GoldenCat/ObsidianAge2

• - Back to Sixth Movement
• - Back to A Dance of Angels

Death on a Thousand Legs

It has been quite some time since the training with Hanna... and Moon ate some lunch. As he did, he saw centipedes, crawling on the floor, from beneath his table, then under some of the couches. Running around on the corners...

And then, after he was done, he walked into the training room... and saw more of them, centipedes running close to his feet, one.. no, two, running on the assembled chairs. They loved closed spaces with wood, of course...

And Moon was sure he could hear a whisper, just beneath his hearing...

Seventh Moon: A large hand swooped down and snatched up one of the scurrying serpentine insects. Moon hoisted the flailing body up to eye level, piercing yellow eye watching it squirm a moment, the Lunar almost smiling at the tickling sensation of it's countless legs scrabbling for purchase on his hand. Thumb and forefinger gripped the bug tight just bellow it's head, keeping it from bringing it's annoying little jaws around to bite him.

Moon was use to these things. You'd find nests of them in alleys and abandoned buildings. Sometimes they'd be so thick, it was like a carpet of writhing whispering shadows. That always led to dares. Stand in the room, lay down in the room, roll room; Moon knew more than a street kids who'd taken it too far and ended up getting bitten by the nasty little fuckers. They all ended up sick or dead.

There was a faint pop and a soft click as the tips of the fingers Moon used to hold the little split open and stunted black dog-nails thrust out of the peeling skin and crushed through the upper most segment of the centipede's body. The head tumbled down to the floor, yellow-white muck bubbling up from it's neck. Leaning back into his seat, Moon dropped the still wiggling body into the steam bowl of soup in his lap. The legs were still kicking even as it slowly sunk into the thick brown broth.

Moon took up spoon in hand again and gave the bowl a few determined thrusts to break the body into smaller pieces. Soup had been pretty weak.

When you grew up on the streets, you learned to stomach some pretty odd things. Sometimes you even learned to enjoy them.

????: "My, aren't you a predator..."

Comes the voice from somewhere in the room... pehaps, everywhere... it is a silky, feminine voice. He knew women, and that voice had the bulk of someone mature... but it had something in it, as if it was going through... something... to make such sound. Like something metallic behind the voice, a clang...

"You devour all you see... now, now, maybe I misjudged you..."

• Moon feels the scent. The scent comes from everywhere on the room. From many small things. Many small things that are one. The voice is feminine, yes. He is surrounded, by only one person. Well, thing.

Seventh Moon: Nostrils flaring slightly, Moon breathed in the stale air of the room without lifting his attention from the bowl in front of him, catching the change in the smells. New scent. One that hadn't been there a moment ago. Pleasant as that voice was, it wasn't a feminine odor around him.

This wasn't going to go well. Moon supposed there was the small chance that whatever was in the room with him was there to talk, like Red had been when they first bumped into each other. But he doubted it.

... why the fuck do women keep sneakin' up on me?

Question for another time. "Ain't the first." He answered the voice, finally raising his gaze from the bowl in front of him. Eyes ahead, neither left no right. Not like he needed them anyway. "Why don'cha come out and chat a while darlin'?"

????: The noise of many small things, crawling. Almost like a buzzing....

He hears them as they come from all of their hidden places, and begin to join together....

Melding a fashion he had seen before. Underneath the Boil. With the Father. Melding, becoming one great centipede made of many... so many legs, and so many 'horns'... until flesh begins to appear. Dark, dark flesh, dark as he had seen in the few 'exotic' girls from the south. That dark was that was like a very dark orange, a very light brown. The point where the armor becomes her skin... her hair white, so pristine in the woman's face. Beautiful, as well, very beautiful, her eyes red as sin. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Seventh Moon. I heard about you."

Seventh Moon: Moon watched the transformation without registering surprise. Not terribly long ago, the sight of the insects boiling together to smash themselves into the shape of the woman would have sent shivers up his spine. He'd seen more impressive tricks already though, and far more disturbing sights. You got sort of use to this shit. As long as it wasn't trying to kill him, it wasn't worth getting worked up over.

Though he was relieved at least to see them take on the shape of something pleasant. But pleasant what? Dead thing? Something dark inside like Selina? Wyld like the monkey-girl? Could have even been a god. There were rumors going around about old spirits popping up who'd been quiet for a long time. As he watched the dark woman closely, Moon drudged up all the bits of ranting Shadow Eye's use to spew at him, all the street-stories he'd heard, and all the madness he'd been through lately for some hint of something familiar in the woman.

