the Rift


[OPEN] blood and bone [bone collecting]

Oizys Posts: 134
Aurora Basin Soldier atk: 7.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 17hh :: 2 HP: 73.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Ker :: Philippine Eagle :: Curse Snow
#1


She leaves Kisamoa's little gathering with determination on her mind. There's no time like the present to get started, so with a resigned sigh the gargoyle heads deeper into the Rotunda to begin the hard work.

Clearing obstacles sounds like far too much effort for right now, so the bulky yearling decides instead to hunt for bones. That's far more her thing, so she sends Ker into the heavens to hunt for potential death. She isn't sure if Kisamoa only wants horse bones or if he's much less fussy and just wants all the marrow, but for now she decides to just find what she can.

Unfortunately, though, Ker is not as single-minded as she is. Already the eagle is distracted - she's caught sight of a dead wolf, and with a joyous screech she descends towards it. She lands heavily on the carcass and by the time Oizys has muscled her way through the undergrowth towards her, the raptor is in a state of meat-fuelled bliss. The corpse is still fresh, fresh enough to have blood coagulating slowly around it, and Ker takes great delight in burrowing right down into the depths of the wolf's entrails to pull out the juiciest, choicest portions. When Oizys reaches her, she's gleefully slurping a chunk of what looks like bowel, with blood oozing freely from her beak in gloopy crimson strands. You eat like an animal, growls Oizys, prowling near to the dead wolf and examining it with interest. Maybe its bones will appease Kisamoa...

Ker tilts her head at her bonded, a wicked glint in her eye. "Try it. Might like it." Oizys shrivels her nose and fixes her companion with a look of utter contempt. I'm a fucking herbivore, Ker, I can't eat meat or drink blood. But the eagle is having none of it. She seems oddly intent that her bonded try some of her delicious feast, so she cups up a great beakful of the wolf's blood and flutters towards the yearling. "Tryyyyyyyy iiiiiiiiiit" she croons, and forcefully shoves her beak into Oizys' mouth where she deposits the blood like a mother feeding her chick.

The gargoyle recoils, disgusted; she spits and hacks, but she's unable to stop a great dose of the blood from trickling down her throat. What the hell, Ker? Ker flutters back to the carcass and simply sends Oizys a "8D" face before tucking back into her feast.

The filly, meanwhile, feels....strange. There's an odd power in her limbs, a queer sense of hunger, of predatory instinct....she frowns and feels the blood trickling down her lips, and she tries to make the connection, wonders if that's why she's suddenly feeling like this, why she suddenly wants to reach into the nub in her mind that she uses to access her spark magic and thrive on whatever newfound strength this is....

So she does.

Birds fly from the trees in a serenade of startled squawks as a primal scream of unimaginable agony erupts from the filly's gaping jaws. It's like nothing she's ever felt before, like torture, like somebody is breaking every fucking bone in her body and replacing her veins with barbed wire....There's an audible snap as her bones crack and reform, and the girl's throat is suddenly so crushed by the transformation that she can't even howl her agony. She falls to her knees, thrashing and flailing; she's dying, this is hell itself, worse than the harpy attack, worse than The Thing in her heart, worse than everything...Ker leaps from the wolf corpse with a terrified screech, circling Oizys uselessly, unable to help, able only to watch...

Suddenly it stops. Suddenly, the girl has never felt this strong, this alive. Suddenly, there's power like nothing she's ever felt rippling through her muscles, her compact predator's muscles; her paws (paws???) crunch on the frosty soil beneath and as she shakes herself, she smells the potent stench of wolf. "FUCK that hurt" she hisses, and her voice is a savage animal's growl; she darts her tongue around her mouth, feeling razor-sharp teeth, then flicks it against a wet nose. The smells are so strong; the reek of the dead wolf nearby is so overpowering she can't blank it out, and even Ker is a mess of different bird-scents, feathers and gore and meat. All around her there's piss and shit and blood and death and everything is easily filed away in her predator's mind. There's a story to tell on every tree, and she's got the ability to read it.

Ker sends her an image of herself, and she's unsurprised - but pleasantly overjoyed - to see that she's a great black wolf, the spitting image of the one laying dead beside them, except she's so alive. She takes a few steps, feels the raw strength in her newfound predator's muscles, and flicks her furry tail around a little as she tests her new abilities. What do you think triggered this? The blood? Ker has no answer. She's just sat on a nearby branch, gazing open-beaked at her bonded - ":O :O :O."

