"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
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
‘I don’t really think you want it, she’d said.
It had taken him some time to find out what Ryatah had meant. At first, he’d been busy with the unfamiliar - the ability to summon souls, to phase, and to leave the entire plane of existence. That had taken hours, long enough for the blood along his beak to dry. When he shifts back to a horse, landing amid a field of poppies, most of it flakes away, but he makes no effort to hide what he has been up to.
Obscene had invited him here, after all.
The angel’s empathy has been a most unwelcome surprise. He had most certainly not wanted it. He’d managed to rid himself of it once before, sealing it - and the metaphorical heart it had given him - far in the North. It had grown quickly, like a tumor, and he is eager to be rid of it again. Gale had felt the barest brush of the black void in which she now existed and even now it sends a shiver down his spine. The Curse had known nothingness as well, in the time between this life and the one before; he had tried his best to make it worse for her.
The blue stallion takes a step forward on one feathered foreleg. The talons of his winged limb dig into the rich dark earth of the Pampas, and he takes a deep breath of the spring flowers. Having grown up in Loess, his host has a great many memories of time spent in these fields under the watchful eye of a red roan pegasus. Much of it is blurred with hate and possession though, leaving the cursed creature using his own Eyes to identify a meadow that looks to be infrequently attended by members of the Flower Court.
He calls Obscene to him, sending an image of the field where he stands and himself in it, a navy stalion surrounded by white-flowered blackberry growing low through thick patches of lavender and daffodil. He uses the plant manipulation that he had stolen to soften the briars. Intending only to affect those in his path, Gale removes them from the entire patch. Not his intent, he thinks with an amenable shake of his head, but a suitable display of power.
Gale is hopeful that the black stallion will not bring Aela along with him. Gale isn’t quite ready to kill her yet, but he is quite certain that if he sees her he’ll be sorely tempted. Perhaps he’ll bring his Champion, the shifter. Gale suspects that the Skander the skinwalker was the same bay stallion that he’d found skulking in Tephra, though he’d not introduced himself. It seems that Gale hadn’t managed to kill him after all, but perhaps he will get the chance this afternoon.
As he waits he looks once more for Viszla, and again finds nothing. The empathy, and the weakness that comes with it, keep annoyingly returning his thoughts to his daughter. To Malik as well, and Bolder, who he has not seen in some time. Gale growls, irritated, and shoves the thoughts away by focusing instead on breathing a thin strip of fire into the greenery at his feet. It nibbles away slowly at the lush, rain-watered plants, and he decides that setting the place ablaze might wait for a drier season, when the devastation will continue long after the arsonist is away.
GALE
current appearance: navy blue stallion with glowing brindle, lightning, shadows,
black horns, and white quetzacoatlus wings. also a halo that flickers in and out at random
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
It had been a remarkably cool spring but that hadn’t kept the wildflowers from blooming. A sea of color greets him as he moves through his home, reflecting on the last few weeks. He had been more on edge (although he had done well in hiding that from those that mattered) since his return from Tephra. It was his mother who had finally, unexpectedly, soothed some of those rough edges. He had avoided her for awhile after bringing her here, had watched from afar as she and Bardot spent time together among the tall statuesque lupins and sentry hollyhocks. It was partly his anger, casting new scales to lodge permanently across his coat, that kept him away. Mostly, it was because he didn’t know what to say.
There was only so long he could evade her, former Khaleesi that she was. He hadn’t expected to find her on the cliffs facing the sea (in his favorite spot) one night, had been even more surprised when she had told him that it reminded her of Nerine. He had never known that she had lived there once. There was much he hadn’t known about her, he came to find. They had stood silently, side by side, looking out to the coast when she had finally turned to look at him. “Apologies have never come easy in this family but I am sorry, Obscene. Your father…” And she turns back to the ocean, the gold of her eyes tarnished by the pain she has carried for centuries. “Your father was the best thing that ever happened to me. So when I lost him…” She shrugs slightly, as if all the heartache she had carried could be conveyed in such a small movement. “It broke me. Losing him.”
He says nothing, simply glares out into the sea as that heat flares around that cold dark hole deep inside him. Reminds him of times he had fought long and hard to forget. As if losing him, losing her, hadn’t broken him too. “You needed me and I wasn’t there for you.” She says quietly, reaching out to him and brushing her gray muzzle along the scales of his neck. He shudders slightly at the unfamiliar touch, turning his head quickly and setting his sizzling gaze on her. “No. You weren’t.” He says coldly but doesn’t pull away despite the sudden urge to lash out at her. Tantalize, to her credit, did not flinch from his tone nor the fire in his eyes. Fire and brimstone that she understands far too well. “I use to think I was cursed.” She says with only the slightest tug of her lips. “Cursed by circumstance and cursed by feeling too much. But it’s not a weakness my son.” She says softly. “It’s a good thing. To feel. A lesson that I learned much too late.” A ghost of a smile crosses her lips as she presses her head to his neck and lets a black feathered wing brush lightly over his backside. She does not chide him, does not tell him what to do. She has no right to that now. But he allows her touch, allows her words to sink somewhere within him, as they stand together and watch the moonlight dance over the waves.
