Dreamwaking: Chimera - Sacrifice.

[Carnath-Emory]

Love the moment, Ariane Emory --

Joy wears a beacon, which seems to exclaim two things very radiantly: Join Me, Destroy Me --

Do your best --


Words and sentiments and words, and they sear the mind in a way that sight cannot, for she is no stranger at all to the thunder and wreckage of a battlefield. No stranger at all to the sight of what a well-used axe will do to a man's skull. That Calomel died was inevitable. That his very abrupt death has splattered a thin spray of blood across half her body, across the hand which had uselessly reached. It was the words which preceded this that gripped her, that still does now, his words and so many others', like some unseen passage within the world were unfolding before her...

It illuminates, and all the light of it is warm and bright in her eyes.

Ought she to bristle at her student's unhesitating commands? But there are more things here which are far more compelling than dull reaction. That is Lavender there, a filthy sylph of a thing which she halfway recognises, but that is Malaroth as well, and there is a terrible moment during which she almost starts towards him, during which her eyes are very intent upon his. That is Tebrin approaching yonder, and with him is --

Yes, Glenn. With him is Jirai, and he means to send her in that one's direction, means to hasten a conflict Ariane had hoped never to realise. Or something other than conflict, something else entirely, the very thing which Cinnabar had sworn to prevent.

Was there ever a promise made that death didn't ruin?

There is a bloody grip for Seth Bloodmoon's shoulder as she passes him: it is a farewell, to a man she can't imagine surviving this for much longer; who surely deserves better of it. Jirai is her destination then, but on her way she slows a moment near Burnie's side, there to tilt her head and murmur in icy quietness: "Have care with that one.

Watch his eyes."

[Jirai]

Well. That was two fewer that she had to worry about, wasn't it? Had that been a giggle that escaped the spider-clad drowess at the dual explosions? Quite possibly. There is no response for Tebrin. Quite likely she has ceased listening to him - despite the fact that her gaze had finally settled on Lentham, for one reason or another.

There is an experiment here. One has exploded already, from a lack of movement. One has exploded from his partner's death. Would killing one with a blade produce that same explosion, or would they simply die? Well, here was one way to find out.

The female paused, taking careful aim at the Constable's back. Let him match his friend - her dagger spun through the air viciously.

Only then did she turn to look at Ariane. And she smiled.

[channe]

She stumbles up with the aid of Rhaena’s arms and Glenn’s hands; she’s gulping sobs but wiping her tears on her dirty sleeve; she’s looking at her friends desperately and gratefully, taking a shuddering breath --

Stupid girl. Aeryn’d slap you for crying.

Oh, Cinnabar.

“Nobody more,â€

[Raveness]

Lavender bent down, a pale hand snaked out the grasp the knife's handle within it and bring it up to her body, pressing it near. Her next move was to head toward the Governor, given that he was the only person she really knew here. The only one she ... trusted? Or did she? She at least wanted his take on what was going on and more than anything she wanted to find Cambree.

Just before her feet would carry her anywhere, however, the Governor was no longer standing. She blinked her green eyes, felt the splatter of blood bits from another unknown man, watched as it fell upon the blood hungry ground. She stared, stunned as the governor collapsed and she felt her heart sink, not only for herself, but for her cousin.

"No..." she spoke, without realizing she had said anything. Lent was speaking to her, but she didn't understand his words, didn't understand what was going on. This was much more than something Malaroth could have sprawled on a piece of paper.

Lavender turned away from the people, moving to seek solace instead by a nearby skeleton tree, we must stay together.. trying to hide herself and the others away. Her back pressed up against its boney spinal protrustions as her trembling legs finally give out beneath her and she slides down its trunk, still clinging to the knife in her hand.

Once more, she would begin to rock... Must keep moving... always keep moving.. Did you see what happened to him when he stopped?

[Seth_Bloodmoon]

Greatfully accepts the support of Kurt's shoulder. He would need it to keep moving, that much is a sure thing. A silent nod for the Constable's words of Aeryn getting what he deserves, one way or another. He would keep a tight grip on Twilight Heart, so tight the knuckles of his right hand are turning white. He would not let the sword go, even when death finally won out.
For now death would have to rage for a bit longer, though. Kurt's words of cheating it bring a grim smile to elven features and silence is broken briefly with, "Indeed... Death did not want me when I was willing to accept it... Now death can kiss my elven ass and wait a bit longer..," his voice was tired sounding but there was a trace of dark humor in it.

