"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
He so enjoys an exercise in futility.
He lets them swim until they can swim no more, lets them sink into the murky depths and find their rebuilding. He wonders what they think, on that endless river floor, muscles aching with mud. He can feel snippets of it, their confusion and pain and exhaustion. He should be done with them.
But oh, he is having too much fun!
So he does not spit them back into Beqanna to tell their tales of chains and ferocious, hungry jungles, how the river went on forever. Instead, he pulls them and their reformed bodies into a prison. They are small, the cells, enough room to turn around in and not much more. They are also ill-made, crumbling stone with cracks and easy enough to break through, for he does not want them captive in this way for long – only enough to catch their breath, really. They will find the cells’ weaknesses out soon enough, and break free. Or they won’t, and he will simply let them rot in their own broken stupidity – he doesn’t mind either way.
Because what will they find, when they think themselves free?
A hallway, dimly lit. One end leads to an impassable stone wall, the other, well – they can’t tell, not quite, But they will follow – or they will rot – and when they follow that path, they will find one more game.
He has made for his little lab rats a maze, a twisting, stony thing. A labyrinth, filled with whatever monsters cross his mind (a maybe a minotaur or two – just to stay classic). It is solvable, but it is certainly not easy.
There’s light, at the center. If they find it, Beqanna is waiting.
If they don’t, well – there’s darkness.
He gives them no instructions. They know they’re playing his game, now.
Something in the labyrinth gives a keening, hungry cry. Something click begins an insectile buzzing.
The dark god grins, and waits for the show to start.
OOC:
Trait scrambling results:
Harrowed – Bodach mutated into Dream Entity. Shadow camouflage stays the same. Angel Shifting mutated into Fallen Angel. Glowing stays the same.
Sirin - Wings mutated into Malleable Anatomy. Horn mutated into Water Mimicry.
LAST ROUND! You’re out of the river and in dry land (a stony stall-like enclosure). You must break out via whatever method you want, and weave through the labyrinth towards a beam of light in the center. During the maze, you must encounter at least 1 monster/trap/whatever, though feel free to add more. This can be a classic monster, a hallucination, whatever.
I’d like to have results up by November 5th around 6 pm CST. We know I’m a liar about posts, but results writeups are easier, so please get your replies in by then if possible, or message me if you know you’ll be delayed.
i'm torn from the truth that holds my soul i'm down in the grave where I belong --
As he stood in the small room he could feel his breathing returning to normal, though his heart still thrums unsteadily. His nerves are alight, every perceived sound and shifting shadow causing him to spin, his knife-tail lifted and ready. It is during one of these rapid turns that he feels his tail connect roughly with the cell wall, followed soon by the sound of stone and dirt showering to the floor. His gaze narrows in on where he had made contact, stepping close to inspect the gouge left behind by the impact. His eyes move upward, following a crack that snakes its way from floor to ceiling, and where it spider-webs out across the full length of the wall.
It feels too easy, and his mind plays back every other part of this wretched conquest.
But hope tentatively flares to life; perhaps it is not so easy for the rest of them. Perhaps he is lucky and this only seems easy for him because he had been born armored and monstrous.
He hits the center of the crack again, and again, and again, until his bones, clear up to his spine, begin to ache. He does not allow himself to rest, afraid that should he lose momentum he will not find it again.
Finally, the wall caves, leaving behind a gaping hole just big enough for him to squeeze through. He does so without a second thought, bursting out into the dimly lit hall. He stands, trying to gather his bearings, looking to one end, and then the other. Just as his head turns, a flash of movement catches his eye. The creature is tall, with an eerie green glow, and sharp points of armor jutting from its back. Ripley. Her shark-black eyes meet his, and without even thinking Fret leaps forward to follow her — just as he did as a child.
And just as when he had been a child, he cannot keep up.
Ripley’s form remains several paces ahead of him, darting around corners and winding up and down strange hallways. There are several times he thinks he has lost her, only to find that faint glow emanating from down a corridor, and darting after it. His breathing came quick and sharp, panic trying to claw up his throat. She was leading him somewhere, he could tell, and some foolish part of him thought that maybe she was guiding him out.
