"Come join us, elder!" The youth called out. The Snowpaw pack had accepted him into their fold, with open arms, they had taken him in in a time of need. Their pack was small, only one family and a friend, an elderly friend who had decided to stay and help them hunt through winter. It was hard to call back the details of scenes such as this, scenes that were so beautiful and content. There had been so many, and the eyes of the black wolf were blind to them. For these years, these long, long years between the two places he had called home, the beleaguered wolf had hidden within himself. The self who had experienced this, whose memory this was, had not enjoyed a moment of the family's trust or love. Not a moment of the undeserved gift granted the most unworthy of demons.
"Why are you so quiet, these days?" the mother said to him, laughing as she so often did around her oldest son, who she, through subtle device, sought to make more cheerful. The father--his name had been forgotten--was out teaching their two young daughters to hunt. VoidFane's other self had been emerging for some time, enough that the family had grown attached. Now, the dominant side, the one who always fulfilled their task, had begun to reassert himself, and it was time to complete the objective. The mother had started alright, but the father was a shifter. That meant that all of them were. Lycanthropes like himself. VoidFane rose to his towering height, and approached the two of them. His demeanor was cold, empty, not the humble and unprepossessing wolf they were used to. Something was wrong.
"E-elder? VoidFane? What's the matter with you?" The great were, staring its ghostly white eyes into those of the confused youth, casually, effortless, reached up to his face, slow and unassumingly, like he were brushing a bramble from the coat of a friend--and opened his throat. The boy could feel the touch of the claws to either side of his neck, and then the snapping, crushing force as strength suddenly surged into those fingers, opening arteries on both sides, and cutting open the trachea. He fell to his knees, eyes wide, choking. The image was more painful than anything his killer's other self had ever wanted to see. The mother's face fell, she screamed wretchedly, a sound that, even in one's death throes, one would never make. Anguish, true anguish, in its purist form. She fell to her son's side. Without emotion, without ceremony, the great, gangly terror knelt slightly on its long legs, and took her throat from beneath with its wicked claws. She gaped, and rolled onto the grass, dying beside her only son as their murderer stalked off toward her husband and daughters.
It wasn't long before he found them. Part of him, now, retrospectively, railed against what the monster intended, but VoidFane had become very good at shutting that voice out. The owner of that voice had created him, and designed him to be the stronger of the two. It was his will that would prevail. The father was in the next building with his remaining offspring. For some reason, it didn't register as incorrect that this should be taking place in the Concrete Jungle of Bleeding Souls...it had been where he died, why not where these five died, as well? He would take the father first, only to reduce injury. The black, seemingly blind ten-year-old would take no pleasure in their deaths. It was simply an objective, nothing more.
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There’s a lot of things that she presumably ‘knows’ in this post, so let me know if you want it changed, ^=^ Are VoidFane’s eyes white also? I wrote it as if they were, ^=^
500+
The woman held Badb in her hand as she stood before the flames. The night was dark and cool, and the flames were bright and warm. The wood popped, sending bright embers into the air, called forth by the flickering tongues of the ceremonial flame. Badb sang quietly in her hands, its song of war calling her, tugging at her heart. The woad warrior threw in a handful of herbs, and the fire that stood within the forested clearing sprung up as if alive, as if magic had called upon it to grow. The white orbs shone brightly as she watched the blinding light unblinkingly, seeing farther than the light and deeper than the dark. Suddenly, a sharp cry shattered through her mind, and yet it was distant. The woad bound ears lifted, but the hold of her gaze did not falter. The urgency of the blade’s song increased, thrumming like a wild heart in her grip. Then, suddenly, the woad warrior knelt. The blade bit the earth deeply, the exposed blade reflecting the light of the flame like a beacon. The warrior tied anew the red-dipped Raven’s feather into her hair, and it whispered quietly to the sword—a promise. And then the warrior had gone, moving from that real world into the distant world of her Dreaming.
Suddenly—or perhaps it had always been this way—the world was bright, the air warm in the daytime. It was almost peaceful, and the warrior was content. The city was familiar and yet different—her mind vaguely recalled that she loved, and that she loved Onus; her mind recalled that he lived in the city, and that she could find him here too. But this world was different, surreal—and yet how real this all seemed. Purpose escaped her, but for a moment, in this place there was nothing save for her and the world. And the world sang softly to her, its ethereal voice moving through the air. And the air touched the Raven’s feather in her mane, its soft fingers kissing the Dreamer’s connection to the world in which she truly existed. But the tranquility of the world was shattered by a blood curdling scream. This sound...she recognized it. It was the same scream that had called her into this Dreaming, and it called her with a purpose. Immediately the woad warrior was running, her fluid movements carrying her in silence. This place was foreign, but her feet were guided by something greater than herself, and she flew as if familiar to the place of the murder. Pausing in the doorway, the woman’s white orbs beheld the scene of fallen, their blood hot and fresh. And there was another scent that lingered there, that lead away from the scene—and suddenly she was following that new trail. It occurred to her then that this was not Halifax and that there was no Onus.
The creature she tracked was not along—she could hear several voices ahead, and the warrior somehow knew those voices were his quarry. She bore no weapon, having relinquished the song of Badb to call her back from this Dreaming, but she required none. There was a father and two younger females—his daughters, perhaps. The woman said nothing to the family but turned instead to face the direction in which the murderer would pass. Her ears were erected, her posture straight but relaxed, preparing herself for what was to come. And for some reason, she felt compelled to stop this killing, for these creatures she felt were innocent. What was their crime? The path of the male was intercepted. He came into view immediately, and his form struck her. None of her mental training could have prepared her for this. He towered over her with fur black as the shadows of an abyss, darker and deeper than the night. But his eyes—her own were locked upon them. They were as hers were, and like her, it appeared that he could see. Her gaze flickered to his hand, drenched in blood. Her eyes went back to his, her right foot sliding behind her as she prepared herself for an attack, her woad tipped tail flickering behind her. "You cannot have these souls," the alto melody called suddenly, her voice almost foreign to her. It had been written.
