Dreamwaking: Chimera - Sacrifice.

[Lent]

It was fine that Seth had gone silent. Fact of the matter was that Lentham was almost done, and then he would do exactly the same. Just a couple of points to hit first. "When I woke up, didn't really want to die much. Didn't want to do much of anything. No ties, right? People would say they had been friends, sure, but wasn't the same. Apparently, I made a name for myself fighting, too, so the promotion stuck. Liability of sorts, sure, but I don't have anything to do with my time but drink and work, and I don't get so drunk anymore." Tolerance from a year long bender would make that rather hard.

Now, to end this story. "Had myself another liability for a partner. Charles McCoy. Young kid, twenty at most. His dad's rich; couldn't find a use for the boy so decided to make a public servant out of him. Believed in Calomel something fierce though. Was standing up for the uniform when Karolinger cut him down. I'll believe that until the day I die."

There was a long pause as he thought over what Seth said. They had obviously been taken from very different places in Myrken. "Last I remember, I was deep in the woods hunting Karolinger." Something of a snort there. So maybe he wasn't JUST hallucinating after all. Maybe he was. It was easier to deal with than the idea that this might be what reality has become. "But once we're out of this, I'll take you up on that Seth. Appreciate it." There was a raise of the mug for Bloodmoon.

[channe]

"Burned down, maybe," she says, pushing her hair back from her face. She looks around, casting glances here and there. "Buried under layers and layers of shit. Ew." She spits on the ground, picking her path carefully in such surroundings. As he lets go of his bravado, Agnieszka picks it up. But weakness?

Neither of them will let that show. Not anymore.

"I'm only worrying about you because if you die, I die." But she stops a moment -- just a moment -- and looks at him with her eyes narrowed. "If this were Hell, then we'd already *be* dead, or maybe if we kill each other we just -- start over. Shitty. What do you think?"

[Seth_Bloodmoon]

Made for a good listener, at the least, while he was silent. There would be quiet nods, now and then, as Kurt spoke and the tall elf listened. Ears focused on words while eyes continued surveying the land as they walked, looking for a way out of this place or for signs of other people.

There would be a minute or two, after his companion finished speaking, before Seth spoke again, "You know, I was a knight at one time in my life..? The Champion of my Order... The Chosen One of my god..," there is no pride in his voice with these words, only regret and perhaps a bit of self-loathing, "Only, my order was nothing like the Shepard Knights of Malaroth's... We did not protect and serve... We conquered and carried out our god's dark will..." eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he tightens one hand into a tight fist.

"I joined the Order to earn power and glory... I hungered for such like a man starving... In the name of Ozmosis, I led armies to slaughter and further our god's will... We sacked helpless villages, leaving no survivors... What for..? Because they would not bow before our dark lord..," anger in his voice, "We waged war against lands that our god desired... Lands that only desired to live in peace... Lands that had done nothing to deserve such attacks..," the self-loathing tone of his voice growing with each word spoken.

"I have ordered children killed right before the eyes of their pleading parents... Parents killed before the eyes of their terrified children... I did it without regret... With pride that I was doing our lord's bidding... Knowing it would earn myself favor in his eyes..," he did not lose his composure as he spoke, a stony expression now holding sway over angular features.

Kurt was the first in the whole of Myrken to hear of these darker days of Seth's past. Well Valaeli knew but she had grown up in the lands of Ilaria and been close to Seth's family. Why did he speak now? Who knew? He wasn't even fully sure why he did. Perhaps it was just to distract himself from this hellish place they now walked through?

A grim silence settled over him once more and there was no clue whether or not he would resume talking. Offer more of his past. People say you should not dwell on the past but such was not easy to accept when there was so much innocent blood on your hands.

[Glenn]

"There are no cities here." Glenn spoke with something akin to confidence. He had been to so many ruins, seen so many dead places that this... this wasn't right. "At least no natural cities." He finally stopped and looked around, thinking some more. "I don't think this is hell either. This is too lazy to be hell. You stick someone in a twisted place and that's enough? This isn't eternal punishment, it's just unsettling sameness, as far as the eye can see. Some of the worst, cruelest bastards out there would probably LIKE it."

It seemed that Glenn had found some of that bravado before Agnie took it all, or maybe she just inspired him. "This is a hell that's too good for them so it's no hell at all. Doesn't change the fact that we're still lost here and that we've got these THINGS lodged in us. You recognize the knife, right? What about them?" And what if the notes were lying anyway? What if he could kill her fine, not that he particularly wanted to, not this moment at least.

