GoldenCat/FourthQuotes
- - Back to A Dance of Angels
- - Back to Quoteness!
... and Four's fucking pushing it
Seventh Moon: His jaw hung to his face only by straps of skin, but sinew and tendons were crawling back into place and pulling his face back into proper order. It was an irritation at best, slowing him just enough for the fleshy-things around him to tear through the rest of the death-scented creatures.
Seventh Moon cast about, desperate for something, anything more to kill, his tattered jaw swinging as his head turned. And he saw them, smelt them. The caged ones, their insanity ripe in the air. They could be killed.
And they were cats.
- Moon, about to kill some Jade Lions
"Rar! People are food!"
- What chibi-Selina would say!
Seventh Moon: Alright, that was a little much.
"Fuck." He grimaced as the Dark Angel began her little snack, turning his head away. And he'd let those lips get around him? "Yeah, ya mind doin' that around'a fuckin' corner or somethin'?"
- Moon's reaction to the whole 'eating people' deal!
Selina de Windia: Selina sheers out of line, taking to the air suddenly as she feels a distinct...wrongness, veering to one side over a building, in another neighborhood, down another street.
What is this? How fearsome, that valley of terror...
Two demons are there, a lion and a whirlwind with limbs occasionally flailing at any mortal who comes too close. Two nemissaries attend them, Black Cloaks surround them.
There is a demon there, a hunter, who is hunting.
Marching toward the same destination Selina was going, fighting their way their. The skirmish line of workers breaks, falling back.
There are none who hear that noise and fail to flee.
Selina swoops in on them, scythe biting through two of the black cloaks, the rest scattering at the onslaught of the Dark Angel. The demons turn, at bay, and the nemissaries move to the sides.
What do hunters have to fear?
The nemissaries charge as one, the Teodozji moves in behind them, as the Tomescu hangs back.
Fear does not exist within a hunter's heart
Stepping to one side, Selina catches the sword hand of one nemissary with her free one, crushing it, ripping the sword away from the hand-less arm, drawing back to sweep it through the other nemissary's neck as the two converge on her in a blurred motion, following up her stroke to take the other in the same place before it can move off.
However, those that would test god will bear the sin...
Then the lion leaps. Then Selina disappates into shadow, moving about the lion as it leaps through the darkness, forming into her familiar shape back and to one side of the beast.
I materialize from the depths of the night
She stabs with the nemissary's sword, and the workers swarm the black cloaks, overbearing them, overbearing what's left of the nemissaries.
No kind of fear has a place within me
Howling as Selina runs the sword up it's back, thrusting it home in the base of the demon's neck, the lion turns.
Even when the ever-green oak surges within the storm
And meets the tiny red eyes of Chimes of Nothing as he drinks its death in with the Dark Angel's slashing stroke across the demon's face.
Even when the birds cry noisily
Selina turns. The Tomescu falls back...
The moon is a certainty
Selina advances. The Tomescu flees, up the street, toward where it may meet reinforcements. The Windian spreads her wings and takes to the air, swooping after the cloud-demon.
And the moonlight is still faint.
She gains speed, catching up on the cloud demon. A insectile limb with a thin-bladed axe flashes out at her as she tries to stoop down on the thing, Selina loses some of her speed, falling back a few meters, as both of them race along the other road to the Red Lantern district.
Soon, that light will be gone as well.
Buildings rush past as they move through weaving streets, leaving the corpses of the battle and the victors behind, and Selina prepares to dive on it again, putting away Angeldust, drawing her daiklave.
There is a voice from there
She dives, Dreamshard slides past a second frantic defense. Bites into demonic essence beneath the clouds.
A voice that calls me
The weapon plunges home as she sweeps down on the Tomescu not far from their destination, and life winks out of the cloud-arsenal.
Soon, the light of day will be lost as well
She doesn't stop moving even with her strike, landing hard, pulling the weapon out and leaping forward, taking to the air once more. Soon, in moments, she will see the Red Lantern.
Fate has spurred you on.
- A monster from Nexus, hunting on the Boil!
Alexsei: In a display of brilliant light, the prince takes down another flock of the pitiful cherubims, sending more of them towards the rest that should never have been disturbed. Once more, his heart bleeds as Ryshassa lets herself become overcome by the hungry creatures, yet protects him with the caduceus... His eyes fill with grief as flashes of her pained face show between the flurry of twisted wings and limbs, and yet her grip on his weapon remains...
He stares at his wife for a feww fleeting moments, her conviction keeping her from harming these children, her compassion so strong she would rather let them devour her flesh rather than having them come to harm. He blood fall to the ground, and he realizes he is wathing as they are slowly draining her life away from her, little by little. Her blood hit the ground, and each single crimson drop is like a piece of his soul that is torn away from him...
But he would not let this happen.
So be it.
One last glance, and he loosens his grip on Epilogue, leaving the Starmetal weapon in Ryshassa's hands. One last lingering gaze at her... And then he turns away, facing the massing zombies.
He walks, slowly and deliberately, right into the fray. He walks among them, letting them surround him, offering himself as a target to their pained, twisted little bodies.
"I. will. not. let. you. have her."
His fists unclench and open, his arms slowly executing a fluid motion that seem to leave a blur of violet essence as they move.
"YOU WILL NOT HAVE THEM!"
The motion raise in intensity, the movements looking like a dance as he gathers essence about him, spiralling patterns of dark violet surrounding him like a great gate as he loses himself in his performance. As the mournful dance comes to its culminating conclusion, he traces the sign of endings in front of him, bringing both his open palms forward as he releases the gathered essence, using his body as a conduit for the powerful power of endings.
"Let the Great Scythe of Saturn bring you rest, pained souls! May Lethe greet you in its warm embrace!!"
-The Gatekeeper's determination!^_^ Hmmm, for some reason looked so much better in bro's red color O.o
Kanti: I can tell him a nice tale of heaven though...
As he starts to climb, she starts to talk.
"Heaven is a place of wonders and miracles walking the streets, where even the poorest live richer than most of Creation. No one goes hungry in Heaven, there are feasts daily, and parties almost that often." She speaks whistfully, of memories she isn't sure she is ever going to relive.
"Oh the parties..." Moon can hear the smile in her voice. "The gods and the star-chosen and the others in all their finery, the plates all piled high with quintessential and ambrosial food, musicians playing impossible tunes on impossible instruments, wine...sometimes even celestial wine...He always used to let me dance at parties...sometimes with him, sometimes alone, sometimes with someone else ... but always I could dance!"
Seventh Moon: Moon closed his eyes as her slim arm wrapped around him. Her weight, even strangely heavy as it was for a girl so slim, was another bit of reality. Another piece of memory.
This is what life use ta be…
Giving her arm a reassuring pat, Moon hoisted himself onto the wall. He climbed blind, letting his fingers and toes feel out the familiar shelves chipped away by generations of punks before him. He tried to picture the world she was describing to him, a place with 'miracles on the streets.' Somewhere full of Iron Tears and Smiling Maidens and people like them. Sounded more like a mad-house.
But, he couldn't stop himself from smiling when she spoke about the dancing. The joy in her voice. He remembered the clocktower, watching her spin and twirl. Damn near the only moment he could think of where that maddening restraint was gone.
Still the best his imagination could come up with was her dancing alone. The rest of it was like telling some backwater barbarian about the Boil. A place where no one went hungry and you had a party every day. For years and years, just hoping from one glass to the next, drunk off your ass and dancing around. No work. No struggle. Nothing to fight for or over. No turf to stake out. No reason to prove yourself, if everything just gets handed to you. Just idleness for eternity.
Place was probably even more insane than he thought.
"How about people?" He asked her as they moved up past a window, the red-gold light of the foundry washing over them with a sigh of hot air. "Any people there?"
Kanti: Kanti holds herself on tightly as they start to ascend, feeling the ground slipping away from them, feeling Moon's reactions against her skin.
he likes the thought of me dancing!
"People? So many people..." Kanti trails off as she thinks about all the hundreds of people, Exalts, Gods and Goddesses she has met within the great dome that is Heaven.
"There was God, a God of the Loom. He was made all of wood and gears, and he wove you stories of hair and dreams as you listened to him speak. He knew stories from all over Creation and he would always tell you one if you asked politely."
"There was one of the red star-chosen. She was old and powerful, and she saw everything as though it were a fight, as something to win if she could. When I was with her we would have the strangest conversations, especially in bed."
"There was a girl. She was an Ice Rose and a Goddess, and we met with a dance. And then we met again and again, exploring the city, for she could go places I could not as a Dragonblood, and those places she could not, the name on my collar would let us almost always."
"I remember a man, a Tempestuous Wind...he was owned by someone like Stolen Sunsets...they would often met by a pond, and we would spend time together. He drew pictures, of the places he has seen on the pond with ice. The koi always used to chastise him for it."
"I could go on all evening talking about the people....there were so many...so many I remember."
Seventh Moon: Those were people? were people?
- On Heaven.
His head tiled to the side as he stared down between his feet. Moon didn't really want to ask this question and his voice made it clear how much. "Did Selina hurt ya darlin'? Back down there, before I showed up."
Kanti: Kanti sits herself in the ash behind Moon, stretching her legs out, feeling the sharp bits of ash scratching along her skin as she does so, still watching the red hot sparks falling.
...what is bothering hi-....
mistress....hurt me?
"I...what? errrm....No!" even though I want that... Kanti looks and sounds confused, pulled out of her reverie of times gone by in heaven...
No mistress hadn't but...
"Nerimar ... the Lord of Nightmares." she says quietly. "When he attacked, he became her for an instant." she wraps her arms around her legs, and starts to speak in a low hollow voice
"She had pale dead skin, and long white hair, and wicked, wicked claws, and her mouth gapped and dripped blood and she roared. Her wings were pinions of bone, feathered with the void and they spread to block out the sun. Her ... scar pulsed on her stomach, and she had terrible terrible weapons in her hand, a scythe with a blade as long as me and crying with tormented souls, and a sword that ravaged the air around it with wyldtwisting force....and she lept at me..." Kanti finishes, still hugging her legs, looking up at Moon with a mixture of guilt and fear.
"...I'm sorry...I shouldn't think about her that way...it isn't right."
Seventh Moon: Moon listened to her in silence. A faint sigh of relief when she said no. A stiffening across his shoulders when she began to describe what she saw. Moving slowly as her description went on, Moon's downcast face rose, his back straightening out. Drifts of ash swirled and sighed around them, running hot and cool across his face, clinging to his hair and to his clothes
"Naw" Moon answered at last, staring ahead at the flakes of falling ash. "Naw, don't beat ya self up over it darlin'."
He turned his head, his face oddly drawn. Haggard, as if he were cold despite the warmth of the rooftop. When he smiled at her, it was thin but hard with sympathy. "Tell ya the truth, that's about the same as I see her sometimes, too."
It's how I see all of ya
Strange caricatures dancing around in the cold. Scared but now cheerful slave. Death-lusting monster. White ash. Black ash. Made him wonder just where he fit in between them or if he was just floating around like one of those cherry sparks. Struggle to be what you ain't anymore, till you burn yourself out.
"Ain't all of her," he told Kanti, worn and resigned, head tilting to the side with a softer smile. "But it's part'a her, y'know? Ain't no shame ta admit that it's a fuckin' hard part ta deal with. We all got hard parts ta deal with, y'know?"
... and then Moon discovers how she hurt Sarah...
Kanti: Kanti felt Moon's hands on her own as he spoke at her, looking at her with concern, and she trembled slightly.
