"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
01-07-2020, 02:54 PM (This post was last modified: 02-20-2020, 01:16 PM by Cassian.)
gotta do it in the penthouse that's where I keep my pen
He’s not really sure sleeping keeps him safe from the sand, but he liked to pretend. Not that he’d notice anyway if it didn’t. Nevermind the times he’d woken up somewhere completely different from where he’d fallen asleep. That definitely wasn’t weird. At all.
He almost snickers imagining Casi’s reaction to him disappearing like that though. It’s not burrs and pine sap, to be fair. It’s much, much better.
Still, whatever. He’d figure it out later. That’s what he does best anyway. Figuring it out later.
Scrutinizing his surroundings, it doesn’t take him long to correctly discern that he is in the meadow. Crap. The wind must’ve been a good one today, if it had brought him this far. Dang. Of course, this thought gets him to wondering just how far he might end up going. What if he was on a cliff and got blown out to the middle of the sea?
Nope, nope, nope. Not considering that. In any case, he makes a mental note to avoid cliffs for a while.
Probably he should have been avoiding meadows too, but he can’t know that yet. Unfortunately he can’t know a lot of things. And maybe that is why he’s always been so stubbornly cheerful. Or maybe that’s just Cassian. For all that he seems to wear so much on his sleeve, he does occasionally manage a few surprises.
Of course, at the moment, that’s neither here nor there. No, at the moment, he’s just a young black stallion without a speck of white on him, standing in the midst of a meadow with a vaguely amused, and perhaps a little confused, expression on his face.
01-08-2020, 10:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-08-2020, 10:46 PM by Ripley.)
here comes a candle to light you to bed
here comes a chopper to chop off your head
They’ve been hunting that dragon off-and-on ever since it saved that horrid green creature from being their meal. Although already feral, already willing and ready to attack every single thing that they could see and reach, the sight of a dragon or a horse with dragon features is like spilling blood into shark infested water.
The scent that they catch on the air has a similar effect.
Instantly they are almost blinded by range, by hunger, and they move into action. It’s a new trail, as though it had just appeared. The meadow is not a good place for them to hunt - there is no option for stealth here.
But they have other tools in their arsenal.
More of them would be better, but for now they simply converge on the trail - one to each side. It’s not the dragon that they seek, but it does not matter now. Each creature has saliva dripping from their mouths as they approach - envisioning the meal at the end of this hunt. An end to this trail of that damned scent. It’s an effort to hold themselves back, to walk slowly to start. If they could think, they would be confident in their ability to outrun this simple-looking creature.
A low, strange clicking noise escapes them both as they move through the long grass. Their focus is singular, The larger of the monsters flicks her ridged, knife-tipped tail and the smaller surges forward at this signal. They are both lunging forward now, hooves pounding on the ground and vicious snarls, tails whipping behind them as they approach from opposite sides, surging to meet in the middle at their quarry.
gotta do it in the penthouse that's where I keep my pen
Just your average meeting between siblings.
Honestly, if this was how he met all his siblings, he might actually be compelled to develop some kind of useful skill set. As it is, his only skills involve primarily loafing and making smartass, occasionally amusing comments. Neither of which would probably do much for him in this particular situation.
Of course, the fact that he has even gotten himself into a situation hasn’t occurred to him quite yet. Entirely oblivious to the havoc his twin has apparently been wreaking, he doesn’t even realize he is a target of interest until, out of the corner of one eye, he sees something strange coming straight towards him. Blinking, face crinkling in confusion, he squints at the approaching creature as he tries to figure out just what the hell it is.
Perhaps he should’ve turned tail and began running already, but, well, he’s never truly had much to fear. It certainly does not occur to him that his life might be in danger here in the midst of the meadow. In broad daylight, for all the world to see.
In fact, it doesn’t even occur to him that he is the intended target until they are close enough for him to hear the strange clicking sound they make in their excitement over the hunt. Of course, that’s just about when he realizes there is a second one, coming at him from the opposite direction. Ultimately though, what really tips him off is the fact that, rather than slowing down, the seem to speed up the nearer they get.
Suddenly nervous, gaze jumping between the two decidedly unfriendly looking creatures, he shies backwards as they reaching striking distance. Back-pedaling several steps, nearly tripping over his own tail as he does so, he clears his throat a little desperately. “Er, I think you kind… uh,” Ladies? Men? Damn, he can’t tell. “I think you’ve got the wrong horse here. Have we met?”
here comes a candle to light you to bed
here comes a chopper to chop off your head
They do not respond to his words. There is not even a hint that they have even heard them at all. These monsters don’t understand spoken language, any equine part of their brain had been long since scrambled. The larger one was a true horse once and there are memories locked up in a cage. Or maybe they aren’t even locked up, she just does not possess the ability to comprehend them. The smaller one had never been normal. The only thing even remotely normal about either of them are their hooves, as if the top half of them was wicked enough that giving them claws as well would just make things a little too easy.
Still, those hooves serve them all. And now they do not miss a beat.