Ariane's passing squeeze to his shoulder is accepted with a nod to the woman and a grim smile. It was inevitable, death, he was losing too much blood even with the knife still firmly embedded in his back. Sheer willpower and stubborness can only take a dying man so far. The only thing he may argue would be the possiblity that he deserved better, if such had been spoken.

Then suddenly the words 'Constable! On the ground!' are shouted. Only one constable Seth knew of in their vicinity. Kurt, the one supporting him now. He would try to throw his own weight forward, with what little strength he could muster, in an effort to 'help' his link partner to the ground thanks to that warning. He knew not what might have provoked those words but it was obviously a danger to the man.

[Malaroth]

People, he told himself again, there were other people in this horrid world. Warped and twisted, the prison was not something for some twisted intimate encounter between he and the she-devil but it had drawn other people in. Many of whom he knew, either by face or by name, and the dawning realization has him slowing in his barefoot tracks.

Bloodmoon had been laid low by some attack, while some horrid fate had seemingly claimed a pair of men. Ariane was present, as was the mapmaker, along with another woman clad for sleeping. His own slacks, brown and loose, had soaked in enough filth from the ground to be besotted in damp stains all about their cuffs.

The pale woman, hiding her wings with her back against the tree, crumbled to the ground like a withering autumn leaf. His gaze hardened in incredulity, wondering firstly how she had drawn them all here and, secondly, if she were responsible for any of this. Would a creature such as she draw in so many for some perverted pleasure? Weren't her kind given to more private destruction? A pace slowed with dawning suspicion and bewilderment carries him around the loosely organized group in a slow, heavy tread towards the trembling Lavender until the strange girl screamed for someone to get down.

A warrior's life bore tis burden and he quickly closed the distance between himself and Lavender, knife drawn as he dropped into a deft crouch beside her facing outward towards some new devilry.

"We are not alone," he hissed for her, narrowed eyes raking in iron-cold predation across the assembled mass of personages, strange and familiar. His pale hand sought hers, offered open and cool, if caked with remnants of filth from their incline. Better the devil he knew than the one he didn't.

He glanced briefly towards his collarbone, the gem embedded there, and the stirring ache that began to crawl into his flesh.

[Lent]

There was a nod for Seth as he spoke back. Good man. Brave. Not giving up. He was about to say more, about to maybe reach for that giant sword of his so that they would have a fighting chance moving forward, at least for a little while when he heard the scream.

The Kaczmarek girl. The murderess. Karolinger's accomplice... yet she was different. For all her warrior trappings, she was just a kid. Younger than McCoy had been, even.

There was only a moment to decide whether to believe her. On the ground she could put a sword through him easily enough. He did not even have that long to think. Seth was pulling him down. Fighting it would accomplish nothing, so he started to go down.

Agnieskza's scream had come too late. Seth's action, however, may have just been quick enough to save the Constable (and himself) from an immediate demise.

Oh, the dagger struck, but it did not strike true. The angle had changed; the height had changed. The dagger found itself lodged in Lentham's upper back, to the left, below his left shoulder. Unfortunately, even with his uniform on, which added some level of protection, he was a human, not an elf. The quick burst of pain was too much and he couldn't help but fall with the impact, threatening to land right on Seth, threatening to fall right upon him. If that were to happen, there was a very good chance that Bloodmoon might hit back first, with Lentham's weight pushing the hilt of the protruding dagger down into the outlandish ground, forcing the blade even further into the elf's injured body. It would be some thanks for the attempt at a rescue.

[Seth_Bloodmoon]

Seth could have, perhaps, thrown himself out of the path of Kurt's descent. Might have been able to avoid falling on his back. However, luck was not with the tall elf in this matter. No, he could only fall on his back causing pain to flare once again throughout his body as the knife was forced deeper into his flesh. The Constable's added weight would be enough would force that knife even deeper.

There would be no cry of agony from the tall elf. Merely a grunt of pain and a sharp intake of breath. That breath is exhaled in a wet cough that brings up blood. There is a violent shudder that rocks his body as eyes close tightly. Another wheezing breath drawn in only to be exhaled in a fit of bloody coughing and intermingled with this.

"Sorry.. Kurt... can't cheat death... any... longer... Drinks... on me in the... afterlife... if this is real..," managing these few, haggard words intermingled with ragged breathing and blood soaked coughs. Tenacity, stubborness... these things could only last for so long and that time had just passed rather swiftly.

