Not all monsters bare teeth and sharp claws. Easy to spot, easy to identify by these telltale signs. It’s the one’s with the subtle features, the ones that make you doubt your own intuition that are the true horrors of the world. Slipping into the fold just as if they were normal. Looking just like you or me. The real danger. The true monster.
He arrives without making a fanfare, his ghostly figure sliding easily from the darkness as the moon illuminates his arrival. He is cloaked in the dirt and mud from his travels, pale skin showing beneath the squalor that clings to him. Snowy tendrils disheveled, tangled, disarrayed. His body is smaller, slim, and scarred. A body that relies more on quickness and cunning than brute strength. It’s only those bright unnatural blazing red eyes that could perhaps betray his identity. The rest of him screams normalcy, just another stranger. Another nobody.
He isn’t a nobody. He’s an asshole, a murderer, a manipulator, a rapist to many including his mother. Oh that… No big deal. I was just in my bratty angry teenage stage. I grew up. I honed my craft. Nobody remembers that anymore anyways. She died shortly after and he had returned to the Chamber with the exile off his back to wreck havoc and start his own terrible legacy. No obstacle ever seemed to stand in his way. Male or female, young or old. He took them down all the same. Oh he had done great things in the Chamber. Horrible… but great. A smirk crosses his lips as he edges towards the perimeter that marks the start of the open field, wondering about the slave pens and if they still existed. What a great idea that had been. Much fun to be had by all.
Why hadn’t he just headed back to the hellhole that was the Chamber? It had been his hellhole, his dark and twisted home that he would never admit he actually cared about. As if he could care about anything. After being gone this long though, might as well see what else there is to offer. Besides, he wanted to have a little fun. Let’s see what bullshit we can pull off today shall we?
Long strides bring the cremello stallion into the heart of the open grounds where the others mingle. He can hear the usually invitations for herd life and kingdoms, each insisting why their place was like THE obvious best place ever! Ignoring the usual spiels from the masses, he instead hangs his head and his body sags as if he had just been running for days from his very painful and depressing past and the whole world rested on his shoulders. A lure waiting for a bite.
G R Y F F E N
*********the big bad wolf
|
Is it just me,
Or do you wonder if we're put here just to see,Scars tell a thousand stories. Hidden beyond the ash ridge depths, there are sorrowful tales, heartbroken prose. I wish I could understand them, to piece them together. But they are as confusing as the constellations in the sky. Large clusters of them, silver and twinkling golds. Nebulas far, far away. I can only imagine what it is like up there, in the vast ebony skies. What it would be like among the stars, falling, falling.
Beneath the starlit night, I wander. Each step, takes me an eternity, for I stop, dip my head and inhale the dry earth beneath my feet. I continue this, until I am in the middle of the meadow. Hollow eyes then reverting to the sky, blinking thrice, then closing my eyes and picturing the ebony skies.
It had been dark, ever so dark. Screams, furious, deafening screams. I shiver, the only memory is pain, and it pulses in my deep scars — still healing, grateful for Wichita’s aid, they would probably be far worse. The worse ones are on my side, parallel against my ribcage. They had been bone deep, and I could feel the sinew bend and bow with every movement. The skin had started to cover it, but it was still salmon pink and sore. That went for my others. Each one had a tale, I wish I could tell. But everything is blank, everything is lost, and this irks me so.
There’s a coldness inside of me, like ice embedding itself into my joints, freezing me in place. I stand there for hours, until the witching hour strikes. Even the stars disappear from the ebony heavens and leave nothing but a slither of silver moon. My creamy locks, knotted with burrs and thorns, fall in cascades of dreadlocks over my scarred neck. But I do not move. I watch, hollow eyes staring out into the night. The dull ache in my feet, my tendons, does not will me to shift. Nothing does. I stay there, immobile and watchful. As if now part of the landscape.
There's a ghost; ethereal and pale. He haunts the field, a spectre that brightens my dying eyes. I watch him, he nears me, he has not seen me, statuesque and stone-dead. I lift my nose, bringing it up from the ground, inhaling, breathing in deeply, without regret. I watch him, feeling the earth almost bend and bow as he haunts it. My vocals feel closed, as if the box inside is rusted shut just like my mind, my tone is hoarse, like the dying flowers of autumn, falling to the ground beneath my feet. 'Ghost. Ghosts exist. You. You are a ghost.' I say, to the air, to the ethereal steed as he goes to pass me, I stretch out my neck, lips twisting and coiling into some strange attempt of a strangled smile. Oh, ghosts. They haunt me, the stretch their ethereal fingers and attempt to strangle me every day. I escaped something terrible and they want me back. i'm certain of one thing in my life, and that is the ghosts will follow me forever.
