09-12-2018, 09:21 AM
<link href='https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Cinzel+Decorative' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'><style type="text/css">.snowback{position: relative;z-index: 3;background: #d9cccd;width: 440px;box-shadow: 0 0 6px #000;border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;}.snowpic{position: relative;z-index: 5;border-radius: 0px 0px 0px 0px;}.snowgrad{position: relative;z-index: 7;height: 140px;margin-top: -140px;background: rgba(217,204,205,0);
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filter: progidBig GrinXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#d9cccd', endColorstr='#d9cccd', GradientType=0 );}.snowwords{position: relative;z-index: 9;color: #ae948b;background: #d9cccd;text-align: justify;padding: 20px;width: 340px;padding-bottom: 30px;}.snowname{position: relative;z-index: 12;color: #ae948b;font: 90px 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;text-align: center;padding-center: 40px;margin-top: -50px;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;}.snowquote{position: relative;z-index: 17;font: 22px 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;font: 'Pegasus';color: #ae948b;}</style><center><div class="snowback"><img class="snowpic" src="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/5c/f4/96/5cf4963ce7b77200b31d6505191ea61e.jpg"><div class="snowgrad"></div><div class="snowname">Shiya</div><div class="snowwords">Shiya peers up again, already missing land and air. It’s frightening down here where the sun no longer hits and where there are monsters she has never before seen. With her heart in her throat, she stares back down into the depths and paddles nearer until her hooves make contact with Pangea’s mud. It latches onto her, clinging to her legs desperately. Life, it almost seems to say, a sacrifice. The cancerous magic wants to drain her to give itself life, to rejuvenate its drowned hills. It climbs her legs, snake-like, until she lurches away. Her legs kick frantically to discard the stray magic before she can bring herself to stand again on the drowned kingdom. <i>”Don’t stand in one place too long,”</i> she murmurs more to herself although anyone around her could overhear.
She takes a breath, then another. It’s still frightening to breathe underwater and to not feel the immense pressure of the water boring down on her shoulders.
<i>”I can do this,”</i> she whispers to combat the fear branching through her veins. She isn’t strong; Shiya is far from brave, and she isn’t at all a warrior. The family’s ferocity poured into Vulgaris, not her. Weak, silly Shiya. Nothing more than a parasite desperately feeding off other’s joy to fuel her own, but she fails even at that. What is such a meek, useless girl doing here – trying to complete Carnage’s whims? Stupid, stupid girl.
Speed, she muses, that must be the key here. Each time she takes pause, the muck tries to clutch her and drown her below. Desperately, Shiya tries two swim and run through Pangea but her path is frequently obstructed. At one such misfortune, when she finds herself pressed to the edge of a small cliff, Shiya turns to retreat but is met by a face that both haunts and loves her. It stares at her with a hollowed stare that chills her bones. <i>”No, no no… I just saw you,”</i> but did she? Now she’s questioning her own sanity as it’s barred against what her eyes are drinking in.
<i>”Vulgaris,”</i> it was him – it had to be – and she searches his body and sees the scales and his fangs. And his eyes. Those vibrant green eyes – they aren’t there. Much of his skin has sloughed off, exposing porcelain bone that seems to glow in these darker depths. <i>”I just held you,”</i> she nearly stutters as she inches back. He, on the other hand, edges closer, his body misshapen and awkward in his movement. <i>”What happened?”</i> But she doesn’t expect him to answer. He confirms that by continuing to slink closer, his mouth opening wide with his fangs ominously protruding. Fear races through her and overshadows her clearer thinking. As he closes the distance between them, she panics.
Flight or fight.
The briefest of glances confirms that even in water, the Cliffside is too deep, and he would likely follow.
<i>”Vulgaris, please,”</i> she begs desperately, wanting this to be a dream, for him to be alive and not a creature of the murky ocean depths. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop. He looms nearer, hissing as he finally lurches toward her. Shiya ducks to the left. With his momentum and anticipation of blood spill, the monster stumbles into where she had been. When his jaws clap shut – a noise she can feel through her bones – he tastes only bubbles. Angry, he twists his head aside to blindly stare at her with tassels of flesh rippling with his movement. He wants her – needs her – and even with sockets emptied by fish and crustaceans, Shiya sees the hunger and desperation.
