[aw] through mushroom clouds and black fields

Eris Eternity · 09-11-2012, 04:19 PM

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Setting	Location	Form	NPCs
Location: Coast, SL Date: 25 Aug* (Backdated) Weather: Cold, overcast Time: Night

370

Eris is by Mel!

The dark-hued hybrid swayed, her body moving from one side to the other in a slow, rhythmic manner. The fire burned in front of her, bright and warm against the delicious sharpness of the night. Cool weather had swept in unexpectedly, heralding the winter's steady approach. Her blood sang with the fire and the loveliness of this cold. Her hair was well-kept and her body smelled only of spice and oil and smoke. There was a fastidious cleanliness about her that had not been present since the previous fall at the very least. Perhaps it was altogether new -- the dark-hued woman had never been quite so put together before, practically radiating with her happiness.

Most of this change in her could be attributed to Pandemic. There was more than simple satiation and contentment within her, though. It felt to Eris as though the whole world was slowly turning again, righting itself after having been upside down for so long. Perhaps this was all Pandemic's doing. Her gold-green eyes half-lidded and she smiled to herself, raising her muzzle toward the silver half-disc of the moon as she swayed.

Her hands worked upon the creature she'd killed, slaughtering it and spilling its blood over the place where Shibboleth had burned. Though she readily soaked the ground with blood, she would never set a fire in quite the same place, though the burn scar was still visible there. The grass hadn't grown during the summer -- the bare, bald patch of earth where she'd burnt her baby was eerily appropriate. She caressed the cerise-stained ground, running her fingers over the hard-packed dirt lovingly.

She leaned forward, and a wordless prayer emerged from her throat, half growl and half whine, as she remembered the lovely paleness of Basilaris's coat; the burning orange eyes of her Larkspur; the eyes of Solanaceae, so like her own; and finally, the sickly-sweet scent she so associated with her Shibboleth, never given any chance for life. Though there was sorrow in her, it was eclipsed by her joy -- her dead were dead, but she was full of life. Singing and screaming and ever-lovely life.

Siv Helsi · 09-11-2012, 08:24 PM

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The sharpness of the air was that of winter, blowing high and far away in the north. Dark night air breathed it out all fine.

Siv breathed it in.

She tasted the coming days; days of smoke-gray skies and fire-colored trees. It tasted of velvet fallen from the antlers of strong bucks, of thunder, of ozone and atmosphere and somewhere above that the merciless and unfathomable eyes of harvest gods and the frost that chased after them. Autumn was the last great bastion before winter’s hold, and it would not last long in these northlands. The sea would bring them frigid air and batter against the coast, crushing underfoot those brown-turned leaves that struggled on yet.

But winter was a lifetime away, and there was a new scent on the wind. It sparked within her a peculiar thing—instinctively she identified her superior, her would-be queen. The part of her that was stronger, and clever in ways that those wolfish memories were not, it recognized only the resurgence of an old and ancient desire for power.

On her own two feet she came, moving at a slow pace. She did not hurry. She did not dawdle. Her steps were made without fear and without urgency. She walked as if she had somehow known to come. All illusions were made when one believed in them, and Siv Helsi was a woman who found her belief in these ocean-deep smoke and mirrors. One could see hints of it in her storm-colored eyes, which spoke of thunder and promised the heavens beyond. The gods of her kin were warriors and magicians alike, and this steel and silk, it was and was not every part of what she was.

For, as it had been for many moons, Siv Helsi was a woman without faith.

She did not have faith in this apparition before her. She did not have faith that the unspoken words and prayers would be heard by any god. She did not believe because she could not believe, even when the damn thing rose before her.

A shadow moved in deeper shadow. When the firelight finally found her, it made her storm-cloud eyes gleam with an odd, terrible cerise tone. Another illusion. Another lie to place under her tree of bones and tongues. The she-wolf observed with a peculiar sense of distance, as if she was not staring down at a fallen idol. This woman was not a god anymore.

Some peculiar sort of triumph rose from deep within her and glimmered, an endless reflection in the maze of mirrors built up on her face and eyes and being. One of her hands fell to the curve of her belly (it did not show yet, but she knew) and the other rested atop this. The chilly night air ruffled her feathered cloak and long hair, but Siv was unmoved by it. She said nothing and instead lingered behind the phantom, as if she was the real-made form of the Dark Lady’s shadow.

