set fire to the rain

Alaine Winters · 07-28-2011, 01:16 AM

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Word Count → 3+ :: Arachnea's Revenge, Optime, Night

There was pain, a horrible, lancing pain.

It tore through her like a blazing wildfire, shredding like the claws of some manic predator. And as it burned, it changed, corrupted, leaving behind only a black ash that thickened her blood and made it impossibly difficult to breath.

She knew she was crying, because it was difficult to see, and because when she swiped at her face with the back of one hand it came away wet. But for now, the sorrow was anger, two indistinguishable emotions twisting like barbed wire around her throat.

The mare galloped blindly through the darkness, leaving behind the red-eyed succubis and the open glade and the cool night air. She clung to the creature's back like a wraith, ebony mane lashing her face as it tangling in the wind and stinging when it caught tear-filled emerald eyes. Burning lungs sought to draw in brittle breath, as air rushed past them. She was relentless, urging the beast at a full gallop - Once, the bay stumbled and almost went down, but a sharp shriek and jab of the heels brought it back to a thundering pace.

The dagger glittered wickedly in her grasp, and when her grip slipped, it sliced her palm and bit at her fingers and ran red with blood. The woman didn't care - Didn't even notice. Everything within her was combusting, a terrible whirl-wind of agony and grief and murder. Murder. Murder.

Time flew, as though they had entered a crack in the surface of the world and were lost to its endless shadow. Emerald eyes burned and crackled with feverish intensity, lit by tortured fires. Betrayal. Murder. The gurgling of water filtered through the dull pounding in her ears, and the mare burst through brush and was confronted with rippling water. Rearing, the normally docile creature slashed at the air with its massive hooves, eyes rolling bone-white and ears flattened to the mass of ebony mane. With a raspy cry, Alaine wheeled the creature around, trotting it restlessly up and down the bank. "BADB!" Came the haunted, infuriated cry, heedless of who else might hear. There was no room for fear within her, now. "Tar chugam, drochlaoich! Bastaird! EZEKIEL!" There was a madness to her, seen once before by the Raven King; A dark shadow that had hidden within her crevasses, waiting for a moment like this.

The blade of her dagger sang in the air, carving imaginary hearts as she waved it. Nana whinnied shrilly, her coat damp with sweat and the smell of her fear hanging dankly in the night air.

Gabriel de le Poer · 07-28-2011, 01:40 AM

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He dreamt of fire.

It was always fire; fire in the south, fire in the east. He had been chosen and made mighty by God, given the sword and turned into his scourge. When the plagues had fallen in Egypt, he had been there. When the bombs fell in America, he had been there. Once an angel, Gabriel had been sent to earth to touch it with mortal hands. In his dreams, he flew—in his dreams, he felt the fire and knew what it was to be cleansed.

When he woke, there was only thunder. It was distant, but ever encroaching, ever nearing. The air felt heavy and something in it drove him to rise. Gabriel left the building and walked into the night. Nose turned to the air, testing it. He smelt the rain coming, but he sensed something more. With as much speed as he could muster (and truth be told, the doggish trot he picked up was quite fast) the graying hybrid moved west. He was about halfway to the caves when a banshee’s wail rose from the west and set the fur along his spine on end.

It was her voice, and it was more mighty and terrible than anything he wished to imagine. Wide-eyed, Gabriel quickened to a run. His shoulder protested, but adrenaline blocked the pain. There was little resistance from the earth, for Gabriel knew the Waste even better than his son.

When he reached the bank, his tongue was lolling and his speed had dropped considerably. The entirety of his left arm felt as if it might destroy itself. Gritting his teeth against the pain, Gabriel found the source. In the darkness, he was a shadow, a shade with gleaming eyes and terrible scars. Without hesitation, he plunged into the water—he was lucky. She had traveled from the south and approached from the smaller section of the river. It was not half as large as it was closer to the bay.

Alaine Winters · 07-28-2011, 01:56 AM

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Word Count → 3+ :: Secui form GO

The fire burning up her spine increased, and she realized, with a flash of terror and surprise, what it was. With another shriek, she tumbled from the back of the mare, aching bones snapping and popping with relentless pain. As the first raindrops fell, the woman writhed against the earth, snarls pulling from her maw as muscles re-aligned and agony burned like flames beneath her twisting skin.