His hand tightens in a death grip about Twilight Heart's handle and another ragged breath is taken. There is no real exhale of this final breath, only a bubbling of foamy blood. Brilliant blue eyes dull as life flees his broken body.

At the same instant Seth's life ends, one may notice Twilight Heart's blade darken, the luster of well polished steel fading. The sword would be useless should someone try to pry it from his cold, dead fingers and wield it.

[Lent]

Fall had shaken him from encroaching unconsciousness. Wasn't quite the impact so much as the consequences of it all. Seth was going to die. He was going to die too. Nothing to it now, not really. "See you on the other side, Bloodmoon. I'm sorry." And he was, and truly, right now it did not matter. It would all be over soon and it was hard to think past the pain coursing through his body anyway. Somehow he was fairly sure, from what the elf had told him, the two of them WOULD end up in the same place, be it a dark afterlife or a dark Myrken.

Seth's breathing was fading quickly. Would give Lentham a few moments, at least. He pushed himself to a kneeling position, meaning to die with some dignity and to allow Bloodmoon to do the same. That allowed him to look around, to see the splattered remains, to figure out just where that knife had come from.

Jirai. The look on her face. The shout from Agnieszka, for it came back to him now. Made sense. Didn't take a detective to figure it out, really.

The Constable grunted with pain as he desperately tried to pull something from his uniform. In the end, it would not seem worth it at all to anyone else, but there it was. A small romance novel. He brandished it in Jirai's direction and spoke as loud as he could manage. "Jirai Auvryrahel. You are under arrest for the death of Suede Roschen. After I get Karolinger, I'm coming for..."

The last word would never be allowed to escape his lips. Reason for that would be that they had been burnt off, that his jaw was no longer attached to the rest of his face, or... more accurately that the rest of his face was no longer attached to the rest of his body. Seth's breathing had halted. There was a gaping volcano of blood where the top half of his skull once resided.

Fifteen feet away, however, the top half, everything from his top row of teeth up landed, skin and hair partially melted away. The eyes remained, however, dead, lifeless open eyes, ones that continued to stare directly at the Drow.

[Glenn]

Hell. Hell. Hell. Glenn clenched the hilt of the now dead Constable's falchion tighter. He would have much rather had Rhaena's hand, some... some semblance of comfort in the midst of this hell. At least Seth had been able to die with some dignity... unlike Cinnabar, despite his poise at the end. At least Agnie was up and moving. They could keep surviving.

Damn it. Seth too. "Wh..what Agnie said. No one else. We get everyone on the same page. We take the fight to this bastard. Don't play by his rules." Bluster was about all he had left. This was NOT the Myrken of the first shared dream, not Kerrak's Myrken. This would not just be allowed! They were not toys to be used in this way.

"So Ariane will talk to Jirai. I'll talk to Malaroth. Agnie, keep on protecting Rhaena." They were in this together now, especially the four of them, but the other four as well. It was just a matter of convincing them.

Just a matter of... hell. There had been no one in Myrken Glenn would have wanted fighting at his side more than Seth (Ariane, likely he would prefer to watch his back. There was a distinction), and few people he would rather drink with. Now that sword was losing its luster. Now his partner had died so gruesomely. Now the elf, having lived over eight-hundred years was no more.

It was a good thing that Malaroth was there, even a good thing that Ariane had warned her student of him, because he was a focus point. It was the only thing Glenn had to keep himself together. He would just focus on Malaroth and bringing him into the fold.

"Sir Malaroth," Glenn said as firmly as he could manage. "Walk with us now and we shall speak of this ... this place we have found ourselves in. We will speak of survival."

[Raveness]

If things had been on fast forward before in her mind, they were now on slow motion. She breathed slowly, but wasn't aware of doing such, but she continued to rock, to move. She thought she heard screams behind her, but she didn't turn to see what was going on back there. She never wanted to see that spot again. The spot where some man's head had vanished and the governor had.. well.. he had. She couldn't bring her mind to think the word.

Her feelings had been turned off, as if someone had flipped a switch. She should be crying, but she wasn't. Just rocking. Just sitting. Lavender struggled to gather a single thought, but her mind was hazy.. foggy.. like Myrken Wood gets some nights after a long day of rain.

Then, Malaroth appeared and kneeled down beside her, knife drawn. Her haunted, vacant eyes glanced at his own cool ones and she let out a soft sigh, like the release of some inner dying butterfly. Without hesitation this time, without even thinking, she gently placed her hand that wasn't holding the knife inside his own. If he wanted to kill her, she would gladly let him in this moment, would happily accept the blade into her body. With her body this numb, would she even feel it?

