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In spite of the way the buzzing makes her bones weep, Manikin is leaning casually against the slumped body of the rat, relishing how his bristling fur pokes and prods the velvet flesh of her muzzle when she presses here and there against him. She chews at the gory fur and the blood stains her mouth black like too much licorice candy. Carnage's voice hums in her head, urging her to the edge of the cliff, but she is comfortably curled against the spirit-flesh mound of her rat and so she lays her ears back at Carnage-the-Voice and snorts petulantly at the air.
"<I>You</I> go," her girlish voice echoes softly, sounds thin and hollow in the great expanse of the Dead, "I'm tired."
The filly yawns, a soft sigh not unlike the whispered voices of the thins ghosts writhing themselves into a fog. More lies - if gentler ones - because she can no longer tire, but the others are gathering ahead, looking down into the ravine, whispering secrets to each other, and it makes her curious, spurs jealousy in her bloodless heart.
What do they see? Something <I>interesting</I>. They are rapt.
<I>Hurry,</I> Carnage says, <I>It's hungry,</I> something else declares.
That's all the convincing the filly needs. Her hooves trip-trap-trip upon the hard, dry, rock of the cliff as she comes to its crumbling edge, leaning forward to peer into that glittering, shifting, clearing depth. A chasm opens in her soul in answer to the mouth grinning wide up at her. Manikin has no hesitation, she does not need Carnage in her head or the thrumming beckoning of whatever lies below. It is in her blood to throw herself into the Beast's mouth, every nerve in her body sings in response, she is a willing sacrifice. The child leaps not up or over, but down with a giddy laugh, and falls for an eternity.
She is swallowed like the tiny thing that she is, her long, thin, legs trailing behind and the last thing she sees before blackness consumes her is a gray, clouded, sky over an ancient cliff dusted with powdered bones. The thin ghosts weep in her ears and she grins a wild grin that is so like her mother's. And then, the dark. It is so dark she cannot see she is falling, so silent she cannot hear, no breath of wind around her body tells her what direction is up or down or sideways. There is nothing, she is nothing, just the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing alone keeps her company and makes her numb. It grinds her bones to dust and she imagines them leaking out from her hooves in twisting trails like driven snow. Like the static in the back of her brain when Avo kicked her good and she stumbled half-blind and clumsy for the rest of the day.
Boneless, she tucks her willowy legs against her body, curls her long neck, but does not bother to close her eyes, only floats in the void like a fetus tucked safely again in her mother's womb until - like a day not so long ago that she no longer recalls - there is building pressure against her sides. The darkness is too small for her. She presses against the hard, smooth, walls of her prison and she feels the whole world rock and tumble. There is a concussion and then a crack like thunder, and filmy light seeps in making her squeal wordlessly at the shock of brightness, but she presses at the weak light until at last her body slithers slick and slimy from the thick-shelled egg that she has been entombed within. It is hard to stand without bones and it takes her an Age to find her feet again, strange beneath her, fluid as the tentacles of an octopus.
The world around her is as liquid as she, half-melted and sinister, its edges warped and wavering, quivering, and her billowing legs betray her. She falls against a tree for support and melts into it, becomes part tree, part squid, part horse, and the branches twine down to pluck bubbling hairs from her mane.
"<I>No!</I>" Her teeth tear into the tree's soft flesh, but it is her flesh, too, white and wet and bloated like something drowned. Poppy flowers spill out of her haunch like blood, pooling under her feet as she tugs and rips herself away from the tree. It is like tearing her own leg from her body, but she does it, and she cries a cry that trebles across the sick land as her thin skin shreds and melts together again, sprouting black feather scars from the places the poppy blossoms flowed. With a snarl, Manikin snaps at one of the blood-flowers, shakes it, and when she throws it to the ground it is a white-speckled bird that dives into the earth and tunnels away. Her yellow eyes narrow but she turns away from the burrow to peer into the hazy horizon that seems to turn in on itself and makes her belly twist and flip.
Something there moves. Manikin bares her teeth and swells forward after it like waves lapping at the shore.
<center><p class="manalive_quote"><a href=https://www.deviantart.com/shevy-art>Image by Shevy-Art</a></p></div></div></center>
ooc: Manny lost her bones which is fine in the afterlife, but in retrospect may have been a poor choice. She is is currently moving the way an octopus does on land.
