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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/FirstMovement|First Movement]]
| + | #REDIRECT [[ADanceOfAngels]] |
| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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| − | == The Duel Of Oynx ==
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| − | On the Southern face of Mount Calastine, a mile south of Windia, leaving the refugee camps behind, they wait... near a natural orchard, a little brook trickling down with water from the last rains, overripe apples on the ground near their feet. Cold afternoon air, colder than it should be, even in the north, caresses their faces, yellow and red leaves falling all around you... when watching them, time stops, and their beauty seems to be all that is.
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| − | The pass is not too large not too narrow – where a property used to be, abandoned for some reason... another two steps in the titanic stair down, and the bulk of the property stands, now a mountain pass... a pond not too far away down, maybe one day filled with glorious fish, nowthe home to flocks of toadpoles. Together with an old, broken-down household, an extension of the one broken down not too far from the orchard where they stand.
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| − | No siege of Windia ever got so close to its mountains, and these trees have never been cut down. Standing proud and tall, some seeming like entwined roots, like bloated veins of an elder, faces and power being felt in their leaves. Alexander takes an apple from a tree, his own feathers rippling on the wind, savoring this, so natural... the tension all but gone, for a moment.
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| − | Moments that don’t last.
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| − | A blink. And the air goes stale, foul.the leaves darken, the apple in the crown prince’s hands rots, maggots appearing on it out of the nowhere. The late noon sky suddenly becomes more bland, nondescript. And close by he appears, robed in black-and-blue robes of the Immacule Order, carrying the staff scaled like a snake. Adult, fully-shaven face, pitch-black eyes that mirror the Oblivion. The Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers arrives.
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| − | <i>Appearing</i> out of the trees, they come... gray-skinned and omnijointed, Heirs of Dust and Ashes, their bodies lithe, wholly shaven, and in their pasty, almost plastic flesh is tatooed the <i>All-consuming lithany of oblivion</i>, one of the most regal of the Bishop’s scriptures.
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| − | In simple white robes, you recognize these monks from the great melee in the woods a week and half back – Visages.
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| − | They move towards the Hierophant, simulating shambling in artful, martial moves, as the Priest of Oblivion stands, about two floors below the Angels, close to the pond, looking up calmly.
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| − | <b>Selinda De Windia:</b> "I see you found us." Selina purrs, open greatcoat laying about her as her black wings fan out almost in unconcious greeting. "Excellant."
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> "About time", Vorpal states quitely, looking up from where she had been sitting on a stone step. Her eyes glimmering in the depths of her hood, she stands up, slowly, gracefully, like a cat rousing herself from a sun-bathed doze.
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| − | <b>Alex Holysword:</b> Alexander drops the apple on the ground, kicking it away and placing his hand over the hilt of Ainerach... an eye on the Hierophant, another on Selina and Vorpal...
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| − | <i>I hope you know what you're doing... </i>
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "We had to look hard for you, you see... when we heard you left Windia.. I would spare you heretics some pleasantries, but I do not think either of us would appreciate it at this point. So, what is your proposal?"
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> "Mmm, yes. The proposal." Turquoise eyes fixing the Hierophant -- <i>perhaps you'll learn the lesson of meeting on neutral ground now, won't you?</i> -- as she gets out of her greatcoat, exposing her customary attire. No more dye. "We have the price demanded by our mistress, yes. Vorpal?" Selina nods back to her, diving into the Trance as she does so, and taking a quick look around.
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> "Yes", Vorpal responds curtly. "The Lover is willing to trade, for Abyssal Essence." Aiming her gaze down at the Hierophant, she adds a slight edge of menace into her voice. "One, for the Blade."
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> Spreading her wings wide once more, holding the folded up greatcoat over one arm, Selina nods at the Hierophant as a gust of wind overcomes the stillness for a moment, playing through her long pale blonde hair. "As an aside, where did the Vestal get to, mm? I was looking forward to seeing her again."
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "And how does she plan we deliver it? A Monstrance is a cumbersome thing to carry, but not out of the reach of any of our lumbering beasts.... as for the sword, I see it right now." He eyes the Reaver Daiklave on Alex hungrily. "Throw it down, boy. Now."
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| − | "The Vestal is not very far away. But I insisted to take care of this personally. My men are better protection than her whores."
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> Showing no outward sign, no noise nor a gesture, Vorpal once again wills the power that is her birthright as a Ghost-Blooded into motion, to see if it was ghosts the Dark Angel was seeing.
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| − | There are ghosts. Around Vorpal, to both sides of the pass. No ghosts down there with him, although the monks already do the part.
