"Where brilliance is good and madness is better..."
Helovia Info
Helovia opened in February 2012! We are an active fantasy equine RPG
Where once the world narrowed into naught but gray dust and desolation, the gods called for life. Wielding the elements of fire and light, dark and wind, earth and water, spark and time, they have created Helovia. The realm is set within the mythical globe of Loorien, a planet rich with all variety of creatures and blessed with all manner of magic. Originally populated by nomadic, tribal characters, they've since grown into massive empires saturated with culture and history. Separated into four distinct segments of Helovia, called "The Regions," each band of horse strong enough and capable enough, took up the power and responsibility of leadership. Unicorns, old, wise and mysterious, took to the north, hidden in forests of mists and shadows and rarely making themselves known beyond their cliffs of the World's Edge. Equines, vast, organized and militaristic, split into two, one group went north to the Windtossed Foothills and the other group went south to the Dragon's Throat. Pegasus remained nomadic, making their homes in various parts of The Wilds in a migratory manner. For many generations, the land was peaceful and calm, but peace was never the way of the gods. With a clash of argument, war and bloodshed massacred Helovia, and in the aftermath, the realm was eerily quiet. Now, as newcomers sweep into this land, they are met with the lingering bitterness of the gods and the struggle to reclaim what was lost. Nothing remains safe or certain while sorcerers and soldiers alike brood and bide their time for revenge, honor and glory.
Site Wide Plots
Kaos :: The Beginning of the End ☼ - 6/2017 - Kaos placed Helovia in a time-bubble for a short period of time, but the Helovian gods are fighting back. But Kaos is powerful- far more powerful than anyone thought. This may be the beginning of the end of Helovia as we know it.
Kisamoa :: A New Kind of Kaos ☼ - 3/2017 - Kisamoa asks Helovians to help him restore the Spectral Marsh. Which side will you choose?
Invasions :: All Out War ☼ - 5/2/16 - New layout and the brand new invasion rules are up! Thank you for your patience and we look forward to getting started with this new adventure.
The Rift :: Gods Do Die ☼ - 8/2015 - Helovia Gods are saving the Rift from corrupt gods! Can Helovians band together against these foreign deities?
The Literal Ship ☼ - 2/8/15 - Oh no! You have to pair up for Valentine's day!
Sky Island :: Murder ☼ - 10/25/14 - Vesta has been found dead on the island, and the gods have called to you to solve the murder!
Sky Island :: Peace ☼ - 7/7/14 - An island has appeared in the sky! Clouds carry Helovians from the Veins to the sky.
Restoration :: We Welcome the Dawn ☼ - 9/21/13 - The sun has finally risen on this day, giving the land new light, but the Time God and the Sun God have yet to be seen.
Endless Night :: Broken Magic Plot ☼ - 8/30/13 - The earth god has returned and is walking across Helovia to heal the land. Every area can now be considered lush and prosperous, but the sun has still not risen.
☼ - 7/19/13 - The moon has risen in the sky, heralding the return of the Goddess of the moon. Lamp trees which light the paths have grown brighter, moon flowers which grow in dark places have begun to grow and prosper and the world is brighter, filled with a new hope.
Endless Night :: Dead Magic Plot ☼ - 6/22/13 - The gods of Helovia, in order to protect the world, have disappeared into the rift, leaving the world sunless, moonless and magic-less in their absence. Only the herdlands have a source of light, but lamp-trees with glowing leaves and branches sporadically line the popular roads and paths from place to place.
Doppleganger Plot ☼ - 6/20/13 - The God of Time is still struggling to close the rift though which the dopplegangers have come. He has requested that his brothers and sister assist in closing this hole, but without knowing why it opened, the task is proving difficult. Magic still remains faulty and hard to control, but the herdlands continue to be places of refuge for those who are fortunate enough to call these lands home.
ORANGEMOON cools off the lands with a a viscious force. Colder than normal, a sign of things to come during Frostfall, Helovia is bathed in a rich tropical lushness - albiet a cold one. The coastlines of the Dragon's Throat are pelted constantly by tidal waves, and the desert climate is humid but chilly. Ice begins to form early in the Aurora Basin leaving the winding trails slick and dangerous. The mists of the World's Edge coat everything in a glistening crystalline shine which encourages mould to grow everywhere. The Spectral Marsh is the only area which remains fertile, blissfully temperature and lush.
