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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    modicum mortem, any
    #1
    Where there is no imagination, there is no horror
    It is twilight when he arrives (the sky painted hues of lavender and apricot and rose and navy), stepping across the border without so much as a twitch of his ears. He’s never paid mind to the laws of a kingdom (not with his pink queen so long ago, not with the dragon-queen so long ago, not with the magician-queen so long ago) and he certainly doesn’t plan on starting now. The only thing they could truly do to him is force him out of the kingdom (and even then he will simply fade into their shadows and go find some other poor soul to torture), a thought which makes him chuckle aloud.

    Two slender sandstorms twirl around him, tinted in varying shades of pink and deep red from their cargo (said luggage being two sisterly hearts, now shed of blood and vessels). They’ve been traveling all day (the trickster with his two hearts) yet the storms have maintained their shape, expertly crafted by the shadowy, slender, metaphorical fingers of the trickster. As he slips under the shade of the forest, an audible sigh leaves his lungs (these shadows bring nostalgia to his mind with thoughts of the Valley). Although he spent a minimal amount of time in these woods with the white-ghost as king, there is familiarity in the thickness of the trees and undergrowth and shadow.

    If they’re good Sylvans, they will know he is here (thus he doesn’t call out, content to lean his left hip against a wide boulder). His bruised eyes scan the undergrowth, watching as the world gradually gets darker while the sun is suffocated by the horizon. He’s due for a dip in some cool water (the thick layers of dried blood are itching at his skin now, but he’s too hell-bent on meeting this baby-evil to bother with a good bath) and so another, careless yet annoyed, sigh drips from his throat.
    Lokii
    lover of chaos


    @[Modicum Mortem] + anyone who wants to join
    Reply
    #2
    Warm spring days turn into cool nights, the sun disappearing beyond the horizon and blanketing the autumnal forest in black. He hardly sleeps (he never has), and he is up, taking in the chirping of crickets as he weaves through crowded trees and heavy undergrowth.

    He’s yet to find someone suitable to be his right hand (his Hellraiser, or his Ringmaster), he’d been actively searching for the right one. Maugrim was a force to be reckoned with, but only time would tell if he’d be more inclined to come over of his waters to do more kingdomly activities. Astarael was his Witch, and he thoroughly enjoyed her ever-stalking presence (he could feel it, the beating of his heart uncontrollable within his chest), although she thinks he doesn’t notice.

    He’s working with the others. Kreep was doing well in his lessons (a little psycho his boy was becoming), Jackel was on her way to Loess to practice her diplomacy skills (by god did she need it). His Fire Child and the former Sylvan Prince were works in progress, but they were coming along quite nicely.

    His thoughts bring him to the near beginning of the forest - the eastern end, where his forest will divide into the broken Taiga, and that into the common lands. Unfamiliar scents invade his nostrils, and he finds himself following it to investigate.

    The visitor is covered in dried blood, but he’s seen him before. Long ago before his reign, when the Wraith was king. He’d never gotten a name (at least he doesn’t think he did), but through the darkness he can see the faint tinted red clouds behind the stallion, and it peaks his interest. “Modicum Mortem,” The clown says, revealing himself to the bruise-eyed stranger. “King of Sylva. What do you seek?”
    Modicum Mortem



    @[Lokii] so excited for them to meet!
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    #3
    Where there is no imagination, there is no horror
    He’s never been best-suited for the ranks of a kingdom (they’ve always rubbed at his shoulders and hips like an uncomfortable jacket, blistering and reddening his skin until he wants to scream). Perhaps the only kingdom he’s served (and even then it wasn’t serving the kingdom, but serving the queen who sat atop it) is the Valley, but it is long gone. His time in the Sylvan forest with the white-king hardly counted as service (nor did he consider himself serving, rather looking for an opportunity to pleasure chaos) and he had been there for only fleeting moments in the first place.

    Yet he doesn’t wonder why his hooves take him here. Perhaps it is the call of chaos (whispers sweet against his skin, calling him deeper into the darkness) or perhaps it is the call of boredom (clawing at the insides of his mind, drawing blood from the force of its dirty talons) or perhaps he is just curious (the least likely of the three, yet still possible). Nor does he wonder why he is covered in princess-blood with princess-hearts swaddled in the cradles of his storms.

    He does, however, wonder why anyone would follow a king with a bright-red bunny tail plastered to his nose (or why anyone would follow a king who could burrow himself into a rabbit’s hole to match that nose). Despite the fact that he’s in a supposedly-evil kingdom (trespassing on the kingdom’s territory, nonetheless) and despite the fact that he might or might not be here to stir up more shit, he laughs. His tenor voice drips with wild amusement and it takes him a moment before he can control his laughter enough to speak.

    “Oh” — a chuckle — “my” — another reckless laugh — “god, they actually listen to you?” The trickster heaves a big sigh, feeling the sickening emptiness that often accompanies a good laugh. “No wonder you’re fucked up; your momma must have hated you.” His bruised eyes (blue and white, blue and black) dance with unbidden mischief before his metaphorical fingers release their grip on the sandstorms.

    Two sandy hearts (bled of color and life, yet it is still just as obvious what they are) drop before the clown-king’s feet. The trickster hadn’t managed to catch the girls’ names before he’d murdered them (first mercilessly bashed the elder until her body became a pulpy, disregarded mass of blood and tissue and bone, the second slowly pulled and pinched apart while drifting through a mind-sky) but he knows who they were, at least. “Princesses of Ischia, may they rest in peace.” The end is just for his own amusement, yet no laughter trails from his mouth this time.

