[M] time to bring the fire down.
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WARNING: This thread contains material exceeding the general board rating of PG-13. It may contain very strong language, drug usage, graphic violence (death), or graphic sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.


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Form
Optime
Location: Aelcrest Shore

Date: July 8 (Backdated)

Words: 1428

The sable-shaded woman had picked her way northward carefully, cresting the mountain in her painfully slow waddle. If her physical state was not evidence enough, a deep knowledge resonated within her. Her children would breathe soon. She needed to ensure their well-being in the best way she knew how -- with blood. The coal woman had not forgotten that dark omen before their birth, the shade cast over her perfect happiness. It lingered over her, gently tickling at the back of her mind. What darkness would befall these children? Or was the darkness coming for her? For Salsola?

Her mind ruminated over these possibilities and thoughts, clutching them close and turning them over and over in its grasp even as her feet moved forward. She had told no one of this journey -- it was one she needed to make alone. There was danger, of course, but she did not fear it. She could not. Even if she had been afraid for herself or her children, she could not risk being interrupted by one of Salsola, and so it was with such a need that she made her way over the mountain and to the pristine shore on the other side, her body weary with exhaustion when the strange waters graced her vision.

It was another world entirely on this side of the mountain -- though it lacked the ferocity of the familiar bay coast tide, the same rugged beauty she so loved in her own coastline was also present here. The hybrid woman meandered over the beach, settling down in the rocky sand. Her fingers sifted through the rough grain of the sand slowly as the salty wind returned the favor to the thick sable hair atop her head. The woman's fingers drew over the small bag constructed of fur and hide where she'd tucked her knife. There was nothing else she needed.

The woman was prepared to wait hours if need be, perhaps even the whole night. Eris was not the proud hunter on this night; she was the spider, patiently waiting for someone to ensnare themselves in her web. There was no shame in the sable woman her arachnid-esque behavior, however. The means were simply that, a means -- the end was the more important part of the process. Her chartreuse eyes lidded, shutting the sunset from her vision, and she leaned back onto the sand. Her sleep was light, and when she could hear the approach of footsteps, the hybrid stirred to wakefulness, though her eyes remained closed and her breathing retained the slow, steady rhythm of sleep

Miss? came the timid squeak of a voice, and her chartreuse eyes flew open once more, finding the fiery sundown light had drained from the sky overhead. Only the pale silver light of the moon remained, but this was quite enough for Eris to see the stranger before her. It was a woman -- young, younger than Eris herself. There was dog's blood in her heritage, proclaimed plainly her long fur and large brown eyes. The sable coyote contorted her face to an expression of relief, and she made a feeble effort to sit forward, abandoning it when she had risen only part-way up from the ground. Are you alright?

Oh, thank gods, the sable coyote breathed. I've been here since noon, and I can't get up. She turned her head away, ears folded back in a ploy of embarrassment. If you would just help me sit up, the hybrid said, reaching up with the hand closest to the dog. Pity showed on the cream-yellow face of the other woman, and her hand reached for Eris's. I thought you were dead at first, the younger woman marveled, launching into a spiel Eris could not even begin to pay attention to.

Her mind was in the fur and hide bag along with her other hand, wrapping as strongly and securely around the pale hilt as her fingers. When Eris's outstretched hand made contact with the other woman's flesh, the hidden hand flashed, quicker than even The Auxiliary had imagined. The honed edge of the obsidian knife sliced a neat line through fur and skin and muscle, a torrent of crimson exploding just as quickly as the flesh cleaved. Eris was dimly aware of warmth spattering across the entirety of her upper body, dripping down the arm she'd used to slice the woman's throat.

There hadn't been quite enough time for the stranger to register just what was happening, and her words bubbled through the hole Eris had carved in her flesh in a wheezing and wet gurgle. The woman's eyes, chocolatey-brown and doe-soft, were drawn huge and dark in her pale face, but they did not understand -- the stranger's thoughts had evaporated as quickly as her body had lost its life. Her soul would be next to go, if Eris did not work quickly.

The body crumpled against the dirt, all life flowing from the woman in that bubbling red torrent. It spread outward, staining the pale yellow of the sand a dark crimson. Only twitches and the faintest spasms remained of the life that had been so vibrant and real before her just a moment before. The hybrid sat up, rolling the corpse onto its back as she went; its head lolled backwards, thudding dully against the ground. The sable hybrid brought the knife out again, her arm moving slowly and with purpose this time. There was no need for speed -- care was necessary now.

Her lips split into a faint smile, but there was no joy written into her face -- only a look of near-loving concentration as she cut through the fast-cooling flesh, slicing her way into the stranger's abdominal cavity. Coils of shining organ greeted her, familiar and lovely as they were. Her fingers reached to touch and caress, though soon enough they dug deeper, pulling and twisting and tearing as she sought that quivering, red-brown center. Drawing back from the body, now excavated of all that was useful within it, the hybrid woman lifted the organ, clutching it in bloodied hands and cradling it to her to her chest much like a child.

There was no ecstasy in the coal-hued woman as her eyes fell, half-closing as she held the piece of the stranger's body close, but she shook and quivered all the same as her eyes closed, her limbs trembling and quaking as the minutes ticked by. In the world around her there was silence but for the crash of wave against beach, but her mind was filled with a roar, terrifyingly loud and low. She knew this shadow.

Though it was only a few moments later in the real world, hours had passed in that other world in The Auxiliary's mind. She might have been drowning in shade for days when she became aware of her true existence once more, but only minutes had gone by in this realm. The corpse flesh between her knees was still faintly warm, still clinging despeately to the last of its life's fire. The organ, now deadened and useless, slipped out of her hand and landed on the beach, forgotten entirely.

Eris shivered, though it was certainly not a reaction to any cold in the world. Summer's heat and humidity still crackled through the air and hung heavily over her fur. It was what she had seen, what she must have known she would see, that had set her to shivering. Slow minutes ticked by before the woman moved, and when she did, Eris leaned forward rather than standing, pressing her rounded body to the corpse. Her fingers found the neat hole in the other canine's neck, toying with its edges. Her fingers came away sticky with red wetness, and the hybrid moved to swipe these fingers over her belly, drawing a gummy red spiral over her protruding belly.

You died for them, she whispered, touching the center of the spiral, the hard bump of her navel. It was the closest she had come to verbal prayer since departing Eterne, though prayer to a corpse was a far cry from prayer to a god. What little good you'll do, she added silently, morosely. A hundred thousand corpses, the center of power eviscerated from each and every one and offered to all the named and nameless gods alike, could do nothing to stave the darkness that would befall her.

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