Panic-stricken, Shiya’s body is suddenly extending out in retaliation. Her bones stretch, her skin is elastic in its expansion and extension. She isn’t sure how, or why, but she elongates herself, wrapping her own neck around his in multiple coils. Within her grasp, Vulgaris squirms and groans.
Her grip tightens.
He attempts to widen his jaw, unhinging it to desperately grab for her.
Her grip tightens again.
Every muscle contracts and ripples, almost painfully to herself. <i>”Stop,”</i> another plead falling on deaf ears. This is her brother, her only love in this miserable world. She wants it to end, but still he struggles beneath her as she wraps around his cervical spine.
She has no choice. It’s him or her.
Shiya’s grip almost releases in defeat but then with one more contortion of her body, the creature’s neck snaps. There is no sinew or fat to hold it in place, and so Vulgaris’ decomposed head tumbles down to the muddy bottom. <i>”Goodbye, love.”</i> Slowly, her body reverts back, but her eyes are weighed by emotion.
It makes her want to leave and to surface from this God awful mission. Peering up, she almost follows the weakness of her heart, but then <i>his</i> voice echoes through her. Find the heart, she is reminded. This could all be over soon. Just find it.
Craning her head, Shiya sees the faint green glow in the distance. It seems wrong to pursue it; it hasn’t escaped her notice how the ocean life avoids this plot of cancerous land. There’s a reason, she knows, but with an exhausted groan, she pushes onward. This could kill her. For a fleeting moment, she is afraid, but when she looks back over her shoulder and sees Vulgaris lying limp and shredded, a sigh of resignation passes through her. They would be together forever then. It wouldn’t be so bad, right?
If only she knew that it was just a figment, that Vulgaris is still thriving on land with a child on the way and a lover to keep his bed warm.
Shiya doesn’t realize – doesn’t feel – the branches reaching for her or the mud spiraling up her legs. She is still absently staring at Vulgaris’ corpse, imagining what was and what could have been. Their lives play in front of her eyes like a movie reel, both the highs and the lows. Heartache rips her open, exposing and weakening her. Everything is suddenly numb; she’s falling into a void where everything is black and she’s losing herself.
It’s the sound of nails, or teeth, grating against her scales that somehow extracts her from the darkness that consumed her. It tickles at first. It seems so gentle and playful, but then it’s burning and the pain heightens. When she turns her head and blinks, she sees Carnage. She believes it’s him just as she believed it was Vulgaris she just murdered. It can’t possibly be the magic that infects this sabotaged kingdom. No, it’s him, staring at her with emptiness in his eyes and heart. Fangs, much like hers, protrude from his jaws and scrape along her neck. They begin to puncture, just barely, before Shiya truly awakens and struggles to flee. The muck underfoot clutches desperately to her and tree branches, brittle as they are, attempt to pin her in place. Whimpering and afraid, Shiya jerks her head aside and tries to retaliate by biting him instead. Poison leaks from her own fangs and pours through his veins. The roughness of his coat seems all too familiar from those times they had emotionlessly fucked. This has to be him. She, the meek and silly girl, is poisoning Carnage. It empowers her and she buries her fangs deeper, dispensing more venom until she forces herself to pull away.
As the liquid death reaches the monster’s heart, he falls limp with the mud and trees following in pursuit. They release their grips on Shiya so that she may flee. With frantic strides, she tries to both swim and run away without ever looking back.
She never looks back to see that she didn’t kill Carnage. It was never him at all.
It was an illusion, yet another trick on her weak and vulnerable mind.
What lies in her wake is a rogue kelpie drifting with the current, lifeless with copious amounts of venom swelling its body.
Shiya doesn’t stop this time, pushing through the water desperately with her viridian eyes staring intensely at the looming green glow. Find its heart, she whispers. She killed Carnage, she poisoned him. The heart is therefore hers, this is all hers, this cancerous shit show lost in the tide.
Upon reaching the bosom of Pangea, Shiya descends into the crater where the heart lies, beating calmly while hers feverishly hammers in her throat and ears. She collapses at its side, panting and reflecting.