"No shit? Heh, ain't I famous lately." He grinned without much mirth, lifting his bowl to drink from the edge. Bits of insect crunched loudly between his teeth as he lowered the bowl, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "So what's that make you"

????: She finally took her form... and then they begun to appear. She let them appear. The silver tatoos shining on her skin, below her waist to her cheek, the patterns more stiff, almost like... well, centipedes. The loose edges like their horns. She smiled, clad in so very little as she was, just a mini silken skirt and a top that stopped half-way down her breasts. How she did not die on the cold, one could only guess, but she did not even shiver.

"Me? Your kin. I am... curious about you." She says, without another step.

"And concerned."

Seventh Moon: Kin...

Moon finally showed surprise, straightening up in his seat and leaning forward. Even if she had not simply said it herself, the tattoos would have spoken for her. They were a lot like the ones on his body. The ones he took pains to keep covered most of the time. Another of Chosen of the Moon. Another person with a beast lurking inside them.

"I'm fuckin' touched." He grunted at her, the edge of a growl rolling in his voice. Anger was the best way to deal with surprise or confusion. And Moon felt both at the moment. He hadn't really ever expected to meet another of his kind. "Whatcha want here lady? Winlandia send ya here like they did Red?"

????: "You should be. You are just like our brothers on the woods, you just have a jacket instead of fur all over, aren't you? And here I thought cities would make a gentleman." She shakes her head, leaning down on one of the tables close by. "Red? Winlandia? Who is this 'red'?"

Seventh Moon: Gentleman? He chuckled dryly. "You clearly ain't from 'round here."

Setting aside his bowl, Moon rested his elbows on his knees and leaned onto them, leveling a silent glare that the black lady, lips quirked into a thin smile. He didn't bother answering her questions. Way he saw it, if she had to ask, then she didn't really need to know. Red seemed to like her privacy.

Besides, he didn't have any reason to give her answers to shit.

????: "That is all I get? After being so nice? See, see, I said so. Could do just as well with furs, couldn't you?" She says, in a lecturing tone, her finger comically up, "And not going to answer? Some fire aspect, I imagine. Is it that slave of the Vestal? Kenta or something?"

"I heard you did well in the fight. But had trouble believing you are what you are. You sure do not look well."

Seventh Moon: "Kanti." He corrected shortly, finding no danger in that. Not like everyone else in the city didn't know her name by now anyway. "And she ain't the Vestal's no more."

Mostly...

Moon shrugged off-handedly as he went on. "And sure. Why not? Might as well be her. She's red 'n shit."

"I don't look no worse'n you. Least I ain't crawlin' with bugs 'n shit."

????: The girl laughs. But say nothing more. "You are good, at least. I will grant you that!"

"You may not look like it, but you are being adorably evasive. And bugs?" She pouts, her fingers turning into centipedes... crawling through the air towards him, stopping just after his reach. "That is his who I am. Everywhere. Able to do so much at once. And with venom."

"And it's better than being crawling with fleas!"

Seventh Moon: Right. That was a bit creepy.

Moon resisted the impulse to reach out and swat the centipedes out of the air. Then had to resist the urge to lean over and bite them in half. Might have made her think twice about doing things like that around him, but probably wasn't worth getting the legs stuck in his teeth.

He focused his gaze on the five insects floating in from of him for a moment, then flicked his eyes back up to her levelly. "If thats how shit like that works, think I'll stick with bein' in one place, doin' one thing at a time, and just hittin' people in the face. And ta the fleas."

????: "You do things your way, you do mine. But that is not true, is it?"

"You do not do things your way. I look at you... and your beast is hidden. I heard they saw it once... and never again."

She sighs, closing her fist, the centipedes coming to her in a blink, and then, it is just a closed fist. "That is all you do? Hitting people on the face? You have been here for so long... and barely anyone had heard of you at all. Why?"

Seventh Moon: "A'ite, that's enough." Moon snapped, the muscles tensing across his shoulders. This conversation was taking a turn he didn't quite like. "Gettin' tired'a you askin' questions already. Who the fuck are you, lady? What are ya doin' here?"

????: "Oh. See, I was wondering when you would ask. You can call me Lacraia." She smiles and nods. "And like I said, I cam because I was curious. And worried!" as she says thus, the ground shakes. several crystal cups touch each other making an imprompt symphony in the drinks locker nearby.

"Oh, dear..."

Seventh Moon: Lacraia. Somehow, it suited her. But a name didn't really explain who she was anymore than saying she was curious explained what the fuck she was doing there. And she kept claiming she was 'worried.' Strange ass thing to say. Troubled him more than any amount of crawling bugs.