Warm hands.
Comforting hands.
Hands that had sprouted claws.
Claws that had ripped Kiri to pieces
Moon's hands couldn't reassure her, not with what she'd done to Sarah.
"I know her." she says in a low voice. "I've seen her...."
...seen her bleeding
...seen her suffering
...seen her recoil from me in fear
...seen her tremble at my touch
"...she wasn't in pain when I saw her last. That was a day before I left Mi-...the Vestal's side." Kanti's face showing pain at the thought of that, and the lie she is telling by omission...
But she can't admit that to Moon, can she?
Seventh Moon: She wasn't in pain.
Oh fuck, they killed her. Devastation tried to crumble through Moon, a sliver of heart-break agony, but he breathed in deeply and angrily batted the sensation aside. The kid hadn't said that. She had a strange way of putting things, but if Sarah was dead if she was, the kid would tell him. He hoped.
There was something in Kanti's voice that was holding back though. About Sarah, about leaving that whore that had owned her; about what he couldn't tell.
"Is she... did they change her? Did they fuck her up like-" You. "Like the rest?"
Was she even worse than the last time he had seen her? Was she as bad now as Kanti?
Kanti: ...I hurt him again.
I should tell him.
he'll be so angry.
The guilty thoughts run through Kanti's mind, but without Selina or the Vestal to drive her wild just by being there, she can control it, control her face, the guilt not nearly so obvious. Still there though.
"...I made sure she wouldn't scar." Not from what I did to her "The Vestal didn't want her scarred." Physically, at least
"...I'm sorry."
sorry I touched her.
sorry I hurt her.
sorry I didn't do more for her
sorry I felt guilty about it
Seventh Moon: Confusion furrowed Moon's brow. Confusion to replace grief and anger. Moon's lips parted slightly to ask a question, but he didn't know what question to ask. At first, he heard only her words. Made sure she didn't scar. Kanti had... healed her? She said Sarah hadn't been in pain the last time she saw her and the kid knew how to take care of people.
For a moment, his face cleared. His heart, lightened. He almost told her it was alright. That it was okay. That at least she'd done what she could.
But then he thought about what she said.
"I made sure she wouldn't scar.
Where she had been.
"The Vestal didn't want her scarred."
and who she was.
"I'm sorry."
All emotion dropped from his face and a cold numbness trickled through his limbs. Moon stared at her. No rage. No grief. No hatred. Nothing but cold, numb incredulousness.
He breathed in. It shook his whole body. Then the anger came, boiling into his chest, descending over his face like a black winter storm. Squeezing, his fingers closed over hers like a vice, clamping tighter and tighter.
"You." The word was an accusation.
Kanti: Kanti doesn't make much noise as Moon crushed her hands, just a small whimper. She didn't try pull away either, it was nothing more than she deserved. The anger in his eyes though. The anger she'd known was there all along. That scared her.
That was when she started to try and pull away, her fingers dislocating as she pulled back from him, sprawling in the ash as she fell backwards.
"I'm so sorry. She...She told me to do it. She told me She'd give Sarah to ..M-Maera if I didn't ... She was so angry at Sarah.....after...after she said she l-l-loved you....she screamed so much...so so much blood..." she mumbles, not daring to look away from him
Seventh Moon: Moon rose as she fell away, standing above her in the ash. His eyes gleamed in cold-heat, a moonlight irradiation whipping frenzied through the air around him. Muscle and bone physically pulsed outward as the hound within him howled and strained, throwing itself against the barriers of his soul to be let loose in a way it couldn't any more. To end the pain and eat her alive.
Just like Kiri; his bloodied face gripping her arm. Just like Selina, casually tearing flesh from a corpse.
No.
Moon's eyes closed, cutting off the light that had gleamed over Kanti's pale form. Deep withn the wounded hound snarled.
No.
He wanted to hurt her. He knew it would make him feel better. But what good would it do? She'd known it was wrong and she'd done it anyway. She'd do it again too, he imagined, because she didn't know how not to. Raised to never think to say no and to never fight back.
"I'm sorry. She told me to do it.
As if that were an excuse. As if there were anything comprehendible behind that. She wasn't just fucked up, she was a monster. Not the same kind that Selina was, but she was one just the same. A sweet, soft voiced monster that would cut open someone innocent and beautiful, just because she was told to.
Moon's boots scraped as he turned away from Kanti, his back a wall of darkness against the sky. "We're going to kill Barr." He told her softly, voice rough with strain. "You and me. We're going to kill him and after it's done, we're going to finish this shit in the city. And after it's done... you're gonna come with me. Outta here we're gonna get Sarah back."
Kanti: Kanti scrabbled backwards in the ash, looking up as the rage boiled though Moon, making him shine with rage, trying to put some distance ... useless distance if he decided to lunge.
"I...I...I couldn't let Maera touch her ... I couldn't" Kanti pleads as he rages at her, looking up at him desperately "she'd do such things to her..." and I wanted to please Her.
For the second time she looked up into someone's eyes, desperately pleading for some sign that what she had done to Sarah was right, was somehow okay, that she could be forgiven for her transgressions.
And then Moon turned his back on her. Unlike Maera, Moon turned his back on her.
Kanti shrank back further, a chill settling over her, and she nodded to him.
"Yes, Moon."
Seventh Moon: Silence between them. Somewhere bellow in the foundry, someone had started singing and people were joining in. A cheerful, hopeful chorus. Because they knew they had a chance to win this. Because they had champions of the earth and the shadow and the moon and the wyld all on their side.
Because they didn't realize that all it came down to was that their monsters were worse than the ones they were fighting.
" I'm gonna go now. Stay here, do whateva ya want. Just" Moon moved his jaw wordlessly a second, letting out a frustrated huff. After what she had said, even knowing what she had done he didn't like this. He hated her right now, but she was hard to really hate. Moon already knew he would forgive her. It was the sort of monster she was. She could slit your throat and you'd still forgive her for it.
But he didn't want to forgive her just yet. He wanted to hold onto the hate for a little while more. Hate, at least, was something he could understand. Something that was real. Something that wasn't horrifying.
" just don't come near me a while, a'ite? Not until we gotta move again. I'll find ya when it's time but but just stay the fuck away." It was an order. It was a plea. It was the last thing he said before he took two quick steps and jumped off the edge of the foundry. Ash swirled up from the rooftop in his wake. Clouds of white ash. Clouds of black ash. And a single red spark swirling between them.
Kanti: Kanti watched the red spark as it swirled.
Kanti watched the red spark as it fell.
Kanti watched the red spark as it touched her skin.
Kanti thrilled at the pain it caused as it burned her.
Kanti shivered.
"Yes, Moon."
- Simply stunning. Had to be posted in its entirety.
Iselsis: She is still trembling as she glances at Cael. She studies his expression long and hard, and determines in the end that he probably isn't one of the ones in the conspiracy against her. Not unless the spirit council were in on it all, and that's too much a stretch for even her to believe.
She uncocks the gun with a clicking sound and puts it back in its holster under her coat, before sinking into her chair.
"Demonic winds are what you get when you cross a demonblooded with an air aspect dragonblooded of the finest breeding.", she fishes a new cig out, lights it, and takes a puff, trembling a little less "Sure as fuck has never done that before though."
"You also get twisted demonic visages made of wind of the air dragon. Maybe if we'd waited long enough we would've gotten that too.", biting sarcasm.
Gennadi: "I'm going to suggest we skip that until the second date."
Iselsis: "If it's good enough for the Wretched it's good enough for you." she bites back.
Gennadi: "Touche. Though I like to think of myself as at least pathetic."
- Gennadiness!
Iselsis: "I have claws and fangs, I have horns and and the flames of malfeas in my eyes. I hunt monsters, I'm so bloody good at it because I am a monster! How could you..." she pauses and swallows "How could any of you even pretend not to see it. We all pretend, and I'm the biggest pretender. The monsters know I'm one of them and they know every day my humanity withers until some day I will be theirs. They told me, you see, the nemesary, the dead priest, even the Acolyte of Violet Whispers while I unleashed the caress of a thousand hells on her! The rage keeps coming more, faster now, how can you expect me to control it! How can you ask me to use this terrible thing to protect the only things I still love when you know, I know, and the monsters know that one day I'll turn on you! How can you ask me to stay here knowing I will destroy what I hold dear! How can you stand there and still keep pretending that I'm something I'm not!", she snarls, "I have to leave or I'll bring damnation to all of this just like my sister! Don't you SEE!? Don't you get it!?"
"You're falling right into the trap set for you with both eyes wide open!"
- Iselsiness!
Faina: Slap
Is the first reply Faina has to it. She stands there, trembling, shaking as she tries not to let her mask fall. "How dare you? How dare you think that of yourself? You saved Windia! You saved me! You gave everything you had to save me! Is that how a monster acts, Izabella? Is that how you think a monster should be?!?"
"The most beautiful, most frail, most innocent thing I have ever seen is anything but monstruous." She says, holding her tongue back already, cursing herself inwardly for the last words.
"No, if anything, I am the monster here."
- Reaction to Iselsiness!
Faina: Faina leaves the document there, taking a step back, and cupping Iselsis' face on her hands.
She is still a child... the child I saw, crying, the little girl who thought herself a monster.. the little girl I tried to kill the emotions off... the.. young woman..
Yes, that is what she is now...
And then, Faina comes closer, and her lips touch Iselsis'. Gentle, seeming to melt Iselsi' own.. and keeping there for a long, long moment. "... stop your sister, and return to us. We will be waiting..."
Iselsis: She curls her fingers around the envelope, and nods as Faina speaks. Seemed different than before. Probably because it was. She still expects Faina to remove her hands, turn, and simply walk out the same she had always done, not prepared for all these sudden changes at all.
Then Faina's lips touch her own. Her eyes slowly close as she melts into the kiss...
The envelope slips from her trembling fingers and falls to the floor...
Things would never be the same again...
And she was glad...
- Cuteness!
Niremar: The Spear hurt him, hurling him back in one of the Whorehouses.
It collaped around the demon, falling all over, the scent of perfume and liquor filling the air as he set both aflame.
It hurts.
It Hurts
A little more, and the Terrestrial would get under him... a little more....
That would not do. The lord of nightmare was fear, and she was ripe with it. He would not fall to her. He could not.
And Simma... Siray Simma.
He jumps then... out of the wreckage, and towards his prey. The conflagrant arrows about his raiment twisting to the sides and striking at the buildings around them... driving them backwards into the street, the pieces of the buildings raining down on Kanti, Simma and the Colossus next to him... obscuring their vision with debris and dust, and as he comes for them, it was not as himself.
Black Feathers come towards Kanti, with a sharp, lighting edge and a sadistic smile.
Despair comes towards Simma, her Silver Queens jumping towards her with iron knives in hand...
A strike to his Prey, a strike to his nemesis, as he grits his teeth and gives them fear!
Through their fear, he strikes unseen. He is fear, and their fear will validate him.
An as long as they fear, he will not fall.
Kanti: The scream tears through Kanti, and she takes a step back from the Lord of Nightmares before she steadies herself once more, knuckles whitening as she grips the spear. Flames dance behind her scars on her skin as more flames billow around her, insense flooding off the spear now the heat had truely caught it.
I will protect Fiona.
I will protect Simma.
I will do as mistress bade me.
The spear flashes in Kanti's hands as she flickers into a different part of the cycle of life in a desperate dance to hurt Nirrmar, to end his reign of fear.
Dark hair.
Dark eyes.
Olive skin.
No scars.
No nightmares.