'Reuen.' I say, tasting it, salmon tongue rolling over course lips. My scarred side bends as I turn, stepping in a strange, mechanical movement until I am angled just like he, holding my crown just so, tilting it to the left, and then to the right. Then, I am as still as I was when he entered the field. Like stone, immobile and dead. My flanks barely shifting with breath. 'Reuen. All is ruin.' because it is, all is ruin, my mind, tattered and lay before me in pieces that I struggle to put together. My skin stretched out over china white bones, is matted and torn. My lips tweak and pull and once more my voice is almost haunting in it's delicate feathery touch. 'Ghosts... Ghosts are the night.'
How much heartache we can take,
Without hanging from the tallest tree?
- resident of the gates - |
i want the world in my hands
 No, monsters don’t always come with decaying flesh and pointed teeth. Her father did, but she has always known him to be a monster, long before she saw his true form. But Straia? Straia came with raven feathers in her hair (though she does not wear them out in the field), a tangled mane and tail, three colors splashed on her hide. She is beautiful in the sort of way that doesn’t try, doesn’t care to be beautiful. She is regal by habit, not by title. But she doesn’t look like a monster. Doesn’t look like a girl capable of selling her father to the Valley for her crown.
Oh, but she did. For the best of reasons, in her mind. Not for a crown, not really. But for the Chamber. Because her father had ceased to be an effective leader, and she could rule better than he had. So she took what should have been rightfully hers anyway.
Today, Straia comes to the meadow as a raven, so very innocuous in the field. She spots him long before his head drops, before he pretends to be something other than what he is. She spots the other as well, the mare with the scars down her side who likely is not pretending at all. She dips lower before disappearing outside the border of the field. When she comes back, she is all horse. There’s no trace of the raven on her now. It’s a brilliant, useful trick.
When she comes back, she hears the mare speaking. Her ears flick forward, and she catches bits and piece. A name, some muttering about ghosts. Certainly, he looks like a ghost. But really, isn’t Straia the ghost? The ghost of his past, anyway. The ghost of the place he did not simply return to. Though she doesn’t know this, cannot know this, because his time was long before hers. He looks so tired, but even if she didn’t know better, Straia has never been the type to come running up and ask if you need help. If you say yes, she’s not interested.
“I didn’t think ghosts have red eyes,” she says, because she never starts with introductions if there’s something more interesting to play with at hand. And the mare had provided that. But still, she’s not here to waste anyone’s time either, and so she adds. “Straia, from the Chamber.” straia the raven queen of the chamber
 Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
She was just absolutely fucking delicious. Reuen, little girl, I could just eat you up. It was like a gift from the gods had just fallen in his lap. The perfect meal to whet his appetite after fasting for so long. He had completely missed her as he had thrown himself into his disguise, not realizing she had been standing so silent and still as he passed by. So he catches himself although his body still hangs in a state of weariness, his head turned as he slows himself to the smiling outstretched awful mess that is Reuen.
His red eyes devour her and he stops, knowing this was what he had wanted to find all along. ”Oh yes…. Yes I am” A ghost in the darkness. A ghost of flesh and blood. He sidles a little closer, easing from his weary traveler persona to that of a smooth Casanova. Here to protect and serve…. My purposes. ”Reuen.” He growls softly, his movements graceful and ethereal as he inches closer and closer to her. A wolf in ghost’s clothing. ”And you are just ruined aren’t you? Perfectly ruined….” Her body is a disaster, her mind a god damn clusterfuck. You can just see it in her eyes. The way she speaks. Something doesn’t click right in there.
He wants to touch her, wants to touch the pink bare flesh that litters her body. Open and sore. Pure perfection. Before he can, there’s another. A flash of irritation crosses his features at the interruption but his ears prick up as she speaks and he reconsidered her for a moment. The Chamber. It was only a matter of time really before someone was bound to find him even if they hadn’t meant to. It was only a matter of time before the darkness called him home. ”Now now, have you ever seen a ghost?” He asks her mockingly. He wants to know what the Chamber is like now… Is it worth returning for? Things had been turning for the better before he had suddenly dropped off the planet. It had been becoming far more interesting… The slave pens, the captives, riling up any and all simply because they could and they didn’t care. It had been awesome.