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The nightmare at first said nothing, looking down its long, lupine nose at the shapely, ethereal interloper. There was an ephemeral quality to everything here, where its other self could be tricked into believing a dream, it knew well the tension of true flesh, the scent of blood, the texture of meat and sinew. It had killed too many to not know the difference. And so it was that the oldest of monsters, the hoary devil from the far north, knew that it had met the foreigner in a world not its own, and still it did not forget its purpose. The reality of the situation hardly mattered. It saw werewolves.
"I have no want of their souls," it said flatly, its voice empty and uninflected. "I can only rend their bodies. The bodies carry the sickness, and so the bodies must be destroyed. You do not possess the power to oppose me." The old man was slowly drifting forward, like a cobra poised and inching--ever closer--to its prey. His arms were disproportionately--almost freakishly--long, and the implications of how far he might reach if he were also fast were terrifying. His ears wreathed his head like bat-wings from hell, and his pallid eyes--in every way a match to her own--stared out like death from his skull. His age only underline the aging wolf's affiliation with death, as if the two were partners in their dealings with the living. If any living thing might make the claim of knowing death, it was this man. For more reasons than just appearance, as the dreamwalker would soon discover.
"Your body must needs be destroyed, as well. The lycanthropy is within you." The father and daughters went on in their happy practicing, oblivious to the dark-hued counterparts, each representing death in their own right. They were clearly figments of a dream, but not conscious ones, as the two of them here. Nonetheless, it was a shame that they were not real, for a helping hand could do nothing but help against such an enemy...the werewolf--if indeed that's what he was--stood head and shoulders above the family's savior, and outweighed her two to one. If the empty shell of a wolf could feel overconfidence, it would have.
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For a moment, there was silence. The woman merely watched this strange spectacle, this creature that was like some shadowy wraith of the netherworlds. When he spoke, the sound of his voice was somehow familiar, as if from a different shade in a different world. And the warrior’s head tilted slightly, those woad bound ears pricked forward to better hear that cold, empty sound. Corvus Vendetta Fear moved in her heart like a tiny worm, writhing there in a place she could not see but only feel. She knew that voice. She knew the darkness of his fur. But there was no white upon his chest. It was like the mockery of some nightmare, those eyes set within the head to mock her as if to be a strange distortion of her self. And yet...he did not feel the same. He was different, his purpose different. Only the darkness was the same, so horrifying and yet so beautifully dark, like the inky void of an overcast nighttime sky, the world laying in a pitch darkness without a single beacon of guidance. The darkness was dangerous—one could get lost if one was not careful. And yet, all at once, the woad warrior did not want to resist it.
"Perhaps I do not have the power to oppose you," the alto melody replied, "but here I stand nevertheless to meet you." The warrior did not believe in coincidence. She was here before this creature of darkness and death that carried her eyes within its head for a reason. Even if that reason were to die, she was there. "You cannot have these lives," that Caledonian melody continued, her words essentially the same as they had been; only his quarry had been modified. As the unnatural creature glided forward, his movements wraithlike and ethereal, the woman took an involuntary step back. She could not see what he was going to do—it was as if there were a wall between them, as if he were no more a part of this Dream as she was. But then she stopped, psychologically digging her heels into the concrete. Silently she crushed that worm of fear from within her. The crime of the dead had been the sickness in their bodies, but she did not quite understand what that meant.
And the warrior was enlightened as he spoke of her own body, of her own death and sickness. "My body’s time is not yet up, but this sickness was not embraced by it. A mother’s egg cannot stop the seed of a father." There was a brief silence that fell between them. "You cannot change the world until you have changed yourself," the woman continued with that ancient proverb. "Perhaps you should begin this purge with your own life." Then the woad marked fae allowed a quiet growl to sound in warning: he was too close. And yet the woman did not yet attack. She wanted to see first what this male would choose to do. Those long limbs would surely reach out to devour her life as they had with the bodies she had passed. But was that an attack? No, that was an end. "And with their blood spilled into the earth—will not some other, greater pestilence arise?" The warrior knew nothing of the science of the world. She knew only war.
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OOC: My apologies for my reply before...it wasn't edited very well, lots of repeated words and other things that interrupted flow, not very inspired >< I'll try to make this one better. Last one of the night, for me, but I look forward to continuing tomorrow!
IC:
"Pestilence is not my enemy," it said simply, pausing itself. It desired to know more about the creature that opposed it. It did not assign special relevance to her eyes, merely assuming that--like itself--she did not see in color. "Lycanthropy destroyed the life of my creator. His morals were strong, as strong as his resolve to take vengeance against the sickness that destroyed his life. His mind broke. I am the shard that will take vengeance, that will erase lycanthropy. Expunging it from my own flesh is beyond my ability, but even were it not, the sickness is good at destroying itself. This body could not execute my aims without the sickness." It voice was void of emotion, mechanical, as dead as the rest. The creature may well have seemed-wraithlike, save for the dread strength in those long, grotesque arms. What was worse was the speed with which their claws could remove life. A great deal of experience had been necessary for that comfort and alacrity with murder.
"Besides," it intoned. "I have already killed them, before." A brief flash of the fallen father, and crushed children, appeared in a puddle at their feet, run-off from a summer storm. A glimmer of a past that was a future here, a past that--outside of the dream--was very real. "And many others." Slowly, a progression of images shown through the water, like disjointed images from a projector, slowly at first, but becoming faster. Brutality, murder, impassive, uncaring, pointless killing. Countless bodies. Tiny reflections of those images began to show across the filmy surface of the monster's eyes.
"Our meeting will be a violent one," it warned, its voice a dry echo of someone living. Even in life, it had sounded so...a shard was all it was, a fragment of a whole, all the pieces for a killer, divorced from all passion and reason behind the killings. A perfect machine, with no off-switch. A demonstration in futility, a rage that could never be satisfied, given life of its own in the form of this perfect killer. Ironic, that the machine designed to carry out the creator's rage, should have none of its own. "Will you stand against me, regardless?"