The nightmares have yet to find the nine year old Kanti, and her blows fall on him with all the power of Creation because of it.
Niremar: So young.
So pure, so innocent.
A little dynast girl, willful, strong...
A little dynast girl, with the world before her, hers' to take.
A little dynast girl, who knows no fear.
At least, none Niremar can understand. None Niremar can reflect off the soul of the current Kanti. And nothing he places in his path can faze her. Her very existence... looking at his soul... denies him.
She does not fear, she does not validate him.
And that is what does it to him.
His corporeal form is destroyed in a conflagration that can be seen throughout the Boil. The fears of all the dead in the Boil jump from him as burning mares, as fire, and the purity of a child's courage burns his body away, in flames that would wash over all of the girls if not for the ward.
The Tamer of Burning Mares has fallen.
- Niremar's fall.
Prophet of the Ashen Book: "Truly? We intend to build, Bastian. You have seen the corruption in heaven. In the Dynasty. We... we believe. And I... Bastian, destruction is nessessary for change. We need her back. We need to make sure heaven will not interfere!"
He walks, and he seems to be everywhere around Cael. "You have witnessed the power of the dead? They are all humans... and yet, humans who become transcendent, whose power can soar as high as that of a god! We make humans into gods, Cael. We will tear heaven down, and give all humans eternal life upon death. Heaven washes their souls upon reincarnation, branwashes, kills. We bring eternity. We bring power. To all." The words form all around Cael, the scenes, dead in celebration, humans transcendant. In bodies that wear not, in bodies that ignore all limitations, in bodies that linger forever!
"Some things have to be broken for it... as did Whiteshield, and as you said, as the Celebrant. The very religion of the Bishop will be need to be broken when it finishes its role as a chrysalid."
He extends his hand to Cael, looking into his eyes... and crying blood. His free hand touches both tears... signing in the air with them. "You can make it be so without suffering. You can shackle Heaven, and bend it to your will. You can help bring her back. You can help the end of pain, and the coming of immortality."
"Please, join us." Darkness flares, blood vanishes, and all the confusing scenes and writing vanish all around the Prophet... leaving only him... and the hand, offered to Cael...
Calisara: "Cael, Don't listen to him! " Eyes closed, Calisara strikes, sending her knives... and yet, in a flare of undiferentiated white and black, he is not where the knives pass, going through simple ashen mist...
And then, he is still there, waiting for an answer.
Gennadi: A piercing whistle slashes through their speech, jarring them out of their personal antagonism for a moment. A figure clad in midnight blue walks jauntily out of the shadows. Snow crystals fall into his shadow and blow out, more brilliant and intricate than before. "Excuse me, gentlemen, but I believe Prophet has somewhere else to be, and others to try his wiles on." He brushes past the deathknight's companion, clear eyes reflecting nothing but the Prophet, small and unimportant as he stares and waits for the answer. His hands flick out, a single finger resting on the Lunar's lips as the moon reflects off suddenly blinding snow, casting an aura of power about him. For a moment, he is perfect. For that moment, the Prophet's destiny is trodden into the ashes he so adores.
Cael: Cael blinks as the knives cut through the air where the prophet once was.
He doesn't look aside at the whistle, though he turns to take in the figure in blue as he encroaches on his view of vision, looking the man up and down. Someone to watch he sees, someone who it would be best to impress.
He turns back to the Abyssal with a faded smile on his face. He feels the loyalty to the Plae Angel, to Ryshassa, to that ...suspicious Alexsei, to the crown prince, to the sages ... all this fading away.
It would be easy to reach out for that hand, to work with allies he could trust ...
His castemark flares.
"No."
Firm.
Simple.
Direct.
He could trust this man no more than he could trust the others.
The golden vision he saw he would have to bring about on his own, then.
Like it had been before.
Prophet of the Ashen Book: First Calisara... then that.
She could see the magic, of course... and he would flare much if he had to dodge more. And within Windia.. its protectors would come soon. That would not do.
And now... another... and as he comes, misfortune comes. His words seem so much more clumsy, and this man... was a Chosen, for sure. Solar? Lunar? Sidereal?
The Prophet did not live by staying on those situations without insurance. And he had spent too much power... for naught. Even if his loyalties withered, a quick glance now showed there would be more to address even before he begun to smother Cael's virtues...
And too many around him.
This time.
And the answer....
No
A pity.
Shaking his head, he picks his book in the air, and looks back at the men and girl... "Well, as a matter of fact, I do." He smiles to Cael, "Think about it, Cael. Think about it. They are corrupt. We are not."
And with those words, he disappears as he did when he avoided Calisara's strike, he disappears as the Dark Angel did to prove a point on the Zephyr...
Vanishing as if he was never even there.
- A monster's persuasive bargain, a welcome bit of interference, and a resolute man's determination.
Iselsis: The note had been left under Faina's door. The one she knew was Faina's only because she'd been there once before recently. It read only: Please meet me in my garden tonight - I.
Of course, she did write more than that, in the letter she held in her hand as she sat in the gazebo in the small garden behind her temple manse, dimly lit by a few scattered lanterns: most had been spent years before and not receiving visitors she'd never thought of adding new oil.
The letter she'd written was for her brother. Voidwalker. She didn't trust Gennadi, oath of the heavens or not, and she wasn't about to let all this go uninvestigated. However she still had a job to do, and she would do it.
The letter, sealed in a neat envelope in her lap read the following:
Dear Dylan,
I hope this letter finds you well, the war hasn't left anyone unphased and I must say I worry about you. Please don't be angry that I was told, it's all for the best, you'll see. The reason I'm writing is because I very much need your help. While on a mission related to the war I met a strange man and something happened. When he touched me something gripped me, and green swirling winds came out. It took all I had to pull myself away, and even then the howling things still nearly ripped through things.
I've learned that this has something to do with my nature. That my patron is apparantly Adjordan, the Silent Wind. He was very much unsettled to learn this and with the aid of someone I can't further identify and the power of heaven he's been bound to not withhold any information from me regarding his investigations.
However, I still don't trust him. I feel there's something way more here, more to what happened to me, than anyone either knows or wants to admit. The abyssals knew about me, I think they may not be behind it, but they definately know about the plot that turned me into what I am today. And when I hit the Acolyte of Violet Whispers that day above the park in Blue Wind her essence whispered to me. That I am a monster, that I am silence, fire and destruction, that I will be the doom of windia.
Don't ask me how, but I know unless something happens that that is the truth. It resonates deep within me, even if I wished I could avoid it. And I know I will die on that day, because I cannot turn into what our sister became so long ago.
I wanted to leave Windia, go far away. But I was persuaded not to by... someone. A woman. We're ... very fond of eachother. She knows what the Acolyte says is true unless averted as well.
So I'm writing to you now, asking - no, begging you to please investigate this in my absence. You're the only one I can trust with this Dylan. This war we're fighting goes further than what we can see, there are layers upon layers of shadow battles we know nothing about, and I'm being used as a pawn! I know you are the only one who can go and do as he wishes... Please help me, I beg of you. I'd lost so much and barely had reason to live on. Now I have you, and someone else to give my heart too, as well as to Windia, the home we both love so much.
Don't tell Swift Whisper about this information, please. I'm not sure I trust her, and would you want to jeopardize your only remaining relative's future by being over indulgent? Same, do not trust the man with the golden hair, tanned skin and white suit, named Gennadi. Do not trust anyone, not the dead, not those you cannot seem to place from one moment to the next, trust only yourself and I may yet be saved.
Some of those involved might wish you to forget this. Like the man I bound. Please don't forget about me Dylan, it will be the end of me. Please don't make me choose between death and destroying all I care about.
Please save me, I need you now more than ever.
All the love a black-ops isn't supposed to feel,
Your sister, Izabella
- Iselsis both showing more of herself... and covering her rear, as it were.
Faina: "It takes time getting used to. You are already very different from the girl of that night."
"So much less confused, despaired, so much more... focused."
She takes the first steps, leading Iselsis. Her motions are poetry. "Was I being purely professional, I would say that this might make you a threat."
Iselsis: She follows along. It takes her a few moments before she takes note of the rhythm of the movement. Compared to Faina her attempts would probably look clumsy, but many a beginner and expert alike would envy her natural grace, even if she does miss a step here or there.
"Maybe it does. Right now though, that's only more bad news for the deaders, isn't it?"
The topic seems to make her somewhat uncomfortable though, so she switches. "Aren't you cold?"
Faina: "We enjoy the cold, Iselsis. All that makes me shivers is fear, and worries." She leads Iselsis to the rhythm of a melody in her mind, which she hums softly when she is not speaking.. "I feel neither now." Her voice is warm to Iselsis, closer to her crimson, pierced ears for a moment... and then not close anymore. But it really does feel, the more they dance, after each movement that takes Faina closer.
Warm.
Iselsis: She just nods. It wasn't like she didn't understand, she was like that herself.
She doesn't speak another word, slowly edging her way closer to Faina as the two dance.
She was nervous, but for the first time openly so. Honest.
Honest that this made her nervous.
Honest that it was still unknown and a little awkward.
Honest in being herself more than she'd been in a very long time.
And so they danced in a warm embrace to a song that had no tune, on a starry, moonlit night. The devil of silence and the angel of nature. Just two more people caught by the trepidations of war.
Despite the cold around them she felt warm... inside.
- Iselsis proving that she does too have a heart...
- Gennadi walks slowly down the path, sizing the place up. In his hand a shining silver bucket with a spray of flowers surrounding the edge, a deep green bottle of strong champagne nestled carefully inside. He drops it to the floor, the thud replacing his knock as he leans against a wall. "You'd better be here..."
Iselsis: There was no indication she was home, or even in the vicinity at all, until...
Click
The telltale sign of the hammer of a plasma repeater pistol being cocked, and the slightly chilled feel of the weapons muzzle on the back of Gennadi's head.
"Hello, Gennadi."
- Gennadi waves at her with the back of his hand. "Hello, angry woman with a gun." Despite being pointed in entirely the wrong direction, his smile still seems to light up the room. "You remembered my name! I was worried."
- ... just not for Gennadi.
Vorpal: "Tch..."
Not quite yet breathing heavily from the fighting she has done, the Pale Angel takes a step backwards. With one hand she makes a quick swing of her sword, shaking the gore free off her blade and sending it splattering onto the stone.
What the... what is that thing?
The abomination of writhing hands slithers ever closer, and despite herself, the Ghost-Blooded cannot help but to shudder at the sight of its unfurling maw. She had certainly seen many a macabre war engine during her service to the Lover, but this was among the most disgusting she had encountered so far.
A quick glance up to the sky reveals that Valencia has the situation well in hand. A winged commander is a good leader for a winged unit of warriors - there is little Vorpal needs to do up there.
Good, she thinks grimly, lifting her sword once more. Because it's time for me to sin some more.
And suddenly, she dances backwards, Mournful Kiss little more than a black shadow whistling in a series of ritual cuts through the air. She drops into a defensive stance, too graceful, too agile... the beginning stage of her favored maneuver, the Death Sentence.
And then she is moving again, shifting to the second stage, which is an all-out offense. Her anima bursting into cold life around her, her sword sending a blazing arch through the air, she launches herself at the monster, focusing all of her might into a single sweeping cut.
The thing does move as Vorpal comes, but her strike wounds it deeply... making the thing scream and stagger backwards in pain. But although its front is heavily ruptured, it still stands... hands and an ooze that once was blood pouring from it, while the serpent moves back... and from deep behind its maw, comes a jet of something... something dark and toxic, smoking in contact with air, and shooting straight to Vorpal..... showing how it was a weapon in a Fort made to stop flying foes...