After a few more exploratory steps, wolf-Oizys glances around with a snort. Oh, she wants to explore all the uses of her new body, test her new limits, but she's still got a job to do. "At least finding bones should be easier now," she says with a sardonic laugh that comes out as a rumbling growl. She plants her moist nose to the ground and begins to sniff, hunting for bones.

NO WEALTH, NO LAND, NO SILVER, NO GOLD
NOTHING SATISFIES ME BUT YOUR SOUL

image credits


Ozzy has discovered her new magic and is in the form of a wolf. @Verro and anybody else! If you join I ask that you keep it active, gotta collect dem bones :D

[ the gargoyle queen ]
OIZYS IS ALWAYS RATED M FOR STRONG LANGAUGE IN HER POSTS




Beloved Posts: 121
Aurora Basin Soldier atk: 8.5 | def: 10 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 14.3 :: Appears 6 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE
Orphan :: Ragdoll Cat :: None Bunnie
#2
Watching, each spasm of the mutating filly draw the waiting a little closer, her crown all the while gaining a sidelong tilt of wide-eyed fascination. Who is this, upon which she spies? What is it, she wonders, that causes such precious transformation from prey to beast? Her tongue probing her lips at the sight of the dark gray one’s new, furrier form, when she rises from where the magic had bid her bow, complaints of pain dripping from a noble, hunter’s maw.

Beloved’s laughter blesses the air at the sight of a wolf bemoaning the gifts of suffering, having never seen the beasts do so, but the most piteous of whimpers, of course, as her blade exited their chests. Of course, she’d never met a wolf with which she could speak, but the big one, that had served Oblivion, her darling Mask of Death; a wolf which was not a wolf, but a man, trapped in the thick furs of beasts, tailed by the haunting visage of his kills, heavy on a tender heart. Too tall, too gentle, to truly be that which his rows of fangs made him appear, so that even Beloved, small, pale, sleek, was more a snarling canine than he.

As she moves towards the she-wolf before her, mad-mind drifting in and out of her coiled memories, she wonders how savage this mongrel is, but just fleetingly so. A babe, in a man’s body, this time, Beloved wonders if the little witch, her damp, wolf’s muzzle already pressed to the ground in greedy search of Kisamoa’s bleached treasures, has done more than dream of the chase. Likely not, she thinks with a barking laugh, a maddened grimace of both panic, and pleasure, mind besieged by her own past hunts, and the haunting of those felled; their faces swimming through the black, static crackle of her mind, like so many soft, warm stones sinking into lakes of sticky red-black.

She dances over the strange dead; not her art, lying there, but someone else’s, already fetid in the warmth of the Spring. Had it been thus which had brought him death, riding the teeth of a foe, seeking the bitch upon which he rutted? Or had it been the winter, long, slow, that had ebbed his speed, his strength, so that the prey might slay its tormenters, in a natural uprising of nature’s rigid paths, before that murderous feast galloped on to meet its doom elsewhere? Where were his comrades, ringed, as packs do, voices gathered in mourning, their songs hallowed, and haunting?

"You, you there," she sings, and giggles, her mirth peculiar, too much, as she bounds towards the wolf, her divine gaze lowering to be at better alignment with the mongrel, her steps sweeping, bobbing, to keep in time with the steady sway of a hunter’s form. She must remind herself again, with a nervous, tutting noise rising from the peculiar writhing of her laughter, that this is not truly a wolf as she strides alongside him, but a female child, the white witch’s irrational mind attempting luring her deeper, as usual, into the twisted realms of a chaos stunted – or was it bolstered? – reality. "Clever, to take from the dead what they cannot defend. Beloved has not seen a being stolen before, while still remaining where they once were."

She’d heard as much before, but has forgotten. So she asks, then decrees, seemingly not caring if objections are made:

"You are doing as the Grinning Sea bids? Beloved will join you, then."



Beloved
rust every place that I touch

@Oizys
Tag Beloved, please!

