Rhiannon honestly wasn't used to this shit.

The Brindled Devil let out a harsh, aggravated huff of a breath, the misty furls of her breath curling upwards only to fade in the sparse evening light. She had returned from venturing outside the Basin walls, just because she could do whatever the fuck she wanted, and she had brought back nothing but anger, but rage. Hell, 'rage' was far too pale a word for the dark turmoil that threatened to rip her mind in two, that made her want to scream and thrash and tear things apart with teeth, hooves, and horns alike.

Burning-gold and frozen-silver orbs stared out harshly across the expanse of the land set before her hooves; a flat landscape with a pleasant backdrop of both the mountain tops and the lake in the distance. In the sky, the sun was beginning to set, setting the sky aflame with burning embers of dying light, but the beauty of the scenery was lost on the troubled soldier. And troubled she was.

Jerking her head to the left, Rhiannon, first born daughter of Crowley, would gnash her teeth, grow still, then toss her head to the right and repeat the process. So tightly that her jaw clenched, the young darkling was surprised that her teeth did not crack from the sheer force of it. How she yearned to tear something apart, to find a outlet for her darker emotions, for her inner demons, for the devils that danced inside her equally black heart.

Oh, this was terribly unhealthy, and it couldn't last... It couldn't. Rhiannon knew it was only a matter of time until her mind snapped, like a twig, like the dried-out old bones that Talbot had chewed upon back when she lived in Crowley's cave, but would snap! in two when Nonnie would stomp on them. Back then, she had laughed at the sound that the cracked bones would make... But now, Rhiannon was positive that she would not laugh when it was her mind that made that very sound.

Another rough breath pushes its way from the brindled soldier's nostrils, and she resists the urge to heave. Instead, she stands like a demon in the dying daylight, stationary and terribly lonely, and so very, very angry.

@[Deimos]

Fermenting repose stung and clung to the remnants of ice and brine, cluttered unceasingly through the chilling winds and thorny netting, a vexing timbre, a reclusive shoal, a burdensome quandary leaving him with naught to do but wait for an inevitable tear in its serene delusion. A balance of tranquility set him alight with the ever-increasing burden of chaos strung between his coiled muscles or rippling, wrathful strides, sinuously drawing, etching, and sketching out merciless designs and Machiavellian desires, a machine of war, uncertain and brooding amongst the tethering placidity. The borders and all of their dancing, slithering hounds, seething and simmering, set on edge by the wayward fringe, amused him for only snippets of hours, bloodshed forthcoming, mauled, mutilated, forsaken, then gone, as quick as they’d arrived, a mere taste, a slender sliver, of what could have been. As peace trickled and tickled, ran and rambled, he spent wanton hours tearing apart seams of havens and sanctuaries, maneuvered and conspired over sliding chess pieces and lithe pawns, murmured nothingness into the blackening air, uttered pernicious oaths that swayed meticulously across frigid walls and chuckled alongside his cruel, callous presence. Restrained and repressed, taut and rigid, hellbent on annihilation and setting forth with no motivation other than the brutal wiles of a masque of death, he lamented, he plagued, he devoured into the setting sun and the inky twilight, serenading ghosts and phantoms with the iniquitous maelstrom of his unsung sins. Floating into requiems and disaster, the Reaper plunged his scythe into his throne and climbed along its summit, encased in the nonchalant embrace of a potent behemoth. Boldness, barbarity, savage contortions and malicious extortions led him down the pebbled paths and the arched, demonic trails, and with both unyielding, he molded into the mountains, into the scenery, into the treachery and deceit of their all-encompassing peaks, possessing winter and seizing the scars of Orangemoon, cold and indifferent, frustrated and vexed.

The harpooning length of his stare roamed and examined from one fault, one crevasse, one magnificent opus, to the other, before ears swiveled to the brash snort nearby, and his gaze penetrated over the fold of another; Crowley’s daughter, brindled and emblazoned with their signature blades. The youth was intriguing for her actions alone: gnashing, grinding, clenching, demonic in the blinding hours of twilight, slithering into the infidel reign and reach, hushed clamoring of wicked deeds and witching hours. A curious tilt swung to his cranium, a speculative torrent of his mind seared, pondering over the reasons for her flaring tempest, for her banshee, harpy recherché – if it was something he too could exterminate and consume, swallow and devastate, if a beast lingered and begged for their scalding abhorrence. Or perhaps it was a notion he could grasp and pull from her frame, offer and bestow the piercing indulgences of a wayward potency begging for purpose. Her sire bent and swayed towards their preferences, their creed, and by the crude convictions swelling and bolstering her noxious hide, the Lord, the King, the beast, presumed she’d have no trouble following the same infernal decrees. He pursued her from the right, angled into shade, shadow, and veils, nocturnal slips of the evening’s gall, uttered the deep reverberations of his malevolent reverie. “One must have a reason and release for fury.” Deimos paused, ceased his movement while his sharp, keen, penetrating glare became entirely riveted on her (and where her allegiances lay, rooted into loathing, into contempt, into hate?), and the tip of his rapier caught the aurora light, deadly and deleterious in the unholy hymns of their impending conversation. “What is yours?” So while the listless, peaceful stage set across the kingdoms, across horizons and booming from deities, with their cooing mewls and deliberate shards, he gathered more decadent players, fed them lines, and stuffed them with wicked calculations.


