The tsk off Hotaru's tongue—sibilant and soft—makes her swallow sharply, choking down the lump gathered in her throat. Argent eyelashes sweep in a nymphete fashion down and across ruby irises, guilt and worry churning within her discomfited breast. Some well-worn part of her, bruised and butchered, shirks away from what she knows will come; a nip behind the ear, a kick to the chest. Was it so difficult to hope for a moment without punishment? Was it so strange to ask for solitude when the world spun and lurched around her?

Don't hurt me.

Lilómiel snarls from the cougar's carcass, wings flexing in a predatory and aggrandizing display. His head lowers, shifting over the dead feline, neck twisting and flexing as claws plunge into the cadaver's skull. Against the feral lock of his teeth, his breath rattles, a display calculatingly both pitiful and menancing. His gaze, twin to Nymeria's, settles on Hotaru, blistering and blustering with his aggravation. Leave her alone, it decrees, in a sharp and scolding imperative, followed up with a brandishing of his tail for effect.

The heroine extends her neck, blood and sinew becoming visible in the scattered lighting of the Rotunda. Nymeria shrinks back, ears flicking towards her nape in uncertainty; her eyes soften, widen, the whites pronounced against the wine red. It's so deliciously, beautifully gory, that tapestry of scarlet and crimson, drying brown and curdled lacerations—a marvelous, heinous beauty that utterly captivates her. Slowly, indelicately, she edges forward, hooves scraping over soil and grass, pain wracking her frame.

"Oh," the World Eater II sighs, her exhale like the shift of emerald grass in a summer breeze. "I..." and she trails off into divine silence, lulled into a stupor.

Lil screeches from his perch on the cougar, sails unfolding and snapping downwards to send him launching into the sky, black scales shimmering in the cool light. The sound jars her into awakening, sending the filly jerking back upright, eyes rolling, muscles grinding beneath taupe skin.

The dragon snarls, his breath hot and fetid, and the taste of iron in her mouth overwhelms her. No. Blood rushes to her head, pounds through her veins—she whimpers, swaying, and backs away, tail scudding back and forth over her haunches. Agony ripples down along her spine, sending her twisting once again, head swinging down towards the ground. She cries out—in pain, in loss.

"I want my mom!"
Give her back!

and you're so mysterious

got that obsession with death