Feel free to attack her with physical or magical violence at your own risk. ;D

Verro Posts: 25
Absent Abyss
Filly :: Pegasus :: 17 :: Three Seasons
Nova
#3

The task is simple enough, the antlered girl had decided. To restore what was defiled into something whole again was an agreeable action. From life came death, and from death life. The flames which billowed and caressed her wings, which blessed her steps with a burning presence were a testament to that. Each gentle snorted breath peppered the air with ethereal embers, fire which had refused to die before it began and transcended into something more.

They would turn the marshes into something more, each bone picked and tree felled at a time.

Lilac eyes spotted a filly and her companion from her lofty perch, the large corvid cocked a curious glance in their direction. She had been lost in her reflections a breath too late, so the girl stayed silent and still upon her branch throne. Verro had never particularly liked being interrupted from her train of thought, much like how it disgusted her when someone opposed or got in the way of her plans. A joyous shriek pierced the spring air as the eagle seemingly spotted something of interest, and the girl almost wished she hadn't turned her gaze to follow where the bird had fluttered to.

A dead wolf. Her heart gave an unpleasant twist, she resonated with the creatures. She'd been named for them, Verro. Her mother had called her little wolf when she still stayed close to her breast, some of her family had even taken them as companions. She herself aspired to be just like them, in her own way. A snarling reflection from the other side, a wolf composed of spirit flame and snapping teeth. The white flame wolf who raced across desert sands unbound and free.

Still, from life came death. From death, life. The filly remained unmoved and instead focused on the owner of such a companion. Whatever happens next is a sequence of chance and reward. She'd fed a piece of still fresh meat and something within the dark painted girl twists. A metaphorical ear twisted back, the grimace evident on her feathered face. Magic appeared to be a fickle mistress, some soothed, others twisted and contorted those into something else - sometimes more. It's evident the girl is blessed with the latter part.

A wolf is in her place, and if she's not intrigued by the magic before, she is now. But before she can call out, there's another on the tail end of the girl's growled declaration to hunt in Kisamoa's name for the bones of the deceased. Her beak snapped shut with a huff, the pale lady speaks in an unusual sequence, but offers the girl her aid.

That's her moment, the Princess opens her large wings and drops from the gnarled tree toward the ground. The moment her pale claws touched the ground, her body obscured into a plume of white smoke as the magic shifted and reverted her into her normal form.

"M'ath." She greeted with a dip of her twice crowned head, the elegant crown of feathers dipped and swayed with the motion. Her mottle wings shuffled neatly at her sides as her lilted but silky voice filled the air. "Verro will also help gather bones." A beat. "You," her pale gaze shifted to look at the wolf-girl, "possess great magic." It's a compliment, though poorly articulated. But the wolven form has earned her respect, and she's quite interested in what such a motley gang could accomplish on behalf of Kisamoa.

she slept with wolves without fear.
verro
lovelyskylark!


@Oizys @Beloved
[Image: BGJGwn32.png]
force & aggression permitted against Verro at all times
with the exception of maiming and death

Oizys Posts: 134
Aurora Basin Soldier atk: 7.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 17hh :: 2 HP: 73.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Ker :: Philippine Eagle :: Curse Snow
#4


Her body feels like a temple, a shrine to the savage creature whose flesh she has stolen. There's such power in her limbs, in the paws that crunch the earth below them and the fur-covered hindquarters that propel them; in the jaws that hang slightly open, rimmed with razor-sharp teeth. She feels as though she could run a marathon, hunt any animal unfortunate enough to cross her path, slay with a single bite and devour the carcass. Every ounce of the pain that the change caused her is worth it because from the prey she has suddenly become the predator, and it's fucking beautiful.

Placing her nose to the ground, the wolf-girl begins to hunt for bones. Everything is so clear, each scent easily distinguished from the hundreds of others that lather the clearing. Aside from the odour of death that rises from the corpse of the wolf nearby, she can just make out a lingering scent of older-death from a short distance away. That's promising....Before she can head towards it, however, she hears a voice. You, you there. It's an odd voice, laced with wicked mirth, and Oizys turns her canine body towards it. It is a mare, small but sturdy, and decidedly tasty-looking. It appears that the predator's hungers are an occupational hazard of stealing their bodies, and the yearling digests this with interest. She looms closer to the stranger, a string of drool hanging from her jowls as she unleashes a feral growl, keen to see how much terror she can incite with the carnivorous power of this body.