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Hehe, that’s okay! This thread is making my dead muse feel better, ^=^
500+
The black fae tilted her head, not quite understanding. "Who is your creator," the quiet melody inquired, her words slow, almost careful. Often, the use of that word, ‘creator’, implied a god or a higher entity. And yet...it did not quite seem as if this obsidian creature discussed such a thing. And it seemed as if the sickness were a double edged sword, both needing to be destroyed and yet its presence allowing for him to destroy the carriers. She wondered, then, in what manner this ‘creator’ had been destroyed, and why this creature who so apparently felt nothing felt compelled to do this duty. Why did he even bother—what was the end of it all, and was the end worth it? Was it worth the killing of these lives?
When he spoke again, when he spoke of killing, it was as if she could see what passed before the mind of the black brute, moving and with arms like a spider. He was a killer—she knew it. The brutality of his ways, the cruelty of each kill, flashed before the woman’s eyes as she stared into the white orbs of the other. She was transfixed, both intrigued and horrified. A quiet intake of breath was made by the Caledonian-Korean warrior, but whether it was in awe or in horror could not be ascertained. "Why kill," the quiet voice said at length, "that which Nature has bestowed upon us? Has not Nature allowed us to die? I was once a wolf too, and now—" Well, now she was able to make those shifts. Her body had been born with that disease, though she had not known it—or had her rape by her father changed her? The thought occurred to her so suddenly that she knew it must be true.
The woman met the warning with a silent nod. She had not doubted it. And she knew also that it must end with her death. Regardless of skill, this creature was far larger, and Death was written in the hands that hung like fetters from those arms. A quiet breath released with resolve from her breast, escaping in a inaudible, intangible, invisible cloud that gathered before that woad bound maw. "I will." There was a certainty in that quiet melody, as if those words were made with a promise. And it was strange that the woman should decide so. It was not strange because she chose to fight, for surely it was the song of battle that allowed life to persist within her body. It was strange because she knew that she could not win, that she could not overcome this otherworldly creature. And it was not a need of honor or glory that moved her, for she did not require these things. No—she finally understood. She fought now, moved now, because she wished to understand this black creature with eyes of bone white. And what better way of knowing than through battle? Well, there was another way, the woman thought with her failed attempts at humor, but this was not the time for such a thing.
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It isn't sized properly, but I found VoidFane's old avatar! It's from when he was a ghost, though <<
"The sickness is not a creation of nature," the specter explained, "It came from hell." Whether the wolf meant this literally or figuratively, it was difficult to be sure. "The sickness, lycanthropy, destroyed that which was precious to my creator. His body, the body of his rival, the body of his mate, the bodies of those that saved him in his time of need, all these were rent asunder by the lycanthrope." His ghastly eyes looked right through her, expressionless and blank, windows into the void inside.
"My creator was named HawkWind," it said after a long pause. "He is the one I keep chained." A new flash in his eyes, a small image, but distinct: the form of an unshifted black wolf, his face turned away, head hung low in his misery, body wracked with his weeping. He looked younger than the being here, but they might have been related. "I do what he can not. I carry out the judgment that his guilt bars him from seeking. I am his vengeance, which can not exist beside his guilt."
With that, the creature stepped forward, and brought his left hand high, the claws still caked with clotting blood. The swing came a moment later--the beast had not moved quickly, but with peculiar calm, as if he didn't conceive that she might try to avoid him. While the setup for the blow came slowly enough for her to easily dodge, the top speed of the claws at the end of that long, long lever-arm, made the wind whisper with its passage.
"You bear the sickness, too. His vengeance applies to the lycanthrope residing in your skin."
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Haha~ That’s cool, ^=^, a bit how I pictured him~ And there’s a bit of pp; feel free to do whatever, hah
500+
From Hell. her mind repeated. The white eyes watched the other with that quiet intensity. And it had destroyed the creator—his body but those of the ones he loved as well. There was a sliver of understanding that dawned upon the black fae. This whole thing—the situation and the creature that stood before her (or was it she that stood before him)—went back to a single instant in the vast pool of time. His creator was called HawkWind, he said, and it was the obsidian creature that kept him chained. No, this creator, this HawkWind, was no god, for the gods could not be chained... could they? "And who are you?" The woad warrior met that empty gaze as she spoke in that quiet manner. He claimed to be Vengeance, but that was not what she meant.
And the flash within those colourless orbs depicted a black wolf consumed by misery. She felt as if all these things—the destruction caused by the claws of Vengeance and the misery of the wolf who she assumed must be HawkWind (although the similarities between the two did not escape the scrutiny of the warrior)—had been caused by fear. The fear of loss. Once the female had feared such a thing, and that which she had sought to keep had nearly been pushed away. Was this black creature any different? His being was made of that Vengeance. She could smell it in the air. There was hate and anger, but, above all, there was nothing. There was nothing as if behind the bone white of those eyes there was an empty shell where that guilt-ridden wolf lay shackled in the darkness, drowning, consumed by that darkness. "Then you fear the very Death you so willingly give, and you fear Loss." There was a brief pause after her declaration, but she did speak it with accusation. "Where your creator weeps with his loss, unable to let go, here you are, thrown into existence to destroy and cause the same pain HawkWind suffers for your vitims." It was a strange cycle for the warrior to behold.
He is not my enemy, but the enemy of my body. And then the attack was made. The warrior stepped deftly to the side, avoiding those deadly claws by mere hair-widths. Somehow the woad marked fae found the movement unnerving, so patient and yet inconceivably fast. It was as if this creature of Vengeance were truly a creature from another world, a world in which she did not live and did not know. Her own had shot out, following the path of the creature’s, using the momentum of that long limb against him. She sought his wrist, grasping it, but it was strange to touch him, strange to jump into the mouth of the snake. The warrior could do nothing then, for the limbs were unnaturally long, robbing the efficiency of the technique that she had planned to utilize. Immediately she released the hand, a slight flick of her wrist used to knock it further across his body. Taking several graceful and deliberate steps forward, her fist twisted in the air to lay a blow to the obsidian male’s ribs.