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| − | Vorpal chuckles. <i>So that's how you'll pretend it to be.</i>
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| − | "Oh, I think we shall need to bargain a little about the terms. The boy's sword is not part of the trade, but... how about this one?" she asks almost pleasantly, drawing her own black blade from its sheath and displaying it for the Hierophant to see - not menacingly, but as if she'd be seriously meaning what she says.
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| − | <b>Alex Holysword:</b> Alexander holds to his sword tightly, hate on his eyes. He doesn't remember this man from the assault... but doesn't like him all the same.
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "Feh."
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| − | "I have no doubt the Lover has given you a powerful tool, Pale Angel... specially since you were able to take down two of the Dead Hand's leaders. But my lord wants Ainerach. He has an special interest in it. And will settle for no less."
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> "What a shame, what a shame." The Windian responds in a disappointed tone, left hand fingering the hilt of her daiklave absently. "I want to see our darling priestess of the void, Hierophant."
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| − | <i>If she isn't right next to you, that is.</i>
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| − | "Alex, you need not drop the blade yet." Selina says in a chiding tone.
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> "That's too bad", Vorpal responds, unfazed. "For Ainerach is not here."
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "You play me for a fool, Pale Angel? I can see the handle of Orichalcum from here, clear as daylight."
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> "Have you not heard of Soul Mirror, priest?" Vorpal asks, her eyes glittering. "Have you not heard of the Black Queen's Vestments? You should know the skill the Lover has as an artificier." Gesturing in the direction of Alex with a casual tip of her own sword, the Ghost Blooded asks: "Do you think it was a difficult feat to make a plausible copy of that? To have you chase shadows while the real one was being transported to her fortress..."
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| − | Pausing, Vorpal favors the Hierophant with a small nod. "It is you who is being the fool here."
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| − | It is a shaky bluff at best, and Vorpal is all too aware of it herself. However, perhaps it would help to steer the opposition's attention from the boy to the Dark Angel and Vorpal herself, thus making it more unlikely that the blade could be stolen in the chaos of the battle that was very likely to break out soon.
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "I see."he shifts his weight, the ghost-blooded around him seeming more and more menacing, as if readying themselves...
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| − | "And?"
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> "I've not heard a single acknowledgement for trading some of the Bishop's essences, Hierophant." Selina sighs, narrowing her eyes at him in irritation. "Did you come here to waste our time?"
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> Vorpal steps back, allowing the Dark Angel to take the stage for now, and turns her attention to the layout of the place and its strategic meaning instead.<i>Let's see now...</i>
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> "Heh. You have simply lost the only thing keeping you safe, is all. To play us for fools...?"
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| − | "Your demands... aren’t acceptable." He grins, gleefully, and makes a simple hand gesture."Servants of the Lover indeed. Treachery and lust are all she knows... but, you are mere students in it. Shall we give them a lesson... Charmaine?"
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| − | And then, across the property, higher than the Hierophant, or Selina and Vorpal, under a heavy folliagedark light takes the trees... a wave of her hand, and the trees die and part, showing the Vestal, the dark Symbols of Necromancy shining on her hand... and then...
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| − | There was never a siege so close. But there was death. These lands had seen its share of tragedies... of death. Now called by the power of Necromancy, the ground all around the three Celestial Exalts filling with runes, these deads explode forth from the earth, legion, countless dead hands grasping madly at Selina, Vorpal and Alexander...
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> With an ethereal hiss, Vorpal suddenly seems to... evaporate. Her entire visage becoming transparent, her hair fluttering high up above her head as if lifted there by unseen wind, the Ghost-Blooded leaps up and forward. She dives away from the grasping hands and towards more safe ground, wisps of pale mist trailing in the wake of her cloak as she does so.
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> "Remember Void's Puppeteer, Hierophant!" Selina yells as her wind-sheathed form flickers and vanishes from sight, reappearing five yards above the conflaguration of rubble and dead hands, and then streaking further upward with a single massive beat of her wings that seems to blast air toward the ground.
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| − | <b>Alex Holysword:</b> With a swift movement, he moves the sheathed blade against the stampede of corpses coming out of the ground, golden light all around him as he swathes them aside in one glorious movement, taking to the air at the same time....
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| − | <b>Alex Holysword:</b> Turning to where the other hostile deathknight stands, Selina streaks toward her with Dreamshard at the ready, flickering death essence dancing over the blade, smirk daring the Vestal to stand up to her attack.
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> The Hierophant gestures, and at his gesture the two sacks of Essence around him cross over to the world of flesh, gathering bodies of Essence to appear as Blood-Soaked, carnivorous Apes. "In my care to be diplomatic, I have been to gentle on my actions. I have turned the other cheek TOO OFTEN today. Murder and horror are HOLY things, and I have not been devout enough. We must have FAITH in horror, my creatures. It elevates us. Even as we posses a spark of dreaded life in us, when we destroy for our master, we are cleansed. The Shining One loves us best when we kill everything we see. Kill kill kill kill KILL! KILLING is our PRAYER."