Around another corner she disappears, and so does her glow. Fret slides to a stop, confused, turning in a circle. There was nowhere else she possibly could have gone, and it is as if the walls have swallowed her up. Frustrated, he walks around another corner, and is greeted with a different kind of light radiating from somewhere at the center of the maze; a glow, like daylight.
Before he can move closer, the entire place seems to shudder.
Again.
Again.
Again.
He realizes it is footsteps, and from somewhere in the dark emerges a creature unlike any he has ever seen.
Tall and upright, it appeared to be made nearly entirely of shadow and flame, with a pair of wings and large horns that curled down towards its nearly indistinguishable face. Before he had the chance to react a whip made of fire snapped at him, causing him to stumble backwards, scrabbling for his footing without turning his back on the advancing beast. Fret, despite his design, has never really fought anyone. He did not need to hunt the way the rest of his family did, and the hybrid part of him had caused his feral-born side to slowly bleed away, leaving behind a normal mind trapped in a monster’s body. But that light in the center calls to him — he knows, somehow, that this is it, that all he needs to do is get by this thing and he will be home.
He walks in a slow half-circle, his body curved towards the creature, head lowered and knife-tail raised. Whatever this thing was though was not interested in a dignified, fair fight, and it blasts at him with a fiery hand. The strike makes contact with his side, his armor taking the brunt of it, but not even his armor is impervious to flame and he smells the acrid stench of something burning as smoke wafts up from the mark. He darts in, swiping his tail down toward the lower half of the creature, but the impact seems to have little effect.
They go like this for what seems like ages, neither of them gaining or losing ground. As they move Fret remains ever conscious of the glowing portal, trying to position himself closer with every strike.
It’s pure chance that the shadow-demon lowers its head and makes a move towards him, and that Fret is perfectly positioned to slam his poison barbs directly into its face. He is not foolish enough to think this will kill it — in fact, he is beginning to think nothing could kill it. But the creature, it appeared, could at least feel some pain, and as it clawed at its face and tried to move a barb that had wedged into its glowing, fire-filled socket, Fret finds his opening, and heads fast for the light.
-- f r e t
Tldr: Fret sees a hallucination of his mom that leads him directly to a balrog. He is taking back the #1 Mom cup he got her for her birthday.
It is instantly satisfying the way the rocky walls of this small enclosure collapse under his pummelling. Harrowed’s screaming stops but his body doesn’t — instantly launching himself out of the crumbled cell as soon as there is space, desperate for the sky. Only to find himself in another not-right space. Now he pauses to catch his breath, his pale limbs trembling as he sees there is only one way to go. He is not free yet, the trap is just bigger than initially expected. Will the others from the Mountain be here too? Could they figure out a way to get home together?
Hope is what stirs him into action finally though the day’s events have introduced a strong sense of caution. As eager as Harrowed is to be out of this trap, running blindly through it feels foolish. He pauses once, when a keening cry rises out of the space before him, but there is simply nowhere else to go; he must go forward. He’s grateful for the soft glow of his body aiding his eyesight a little.
Especially when he realizes that this is not just one path, but many. Panic crawls up his throat and seizes his brain with its hands the first time he meets a dead end after choosing one direction over another.
The maze is not silent either, occasionally more cries rise up and a faint buzzing is constant and growing louder.
Harrowed makes a turn and thinks he has found another dead end, only the soft white light from his body is illuminating fur and not stone. A monstrous warg fills the hallway in front of him and the young stallion only knows the monster has seen him when it turns its disfigured head and bright red eyes flash. Torryn’s eyes, his father’s. A nightmare version of the bodach who taught him and Evade how to hunt, laced with familiarity that makes Harrowed’s heart ache as he can’t help but think dad?.
The mouth opens, revealing row upon row of sharp gleaming teeth like what you would find in a shark.
He expects a roar, expects anger and fury, but the beast just inhales deeply – gathering Harrowed’s scent, and a content grumble works its way out of the thick throat that would have no trouble swallowing limbs whole.
Shifting into his canine form has not helped so far today but Harrowed thinks he can get by this mutated version of Torryn if he is a little smaller. The warg’s shoulder sits higher than his as a horse so going down makes the most sense. It’s a dangerous gamble and absolutely necessary. Behind him only lie dead ends.