But what was the Chamber now? Here was an opportunity to see with Straia as it’s representative. Of course he’s unaware of her position. He wouldn’t care even if he had… She would want him regardless. But would he want her and the Chamber in return? Focusing his attention on beautifully broken Reuen, a ghostly smile spreads on his lips as he whispers softly to her, his true intentions bursting to break through. ”I can be your ghost.” Boldly, he reaches out as his muzzle barely brushes an angry scar on her side. ”Somebody had fun with these…”
G R Y F F E N
*********the big bad wolf
|
Is it just me,
Or do you wonder if we're put here just to see,There's ravens in the backdrop. Feathers broad and like inky tendrils of darkness against the night stygian. I watch them, hollow eyes finding some sort of memory of wings, how they broaden, how they shift like ink against the world. I then notice the shadow shifts and hoofbeats pound from the darkness beyond the copse of trees. My mind twists, it turns, full of an empty pallor. I do not move, I stay as still as a corpse, as still as I have ever known. Even the bodies that had ramshackle the ground before, before this, had twitched with nerves still wrought with pain. I didn't shift whatsoever. Only to run, to run as far away and as fast as I could. The burden still twinges my legs, my muscles, even after seasons of change.
The painted mare appears, all debonair, all real. I tilt my head, fully to the side; mimicking the birds that I have watched in the shadows briefly before. Tilting to the right, and then fully to the left. My eyes find her, like a splash of colour against the night. Red eyes. the painted lady states and I pull my gaze from her to the pallid man. His ghost tinged skin ripples in the slither of moonlight; but it's those eyes that burn into my like flame. Fire. It destroys, it turns everything to ash. As his gaze roams me, he seems to have changed his course, finding my delicate state almost to his liking. 'Vultures pick at white bone. Strip tender flesh. Right down to the pulsing core.'. The words slip, jumbled like pieces of a puzzle. Haunting and eerie. I watch the painted mare, Straia. The name bounces around from the blank canvases in my head, and there I depict her -- painting her a picture of raven feathers and ivory and russet. She looks like the cavernous birds, fondling their prey before they swoop down and lure them in. I am tentative in my gaze, dropping it now and again. 'Straia. Chamber. Chamber of... secrets.' My tongue feels like rock, hard and foreign in my mouth as they taste the bittersweet tone on my tongue. I tilt my head back to study the cremello. I feel him grow ever closer, and as he trails my wounds with his eyes, it triggers something.
Vultures pick at the bones, rip and tear, rip and tear. The sound of swallowing flesh chills me to the very deepest core. I lay low, my chocolate body dripping in blood; someone else's as well as mine. He protects me, his vast body thrown over mine, but his weight becomes dead, heavy and I heave him off when the commotion dies off. Death. It is stale, it taints the air with a decay and a bittersweet twang. Someone rips me from my feet then, I stumble and he tells me to run. To run and never return.
I ran, I ran all the way, until blood pulsed my nostrils, my lungs turned to lead. It led me to the Gates, it found me a solace, a sanctuary. And now, now I'm here and reliving the twitches of memory at the Ghost's gentle touch. Just on the horizon beyond his fiery eyes, I see the flames flicker, the fire that raged my home, my family. I had it once, I'm sure of that. Everyone had a family, a home once. The memories die off and it leaves me as open as a book, my hollow eyes brimming with something wet, something tacky. They slip down my cheeks, like rich chocolate melting against my skin.
'Ghost. Ghosts haunt, they cause pain.' I stop, dropping my muzzle low, touching the dirt on the ground before bringing it back up so that my eye connect with his red ones. 'Fun... Fun. Perhaps, perhaps the bones, the muscles taste as nice as tender grass.' The smile that haunts my lips twists and turns, mimicking some psychotic grin of power, of bloodlust. I watch everything, I am everything, like a morphing mouldable piece of clay. I change like the backdrop, but my eyes, they are a constant blankness, as if there is nothing inside, only secrets, secrets I too long to find. 'Fun. What is fun?'
How much heartache we can take,
Without hanging from the tallest tree?
- resident of the gates - |
i want the world in my hands
She watches with something of a detached interest in the proceedings between ghost and ruin. He stalks her like prey, and yet she does not run. Does not even understand what’s happening. Or maybe she knows exactly what’s happening, and simply doesn’t care. The wounds on her side suggest that pain is all the girl knows, that pain will be all the girl ever knows. Though she smells vaguely of the Gates now, and wonders if she’s found solstice there, some safe haven.