Cotm
Character of the Month for
June, 2017
WEAVER, Corporal of the Aurora Basin, is a relatively recent addition to Helovia and has taken it by storm. Branded with the seal of Death on her chest, intrigue and interest follow both her past and present. Though she is assuredly beautiful, her sometimes sharp personality reveals that there is more to this uni-peg hybrid than meets the eye. Proving herself able on the battlefield in the Basin’s warrior ranks, we can’t wait to see her test her mettle against the looming Kaos happenings! Congratulations!
Helovia RPG was created by Tamme and Blu and coded by Tamme also known as Schwartze. All coding, palettes and imagery are copyrighted to the website and are not for use outside of Helovia. Thank you to our ServerMaster for hosting Helovia. A special thanks goes to Neo for all of her coding help and fixing Tamme's errors, Boom, for her loyal service and creation of the Time God, and to Ali for her consistent contributions and dedication.
Hunger claws at her, turning her manic, turning her desperate. It makes her crazed, makes her dangerous. The sun baked into her skin, meddled and messed with her mind until she was prowling through Helovia with claws half-extended the entire time. The cougar was a silent beast, one that was supposed to be feared, hated. She used to be that story that mares told their foals in the night, but in Helovia she was nothing. Were she of higher intellect, the beast would have been offended. Instead, she found herself longing for bigger game. For the foals and their sweet, tender meat. A meal she could feast on, one she wouldn't have to abandon when her stomach was bulging because the carcass was too big.
So she began her hunt.
Craziness made her careful rather than reckless. She stalked the filly for days, waiting for the return of her mother, whose sporadic appearances only made the filly a prime target. The predator waited until she was alone, her wandering finally given purpose. Her hunt was finally coming to a close.
The scent of the youngling was thick and beautiful in her sensitive nose. Her mouth salivated, her stomach clenched painfully, and she hungered. Until finally, she couldn't take it anymore. Blind to the rest of her surroundings, she jumped silently to the tree beside the one she'd been roosting in, and from her vocals came a deep thrumming growl. A warning. Fear made them taste all the sweeter, and she missed the primal days when she used to be something worth fearing.
The pale-faced filly was in her sights, and the cougar leapt from the precipice, claws and arms extended towards the youth as she yowled. She could already taste her triumph.
Her skin was crawling, in the same manner of which it had in the first night the flies had begun to settle on festering equine flesh. She itched, she smoldered and she chafed at the cadaverous sensation; for despite the insistent twitch and shiver of her ebony coat, no cloud of insects rose from her, to resettle on her moments later. There was nothing.At all. Quelled unease grew against the restraints she made against it, thickening uncertainty and queer apprehension which knotted in her stomach like she was about to colic.
It wasn't until much later that she identified the sensation: that she was being watched.
Lilómiel's wingbeats sounded above her, a quick flapping which snapped and crackled through the thick summer air. He had been her eyes; from his wings, from his eagle-sharp orbs, she had cautiously explored their surroundings, combing through the landscape in a swift search to determine the source of her discomfort. Despite their best efforts, they had neglected to find the predator hidden away in the tree, the decidedly lethal fate awaiting her misstep, her presumed safety and comfort—waiting for a chance to shred her, ruin her, and neatly cut her out of the fabric of existence.
Nothing. It should've comforted her, that she was alone here with but her bonded for companionship, but it didn't. She didn't trust what she saw; she knew from Mongrel's magic that illusions could be as lifelike as the maker wanted. There was nothing to say she wasn't... cocooned away within a web of black magic, one which hid whatever watched her from her sight.
Her black's skepticism wafted through their bond, a reek of distaste and belief in her paranoia. The egoistic prick often thought he had the better idea in their relationship, even knowing he was much younger than the dark arachnid. If he could, Lil would use her for his own mischievous ends—so long as it didn't put her in too much danger.