@[Rhiannon]

Frost covered hooves danced in the snow, stomping and crushing down the chilly white powder as each leg shifted and plowed through the first white frost of Orangemoon. The Brindled Devil would twist and turn, lost in her own reverie of darkness and violence, uncaring of the physical display she may be making to anyone who dared cross her path. Who cared what they would think? Would they think her insane? Mentally ill? She didn't care.

A snort violently tore from the soldier's nostrils, eyes narrowing dangerously as she partook in her dance of madness, and so lost as she was, Rhiannon was unaware that her Lord was upon her.

'One must have a reason and release for fury.'

The voice of the Reaper, of Deimos, caused Rhiannon to jerk and turn, ears snapping forward at attention and head tilted down, proud, twisted blades lowered and pointed towards the death-stallion. She had been lost in her own mind, fighting her demons, and he had startled her. Scared her, like a little helpless whelp, but she forced herself to move, to lift her head, to look like she wasn't about to charge and attempt to gore the Basin's King.

'What is yours?' Fucking indeed.

".... M'lord." Troubled irises locked on Deimos' icy, heart-freezing glare, locked and returned the stare, and that was all the greeting that she would give him. Rhiannon cared not a lick for stallions; she detested them, all save her father Crowley... But Deimos stood beside Illynx as their Ruler and Sovereign, and she knew Deimos would bodily stick himself between the Basin and any who threatened it, and by that alone, Rhiannon would show him the respect where it was due.

For the briefest of moments Rhiannon pondered his words, wondering why the fuck he wanted to know. Why did he want to know? Why, after her two-plus years of living in the Basin, of calling this iced castle her home, did Deimos just now attempt to seek her out? Or maybe he hadn't... Maybe he had just wandered upon her demonic shuffle, and inquired. Each thought was somewhat angering.

"... I don't have one. A release." But oh, she would love to. Simple, blunt, and to the point. It was how Nonnie liked to do things. "I was out, patrolling, and I ran into a winged harpy," Rhiannon paused and spit to the ground in distaste, in hate and loathing, "She bested me in battle, m'lord... And I want to make her pay." They wanted to make her pay. "I want to crush her pretty wings beneath my hooves, and I want to wear her feathers in my mane. As trophies. I want to chew her flesh, I want to tear her apart until there is nothing left of her." She wanted to control her, to own her, to have power over her...

Never had Rhiannon considered herself mentally unfit, or unsound in any way... But the words that had just pressed from her lips confirmed that maybe, just maybe, she was just a little bit crazy. Then again, maybe they all were.

@[Deimos]

ooc: I don't know if the Heather enjoys being tagged? Let me know!

The Reaper was stone and steel in the face of her anger, in the tangled tapestry of her wrath, an unmoving fixture, a brilliant, eldritch statue teeming, reeling, with the essence of demise and quietus. One ultimate plunge of her sword towards his frame, and he’d have permission to annihilate her; but she was wiser than that, leaning only into the merest threads of respect, rescinding gnashing, colliding caprice. His eyes scoured, glanced, and his figure betrayed nothing, because she was so evidently consumed with hate, with malice, with menace, with blinding fury, but naught behind it but the ghost and remnants of potential. He knew contempt, he knew loathing, felt it soothe and corrode in the ire of his skin, felt it consume and unravel in the weight of his stride, felt it seethe and tear in the coiled springs of his muscles, but without purpose, without credence, without notion, it was just another tangible, corporeal, fleeting nuance, a hindrance, a weakness, an enemy could see, an opponent could contort and possess. With motivation came the churning, seething knives and the decadent array of condemnation, a spiraling convolution that stole, that desired, that fed upon the fuel of instigation, that offered one more purpose, one more driven contention towards the desecration, the murder, the mayhem, of conquest and triumph. It gave oaths and lives, promises and benedictions, unholy vows and sullied veils, phantoms and specters, purchase and regard, legacies and rancor. Rhiannon’s was too untamed, too wild, too fresh and new, maneuvering in the frenetic cycle of injustice and wanton, rampant, carnivore upheaval when she should have yearned for sedition, when she should have longed for subversion, when she should have reached for revolution. Blazing and provoked, with no kindling to brew a true inferno, missing vital pieces and soulless, heartless, voids and hollowed enamel, an inkling of capacity and lacking the proper harness, the right harpoon, the sharpened tools of the trade; but a rich, exotic flavor of abhorrence could be infused, ignited, if given just the right dose of motivation. The piercing slate of his demonic eyes traced the lines of her features, the measure of her story, the weight of her endeavors, and like a caustic whim, like a brooding machination, added ammunition to the flare of derision and scorn. “Then you should.” She should conquer and devastate those that wronged her, those that made her bleed, drive them back into the murky depths of destruction, rot and ruin; hadn’t they been trying the same acts for so long? Each play differed, but the finales always ended the same – and in this hour, another foil, another cast, loomed to enter the stage. He loomed, he presided, he stood in Machiavellian prowess, in pernicious potency, weaving the hazardous threads, cold and calculating, waiting and watching for the finesse of the undone to sink into her bones. “Do you desire to exterminate everything?”