Perhaps they might make this right after all.
The memory vanishes as an image is pressed into his mind. In a field of softened briars and blackberries, in the further reaches of the territory, stands Gale. His movement stills as he closes his eyes and focuses on the image in his head, recognizing the area. When they open, the brightness of his eyes has turned to a deep bloody crimson and there is the soft click of scales as the rest of his body connects to the beast within. With a piercing whistle sent into the air, he sends out a ringing call of warning. Within seconds, Light appears. He gazes at the Wisp for a moment, hesitating. Conflicted. “Find Cheri.” “When things go sour….” She had requested. He doesn’t doubt that would happen rather quickly. Would he regret it though, calling for her?
By the time he has made his way to where the Tephran King stands, there is not an ounce of fur to be found. A ravenous hunger begins to creep around his insides but this time, he doesn’t fight it. He can feel the serpent within, can sense that the snake knows he will willingly give in this time. He takes in the strange wings digging into his earth, takes in the lightning dancing across his back and the black horns that sit upon his head. And smirks as he halts a few yards away, glancing at the semi-burned strip of grass. “Gale. I’m pleased to see you.” He says, meaning every word as his pupils narrow into slits.
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
The red-eyed Prince does not take long to arrive, and the burnt circle of greenery around the brindle creature has not grown much larger before he is joined by the Pampian leader, and he extinguishes it with a flick of his white tail.
Gale meets his gaze directly, his own expression remarkably bland against Obscene’s smirk.
“Why?” He asks, the single syllable as lacking in emphasis as his navy face, though his blue eyes narrow somewhat as he speaks, the earlier curiosity regarding the Prince’s sanity returning as Gale faces him now.
The brindle magician does not intend to linger in the Pampas when he is done with the scaled stallion. Has he always had scales? Gale glances at them, and his narrowed eyes are joined by a frown. Is this even Obscene, he wonders? Or perhaps the skinwalker is wearing his shape?
It doesn’t matter, he reminds himself.
One body is as good as the next in which to bury this empathy. It had worked before, with Ciri, though this time the victim will remain dead.
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
The burnt foliage returns back to its natural state and the scaled stallion’s lips twitch, considering Gale and his one worded question with a flash in the sanguine depths of slitted eyes. “I like riddles and you are the ultimate enigma.” It’s not meant as an attempt at flattery and the words are honest enough.
Gale was the sort of magical creature that he could never understand and that Fae in him wants to uncover the secret and covet it as his own. Yet the mortal threads that still tie him to what he once was are stronger, reminding him that survival always outweighed curiosity. Looking at Gale, his frown and the lightning flickering across his indigo body, he remembers that survival isn’t the end game this time. He drawls the next words as if he was already bored of this encounter. "I've never killed anyone before." Flashes of gold glinting in the dim light as his ebony tail snaps against his haunches. "I think I'll enjoy killing you though." He pauses, tilting his head as he meets Gale's electric gaze. "If only you had left her out of this." Cheri? Aela? Sickle? Gale could take his pick on who he was alluding too, he held grudges for each and every one of them.
He smiles at Gale, a mocking gesture, as muscles tense beneath his scaled skin and viperous fangs begin to shift where blunted teeth had once been. “Let’s get this over with shall we?”
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
The fae’s mention of riddles pulls the scowl on Gale’s forehead tighter, both at the other’s continued flippancy and the uncomfortable parallel with his own concerns. The difference, of course, being that the brindle creature does not enjoy riddles in the slightest. It wants answers, and Obscene’s is not satisfying.
The long white claws of his forelimbs knead irritably at the burnt earth beneath them, stilling only when the Prince boredly announces his inexperience with murder. A strange confession, but one that makes sense when he continues. Obscene is attempting to protect someone, and the Curse’s suspicions regarding an ulterior motive had been correct. The Empathy makes the notion understandable, but does not soften the sneer of disgust that sours his handsome face, the genuine reaction of the black-souled thing to his opponent’s admission of weakness.
He is still not certain what the long-eared fae is capable of, but as he watches the blunt teeth become pointed fangs, the Cursed creature destroys its last vestiges of caution. Whatever Obscene is, he can surely die.