In spite of the way the buzzing makes her bones weep, Manikin is leaning casually against the slumped body of the rat, relishing how his bristling fur pokes and prods the velvet flesh of her muzzle when she presses here and there against him. She chews at the gory fur and the blood stains her mouth black like too much licorice candy. Carnage's voice hums in her head, urging her to the edge of the cliff, but she is comfortably curled against the spirit-flesh mound of her rat and so she lays her ears back at Carnage-the-Voice and snorts petulantly at the air.
"<I>You</I> go," her girlish voice echoes softly, sounds thin and hollow in the great expanse of the Dead, "I'm tired."
The filly yawns, a soft sigh not unlike the whispered voices of the thins ghosts writhing themselves into a fog. More lies - if gentler ones - because she can no longer tire, but the others are gathering ahead, looking down into the ravine, whispering secrets to each other, and it makes her curious, spurs jealousy in her bloodless heart.
What do they see? Something <I>interesting</I>. They are rapt.
<I>Hurry,</I> Carnage says, <I>It's hungry,</I> something else declares.
That's all the convincing the filly needs. Her hooves trip-trap-trip upon the hard, dry, rock of the cliff as she comes to its crumbling edge, leaning forward to peer into that glittering, shifting, clearing depth. A chasm opens in her soul in answer to the mouth grinning wide up at her. Manikin has no hesitation, she does not need Carnage in her head or the thrumming beckoning of whatever lies below. It is in her blood to throw herself into the Beast's mouth, every nerve in her body sings in response, she is a willing sacrifice. The child leaps not up or over, but down with a giddy laugh, and falls for an eternity.
She is swallowed like the tiny thing that she is, her long, thin, legs trailing behind and the last thing she sees before blackness consumes her is a gray, clouded, sky over an ancient cliff dusted with powdered bones. The thin ghosts weep in her ears and she grins a wild grin that is so like her mother's. And then, the dark. It is so dark she cannot see she is falling, so silent she cannot hear, no breath of wind around her body tells her what direction is up or down or sideways. There is nothing, she is nothing, just the buzzing, buzzing, buzzing alone keeps her company and makes her numb. It grinds her bones to dust and she imagines them leaking out from her hooves in twisting trails like driven snow. Like the static in the back of her brain when Avo kicked her good and she stumbled half-blind and clumsy for the rest of the day.
Boneless, she tucks her willowy legs against her body, curls her long neck, but does not bother to close her eyes, only floats in the void like a fetus tucked safely again in her mother's womb until - like a day not so long ago that she no longer recalls - there is building pressure against her sides. The darkness is too small for her. She presses against the hard, smooth, walls of her prison and she feels the whole world rock and tumble. There is a concussion and then a crack like thunder, and filmy light seeps in making her squeal wordlessly at the shock of brightness, but she presses at the weak light until at last her body slithers slick and slimy from the thick-shelled egg that she has been entombed within. It is hard to stand without bones and it takes her an Age to find her feet again, strange beneath her, fluid as the tentacles of an octopus.
The world around her is as liquid as she, half-melted and sinister, its edges warped and wavering, quivering, and her billowing legs betray her. She falls against a tree for support and melts into it, becomes part tree, part squid, part horse, and the branches twine down to pluck bubbling hairs from her mane.
"<I>No!</I>" Her teeth tear into the tree's soft flesh, but it is her flesh, too, white and wet and bloated like something drowned. Poppy flowers spill out of her haunch like blood, pooling under her feet as she tugs and rips herself away from the tree. It is like tearing her own leg from her body, but she does it, and she cries a cry that trebles across the sick land as her thin skin shreds and melts together again, sprouting black feather scars from the places the poppy blossoms flowed. With a snarl, Manikin snaps at one of the blood-flowers, shakes it, and when she throws it to the ground it is a white-speckled bird that dives into the earth and tunnels away. Her yellow eyes narrow but she turns away from the burrow to peer into the hazy horizon that seems to turn in on itself and makes her belly twist and flip.
Something there moves. Manikin bares her teeth and swells forward after it like waves lapping at the shore.
<center><p class="manalive_quote"><a href=https://www.deviantart.com/shevy-art>Image by Shevy-Art</a></p></div></div></center>
ooc: Manny lost her bones which is fine in the afterlife, but in retrospect may have been a poor choice. She is is currently moving the way an octopus does on land.