@[Rhiannon] [Doesn't matter to me! :D]

'Then you should.'

Perfect.

The Reaper gave his blessing, and Rhiannon was powerless to stop the dangerous, dark, bloodthirsty grin that pulled at her lips, gold and silver irises darkening with the sheer possibilities of what she could do to that harpy that had so brazenly wronged her. Kill her? No, that's too simple. Too clean. The demons that wrought havoc in her skull would find such a thing boring and terribly mundane. And pointless. Play with her, perhaps? Although, not in the way that the Basin foals often frolicked together... No, not at all. Rip the wings from her shoulders, crush her knees, pull the ears from her pretty, deformed, hybrid skull? Yes, yes, and oh, Gods, yes. The Brindled Devil nearly salivated at just thinking it.

"Should I desire to eliminate everything?" It was a rhetorical answer, cocky and impudent, but Rhiannon didn't care. She was a blunt, challenging creature by nature. "No, Lord Reaper, I do not desire to destroy everything... Merely the things that are wrong in this world. The... The winged harpies and the impure hornless vermin."

A soft, indignant huff pushed itself from the depths of her nostrils, and the brindled soldier shook her head with a scoff. "Do you know of an 'outlet', my Liege? A 'release'? A means to focus my time, hatred, and energy aside from protecting our land?" Oh, and don't get her wrong... Rhiannon would bleed until her life-fluid ran dry to protect the Basin. It was, and always would be her home, and she would serve these frosted lands and the borealis-filled heavens faithfully, but being a soldier could not grant her the same 'release' as other means possibly could.

Another grin crossed her maw, careless and flippant. "Perhaps I should find a pretty vixen. What says you, King Reaper? Would a woman's touch do me wonders?"

@[Deimos]

The swindling, binding storm of contempt brewed, and he stirred the frenetic pot with Machiavellian airs, watching as it bubbled and frothed, foamed and lathered, coming to a virulent boil as she spat out her decrees, her hatred, her lavished, decadent desires to plunge their enemies into an early grave. Were he any other creature, he may have applauded the brindled beast for her animosity and odium, would have punctured the ground with his ruffian smirk, would have spilled their carnivorous wake to the heavens and watched it fall; but instead, his reticence remained, while his nefarious mind pulsed with feverish machinations. “That is enough.” Her malice, her menace, could only provide them with another tool, another weapon infused with endless anarchy, molten desecration, infernal iniquity, piercing, harpooning, brandishing their abhorrence upon the world as they were meant to do – there would be no other way but for their kingdom to flourish, and for others to seethe, simmer, then wither away, bleached and barren in the ides of their march. She asked about outlets, about releases, about purposes driven through the onslaught of their terror, and he almost gave into the pulse, the torment, the wiles of their pestilence, of their harbored nuances and depraved motives, but she drew another line from her seditious mouth – lingering on the touch of feminine, siren songs, and a rumble, a laugh, blunt and caustic, as if rarely used and even rarely heard, split over the atmosphere. A brief glimmer of a smirk hastened to his lips, curled over their indentation in a boyish regard, as if lamenting days long past since he’d ever had a sense of wonder, of humor, or pondered over the alterations others had over him. Huyana and his family had morphed him in some avenues (compassion and caring; reserved for their presence), and in others, protection, safeguarding, violence, only spurned and urged him for more strength, more brutality. His answer, however, slid along the rime like a ghost of a joke, a goading lull, a rousing interlude in between the measures of hate. “Depends on the woman.”

The Reaper, the Lord, the King, hastened back to prior calculations with the same lines of indifference and nonchalance, inwardly tethering and shackling the words and phrases he’d need to bound together another member for their malicious society. His own recruitment had been easy, simple, and with the ammunitions, the venom and vitriol hastened, galvanized, across the stature of Crowley’s daughter, he perceived it follow much of the same. He spun a revelation through the heavy, heady enamel of his words, narrowing his eyes towards the bursting revolutionary, conjuring, conspiring, uniting. “I do.” He paused, cementing and devouring, consuming and burning, enticing and alluring. “My father once told me our race was meant to rule the world. Perhaps yours did the same?” He tilted his head, piecing together memories of Ignatius, toying with other herds, planning and plotting to unravel their chords, threading transgressions and treachery across sands and dunes. “There is a group with the same mindset.” The icy, chilling conviction of his orbs pressed harder, penetrating, binding, meticulously tearing away the wounds of the earth, winding their way back into the shackle of their augured upheaval. “Would you be inclined to join?”

@[Rhiannon]