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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


    [TAKEOVER]  from the ashes - ALL CITIZENS
    #1

    YOU CAN HEAR WHEN THE HEART STOPS.

    The shadowmare saw no one as she crept through the shadows of Pangea.  She knew they were there - she could feel their presence, sense their heartbeats.  But this land was too quiet.  She could feel the energy of this place beneath her feet - the promise it held. 
    And to think it was her monsters that had delivered her here.  A spark of pride ignited in her chest and faded just as quickly.  What she felt for her monsters was as close to love as she believed was capable of feeling.

    She sends out a message directly into the minds of Pangea’s citizens - beckoning them to her.  Whether or not they heed her is something else entirely.  She will not force them to comply. She could, but she won't. The shadows stir around her, weaving between her legs and spiraling around her body.  Smoky shadows twist through her mane and tail - lifting them to dance eerily even though there is no wind.  She waits for them to come or to flee - then she speaks.

    “Citizens of Pangea - your leaders are absent and your kingdom is weak.”  There her voice is cold and calm - free of accusation.  It is simply a statement - a fact based on the current circumstances.  She does not fault them for this. But she will not leave this place to slip into obscurity either.  Not now.  “It is time we rebuild this place,” she says, matter of factly.

    “Stand with me, Anaxarete, and help me rebuild Pangea into a force to be reckoned with.” 

    That’s all she truly wanted. 
    A reckoning.

    - A N A X A R E T E -
    been there, done that
    image credit  


    Sup everyone - Ana wants to cause some chaos.
    Reply
    #2

    Rayie

    Rayie had been sitting alone for many months now, having heard nothing from her companions and still not having met her father, she had become bored and resentful, remaining hidden in the shadows of Pangea along with her feline companion.
    Though suddenly it seems that her boredom will come to an end. Whispers carry through the canyons of Pangea, notifying her residents of the upcoming change, which was much-needed change.

    The lioness stands up quietly, stretching out her back when her mind is suddenly flooded with an invitation, a smile quivering on her conscience as curiosity slowly sends her toward the origin of the message.
    Her Lynx companion exercises a lot more caution, even though they had recently developed a strong bond, the lynx was still very wary of Rayie and so stayed quite a distance behind her, letting her do all the work.

    The lioness arrives quickly, observing the mare as shadows and creatures twist and turn around her. Rayie sits down nearby, her ears perked as she listens to the mare and her short speech.

    Rayie finally rises after a moment of consideration, a smug expression laden across her feline face.
    "I will stand with you" she growls, her expression now dry as she steps forward.
    "It is about time that Pangea becomes alive again" she almost barks, excited by the new prospect of the mare leading her home.


     

    Sorry this is bad but I wanted to get a post out before bed
    Reply
    #3
    here comes a candle to light you to bed
    here comes a chopper to chop off your head


    They don’t have to come, but they do. The summons from Anaxarete was not for them, it was for the creatures of flesh that populated these caverns and hills, but still they arrive. If they possessed rational thought, it would be because they wished to show support for their master. It would be because they knew how intimidating they would be, armoured and vicious, flanking the shadow mare as she stood before the kingdom.

    As it is, no such thoughts brushed through their minds.

    They just simply arrive. They approach the group like practiced hunters – flanking positions. Eyeing the group, a soft rumble of a growl escaping the larger one. They do not have the patience for meetings, nor the mental-capacity for politics, but the interest they expressed to Anaxarete still flickers within them.

    And, if they could wonder, they might wonder who of these gathered would taste the sweetest.

    They stand behind Anaxarete, one to each side. Their long, prehensile tails flick slowly behind them as they watch and they wait to see if their skills are needed today.

    ripley & nostromo
    XXVIII-----



    they contribute nothing but intimidation tactics
    Reply
    #4

    do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?

    Ghaul was born for the fight. From the moment he ripped himself free from his mother’s womb, he worshipped the taste of blood and death across his tongue. And today, he watched his father leave him to his own devices until the splotch of red was lost in a sea of blue. He wanted to cry and scream and curse him for leaving, but he merely stood in place and didn’t even try to chase him down. Now, as the woman’s call echoes across his home, he turns his head and his bares his little teeth in rage. How could she claim what is his? Where is his surrogate mother?