Eris Eternity · 09-11-2012, 10:54 PM

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372

Eris is by Alaine!

Her fingers caressed gently the earth and the smear of blood across it, the organ she'd sliced and looked upon with older eyes. She had not engaged in ritual for longer than she could remember, but her fingers and arms and eyes remembered well. It was easy, then, to recall the old ways and methods, the thing she had been once upon a time. Perhaps it had never left her at all but only slept peacefully, a slumbering presence somewhere in the back of her mind. It had not been a perceptible thing; there was no great epiphany for Eris. She had seen no dancing angels and swaying spirits. Yet it was there again, the thing she had not realized she missed in the first place.

Her ears listened and heard, but she herself did not move to greet the added presence. She was perfectly content, communing with and surrounded by her dead, without this added breath of the living. Eris recalled in a vague way that somehow, this ink-colored woman with her dead gray eyes had been a challenge to her once. She had perceived Siv as a threat, once upon a time -- that much was remembered, but the coal-hued hybrid could not grasp at the reason why. That was buried, perhaps hidden and for a reason. She was alright with that -- Eris saw what she needed to see, and nothing more.

Her fingers withdrew from the cerise blotch upon the dirt, and her swaying relented slowly, eventually ceasing altogether. The fire burned, merry crackling life in the otherwise dark night. Without turning, the wolf woman spoke in someone else's voice and with someone else's words. Carrion crow, she said. There was vague endearment in her voice, though mostly indifference -- it was a descriptor, an observation and nothing more. She was beyond insults in her state, and perhaps entirely done with them. The vampire had sipped from Sirius so slowly none had perceived it, and would perhaps yet suckle on Salvia herself someday. Eris would not ally herself with this, but neither could she silence the gleeful mental snickering at the thought. It was that small and weak part of herself she could never release entirely.

Siv Helsi · 09-11-2012, 11:11 PM

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Things had been easy. They had been almost too easy, as it had been in the Hearg. Men were meant to break. She had thought—she had dared to dream this—that Eris would collapse upon herself like a dying star. Indeed, had she not become a phantom? Had not her blood rose against her like a new sun?

Siv wondered if Eris imagined herself immortal. Of course she does, a soft and jealous voice whispered. She has a son. For the first time, Siv was conscious of her jealousy of this. Once she might have had a son, now grown as her daughter was gone. Once she might have betrayed herself for what she was not. Would that truth ever chase her here? It had, already—her cousin was here, all doe eyed over some dark she-trollop that ran off with her slave. Then again, who was he to tell her what the gods did or did not bless? They would not take him back any sooner than they would have her again.

“Ravens,” she corrected gently. “The thought and memory of my father.” There was no movement, but in the half-light of the fire she might need only think of moving for it to look so. Her hands fell from her belly, and the fur there gleamed a cerise color, false looking in this way. “Do you remember the face of your father, Dark Lady?” There might have been mockery in the title, but her voice did not betray her—only that mirror-light in the rolling thunderclouds, captured like the fire.

Eris Eternity · 09-11-2012, 11:45 PM

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Eris is by Kiri!

She quelled the urge to shrug and remained still. Crows and ravens were only birds, meaningless and short-lived birds. She might not have responded at all were it not for the question. She stiffened imperceptibility at it, remaining quiet for a moment in what she hoped was a contemplative, thoughtful pose. She remembered only murky dreams, burning green eyes. Her father's blood had given her life, in the usual sense and in one all her own. Her mother had bathed in cerise fluid even as the stirring that was to be Eris Eternity someday began in her belly, microscopic alongside similarly-sized siblings that did not share her father's blood.

No. The answer was flat, though without malice. I never knew his face to remember it. You could say he died in childbirth -- in a man's way, anyway. The coal-hued woman looked at the dancing flame, the dirt and the earth beside it. Her spirit still sang somewhere within, but the thick and all-encompassing noise had faded to only a pleasant hum buried down deep. She could recall it if she wanted to -- thus was her power once again -- and tune out Siv and the world, but she did not. Escapism was abuse, and abuse might make the shifty thing flee again.

Siv Helsi · 09-11-2012, 11:57 PM

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It was her nature to prod, like a darning needle, buzzing dragonfly. She looked for marks of the devil, for proof of these supposed misfortunes. Had it been her own will that fed this? Had she, unknowingly, fed Eris life while she stole it from their king? Without him she might have run a kingdom alone, as her daughter now did. There was some power left in her yet, mad thing she was, and Siv looked for it. She looked for it so she might know it and crush the life out of it once again, to make sure the phantom stayed dead.