The mare remarks on the cleverness of taking from the dead, and wolf-Oizys twitches her snout. "Even if they weren't dead, I'd like to see them object." She grins a wolf's grin, pondering on the unique pleasure that would be afforded by attacking any creature who dared object to her thievery, slaying them with their own body. Ker gives a somewhat subdued hoot from over on the wolf's carcass, too busy devouring it to pay a great deal of attention to the newcomer.

You are doing as the Grinning Sea bids? Beloved will join you, then. The Grinning Sea, she assumes, is Kisamoa. A rather apt name. "Yes. There must be bones around here, and this body seems ideal to search for them." There's a sudden burst of white smoke and from the heavens drops a white raven, quickly reforming as a winged filly. That transformation looks far less painful than what Oizys just endured, but she supposes that is the unique allure of Dark magic - it has a price, and it is a price that the bulky yearling is more than willing to pay. She greets them, and states that she will help gather bones, before offering a compliment to Oizys' magic - the wolf dips her head, accepting the praise. As much as the girl prefers to operate alone, she cannot deny that the three of them will accomplish the task far faster than she could alone. "In this form, I can sniff out the bones and dig them up. You two can help by making a pile of them, which we can then drop back to Barnacle Bill."

Just like that, she's off. She leaves Ker to feast on the carcass whilst she plants her wet nose to the ground and follows the scent, shaggy black fur cascading with the movements of her powerful frame. "There," she announces to her compatriots, and the word is bark-like in this carnivore's voice of hers. At the base of a large tree, the death-scent has reached its peak, and Oizys begins to dig with her large, blunt-clawed paws. The bones aren't buried too deeply, and she soon unearths them, exposing them to the chill spring air. She nudges them out of the hole so they are on display for either Beloved or Verro to take, then follows her nose again towards the next location.

NO WEALTH, NO LAND, NO SILVER, NO GOLD
NOTHING SATISFIES ME BUT YOUR SOUL

image credits


@Beloved

[ the gargoyle queen ]
OIZYS IS ALWAYS RATED M FOR STRONG LANGAUGE IN HER POSTS




Beloved Posts: 121
Aurora Basin Soldier atk: 8.5 | def: 10 | dam: 3
Mare :: Unicorn :: 14.3 :: Appears 6 HP: 62 | Buff: NOVICE
Orphan :: Ragdoll Cat :: None Bunnie
#5
The wicked one cackles along with the youth; let them object, indeed! Beloved too took what she wanted, when she wanted it, unafraid of mortal tethers or judicial frames, knowing, perhaps more deeply than most, that all of it was nothingness, in the end. What mattered was the poignant pulse of her black heart, and what that chaos might bloom from the wild roll of her wake, though it was likely that even that was without meaning, in the end. With her giggles still bounding though the wood, the ivory damsel lowers her head, and begins to follow the wolf, eyes searching the earth for white.

Suddenly, however, another comes, young, appearing from smoke and feathers, and the sun-riddled above. Tensions already high, the presence of a predator keeping them so, Beloved’s ears fly back in response to the peculiar arrival, her crown lifting, her hooves carrying her back several paces. A barking, angry snarl erupts from her in the process, her blade swishing impotently through the air in a defensive brandish, and her dual colored eyes narrow in on the peculiar bird-girl with a hatred not truly bound behind the porcelain of the demoness’ face.

A steam of nonsense and curses is wildly exclaimed, spittle spraying from her lips, and her teeth clicking with a sharp snap. Her silver iris shudders about the nearly nonexistent blip of her pupil, almost timed with the breath drawn into her lungs in swift, ragged inhalations. Still poised between she and the sky-witch is the tip of her rapier, always prepared to spill blood, but now mostly defending herself, from the terror of Verro (by maddened accord, anyway), the wild minded one not entirely sure whether she is under attack, or not. With erratic darts and shudders, her mind fluctuates from murder, to composure, and back again, and all the while, her ears pivot, and twitch, following every peep the others make.

Her eyes narrow as she regains her composure, the now faintly tittering to herself mare watching the proceeding conversation with the sort of wary anxiousness one bar fighter gives the other, as they both grasp broken chair legs with sweaty palms and whiskey blurred vision. That Beloved is the only fighter in the bar, and that the stupor is madness, not the drink, doesn’t seem to ease the tension lining every inch of her body.