</div><div class="snowquote">For you, I'd give my last breath</div></div></center>
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, rgba(217,204,205,0) 0%, rgba(217,204,205,1) 100%);
background: -webkit-gradient(left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%, rgba(217,204,205,0)), color-stop(100%, rgba(217,204,205,1)));background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, rgba(217,204,205,0) 0%, rgba(217,204,205,1) 100%);background: -o-linear-gradient(top, rgba(217,204,205,0) 0%, rgba(217,204,205,1) 100%);background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, rgba(217,204,205,0) 0%, rgba(217,204,205,1) 100%);background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(217,204,205,0) 0%, rgba(217,204,205,1) 100%);
filter: progidBig GrinXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#d9cccd', endColorstr='#d9cccd', GradientType=0 );}.snowwords{position: relative;z-index: 9;color: #ae948b;background: #d9cccd;text-align: justify;padding: 20px;width: 340px;padding-bottom: 30px;}.snowname{position: relative;z-index: 12;color: #ae948b;font: 90px 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;text-align: center;padding-center: 40px;margin-top: -50px;text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #000;}.snowquote{position: relative;z-index: 17;font: 22px 'Cinzel Decorative', cursive;font: 'Pegasus';color: #ae948b;}</style><center><div class="snowback"><img class="snowpic" src="https://i.pinimg.com/564x/5c/f4/96/5cf4963ce7b77200b31d6505191ea61e.jpg"><div class="snowgrad"></div><div class="snowname">Shiya</div><div class="snowwords">Shiya peers up again, already missing land and air. It’s frightening down here where the sun no longer hits and where there are monsters she has never before seen. With her heart in her throat, she stares back down into the depths and paddles nearer until her hooves make contact with Pangea’s mud. It latches onto her, clinging to her legs desperately. Life, it almost seems to say, a sacrifice. The cancerous magic wants to drain her to give itself life, to rejuvenate its drowned hills. It climbs her legs, snake-like, until she lurches away. Her legs kick frantically to discard the stray magic before she can bring herself to stand again on the drowned kingdom. <i>”Don’t stand in one place too long,”</i> she murmurs more to herself although anyone around her could overhear.
She takes a breath, then another. It’s still frightening to breathe underwater and to not feel the immense pressure of the water boring down on her shoulders.
<i>”I can do this,”</i> she whispers to combat the fear branching through her veins. She isn’t strong; Shiya is far from brave, and she isn’t at all a warrior. The family’s ferocity poured into Vulgaris, not her. Weak, silly Shiya. Nothing more than a parasite desperately feeding off other’s joy to fuel her own, but she fails even at that. What is such a meek, useless girl doing here – trying to complete Carnage’s whims? Stupid, stupid girl.
Speed, she muses, that must be the key here. Each time she takes pause, the muck tries to clutch her and drown her below. Desperately, Shiya tries two swim and run through Pangea but her path is frequently obstructed. At one such misfortune, when she finds herself pressed to the edge of a small cliff, Shiya turns to retreat but is met by a face that both haunts and loves her. It stares at her with a hollowed stare that chills her bones. <i>”No, no no… I just saw you,”</i> but did she? Now she’s questioning her own sanity as it’s barred against what her eyes are drinking in.
<i>”Vulgaris,”</i> it was him – it had to be – and she searches his body and sees the scales and his fangs. And his eyes. Those vibrant green eyes – they aren’t there. Much of his skin has sloughed off, exposing porcelain bone that seems to glow in these darker depths. <i>”I just held you,”</i> she nearly stutters as she inches back. He, on the other hand, edges closer, his body misshapen and awkward in his movement. <i>”What happened?”</i> But she doesn’t expect him to answer. He confirms that by continuing to slink closer, his mouth opening wide with his fangs ominously protruding. Fear races through her and overshadows her clearer thinking. As he closes the distance between them, she panics.
Flight or fight.
The briefest of glances confirms that even in water, the Cliffside is too deep, and he would likely follow.
<i>”Vulgaris, please,”</i> she begs desperately, wanting this to be a dream, for him to be alive and not a creature of the murky ocean depths. Unfortunately, he doesn’t stop. He looms nearer, hissing as he finally lurches toward her. Shiya ducks to the left. With his momentum and anticipation of blood spill, the monster stumbles into where she had been. When his jaws clap shut – a noise she can feel through her bones – he tastes only bubbles. Angry, he twists his head aside to blindly stare at her with tassels of flesh rippling with his movement. He wants her – needs her – and even with sockets emptied by fish and crustaceans, Shiya sees the hunger and desperation.