    The fledgling sinks his talons into the dirt and feels a growl rumble down in his throat before he skitters closer to the forming group. He watches the blur of their heat signatures come together, some stranger than others, and he comes to boldly stand before the woman who would be queen. Ghaul spreads his wings wide, the spines growing down his back standing on edge as his talons grip the dirt beneath him. Who was she to rip his fever dreams of war and conquest and strength beyond measure from him?

    He snorts and grits all his crooked fangs.

    I am Ghaul, son of Litotes and heir of Pangea. I will devour empires,” he says, little flames licking up between his teeth and over his scaled lips. The stars at the base of his horns and the high points of his cheeks glimmer beautifully despite the ugly way he presents himself. Were he a few years older and his muscles more filled out, he might actually be a fearsome thing to behold. But for now he is still new to this world. His ambitions dwarf his might and his proclamations are only promises of what may come to pass.

    ghaul

    did someone order a tiny drama queen?
    Reply
    #5
    She is not surprised when she hears the call, but even still she feels another piece of her soul torn away as the magician’s voice rings across the land. Lie had told her just this morning of his plans to leave, before going to bid his son farewell, and she had not done much to convince him to stay. Even as she feels the fluttering of their fourth child in her womb, she found herself unable to force him to remain. It’s simply time to move on, for the both of them. Maybe she’ll return to the Cove; it is where she truly belongs.

    “I am not absent,” she declares as she joins the small group, but there is a calm acceptance in her gaze as she stares at the would-be queen. “Litotes left is only this morning, and already you have come to stake a claim on my kingdom.” She positions herself next to her adopted son and runs her nose reassuringly down his neck, wishing she knew how to fury that quelled in the demon-child. This is not a fight the two of them can win, though Dawn is no stranger to monsters. Head held high - weakness is not an option for her, not anymore - she turns to face her subjects and the newly arrived monsters, realizing that she has little left to lose.

    “My intention was to bring the East back to the glory it had obtained under the rule of my predecessors,” she tells them, brown eyes sparkling with sadness. “I grew up in Hyaline and became a woman in the Cove; all the while, the East knew peace. When I came into my crown and Litotes offered me Pangea, I graciously accepted and hoped to make us prosper as the sanctuary we were always intended to be. I realize that I have failed you, and for that I am sorry.”

    She looks back to Anaxarete and then to Ghaul, quietly contemplating the pair. “I cannot force you to come with me, son,” she tells him, wanting to tear her claws into the newcomer but knowing instinctively that she doesn’t have the power to fight her. “I shall return to the Cove, where your sister rules. You are welcome to stay here, in the kingdom you were born to rule, or come with me if you wish. All I ask,” and she turns hard eyes on the grey mare, “is that you leave the Cove out of your plotting. It is a peaceful territory, and Isilme is a good woman.”



    figured she should get something up. she’s abdicating peacefully.
    clean.
    Reply
    #6

    — I'm not here looking for absolution —

    Pangea calls to him.

    There is something about the wasteland that he is unable to resist. Unable to deny. It drags him forward and all he knows is that something within his wretched heart finds its counterpart in the grey land. There is something about it that is much like the small grey mare that stands at its helm, unassuming but right.

    So it is only fitting that the young boy finds his way there with his sister in tow. Only assuming that he takes his place amongst the crowd with a dead bird on his shoulder, its claws digging into the flesh of his shoulder. It hurts, but he grows used to the pain as it goes from ragged and sharp to dull and aching. In a way, he likes it—likes the way that the blood seeps down amongst the constellations and endless black.

    He does not say much as he takes his spot, only checking once to make sure Desire has done the same, before his attention moves to the mare. It is rooted there, caught, and he barely notices the rest of what unfolds around them. The other boy about his age hurling his insults or the older mare babbling. The rest of it just fades into the distance as he focuses on Anaxarete and the monstrous creatures behind her.

    He could say something, he supposes, although words have never been his strong suit.

    Instead he just finds her gaze, holding it for a beat, and then nodding.

    It was as close to an agreement as he could find.

    STAVE
    Reply
    #7

    sometimes I'm terrified of my heart;
    of its constant hunger for whatever it is it wants —
    She is not as taken with Pangea as her brother, but she follows him regardless. He tells her they should at least see it, and she obliges, but she cannot fathom what could be so great about it. The idea of power was still an intangible thing to her, and she does not crave the same things as him.