He hopes this is a trick, that his dad hasn’t been trapped here too and turned into something that made the bodach look like a pet.
The warg begins to step forward, its gigantic paws causing reverberations in the stones around them as they collide with the ground. It moves slowly, sure of its feast now that it has Harrowed’s scent. Home and life are behind the creature — that's what Harrowed needs to believe. His eyes, matching so perfectly those of the warg's, are wide with fear as he moves forward too. The smaller pads of his paws make no sound on the ground as his pace quickens, half his attention on the space between titan legs and stone wall and the emptiness of the hallway behind and the other half on the threatening figure.
Hope rises again as he leaps, the way so clear in front of him, and then teeth find his body. Dozens of sharp teeth scrape down his back and sides as the warg tries to catch him in its mouth as he dodges past. They scrape away the black fur of the canine, revealing white horse hair beneath. Pieces of the only self Harrowed has known hang from the warg's mouth as he slips by and continues to run down the hallway. The warg is too large to turn around fully in the space and give chase.
The sense that had stopped Harrowed from running into the maze blindly does not return to him now. He just runs, his body bright with pain and his gait awkward as horse and bodach attempt to reconcile. More than once he slides to a stop to avoid a wall, turn around, and try another direction, and like this he continues until a scream begins ahead and does not stop.
Caution interrupts his panic, returning Harrowed to a slow walk. Again, he reminds himself, he must keep going. There is just pain behind him. A chilly white light appears around one corner and his hope triples. He'd recognize that light anywhere — his mom has come to take him home. Excited by the prospect of this nightmare finally ending, Harrowed ignores the presence of the scream — thinking it will not matter in a few moments.
The light continues to brighten and as it does the screaming gets louder. It's Beyza's voice behind that scream and no matter how hard he tries, Harrowed cannot see her figure behind the light. She could seem otherworldly but she was flesh and blood, solid and sure, and this echo of her is none of that. It is a white void, violent in its contrast to the dark maze, and it is approaching Harrowed with a quickening speed. There's no room to move beside it the way he had with the warg so Harrowed backtracks instinctively. The screaming begins to echo in his mind until he forgets he has ever heard anything else and the void follows him. When he meets a wall, he doesn't even have enough time to turn and face the shapeless void and its screams before it slams into him. White fire ripples over his body, burning away more of the canine bodach form and forcing him to revert entirely back into a horse.
Harrowed is screaming too. He doesn't know it but his screams go on well past when the white void disappears and brings its haunting sound with it. It's only when a gentle nudge to his shoulder startles him that he inhales a deep breath and opens his eyes.
"Evade." He tries to speak his twin's name but his throat is so raw only a rasping gurgle escapes his throat instead.
His twin smiles at him, as though nothing is wrong and they are just wandering the Dale, and motions for Harrowed to follow.
How could he not?
With a tattered body and a mind drenched in fear, this young stallion thinks the command of his body is out of his control.
He follows Evade because that is what he would do anywhere.
Sounds continue to echo from elsewhere in the maze but for a short while, the brothers are quiet together. He trusts Evade completely and does not consider that this may also be a trick until he sees the rot begin on his brother's back. What starts as just his roaning soon blossoms into mould and then deepens into a black fungus that eats away at the flesh.
Evade doesn't stop walking so Harrowed doesn't either, strung along by this horror.
He watches Evade's spine heaves and then splits, causing him to stumble before continuing with his walk. Mindless and uncaring, this version of Evade continues to split down the middle as a large canine bodach begins to emerge from inside the body.
Harrowed stops and so does the creature masquerading as his brother. Evade turns around to face him, still with that smile, and Harrowed can only watch as skull and neck are cleft into two and a bloody canine head rises up to take control.
This nightmare both breaks Harrowed's heart and snaps something inside of him, reminding him of his task. He must get past. Evade's half-and-half body is awkward as the canine continues to rise up as though it is simply wearing a horse costume and Harrowed surges forward. He tosses his weight into the haunting figure, hating himself for hurting even a false-version of Evade and drowning in the guilt that he had no means in which to save him. The canine head has freed itself enough to snap at Harrowed, ripping a chunk of his mane out as he wrestles to get by.