Nymeria was beginning to find the bond wasn't at all as wonderful as she had thought it would be.
Grass cracked, rustled beneath the soft tread of her subdued hooves, an accompanying whisper which cloaked sound. The wind stirred; the musk of soil and blooming flowers danced in her nostrils, a soothing perfume wreathing her skull. Lilómiel chirruped, a high-pitched squeak of happiness as he drifted ever higher upwards, taken by the breeze. His joy radiated through their bond, a sheer and innocuous sensation which softened the edge of her apprehension, blunted her wariness. Eyelids flickered across crimson orbs, lips moving soundlessly as she murmured a prayer to the earth, a whispered notion of protection.
Then there was thunder.
Lids snapped open in astonishment (seeing as it was a clear blue day) and alarm surged through her arteries, a cracked-whip quick tide of fear which burned, bitter, in her mouth. Nostrils flexed wide, inhaling, and beneath the scent of summer she found the perpetrator of her flee response. Cougar.
She stayed still as death in the shade of the trees, and then there was a snap, a crunch of a weight moving over branches.
Alarm tore through her bond and above her black shrieked. No further warning was necessary—adrenaline-fueled clarity and terror made her bolt, throwing herself into rough and hazy motion, wild in her fear. Behind her, the feline leaped, outstretched in a coiling pounce, claws aimed to pierce and hook through flesh in an unavoidable attempt at damage. A split second later and silvered talons slammed into her haunches, tearing through blood vessels and torqued flesh, jaws fastening over the lower part of her spine.
The winds of change were shifting, stirring, drawing the mother from her home, her cavern, her abode. What it was that drew her was indescribable, pulling on her soul as strongly as when the magic of Helovia would draw and reel her into its clutches, placing her in the perfect place at the perfect time to compete with others for the chance at royalty, at power. She keeps her eyes on the horizon line most mornings, watching the sun bleed its color like a dying array of roses across a canvas of darkness and decay. Even as it is reborn, it chases the death of the Goddess across the sky, pursuing her shortly houred reign. Hotaru turned her tiara away from the sight, the odd catch and pull and ache in her chest still too raw, too open, a raw nerve touched and prodded too many times. It was still too new for her to consider examining it.
Hours slip away in the hot buzz of cicadas and dancing shafts and sunbeams through the overhead canopy. She trails listlessly, a weird itch and crawl beneath her skin, an ancient survival instinct that claws its way furiously to the forefront of her mind. Alice whined uncomfortably with every alternating hour, the smoke of her presence the only comfort Hotaru allowed herself. The nights were spent watching the sickly acid glow of her beloved's scratch-marked eye, shut in slumber though it was, the lines finally allowed to reconnect in the pattern they were meant for. It was her solace, the balm to the weird prickly feeling that would not allow her sincere rest.
Next morn only nettled her more, feeling as if she was hot and burning in a way the sun could never manage to bring to fruition. She clamped the bit of frustration betwixt her teeth and ground upon it, angered by her inability to discern exactly what was digging so effectively beneath her skin. Loose, easy walk became a prowl, ears permanently half-flattened. Alice kept flashing images of snow and tundra into her head, quiet whines permeating the thick, humid air. Even without words, Hotaru understood what she was intending to say. If Hotaru was so disturbed, why could they not merely turn to the north and head home with the auroras to guide them?
Except Hotaru didn't back down. She was a demon in her own right, a thing to be feared, a quick-witted thief with hands faster than a hummingbird's wings and a mind as deadly as a newly sharpened blade. It drove a wedge against her sanity, frustrated to the point of screaming into the air, raging against the silent force that had her so on edge. Hotaru would not simply run. She wouldn't leave until she'd sought out and ended what it was that caused her such distress. Only when the deed was done, the sting of wrongness washed from beneath her skin, would the she-wolf feel right enough with the world to return to her family in the northern reaches.
A growl like thunder permeated the air, the catalyst. One Hotaru knew instinctively, one her mother had always warned her about. But the rose impersonator was no foal any longer, and though the nape of her neck was prickled and hot, instead of turning to flee she kicked her heels and thrust herself onward. The mother inside her dictated the death of this creature, this facsimile, this predator too far from its rightful territory. A cougar was a threat to foals of the wilds just as much those of a herdland. Whether she knew them or not, Hotaru would spare them, for it easily could have been Arya on one of her crazy adventures outside the borders who fell victim to its wicked claws.