Panic-stricken, Shiya’s body is suddenly extending out in retaliation. Her bones stretch, her skin is elastic in its expansion and extension. She isn’t sure how, or why, but she elongates herself, wrapping her own neck around his in multiple coils. Within her grasp, Vulgaris squirms and groans.
Her grip tightens.
He attempts to widen his jaw, unhinging it to desperately grab for her.
Her grip tightens again.
Every muscle contracts and ripples, almost painfully to herself. <i>”Stop,”</i> another plead falling on deaf ears. This is her brother, her only love in this miserable world. She wants it to end, but still he struggles beneath her as she wraps around his cervical spine.
She has no choice. It’s him or her.
Shiya’s grip almost releases in defeat but then with one more contortion of her body, the creature’s neck snaps. There is no sinew or fat to hold it in place, and so Vulgaris’ decomposed head tumbles down to the muddy bottom. <i>”Goodbye, love.”</i> Slowly, her body reverts back, but her eyes are weighed by emotion.
It makes her want to leave and to surface from this God awful mission. Peering up, she almost follows the weakness of her heart, but then <i>his</i> voice echoes through her. Find the heart, she is reminded. This could all be over soon. Just find it.
Craning her head, Shiya sees the faint green glow in the distance. It seems wrong to pursue it; it hasn’t escaped her notice how the ocean life avoids this plot of cancerous land. There’s a reason, she knows, but with an exhausted groan, she pushes onward. This could kill her. For a fleeting moment, she is afraid, but when she looks back over her shoulder and sees Vulgaris lying limp and shredded, a sigh of resignation passes through her. They would be together forever then. It wouldn’t be so bad, right?
If only she knew that it was just a figment, that Vulgaris is still thriving on land with a child on the way and a lover to keep his bed warm.
Shiya doesn’t realize – doesn’t feel – the branches reaching for her or the mud spiraling up her legs. She is still absently staring at Vulgaris’ corpse, imagining what was and what could have been. Their lives play in front of her eyes like a movie reel, both the highs and the lows. Heartache rips her open, exposing and weakening her. Everything is suddenly numb; she’s falling into a void where everything is black and she’s losing herself.
It’s the sound of nails, or teeth, grating against her scales that somehow extracts her from the darkness that consumed her. It tickles at first. It seems so gentle and playful, but then it’s burning and the pain heightens. When she turns her head and blinks, she sees Carnage. She believes it’s him just as she believed it was Vulgaris she just murdered. It can’t possibly be the magic that infects this sabotaged kingdom. No, it’s him, staring at her with emptiness in his eyes and heart. Fangs, much like hers, protrude from his jaws and scrape along her neck. They begin to puncture, just barely, before Shiya truly awakens and struggles to flee. The muck underfoot clutches desperately to her and tree branches, brittle as they are, attempt to pin her in place. Whimpering and afraid, Shiya jerks her head aside and tries to retaliate by biting him instead. Poison leaks from her own fangs and pours through his veins. The roughness of his coat seems all too familiar from those times they had emotionlessly fucked. This has to be him. She, the meek and silly girl, is poisoning Carnage. It empowers her and she buries her fangs deeper, dispensing more venom until she forces herself to pull away.
As the liquid death reaches the monster’s heart, he falls limp with the mud and trees following in pursuit. They release their grips on Shiya so that she may flee. With frantic strides, she tries to both swim and run away without ever looking back.
She never looks back to see that she didn’t kill Carnage. It was never him at all.
It was an illusion, yet another trick on her weak and vulnerable mind.
What lies in her wake is a rogue kelpie drifting with the current, lifeless with copious amounts of venom swelling its body.
Shiya doesn’t stop this time, pushing through the water desperately with her viridian eyes staring intensely at the looming green glow. Find its heart, she whispers. She killed Carnage, she poisoned him. The heart is therefore hers, this is all hers, this cancerous shit show lost in the tide.
Upon reaching the bosom of Pangea, Shiya descends into the crater where the heart lies, beating calmly while hers feverishly hammers in her throat and ears. She collapses at its side, panting and reflecting.
</div><div class="snowquote">For you, I'd give my last breath</div></div></center>