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The female was skilled. Small though she was, she managed to enter his guard and strike him. There was more meat on his ribs than his bony arms implied, but still little enough that the blow caused pain. The creature didn't roar, it didn't flinch. Instead, it backed away one long stride, its eyes having not even blinked, it stood straight up, and for the first time, the light touched his chest and belly to expose...ruin. Brutal scars criss-crossed his flesh, clearly left by claws, and for the finer lines, evidently steel or glass implements. The moment seemed to freeze...indeed, this dream battle seemed sluggish by comparison to one in the waking world.
"This body has sustained grievous injury in the past. You seem able, but I have learned that I am inordinately difficult to kill." The sun seemed to flicker in the sky, then sink, casting long shadows from the two wolves onto the sheer face of one of the decrepit buildings. There, her shadow became that of a taller, broader man, wielding a long, two-handed blade. The blade drove into the monster's shadow, and through, impaling it before her shadow wrenched the sword free, and the beast fell off the wall.
"My mission is not well understood by those afflicted by the disease. Indeed, they resist at every opportunity. Sometimes, their resistance has come close to succeeding, but never completely." The sun skipped rapidly through the sky, years passed in a moment, and the man her shadow had become was murdered from behind from the very monster he had lain low.
"My creator did not know of me for many years after my birth. When he discovered me, he named me VoidFane, and attempted to destroy me." The wraith wolf paused then, and was silent for several heartbeats. "He failed." With that, the monster ceased his speeches and started forward, one claw lashing out, then another. The pace of the dream began to hasten...VoidFane would attempt to assert reality into this plane, and kill her in an arena that both she and it knew best.
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700+
As her fist made contact, she felt that quiet satisfaction that all warriors felt at such a thing. And the song of war that had begun its overture rose up with emphasis upon that blow, though its crescendo was weak. The warrior knew, for it was her soul that sung that song, that that blow had only been the first and would not be the last. And the brute seemed unfazed, though he took a step back. The warrior shifted her position, taking up another stance. And the obsidian creature fell back into the light, the light that like magic lit up his scars. Her own scars that marked her back seemed few and insignificant to what lay across his hide. So many, the warrior thought quietly, allowing that drawn out moment to sink into her mind as the sun’s warmth through a frozen body. Her eyes openly explored those long forgotten wounds, and she wondered how many years lay upon the shoulders of that black creature that now sought to destroy her body.
His words were strange—he spoke as if he were not alive, as if he had been created for just that very purpose, and that through the difficulty of destroying him he had become an efficient entity. Of course, if what he said was true, and she did not doubt the words that had been spoken, he had indeed been created for that very purpose: Vengeance. That word rang in her mind once more, the dying echoes of that sound warning her. The white orbs flickered from his body to the shadows that danced around them, watching with mild awe at the strange vision that took place. The shadows moved with a whisper of prophecy, and yet, they fell still, returning to the stillness that bound them to the mortal bodies of the two wolves that faced each other. She was silent as he spoke, her eyes allowed to look at the strangeness of the sky above, then lowered to watch as he destroyed her shadow having leapt to life once more. Prophecy indeed. If she died here, she could not return to the other world, to the one she loved. If only for the latter, the woman could not allow the male to destroy her. And yet, it seemed as if she had brought that certain fate upon herself.
"Perhaps he failed," the quiet melody countered, "because he did not truly oppose that which you seek to do." Of course the warrior did not know the creator, HawkWind, but she knew of the darkness that lingered in every heart, in her own heart. Would not loss have invoked such a darkness? Perhaps HawkWind had known that this VoidFane should be killed, but if he had fear and hate within his heart also, VoidFane would not have been able to be destroyed. Or so the woman believed. "I am not here to destroy you," the alto melody said suddenly, "but to simply stop you." Or perhaps here, with this male, it was the same thing. But the woman differentiated the two very distinctly. And she felt that she must not fail.
He lashed out against her once, then twice. The warrior moved back, her footing light and swift. Each time she only barely avoided those deadly claws, knowing that if they caught her, she would be dead before she had the chance to do otherwise. The slower movements increased in tempo, the careless Dream world suddenly mimicking the world of the Real. The woman realized that if she did not do something, he would have her trapped against the wall of a building. With effort, the woad marked fae sought to change the direction of VoidFane’s path. In doing so, a single claw grazed her collar bone. That single, practically insignificant cut made her feel suddenly vulnerable, as if the cold were clawing its way into her through that tiny space. It was unlike anything that could happen, but she felt it. The warrior sought to shake it off before she moved it dangerously close, and she felt the danger more acutely here with that proximity where she would normally have felt more comfortable, in control. Her arms blocked both of his, seeking to knock them away before she spear-handed his solar plexus.
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Martial arts! Nice touch with the 'dead in this world dead back home' idea.
Its attacks came faster now, its body still entertaining the feel of someone out for a walk or on their way to visit a friend, a nonchalance toward death that hinted at a long running practice. The creature had done it for a long time. At the time of its death, it had been fifteen. Many of those years the constructed consciousness had been on its quest, and hundreds had paid in blood for its duty. His legend had grown with time, but had never followed him to his final resting place. The Wraith Wolf's path of destruction had stopped abruptly before reaching Bleeding Souls. Before its creator had finally managed to find a modicum of peace.
