore).
“Like this,” she says, then, “I see you can do tricks.”
She is curious, eager. She wants to walk in darkness. Wants to know what it feels like to be darkness.
“I can do tricks, too.”
In assent, her bone creature nods, and steps closer, fine-tapered point of its skull reaching out to Anastasia, as if in greeting.
I’d stay the hand of god, but war is on your lips
FYI you can powerplay her bone creature - anastasia can be friendly towards it or attack it or whatever else you can think of <3