Yet here she is, playing cat and mouse with a monster. It’s pretty clear who’s the mouse.
He turns to her then, his tone mocking, but Straia seems to either notice or simply not care. It’s the latter, because it’s always the latter with her, but she simply cocks a back hoof, swishes her tail, and grins slightly. ”No,” she says, with voice smoky as it always is, composed and yet wild like the rest of her. “I’ve only seen monsters.”
She is not necessarily a monster herself. She’s no saint, don’t get her wrong. But there’s no blood on her hooves, and she doesn’t crave it. She’d kill, should the situation ever call for it, but she doesn’t seek out blood in any sort of lust or need. In this regard, she is not her father’s daughter. In most others, she is, and it’s likely these similarities that made it endlessly impossible for them to get along.
That said, she collects monsters. One as her pet (to the extent he could ever be anyone’s pet). The rest as loyal members of the Chamber. A few of them weren’t monsters, and they seemed to gravitate toward the peace caste. Probably good. The Chamber needed someone capable of sweet talking without drooling at the smell of flesh or rabbits. But they needed monsters too, if the kingdom were to become truly feared again.
And they would. She swears to whatever gods there are that they would.
The stallion’s attention is already back on the girl, and she’s responding with disjointed sentences. She is tempted to sigh audibly, because this is beginning to waste her time. She knows what kind of stallion she’s trying to recruit. There’s little else she can garner from this interaction. But she knows better, and refrains. But she grins a little wider, adding, “Shall I come back when you are done playing with your food?” What she wants to say, but cannot with the girl from the Gates here, is that in her home he could play with his food all he wanted. At least food from the Gates. But she doesn’t need to let that bit of information out in such a public area.
straia the raven queen of the chamber
Use of mild power playing is allowed; no injuries without permission
It had been awhile since the blue steed had ventured to the field. Previously his expeditions had proven successful with recruits of both friendship and standing. Today, he hoped, would fair similarly to his past visits. Unfortunately the trek to the field felt more foreign than familiar. Something about the sun soaked path appeared different, unholy. The more he walked, the more he traveled, the more the pit in his stomach turned heavy and solid. His instincts were taking control and picking at his brain- they were warning him of a threat ahead. Once he solved the puzzle of emotions and tremors his gentle walk morphed into a hurried gallop.
As soon as Jason reached the field he scanned it quickly for something- something was wrong. It took only a brief moment to catch the glimmer of Rueun sandwiched between two unknown horses. Jason stood steady and still as he analyzed the trio standing a few yards from his position. The stallion was white as snow and ghostly in appearance. His eyes looked swollen with temptation, and his lips damp with desire. Jason watched when the stallion reached out to touch his Reuen- his family member. A naked, primitive sense of protectiveness formed in his gut. As it continued to form and loom heavily above him, he grew irritated at the situation. It wasn’t right nor truly “scary” to take advantage of another.
Jason let out a heavy huff when he finally stretched from his still placement and approached the group. It was then that he finally noticed the painted mare. It didn’t take long for him to seek out a speck of information from her mind. She was Straia, queen of the Chamber. Jason nodded toward her. He was familiar with her distinguished son, Erebor. ”Hello all” He said as he made his way to stand between Reuen and the crazed stallion. He shifted and pressed his body sweetly against his kingdom sister.
| | jason
magical son of eol and ashling
|
|
As completely jumbled and trashed as she was, his newfound doll can see exactly what he was. Vulture, scavenger. A man who liked to get his hands dirty but would rather just sneak in and steal the spoils of war instead of fighting for it himself. Why do all the hard work if you don’t have to? So much easier to just stir up the pot, plant those little seeds of doubt and mistrust, take a step back and watch the fireworks. Reap the rewards. It hadn’t failed him yet.
His eyes speak of fire and yet the rest of him is ice. It was a feeling he can’t really comprehend. Warmth. Fire. Oh he burns the way one would if they plunged through broken ice into the murkiness below. Trapped beneath the surface. Water sharp as knives. Freezer burn. Most had associated the Chamber with fire but he had always been comfortable in the kingdom because of it’s darkness, dampness, and cold. Haunting the edges of the land as his own personal gothic graveyard. Wouldn’t have it any other way really.
”Straia right?” He had heard her perfectly the first time, tendrils of white falling in disarray as he shakes his head and gives her an innocent grin. ”Such things to say in front of such a delicate child! You’ll give her nightmares.” It’s pretty obvious her whole life is already a living nightmare. It probably won’t help much now that she’s met him. ”No need to leave so soon although this place is quite dull. It always has been.” He sighs as if a huge conundrum has suddenly come up. ”However we can’t just leave this lost little lamb here now can we?”