The earth shattered around her.
A scream pierced like a bullet into her ears, forcing the fae to stumble and stagger, disoriented. Fear and adrenaline ramped up the speed of her racing heart, fury a sudden spike like whiskey-laced punch to the spirit of her courage. It was too young, too small, too shrill. Dead, crumpled leaves, dehydrated from the lack of water and overabundance of sun crinkled and dissolved beneath her hooves as she raced towards the sound, the horrible shrieking wail of a child facing death in the face with no way to fight.
For a moment, rounding the corner of the bend and letting her eyes fall upon the trio locked in combat, she nearly stopped. The skull-face was too prominent, memories of broken-eyed fillies and vengeful mothers imprinted upon her mind. The World-Eater had been Hotaru's personal project for years, their feud nearly as deep and as intimate as the one between the harlot and Arah. But even as she faltered, Arya's words rebounded in her head. She's a mere babe! And Hotaru recalled her hatred, her fury, at having Phaedra's name stuck upon her hide like a disease. Was this Fate's hand? To present her with a child that could have been her a handful of years ago, and have to choose between life and death for her? For it was clear that the little black would never walk out of the encounter alive, starved though the beast was.
Everything slotted into place, decisive, no turning back, no regrets.
A war scream tore her throat as she charged, blood on black swimming in her eyes until her own vision turned red, red, red with vengeance. Magic she hadn't known existed sprang from her in orbs of gossamer color, whites and blues, summoned alongside her battle cry. They exploded with a bang and a sizzle, the cougar shrieking as her claws retracted from the babe's youthful hide. shock and singed flesh incentive to abandon her meal. Hotaru gave her no opportunity for escape. No mercy. No remorse. She was the reaper, scythe in hand, and with eyes as black and cold as death - with no atonement, no salvation or retribution - she swung it down upon the beast with a decisive motion. She was the judge of this pitiful creature's life, and it would end on her watch.
Sharp horn stabbed into the writhing creature's chest, sinking to the base. Claws reached for her neck as the foul thing screamed its last breath into existence, raking down the sides of her arched neck in one last act of retribution. Hotaru merely screamed right back at it, ripping her horn free and rearing up, watching its hazel eyes glint fearfully, wildly, in the sunlight. Its arms opened as if to embrace her, the pair locked in frozen time, beautiful and furious in their own right. Hotaru descended, her hooves finding the soft jugular of the beast, listening to the satisfying crack and gurgle as its life ended beneath her weight.
Blood dripped sluggishly from her neck, the wounds thick and gruesome, staining her skin in the same color that she'd seen on the child's hide. Panting and huffing, wild-eyed and tensed with the adrenaline of the fight, she turned to the child. A goddess, a warrior with her blood-stained Gladius held loose and ready at her side, a Queen with one heel perched upon the body of the one who had dared to challenge her title. They never got the chance to walk away.
Alice came to her side, never fearing the darkness that Hotaru harbored inside herself, as aware of its existence as she was the blood rushing through her own canine form. There was nothing the other could ever do to scare her, and Hotaru returned the sentiment with ease and ferocity in equal measures. Ignoring the fierce throbbing of her neck and the weird magic she'd just experienced, Hotaru made her way towards the child, blood dripping into her eyes uncomfortably from her bloodied horn. She prayed it would not frighten away the little one, regardless of the fact that Hotaru had just saved her.
"You're safe, child," she spoke softly, not wanting to spook the poor thing after the travesty that had nearly occurred to her. "My name is Hotaru. I'm Arya's mother." Her daughter had confessed her feelings after the herd meeting, after the spectacular outburst she'd had. "Is your name Nymeria? Are you hurt?" Likely one of the questions that should have sprung first to her tongue, but easing the child was of more importance in some ways if she didn't want the little dame to go running off in fear and injure herself all the more. Or draw predators closer with the smell of her blood.