When the rumbling began, Moon's attention jerked violently off the strange woman. Rumbling meant bad shit in the Boil. Earthquakes, cave-ins, buildings falling down, foundry problems. Recently, it meant giant damn lizards stomping through the Ash District.

"Great. Fuck. Now what?" Moon growled, twisting out of his seat and kicking chairs aside to reach the closest window.

Lacraia: "Nothing you need to worry about, really!"

She sighs, muttering something under her breath, While Moon sees a pillar of smoke rise at the gate to the city.

Like something was blown up. At the gates. Like the gates.

And he hears something... faintly... like a scream...

Under her breath, she whispers, 'Damn, I thought I had more time...'

Far away, Moon hears... words like a monster's cry... something about death. Divine Punishment. Threat.

Seventh Moon: Divine Punishment. The Bishops people were the only one's he'd ever heard use that term. Fuck, how could they be here again already? His first urge had been to smash through the glass and get out there as fast as he could, but it didn't seem that things would be that simple.

Moon's ears twitched, the skin drawing tight across them. He'd heard her muttering.

"Ya fuckin' work with 'um?" he demanded, each word soft and slow. Enraged. Somehow, betrayed by that revelation.

Lacraia: "Well, um... yeah." She is a little embarassed as she says so, sighing once again.

"Not my favorite people in the world, tho, really. Wish I could make them stop. It's kind of why I am here to talk to you. I can make them stop!" She says, walking closer to him, a centipede appearing in the air around her, coming out of her leg.... circling her, ondulating flawlessly as she moves... "As long as you compromise for something that will be better for you anyway."

Seventh Moon: "Fuck that," he spat, spinning around to face her as he saw her reflection grow closer. As his eyes met her, he growled at her in warning, a pulse of silver light coursing through the air above him. The message was pretty clear back the fuck off. "I seen what their idea of a fuckin' compromise is, bitch. Last time we 'compromised' with these fuckers, they fuckin' trotted around grabbin' up girls and haulin' 'um off ta be toys. I ain't gonna let that shit happen again."

He watched her warily a moment, searching her gaze. There was something he had to know. "... why?"

Lacraia: "Look, this is different! We are not them!" She says, meeting his gaze evenly... and then turning to a plea.

"I am part of the Circle of Shapeless Tears! We are not like our wild cousins, Moon... we seek power, we seek grace! And we cast our lot with the Prophet, because he is going to the top, together with us! We are allies Moon... and those get privileges!" Her eyes met his', promising, telling... "We can teach you to be all you can be. We may have denied the Silver Pact, but I still believe, that Lunar should not kill Lunar!"

Seventh Moon: "On the way ta the top?" Moon sneered at the phrase, at her promises, at her pleas. "And how many fuckin' bodies is he gonna pile up ta get there? How many you gonna go fetch for him?"

Lacraia: She looks deadpan into him now, her plea turning into something... colder. "And how many did you kill to get into this fancy Manse?"

"How many did you kill to be alive today?"
"How many did you kill to keep your area safe?"
"How many did you scar in body and mind to make a point?"

"You smell of blood just like me, or anyone else, darling."

"The difference, is that you are not doing it for the right people. Or for the right goal."

Seventh Moon: "Sometimes ya gotta make someone bleed ta make a point." He nodded stiffly, no shame or guilty in his gaze as he acknowledged everything she'd just said. "I ain't never thought my hands were clean. But I ain't never killed anyone just ta kill."

"Difference between my people and ya fuckin' friends raising havoc out there now? Mine kill when they gotta, for a fuckin' reason. Yours just do it cause they can."

Moon grinned at her in ugly amusement. "Sheeyit darlin'. Almost wish I could be standin' there when they figure they ain't got no more use for you."

Lacraia: "They always will. We are kings on this Gateway Board, Moon." She nods, proudly!

"And do they kill just for killing? Look at this now. If your city had not rebelled, they would not need to enforce."

"You, of all people, should understand the value of a closed fist to scare people into obedience, Moon."

Seventh Moon: "Tch, if we hadn't rebelled, they'd'a fuckin' killed everyone anyway." He spoke with absolute conviction, despite not really having any proof. Didn't need it, after the things he'd seen the dead do. "Ya raise a fist ta keep 'um in line. After they get there, ya don't bring it down on 'um anyway."

"What the fuck ya think they're here for anyway? They didn't come ta lead us inta a land'a sex and honey. They came ta use us till they'd fuckin' ground all the use outta us, then bury whatever's left."

"They're gonna do that ta you too, y'know. Let ya fuckin' dream 'bout power. Let ya think ya some kinda king or queen or whatever the fuck keeps ya blind and stupid. Soon as they get what they want outta ya?" Moon ran his thumb across his throat, letting the nail dig in slightly so that the skin blushed pain-red.