Gale leaps forward, still mostly equine, but with jaws that open far too wide, intending to close around the black horse’s throat as his front limbs rise up to claw at Obscene’s chest and shoulders.
The ways of the jungle had never left her and her son is far from sneaky, he is easy to track after his warning rings through the beautiful blooms and a sense of foreboding smothers her like a thick blanket. Her pace extends and she winds her way through the Pampas, following the same trail her red-eyed boy had taken. Voices alert her that she’s getting close and she starts to slow, already feeling tired from such a short jaunt across easy terrain. When had her age started to catch up with her? Something she can’t worry about now, not when she peeks around a hill and her sharp golden eyes land on Obscene and the same indigo stallion (morphed though, with strange wings and claws) that had been in Tephra stare each other down with little distance between them.
It’s her son’s words that strike a strange feeling in her chest. A forgotten feeling of fear. And worry. And care. He speaks of killing the stranger, Gale, and she remembers the way the magician had held her bones and exploded the hummingbird with a flick of his tail. Whatever her son had become, taking in the scales and fangs, it was no match for the likes of someone like this. And she, an old mare with no magic, was even more useless.
But if she was expected to just stand there and watch her son die then Gale would be sorely disappointed.
Her wings are awkward after those long years of being unused but the feeling of flight is as familiar to her as getting back on a bike. Centuries ago, Tantalize had ruled the Amazons. She had changed the long line of Queens into Khaleesi’s and reformed the warrior mares into something new. She had fought in the Alliance, had brought war on to the Dale. And won. Her body ached and gray covered her dark muzzle but she had never forgotten who she was or what she was capable of, even when she had languished in the humid dark of Tephra’s jungle.
She had always been an Amazonian. And she would die as one.
Before her son can barely take a step to meet his attacker, the jaguar mare is there. With unexpected force, she throws herself between the two from the sky, barreling into Gale and snarling like the jungle cat she had always been, fire and brimstone raging in the tarnished gold of her angry eyes. “You will not touch my son.” She growls, her hooves lashing out at whatever exposed part of him she can find and her blunted teeth snapping at his face even as his too-wide jaws wrap around her own neck and blood begins to flow from where his teeth sink into her dappled flesh, deaf to the loud angry bellow behind her as her son unleashes himself from horse into snake.
i hear the wicked get no rest, but when you do ---------- i hope you dream of me
‘You will not touch my son’, fortells the spotted mare.
And for a while, at least, she is right.
The navy creature’s teeth sink into a pale neck, and clawed wings rip at feathers rather than Obscene’s glittering sides. Her blood flows red and fast, sliding down the monster’s throat, dripping from its lips, staining her golden skin a deep and shining crimson.
It bites down harder, vicelike, ignoring the hard blows of her hooves even as the scraped skin on his face where she’d struck begin to glow a faint pale gold. The crocodilian jaws do not shred or rip or tear, only squeeze closer closer closer until at last they meet.
The brindle stallion drops her body unceremoniously. Only when she says crumpled on the earth does he recognize the buckskin mare as the woman that Obscene had come to Tephra to steal. She is not quite dead yet, but he can feel it drawing near. He calls to her soul, Ryatah’s soul summoning warped into something darker as he attempts to draw the soul from her body, to gobble it down as well.
He forgets Obscene entirely, the soft hiss of the snake no more important than the whisper of wind across burnt grass.
10-02-2021, 09:58 PM (This post was last modified: 10-02-2021, 09:59 PM by Cheri.)
Light traveled quickly, skimming over the many miles between Obscene’s flower court and Cheri’s midwest Kingdom faster than a gallop. Perched high above the smoothly-winding canyons, her green hair tangling in the wind, Cheri saw the bright little form darting over the flatlands and she flicked her ears toward it curiously, wondering what Obscene’s emissary could be doing so far from his dark Lord and home. She was lucky enough to have her curiosity quickly satisfied; the glowing fairy orb disappeared beyond her line of sight, reappearing after a beat or two at the top of the canyon ridge where she kept vigil, and then flew at her head.
It wasted no time in crowding her face, bumping itself rudely against her nose and eyes with a frantic sort of energy that she immediately interpreted. Obscene, she worried - glancing at the loyal companion without its master and feeling a sense of dread at the black stallion’s absence. Light only had to swing back and forth once for Cheri to pivot and flare her wings, ready to fly with him back to the Pampas where Ob was certainly waiting for her, but she paused at the last moment - right as her hooves were nearing the opposite edge - and skidded back to a stop.
Flying would take too long, She snorted, snapping her teeth and tossing her head with the motion of her pacing legs, Faster - I have to be faster. Instantaneous. Cheri huffed.