    All she wanted was to not be alone, and that meant going with him to this desolate, almost barren wasteland.

    There was a tension that brewed in the air here, and she is not sure if it is because of what is transpiring at the heart of the kingdom – with the dark gray mare at its nucleus – or if it just the general atmosphere. She watches them with eyes that were shockingly bright for how black they were, and for a moment her gaze is drawn to another young boy with horns that twisted where eyes should be. Stave was focused on the mare, but Desire was watching this entertaining display of bravado coming from the colt.

    “If you eat the empires, what are you supposed to reign over?” There was still a high trill to her childish voice, a girlish lilt that was laced with a laugh. She wasn’t laughing at him, necessarily; she was not cruel, not at her core, and even though he couldn’t see the smile that adorned her lily-white lips, maybe he could hear it.

    Still alongside of her brother, she follows his eyes back to Anaxarete, catching the almost imperceptible nod. “If you’re staying, I will stay, too,” she says into the curve of his neck.
    Desire
    Reply
    #8
    Darkling

    He is far too young to have paid much of a mind to the political doings of the kingdom in which he’d been birthed. Truth be told, he’d had even less interest in such deathly boring topics. His father had favored his blind, demon-horn-eyed brother anyway, and he had sullenly kept to himself, childish jealousy leading him to pursue wilder, more favorable pursuits.

    When he hears the call ring in his mind however, he cannot help the intrigue that stirs deep within his gut. He is clumsy in his attempts to rip at the shadows in an effort to bring him to the source of that call, but in the end, he succeeds. His youthful, gangly frame melts from the clinging darkness, incongruously bright, golden yellow separating from shadow as he steps into the light.

    He blinks, gaze slipping briefly to the unknown female droning at them about absences and forces he has little interest in before falling greedily to the shadows that cling to her like hungry lovers. He is tempted to touch. To close the distance and nip at them as he’d once done false shadows-that-were-not-his.

    But when his mother arrives, his attention immediately turns to her. When she sidles alongside Ghaul, lips tracing down his neck, he narrows his eyes, a dissatisfied huff escaping his lips. Stalking forward, he shoves at his mother’s hip irritably. As is the fickle nature of youth however, he is swiftly distracted once more, his gaze sliding to consider the stranger who seems intent on claiming his parent’s throne.

    For all that this should infuriate him, he cannot help but be intrigued by the oily darkness that clings to her and the spiny beasts she keeps threateningly leashed at her side. He is too young, or too foolish, to be afraid, and his mother’s unyielding calm bolsters him.

    Creeping forward, he fixes his gaze boldly on her, darkness unconsciously curling across his golden skin. “If we’re so weak, why do you care anyway?”

    So easily uttered with the brash naivete of childhood. But how could one expect him to realize this isn’t about Pangea’s residents so much as it is her own lust for power?

    you're burning up the sky, you're a constellation
    I think that I could die for this revelation

    Reply
    #9
    KENSA
    we were golden. we were fire. we were magic.

    She is of them, among them, but seperate. Her people have been seperate for years because she wished them to be, because she drew a line between herself and the farce the crown had been before her former husband had taken power...and then because she liked the semblance of independence. Especially once her marriage fell apart (she tore it apart).

    Someone summons the beauty from Hyaline, a stranger, and she comes because she is curious. She wants to see who is sticking their fingers into her head.

    Hyaline has always seemed busier to her than Pangea (perhaps just a perception created by her preference for that place), so she is surprised to see all these creatures popping up like they’ve just been waiting for some cool little number to ring the dinner gong. She regards them a few of them with the cool look of someone accustomed to changes in power.

    As she considers the new claimant of Pangea Kensa’s swift and hungry mind makes a sudden and certain second decision to swear an allegiance for the first time in a very long time. To take a chance on a stranger and her strange xenomorph bodyguards. Hyaline’s culture has already been proven to be drenched in debauchery might as well light it on fire and call it flambé. Delicious.

    “Anaxerate. A pleasure.” Her voice rings against the hot stone. It is silvery, lovely, and somehow knife edged though she displays no hostility only her typical boldness shouldering forward more by presence alone than physical contact.  “Hyaline will happily continue to yield to Pangea, I hope you will indulge our desire for chaos under your rule?” This last is said with a sweet directness capped off by a smile. 

