Confutatis

You are a brick tied to me that's dragging me down / Strike a match and I'll burn you to the ground / We are the jack-o-lanterns in July / Setting fire to the sky

Hooks barb into cinereal, unearthly flesh, grapnels aimed to wrest, yank, her back to the place she had long and happily avoided. The cry is clarion, a haunting fanfare for war and barbarism, a stirring call for sensual murder and butchery, an outstretched hand gloved in black velvet; a familiar and delicious song, a hymn to her prowress, her fame, her ego. It's a summons for a beast not finished in her conquests and desires, a wolf clothed in equine skin; a voracious queen, World Eater, poised to devour. A dancing partner.

Except their song would not be a ballet, but a deadly composite of bruising flesh and black necromancy bleeding out from dark pores -- her favourite kind of waltz.

The wolf's head rises, casual insolence leaking out through the movement, and idly begins to make her way towards the origin of the demand. His request -- she does not recognize the voice, nor does she care for he who will fall beneath the enslaught of her poisonous magic -- will be answered in due time. Of course, first, he will wait for her; no Queen gives heed to the wishes and wants of a lowly peasant, and thus she luxuriates in the minutes which drag and trickle by. On occasion she halts, lowering her skull to crop grass here and there, satisfying her body as the hunger pangs demand.

Eventually she arrives at the scene of the deplorable bloodbath in the sharp and imminent future, and her single eye -- a broken bit of gold embedded in charcoal -- roams up to his face; but even without seeing, properly, she knows who he is. There, situated in shadow and ash, is sapphire, polished blue leeched dry of emotion. Or, perhaps, there had never been any feeling to begin with. As for his physical prowress... she is skeptical of it. Certainly there are ramifications of strength, along his neck and shoulders, in the Andalusian heritage touched with the elegance and agility of an Arab; but that is not so much her primary concern as what lingers around him. Death, and sorrow, an omnipresent sensation of darkness.

One brow rises in thick arrogance; what a pleasure. Did the Basin truly think her so much a threat as to send their Lord after her? A sinuous, satisfied smirk blooms out against her cadaverous lips (scarred, cracked things already beginning to dampen with her first form of magic -- acidic saliva.)

Are you ready?
The thought rolls through her head, a scrupulous and nasty inquiry; Mongrel knows she is ready. He, too, can feel it, in the braced set of her legs, in the curl of her arched neck, in the sharp silhouette she cuts on the horizon. Formidable. Fierce. Damning; swarthy arrogance pressed and folded into a dark smear with silvered hairs. And at her feet, her little Yako, mischief and malice compressed into a wolfish form, weaving, knitting away at the vivid imagery which is his favorite pastime.

There is no noticeable beginning, no decisions made between the companions in that brief moment. They simply begin, falling into practiced routine and pre-arranged strategy.

Visions of macabre and unsettling intent are conjured up based on memories remembered for this purpose. First, he paints Confutatis white, draws her in ivory; narrows out her hips, sharpens the slope of her shoulders, pronounces each rib. Then grows from her forehead a horn red, and her mane and tail turn alabastar dipped in scarlet. For all the world, she looks like Ophelia... except dripping in blood. It runs from her 'eyes', from her 'nostrils', and from deep puncture wounds scattered all over her 'body' -- those areas where the skin hasn't been peeled away to 'expose' sinew, that is.
Beneath the studious illusion her armor melts out across her body, bone and leather.

The World Eater charges directly forward, aiming to approach head-on, Mongrel's illusions wrapping tightly around her.
As she [hopefully] nears Deimos' head, attempting to be more to his right side than left, her weight sinks further back over her hocks, redistributing as her forelegs drive up off the ground. It is not a rear by any means -- if anything, only a semi-rear, with her center of gravity still pitched forward as to carry her momentum and truly drive herself into the stallion. Her right forehoof attempts to scrape down the front of Deimos right foreleg's shin, to crack against the bone and bruise the sparsely padded flesh. Simultaneous to this, her skull twists to her right, attempting bite down over his right eye.

She recognizes that she does not have fangs (as much as she might wish it otherwise) and that her teeth are not meant to grip or gouge. Yet she drools acid -- she is confident that even brief contact will do harm.
Or at least she hopes.

1/4 for Confutatis' armor.
Word Counter: 800
OOC: I am using wordcounter.net for my word count, in case there are some discrepancies should an admin find a different total. I hope I made it clear enough in my post, but I was thinking Confutatis was attempting to approach on an angle like this! (Please excuse the sloppiness of the diagram haha.)