Evade's cleft horse head attempts to speak. A warbling, choking version of his brother's voice split into two and becoming its own echo as it calls out with two half-mouths.
Calling out for help.
And he hesitates. He knows there is nothing to do but this is his twin. There is no world where he would not follow, and no world where he could run. The hesitation only earns him a swipe from a canine claw as it pulls itself free from Evade's body, raking down his neck and chest.
It isn't sense that gets him moving again, just fear. The cries for help continue through the wet sound of the canine pulling its other legs free and Harrowed finally manages to get by. His white body is streaked with both his blood and that of his twin. A sob escapes him as soon as he rounds another corner and loses sight of Evade's mangled form.
There is another light ahead, and though it does not have the same glow as the one before, Harrowed's battered body and mind prevent him from feeling hope again. Whatever this new trick is, he will just have to face it. And continue facing them until either his body or this labyrinth finally crumble.
I know it's long but LISTEN I had fun writing it so. It all stays.
Harrowed meets with monster versions of his family who claw/burn out the bodach in him <3
11-03-2025, 11:06 AM (This post was last modified: 11-03-2025, 04:35 PM by Tipitina.)
Tipsy presses her face against the cold metal, breath fogging against iron that smells of rust and old blood. The hallway beyond is narrow and dark, lit only by a guttering torch somewhere far down its throat. Shadows bend strangely in the shifting light, too fluid, too alive. She watches them for a long time, quiet, listening. The lilies on her chest sway with every thin inhale. In the dank distance, a withering breath echoes through the corridor, and a chill begins to crawl down her spine, prickling her patchwork skin.
She steps back, her breath quickening. She needs to get out, lest she wants to learn what may come to devour her if she stays.
She begins inspecting the cell; the bars don’t look strong, and nothing here looks well-made. Everything seems… temporary, careless, like the dungeon is only meant to hold her long enough for the next cruelty. Cracks burrow deep within the edges of the iron frame of bars, and with urgency and little deliberation, she strikes out. First, a kick, and the iron clangs, dust falling from the stone ceiling. Another, harder her hooves jar her whole frame, pain slicing down her shoulder, her brand burning like a sun trapped under flesh. Pain sparks up her leg, but she kicks again, on instinct alone: Get out, get out, get out!
The metal shrieks and bends, and with one final blow, it gives. The bars warp enough for her to squeeze through, scraping her skin, stealing hair, but she’s out.
The corridor yawns before her, dim and cold. On one side: an abrupt stone wall, and on the other only darkness. A low, wet noise drifts from somewhere ahead. Not recognized. Not natural. It's something breathing again, but wrong. She swallows down her own fear and forces her hooves forward; she needs to get out. At first, the hallway seems straight. Then it turns. Then another turn. Then she finds herself in a place she thinks she’s seen before, but the shadows lie, and the stone walls all look the same. She only realizes she’s in a maze when she hits the first dead end. Then the second. Then the third. Her heart pounds like it wants out of her chest as she realizes the dark god is playing with her.
Even her thoughts sound small now, as she dwells upon the third dead end thinking, but that is where is when she hears it, a wet, clicking inhale. Then a dragging sound, like something too heavy is pulling itself along stone. She turns slowly and sees it.
A creature stands in the dim, skin translucent like thin ice, stretched over bones and ropes of sinew. Its ribs move when it breathes, each one too sharp, too defined. Its fangs are enormous — too large for its mouth — so they jut from its lips at strange angles, glistening with saliva thick as syrup. Its eyes bulge, pale and unseeing, but they focus on her all the same. It opens its maw wider than it should be able to. The sound that comes out is not a roar. It is a horrible choking gurgle, like a drowning animal trying to bark. Her knees lock. Her stomach drops. She can’t move, not for a heartbeat, not for two.
Then instinct takes her.
She bolts. Hooves thunder on stone. The hallway tilts, turns, and folds back on itself. She doesn’t know where she’s going, only away, away, away.
But something follows. Its body slaps the floor, a wet drag of flesh and bone scraping tile. Every few seconds it makes that sound, a gagging, bubbling, desperate noise like it’s choking on her name. Her breath tears at her throat as she runs.