The warrior wove deftly within the giant's guard, deflecting his more powerful arms, and driving a blow into the center-point of his torso, doubling the beast over as the organs within jolted with the impact. Nonetheless, it had sustained great pain through its years; it had been beaten, clawed, had its flesh slashed desperately by the dying, been impaled by the brave sword of Malros...the pain of a hundred lifetimes was scrawled across its flesh. It was terrible in its simplicity. It did not care. It had learned the limits of this body--expansive as they were--long ago, and pushed the body to those limits readily. Death was its quest, forever, ceaseless, because it knew now that lycanthropes were too many and too far-flung for it to ever dispatch entirely. It would carry out its function until the body fell apart. And that was all. He hung his massive head, nightmarish in visage, toward her, and even as his body reacted to her blow, his jaws opened to take her face and from that holding point, kill her. That, however, was not to be. The scene froze, even as the beast lurched forward, bringing its long, inescapable arms to engulf the woad-warrior, and a quiet, saddened voice spoke, as if from someone who stood between the two.
"Why do you oppose him? Why risk yourself for those who are already dead? This dream...it's my misery, my memory...that father and his daughters, they aren't dreamers like you, they can't truly die, not again...not here. He will resume his attack, you must flee him!"
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Hahhah~ ^=^
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The warrior’s attack struck him, and the giant fell back, doubled over. Yet she felt that, once more, her attack, while it had made that satisfying contact, was nothing to this black creature. She watched his form, knowing that she should simply attack again, to take advantage of that single instant in which he was vulnerable. But there was something about this vulnerability that seemed false. This battle was insurmountable—she knew that suddenly. She could not find his weakness, for surely it was not the physical. And she wondered if there was even enough within that mind for a psychological weakness to be found; the black fae doubted such a thing could exist, for there was nothing left within in save for that need to destroy. And yet why did she remain? Why did she continue to resist him if she knew? This could not be her battle to fight—she sensed that it could not be her end, not yet. But if she remained, if she continued to oppose this VoidFane, she would fall. She was not strong enough to defeat him—not at this point at least.
As his jaws parted, she turned her head to the left. While her neck was still exposed, it was not so vulnerable as it would have been had she looked up. Those jaws came to kill her, and her hands rose forth, one raised in a fist to come down like a hammer upon the bridge of his nose to blind him and the other ready to press into this throat, into his trachea to thwart or even kill him. But, even as she moved, even as he closed in for the kill, the world seemed to stop, a moment, frozen in time, their bodies immovable. Only her mind seemed to work, and she heard the voice, a voice both familiar and unfamiliar. The voice was filled with a great sadness. The voice asked of her the same question she had asked of herself, and she paused. She knew that this was a Dream, but she had met this monstrous creature for a reason. Even if she must die here, in this Dream world, she must oppose him. Her only regret would be to leave behind the man she loved. But she could no longer fear that loss—she must not.
"I oppose him," she replied at length, "because I can, because I must." But why she must still eluded her—she did not yet have that reason. "It’s too late to flee—look! He comes already." And surely, in that frozen moment, the arms of the beast wrapped about her, to crush her, rip her, to do whatever it was that was required to destroy her. There was no fear in her heart. She did not fear Death. And, while she feared this obsidian creature because of his similarities with the crow wolf, and because of the reflective nature of those eyes, she crushed that fear with her resolve. It was pointless to resist, but she resisted anyway. Her eyes did not close, but mentally they did, ready to accept whatever Fate had to offer.
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Hope this is okay!
"No," the voice pleaded. Time froze again, just as she raised her arms to fend off his fangs, just as his arms tensed to overpower her, just as VoidFane was moments from tearing away the life of a true, living person. "Please don't...so many have tried. It isn't your fight to win, it's my fight to lose, as I have been losing. A prisoner in my own body for so many years--" as the faint voice spoke that last word a rushing of wind could be heard and the sun fell out of the sky. Black descended on them, enough to engulf the two shadows and wolves both.
When next light fell upon the landscape, VoidFane was gone, and there stood a ragged wolf on four legs. It was the miserable wolf from before, but upon closer inspection it was evident that he was not related to VoidFane, he was VoidFane, or at least appeared in the same body. His eyes were glazed and white, he was getting on in years. The sun did not rise, but only peaked over the horizon. On either side of the two figures towered immense walls, rough and jagged along their length...in the dim light, they could be made out as vast sheets of bolted steel, with blood spewing out between cracks in that metal. The biggest holes in the walls were packed with bones and broken glass. HawkWind's dreams were much more symbolically charged than VoidFane's, whose dreams invariably concerned the same processes.
"Come," the old wolf said, his exhaustion evident in his voice. The horrific walls creaked ominously, apparently slowly yielding to a sea of bones and blood. "We must make it to an island before we are overtaken, there is one nearby." He ran off toward the nearest high-ground, hoping that the flood would not take this dreamer with it.
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Sorry about the slight delay—had to take care of some joiner threads, ^=^;;
500+
Death had been so close. She felt it extending from his arms like the tendrils of darkness that clung to her own father’s being. And the warrior felt that quick fear because of it, as if she feared that suddenly this black creature would become her father. But she was intrigued with death, with the realm of the unknown, her naturally curious nature allowing her acceptance of the world and the events that were bound to her soul. But then time seemed to freeze, to stop. Everything was different, suddenly distant and unattainable. That familiar voice rang in her ears, both loud and silent all at once. She understood what it said, she understood that this battle belonged to that voice. This was not her battle. That battle existed in the other world and was yet to come. And suddenly, vaguely, she realized that this voice was more than just familiar, that it was the same as the voice of the obsidian creature—
The world fell in darkness, the winds of change and of Fate rushing by as if, abruptly, the path upon which she tread had been wrenched from beneath her feet to take her elsewhere. Suddenly, the darkness lifted, and she stood there before another that did not hold Death so closely to her body. The white orbs considered the wolf and she was compelled to shift—it came easily, swiftly here. She breathed and became what she was born to be. There, level with his face, she was able to see into those white eyes. Yes, this was VoidFane—and yet it was not. It was strange, like the mutual paradoxes of one being wrenched from each other, split as the egg of a twin and yet not one. What had divided this soul? Could it truly have been that sickness, as VoidFane had said? Briefly, the black fae scanned this world in the half light of dawn. It was surreal, like something her natural mind could never conceive on its own. The blood and bones that jutted from the cracks and holes of this strange prison made the warrior’s thoughts pause.