Vorpal: The maneuver is called Death Sentence because of the sheer power it can bring to bear when she attacks - there are few things that can stand up to the black blade lit by the searing white flame. This creature, apparently, is one of them.
Oh, damn --
Death Sentence is also defense combined with offense, allowing its wielder to shift from one stance to another quickly like a thought.
Strong and agile like a whip-cord, she dances backwards, whirls around, Mournful Kiss blurring a full circle to defend its mistress. She slams the sword flat-first against the jet of acid, her blow so powerful, the sword's momentum so great that the sheer pressure of it forces the foul liquid off its course.
And that it does. The blow does not only push the acid off the course, it actually hurls the entire jet backwards, the sheer pressure cutting its way through the poison, up, up, upstream along the foul black river, back to its source...
- Combos are awesome things.
- From the Fort, they come...
The souls of seven boys, moliated together into one entity of terrible angelic aesthetics, beautiful in an artistic sense and totally unsettling in any human sense. It hovers, wings made of their organs and seven mouths echoing together in a crystalline beautific face, singing, singing, singing their pain...
Crying, crying ... in a choir of pain...
Their voices tell their story, of when they died, of how they died, of their pain, of their sorrow. Of how much they suffer for their faith, for their belief, of how much their suffer, never having knowing anything else....
And their suffering touches the Hearts of all who listen, making them stop, filling their hearts and souls with nothing but their sorrow...
- One of the freakyawesomest Dead 'war machines'. EVER.
Vorpal: I've lived my life alone.
She grits her ethereal teeth, her eyes scanning the battle taking place in the skies above.
My heart is protected by a shell of soulsteel.
Her hand strays to the hard, cold breast of her armor, gloved fingers resting lightly over the etchings in black metal.
There is no chink in my armor.
She closes her eyes.
You're not going to find any weakness there.
The Pale Angel is not just a rank. It is a concept that trancends all ranks, a role to be played, a task to fulfill.
You're not
Her eyes flash open, red fierce and deadly on a white face. "This is a lie! " she screams on the top of her lungs, every word laced with the authority of the war commander, "A lie of an enemy who knows he is about to be defeated! Laugh at its face, sons and daughters of Windia, for it is the dying cry of your foes!"
The Pale Angel is someone who holds things together. She moves up and down the military hierarchy to fulfill holes where they appear. If the army needs a champion, she becomes one. If the army needs a flank guard, she will be one. If the army needs a drill sergeant, she will be one.
"Squadron one! " She snaps, and her voice is a whip that cracks up to the sky, "Protect the Silver Angel! Other squadrons, gather up! Sweep up the enemy and take them down!"
If the army needs a commander, she will be one.
"Lieutenants Leonas and Eva! " She throws up her arm, her ethereal cloak flapping with the sudden motion. Her fingers pointing at the renegade Dragon-Blooded, she shouts: "Get this filth out of my sight!"
The Pale Angel is someone who ascertains victory. It is simple as that.
- The Pale Angel rises above the moment.
- But then... something happens.
Alexsei feels it. From the cocoons...
Necrotic energy pours from within the Fort, together with the Choir. And they hear.
"Come forth, cherubs, come forth from your womb to shower the world in your grace!"
he spheres all explode, then. Alexsei sees it a moment before it happens, and sees it happening in slow-motion as it does, as the spheres explode in blood and so many... corpses of children, dozens of them sewn with bone wings, claws and teeth, come out, flying towards them... flying towards Ryshy.
And they all repeat one thing.
"Mother."
"Mother."
"Mother."
"Mother."
"Mother."
"Mother..."
- An 'oh, SHIT!' moment if I ever saw one.
- Ryshassa does not wince when the twisted cherubs lance her with the blades sewn into their skin. Most of the damage is absorbed by her Essence infused flesh -- but one or two nicks break through, cutting through clothes and skin, drawing her blood. She smiles a strange, unnervingly encouraging smile at the all-too-familiar sensation of pain.
Yes. Come to me. I can bear your anguish. I can relieve you of pain.
Let me bleed for you.
Her lips mouth the words, her expression near euphoric as she firmly stands her ground, her hands wrapped tightly around Epilogue, her golden staff whirling about her husband, protecting him from harm. Leaving herself willingly defenseless.
But moments later -- the Prince leaps into action, Ainerach blazing golden in his hand, She stares blankly, her smile giving way to a numbness far beyond despair. So many of them... she can only watch them die. She cannot make them listen. She cannot bring them comfort so long as they live. They are beyond her. Beyond her help.
Her knees nearly buckle. She would have fallen, if not for her grip locked upon Alexsei's starmetal staff. When Alexander -- glorious as he appears in full flare, armored in shining white and gold, gallant, commanding and sure -- reaches for her arm to shake her, she sways in his grip like a reed in the wind. She can only continue to stare in empty, forlorn silence at the broken husks of children scattered upon the floor.
- Ryshy, treading that fine line between Compassion unending and raw, naked insanity.
Alexsei: He nods in approval as Ryshassa gets back to her feet and decides to follow him. As he prepares to press on as the prince asked, however, he cannot fail but notice the soldiers accompanying them.
The horrors of the recent battles are finally taking their tolls on them, and the morale of the invading unit is going down... And with the prince pledginng to help Doran, it falls upon them to take care of the remaining troops. He knows, in this very moment, it is his resposibility to bolster them, to keep them in a fighting spirit...
Stepping forward and taking a deep breath, the funeral priest scans the remaining soldiers before clearing his throat.
"Soldiers of Windia, please heed me! As we speak, your leaders are fighting for the freedom of Whiteshield, to liberate this land from the plague that has gripped it. They are fighting for what they believe in, and they are giving their blood for this conviction..." He stares at them all, his violet irises flaring slightly as he walks in front of them, taking in their weary expressions...
"I am Alexsei Krauser. I am a funeral priest, and one who fights for those departed, and to release the dead still in the grip of foul magic binding them to this world... This is my reason to fight, my reason to lose blood here. What is yours, proud warriors of Windia? What is your reason to be here, to fight, to raise against the oppressors against all odds? Have you lost friends, family, to the invasion of these lands? Have you lost comrades in the skirmishes, or can you simply not fathom the idea of the enemy marching on Whiteshield's white lands?"
"Look deep inside you, troopers. Find what it is that keeps you fighting. Find your reason for being here, and embrace it, just like your commanders do! Keep it close to your heart, let its passionate fire keep you going when you falter! So not forget why you are here, children of the North... Be proud of what you are fighting for. Be proud, and raise your weapons in defiance, to show the enemy Windia and Whiteshield will bnever bow to the oppressors!"
"Now come, proud defenders of freedom! Stand with me, and let us send these foul desecrators away from our lands, and back to the pits that spawned them! Let us stand together, and show them the strength of the North!"
- They needed a leader, one who would not let them falter on the first place... but both leaders were high up, facing an enemy that was too strong for normal foes to beat. And it was on those moments that unlikely leaders flourished...
Alexsei's speech touches their hearts, makes them forget the horrific sights they had just seen, and renewed, the Soldiers prepare their weapons again. They had fought many things, and were brave and drilled, but something like that... was still too much, at least for those. The children, their cries... but it was past now. Now, they were reminded of what they had to do.
And by Valencia, so they would!
Swords and spears in hand, they rush foward in formation, storming into the Fort... and meeting zombies within. But mere zombies are not enough to contend to them...
And from behind, Alexsei can see the winged soldiers rend the dead bodies..
And the choir getting louder and louder...
- Alexsei, in a moment of leaderlyness.
- The door crumbles under Alexsei's foot.... and the voices pour in.
The choir of laments and pain.
The voices of young boys, crying, crying ... in a choir of pain...
Their voices tell their story, of when they died, of how they died, of their pain, of their sorrow. Of how much they suffer for their faith, for their belief, of how much their suffer, never having knowing anything else....
And their suffering touches the Hearts of all who listen, making them stop, filling their hearts and souls with nothing but their sorrow...
And it touches Ryshassa and Alexsei. It touches their very souls. They cannot think. They can hardly move. They can only feel the sorrow... and feel tears stinging their eyes, as they understand the holy pain felt by the boys...
All around them some soldiers stop to fight, and kneel, crying. Some cry like they do. And others feel nothing, and try to cover for their comrades...
- Because this thing's so damn amazing that it deserves two quoteposts.
Alexander: The prince comes at long last, his face lit up just by looking at the angels...
"Valencia!"
"Lilith!" He says, running in, his face...
... quite like Ryshassa's, beneath the happyness. Whatever they all saw, whatever happened to all of them, was anything but light...
He runs towards the angels...
And trips.
Falling face-first on the earth of the camp at their feet...
"... ouch."
- ... hee.
Sword of Azure: "Yes, we shall!" Moments crystallize within the Wyld.
Snow ceases to fall.
Somewhere, a violin plays for the two Faerie Nobles.
Standing on a vast expanse of crystal and ice, she smiles as she dances... crystalline snowflakes fall, each one a work of art, each one a beauty in and of itself. They flock to Sword of Azure like butterflies, standing in front of her.... making her blade shine in a hundred icy mirrors as it goes towards the Child of Wyld Days.
The Wyld stops on that moment, as the beautiful snowflakes scatter and become a storm of icy butterfles around them...
- Shaping Combats! Yay~
Sword of Azure: "I would wish to see your prowess in 'Creation' as well. This waypoint shall bring us to it... closer and closer to the center of the Maelstrom of shadows."
Warping her way through the Wyld, she comes to another razed Freehold, and begins to walk out of the Bordermarches, then... past the Gateway of Nirakara, piecing a body of flesh and ice for herself to the other side...
Child of Wyld Days: The Child takes that first step into the hated lands of Creation, pausing only to behold the ruined Freehold. Even then, her stony flesh gives way to cool, air-granted flesh, and her clothing warp into being around her person, fastening themselves. Her Air-shape complete and her passage through Nirakara done, she looks around slowly. "... ah, the shaped lands. So dry, yet so... full."
Sword of Azure: On the other side, she loses an armor - or at least, a real one. She is now clad in a short dress, covering her torso, her groin and her bust, but leaving her shoulders open. The dress is all made of ice, and amethyst gloves run up to her elbows. Her hair is the color of virgin snow, but her flesh is strangely tanned. Her eyes, on the other hand, are cold like revenge should be.. and on her hand, now with a single blade, is a sword of pulsing, shining blue....
"It has its appeal, doesn't it? So many dreams, locked in boxes of flesh... so tasty. So amusing. And so full of... power."
- The interloping fae summing up their stance on Creation.
Child of Wyld Days: Days pauses... then smirks at the pat. I'll take what compliments I can... "I would be more than happy to take care of that. Now then, good sir..." She flashes a broad smile, canines very evident. "You seem to be in quite a hurry, so I'm going to ask you what is it you're to relay. And please, don't try to resist... you seem like such a nice man... I'd hate to have to do something untoward." Days coos softly, adjusting her grip just so to... ah, accentuate just what the man's held against.
- Fear.
Lust.
And above all... confusion!
Confused, he looks up at Days.... "I... I won't resist... but... but what do you want...?"
Child of Wyld Days: "You're in such a hurry, dear. Tell me... why? What's happening that's so urgent that you tear across the landscape so?" Snow Monkey, even though her point's been made, nonetheless traces a finger along the man's jaw, purring her words out. "Who knows? Perhaps we could be of some... assistance."