A fork in the path appears left or right. She turns right without thinking, and the walls begin to breathe. No, not breathe, they begin to pulse. Like veins pushing blood through stone. And suddenly the air smells wrong. Mud, rot, dead cypress roots, and Stagnant water begin to cloud her lungs as her steps slow. No. No no no no! Her chest constricts. Her vision warps as the stone becomes muck, thick and pulling. The torchlight fades into swamp fog, and a shadow rises from the mire ahead.
Tall. Thin. Covered in fur, matted with mud and weeds. Its skull is too large for its body, its eyes are round and milky, its jaw unhinged and re-hinged and broken again. It smells like the backwater after something dies in it and is never found. A rougarou. Not from stories and not from warnings. From nightmares carved into the children raised in the swamp. The children from her home.
It stands on two legs, its claws drip like they’re soaked in swamp water and blood. When it inhales, the air whistles between its ribs like wind through hollow reeds. She knows, deep in her marrow, that this is wrong and that this is memory turned inside out. It’s not real. But her body doesn’t care. Her body remembers being small and helpless. Afraid of something that stalked the wetlands in whispers and darkness. Its mouth opens; not slow, not wide, but unwraps, teeth unfolding like a second jaw inside the first. She stumbles back, shaking uncontrollably. Her heartbeat is a roar in her ears. She can’t breathe, she can’t think, and the walls are gone, the maze is a swamp, the creature is real, it’s real, it’s real. A scream rips out of her, raw and feral, and the rougarou lunges.
The creature hits her like a flood. There is no weight or warmth to it, only cold, the kind that sinks through flesh and bone and memory at once. Its claws rake across her shoulder, and the pain is blinding, white-hot, electric. She staggers, hooves slipping in the swamp-mire that shouldn’t be there, that shouldn’t be real, but feels real all the same. It shrieks, not like an animal or a monster but like a child drowning, breath being torn apart in a swamp, her swamp, her birthplace.
Her lungs seize. Her legs buckle. Panic rips through her brain in a snarl of instinct and terror and something far older, with the certainty she will not get up again. The rougarou’s jaws latch onto her with that impossible, unfolding mouth. Too many teeth, too sharp, sinking into her neck, her shoulder, her side, she can’t tell where pain begins or ends. Her scream chokes into a wet sound. She tries to kick. Her leg passes through it as if it’s made of smoke, but the teeth stay real. The tearing stays real. The pain is real.
This isn’t happening! It’s not real...It’s not real.. she tries to remind herself as the creature drags her down into the muck.
Cypress knees claw up from the mud like fingers. The swamp closes around her, thick as tar. She can’t breathe. She can’t move, and her heart thrashes against her ribs like something trying to claw its way out. The rougarou leans close. Its breath is lake-stagnant, sweet with rot. And it speaks with a cruel familiarity, guttural and stretched with hunger, “I missed you.”
Her breath stops. It remembers her. It followed her. She left the swamp, but the swamp did not leave her. "Shhh..." it croons again, voice shredding itself on every syllable. "Be still, don't you want to come home?"
Her mind fractures. Home. The word hits harder than the teeth sunken into her flesh. She is drowning in the memory of still black water, the night she tried to run, when reeds tangled around her ankles like hands, when the swamp whispered her name with a voice made of insects and moonlight. “No,” she gasps, but the muck fills her throat. Her lungs burn. She claws upward, hooves finding nothing, body dragged down by a weight she can’t fight. Her vision flickers. Black. Then green. Then teeth again.
“Little Tipsy,” the rougarou purrs, voice a wet rasp. “You belong to us. Born of rot and river. Don’t pretend you forgot.”
Something breaks open in her, not strength but memory. The crooked trees, the cold water, and the way she used to press her ears shut against her skull so she wouldn’t hear the swamp calling her back. “No!” she sobs, panic spiraling, voice shredding into something small and feral. “I got out! I got out!” she repeats in an effort to cling to her own sanity.