    What’s the plan, darling?






    Hello my beauty is here, I'm coming off a 'slow' phase and ready to butt dance.
    Reply
    #10

    YOU CAN HEAR WHEN THE HEART STOPS.

    She watches with an impassive air as those who remained in the too-quiet kingdom begin come to her.  She is pleased to notice that the majority of those who heed the call are children or only teetering on the cusp of adulthood.  She found that many often overlooked children.  A dangerous mistake.  Children were living, breathing potential.  Their minds were moldable, their powers still raw and unpolished.  For that reason the shadowmare had no reason to turn them away - no reason not to include them in her plans for Pangea.  Her loyal monsters join her - undoubtedly drawn to the gathering before her.  She breathes into their mind that those who pledge loyalty are not to be harmed - they are to be left whole and uninjured. She does not wait to see how they will react, for she knows they will heed their master.  They do not bite the hand that feeds, and for that she makes sure that they are always fed.

    A young girl with a feline companion is the first of the gathered to speak, and in response Anaxarete says nothing but dips her nose in recognition of her pledge to the future of Pangea.  She can sense the carnivore lurking beneath the girl’s skin, and Anaxarete is pleased to have her amongst the ranks.  The next boy who speaks is young and a strange melding of equine and dragon.  A small smile tugs at the corner of her dark mouth at his statement.  The confidence of youth is endearing. “Why don’t we work on building an empire for you to rule, one for you to be proud of,” she says - addressing not just Ghaul but all who have come.  The kingdom of Carnage was in a sorry state, and there was no pride in ruling empty lands with empty promises.  She speaks directly into the boy’s mind before she moves on, “Let me teach you, Ghaul, how to be heir of an empire. We’ll build a kingdom for you to be proud of - one that earns both the fear and respect of your enemies.” She would teach him what it meant to lead, if he wished.

    Her eyes move towards Dawn. The shadowmare does not contradict the former queen, for the emptiness of this land says all that needs to be said.  Her predecessors had been foolish.  This was the kingdom that Carnage built. It was not a land of peacefulness and quiet. It never would be. However Anaxarete was not so foolish as to inspire her enemies in the first moments of her reign.  “This land was never meant to be a sanctuary. The life in this land was imbued by Carnage himself,” she says, cooly. “You are welcome to return to the Cove. I’m sure I will meet your daughter soon enough.”  Anaxarete had no intention of disturbing the territories. Not yet. Not when there was so much to do here.  She’d rather have them quiet and loyal for the time being.

    She is pleased to find familiar faces in the crowd.  Stave the little necromancer and one who she knows to be his twin sister.  Both wild and gifted and more than welcome in Pangea.  Another of the old bloodline speaks next - she can feel the darkness in his blood.  And while his loyalty to his family are admirable, she hopes in time he realizes that she will be able to make him more

    “Everyone should care when one of the kingdoms slips into silence. It disrupts the balance.  I’ve seen it happen before, and it never ends well for those content to simply be meek and quiet.  This place - this kingdom - was always destined for great things. Pangea deserves better - deserves not to fade away into obscurity,” she states, simply, before turning her attention to Kensa.

    Anaxarete dips her head, politely, at the mare’s words. The shadowmare had not forgotten what it was to be a diplomat - had not forgotten the rules of decorum that had ruled her life for decades. “I desire a great many things, Kensa,” she says, having drawn the mare’s name from the darkness.  “For Hyaline’s loyalty, I offer you and those who live under you safety. You will remain leader of the territory. Once things have settled, perhaps we can talk about what the future holds.” she says, opening the door for Hyaline to rise alongside Pangea.

    She turns back to the group once more, her icy gaze flickering among those who have come. “I will not change leadership in the Cove or in Hyaline. Those loyal to Pangea will always have my protection.  Ghaul may remain heir of this land, if that is his wish.  However, I will not tolerate disloyalty - those who betray Pangea will answer to me, personally.”  There is an implicit threat in her words, but her voice never changes - never waivers - it remains as cold as ice. "For the time being, Ripley will serve as our champion," she says, gesturing to the larger of the xenomorphs, "For those interested in the position, I will be watching."

    - A N A X A R E T E -
    been there, done that
    image credit  


    y'all dont have to respond if you want. if you don't want to write a whole post feel free to just respond with a note or whatever. Smile
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