03-28-2015, 02:46 PM (This post was last modified: 03-28-2015, 02:46 PM by Nymeria.)
Ivory claws hooked into cinereal flesh, splitting strips of shadowy hue from developing sinews. Parallel scores of pink are exposed to the blistering heat of the sun, fringed in tasseled droplets of ruby red. Jangled nerves split and fray beneath the agony of predatory claws—sending a new jolt of pain reverbrating through her body.
There is no time to pray, no time to hope for a saviour, for a hero—but to say she was reduced to a windstorm of thoughts would be false. Snagged in her terror, twisted into a purgatory of fear, nothing vies for her attention, nothing interrupts her pain. There is only the overpowering urge to run, an instinct honed by years of "predator-vs-prey" conflict, a life-saving inclination passed on from mother to daughter, father to son. Even being capable of speech and sentient thought, Nymeria was just a horse, just a girl—food and fodder for the hungry, meat to silvered fangs.
Weak. Powerless.
Being daughter of a warlord didn't mean a thing when you couldn't fight, she would think later; being painted with a skull on your head only meant you were marked out for death, for slaughter.
There was a rush of black wings and leathery rustling as Lilómiel races downwards from the sky, flexing shadow and sinew thrusting through thick, humid summer air towards the creature lined up along Nymeria's hindquarters. Scales gleam and glisten, striped with sunlight—sparkling like onyx. Hooded eyes, dark and full of intent, narrow as jaws stretch wide; in-and-out, in-and-out, fear for his bonded purging him of all thought but raw instinct. Down, down, a missile through the wind (which howls around him, furious)—and at the last moment wings snap open, flaring wide. Fangs, sculpted in the manner of a terrifying array of needles, slam down over the cougar's left eye, crunching through the amber iris. Viscous liquid bursts through the ruined cornea, the vitreous humour spilling out into miniature jaws. Simultaneously, the dragon's foreclaws hook firmly around the cougar's head, piercing into the soft flesh, wings wrapping around the neck, scrabbling for a grip with its dewclaws.
And then there is a roar, a battle-cry, white and blue witchcraft spinning around in a dizzying manner, focusing in on the cougar. Once more, a wordless scream, a crescendo of her fear and confusion, tears from Nym's lips, splitting the air (tainted with the scent of her fear.) For all appearances, it would seem the orbs are coming for her—and rational thought is very difficult to find, with her nerves on fire.
Still, even in the throes of fear, instinct prevails. With the desperation of a drowning man, Nymeria—flailing wildly with her hind hooves in an awkward attempt to give the cougar a good kick—rips free from the big cat's embrace.
Lilómiel!
The girl's head twists frantically, lashing 'round to catch glimpse of the black dragon pulling free from the retreating cougar. Wrinkled sails spread, tertiary appendages catching the wind and sending him spiralling back upwards into the sky. Relief washes—momentary—through her, and for a strange, suspended moment in time, she feels... feels fine (albeit far from normal.)
He's okay. And yes; yes, there, through their bond, Nymeria can taste his gleeful conceit, his arrogant pride in the small role he played contributing to his companion's safety. Beneath that toxic veneer of happiness (and forgone concern for Nym) she can taste the sickly overtures of the cougar's eye, a taste he rolls around quite happily in his mouth. Faint disgust blooms in her breast, a disappointment in his carnivorious tendenacies diminished by her relief for his safety. Yeah, it was fucking gross... but on the other hand, what he had done was so braveand stupid, and it was for her benefit.
How could she begrudge him a victory morsel when he saved her?
Ears lash back to her skull at sound of another warcry, a victorious screech, and the gossamer girl halts mid-step, whirling around to see her second hero. Blood bursts, drips, as a lightly-hued mare drives her pearlescent horn through the chest of the retreating cougar. Eyes widen, growing wide in astonishment, and she cringes back, the blood being a far worse sight than it should be. It... the cougar needed to die, didn't it? It had attacked her—it would've eaten her alive—and yet to see its body slump and twist beneath the unicorn's horn... lids drift shut over ruby eyes, brow furrowing, gut writhing in discomfort.
One, two, three.