Lacraia: "They will do that to them Moon..." She says, coming closer and closer, her hand falling on his chest...

"We are not like them. This," Silver light flickers about her, the Waning Moon sign visible on her forehead, "Is not a dream."

Seventh Moon: A snarl tore out of Moon's throat as the air around him burned again with the silver glow. He hand clutched around her wrist, gripping it tightly as he suddenly twisted around and threw her face towards the window, pulling her back just moments before she'd have slammed into it. "Neither are they! "

Moon held her there, forcing her to look out. Giving her an eye full of the fires burning the city, the people fleeing through the streets from whatever was still going on.

"What it comes down to, huh?" He rumbled softly into her ear, his body pressing up against hers tightly, pinning her to the window. "You don't fuckin' care. All those people down there, they don't mean shit ta you... no one means shit ta you. Be happy ta stand back and watch this shit happen, just as long as it's happen ta other people first, so ya can keep tellin' yaself how great ya are."

"Ya ain't no better than the dead fuckers, lady." He let her go with a shove, stepping back to glare at her. "And ya wasted 'nough'a my goddamn time. I gotta go take care'a my turf."

Lacraia: She swallows a lump on her throat, shaking her head, "I care about you..."

She does not react to being shoved, standing a few feet back. "I can't let you go. I had to come here and kill you."

"I am just giving you a chance! Come with us, swear to us, and we come back to stop them!"

"Don't make me kill my kin."

Seventh Moon: Moon's breathing slowed, but his heart beat a little faster. The confession, the threat, were both in the air now. His feet eased apart slowly, finding balance on the wooden floor. His arms hung loosely at his sides, fingers coiling into fists.

But even as he made ready to battle this woman, he felt something low inside him. The tension before a fight was there, but not the exhilaration. He didn't want to do this. Funny thing, that. Normally it didn't mean for shit who he was going up again. But this was different. She was something like him.

Kin...

"I ain't makin' ya do nothin'." He said slowly, meeting her gaze again. "If I could do that, I'd make ya come with me instead. Ta stop 'um now."

Lacraia: She closes her eyes... and as they open again. They have made their choice. Something undulates within her skin, and she takes steps foward... the big centipede moving threateningly. "Sorry. You are not leaving."

"I am really sorry."

Somewhere far away, there was a rumble, and the earth shook once again. She did not have time to think about it. He was hurt, but he was still her kin, and well able to grind Dragon-Blooded and ghosty behemoths into paste, she heard. She could not take false steps.

The centipede around her whirled around, dashing against him, hitting his shoulder, sinking fangs on it and pushing him against the wall.

"Last chance. You are in no shape to fight me..."

Seventh Moon: Moon hit the wall, then suddenly dropped into a low crouch. His arms slipped easily out of the sleeves of his coat, leaving the centipede clutching the thick leather garment and nothing more. And as he fell into the crouch, both hands came up above his hand, clapping together over the creatures body, shoving it forward then slamming it's head back into the wall, jamming it's mandibles deep into the wood.

"So don't fuckin' fight with me!" he snapped back at her, but there was a pain in his voice. Not from wounded flesh, but something deeper that was being injured here. "We don't need ta do this shit!"

Lacraia: The centipede was pinned to the wall... but then went through the wall, coming back behind Moon, holding his leg in place, pushing him against the wall, serpenting around him to hold his arm in its jaws... as Lacraia stepped foward, pressing against Moon. On the tips of her fingers, she raked her skin, and although her poison was nowhere near what his system fought every day since the Eidolon, he felt it burning.

"I have to kill you..." She said as she pressed against him, her face so close...

"I have to..."

Seventh Moon: "Like fuckin' hell ya do..." He snarled back, voice softly hissing in the intimacy of their nearness. Outwardly, he seemed calm, even still, as if hanging resigned to whatever she might do. But Moon was trembling softly, a trickle of sweat running down his face, as he summed up every ounce of muscle in his battered frame and pushed it outwards against the centipede. She was close now, so damn close. All he had to do was loosen the thing just a little, but it was like trying to bend an anvil over your knee...

Ain't doin' this right...

Moon stared into eyes, through her eyes, into something deeper and alien that no one, not even Selina, had within them. Lacraia was like him. Chosen of the Moon. She carried a beast within her too. But she used hers, she didn't lock it away. She didn't keep it leashed.

A'ite... a'ite fuck... Moon's teeth ground together tightly. He reached into himself and touched the beast within, coaxing the hound to it's feet. For the first time since he'd killed that little fae girl, opening his arms to embrace it. Help me...