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| − | His weapon, Nether Serpent, points to the beautiful albino as it breaks as a proper Serpent-Sting Staff, "Pale Angel...?" There is recognition in his eyes. Terrible, terrible recognition... not like a predator looking at a pray, not even as a murderer sees his victim... no...
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| − | "Let us pray."
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| − | <b>Selina de Windia:</b> Turning to where the other hostile deathknight stands, Selina streaks toward her with Dreamshard at the ready, flickering death essence dancing over the blade, smirk daring the Vestal to stand up to her attack.
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| − | <b>Vestal of the Livid Lamasery:</b> All around the Vestal’s body, lusty red Essence explodes, a thousand rose petals standing where she was a second ago... appearing at Selina's back, and smiling.
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| − | "Dear, dear.... so much violence... so much violence..." the Vestal’s voice comes multihued, a thousand voices, it sounds like a moan, like a sweet lover's whisper... her anima exploding in red, rose petals all around her, the color of sin. "Come down here, dear, and let's talk."
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> Vorpal frowns at Hierophant's odd gaze, but does not respond to his words. Suddenly dashing forward towards the group of monks closest to her, her anima banner igniting into its full, terrifying glory, she pivotes her body into a spinning motion. Mournful Kiss abruptly flaring up with a blinding white flame, it dances back and forth between the monks, each jab and slice leaving behind a flickering afterimage of essence which slowly begins to flutter to the ground, so much like discarded feathers of a great, white bird...
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| − | In a single burst of Essence, shining like a frozen sun, Vorpal has already moved past the monks. Her cloak fluttering in her wake, the crucified angel of her anima banner spreads out its vast wings above her as her runs on towards the Hierophant. Behind her, the monks seem to explode, little bits of their mutilated bodies falling to the ground in a crimson rain...
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| − | <b>Visages:</b> The remaining visages look at the carnage unchanged. Their hands come together... and begin to change. Their flesh stretches over the skin, claws appearing, their faces going foward, their fully-shaven bodies becoming hairy, the scriptures branded in the totality of their bodies vanishing... as they cease to be an avatar of the scriptures, and become the messengers of an unholy god. The six remaining visages make good on their names, becoming, each and every one, imperfect versions of the Bishop's form.
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| − | <b>Alex Holysword:</b> Ainerach crackles. Ainerach burns.
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| − | Shining with the radiance of the sunset, crackling with ethereal flames, the Prince comes down... and then, enveloped in even more light, his eyes become liquid white, pale gold, his hair waving in ethereal winds, his wings covered in gold and so much greater.... covered by a radiance that can destroy the tainted by touch, and becoming an avatar of light the tainted cannot even bear the look at, Alexander Holysword comes down, stepping perfectly on the top of the Pond's statue, featureless by rain and time. "May the Unconquered Sun have mercy on your souls."
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| − | <i>After what you did, I will not.</i>
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| − | <b>War Ghosts:</b> Behind Vorpal, they manifest.... weighted with the anchor of flesh, six war ghosts take flesh, great scythes on hand, and come down upon the Abyssal....
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> Walking up to Charmaine and sticking her thin daiklave into the ground just enough to keep it up, Selina drops to a kneel on one knee, looking at her with all the desire she felt from before. Not a hard task, that. Her voice is a velvet purr.
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| − | "Mistress, what is your command?"
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| − | <b>Vestal of the Livid Lamasery:</b> "Just look into my eyes..." She says, taking Selina's face in her hands... the shadows darken around her, and her eyes widen until they become conduits for the void, piercing Selina's soul, as if flying her soul....
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> Raising hands to run over Charmaine's, single-minded attention on her, Selina's feather-light touch suddenly becomes an iron-hard attempt to pull her down and wrestle the weaker deathknight to the ground, eyes suddenly just as frightening as Charmaine's own. "Let me embrace you, Mistress." Comes that velvet purr, a faint rumble sounding behind it as she exerts all her strength.
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| − | As Selina goes grasp the Vestal... something grabs her arm., and her legs, pushing her back. Coiled serpents, hissing around her arm and her legs, strong as an Yeddim....
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| − | <b>Vestal of the Livid Lamasery:</b> "Oh?!?" The Vestal says, in utter disbelief "You... were able to resist me? No one..."
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> <i>"Get this dross off of me.</i>" Selina growls, pulling the other woman to her and encircling her with her arms and legs as much as possible. "Or you and it both fry!"
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| − | <b>Vestal of the Livid Lamasery:</b> <i>You wouldn't _dare...</i>"Let go off me, NOW! If you don't, it will simply crush you... kill me, and it will do worse."
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> "We'll die together...if it can kill me before I kill it." Selina purrs into her ear.