[channe]

"I ain't never seen those," she remarks, raising her hand for a moment to hover over it. "It seems like it's stuck in your neck, like -- but you ain't got no blood around it, if you were cut open and it was stuck in you all recent-like you'd have crusty blood stuff. But it looks like you jus' shaved, jus' like the last time I saw ye, and -- well, it's wierd."

She continues picking her way up the hill, and then she shakes her head --

"Kaschei, whate'er 'e is, is a cruel bastard. I think he's like that shitty Massry kid, the bully, the one that chases the chickens aroun' an' plucks up their feathers. Maybe we're the chickens. But if we ain't got no way to find out whether or not this is a dream --"

She looks around, once more. "D'ye see anyone, Glenn? Anyone at all? Look."

[Raveness]

It was the sound no, the roar of the wind bouncing off the trees that finally awoke Lavender. Her eyes fluttered and she lifted her body from the dirt ground, confused and scared. Hadn't she fallen asleep at the tea house? How had she gotten outside?

The air was cold and thick with filth, it almost choked her. She coughed and turned her head to glance at the man not that far from her. What was going on here? Her eyes drifted from the knight back to herself nervous about the white chemise that covered her body and what might show at her back. But before her mind could get tangled in what he might see, she wanted to know why she was here with him.

A whimper escaped the young woman's lips. She knew of the knight only briefly. She had seen him at the opening night of the tea house and couldn't really remember his name. He had worn plain clothes and had given her cousin a rose of some sorts. Anger flashed into her green eyes, thinking he had done this to her... brought her here, against her will.

"What have you done?" She accused him, her anger spilling out before she could even think. Pushing up on her legs, she began to stand, keeping her front to him. Then her eyes glanced at the knife in his hand and her mouth shut quickly. A step backwards, followed by another and then another.. backing away.

As she brought her hand up to brush a long lock of auburn hair from her face, she realized in her hand was a knife as well. Quickly, she dropped it to the ground and turned to run.

[Sherazade]

This place should have scared Azale... should have had her screaming but it did not... she had lived nightmares at least as bad as this place....

Knife danced within her fingers, blade flashing with its rapid dangerous dance, eyes narrowing to slits as Sarayn spoke "your brother is here someplace I can feel it" Steps followed in Sarayn's wake "so there's at least two" Mind had grasped quickly that a singular person was an unlikely thing to find here. IN fact she had decided anyone on their own and still breathing was going to die.

[Malaroth]

The woman was a flighty thing, he considered, his eyes collapsing upon hers. Flighty when one was not safely ensconced within a dimly lit boudoir, rich with the scent of candles and the stench of lewd criminality against honor and virtue. That she has eyes for his weapon is duly noted, along with the tension running along the length of her frame beneath the delicate clothing she was cursed to arrive in this place in.

A quirk of pale lips and a narrowed gaze are enough to sentence the woman to whatever doom awaits the harlot in this nightmarish realm. It is only a moment, however, before the note and its message flicker before his eyes in a brief spurt of accursed shadows.

Shadows..

"I have done nothing but fallen under a curse!" He calls for her, quickly stowing the knife within the band of his pants and crumpling the message within a fist as he started after her. His eyes widen as fear lends her strength and weariness saps his, his voice straining to close the distance.

"No, stop! The note says we must stay together!"

Ignorance and cowardice, this wretched woman's rotten heart could likely dispel him if all this were true, and why shouldn't it be - after what he had seen in shadows and in darkness?

"Please!" the desperate words claw at his throat as he dashes in foreboding pursuit.

[ShadowRose]

"Oh." she began with a grim tone, the beauty of a slight smile upturning the corner of dark and full lips. "You must be one of his whores." And that was all she said while continuing her trek across the disgusting landscape, sending a glance over her shoulder to the woman who had just become her enemy.

"And what do you plan to do when we find him? -If- we find him." and she knew the answer quite enough, but desired to hear it from the other's lips.

[Raveness]

Lavender keeps her front to him but once she's away from where she thinks his eyes might roam, she turns to run. The woods make it hard to get away quickly, so instead she tries to cower behind one large tree. It is here that her hand slips to the chemise's pocket and she pulls out the small piece of paper and her eyes begin to read.

His footfalls are growing nearer and her breathing is laboured, not from the running as much as from the fright of being awakened here with this man without any explanation and now... this note. Lavender begins to rock back and forth behind the tree so as to not stop moving.