“You never left.” Its claws wrap around her neck, pulling her deeper into the mud, and the world shrinks to pressure and dark and the suffocating taste of river-bottom sludge. She can’t breathe. She can’t move. Her body spasms once, twice, and then goes still. And for one horrifying heartbeat, she almost surrenders. Almost. A flicker of light pierces the black, faint and fragile, but most surely real. Her lungs convulse as she jerks forward with blind desperation, hooves kicking, striking, thrashing, even as the creature drags her down. Its teeth tear, its claws dig, but the light grows golden, warm, alive.
“No,” she chokes. She bites down on the panic, on the voice, on the memory. A single word becomes a weapon. “NO!” She drives her legs forward with the last shards of strength she has, not through the creature but through the swamp, through the fear, through the memory trying to eat her alive. The monster shrieks, a sound sharp enough to rattle bone. The mud breaks and she surges up, exploding from the muck into blinding gold.
Stone replaces swamp, and light replaces the dark as air floods her lungs in a ragged, shaking gasp. The rougarou lunges after her, but the light sears its skin as its teeth drip like melting bone, and its scream collapses into silence as it dissolves into smoke. Tipsy crumples onto the cold floor, trembling, sobbing air back into her chest. Her shoulder burns where the brand sits, the shape of the beetle seared deep and wrong into her skin. Everything hurts: bones, breath, and memory. But she is not in the swamp, not anymore.
Above her, the golden light pours from a single doorway, the center of the maze. A place the monster can’t reach. She staggers upright, legs shaking violently, head spinning with the echo of the rougarou’s voice: I missed you... Tipsy swallows, tasting mud that isn’t there. The swamp still clings to her mind like wet vines, but she moves forward anyway.
One step. Then another. Until she walks into the light.
OOC: It's long and kind all over the place, but fun! But anyway, for some context, Tipsy grew up in a swamp and was told about the legend of the rougarou when she was a child, and turns out it was true eek! She's basically hallucinating being in the swamp again and seeing the rougaru she encountered during her childhood, bringing up some more childhood trauma of when she ran away from the swamp.
chaos in your soul & lightning in your veins..you my dear were made for wild and wondrous things
Somewhere beneath the wailing of the wind, she hears a scream. It is a scream that is both hungry and terrifying, and she knows deep down in her bones that whatever it is, is coming for her. But she can't, she won't accept that kind of fate. Not this late in the game.
A silly girl she may be, but she refuses to stand here like a lamb trussed for slaughter. She hasn't come so far to only come so far.
All around her the dark space illuminates as her eyes fill with that white-lightning glow. The screaming is quickly drowned out as the wind intensifies. It swirls and whips around her, and even though her ears are pinned flat to her skull she can hear the walls groaning. A growl slips between her clenched teeth as she pours more and more of her power out, and the walls begin to buckle in earnest. While she cannot create a storm, she can control the wind that storms create, and in her confinement she has created a hurricane. With one last shove, the walls buckle outwards. As the dust settles she is revealed, sweat-slicked and panting, but alive and most importantly, free.
As her eyes begin to soften and her breathing settles, she takes in her surroundings. Darkness looms in front of her, but there is a shimmering light someplace in the distance. It is faint, but it is still enough to cause hope to swell in her chest. With a shake, she steps from the wreckage she created, her eyes focusing only on that glimmer of hope.
She walks for what seems like miles. A twist here, a turn there as she follows the light. It never seems to get brighter, but it isn't getting more dull either and she takes that for a good sign. Occasionally she thinks she sees something in the shadows, or hears the scrape of claw to rock, but nothing comes forward.
Until it does, and nothing could have prepared her for what stepped from the dark behind her.
A mousey-colored mare with downy wings. She is the type of beauty legends are made of. Delicate, yet fierce. Unassuming in her stature, but an invisible strength pours from her in waves. "Mother..." Wayfair says, her voice weary. By all appearances, her mother is standing before her. But she has also experienced too much in this small frame of time to give her trust away freely. Wayfair has almost made up her mind to seek comfort from her dam though when the air shifts and Topsail does too.
This maze was not meant for what her mother becomes. She has heard the legends of course, of The Raptor Queen of The Valley. But hearing and seeing are two different things entirely. The small grulla mare twists and groans, shedding her mousey pelt and replacing it with brown leather and vicious, lethal claws. Her mouth gapes open to reveal razor sharp teeth covered in thick spittle, as if they are preparing to feast. "Mother, please..." she stammers, though her eyes are glowing as she says it. Already she is preparing.