Hah! Assistance! In muddling things, perhaps! But that would be fun, to stir whatever pot's out there...
Waiting patiently, Days smiles at the man, casually wondering what his desires and dreams taste like.
- "I...I..."
"I..."
The man's face goes red, and his eyes lose themselves in her face... and suddenly he looks so much more like any man like he did before, the dark brown cloak around him and the symbols of the Bishop's church little more than ornaments, no more symbols of his identity... "I was in a mission... a courier from the Boil... to warn of the uprisal there... the Dark Angel... Seventh Moon... some of the Vestal's whores, and Iron Tears... that's the god of the Boil... they are trying an uprising... trying to take the city back... the Parishioner, he sent me, but, but..."
His body tries to rub against Days, trying to not show it much... "B-but since there are other messengers coming out... they don't need me now..."
- This is what happens when you're in the grip of a being with Social stats at 5+ that's holding you to her tits, and you fail your Temperance check.
Alexander: He looks up, entranced. It could be a great dancer of the far South giving her most alluring presentation, and his expression would be the same. She was like a goddess. And by thinking so, he did not realise how his own face seemed godlike as his eyes ran across her flesh, together with the Black Queen's Vestiments...
"Much better." He exclaims finally, and his eyes clap for the great performance he has witnessed. "I want to see you like that," He says, sliding between her legs as he begins to get up, holding his own breastplate. Essence flows, and lights appear with clicks on it... and he discards the breastplate, making it clang to the floor unceremoniously. Now he stood sat in the bed as well, their thighs locked together through the clothes, and he held the Pale Angel to him.
"I want to see the tragic princess within the Pale Angel, the one you keep denying." In all that time he ran, in all the time with them, he felt he had nothing. Even in the Zephyr, he felt he had nothing. He had something now. This moment... this moment of giving. It felt like something. "I want to make love to her."
He kissed her, gently, once again.
It was a question in and of itself. An invitation to dance.
That dance would be theirs. He would have something.
Vorpal: "Silly boy", she responds and takes a hold of his hands. Gently she guides them upwards, to slide along her skin, to cup her breasts into his palms.
"Silly, silly, silly boy", she whispers and bends forward, pushing him down ahead of her, her gaze locked in his, her lips parting without hesitation this time.
Although Alex does not know it, it is the first time for both of them. And so, it begins a little awkwardly, with both of them a little uncertain about exactly how it is done. Soon, however, memories of past lives begin to flow in, of a hundred centuries of love and need and passion, of pleasure and lust, of divine skill and daring only elder Chosen of the Sun can truly achieve.
In less than ten minutes, what they are doing in that room would make a Neomah's ears burn.
- Alex, proving he is only a man, and Vorpal proving she is still human... enough.
Iron Tears: While they fought, Iron Tears did not move. He just looked... beyond it, in the light of his faceless helmet. Looked....
At his city.
Filling the city with his compassion, he opened it to his children, to his body, to his self.
He felt it. Every alley, every person, every building. He felt them.
And he made it so each and every one would feel him, touch his soul, understand his will.
And they did. They felt that.. The strange presence of the god as he became one with his domain...
... and spoke.
“My children.
People of the Boil.
You know me. Some of you have met me, and known me in your heart and prayers all of your lives. Some of you have never cared and lived your lives for yourselves, not wanting anything with gods or demons. But each of you... I know each of you. And I come now...
... to plead.
To plead for your spirits. To plead for your souls. To plead for your Valor.
We all know the horror that happened to our capital. We all know the horror that happened to our countryside. We all know the horrors that walk among us. That stiffle us. We all hear the voices coming from the boy’s field as they bring more of them are born from their world to ours. Some of you have already begun worshipping your dead ancestors, those who joined their side and now terrorize your dreams. Some of you are worked with them. Some of you have suffered on their hands, see your homes, your loved ones, taken, ravaged, or even offered for the dead.
I understand you.
They cheated death, is that not? They remained, and now return, stronger than they have ever been in life, with terrifying prowess, able to do things only gods should be able to. Existing as gods, violating your dreams, besting the best among you. I understand that is how you see it. I understand that is the fear each of you have seeing them crush our souls a little more every passing day. You see the void in their eyes, you hear the void in their words, and you fear. You fear they are greater than you. You hear of their paradise, of living forever as gods, and you know they are.
But you are wrong.
Upon death, your soul may go its righteous path, and touch Heaven. There, you are given another chance in the wheel of life, judged, to come back... to live another life, better or worse depending on how you lived. One climbs it as a stairway, on your own deeds, to reach the power of Exaltation, to live as a Dragon... and beyond. Heaven Judges you. Heaven knows this.
Heaven knows who you are.
I know who you are.”
As he says this, he whisper, in their minds, the true name of every person in the Boil. For he knows. His children, the cogs in his well-oiled machine. He knows them.
And, in Selina’s mind, she hears...
Selina.
Miriana
de Windia
“Those you fear are those who decided to quit the game. Those whose crimes left them too afraid to face heavenly judgement. They are those that were too weak to finish their bussiness in life, and were then sent to a dark land where the final end is all too close.
They are cowards.
They are weak.
They are pitiful.
Do not be afraid. They crush us with their idea of Oblivion. With the harshness of the Underworld.
They think they know what it is to live a harsh life.
Raise your heads, my children. Look at them. Know they do not!
They think they know pain. They think they know suffering. They know Nothing! We have lived day after day here... a dumping ground to Whiteshield, slaved out of our wealth, spit on by its nobility, exploited so ruthlessly. Preyed on by the Underworld from the Boy’s Field, preyed on by the Raksha behind the mount, preyed on by snow and Frozen Fog. Preyed on by ourselves, hardened and sharpened by the North.
They know nothing. They know nothing of the suffering, they know nothing of pain, they know nothing of the north! They know nothing of the Boil!
Raise!
Raise, my children! And show them! Show them that being crushed by the north, that being pissed on by Whiteshield, did not diminish our pride! That it did not dull our edge! No, it sharpened it!
Raise, and show them! Show them true harshness! Show those coward, pitiful creatures that the suffering of the Underworld pales before the North! That those of the Boil recognize no snow, darkness or oblivion as their master! Show them your pride, show them your scars and raise!
- Iron Tears, casually informing people to STAND UP like there's ass in their pants.
Seventh Moon: He struck until their hides cracked open and spilled out something that resembled blood. One vanished into the mist around him, but he continued to strike the first, until it's body began to disintegrate between his fists and the paving stones. He continued to strike until there was scarcely any of the lion left and stones were crushing to powder bellow his fists. He continued... until he heard the voice.
Voices had meant nothing until that moment. Meaningless monkey chatter that had nothing to do with killing or eating. But this was... different. More than sound, it's buzzing slipped through his ears and reached deeper into him. The violence tried to shrug it off, the hound to turn it's back, but even their rejection couldn't stop the effect it had on the man.
Moon's fists began to slow as Iron Tears went on, then stopped completely. Breathing hard, he stared at the city-god with growing comprehension, the man rising to claim it's place above the hound and the beast again. For the one knew little but hungry and the other nothing but violence, but the forge-god was speaking to, touching something beyond either of them.
He spoke of the hardships. He spoke of the strength of life. He spoke of struggle and pain. He spoke of death and violence. In all things and in all ways, he spoke of the Boil. Moon's Boil.
The city Man-smell, horrid, rot, dark, man-smelldangerbadhome the city they were here to free.
The red rage fell, shattered and wailing as he pushed it back inside of him. Moon rose, gore dripping from his fists and eyes still ablaze. He threw back his head and howled into the storm, a baying, righteous cry. The call of the hunter. A warning to all that tread where it should not. At first, only the rumble of the storm answered him, but as Moon drew breath and cried out again, the voices came. Dim and distant at first, straining to rise above walls of the Red-Lantern district. Then closer, ringing from the stones of the great foundries. Then out of the wretched wastelands of the Ash. Echoing off hillsides and through the narrow city streets. A hundred voices to sing the same song. A hundred punks clustered damp and dirty, all standing with their face to the sky and letting out their defiance.
And as he stilled his own part in the chours and listened to the gangs of the Boil howl as one, Moon grinned. The dead-fuckers better hope their underworld was gonna show mercy on them cause be damned if they would.
- Moon, in a nutshell, IS the Boil.
Nathaniel Barr looked over his window in Highlane... at the instant chaos that took his city. The old man passed a hand through iron-gray locks, not once contesting his choice. To side with the winner. The lord of all smugglers on the Boil, he knew all strengths, to know exactly the place to slip his cargo through. He had seen the Parishioner. And he knew the man had no weaknessess. Father of Crows had been quick to mobilize the Boil... and the Parishioner had been quicker in his plan to cripple it, even before he knew of the uprising. The death warrants for Leonti, Fiodor and Allyster were already signed, just waiting the right moment. The teams were already assembled. The Sheriff already at his side.
They had not expected Iron Tears to move so soon. And he knew all the warrants were made urgent on the moment he did. Iron Tears managed to force their hand before they were ready... and they could tell they had forced his’ as well. Both sides were already ready to strike... and the Parishioner would win unfailingly if Iron Tears had not struck first. Made a target out of himself. And so, what he saw in his window happened... as both sides threw aimed, well-prepared strikes at each other at once.
Lighting a cigarette, he wondered how long it would last. And how much would be needed to be smuggled in afterwards. If he thought much of Father of Crows or his subordinates, that did not show – as he had always been with the strong, the power behind the Boil. And that one had a new name, now.
- A view of the battle from the eyes of one who knew the Boil well.
Hollow Edge: "Very well, then. You made your choice."
The paladin makes a gesture in front of him. A gesture of prayer. Of consecration. "I will send your souls tro paradise. To the Underworld, where you will understand. And help others pray to our lord. I pray that they do go to paradise, and not to eternal death in Heaven."
As soon as the movement is done, he lunges foward... moving like something unreal. He vanishes on every step, becoming a shadow on the corner of the mind's eye, a step on gutter's water, vanishing and appearing, lunging closer every time... and closer....
The spectres trail undifferentiated whispers towards the Pack, their tendrils holding them aloft and propelling them in the air, the great poleaxes in their hands and coming towards the Pack...
”Amen!”
Seventh Moon: "Aw shut up. Tired of listenin' to you fuckers preach." Moon answered to Hollow's speech, spitting again onto the ground. The Lunar made a gesture in front of himself as well. A gesture of dismissal. One finger raised in the middle of four others. The hound above him gashed it's teeth and huffed, it's half-face grinning.
Moon shouted into the attack, drawing equal cries of defiance from the Pack behind him. Out ahead before the rest could even begin to move, the Lunar hunched low into a run, shoulder out before him like a ram, fist drawn back to strike. Head to head, he ran to meet the undead monster, watching it flicker in and out of existence, and as it vanished again Moon's charge pulled suddenly to the side. He dove for the wall of the whorehouse beside him, smashfists igniting into iridescent paws. First swing, and wood gouged from the wall, spraying across the street in a hail of splinters and pebbles. Second swing hit stone and crushed it to powder. Third swing blasted through wood again and the entire building began to groan. Moon plowed his fist through the last vein of stone supporting the structure and jumped clear as it's shadow began to grow long across the street, debre raining down as it began to fall onto it's side and engulf Hollow Edge as he flashed back into Creation.
- Moon hits... and, with supernatural speed, is not there as it begins to fall.
But they are. Hollow Edge has a moment to look upwards... and then everything comes crashing down upon them. All the sighs, all the smiles, all the laughs, all the moans... a life of pleasure and pain comes crashing down over their heads... and, a moment later, only debris and dust are in front of the pack.