What is this place? Why am I here?

She shudders coldly and wraps her arms around her middle. She is convinced he has kidnapped her to get to her cousin. Her mind wanders back to the knife she dropped. Was that the right thing to do? At least she had been given a weapon. She might need it to protect herself.

Stay together? The note had stated such, but she assumes he has planted the note upon her body while she slept. And even though her mind thinks this is all a plan of his doing, she does keep rocking behind the tree, keeps moving. She watches him step beside her, her stomach fluttering with butterflies that threaten to burst inside her belly. Her hands move to hold her torso up, still on her knees, while her stomach begins to empty its contents upon the barren earth. It is here, in this position, that he might notice the black wings beneath her chemise.. her precious secret hidden from everyone, now exposed.

[Tebrin]

Hunting someone? How descriptive. Thank you, Jirai, for your continued uselessness. He glared at her back, glared at those spiders, glared at every ugly inch of flesh that comprised that ebon-skinned ...

Clenching fists for a moment, before storming after her, he takes a couple steps to close the gap between them. The better to keep her from turning and opening fire with some witchcraft. The better to plant a blade betwixt her shoulderblades should impulse demand it.

"You act like you have some idea what's goin' on 'ere."

[Sherazade]

Zale did not argue not with the word whore... although she certainly did not like being stuck with the label, there was a lot she would do, would put up with to feel the sweet kiss of pain....

And yet her reply to Sarayn might not be what the other expected... "make him scream" and within her eyes was the light of anticipation, for she knew by causing him pain, he would make her feel it in return.

[Jirai]

Ever so descriptive, wasn't she? Tebrin closed the distance between the two of them - aided by the fact that she had stopped, suddenly, whirling around to face him. Dark eyes shone far too brightly in her scarred face as lips twisted into a smirk. A slender finger stabbed in his direction. "What do YOU think is going on, Tebrin?" The woman snapped. Her other hand was moving, spinning that dagger dexterously between long fingers.

"I do not know what is going on. And I could not care less. Let me put it this way - find me something, someone to kill, Tebrin. Else I'll kill you. So. Do we hunt, or is the hunt over?" She leered at him.

[ShadowRose]

And if Azale had hoped to rile her anger, to trigger a sense of near materal urge to protect, she was surely wrong. Instead, she grinned wickedly, and returned, "Then, that makes two of us, darling. What a perfect matching we fell into, hm?"

"Well, then, dear Azale, let us find my brother. And let us truly make him scream, shall we?"

A perfect match made in hell.

[Malaroth]

A cold, serpentine scowl traces its way across his slender lips. A countenance given to scowls and hard, suspicious lines grows cold in the nightmare-scape as the loathsome woman succumbs to loathsome behavior. It is enough to contort those lips into cruel satisfaction, noting the potent taste ever-lingering within the recesses of his own throat. Satisfaction cemented his mercy and locked it away within a secret vault that was not for this Myrken, nor this hellish place – not for these people who ignored and vilified him.

Satisfaction reigns in him only shortly, until hunched and vulnerable, the woman provides a view of that fell secret that sprouts from her back. Clad in the raiment of black feathers and volatile sickness, the woman’s shadow begins to loom long across his courage and slackens his jaw in disbelief. Not only was the woman one of distinct loose morality, but she was, in fact, not a woman at all.

She was a ravening fiend from the hellish abyss. This seemingly subtle and pathetic woman was, in fact, a succubus. Fingers alighted upon the knife’s handle, caressing the cold handle that pressed lightly against his side, reminding, goading, baiting him with the simple thrust-and-death that would be needed to end this villain before she had a chance to corrupt more lustful but ignorant men.

Perhaps she and the others of the infamous tea house had already duped the poor folk of Myrken. Perhaps that was why such villainy was legal in this forsaken backwater land. Yet, for righteousness’ sake could he end this pitiable wreck crouched before him who so willingly spilled the contents of her stomach but not the black evil of her heart for anyone to see? Surely Swinton knew? Surely all of them knew?

With seeming patience he awaited the woman to finish, crossing his arms with deliberate heaviness to withdraw that hand from the tempting blade. Let the she-devil play him for a soft-hearted sop. Let her think he would protect her from all else that this land could throw at them. Let her think she was safe. Then, he mused, he would introduce her to someone no one in Myrken had ever met.

He would introduce her to himself.