He moves, scrambles backwards, and in a sense it pleases them. Neither of them enjoy easy hunts - there’s no challenge. Like any animal they need enrichment, and Anaxarete is hardly going to fill a pumpkin with raw meat for them to toss around and puzzle out.
(Though it’s not out of the realm of possibility)
They shift their movements to follow him, silver teeth dripping with saliva as they snarl. For a moment they are beside each other, mother and daughter, each fierce and utterly feral. There is no reasoning with either of them.
And then the larger of the pair lunges high - snapping with the hopes of finding his face or his neck. Prey rarely expects a strike to the face and she has fond memories of a deer she took down by clasping her larger jaws around it’s face while the smaller jaws punched through the skull repeatedly as she jerked her body to break its neck.
If she could wonder, she might wonder whether a horse could be taken down the same way.
Meanwhile the smaller lowers her head and surges forward to snap at his legs with her own dual sets of teeth. All the while those wicked knife tails flick back and forth behind them like wagging puppy tails, only menacing to the last.
gotta do it in the penthouse that's where I keep my pen
With each passing moment, it becomes more and more clear that he has gotten in waaaaay over his head. Like, way, way over. Not that there’s much he can do about now, of course. Short of a miracle in which he grows wings or impenetrable skin, he’s screwed. And not in the fun sense of the word.
He’s frozen in shock as they come at him, flinching instinctively as teeth reach to tear at too easily broken skin. Just as his mind his flipping the switch from confusion to sheer panic, his body falls apart. Literally. It takes a moment, but relief floods him. Or, well, floods all his little sand pieces. Or however that works. But of course, Cassian would not actually be lucky enough to escape that easily.
Seconds after he disintegrates into sand, he reforms once again, only a few feet away from where he’d started.
“Shit.” The epithet escapes his lips before he can stop it. Blood streaming down his face, blending with the darkness of his coat, he turns and bolts. Released from the miasma of surprised horror, he does the only thing any prey creature can.
Of course, it would probably help if he actually spent time exercising on a regular basis. Or, y’know, had some other convenient form of travel that actually listened to him. As it is, despite his best efforts, it’s highly unlikely he’d be able to outrun them in the end.
Cassian
Please feel free to heck him up as much as you like in the next thread >: )
here comes a candle to light you to bed
here comes a chopper to chop off your head
(for the casual reader, shit's about to get mature)
There is a pulse of fury that pounds in each of their heads when the stallion dissolves into sand. Frustration roars out of the mouth of the larger monster and she is just about to take out that frustration on her daughter when he appears again only a few feet away. A snarl escapes them both and their attention refocuses on him with a flash of intensity.
The smaller one catches him first, her jaw opening wide to reveal the second mouth within, which punches forward and through the flesh of a hindleg even as the larger jaws also close around the flesh and tear a chunk out of the muscle there. The larger one paces. Although her entire body burns with hunger and anger, her eyes are cold and empty. They never change, no matter what they might be doing.
This one does not lunge at him yet, but instead moves close, using her knife tail to cut at her daughter. Not deeply, just enough for a short spray of blood. They have played this game before - and wherever those droplets of blood land they will burn with the force of the concentrated acid in their veins.
Only then does she turn to lunge, her own set of silver teeth opening wide into wicked grin that looks to grab hold of his face or his neck and tear downwards with a mighty pull. They do not play games with their meals, not long ones anyway, and she is eager to toss him to the dirt so she can bury her head in his soft flesh and feast. One less false trail in their hunt for the dragon.
ripley & nostromo
XXVIII-----
@[Cassian]
let me know if you want anything changed and feel free to PP them doing WHATEVER to poor Cassian <3
gotta do it in the penthouse that's where I keep my pen
As expected, he doesn’t get far. Of course he wouldn’t. He may not be Einstein, but he’s not actually a dummy either. Still, ever the optimist, he had to try. And maybe he is not great at winning, but he’s really good at failing.
Actually, that’s probably not a good thing, huh?
He doesn’t even try for stoicism when the one reaches him. His shriek as her mouth (second mouth????) tears straight through his leg is ear-splittingly awful. Honestly, they might wish they didn’t have eardrums, or they’d probably be broken right about now (maybe they don’t have eardrums? Who knows). Not that he’s especially worried about their eardrums at the moment.
It’s almost instinct to struggle against her, futile as it is. As though the wild, panicked flailing of his limbs would have any impact against something that could so easily tear his leg off. Actually, he’s not certain it had been torn off, but it sure as hell felt like it. Of course, his wild flailing only serves to send him tumbling head over heel when his flesh releases from bone, dangling from alien jaws.
He’s too busy trying to get his breath back after that to notice the other creature stalking around him before whipping her tail around to slice at the one who’d taken a chunk from him. Of course, he does notice the burning spray of acid blood, which serves only to elicit another stomach-curdling shriek from him.
Blessedly, they don’t seem inclined to toy with him for long. At this point, his adrenaline and shock have wound together to begin numbing him anyway. And so, when the bigger one reaches down to tear out his throat, instead of screaming again, he just starts laughing until only blood bubbles from his mouth. And perhaps it had sounded a bit hysterical, but, well, we won’t go there.
Just wait until he told Casi about this though. No way she could top it.