Pushed beyond terror, the exhausted bay mare fled. The creature that now stood beside the river was not her kindly pagan mistress - It was a banshee, bristling fur and burning eyes. The dagger lay forgotten, useless as it glinted in the mud at the bank.

The man came to her, but he was not the betrayer - He was the Raven King, and she knew him well. Alaine's new body rippled with a power she had never before held, lean muscles and plush hackles. Was she beautiful, or terrible? The pain that had been physical was now only mental, but it was no less furious than before.

Her lover lurched up the bank, his dark pelt dripping with crystal, his gold eyes eternal and binding. He was the Destroyer, Lugh, and he sought to take her from the path she had chosen. She snarled at him, resenting his familiarity, enraged that his presence sought to sooth her. "Tagaim le haghaidh an dúnmharfóir," The growl rushed through her, and she was Dea, the vessel, the pagan witch once more. Power rustled dark wings in feverish shamrock eyes. "He has taken what was mine. I will have it back! BADB, YOU HAVE STOLEN FROM ME," The cry was directed past Gabriel, to the line of dark trees beyond the river. A dark rumble of thunder echoed the lash of her pain and fury. "Get out of my way. Tá a shaol mianach." The fury burned in her chest, a pyre in the crumbling shape of her dead son.

Gabriel de le Poer · 07-28-2011, 02:05 AM

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He had expected to find the woman he knew. Instead, a beastly thing guided by that same Shadow he had seen before met him. Gabriel, exhausted, could only stand and pant heavily to gain his breath. All of his weight fell back on three limbs, which trembled. Oblivious to the wicked things his children had done, Gabriel stared wide-eyed at the woman who now looked nothing like herself.

Instinct forced him to move, blocking her path to the river. Head low, tail even with his spine, Gabriel showed no aggression. Not yet, while she was unpredictable. Not while she came looking for blood. “No,” he said firmly. It was the voice of an Aquila; the voice of a man who had led armies to war. “You’re not yourself, Alaine.” Holy signs dangled in the dark air, flashing as lighting cut across bruise-colored clouds. Gabriel would not fight her, but he would not allow her past the river. That much he owed to the clan—to his children.

Alaine Winters · 07-28-2011, 02:34 AM

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Word Count → 3+ ::

There was something different about him, about Lugh. He was weaker, older. Was he the enemy? She was having difficulty remembering - Having difficulty remembering anything but the pain and the rage and the terrible, terrible sadness. Had there been a time before this one? There were others that she knew - A small cream girl and a boy with startling blue eyes, a boy who looked like the Raven King. But they were small and pale in comparison to the fury, and the memory of the man with the kind sky-eyes and the lopsided smile. Caillen is dead. My son, my heart.

Sadness hurt more than anger, so she allowed the aggression to return, black lips writhing over teeth that felt much larger than they ever had before. She was larger, larger than life - Almost as big as the Raven. But he remained in her way, ignorant of the wrath she held within, the leashed terror that sought to tear the rest of her world into oblivion.

His voice was familiar, but she did not want to hear it. She did not want to hear reason. His observation provoked a sickly laugh from her, a sound of pain. "Lugh Tá goideadh mo chroí, and now I am dead inside," The snarl returned, and a flash of lightning lit her cream and ivory fur and gilded it silver. Her breathing was rough and ragged, hissing between her teeth as the pagan witch stared into the burning eyes of the man her mortal self had loved. He had betrayed her, too. They all had. "Your blood did this to me," A harsh whisper, and perhaps her emerald eyes flickered for a moment with the ghost of old sorrow, the Alaine that he knew in body and mind. She shook her head, and it was gone. "Beidh mé mo díoltas. The life of the man who took the life of my son!" Was she truly capable of murder? Caillen is dead. It hurt, it hurt so much to breath.

Gabriel de le Poer · 07-28-2011, 02:49 AM

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She was mad with grief. Gabriel understood this long before she spoke, for he had been there. Talitha had not been killed, but what was done to her was worse. How could he look at the thing that his daughter had become and not see the wounds? The little girl who had dreamed of being Aquila had turned into nothing more than a self-centered whore. Better that, though, than a slow death by drink or suicide. If he could not save her body, he would save her soul.