Barnacle Bill makes her lips twitch around the flint dagger that the rest of her expression has become as she slowly follows after the two, younger vixens, her whispered nothings easing into a sweet, sugary peel of giggles to hear a God so mocked. Not Beloved’s taste, no, she the sort to withhold petty jokes and minor insults for the invocation of blood, and soul, on the sacred alter of struggle, knowing all to well the weightlessness of wind, and the heaviness of mortality; one could not win, weighing words to bodies, and the white witch, well…

She wanted to win. Didn’t we all?

So, when Oizys discovers bones and uncovers them, it’s almost surprising when the malevolent maiden steps back, her hateful eyes turning to the devious child-bird (who Beloved is becoming more and more sure is not an assailant, though she is still quite wary), instead of the Sea’s prizes.

"Take them," is all she bids, hips swaying as she saunters along behind the wolf, towards the next buried trove.


Beloved
rust every place that I touch

@Verro
Tag Beloved, please!

Feel free to attack her with physical or magical violence at your own risk. ;D

Verro Posts: 25
Absent Abyss
Filly :: Pegasus :: 17 :: Three Seasons
Nova
#6
It's not particularly easy to keep composure when you're on the receiving end of a very sharp horn, but Verro managed. Her sudden appearance and transformation appeared to have upset the white unicorn in the company of the transforming one, and her pale brow rose in silent question as her gaze chased the spitting, hissing woman. There is a moment where she thought, a fleeting, foolish moment that the pale mare would of thrown herself at the sand wolf and it caused the flames on her wings to burn higher and brighter. For a moment, for they simmered down back to their ethereal dance once more, the embers from her nostrils dimmed to wispy plumes.

"Will not harm pale lady." She responded, unable to keep the slight lilt off of her words. She is only half-a-year into her life, hardly a threat to those who have survived years compared to her mere months. Still, it's a pleasant feeling, to take someone off guard and have that kind of power, if only temporary. Her attention slipped back to the wolf-girl when she directed that she would find the bones, and they would pile them up. Verro's head nodded in agreement and she settled to walking after the wolf when she began to hunt for her quarry. Kisamoa being dubbed Barnacle Bill earned a snorted laugh from the Sand Princess.

Soon, bones are found and she's directed to take them. With all the reverance one can muster for the dead, the dun painted filly began to gently gather them into a neat pile using her hooves and wings. "Wonder why they were not buried." She muttered to herself, a frown marking her face. Helovian's appeared to have great respect for the dead, or at least in the Throat they did. Hadn't they tended to her father when he stopped burning? They had made sure that he was paid proper respects. What had happened to these bones?

talk talk
she slept with wolves without fear.
verro
lovelyskylark!


@Oizys @Beloved
[Image: BGJGwn32.png]
force & aggression permitted against Verro at all times
with the exception of maiming and death

Oizys Posts: 134
Aurora Basin Soldier atk: 7.0 | def: 8.5 | dam: 6.5
Mare :: Hybrid :: 17hh :: 2 HP: 73.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Ker :: Philippine Eagle :: Curse Snow
#7


The next batch of bones is swiftly discovered, and the wolf-girl quickly sniffs frantically around the patch of dirt until she finds the epicentre of the smell. When she does, she begins to dig until the bleached white bones are poking through the surface, which she leaves to her followers whilst she moves on to the next lot.

The bird girl wonders why the bones were buried, and Oizys shrugs her canine shoulders. "They seem old....I would say they were not purposefully buried, but have simply been covered by the dirt of time." Her jaws clack as she speaks, a quite unnerving sound. She does not think they were buried on purpose, but that the corpse simply fell here, its flesh devoured, then its bones caught beneath the shifting dusts of the forest.

They continue in the same thread for some time until their pile is quite formidable. By now, Oizys has almost forgotten what it is like to be a horse - she is all about the wolf. Finally she shakes herself and looks to her companions. "We should transport these back now." Nodding her thanks to the duo for their help, she scoops up as many bones as she can and carries them to Kisamoa's designated area, before returning for another batch.

NO WEALTH, NO LAND, NO SILVER, NO GOLD
NOTHING SATISFIES ME BUT YOUR SOUL

image credits


@Beloved @Verro figured we should wrap this up as I think our time is coming to an end :D

[ the gargoyle queen ]
OIZYS IS ALWAYS RATED M FOR STRONG LANGAUGE IN HER POSTS





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