The Raven Dreamer turned her head suddenly at the sound of his voice, her white orbs seeking out the shadowy form once more. He commanded her to come, and she did so immediately, sensing the danger that pressed against those metallic walls. The smaller female ran alongside his weary form, her woad bound paws carrying her through this strange world of blood and bones. It was like a place cursed, the remnants of the Dead rising up about them, contained only by that thin, unnatural wall of metal. "You’re HawkWind, aren’t you, and VoidFane?" the woman inquired, suddenly understanding in whose presence she was. "Why are you here—how are you here?" the woad marked female could not quite understand why or how this place could exist, and she did not even know where this was. It was too surreal to be real, and yet, was this not a Dreaming?
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No worries, there need to be priorities. I'm studying, so if I'm a little late myself, you know why =P
"They are both me, after a fashion," he replied as they ran up to the base of the hill that would be their salvation. A terrifying groan emerged from the channel they'd escaped. That channel extended back hundreds of miles, over a decade of history. It was impossible for him to ever know exactly when it would collapse in on itself, but he knew that time was coming. Suddenly, that groan was replaced by a screech. Somewhere along that line, a memory had broken through. The blood was flooding in, and its roar resonated deafeningly between the walls.
"Climb!" he yelled. The base of the hill was ringed with viscera, dried organs and draped skin. Sickening, but infinitely better than being swept away by the crimson wave that was about to overtake them. Doors to human cars, old rusty pipes, splinters of wood and bent nails jutted from the sides of the astonishingly tall island...no, not island, it was simply a pile of refuse. Random odds and ends he could rely on to take his mind away from the memories, if only for a short while. It was piled to a dizzying height, precarious in its balance by its unusually sharp gradient. Flimsy as it looked, he knew it would keep them above the tide for now. He wasn't always fortunate enough to find an island when the dam burst. Eventually, they reached the top, and the flow of scarlet washed out in a fierce torrent from between the walls, coming up to half-way up the island.
"That's impossible to say. I remember dying...twice. Once in body and once in spirit...not counting the times my other self should have died. Those scars aren't just in the dream...my body bore them, and they should have been fatal...but it wouldn't die. I don't know how or why I am dreaming again. Why are you here, in this dream?" His question was pointed, he had never encountered another living person in his dreams until after his death, when VoidFane had begun luring innocents into them. He did not want that to happen again. He had never found peace, but he had been certain he'd found oblivion.
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500+
The black fae ran silently alongside the male. It was as if two wolves of the same origin had met, the living differentiated only by the woad markings. But beneath the woad, she was of the same appearance: her coat black and her eyes an iridescent white. This Dreaming was strange, like nothing she had quite Dreamt before, and it was stranger that the creature she met was like a mirror of herself. She wondered if people saw an emptiness when they looked within her eyes, for surely that was what she had beheld in the eyes of the other. When he spoke, the white orbs turned briefly to look at him before they were forced to return to the path ahead. It made sense that the two creatures were actually the same entity—the words of VoidFane held more meaning. The obsidian giant’s Creator had been this wolf, HawkWind. Quite literally, the mind had created VoidFane, and that thing had taken over. The thing of Vengeance had told her that he kept his Creator chained, and she believed that he had mean it quite literally. And now, it seemed, HawkWind existed only here—was this place within the black destroyer’s mind?
There was an ominous groan behind her, but the warrior did not stop and turn to look. She knew enough to know that the sound was not a good one. Immediately, HawkWind ordered her to climb, and she did. Her limbs worked as she silently mounted the strange, artificial hill. The fae attempted to leap over the base of the hill, for surely the decay of tissue would hold some sort of pestilence. She had seen such things on the battlefields of other Dreams, but this was somehow different. It was putrid in her mind. Where very little disgusted the black fae, this disgusted her now. And the rest of the hill, its height great, was littered with other things, some things of which she had never before seen. But she sought sure footing, moving quickly and somehow retaining that grace as she climbed to the top, reaching it as HawkWind did and as the torrent of that blood rushed by, the woman watched as if seeing it before, although she was sure that she had not.
Twice he had died and the monster had persisted. It was strange how the darkness was always eble to exist, to endure while those of light could perish so easily. She wondered briefly why this was—perhaps she had been taught to follow the wrong side. Or perhaps the gods sought to challenge the good at every turn, to allow the evil to suffer and rot in their own self-wrought demise. "What," she asked quietly, turning her gaze from the river of blood, "is it like to die in those ways?" Her query was not spoken with fear but with a curiosity. To experience death in both body and soul, both separately...surely the experience was indescribable. Even as the question left her woad bound maw, she felt that he would not be able to answer simply because words were inadequate.
"I don’t know," the woman answered. She hated answering in such a way—should she not know her own purpose? A soft smile graced the woman’s maw as she stood before this male, her white orbs searching his. "I was Dreaming, and I heard a cry, so I followed it." Often, Dreams were Dreamt with purpose, but sometimes the Raven Dreamer Dreamt without purpose save to explore a different world. "It brought me here—or there, to VoidFane. I don’t know what my purpose is, but I am... compelled to resist him."
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I had several ideas in this post. Let me know if you want me to change any of them. If you want to keep it in the thread, I can reveal Obsidon's history in the next post.
The old black wolf said nothing for a long time after she spoke, only staring at the torrent of blood. He hadn't shed that much, he knew. Not that many had died, but he understood the symbolism. This ocean of blood, of evil, or violated innocence...it pressed in on him from all sides. He had spent his life seeking escapes from that pressure, like this one, mental avenues of evasion to flee a day when VoidFane's deeds, his own deeds, would devour him, and he would die, leaving VoidFane alive, a hollow shell protecting a vulnerable heart, long since dead.