Mother always told her to breathe, to push away her fear.
There is the thump of hooves touching on soil, a warmth to the air; the scent of horseflesh grows stronger, and sweat, and iron. It clamors for her attention, a cascade of ripe reeks, and slowly, with a childish tentativeness, one eyelid gently slides open. There she is.
Reaving Artemis, blood-soaked Melisandre, god-fighting Penthesilea.
"Nymeria," she says, ever-so-quietly, eyes casting towards the ground, neck bowing. Ears soften to half-mast, lips champing together softly. In the back of her mind she can feel the weight of Lil's displeasure, his arrogance warring against her submission—but even he cannot move her from her placid stance. Her hero deserves her respect; and—seeing that death wielded at hand of a warrior queen... she is afraid.
"No." A lie; and a bad one, at that, seeing as blood stains her torn and chewed hindquarters.
Pain echoed and throbbed like beating drums across her neck, deep into the sinew and muscle that lay beneath her beautiful rosen hide. Her breaths came to her in powerful gushes, sweeping in to clear her lungs of the remnants of her battle cries, taking them out across her tongue that tasted the errant drops of fresh blood. Hot, as if attempting to scald her taste bloods which only rightfully longed for more. Heart pounded against her chest, beating valiantly, violently against her ribs. Seeking escape, domination, the rush of adrenaline that had brought her such sweet victory. Surely it could be achieved a thousand more times, in far more creative, ferociously bloody ways.
The girl's screams still resonated in her head, unpleasant in contrast to those of the cougar's dying noises. A child. Her child, she thought briefly, consumed by instinctual behavior. It could have been Arya, it could have been Raeru or Mirabella. Teeth creased against the folds of her delicate lips, eyes narrowing fox-like, predatory upon the hot carcass at her hooves. Blood dripped into her eyes, coated her entire face from where her horn had delivered the killing blow. Hotaru didn't so much as blink, letting it cascade and drip in odd contrast and various patterns down the delicately beautiful lines of her face. She wanted to kill it all over again, summon its spirit back to make it suffer more with the image of her daughters fresh in her head.
Speaking of the child, Hotaru turned her bloodied crown towards the daughter of night, the unholy offspring of Nyx and Enyo. It chilled her to see the child tentatively slide one lid open, terrified and drowned, laced, in her own blood - all in the face of one of Hotaru's most hated enemies. Arya's words calmed her instinctive distaste, and for the sake of her daughter's friend and the youth that she clearly was, the princess let her words slide soft and unobtrusive across her tongue. The babe had experienced hell in the blink of a moment, brashness and coarse tone would not do her any favors with the nightmarish evenings she was sure to face in the future.
Briefly, her heart thirsted further for Confutatis' blood. How could she leave her child alone to wander, unprotected? Arya was hardly ever wandering without young Alice at her side, or Deodat's bitch similarly at her heels. Raeru's age had her even closer to Hotaru's flank most days. And though it could have happened to any foal of the wilds, the fact that a mare would not at least drop her kin to the doorstep of a herd was despicable to Hotaru. The she-wolf had forbid Tingal from even contemplating putting his seed in her until they were encapsulated in a herd's borders. For the very evidence that lay before her worried eyes and crinkled brow.
Alice came to heel as words finally left the filly's mouth. A name Hotaru had already guessed by courtesy of her daughter, a singular syllable that was the plainest lie Hotaru had ever heard. She tutted softly, not real disappointment but a light disapproval coating the sound fondly. "There is no shame in being injured, my dear. I am as well, see?" Long neck arched, displaying ragged ribbons of clawmarks, a burial ground tribute to the dead cougar. "Let me aid you, my aunt was once a medic. Perhaps you could send your dragon to look for herbs with my hellhound? I will need as much as we can carry for the both of us." It would not do for the babe to scar before she could even face her second cycle of seasons.
Stepping a little closer, the she-wolf kept well enough distance, not wanting to scare off the child while she was injured and smelling tastiest to any other predators. "Would you like to move?" she offered quietly, not knowing if the body so near would further disturb Nymeria, if the blood and memory was too thick and close for her to stand.
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.
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