She paused and exhaled, closing her eyes against the glare of Light’s beam so close to her face, and thought about where she wanted to be right at this very moment. Just like that, Cheri teleported herself and The Prince’s fairy straight to the Pampas - right to the spot nearest him, beside the scaled beast with his fangs bared.
Her eyes opened to a horrid scene. Gale - though she did not place him at first - mutated and freakish, sucking the very essence of life from a victim. Darkness purveyed his intent; it hovered near him, crackled over his skin like an aura of potent death, and stole the very air from Cheri’s lungs when she made herself suck in a breath. Her body was aglow with pale light, a shimmering cover that tightened itself to the shape of her form as she watched him devour soulflesh. Shock (utter, incomprehensible surprise) rooted her to the earth.
Cheri had taken a bit of Loess with her when she’d traveled, (somewhere in the red-rock hills there was a large patch of wildflowers to replace what she’d borrowed) but her focus couldn’t be swayed by a bit of misplaced earth or her second successful teleport: she couldn’t rip her eyes off Gale. They were pulsing, green with wild energy, and at the sight of him warping Tantalize’s soul for his own gain something inside of her clicked.
Wordlessly, Cheri took a leading step toward the monster and leaned into the forelimb, bracing herself against the lightbeam that tore free from her eyes and made to strike the killer.
Tantalize, stubborn until the very end, refused to die.
Not right away at least. Death was fast approaching, unavoidable as hot crimson stained her russet spotted skin to an even darker hue. It was not something she feared. It was actual something she longed for since the day he had disappeared. However, she would not let her death be an unworthy one. She was an Amazon after all. She intended to go out like one.
She had come from a time when magic like his was a scarcity. She had not adapted as others far older than her had, she had never been touched by magic except for the generosity of her downy raven wings. The same wings that snap and crumple against his rough handling when she is finally tossed aside, barely conscious as her life begins to quickly escape from the many wounds he had left behind. Tasting his blood on her own tongue and feeling satisfied with the death she had chosen for herself.
She is ready to die but not if it costs her soul.
She can feel him beckoning to her but there is another voice (one she could only remember from dreams and memories, a voice she missed like no other) that she will not deny. The world around her is hazy as she gasps for breath, catching only pieces of what’s happening around her. An unexpected snap and there is suddenly another, a young mare adorned in crystals and her look of horror. The red eyes of her son, that seem to flash with rage and despair, except her son is a serpent and she’s certain death is just confusing her. And then there is the intensity of Gale’s eyes, the monster that attempts to rip her soul and feast upon it.
There is a voice that is telling her to come home and that’s where she wants to go.
And so she fights and refuses give in.
10-02-2021, 10:37 PM (This post was last modified: 10-02-2021, 10:43 PM by Obscene.)
I can see through you, see your true colors Cause inside you're ugly, you're ugly like me
She was not suppose to be here.
This was to be his ending. This was to be his fate.
As the indigo stallion lunged, so did he. A sharp hiss escaped between his teeth as he, for once, accepted the change and embraced the shift. But before he can….
There is only the whisper of the wind, the soft brush of her feathers against his cheek. And then the sharp snarling and squealing as his mother collides with Gale and takes his place. There is not enough time to reach her before Gale’s sharp teeth are deep within her flesh. She fights and doesn’t stop. Not once. Her hooves pound against him again and again as she fights like the wildcat she had always been. He sees what she had once been, the glory that his father had looked at her with. What he had never understood about her before. His roar is furious and unearthly as he moves over to where Tantalize is flung and in a state of shock, he tries to fight against the shift so he can attempt to heal her.
He loses with the presence of Cheri. He had forgotten his summons of her. And now she was here as his mother laid crumpled and bleeding, struggling against a force he cannot see, with pulsing light in her eyes and it is too much.
If he sees her, he will destroy her.
He would not allow it.
He would not allow this to continue any longer.
The snake is an angry thing where it bursts from his equine flesh, a monster of a serpent with shining midnight scales with glints of gold beneath his belly. Red eyes, slitted and vicious, never lose their focus from its prey. There is no haughty Fae Prince anymore. Not where he is buried beneath the grief, the rage, the sorrow, the guilt. The overwhelming regret. Not when the hunger takes control. The indigo creature is distracted and the slithering monster makes his move, lunging at the stallion with thick coiled muscles intent on wrapping around him in any way it can. It wants to squeeze the stallion to death until it pops but not without attempting to subdue its prey first with a snap of its venomous fangs.
![[Image: Obscene-Pixel.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/fTkjKh9Q/Obscene-Pixel.png){kind=tracking}
![[Image: RightEvenEchidna-size_restricted.gif]](https://thumbs.gfycat.com/RightEvenEchidna-size_restricted.gif)