It was here, in this moment of just sitting and rocking, and she had no idea how long she'd sat as time seemed to sit still, that she came to realize everything was opposite of what she had first thought. Her mind, that was sharp and speedy was now dulled to a mere hum, threatening to stop at any moment. The dark knight whom she thought was to kill her, now she knew, he couldn't without dying himself. Who once was her abductor, was merely just a prisoner himself. Once she had begged for life, now she almost wanted to be put out of her misery and end this place, this nightmare.

Then Glenn suddenly appeared and exchanged words with Malaroth. Her ears heard the words, but her emotional state refused to convert them into any form of spoken language. However, she understood that Malaroth would be leaving her side, at least for a moment.

"Please do not go far.." She pleaded with him with the softest whisper. The hand that wielded the knife moved up to touch the fire gem. It was her tie to him, their bond.

[Carnath-Emory]

Quietly towards Jirai, for that is the quality of bare flesh upon flesh, and that is precisely what her unshod feet are treading upon. Quietly, until the moment in which a knife's flung past her like ruddy quicksilver and then there is time enough only for some shouted warning, and a body that doesn't even turn, because even as she cries this caution she knows that it will be of no use at all.

That is her opinion of the drow's skill with a knife.

As Agnieszka shouts her commands -- it was inevitable that someone would -- she is steady in her approach, and her eyes are for Jirai's own, her attention is for the whole of this drow and her cloak of living things. Lentham's vow is a thing which would grieve her under less kindless circumstances, but that is no weakness she'll allow herself now, is not a distraction that she will permit herself, even when her ears are filled with the unmistakeable sound of shattering bone.

Even when the blood sprays warm and ruddy across the backs of her legs.

"It cannot continue like this." Here is her answer to Jirai's smile, which is a note of stark familiarity within this ghastly place. Here is her answer, this weapon which has been instructed to wield words instead of weapons, and who has very little choice in the matter in any case. Very little inclination, for some strange and unlikely relationship had existed between she and the drow for literal years. Not precisely friendship. Not precisely a truce. And there is reason for something like empathy here, for it had been madness that seized them all the last time, a truly maddened want for visceral violence, and something had gone wrong with Jirai afterwards, as surely as it had with Kerrak.

Something gone awry, and never quite repaired.

"It cannot. You have seen that Dreamwaker as surely as I did, you heard his words. Surely you cannot mean to do his bidding now.

Surely you cannot mean to give him satisfaction."

[Jirai]

She stares at Ariane for a time with a tiny, calm smile. Was she even hearing the swordswoman's words? Hard to say. But the moment Ariane finishes, the dark elf is moving, pacing calmly past - towards the ruin of a body that is not so far beyond. Bending down, two things are snatched up. She turns back to face the swordswoman again, a bloody dagger loosely held in one hand, a bloody book clutched tightly in the other.

"I give myself satisfaction."

"I suggest you leave. Now."

[Jirai]

More deaths. More blood, more explosions marked by those bronze eyes as she clung to Agnieszka. There is a wide-eyed glance towards Glenn Burnie, a wider one towards where Ariane stood, talking with a drow. She started to back away with Agnieszka, until a growing warmth at her throat caused her to stop abruptly, reverse direction until that terrifying heat had faded. The Trader is shaking when she glances back at her friend.

"What are we going to do, Agnie?"

[Malaroth]

"Not going anywhere without you."

It was strange how familiar things could be unfamiliar, and the dangerous things suddenly seem harmless. Whereas once, only a few moments before, he would gladly have risked murdering the devil-girl whose soft hand crept into his own - now he was united with her against whatever creature wore the face of Glenn Burnie. Whatever nightmare this was, whatever foul magic had been worked, the winged girl at his side was the only familiar thing.

In a weird land the tame had become outlandish.

"Not a step closer," he hissed in warning to the mapmaker. He kept his visage held into tight, cold and unforgiving lines as he flourished swiftly with the knife. Though not overly trained in such smaller weapons, the basics came to him rather quickly. He needed to be aware of the weapon's lighter weight and significantly shorter blade. What he would not give for Bloodmoon's sword at this moment. A pity the elf had perished.

"Prove you are the mapmaker," he murmured in suspicious disdain while slipping into a ready, defensive crouch. "I will not fall victim to any more devilry today."

His scowl struggled to withold a grimace as the gem flickered in his very flesh.