& in that darkness there will always be fangs and claws, murder and blood

This content is not visible to non-members.

the staff team luvs u

---

“...How very bold of you to believe you know a man who doesn't know himself...”

Wispy, lusting. She was melancholy for the finer visionaries, a siren bleached of colour with muddles of void seeping from eyes shied of sun. A silver serpent scaled of a past he had not written, though each page bled gently of his musk. He stood before this soothsayer, obelisk limbs triumphed beside such a moonborn diviner; the plunge of cruor upon his face undressing the waxen matron until what was left appeased his Lovecraftian appetite.

He hadn't left those lamenting hymns to coax moving feet, but indignation. A swelling emotion of curiosity beckoning him inward, to break through folly mist and tangled cries caught betwixt her teeth. Her words, yet foreign to both ear and tongue, they coddled to his brow. 

A man of many callings, the glutton of nowhere...

...And she believed she knew his face, his origin, his purpose, his blood.

A dreary breath heaved outward, optics snatching a portrait of the woman who was lingering close behind.

“...Then who am I?”

—

 

---

the staff team luvs u

This content is not visible to non-members.

the staff team luvs u

A vision in white, an angel, a ghost... or something more sinister. What stood before her? Adelaide did not know. For weeks, herself and Voro had traversed hundreds of miles trying to find a place of respite from the sand-wraiths in their recent past. Their gnashing teeth still haunted her nightmares and if she wasn't careful to avoid them, they crept into her waking thoughts wearing grins dripping with malice and gore. Since they had found the snow such thoughts troubled her more. If she squinted hard, the glinting white drifts blurred and became golden, coarse under her feet. She felt the sun's rays and eyes searing her back when she walked; she cast backwards glances more often than she would like to admit.

Nonetheless, she was as happy as she could remember, even Voro was more content now that they had left the desert behind them. They spent the days ambling along, mostly in amiable silence, and during the bitter nights they curled around each other like snakes, each offering the other a safe haven from their Hadean subconscious. 

She had a suspicion something grave had changed. Blocking their path was a formidable woman, one who looked Voro in the eye unabashedly as though daring him to make a misstep. She was not afraid, as she was of the wolves of Sanatorium, but she was watchful. After all, she wasn't the same bairn that had woken in the desert alone those many weeks ago, she had learned how to discern her enemies from her friends. She furrowed her brow at the prophetic way in which the stranger spoke, as if she knew of their arrival. Well, Vorona's arrival at least. It made Adelaide's skin crawl, as if Aeri believed she had some sort of claim on him. 

At Aeri's clinical stare, Adelaide did not cower, though the woman reminded her of Andraste. She stared back with intensity, heat to combat her ice. "You speak of gods and fate, an echo of something sinister we were fed not so long ago. You say you know his face, but not him, nor I, and we do not know you. You say you own these lands and yet you're here alone. It doesn't seem as though we need to explain anything, so who are you?" The girl blinked at her own boldness and peeked at Voro's face. If she had surprised herself, she certainly would have surprised him. But she was not unjust in her sharp response. Aeri looked down her nose at her, both literally and otherwise, and a strange feeling coiled in her gut when she looked between the pair... envy. 
the staff team luvs u

---

“I do not have time for which I do not care about, I came here to live, to hunt, to breed. Not stand here within the snow, speaking as if the common language is a song.” He had expected such things from a frilly word-fucker, tassel erected upon his rear as he traced her through following lenses. Had this been a common occurrence amongst her apparent people? This group of faceless freaks who hide within fog and winter musk? She spoke of many and yet he witnessed few; observing her surroundings through optics lidded with annoyance.

Her phrases did little for him.

Out of vagabonds and corpses, yes, but from Ade? He turned, dropping lengthy jowls to express frustration.

Perhaps his feathered ears fell flat upon her tone, or was it she sang to him in a tune easier to palpate? They were breathing, were they not? Why speak as if on one's deathbed? With roses strangling throats raw from metaphors and personifications. The crow, he sauntered past, beckoning for the plump bitch to linger close by. “We have traveled too far to be halted by tomfoolery, if you insist on speaking, do so when my feet are rested.”

—

the staff team luvs u

This content is not visible to non-members.

the staff team luvs u

Adelaide was becoming just as impatient as her companion with Aerith's antics. She was in a haze of her own fever dreams, wielding power she did not yet have. She turned her soft eyes back to the women to examine her further, and twitched one of her ears in acknowledgement when she heard Voro's sound of agitation. She herself had fallen quiet, contemplating the nap she so desperately wanted. 

With a small yawn, she crossed Aerith's eyeline to walk side-by-side with Voro, who looked rather cross. She offered a comforting bump against his flank, but would save her opinions about their situation for a later time. Well, all but one, 
"What a cur," she said under her breath, careful to ensure none could hear her except perhaps the man beside her. Hearing her curse was a rare occurrence, but using vulgar language to describe another was altogether unheard of. She was travel weary, however, and the woman was like a gnat buzzing around her head in the heat of noon.  

When the ivory pelted madwoman continued her rant at them about her claim over the land, the small girl couldn't help but turn around again. She huffed in annoyance and stomped up to Aerith until they were almost nose to nose (she couldn't quite reach) and planted herself firmly in the woman's way. 
"If I were you, I would stop hurling threats at the toughest man in the world. I've seen him eat wolves bigger than you." She turned on her heels and marched back over to Voro, shaking snow out of her coat. All the ox-shit about her purpose itched her in the wrong way as well, and she called over her shoulder, "Maybe if you were nice, and didn't speak in tongues, we would consider your offer." 

Her ears were hot with embarrassment after her quick descent from anger, and she whispered abashedly, "I feel badly about what I said, do you think I hurt her feelings?" 
the staff team luvs u

This content is not visible to non-members.

the staff team luvs u