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> The scent had lead him here at first. The scent and then the noise. He had been tracking the first long enough now to know it by heart, growing more impatient as it grew stronger with every step, and the sounds coming from around the edge of the mountain well, you didn't grow up in the Boil without learning what trouble sounded like.
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| − | Seventh Moon quietly stashes Anne in a bush and warns her sternly not to go anywhere, then waits until he was out of sight of the young girl before reaching behind his back to pull the bulky pair of black-jade gloves free from the leather thong tying them to his belt.
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| − | "Alright girls," he whispers as he tugs them on, the liquid feel of moonsilver immersing his hands, clinging to them like a second skin despite the bulk, then kisses the feathered-emblem on the knuckles. "Lets go have a look"
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| − | The Lunar steps swiftly but silently down the shadowed path through the corpse of trees. There's no denying something is going seriously to shit up-head. Voices and shouting, the ground shaking briefly at one point. And the scent.
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| − | <i>If that little idiot is up there getting his royal ass killed after all this time</i>
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| − | His pace swiftens, foot falls patting quietly across the hard dirt. Stealth, stealth, stealth. Watch first. Kill later. Then, is gone, and only a ripple through the air and a stirring of dust marks that anything more than a stiff breeze whips down the road to the clearing ahead.
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| − | The trees begin to clear, end, and Lunar skids to a halt as a sight greets him he had not been expecting to see. Red hair and black robes. The odder of sex and death washing over him. An instant before he reaches her, Seventh Moon throws his rage and hatred into a single howling cry as silver light floods into the air around him and a pair of giant eyes, mirror to his own, burst open above him. A second howl echoes from the distant mountain as light collesces into the shape of a snarling hounds head around his fist and Seventh Moon throws himself forward against the Vestals back with a crushing blow aimed for her spine.
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| − | <b>Vestal of the Livid Lamasery:</b> The Vestal screams. She screams, feeling the blow almost go through her, spitting blood all over Selina's face...
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| − | <b>Seventh Moon:</b> The feel of crushing bone and flesh jolt back through Ebb and Flow and he can almost feel textues of her skin as it welt and bruises around his knuckles. But it's not as satisfying as the scream.
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| − | The Lunar stares hatefully up at the red-haired woman, silver fangs bared in a twisting grin.
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| − | "Yeah, she sounded a lot like that when you had your punk ass whores drag her down the street in chains. Betcha we can make you go louder, though."
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| − | <b>Selina De Windia:</b> Eyes widening as Charmaine spits blood on her, Selina looks past her at the newcomer. A Wyld God, was he? Rage bubbles up as Selina's eyes suddenly burn with the power of the Abyss. "Mine, she's <b>mine</b>! Don't kill her!" The deathknight snarls, iconic dragon beginning to form amidst the flows of her aura, small bolts of lightning arcing over her form.
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| − | <b>Vorpal:</b> And below, the ghosts, the visages, the apes and the Hierophant circle around Vorpal... each and every one of them ready to strike. The Apes move first, each one roaring, the roars coming towards Vorpal like solid air....
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| − | "Tch..." Without a pause, Vorpal shifts the grip she has of her Daiklave and lifts it up sideways before her, the white flames streaking behind the blade as she sweeps it in a parry.
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| − | <b>Cael:</b> Over the battlefield there flys a graceful shape of blue jade and silver metal. From out of its open port, there drops a figure.
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| − | He is clad in a pure white greatcoat that flaps in the wind as he falls, old realm characters in perfect gold and white tracing ihis fall. He lands in crouch, the coat spilling around him before he rises once more, his hands bluring as he sketches out chracters on the air, a scathing damnation of the heirophant, his dress and his comport in battle. The words hang in the air before him, and then he spins, gathering the kanji in his fingers before letting them fly, the torrent of words multiplying and splitting as they fly toward the heirophant, flaying his flesh with their bitter wisdom.
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| − | <b>Hierophant Clad in the Skin of Deceivers:</b> He is stunned for a moment. But only a moment. as the cascade comes in his direction, he flows away from it moving like sa snake, his staff batting the deadly kanji away.... Nether Serpent coiling around him, moving on its own like a real serpent, spinning around itself so fast that the words are kept away, sticking to its scales while it spins, and, when it stops, releasing.
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| − | Once again a staff on the Hierophant’s hand, the stray words slicing the earth, the fountain, and the sunlight. And cutting away all of the six remaining visages, who fall to the ground lifeless. The monk turns around, trying hard to restrain his surprise... “Oh, another one... why is it that always, always, aaalllways these flock around him?”
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| − | ----
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/FirstMovement|First Movement]]
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| − | * - Back to [[GoldenCat/DanceOfAngels|A Dance of Angels]]
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