Dark ears turned back and Gabriel lowered his weight to meet her. She would come; she would throw herself at him and then he would be ready. All Shadows were alike—all Shadows saw violence and desired to consume and devour. His had been no different. Haku had sought to consume the land and all those who stood against him. Haku was a demon. He was Gabriel’s demon, reflection, Shadow.

They had been brothers, you see. “If you do that, you will become a monster.” He had told Tayui the same thing, and he knew it to be true. “Talitha will kill you. She’ll kill our children.” Oh how he believed that now. Talitha would die for Ezekiel; he did not doubt she would slaughter for him either.

Alaine Winters · 07-28-2011, 03:17 AM

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The man was resolute. He would challenge her, as the sun challenged the moon - An endless circle of power, repeating, repeating. She knew his body. Could she kill him? He was weaker now, and she sensed within him a greater weakness - A weakness for the woman whose body she inhabited, the soft warm creature who had birthed children for him. He would not kill that woman, that pathetic, weak woman who had allowed his blood to already kill so much of her.

The shadow looked at him through her beautiful, emerald eyes, and it saw this weakness. He had been a great warrior, once - The greatest warrior. Shadow-Slayer. Raven-King. But he was mortal now, and Alaine-not-Alaine knew this. Her anger was all-encompassing, and it sought his silence. It wanted the end of him, for what his son had done to hers.

Once, this shadow had met him before. It had been at the time of the New Beginning, when Alaine had allowed Morrigan and Lugh back into her heart, and the old ways were remembered. The shadow had been born from grief before then, but the Raven-King had tamed it, and in doing so had taken this woman's heart for his own. She had been weakened then, but over time, had learned to live without the heart that he had taken. They were the sun and the moon, and her wishes were impossibilities fit only to live in the darkness behind closed eyelids.

The shadow was a thing made of anger. It protected her when no other would - It survived within her grief, a sheild of fury to save what was left of the woman's brittle heart. And it despised him, Gabriel, Raven King. It loathed him.

She lunged, jaws snapping, claws aiming to tear at what flesh they reached, but he remained steadfastly blocking her path. "MY CHILDREN!" Came the broken snarl, and again she lunged, and was again deflected. "Not yours, Raven King. Cheana féin amháin acu uiscí an domhain lena fola. Already I have failed them!" Her words ended with a wail of pain, terrible pain, and she thrashed her head, trying to be rid of the voice of sorrow there. The fire of anger was beginning to lose fuel, and soon she would be nothing but ashes, useless to the shadow. "It was murder, Lugh. He was my SON! How could this be? How could this be?!" Was there an answer he could give her, that would solve the terrible hole that Caillen's execution had left in her heart?

Gabriel de le Poer · 07-28-2011, 03:29 AM

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Her gods were old, but Gabriel’s faith was stronger still. It had led him to destroy hundreds, just and unjust alike. If the call came he would do so again. This was why he did not fear her or what Shadow she carried. The old gods had gone up in the vast smoke of burning witches, surviving only in pockets and pools of those who dared recall their names.

She screamed and threw herself at him. He saw her body shift and readied himself for it. With speed not half what it had been in his youth the hybrid rose to meet her. Massive and solid his body went low, hitting her in the chest. Teeth connected with his ear, tearing it, and again with the thick fur around his neck. Then she was thrown from him, and Gabriel, his hackles only now raising, bellowed: “THEY ARE OURS! And I will not allow you to risk them for grief!”

Lowering his head once more, bullishly, the black-brush wolf bared his teeth. “I will do what I must to protect them, and to protect you from yourself.”

Alaine Winters · 07-28-2011, 11:02 PM

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His bulk was not to be underestimated, and time and time again it deflected her, repelling the shadow's advances toward the other bank, toward the land of Badb. She shrieked her fury to the night sky, and the moon, that terrible wonderful god, gave her strength. The night was her element, the secretive whispers of the forest hers, the rage simmering in her blood fed by these dark pagan things. She had come to him in desire once, a similar anger twisted into a desperate longing for the body that stood between her and murder. She had succumbed, then, for she was a creature of the blood and the wanting - The healer and the witch, a beauty of the old magic and the tribes. So different to him, man of the cross and the word of his god; man of no mercy, man of massacre. Her gods, wanting blood and rite even as they did, had never before led her to murder.