- I believe the proper term is 'owned'. Shame he got back up, sorta.
Hanna: "Moon!"
Hannah screamed, seeing so from the back, running towards him, as everything begun to slow down... to look so... solid. Everything seemed set, she seemed so heavy, the world... the world seemed to stop. But she did not stop to it. She ran, breaking her bandages, her blood flowing free. She had let down Simma Siray, she had let down the Queens, to be in Moon's gang, to be close to him... she would. Not. Let. Him. Die.
She just would.... not. She liked him too much to. Too... much....
Opening her wounds, opening her leg on a sharp piece of rubble, she did not even realise it, as long as she got there.
And she did, placing her arm in front of the sword, expecting to be cut in half.
It was all instinct then.
She did not notice how her arm stopped the blade,
She did not notice how her foot had broken the ground,
She did not notice the pure diamonds appearing all around her,
She didn't notice anything but the fact she would hurt him before she died.
Suffused with diamond dust, the liquid became mud, and then dry, enough for her to punch him away, a dragon of diamond going through him as she did, sending him away.
It would take her a few moments more to understand the exilirating sensation about her was not the feeling of death.
- Thus, Hanna took her Second Breath.
Hanna: The girl looked at her own hands... at the roaring anima around herself, as it begins to fade away, leaving her skin with a beautiful sheen of white marble that would be forever part of it... looking around, still trying to understand. To understand how... how....
Kanti: Kanti spies the wondering girl and walks over to her slowly with a smile on her bloodstained face. The flames billow about her, about them both.
"Welcome to the ranks of the Exalted, Princess of Earth." she says, her voice a little strained
Kanti takes her hands, pure white in bloodied red.
"Welcome to the ranks of the Dragons, Daughter of Pasiap"
Kanti kisses her forehead, leaving a red smear.
"Welcome to the ranks of the Stone Fist, Chosen of Gaia"
Kanti kisses her cheeks, two lip prints left in crimson blood, a trail dribbling down her cheek.
"Welcome, Ivory Dragoness."
Kanti kisses her lips, filling the girls mouth with the metal tatse of blood, the warmth of the fire, a bonfire raging round them both, burning neither.
Seventh Moon: Moon looked up at the sound of Selina's voice, a worried frown creasing his face as he looked down at the cut in her abdomen. "Fuck all, darlin'. Ya looked pretty bad off to."
What the hell had happened while he was gone? Couldn't have been those masked bastards. Not that knicked Selina so bad. Not after she'd taken down so many on her own back in Spire.
"How we holdin' up?" he asked Selina, lowering his voice as well and trailing off awkwardly as he watching Kanti wander over and kiss Hanna. And then he finally noticed it. How the hell he missed it before then the new scent in the air. The freshly tilled soil. The dragon-scent. The damn roaring cloud of glittering dust around her.
Hanna?
Wasn't hard to put together what happened. Why or how was a bit bigger worry. Not to mention what the hell Kanti was doing.
Flicking a finger towards the two girls, Moon glanced at Selina. "The fuck's that all about? Not that I mind, but this ain't exactly a good time for that kinda stuff, y'know?"
He was more shocked than he sounded, but shit, by this point it was getting pretty damn hard to be phased by this kinda thing. At the rate weird things were going on, Kinny was gonna turn into a god of pimps or something before they were done.
Hanna: It is as transcendant as it should be.
Going from certain death to wielding the power of gods...
But to those in the Dynasty, it is something they expect their entire lives.
To someone from the Boil... it is just...
Confusion
Power
She lets Kanti embrace her, kiss her, staining her now paler, smooth marble skin with crimson, letting her speak the words that feel so right to Hanna's soul, trying to piece all together, still...
"Yes...I... thank you..."
On the corner of her eye, she could look at Moon, and smile.
He was still alive. All was right.
- Kanti being Kanti, and Hanna getting a proper, if somewhat bloody, welcoming ceremony.
Fiona: The savant hops from the wall, beggining to walk away from the eyes... her dark green cape about her, touching one of the eye-like broochs of the cape as she walks.... and thinks how to word things. "The thing about feelings... about only feigning them when you have need for food."
"I have heard many contradictory things about your people..."
Child of Wyld Days: The Child purses her lips, and her tail pats against her thigh as she herself pauses to figure out how to answer that. For a moment, she simply thinks and rocks to and fro a little... before her ears perk and she 'ah!'s as it comes to her. That done, she crouches down, forearms on her knees and brass eyes shining dimly.
"We are beings of contradiction. Since... this fixed world, in and of itself, is contradiction. Those of us who take and borrow from Creation take what exists here and bends it to... extremes. Or perhaps into ideal forms? It can be either, both or none. I have seen fellow Fair who profess undying love... and it is often real! But love is more than just sex and walks in the forest... it is the pain, the joy, the hate, the passion... living and dying. We feel; some do put on false airs, yes. But those that are genuine are... I suppose you could say they are potentially more dangerous than any faerie liar. For there is the Wyld in their truth."
Fiona: She blinks, watching Days... trying to make sense of her words.
Trying to understand...
Even if understanding would make her mad. That is what she craves...
"And... you?" She says, her symbol gleaming on her forehead, her eyes taking a strange sheen of sapphire, emerald and glass as she turns, "You sound like you truly feel, Days. That makes you very dangerous, right?"
Child of Wyld Days: The Child of Wyld Days widens her smile.
It is the smile of a flushed lover, just finished with the romp of a thousand lifetimes.
It is the smile of a picky eater having just finished the perfect feast.
It is the smile of a wolf bearing down on a lost foal.
"I have to be dangerous, Fiona. I have to feel. I have to know what love tastes like, smells like. I have to know what sound broken bones and torn flesh make. I have to give prominence to my Graces, for they are the core of my self. If I am not dangerous, if I am not enticing, if I am not IMPORTANT..."
Snow Monkey relaxes her countenance. "... then, as raksha, I am doomed to be slain or worse."
- The very essence of what the Child is.
Kanti: "Of course you may." Kanti says with a nod "I would like to know more about the spear if I could. It has been my weapon for several years now." She says with a soft smile for the mountain folk.
"What is that you would do for the Dark Angel if you could?"
Exceedingly Sublime Opal: Fuck her brains out, she blinked a little bit at her own thought. She really needed to get her mind out of the gutter these people had put it in. She shook her head at the thought.
"Oh, apply my learning. I think I can confidently say that I am well suited for matters of artifice. Though that has little use in war time." She smiles at Kanti, and extends her hands for the direlance. "May I?"
Kanti: Kanti nods at her answer, pondering the strange flash of emotion over the womans face before she shook her head.
She offers her the spear, a long weapon of hardwood, the head made of red and green jade.
Exceedingly Sublime Opal: She took Kanti's weapon respectfully, and idly caressed her hands over the long, hard shaft of it. With surprising deftness and a subtle stroking of the surface of the weapon, she began attempting to milk the secrets from it. Her eyes played over it as her hands did, coaxing it with her Essence, feeling the way her touch caused reverberations in the weapon, how they flowed, whether naturally or unnaturally.
And so, the secrets of the haft revealed themself in one subtle burst, like a thrust from its fearsome point. The intoxicating fragrence of it washed over her perception like a rippling tide, flowing over her hands, then making its tingling way over her body.
She exahaled, finally, and blinked at Kanti. "My, you wield a marvelously powerful weapon, Flamechild," she said, a little out of breath.
She offers the spear back to Kanti, and smiles gently at her. "I'll have to mull a bit over what I learned, but I shall get back to you in regards to my results, it that is permissable."
Kanti: "Thank you, Opal." she takes the spear, long instinct prompting a brief check over of the weapon, ensuirng it is unharmed dispite the fact it never left her sight.
She nods "Of course, take all the time you wish, it is wonderful that you've tried."
- I made a joke once about someone sticking a Post-It Note with 'Artifact N/A' written on it onto themselves before going to hit on Opal because of this.
Selina de Windia: She wandered aimlessly and alone through the district, after the meeting adjourned. No one had thought to talk to her. No one had thought to come with her. For a moment, Selina could forget she was in the North, so near the country of her birth. Instead, she felt as if she was in Nexus. Wandering the Nighthammer district as she did once in awhile, on slow weeks. You didn't get a contract all the time, and with what she made, you didn't need to. But the boredom crept in...and studying the past and everything else you could get your hands on didn't always fill that void.
So she stalked Nexus, and now here. Looking for trouble, sex, anything to make the emptiness in her mind go away. Anything, because once she plumbed that emptiness -- and she always did when it was present long enough -- Selina remembered what she was.
Culwyeh
Dark Angel
First Facet of Damnation
Those titles didn't ward off the silence, and the knowledge that came with it. Every hollow-sounding step on those cobblestones hammered it deeper.
I killed them all.
Avian's memories did it this time. And for the first time in...months? A year? she felt it crushing down on her. She'd been something else...something so...wonderful. And she was this now. It wasn't the Black Oath, she'd been that thing years before it.
It gave me something, didn't it?
It had. She'd felt safe. She'd felt like no one could command her, control her. Even with the oath, even with her service to the Lover. She was the best.
Am I still?
Why does this world allow me to be?
Avian'd been a Windian like her. A kid like her. Alive. And then he died. And he'd become that...thing. She had killed herself, in a way.
We're the same, Avian. You and me. There's nothing but death for either of us.
Her face is a mask of bleakness as she continues to walk, maintaining alertness but...not entirely there.
I hope you learned that.
I hope you had fun.
Because when it's done there isn't anything left.
"Someday," She croaks with a throat dry from too long without water, in this place. She would feel terror at the very thought, but the emptiness is too deep. "I'll know just what that means."
- No one said being the Dark Angel was easy. Especially not her.
Seventh Moon: Sate it. An invitation to let it out again. To loose control again. Moon arched back his head to stare at her face. His breath came slow, heavy. For a moment, his face registered confusion, then a slow realization came over him.
Maybe that was part of the game. You fucked up one another, so you weren't fucking up the people who couldn't stop you if they wanted.
Made a little more sense.
Didn't mean he had to like it.
But didn't mean he couldn't play it, this time.
The hot red glow in his eyes paled to silver, then grew. It washed out thought. It washed out humanity. It was just need again, burning cold and vicious.
She was strong. He was stronger. When his hand clamped over the arm around his waist, it took little to pry it from him. A step back, their bodies parting as he flung her around and thrust himself forward again, slamming her into the wall. Pressing through her wings, forcing them to part, his hand closed over the back of her head and pinned her cheek against the cold hard stone as he rubbed his lips against her neck a moment, then bit down, the collar stopping his teeth from sinking into flesh, but doing little to stop the pain. He let go of her arm, leaving red finger prints against her pale flesh and pushed his palm against he back, sliding it downwards. Over the curve of her rear. Into the warmth between her thighs.
And he didn't think or speak. He didn't worry about what was right or what was normal. No thoughts about fucked up little girls or crazy old men or burning cities. He just did as he was told and sated his need on her.
Selina de Windia: For her part, Selina didn't resist. Much. No, she didn't resist, she pulled him back, pressing her body against his, the furious hunger within her ignited as much as his own. She slide the fabric of her leotard aside, down there, so he didn't have to.
Of course, once it got far enough, it she didn't really have to do anything at all -- he'd feed her hunger merely by exercising his own. When a man got like this, she was really just along for the ride. If she'd learned it in Nexus, she'd learned somewhere else. Besides, it was more fun that way.