"My physical death was exhausting. I was fifteen years old, and my heart began to labor. A few days later, I dragged myself up to the highest point in the human ruin, and died. The compulsion was to feel strong anxiety when I felt it coming on, but my relief at the final death of the monster very nearly overshadowed that anxious fear completely. I don't think that is usual, though." He offered a very thin, very hesitant smile. "I think most death comes in a sudden wash of fear, enough to override the pain. Most do not feel ready when it is forced on them. That fear persists until their body fails. This I have seen in many cases. Almost all of them were my fault." His features fell again, and he studied the bloody wash.
"You must understand my fear for you. The monster you came to face has killed hundreds in personal battle. Hundreds. That number increases a great deal if you include the mischief it has caused within societies. It successfully started at least two wars. It had my body, and my mind as well. Only my feelings, my scruples...it lacked only inhibition. My greatest sin, perhaps the greatest sin of any wolf, to the world." He wanted to cry, but the tears, most of the true upset, was long since spent.
"Before I suffered my final, true death, he murdered other spirits as a wraith, before trying to possess a new body and continue his legacy of terror. To answer your question...death of the spirit is final. You can feel your self dissolving from the world, the memories and grudges and passions that tie you to the world fraying, the core of your being weakening, dying in a way more profound than anything a mortal can experience. My second death came when my great great grandson and two allies fought my creation, and revealed to it that its existence was a farce." His words slowed down, and stopped then.
"Yes, I remember now. VoidFane had possessed the boy, he had forced the mortal lycanthrope to assume his old form, and prepared to murder my descendant. It was then that it realized its objectives conflicted...his role as an avenger of my slaughtered family insisted that he destroy all lycanthropes, but at the same time he fought to defend families like mine...families like the one I had destroyed when I lost control in my new body. When he...we, discovered that my family survived, and had in fact become lycanthropic after my departure, it was clear that our continued pursuit for vengeance would force us to complete the crime we had thought already committed..." his words were coming faster, more fervent. "My vengeance was slain in an instant, as soon as VoidFane considered the implications of killing my great-great-grandson. The monster I had given birth to ceased to be, and without his power, the allies of my descendant slew me. Because I could not reach heaven, and could not reach hell, my spirit was obliterated, and died entirely." And that was it. That was what had happened. He had forgotten, but his misery was over. It had been for some time. So what was he doing here, now? What was he doing existing?
"This isn't right." The old wolf's words were clipped, abrupt. "The essence of VoidFane and his creator, HawkWind, died that day, their existence stopped. There is no way that I can exist." A shudder shook the piled trash they stood on, and rippled the red sea below them. He turned and locked his pallid eyes with hers. "We are both trapped. I don't know enough to say where, but it might be a coalesced memory...someone else's, or the memories of many others, by the size and vividness of this place. One way or the other, you need to escape." He looked off to the side and furrowed his brow, as if thinking. "I don't know how this came to be...or what fate awaits me outside of this place. The knowledge is here, but that very knowledge insists that I should not possess it." He looked her up and down for a moment.
"You say you must face him. He is much larger than you, and much more experienced. You clearly have a great deal of skill, more than the monster, but I don't want to send you out after it with only that. Can you wield a weapon?" Quickly, he ran to the center of the mound, and began pawing at the garbage there. After a few moments, an incredibly long, beautifully crafted sword came into focus. Its steel was black, and its handle ornate but functional...an aesthetic marvel. It was broad at its base, and the blade itself stretched over six feet, clearly a weapon designed to be wielded only by the largest humans, or perhaps to be a perfect fit for a werewolf. Near the hilt, the metal was engraved with the name: Obsidon.
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Sorry for taking so long! >___< But the tornado storms blew away, ^=^;;;;
700+
The tale of the white eyed male began to unfold through the telling of his passing deaths. He had been fifteen when he had died first, not from battle or wounding, but from a tired heart. And he had not been ready—the woman had touched physical death once before, but she had been ready to die. She would always be ready to die, ready to lay down her life at the end of a blade or within the jaws of an enemy. Her passion was for the battle, and with her life having lived that passion, with Death ever at her heels, she was prepared to and ready to die because she died doing what it was that she was born to do. That was her purpose in life, however simple, and she knew that Death would come for her only when her time was due. That was why she Dreamed the Raven. That was why she followed the Morrigan triple goddess who flew as the hooded crow above the fields of battle. One day the crow would come for her soul as well—but only when her time was due.
He spoke of those deaths riddled with fear—she had seen them as well. But she did not think that he spoke of the deaths in quite the same nature as she herself did. "Perhaps the cruelty of your Other had caused these deaths, but no life is taken without its time. Their deaths served their purpose, if only to show you the horror of what the Other did." And what was the purpose of that? The black female did not pretend to know. A soft smile graced the female’s maw. It was strange how this creature of good had been overtaken by his own creature of evil. But perhaps, at the same time, it was fitting in that world of symbols. "You need not worry for me; if I die, it was because I was meant to fall." The warrior recognized that she was not immortal, and she did not wish for immortality. She strove to be the best fighter that she could be, but in the end there was always someone greater. There was very little pride that blinded her, for she had relinquished it long ago (or had it been stolen?).
The prospect of the soul dying was not something that the warrior was comfortable with, however. She hoped that her soul would be granted safe passage over the river that divided life and death by the Ravens that chose her life to take. In death she felt that her soul would be truly free—but if it died, if it were destroyed, what then? Would it even matter? She did not think so. Perhaps she should just accept such a possibility. And, as her mind crossed the idea of the destruction of a soul, her mind asked the same questions that now were spoken aloud by HawkWind. If the two parts of the same soul had been destroyed, how was it now that they existed? Perhaps that had been changed when she had been called into this Dream, but again for what purpose she did not know. The woman simply nodded—she would have to return before dawn came in the world of the Real, or she would be doomed to fade into a limbo between the worlds. Perhaps that was the fate of a destroyed soul. "Not all things are meant to be known," the woad marked fae responded quietly. "Sometimes we are required only to follow with faith in ourselves."