The rusty taste of his blood lingered on her tongue, but it was not pleasant, as the woman had thought it would be. Black lips writhed over teeth stained in slight by his life-source, and feral green eyes glowed with acid and the power of the moon. His bellow startled some deep darkness within her - The curled form of Alaine, lost deep in the gut of the fury-wraith. She heard his voice and trembled, for Gabriel's power thrilled her, and she knew it as she knew her own. He had saved her, many times. Would he save her again?

Disturbed, demented, the Shea-witch snarled and tossed her head again, one clawed paw lifting to swipe at it as though the self-blow would still the voices and the distemper there. We came for blood. We came for Caillen. Murder! Betrayal! "You cannot not protect them, foolish man," Tone hissed from between her clenched teeth, and for some reason she felt like weeping again. The anger was fading. Desperation made her lung for him again, the shadow craving more fury on which to feed. "You did not protect me! LOOK AT ME!" The howl of rage twisted grotesquely to a sound of terrible soundness, for she saw what she had become, and loathed it. "I am broken," A moan now, an echo of the deep pain seeping up from within, and the shadow knew now that it had lost again. Muscles shivered, the feral, powerful form wavering on the brink of change once more. "Tá gach rud briste..." A hoarse whisper, and she trembled, a droplet of his blood slinking down her jaw.

Gabriel de le Poer · 07-30-2011, 04:01 AM

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The thing that stood on the bank of the river was not Alaine. It was a Shadow of her, a beast brought to life by the trauma of losing a child. He had seen fury before. His daughter had come at him like this before, though Talitha would not have struck him. She would kill those children. She would slaughter anyone that harmed Ezekiel, this the dark beast knew as truth. For this simple reason he could not allow the dog to pass—not that he believed she would make it to his son. Someone would cut her down.

His eyes locked with her own and he saw that struggle play out, ocean against the shore. She struck, she took, but he endured. Gabriel’s tail rose like a flag. “Don’t do this,” he half begged, half warned. The collie’s face broke into a terrible snarl and she came for him again. The wolfish man threw his head low and felt her teeth connect with his neck. Yet he did not throw her, and did not move. She would have to kill him to pass, and in his heart, he knew her better.

Alaine Winters · 08-08-2011, 10:39 PM

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She wanted his rage to fuel her own - Wanted his ire, the wild flames of his fury to feed her, to sustain the shadow within that kept her safe from the grief. Again and again she attacked, but it was to no avail; His blood stained her maw, and still the man did not falter. He was stone, forever strong, endlessly enduring. This was a fight she could not win, not without killing him.

The darkness rippled within. Kill him? Panting heavily, the woman's feverish gaze locked on to sharp gold, and she knew at once that such a thing could not be done by her paw. I love him still. The snarl twisted over her features, but it was a thing of regret, of deepest loathing for the weakness of her own pathetic heart. Love him! She should despise him, hate him for the sins of his blood. She had cursed his son to live in the half-realm, haunted by those wounded at his bloody hands. Why could she not muster the same potent fury against him?

Exhaustion began to seep in, and her muscular Secui body shivered again. The rain fell thicker now, washing away the blood on her maw, washing away the anger. Another tremble tore her, but this time it was the grinding and shifting of bone and flesh, and she was Alaine again - Beautiful, broken Alaine.
A strange gurgled sob fell from maw, and she lunged at the Raven King again, but this time simply collapsed against his warmth.

Gabriel de le Poer · 08-08-2011, 10:47 PM

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Once before, he had known what this was. Love, that is. He had loved Faolin for so long, oh but she had proven a harlot and she had proven false. Now he knew a woman who was familiar to him, a woman who knew Shadow, a woman who had sired him children—and he loved her with everything that remained in his grizzled heart. Gabriel bled into the rain. It was warm. Had it always been warm? He stared her down and awaited the fury that was sure to follow.

Instead, she fell into him. Gabriel shoved his nose into her cheek, rubbing against her furiously despite his wounds. She needed him, as she had needed him before. This was all that mattered. Soft, short licks came from his maw, pink tongue brushing against her ear. Then, as she clung to him, his own body responded. Pain rippled through him but it was met with adrenaline and with wounds that had pulled his mind away. It had been months since he had assumed his Optime form. While his shoulder ached, it had healed enough for him to shift—something he had not dared until now.

Rough hands brushed her hair gently, and he whispered into her. “I’m sorry,” was all he said, and all he kept saying. This was not his fault, but he could take the pain for his son. That much he owed the boy.