”Ruin. My Reuen.” He whispers tantalizingly towards her, snaking into her side as his muzzle presses briefly to her face. Pushing back and licking his lips, tasting the salty weakness of her tears. ”Hush now pet, no need to cry. You like secrets don’t you?” An encouraging nod, bloody orbs narrowed into slits as he focuses on her maddening gaze. ”Shall I show you the Chamber of Secrets?” Can’t go waltzing in back home after being gone for so long empty-handed now can we?
And then another comes, all full of protectiveness and goody goody zeal. Oh how fucking annoying. It just radiates off this stallion and the irritation ripples over the cremello's hide, reflecting in the lines of his face as he looks at Jason with obvious distaste. This asshole comes in between himself and his newfound present and that's just not going to do at all. "Rude aren't you?" He sneers at the other, moving himself to Reuen's other side and glancing at Straia. "It's fine, we were just leaving." Smiling his faint smile back to what he now considered his, the ruined girl. "Aren't we love?"
G R Y F F E N
*********the big bad wolf
|
Is it just me,
Or do you wonder if we're put here just to see,The words fall at my hooves like broken fragments, puzzle pieces all torn and shredded by wolves' claws. I stare down, wisps of shadow, curtains of lace saturate my eyes. Shield me from the sizzling eyes of the cream beast. I watch him, hollowed, empty. He is like the predator that stalks the night, all teeth and claw, all honey spun words but poison slathering at his jowls. He reminds me of something, of someone, but it pains me to remember. Every thick, weeping scar throbs with the memory, and I then pull myself upright, perfectly still, my lungs barely breathing, my eyes unblinking.
The painted lady talks of food, of play and fun, and it strings me along some wayward path. My jaded eyes lost within the myriad of words, discussion. The beast turns once more to me, and my pulse rages beneath my chocolate skin, throbbing with something untimely, something as foreign as the concept of movement right now. Fear. My nostrils flutter as gently, like the kiss of butterfly wings. I say nothing, I stand as still as I had before, breathing as shallow, as hushed as the still of the night.
Hooves beat in the distant, and I'm sure it's a memory, some snippet of my past that plays out in black and white in the distance, peppered and torn in places like faded movie reel. A flash of shimmering blue, a dash here and he's there, right before me, right next to me. Jason the name pulses in my mind, I remember him, the swirls of magic, the touch that made my fiery insides cool. 'Jason.' I remain still, corpse like as he talks, as Straia watches and as the pallid beast sings the most haunting of songs. I drag my hollow eyes up to stare at him, fire and brimstone beyond those irises. My heart inside, it quivers and flops, like some dying fish out of water. 'Secrets. Secrets.' my tone slips, naive, child-like. I lower my muzzle, pressing the course velvet deep into the moist ground, breathing in the dirt, the dank air. Nightmares taint my vision, spreading their inky tendrils around me, suffocating me slowly, slowly. 'Everything is ruin. Ruin.'
How much heartache we can take,
Without hanging from the tallest tree?
- resident of the gates - |
i want the world in my hands
07-22-2015, 08:59 AM
(This post was last modified: 07-22-2015, 03:38 PM by Kyra.)
Magicians. They either bring the party or completely ruin it. This one ruins it. Well, at least for Gryffen (not that the stallion has bothered to introduce himself, but Straia doesn’t care, names aren’t always important). A raven caws in the sky above them, before a few more flaps of its wing take it out of sight. But it’s told her everything she needs to know, and a grin spreads on her face slightly.
She’s been more or less ignoring Gryffen this whole time, despite the comments directed her way. He’s not interested in her, and she’s not stupid. He’s toying with his prey. But she can’t help and turn her attention to the stallion that’s pretending to be a protector right now. All regal and blue and holier-than-thou. The girl is still babbling, and Straia’s not sure that the ruined girl is quite capable of understanding just want her protector can do. Or maybe the girl’s scars are magical in nature, unable to be healed. But she doesn’t really care about that possibility. She just wants to plant the seed.
“Tell me Jason, if you care so much for the girl, why does still bear so many painful wounds?” But of course, the question is rhetorical, and she turns her head to Gryffen to see if he is in fact ready to go. She’s done with the party now. “Shall we?”
straia the raven queen of the chamber
|