As the Raptor lunges, Wayfair explodes, though not before one of those vicious toe claws rips through the flesh of her shoulder. Every ounce of her strength is thrown into her power as the wind moves away from her and towards the monster. A feral scream leaves her mouth, a scream that is echoed by the Raptor. Their screams continue as they fly apart from one another; her monster mother back into the depths of hell, and Wayfair towards the light.
She lands in a heap though she doesn't stay there. With heaving lungs she scrambles to her feet while the blood streams freely down her ivory leg. The wound will surely scar, but a scar is well worth being alive. As the light finally shines on her she spares one last glance to the darkness before gratefully stepping into the beams and out of that twisted hell.
Wayfair
Ooc: this was so much fun! Basically, Wayfair finds her mom, Topsail, in the maze, but Topsail shifts into a Velociraptor (her old power as queen of the valley) and tries to eat her daughter >.< she does give Wayfair a good gash down her shoulder, though
The burn under her cheek sparks her rebellion anew.
She had been so close to giving up, to allowing whatever happened next to drag her along to its final end. Why try when all has been revealed? Why buck against ropes that have an eternal knot? Why should she keep pretending to save herself when she is merely a plaything at the end of that rope?
But that burn changes everything.
A last indignation when she is already at literal rock-bottom (or beneath it, even). Sirin snorts as a wild gleam finds her eyes once again. Survival is all she has ever had. The walls around her are not as solid as they had seemed at first in her despair. Surely, a well-placed kick or two will topple her prison? She sets her jaw and gets to work.
It is not as easy as her newly-won determination would make it seem, of course. The space is tight and becomes more so when the rubble begins to pile up slowly. Sirin hurls every curse she can think of at the pocked walls as she kicks and bucks against them. She becomes so frenzied in her task that she doesn’t realize the missing pair of wings on her back. She only notices the absence of her spiraling horn when she tries to carve at the walls with it, and headbutts the stone instead. Pain crashes through her then, and she is forced to take a break, panting with spent effort.
But the walls are so ready to come down now. And Sirin is so ready to be done with this. To go home, wherever that may be.
She blinks away the flashing pain and rushes towards the most decimated part of her prison. She will either push through or she will collapse at the impact - she has little strength left to give for any further excavations.
THREE.
TWO.
ONE.
She closes her eyes as her shoulders breach the softened wall and the rest of her follows.
Into another stony expanse stretching into the distance before her.
There is a fork in the path that she barely makes out in the dim lighting. With a long-winded sigh and still-trembling legs, Sirin moves onward. She has no choice, but having resigned herself to her fate before and overcoming, the woman now knows that all of that is behind her. Whatever happens, she will no longer be a passive pawn. Whatever choices she makes ahead of her will be her own, even if it leads to her own demise.
The stone underfoot echoes eerily as she reaches her first choice: a rocky wall or another pathway. Sirin rolls her eyes and turns down the hall. The walls here are not so penetrable as the enclosure of before. No, the only way through will be to find the hallways between, she realizes as she goes further. And it is okay, at first. Just like a jaunt through the forest at night: dark, harrowing, and seemingly impassable at times. Then she hears things. Whispers snakes through the passages as if on a phantom breeze, curling around her ears and telling her awful, terrible things. One is so convincing that she feels her feet pulled at their suggestion down a different passage than she intended. She follows, shivering, convinced there will be violence if she does not, to the darkest corner she has seen. Even the dim light is absent completely here. Sirin makes to turn away from the inky patch of infinite black (it swirls and expands and shrinks, almost like it is a breathing thing), but finds herself very stuck.
Reality becomes distorted. She feels like she is being sucked in while her feet are still firmly planted on the stone. Somehow, it looms larger in front of her, like it is sucking out her soul, her awareness, from deep behind her eyes. Sirin scrambles within herself at the predation that she is suddenly sure she cannot stop. She wants to fight for her life, but how? It holds her frozen in place - this bit-of-the-universe vortex - and she is powerless against such an entity.