Alaine Winters · 08-08-2011, 10:59 PM

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He enveloped her, welcomed her brittle body with shifted arms. The warm rain melted her away like ashes between his fingers, and she had come home - Home to him. There was no other explanation for the feeling of safety that surrounded her, the feeling known to these mortal immortals as love.

Her grief was a thunderstorm, and it tore her insides, shredded them mercilessly as she finally mourned. Sobs wracked slender body, and ivory fingers twined desperately in the fur of his chest, his mane, his face - Grasping for sanity, for an end to the horrible torture that bled inside of her. Grief was a cruel master, and were it not for the iron embrace of his arms, she would surely have been blown apart by it, the small pieces of her scattered into the storm.

The weather railed, or maybe it was only the tempest within her that did such a thing. She knew thunder and lightning, but could not determine whether they came from the war inside of her, or the growling clouds overhead. Desperately clinging to Gabriel, as she might have a life raft, the woman made terrible keening noises. The cries were muffled by the fur of his chest, and by the soft whisperings that came from his grizzled maw.

At last, it seemed the storm subsided. Her sobs stilled, and she was left only to gasp for air in the silence of a crueler world than the one she had lived in yesterday.

Gabriel de le Poer · 08-08-2011, 11:05 PM

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It was a gift, and a curse, that they should have been born mortals. Mortals were given the power to feel as angels and spirits were not. They hurt and they suffered and they loved. Gabriel did not feel her storm as she did, but the waves wracked against his soul none the less. Pale hands gripped her tightly, her rock, her raft, and he lessened only when her body began to settle against his own. The rain continued on and it washed them clean. Gabriel never loved the rain as much as he did that night.

“I love you, Alaine,” he whispered, holding her to his chest. A heart burnt to the core beat there, a phoenix-thing that had carried him as the sun. Gabriel was a lion; he was a child of fire. To suffer was to live. A death was not the end of days, oh heaven no, but he would not take her grief from her. Not as he had with Tayui, who had come to him looking for a dead man. Not to someone with whom he felt bound to.

Alaine Winters · 08-08-2011, 11:21 PM

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His hands bound her tightly to the world, an anchor that kept her from slipping into despair. When finally her body stilled, exhausted from its own wrath and inner turmoil, his was there to cradle it as gently as though it were glass.

She felt fragile. Cool, ivory fingers were still twined in the creamy fur of his chest, and her head rested against the heartbeat there. The constant drum reassured her in a primal way, but it frightened her, also, to know of his mortality. Gabriel had always been somewhat immortal - Preserved forever in the back of her mind, as a savior, a culmination of all the tiny snapshots of the life they had lived together. Fate had been a cruel mistress to the demon-slayer and the pagan-witch; Bringing them together only to tear them apart, again and again and again.

He whispered dream-words, and she wondered if perhaps she had gone mad with grief after all. Mild, like the ocean after a wrathful swell, the woman allowed her fingertips to trace little absent circles on his chest. Her eyes were dull, but truly hers once more - He had defeated the Shadow, locked it away again. "And I, you," Came the gentle voice, timid and meek as it had been, in the old days.

Did it bring her happiness to know of his love? Yes, and yet, no. For he was a creature of the land she despised - Bound to Inferni for as long as his heart demanded loyalty to it. Would she ever mean more to him than this piece of god-forsaken, bloodied ground? It was not something she could ask of him. Be mine, forever. It was not something she could ask. "Tá mé ina amadán a thabhairt duit mo chroí, ach tá sé mise, le haghaidh i gcónaí," She sighed, one palm reaching up to cup his scarred cheek.

Gabriel de le Poer · 08-17-2011, 12:05 AM

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The black-brushed wolf (for like it or not, he was a wolf no matter what more he told himself) held to the collie-woman as if she might vanish under his grasp. She felt real in the way that so many things did. She was made of flesh and blood and bone, but Shadow and Spirit fought for control within her. Gabriel had killed his own; he could not bring himself to kill the dark within this woman because it might harm her yet. Black hair spilled into his eyes, over her crème hands, and he leaned into the touch as if this too might disappear.

“Forever,” he said quietly, promising her what he had done only once before.

Above them the storm rolled and he was aware of it, but for as mighty and terrible as the world was, he felt as if he could protect her against anything. Even herself.

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