Coarse silver-gray fur rippled outwards across his skin, growing thick and heavy around him. His mouth came open, spittle frothing with the strain, and flashed the wicked fangs that were growing larger in his mouth. Moon's flesh suddenly bulged, muscles tightening and twisting as they grew larger. Harder. Arms already straining against the centipede pushed outwards with a new-found power, straining the chitnous sections apart.

Lacraia: She could feel his beast coming to the fore. There was something in it, something that called for her, something she had felt before, something she felt within herself. Not as inadequate as she imagined... clumsy, but it was there. He was strong... and he knew his beast... and her beast answered in turn.

It hissed, Her skin undulating, the 'horns' coming out of her forehead as her nails raked down to his stomach... and her lips came so close to his'.

"Damn you for making me do this..."
The centipede tightened.
And many legs came from her nails, dozens of small ones, piercing his stomach...

"We could have... you could have..."

He bleeds on her fingers.

And she kisses him, her lips warm even as half of his body feels cold.

Far away, a pillar of smoke rises, and the ground turns to glass.
Lacraia curses herself.

Seventh Moon: A yelp pierced from his throat as the legs and claws dug in, an animal sound of pain. The foam around his lips stains crimson even before her mouth touches his own. Moon doesn't fight the kiss or use the chance to sink his fangs into her, satisfying as it might have been. Greeting it warmly, parting his lips to deepen it. It's been a long time since someone fucked up him, then took advantage of him. Things like that worked the same among their kind as it did on the streets, seemed like.

His blood leaves stains on her lips as she leans away to curse. And he turns his head, spitting off to the side, a token gesture of defiance.

"Already told ya," he answered, voice raspy. "I ain't makin' ya do shit."

Lacraia: Her bosom was against him, her legs parting around his', even as her claws sank further. And yet, she sank her claws on him. Desire, confusion, duty, and tears rolling down her face, she kissed him, her claw-legs stopping. "Yes. Yes, you are. I thought I had met someone... I can't..."

Seventh Moon: For all the blood that was spilling out of him, Moon was surprised to feel he was still arroused as Lacraia pressed against him. Maybe it was the animal inside him, but he was hungry for her, even now.

"Can do whatever the fuck ya want..." Moon managed a wicked, playful little grin for her, making an invitation out of the statement. A joke, at best. They both knew she was going to kill him. But he really believed she didn't to, any more than he had wanted to fight her in the first place.

What a fucked up world this was...

Moon suddenly leaned his face closer, the only part of his body he still had mastery over, and closed his lips over her own. He kissed her hard, their lips crushing together painfully. Last kiss before dying. Desperate for senation, for connection.

He wanted to know this woman.
This monster.
His killer.
His kin.

As her tongue came out to seek his, Moon's fangs suddenly closed down over it. He could feel her yelp into his mouth as they puntcured through flesh. But before she could pull away, he suckled at wound gently bringing pleasure instead of pain. He stroked it with his tongue, drank her blood as it flowed out and until the power of the nature they both shared sealed it closed.

It flowed through him, into him, and he felt it hot in his throat. He reached inward for it, making his blood ignite silver so that every vein, his heart itself, glowed from under skin and fur. Her blood caught in his throat as his flesh within parted into new channels that guided towards his veins. Mixing it with his own.

This time, it was her blood staining his lips as the kiss ended. The inward light still burned on Moon as he stared at her, glowing behind his eyed rather than within them for once. She was dark in his eyes. Or maybe his vision was just darkening. For however many times he'd almost died before, it was still hard to keep these things straight. But he'd gotten what he'd wanted.

A little bit of her.

Lacraia: "You should understand... you... you don't? Don't you have someone tha..." She says, and it is a question. It is a desperate, desperate questio...

Relentless Prism: And then, a golden knife goes through the Lunar's shoulder, interrupting the question.

"Let the warrior go." The Princess of Chaos speaks as she walks into the room, her shining blade in hand.

"This is not the time for him to fight. Not weakened like he is. You will give a warrior a fair ending."

Lacraia: A yelp. And cut short on her words, putting a facade, her tears instantly drying due to her protean nature, as she turns around to face Prism "Hey, I am an assassin. That is what we do." She says, stepping away from Moon, finding it harder to stop the rush between her legs. "I am sorry. But I have to kill you now." She whispers...

... and then the Centipede runs him through his heart, sending him through the wall, and Moon's vision dims as he falls...
And darkness takes him.

---

• - Back to Fifth Movement
• - Back to A Dance of Angels