    “The name’s Lokii.”
    Lokii
    lover of chaos


    @[Modicum Mortem]
    Reply
    #4
    There is no true satisfaction in having an “easy” life, and Mortem’s life had been far from easy. Snickers and sneers have been heard so much in his life, he is immune to it.

    The laughter of the trickster does not phase him (god, shit like that never has). So he sits there, face blank and unwavering, waiting for the stallion to finish. “They are as loyal to me as I am to them,” He tells the bruised-eyed stranger. At his comment about the clown’s mother, he laughs. “She was a cruel fucking bitch. The hatred was mutual.”A roll of his cerulean eyes.

    The sand storms vanish, and two lifeless hearts sit before him. He glances between the two - one is bigger than the other, a child’s - and then back to the lover of chaos with a smile. “The daughters of Brennen…” He mutters, before letting out a howling laugh. “The fucker won’t know what to do with himself!” Three hard slaps to the ground as he continues his chortle.

    “You’ve outdone yourself, Lokii,” He finally says after catching his breath. “What might I attribute this gift to?” He is sure Lokii knows that after this stunt, he could have whatever he wants.

    Let the chaos begin.
    Modicum Mortem


    @[Lokii]
     

    |Proceed with Caution|


    Reply
    #5

    He’s never met the king before, but to the colt he is still the taller of the two of them (the fact that all other horses are much taller has registered, but is not significant to one so young as he). He’s also never met the stallion come to see the forest, or ever one that was capable of holding sand and master it. But still he goes to meet them.

    He is rather silent, practised already simply by his nature of lurking, creeping around the forest, but he never goes unnoticed, not even in the dark, with those white patches on his back. One day he may not need to hide any more, although it is second nature to hide and learn from all there is to see in Sylva, without being seen himself.

    But he is drawn out by fascination, and, ignoring most of the adult conversation taking place because it bores him when they talk politics, sneaks up and lowers his head at one of the hearts, the one lying closest to him. His eyes look up to the stallions curiously then, followed by a single question, out of the hundreds that surely rush forward to take it’s place. ”How did you get them out so whole?” His own little experience so far is that the tiny insect creatures do not have a heart to be seen, but whenever one would try to open the chest of a small bird or rabbit, the heart would be crushed and the blood would flow out of the pulp it had become. He’s never as of yet been capable of keeping them whole, so this man must be some kind of god or powerful magician to do so, he is sure. Even the king (mother told him that the pony with the red nose is the king of course) seems impressed.

    Rajanish

    son of a dark god
    Love is hurting if it screams - oh, if it's
    screaming out loud
    ©Shade Image by Team Cherry


    @[Lokii] baby adores you lol
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    #6
    Where there is no imagination, there is no horror
    “Loyalty means shit in our business, baby.”

    He’s been around the block enough times to know (with the war of dragons swarming the skies and lightning slicing limbs off and pink queens disappearing into the great wide nothingness) that when you deal with the craftsmen of the devil’s work, you should never rely on loyalty. It will always come back to kick you in the ass and anyone who believes such things (loyalty or trust or faith) will recognize their error in some fashion.

    Regardless of loyalty or religion, his gifts (the two sister-hearts, sandy and free of blood and pulse) are well received. A smirk drips across the trickster’s mouth as easily as rain falling when the clouds are thick, twitching at the corners of his gray lips and darkening his bruised eyes. Despite his age, his angular face is still handsome beyond his years and the smirk only further enhances those features (he’d say he ages like wine, if he knew what wine was).

    The clown-king says a name (“... Brennen… ” amid laughter just as humored as his own had been moments before) that pricks at the corners of the trickster’s memories. He chuckles along with the pony, but it is for his own reasons (how ironic that he would murder the children of a stallion who saw the days of the kingdoms of old, just as he had) and he is easily able to rein it in when a spotted boy slips away from the shadows.

    His question causes a smile to fall across the trickster’s face (a smile dripping in mingled amusement and darkness). “Well, boy, it comes with decades of practice.” His bruised gaze looks over the colt again, this time slightly more critical. “I can teach you, if you want.” His own techniques were taught (partially by self-teaching and partially by Infection, a monster whose name has faded with the times) and then mastered over the years, perfected under the shade of the forests and in the darkness of the night.

    His fingers (slippery and shadowy and slender) prod gently at the colt’s mind. If he gives into the nearly invisible pressure at the back of his skull, an image will flash in his mind’s eye (brief but so tangible it is as if he is actually living it). The metallic taste of blood is in his mouth, but it tastes nearly as good as the freshest grass. His hooves and chest too, are slathered in the maroon of the liquid and a perfectly-dissected heart lies before him. It’s still beating, bright red in the emerald grass, although there is no other body to be found.

    As the boy is re-oriented back into reality (assuming his tender, young mind slipped into the fantasy the trickster pushed upon him), the silvery trickster turns his chilly gaze back upon the clown-king. He’d offered him payment in return for the gifts, but his scarred, angular shoulders roll into a casual shrug. “You’re the king in these parts; you decide what to do with me.”
    Lokii
    lover of chaos


    @[Modicum Mortem] / @[Rajanish] / nilla, let me know if you need me to change anything. you can opt out of the illusion, if you want to, don't feel pressured to have him accept <33
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