- Like a couple of animals. Which, technically, they are. Sorta.
Selina de Windia: "Oh, you can do alot with one arm!" Selina exclaims a bit breathlessly, then she pauses, and the next sentence is more shrewd. "But not doing it and holding me down while ya do. I'll move right out of your reach."
I wonder...
"Maybe I ought to dress Kanti up as a maid. She's practically my handmaiden now...since Vestal ain't getting her back." Selina grins wickedly at the thought. "Yes. My naughty little maid."
- Sel has her amusing side, yes.
Lamenting Parishioner of Maladies:
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
It echoes all throughout the room. The scent of incense begins to fill the air. Standing atop of Selina, on the second floor, he stands. Not as she had seen him before - now covered from head to toe in cloaks and... the armor.
Iron Tears had spoken of the armor. Annointed with his own blood as Solar, crafted by Alveua, marked with music by a soul of Malfeas, blessed to pain and defilement by the Blood Moon, by Selina's own husband. And the music was evident as he spoke, and she had seldom heard something so beautiful.
"Welcome, Dark Angel. You came a little earlier than I expected..."
"It would be more fun if that soell had gone off. Break the seals of the Boil and let suffering pour through this wretched hole! ” He feels exulted for a moment, then quiets, and she can feel the smile within the mask. “But.... nonetheless, you came. The same little girl who killed Puppeteer. The thrill of the kill, rushing to it... so, so careless. So, so predictable.”
“And so welcome to my humble abode.”
- Outside, the ghosts whirled around the ward... testing it.
Once, twice, thrice, the spirit-hands forced themselves against it, only to hit the ward. The construct within howled, calling to the ghosts... and waiting for orders...
Selina de Windia: "Hmph." The sound seems to echo throughout the room as she looks up at the other Abyssal through her display of flash and fury. The black has faded from her eyes, and they are now cooler than a moment ago, more calculating. "This little girl has grown alot, Parishioner. If I am so predictable, perhaps you anticipated the vision you will receive like the dirty old man you are."
Tricks you may not have seen yet, unlike the other one I pulled earlier.
She snaps her fingers with her free hand, and a ripple of clensing darkness rushes through her, purifying her features. Beautifying them, beyond any mortal ken. Beyond even most goddesses and demons. The Dark Angel becomes a true being of the perilous night before the other Deathknight's eyes, resplendant in her shadows and her rushing winds, a figure of uttermost beauty that behooves any who behold her to turn their strikes. She raises her free hand and beckons with it, sword glittering in the light of her hearthstone, voice clear and fell.
"Dance with me."
- It's a trap!
Shadow Rose: She tumbles to the ground, far, far away. Too hurt. Beyond help. Her body falls like a broken doll's over the dragon, and twists its way over its scaly body... until the last moment.
Then, a clawed hand moves with supernatural deftness, and holds to the scales.
Claws sharp enough to dig into it.
And she begins to get... up.
But it is not her.
No beauty. No grace. She gets up like a puppet. Like a predator. Like a monster.
Eyes blank, nothing in them. Mouth fanged. Hands clawed. Every rune in her body spilling blood.
She roars. Her roar fill the air.
She is little more than an animal now... but that animal focuses on the Child.
With only a single thought.
Kill
Child of Wyld Days: The Child, chest heaving and visage still twisted in muted agony, opens her eyes.
She suddenly wished that she hadn't. "... oh, shit."
- God damned Lower Soul Ascendant.
Shadow Rose: Owl and Serpent goes through her forehead. Her eyes go even more wide.... but lose the rage. Lose the life.
Lose everything as she collapses towards the Child....
Child of Wyld Days: She catches the body as it falls, as it bleeds, as the soul departs.
For a moment, she looks... torn? Could this have been some dangerous lovelife? Some deadly flower to wear proudly? An eternal foe? A love unquenchable? Perhaps. Perhaps she could have been many, if not all of those things. But today...
... today, she was a corpse.
Snow Monkey gently kisses herself her on the lips... then casts the body aside.
Your tale, I am afraid... is over.
- Days in a nutshell!
Vorpal: Vorpal does not reply. She stands silently aside - a dark, looming shape in the background. There is something strange in her mien as she watches the Holysword embrace his friend, a brief softness that does not sit well with the rest of her warrior sterness and bravado.
It's like directly from a book. Loving friends, so long apart, finally meet each other, the sun sets, the end.
Her mouth tightens.
Only, in real life, there is always the day after.
But ah well. She shouldn't be the grim slayer of joy, not when Alex is smiling and laughing like that, so hard that there are tears coming to his eyes...
- Dammit, Vorpal, be cheerful for once.
Lamenting Parishioner of Maladies: He watches her blast, and she can feel his eyes going wide...
"... oh."
There he is, in the midddle of that onslaught.... it goes through him, it leaves only rests of his cape all around, going through the door, blasting more of the house down... the sounds of creaking wood growing louder. The house would not last for long.
A moment later, he is up there, far above on the room, near the roof, his appendages sank deep within the wall. The rags fall... and were just a decoy. He grunts.
"That is.... a new trick."
- In the next episode of Angelball Z... (Parishioner getting a taste of Selinadoken!)
Kanti:
mistress is in trouble!
mistress might be hurt!
mistress can't be hurt!
Kanti runs alongside Moon, keeping pace with him, a trail of smoke and flowers behind her as she runs through the city, robe of screams blowing in the winds, then Moon was infront of her and then he was behind her and she was flying through the air.
Flying towards three women.
Flying towards Earth
Flying towards Ecstacy.
Flying towards Agony.
Kanti's eyes widened, as their sight broughy more recollections.
Agony.
Ecstacy.
Both.
Neither.
Desire.
Fear.
Want.
Terror.
Need.
Kanti twists her body in the air, her body wrapped in flames and prayer and pure viridian light as she prepares for a fight she is not sure she wants to have.
She lands in the garden by the trio, and assumes a combative pose.
The most uncertain one she has in some time.
Agony.
Ecstasy.
They promised it all.
Pricessess of Passion and Pain: Kanti lands.
They turn.
The symbol on Ecstasy's forehead shining that deep violet.
The symbol on Agony's forehead shining that sickly green.
They smile, in recognition, even as fingers probe Opal, even as claws slash at her robe, leaving risks and her body bare, but eliciting no screams. They smile, as they let go of the Jadeborn, and begin to walk towards the Dragon-Blooded.
And they speak. As one.
"Kanti!"
"You came back!"
"We missed you!"
"Master missed you!"
"So much..."
"We want to make you moan!"
"We want to make you scream!"
"We want your help with the earthy bitch!"
"Won't you join us?"
Kanti: Kanti whimpers softly as the pair approach her, a sound somewhere between pleasure and pain, and for a moment the grip on the spear falters. Her eyes widden more as they get closer, her breath catching as the pair get so close to her.
They promise Agony They promise Ecstasy. Which did she want more?
...the pair of them moving over her skin as Mistress watched...
...the pair of them holding her as she was painstakingly ... lovingly ... carved...
... the pair of them and her together and the world dissolving into flames...
Just a few steps more, just a few small steps, and that could be hers again.
She just had to let them take a few small steps.
Agony.
Ecstasy.
Mistress.
Just.
Agony.
A.
Ecstasy.
Few.
Both.
Steps.
Neither!
Kanti straightens herself, assuming the true Radiant Viridian form, the flames of power dancing around her.
"No. I can't do that. I can't let you hurt her anymore. Either of you."
And then she flickers like the flame, and the spear moves, and when it hits there is no pain.
- Yet another defining Kantimoment.
Selina de Windia: Selina smirks, self-satisfiedly. "You aren't the only one who can make plans, Parishioner." Halting the onrush of her attack, she sinks down to the ground, moving to one side. "I ask again: what do you want with me?"
Lamenting Parishioner of Maladies: "Moranine."
"We need her."
"We are all together... all your old friends, Moranine! They are together for one last party, to take you out of the darkness and into the light! Whiteshield? Windia? The Bishop of the Calcedony Thurible? They are pawns! Pawns into a game played only by kings among chosen!" He points at the Dark Angel, his confidence returning, at least apparently. He gestures. "You think this ward will last forever? I have tolls to break it.. like my little art piece up there... made of so many souls that received special treatment by me..." As he gestures, Opal's ward around the floating device is broken by the souls. They come howling in. They break the device, and begin to take shape. The shape of a great beast made of howling souls, beautiful in pain and agony. “Eidolon. My greatest work, little girl. Able to break through as many regional gods and petty little Exalts as they have here. Able to turn this city to ash... much less this petty ward.”
"And you... you are our Moranine now. You..."
Then... he sees Moon. And Moon has his eyes drawn to him. Like with Selina moments before, mists of the past take their eyes... and they remember.
They remember, the palace of Azure. Myria was on the ground, bleeding... the Empyrean Javelins inbedded deep in her body. A circle was lined around her, and Danon was casting a spell. A spell that would make her forever look at the world his way... he smiled at Myria.
And then, the sky came crashing down. There was feather, there was music, and there was a flash of Lunar light. Denon lost an arm, and lost his incantation, that blew him through walls. As soon as he recovered, the great Lunar Angel was in front of him, still singing. Ofaniel. "You shouldn't have hurt her, Denon." He said, and it tied perfectly in the song.
Denon disappeared then, kicking debris on Ofaniel's face and blinding him with his own feathers. Denon was gone, as he disappeared, part of him hiding in blades of grass, on the shadow of trees, running away... until the moonlight brought him out of hiding. "You really shouldn't have done that." The hawk sang, even more beautific a voice than the Parishioner's... as feathers cut him out of hiding, pining him to the ground, and the hunter came closer...
"So... you are together again. You met him again!" He shouted to the monster, to all the others... "Kill him! He is too dangerous to live! Do not let the Lunar live!!! "
Selina de Windia: "Moranine. Yes." Selina says, almost to herself. Her pupils shrink to dots -- round, not slitted -- for a moment, as she nods to memories, shards of the past. "I was Moranine."
The Abyssal looks up to the Parishioner. The anima about her shrinks, hugging her body now, a corona of flaring, crackling, whispering rage, the dragon coiling about her form. "My Ofaniel comes again! "
Dreamshard flicks up, and Selina's free hand glows with that same Oblivion energy she had gathered for her last strike. Not released yet, waiting for the other deathknight to...do something. Attack her. Make the mistake of directing his creation at Moon. The globe of Void grows a bit larger, searing the air about her hand once more.
- First Age awakenings!
Kanti: Creation shrank.
Creation expanded.
Creation was pleasure.
Creation was pain.
Creation was a smiling demon holding her face.
"... yes ..." she whispers.
"... yes ..." she pleads.
"... yes ..." she begs.
"... anything ... everything ... somthing ... please ..." it comes out as barely a whimper.
At the back of her mind, the garda bird cries out at the betrayal.
- Kanti laid low...
Kanti: Kanti looked up at Agony.
Kanti felt the claw sliding over her skin.
Kanti felt the agony seeping from the cut.
Kanti felt the pain merging with the pleasure.
Kanti took the pain and focused.
Kanti forced the whimper to stay within her.
Kanti forced herself back to the world.
She whispers.
"I can't beg ... I'm sorry."
"I can't plead ... I'm sorry."
"I can't let you go."
Her eyes met the demoness', and they are dark and full and forgiving.
The Fragrant Incense Spear stabs forward, stabs into the demon, stabs through her agony.
Kanti doesn't try to mute the pain.
Kanti doesn't try to ease the hurt.
Kanti doesn't try to sooth the demon.