It seemed suddenly, then, that HawkWind was resolved to return her to battle. She wondered, however, if she would be able to take him with him, to somehow free him from this prison. But the warrior did not know. She trusted that what could be done would be done upon the time of its doing. "Yes," the soft melody answered quietly, her voice barely audible for the roar of blood that moved about their strange sanctuary. The woad warrior stood aside, allowing the black male the room to rummage through these things that must be the remnants of a tortured mind. But then, from the rubble appeared a beautiful blade, a weapon unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was the black blade, not the ornate hilt, that sang to the warrior, a soft, dormant sound that whispered to her of secrets she could not understand, as if the words of the song, the tune of that song, were of a foreign culture. And, as if provoked by that song, the lupus form melted from her, and she donned the shape that could hold the weapon. Her eyes were transfixed on it as her woad fingers reached out tentatively to touch the hilt, her gaze sliding from the black blade to where her fingers made contact. The song rose with her touch before it fell away, and her eyes beheld the letters upon the hilt. She recognized them for what they were, but she could not read them. She did not yet take the sword in her hand. A soft breath, almost a sigh, escaped her as she turned to look back at HawkWind. "What is it called?"
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Dude, tornadoes>roleplay =P Anyway, for reference, the story below details a time when VoidFane was trying to kill an entire town's worth of wolves (a few hundred individuals), and was retreating into a swamp that hid his scent after he made each kill. He isn't supposed to be immortal, as supernatural as I try to make him sound; he just survived his wound/s with the help of a very hardy body and good immune system.
The contradiction of this place roiled in the old wolf's mind. He knew that the information he had was accurate. Beyond anything else, he knew that: this place was built of true memories, and that what he could trust anything he could recall. What, then, did it mean that he was here now? Somehow, he believed that his memories were truer than his senses. He believed he was here now, but his memories told him that could not be. His very awareness contradicted the memories. VoidFane and HawkWind were the same person, VoidFane was not actually separate, rather he was a fragment of the whole which periodically worked its own devices...that whole, and the fragment with it, had been completely demolished. The wraith had been killed on the earth, and no afterlife would accept the soul that deserved far better than hell for its suffering, and was yet far too evil for heaven. Self-awareness insisted existence, and the memories insisted otherwise. The wolf realized with a start--these memories were not his. Whoever he was truly, it was not within his grasp to know. Right now, though this warrior needed help out of this place. The identity he had somehow assumed, and the memories it possessed, would be necessary to achieve that end.
"It is called 'Obsidon,'" he replied, his face serious. She was fascinated with the blade...perhaps it took a warrior to truly appreciate it. To him, its beauty lie only in that it might help her escape this quagmire of filthy history. "It is a human weapon, made in an age when their craftsmanship was at its finest, but such weapons were no longer in use; it was in pristine condition when found. It is a little big for you, but because you are strong and deft with your hands, you may be able to put it to use." He studied the weapon alongside her, appreciating less of its beauty, and more of its history.
"This weapon slew the Wraith Wolf in the swamp south of Malria, after many months of harrowing raids by the demon into the population. The wolves there were beginning to leave, for the monster could not be hunted through the swamp, and struck at will against the people. It was not until one brave soul, Malros, went in search of a weapon and returned with Obsidon into the swamp, that the Wraith Wolf showed itself, confident in the outcome of the battle. Malros ran him through, ran me through, and VoidFane fell backward into a bog, where his body could not be recovered. The young wolf was a hero, and the people decided to become a kingdom, with him as king. It was not until much later that VoidFane returned, completely healed despite the blade's perfect edge, and murdered King Malros in the night." He sat down beside her and the blade, and looked sidelong at the brave warrior beside him. "That father and his daughters...they're just symbols, but you seem bound and determined to rescue them. You agreed with VoidFane that you lacked the power before. With this, do you think you can resist him?" It was no small task, but it was one she insisted on undertaking. He doubted his own identity...he was in no position to deny her.
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500+
Obsidon. The name rang in her ears—or was it the sword that had responded to that sound it would surely recognize? And it was with weapons such as Obsidon that she marveled at the work of humans. Even the simple blade she bore, Badb, was a thing at which she marveled. Yet this blade was different, it’s history great. The blade had bitten the flesh of VoidFane. It had known the creature before and it had known greatness—and fallen. She knew why HawkWind presented the blade to her, and she knew that the blade still hungered for the blood of the one who had slain its previous master. But HawkWind had said that the blade had also ran him through—the woman wondered at that, wondered if the blade could reach farther than the physical. "Will the blade remember," the quiet alto wondered, almost aloud. The white eyes continued to behold it with a curiosity. Her hand tested the fit of the handle within her palm, but still she did not lift it. It was as if she had not yet gained the right. Her gaze lifted to the eyes of the black male.
"They may be symbols," the woman replied with a soft smile, "but a symbol can be more powerful than any physical entity can be. It is with symbols that the world is built, and it is with symbols that the mind is allowed to conceive the world, to understand more deeply than the mere physical can provide." And it was in a world of symbols that the Raven Dreamer existed. She believed her words now more so than ever before, and she knew why she was so compelled to confront VoidFane. "Most simplistically, that family is Life while VoidFane is Death and Fear." There was a slight pause. "And I must conquer my Fear." Her fear, however, was not VoidFane, but Corvus Vendetta, and she knew now her purpose in this Dream, though she knew not yet the purpose of the Dream itself.
"I do," the quiet melody asserted. I must. While the giant VoidFane held a great advantage over her in many ways, the woad warrior felt as if the presence of a blade, and this blade in particular, would allow her the chance to conquer that empty creature. The blade Obsidon surely hungered for the blood of an old enemy, and so long as she wielded that blade, she would strive to satisfy its hunger. The savage song of a killing blade was difficult to resist, and the warrior, whose life was the passion of war, did not resist such pulls. Her mind paused for a moment, however, turning from the immediate task at hand. The white eyes turned to seek the others that were so similar, her gaze almost tentative as she beheld the male, HawkWind. "If I defeat him," the warrior began, and she was not so arrogant as to assume that she would be able to defeat the obsidian thing of vengeance, "what will become of you?"
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