So she smiled, teeth yellow-white in the firelight against her black velvet mouth, but it was a red tongue that spoke (though perhaps this ought to have been silver). “We should forget them,” she cooed, contradicting herself once again. Had she not asked them to remember, for the children? Their father had abandoned them, as most fathers do. Siv found this quality their most unbecoming. “It is our mothers we come to love, for they give us life. Men can only plant the seed, not grow it, not raise it as we do,” there was praise there, thick and laced with ivy. She imagined her still-smooth belly wide with children and her smile deepened. Even as she studied that peculiar, cerise patch of earth, she smiled.

“You are strong, my lady. I am glad you remembered that.”

Eris Eternity · 09-12-2012, 12:31 AM

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Eris is by Kiri!

She did shake her head, unable to keep this motion from herself. Mothers and fathers both can wrong us, the woman said. She had come to that epiphany -- it was one of several very minor ones, things that had arisen in the wake of her greater change. Perhaps the others would not be so aptly phrased without further prompt -- for now, they were content to remain vague and murky concepts in her mind, a new tenet to which she must cling. We are what we make ourselves. She had made herself into a monster, but even monsters were not permanent things. It was a mask, placed on of necessity and discarded now with the discovery of greater purpose.

The compliment was received, heard, but deflected. She did not allow it to sink into her consciousness. There was atoning to do, and she would not accept such even if she hadn't seen through the stormy eyes and coal fur to the lizard-skin beneath. The dark woman almost gave in to the urge to turn and look on Siv, but did not. Instead, she looked away from the fire and the cerise-splashed ground to the ocean. Although shadowy and black, she could still see the endless motion of waves. There was always a play of moonlight there, silver dashed on black like Siv herself. Eris looked away again, back toward the earth and fire.

Eris was clutching for herself, trying desperately to hold what had come to her so unexpectedly. She might fail herself, but she had evolved beyond the clutches of the red-tinged woman and her ilk. Their truth was plainly seen even with her blinded and sightless eyes.

Siv Helsi · 09-12-2012, 09:45 AM

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Siv’s careful smile melted like ice, and her eyes gleamed in the firelight. She was not like this woman; she had not come to hate her parents. She did not feel much at all about them anymore. Every part of her was fashioned by her own design, tooled with ancient runic letters and shades of night, shadow, frost. No part of her was made for weakness, though it lingered when she looked upon her child (and there would be more soon, to add to this). Eris was right in this matter, but Siv recalled that the thing her former-leader had been fashioned from was weak at its core. Grief had made her weak, and some strange source now fed her needs as acceptance and honor could not. The dead did not need tears or pity. The dead went on to fight forever in the halls of Valhalla.

In thinking this, she imagined an infant grown to a man, imagined him next to Draugr, and knew in her heart that never again would she sacrifice something so dear. The things she made would live on. She would find her immortality there.

At night the celadon water was endlessly black. Siv herself looked that color, a shadow in deeper shadow, touched only by the barest fingers of firelight. At her throat, polished bone reflected the sheen of the flames. “Then you must be proud of your children,” the Helsi woman said lowly. Another bait—perhaps it would spark something in the ghost, make her flicker like a burning candle, make her falter and stumble. Even if she had no love for Salvia, there were the others…and there were those who had been lost.

Eris Eternity · 09-13-2012, 05:19 AM

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Eris is by Savannah!

Some of the old arrogance was still present in her presumptions, of course, but there was something more solid at her core now. Perhaps given time it would conquer all of her and still the unrest in her mind, but for now she was basking in its mere presence. Beyond that, she had effectively smoked the aggression out of herself, at least for this night. There was no desire within her to challenge Siv; she was, for the moment, secure in her place.

What kind of mother would I be if I wasn't? she said, denying the edge she wished to place in her voice. She had been bettered, that was all, and it was fitting. Would she be able to hold Salsola together on her lonesome? She wished, of course, to say yes -- desperately wished it, in fact, but sharply denied the vocalization of such a wish. Don't all parents eventually see their children exceed them? We succumb to age while they are still young. She had seen the truth of this herself -- as a child, she remembered the scarred face of her mother, but she had not remembered the sagging of her flesh, the whip thinness, and the altogether tired manner of her.

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