"So ... so ... sorry ..."
- Kanti, in her own way, raised high!
Seventh Moon: The dragon roared as its ethereal flesh screamed and cried.
Moon did not hear it.
It poured down the slopes of the ward, unreal flesh dripping pieces of souls like rotted meat, others scooping them back up as they past.
Moon did not see it.
The very earth shook as it tumbled from the ward onto the ruined grounds of the estate and raked the bloody dirty with its claws of bronze.
Moon did not feel it.
Moraine. Damon. Ofaniel Selina. Parishioner. Me.
The world had spun. The world was still spinning. The ghost-dragon was lumbering forward, its great jaws gashing.
Moon did not move.
The thought had come unbidden, voiced from the memory that was not his own. Voiced not to the memory, but to the present. Speaking into his mind as if it owned that place within him as well. The thought of someone who had died long ago. Emotions of someone who should have been too dead to feel emotions. Born in the moment he stared into the eyes of the Dark Angel. Born again in the moment he and Parishioner traded looks. Another ghost, haunting him from the inside.
"What are we darlin'?"
The ghost-dragon swung its great head downwards and swept Moon aside. The earth abandoned his feet and Moon hurled like a shot through several lays of burning shrub and hedge maze before a stone wall imposed itself in his path. Bone cracked within his chest as he crashed into the wall and the pained cry that burst from his lips sprayed blood through the air.
"Our power ain't ours. Rather, we didn't have it first."
Footsteps to rock the hillside lumbered closer, burning hedges torn from their sculpted place and thrown aside as the dragon hunted for the Lunar.
"So what then? There's someone else livin' in our heads? "
Moon scarcely had thought to roll as the edge of a gigantic claw reduced the wall he had impacted into a cloud of white chalk. Screaming again, the voices of the ghosts woven into the monstrosity shouted where he was. He had barely gotten back to his feet when the shadow of an enormous head fell over him. A cloud of dust billowed into the air like a foundry smoke stack as the great beast lashed its head down.
"Not...really. Just memories. I think."
Moon lay scant inches away from the cratered impact of the dragons neck, staring up into the empty eyes of its second head.
"So does that mean it's us or just them fuckin' around with us?"
Grave-breath washed over him as it snorted. Whatever dark intelligence it held seemed to find the situation amusing. It raised a great paw and with a wicked delicateness for a creature its size, began to slowly dig its claw into his chest. It pricked through skin, through flesh, splinted bone and then the dragons head drew back in surprise as the claw refused to move any more.
"Us. I think anyway."
Moon grasped the claw tightly and pushed back, blood oozing faster out of his wounds as every muscle shook to stop the claw from going any further. His teeth were grit tightly, but a face that should have been red with strain had become deathly pale.
"Stand." A voice commanded. That voice. His. voice. Within himself, Moon could suddenly see him looking down. A regal figure, all silver and white, but strong. Powerful. Majestic. Everything Moon was not. And where the dragons claw pierced Moons chest outwardly, within it was the same place the elegant winged man pressed down his booted foot. "Stand up and fight."
"No." Moon answered through his teeth, pushing harder at the weight against his chest. Near by, the Hound was struggling as well. Teeth bared and backing away hesitantly from another shape inside him. Something with wings and talons and sharp, greedy eyes.
"Fight!" Ofaniel demanded, a wave of frustration and anger at the weakness being shown rolling through him. The Hound yelped as the Falcons talons raked its flanks, the wounded dogs answering snap falling only on air. "Fight, or I will fight for you."
"No." Moon hissed, closing his eyes tightly, shivering worse. Despite all he tried, the claw was coming down anyway.
The weight would not let up no matter how he shoved. It made him feel lighter. Dizzy. It was hard to think straight. Visions kept flashing through his mind. Names he knew and didnt know: Bastian, Sati, Fintan. Faces hed never seen but knew intimately. Places he had never been, but were as familiar as home. Someone elses life. Someone elses wants.
"Fight, you miserable child! I did not wait so long to see my Moraine again only to lose her now!"
Moons eyes snapped back open, pale orbs staring in oblivion towards the sky.
Moranine.
Selina.
"My Ofaniel has come!"
"We make our own fates."
"NO!" the word burst from his lips. The dragon above him twisted all three heads curious at the defiant scream, but the word and his gaze where not meant for it.
It suddenly was so easy to push the man away. So easy rise back to his feet again. Moon could see the confusion in the ancient Lunars eyes and how angry the man was to be confused. The punk glared at the other man hard, then spat into his face. "I aint gonna be you and I aint" Selina. Kanti. Vestal. Parishioner. Shadow Eyes. "I aint gonna be one of them. Im a bastard and Ive done some bad shit but I aint a monster yet. Im gonna my own goddamn fate, fucker."
Talons raked across the Hounds muzzle, but this time the dog took no notice in contempt. There was a hole where its heart should have been. What was one more scratch to a dying dog? It walked past the Falcon, who seemed immobilized, limping but proud. Head high. Defiant into darkness.
The resistance to the dragons claw suddenly vanished and the heavy talon slid easily into the layers of living flesh and chinked against the ground bellow. One great head leaned down and prodded the body bellow its foot, watching it flop against the claw that pinned it. The beast let out a terrible cry of victory, one neck craning around to howl its triumph to its master
Just the blade of Selinas scythe cleaved through the Abyssals neck. No mortified cry came from the undead beast, only the stare of cold calculation and the constant screams its flesh gave. The dragon was a mad creation. It knew no loyalty to the man who birthed it beyond that which the Parishioner himself enforced. But it knew a threat when it saw one. The woman, that scythe, they were dangerous. The two other women upon the ground, the pale one and the Chosen of the Dragons, dangerous as well. But they were weak now, drained from their battles. And it was strong.
The beasts tails lash as it begins to coil its body around back towards the ruined mansion and nearly tumbles as its foot sticks to the ground. All three great heads twist to stare down at the little figure bellow its paw whose arms still clutch around its talon. The dragon tugs again experimentally. Moon smiled up at it with bloody teeth and grips the claw tighter. Annoyed, the dragon reached down with on head, fangs dripping a black ooze of tortured souls then lurched again. A ring of silver light spun around the edge of the dragons claw where it pierced Moons chest...
The Hound was laying upon its back, belly towards the sky. Moon smiled and rubbed, laughing as its back leg kicked through the air. Its mouth was open, teeth gnashing upwards at the dark weight hovering over it and near by a silver Falcon and a tall man with snow white wings watched in despair.
The dragon was trashing desperately, throwing the ruined garden into further chaos with its desperate upheavals. But there was no escape. The ring of light had become the mouth of a fanged maw. Bite by bite, soul by soul, it chewed the dragon apart.
"All of this, just to deny me a moment of happiness?" Ofaniel asked from where he watched the younger Lunar and his totem. As much despair as rage filled his voice. But he was fading, his light growing dimmer. Going back to where ever it was old memories who refused to die lurked.
Moon looked up frowning, then smirked at the ancient Lunar and shook his head. "All this, so I dont gotta become you, asshole."
Eidolon howled, stomped, raged and died anyway. Nothing came to aid it. Battle was rising near by, in the ruins of the Parishioners failed trap and there was precious little of the dragon left to draw attention. Perhaps, in the last second before it was consumed completely, someone fighting near by took notice of the brilliant flash of silver light from out of the depths of the ruined hedge maze. Perhaps not. Seventh Moon didnt care. He was smiling, as the last dark soul warped into dragon shape vanished into the gleaming maw upon his chest. Smiling even though he could not longer feel his limbs or the pain he should have been feeling. He was smiling because he was still himself and that was a damn fucking good thing to be.
"Upon death, your soul may go its righteous path, and touch Heaven. There, you are given another chance in the wheel of life, judged, to come back... to live another life, better or worse depending on how you lived. One climbs it as a stairway, on your own deeds, to reach the power of Exaltation, to live as a Dragon... and beyond. Heaven Judges you. Heaven knows this."
"Heaven knows who you are."
And when the Eidolon died, Seventh Moon fell to the ground, dying.
- The grandest power of Exaltation is the ability to forge your own destiny, even in seeming defeat.
Selina de Windia: The ward is gone, and she sees clearly now. The devastation outside, the demons -- one dying, the other kneeling close by. Both weeping. Kanti weeping with them. And then she looks down on the other deathknight, a terrible goddess of destruction gazing down on her vanquished opponent. Her eyes burn with turquoise light, colder than ice, now. The iconic dragon of her anima hovers over her, regarding the others. Which one next, it seems to say, low rumbling growl coming from the display.
"You could have bargained with me." Selina hisses, voice loud enough to be heard. It rises in volume. "You could have done this another way. An honorable way."
Not that assassins were supposed to know anything of honor. But Selina had not always been an assassin. Wreathed in her black flames and brilliant lightnings, she remembers that. And it only makes her angrier.
"But you didn't."
Dreamshard glows
"You tried to destroy others to get to me. I, who have no one."
Dreamshard shines, piercing
Somewhere inside the Windian, a little voice, one heard intermittently over the years, cries out for her to do something else. There must be another way to resolve this. They weren't worthy of destruction, right?
"Let me twist the knife before I drive it home, Parishioner." Her sword glitters with chaotic energy, and she grasps it with both hands, holds it up in front of her. The rising tide of screaming voices can be heard coming from the sword. Children, maybe. Some might call them that. If no one else could be, the Fair Ones were malevolent children. Selina's anima banner burns with a savage fury, and blood lances out from a wound suddenly carved into her back, between her wing roots.
"Twist it, like this! " The Dark Angel roars, in time with the screams as they reach a fevered pitch, and the unmaking chaos dissolves Ecstasy's very being.
Lamenting Parishioner of Maladies: "You... will destroy beauty... something so beautifull... like that? While she is defenseless...? Too shaken to react and try to stop you...? Such a innocent child..." He coughs more blood, out of his mask... as he hears Agony wail at the death of her sister. A short wail, as she was too far gone already...
"You... are... a bigger monster than I...."
The mask falls, revealing his eyes. She sees the terror within, and the words.
I thought you a little girl... no...
You are a monster. Greater than even my former lords... Culwyeh...
Selina de Windia: Selina sheaths the rapier-daiklave, and takes the sickle at her side, which grows into the full scythe as she descends slowly. "Yes." Her voice is smooth, icy cold. "And you backed this monster into a corner." No shaking. She didn't shake when she destroyed the Black Avian, and he was what she could be, in the future. This one...no regrets. None at all. The twin dots of red light on the blade look down to the Parishioner. "Meet Chimes of Nothing, Deathknight. He was a Nephwrack."
Lamenting Parishioner of Maladies: He looks... then closes his eyes.
Decades of life. Decades. So many plans... so much... so much.
So much art to create.
So many plans to come to fruition.
Yet, he felt his greatest creation die.
He saw one of the greatest things he laid his eyes upon consumed by chaos.
And it would end like this. Because he underestimated a monster, and thought her just a little girl. He thought himself a monster, the greatest of them. An artist in pain, he had seen so many begging. And now, he felt the terror. And now, it was him, begging.
"Finish... me... already... then..."
Selina de Windia: Selina lands, looking down at the other Abyssal. She pulls the scythe back, its flat-black, hungry blade catching just a bit of light, absorbing it. And hesitates for a moment.
"You have my apologies for...having to meet me, Parishioner." And then she swings Angeldust forward and across, and its bite is hard and cold.
- Even monsters, in their own way, can be heroes.
- - Back to A Dance of Angels
- - Back to Quoteness!