You are pathetic, it tells her, you have no home, no family. Sirin feels it move past her eyes as it takes her tongue and travels down her throat like hot lava and burning cold ice at the same time. No one will miss you once you are mine. Stop resisting and give yourself over to me.
She can’t disagree, even if she were able to. There is no one waiting for her, worried for her - no one to mourn her if she doesn’t make it back. Maybe it will be easier to assimilate into the void before her, to leave not a trace of her existence back in Beqanna. She had never even tried to make a mark for anyone to find, anyway.
Yes, let me in and the pain will be gone, it croons, the sound reverberating in her bones. Give yourself to me, let me feast on you, and you will have no future to worry over.A vampire, she thinks, a cosmic vampire come to drain me for what little I have to offer. And then she realizes how little she does have - and then she shows it.
She is a vampire too, sucking all the life around her. Living only for herself and her selfish desires when the world can be so much more. She takes and drains any who find her for her own pleasures - why would this void be any different? Why wouldn’t she pull from the very stars themselves when they come knocking?
Sirin bares her teeth and laughs at the irony, delights in it, even, though it is a soundless victory while still in the monster’s clutches. Truly, it couldn’t have found a worse victim. The sucking void starts to withdraw, realizing its prey is emaciated in all the ways it would otherwise feast on. Sirin laughs still endlessly the entire time, giddy on barely surviving and the reason why. But as it withdraws, the depthless creature burns her throat in retaliation for its failed meal. Her eyes widen, but it is still several minutes before the world settles and straightens before her, several minutes before she sees it in front of her on the stone, winding and spinning itself into oblivion.
The mare staggers back a few paces and breathes. The dim light finally reaches the corner she has been entrapped in and glows even brighter now. She swallows her resolve, and it is a painful thing, but she moves towards that light back on the stony path.
When she rounds that last corner, the light shining more fully than ever, Sirin is sure it has never felt more bleak.
The chestnut mare is still for a little, catching her breath before dark eyes glance around. She's in a box... a cell even but although its made of stone, it looks old, maybe even weak. She inspects it carefully, just managing to turn around and gave it a experimental kick. Hearing it crack she glanced back, progress... maybe. She attempts to buck to kick the wall with both back feet but there's not enough room in here, so she is forced to kick out at the wall with only one foot at a time.
It's slow going but eventually she find her freedom, at least she thinks it's freedom, or a sort at least. She follows the hall, a brick built monstrosity as it divides into two paths. Left or right. From what she has learnt this is probably another trap so she doubts it really matters which way she goes. At total random she turns right, following the stone corridor until it once more splits into different routes. That when it dawns on her, this is a maze. Although she's not foolish enough to think all she has to do is fine her way out, not if the rest of this nightmare is to go by.
She moves cautiously, picking paths at random, its not like she has a map or anything to show her the way out. She pauses when she picks up the sound of movement ahead, the sound of heavy breathing. Its too dark to see ahead, something she is sure is deliberate. She inches closer a single step at a time, her breathing becoming choppy against her will as slowly the beast came into view. Her eyes widen as she would need to get past this monster, just as it charged forward towards here. She whirl and took off, only stopping when she realise it was no longer chasing her.
Retracing her steps she found the creature chained. That was why it hadn't followed her, it couldn't. Still though, how was she get past it. She might be able to squeeze past it but it would be far far too close for comfort. Her frame straightened when she heard a chilling noise from behind her. A chilling growl caused her to turn her head, eyes wide as she took in the sight of what looked like a giant wolf, it wasn't a normal wolf, if the size of it didn't give that away then the glowing red eyes and huge claws on it front paws definitely did.
Worse of two evils and all that she bolted forward, hooves scrabbling to get round the corner as the monster reached for her, catching her side she hissed through the pain as she heard the two beast crash into each other. Continuing forward she darting down several different paths before stopping, her breath coming out in ragged pants. Holding her breath she listened carefully, she didn't detect any noise and eventually had to stop holding her breath. Looking around she wondered if her eyes were playing tricks on her, was that light? Cautiously she moved towards, checking all around her as she found... well she wasn't too sure what it was, but it resembled home. Suddenly hearing a dragging chain she decided what ever came next was better than a monster. She dove through the weird light that gave a sight of home. Hoping that this little game of his was over.
