the Rift


[PRIVATE] if we're not made for each other, why did we fall in love?

Sikeax the Sea Soul Posts: 355
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16 hh :: 5 years HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Hobgoblin :: Common Rougarou :: Water & Seoul :: Plain White Dragon :: Toxic Breath Zuno
#1
if this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much?
if you're not made for me, why did we fall in love?
if you'd return for me, i'd never want for more.


Some ancient, tortured beast sweeps down with jaws spread wide and swallows her whole, only her, leaving Hobgoblin behind to watch with helplessness. It consumes him from the inside out, an aching disease that rips everything apart, and he has nothing to contain it or cure it. That is Sikeax’s job, and Sikeax feels gone.
She’s standing in the sunlight, sweat gathering in her pores as the light bares down on frail skin. Less burns have dotted her hide than usual this year. She takes it as a godsend, a sign that life outside the Dragon’s Throat is going better than it was.
Well, except for right now.
Discomfort hums in her lip as her teeth sink. It’s become a nervous tweak these days, finding herself doing it more and more as her ability to calmly handle a situation lessens its grip on her. There’s too much to fear. Fear and worry hold her hands and guide her through the dark to finally answer a call she doesn’t know the source of, but it’s there. Sikeax only needs to look.
Hobgoblin fidgets. She feels so cold, sucking the life out of his lungs as he is left to stand idle near her side, waiting, hoping for anything that could make this better.
Nothing comes.
“Okay?” Worry taints his voice and her chest tenses. This is her fault, and for once, she’s got no shame for it. She needs to face this beast before it consumes her whole and leaves nothing behind but what she used to be, and all this time she’s let herself believe that she’s grown into something different, far from that point in time.
Funny, how lying is becoming her way of life when in the past she found no interest in it.
“Of course not.” They snap out of her a lot harder than she intended, caught up in her own recoil and Hobgoblin’s. Her’s bleeds pity and sorrow, except short-lived because the world is going to have to accept what is happening soon enough, and she’s definitely had enough, and his pours pain that lasts a million years. She can’t bring herself to look despite knowing what is going on near her shoulder. Hobgoblin’s eyes swell with unseen tears, eyelids sweeping downwards in a flash to try and gather them up before she knows.
She hates herself for this, for him, for everything. A scowl creeps over her lips and she’s got to hope he doesn’t see it, but there’s a whimper filling up the space in his throat and a sob crawling into place. He swallows them both whole in a sniffle that she hears, but nothing stops the agony they’re forced to share in the wake.
When it hits her ears is when she twists her eyes in their sockets to look at him, blues now dulled and the expression around her eyes sunken. The shrine does nothing without her gaze to scrutinize it.
And there he is, the product of everything they’ve ever experienced together, crying for the first time ever, and she can’t bring herself to do a single thing about it because she has no idea how to handle the situation because he loves her with a purity no one but them will know, and she has struck him down. A brief thought flies threw her head makes her wish that his tears could make her skin burn and reach down into her soul. Repentance that’ll never come, and while Hobgoblin is keen to forgetting, this is surely something he’ll never forget.
“I’m sorry.” She mumbles, soft and cold, running a blade across his cheekbones as it frees itself to wipe his tears away.
I love you.
No response, absolutely what she deserves, and then her eyes are back on the shrine, listening to the soft whine of his sorrows strike her down.

OOC: Hobgoblin is in his wendigo form.

lunarblues!

@Amara


you were angels,
so much more than everything

:: please tag me
:: minor force and power play allowed


Amara Posts: 136
Outcast atk: 6 | def: 8.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Pegasus :: 15.1 hh :: 6 years HP: 60.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Sameira :: Royal Hellhound :: Hellfire dark
#2
Amara
I'd lingered in the Marsh quietly, living a life full of harsh, choking sobs and absolute silence, lurking through muck and grime, sifting past weightless bodies that slip through my grasp— they melt at my touch, meld with the crystalline surface that shatters as I walk through, amber settled on just how clean it all is, horrified by the unfamiliarity. My soiled body has contaminated the waters, leaves lingering black pools of soot and grime as I wade through it, soaking in the cool water with gnarled roots reaching up to grasp at my thin legs, neck held low and throat shut tight.

I have haunted the Marsh since I caught wind of it's reappearance, crawled my way to the familiar treacherous figures of mangled trees and dark auras lingering over the rotting corpses that flicker and dissipate, threatening to return en mass before my very eyes— I am not weary as I wander, do not feel uneasy or unsettled in the company of the Marsh's horrors, and most have receded with the welcoming of a new god made of scattered bones and lost souls, filled with wicked intentions and chaos. A catalyst, looming over this land with his daunting presence and towering black altar that stands ominously, a centerpiece in a clearing filled with hopelessness and despair, a place I dare not wander. I fear that it will be all too destructive, will tear me apart before I can get any closer, before my hoof can fall cautiously upon the damp soil that spots the clearing, before my body sinks into the muddied water before the altar. I would become a sacrifice, an unnecessary key to a puzzle I never had a hand in, an extra piece that can be pushed aside and forgotten, a mistake that stumbled so foolishly into a sacred space.

I remember too clearly the days spent living within the Marsh, back when all you could smell was the stench of waterlogged corpses drifting past, when the rot could overwhelm you if you let it, when the black shadows lingered at the edges of your vision, teasing and taunting ('look at me!'), beckoning for your attention. I remember the Asylum meetings, summoned by Seele when she actually had a cause to work for, when she was not trapped leading a herd of scattered remnants of a group she once cared so deeply for— I remember each meeting like it had happened only a moment ago, filled with horses of every background, each one of us unique in some way, seeking refuge from a world too harsh to live in, a world that turned its back on all of us ("everyone hates me!"). Seele took us in, governed us with a fair heart and gentle hand, she gave me a family when I didn't have one, treated me as though I had been a child from her womb, the cursed fruit of her loins, the product of her sins. I had needed that, without her love I wouldn't have made it so far, wouldn't have made it a moment in the real world.

She was not the only one to keep me company in harsh times, when my world was just rubble and sorrow, full of despair and desolate silence when it had only just begun. Sia had been there too, had somehow found her way into my heart early on, when we were foolish children clinging to one another in desperate times. We formed a close connection so quickly, devoting ourselves to a rather energetic friendship filled with adventure and excitement, laced with sorrow no child should ever deal with. It ended bitterly right here, when the world was falling apart around us and in her concern, Sia came running for me, where we were consumed by a darkness that I cannot remember. I have spent hours reaching out for the memory of what happened, of what went wrong, reaching and reaching, feeling it right there before me, brushing it but never quite taking hold. It hurts, the dismal abyss in my memory, scattered holes that have rooted into my mind from when I spent time as someone else, as I watched catastrophe after catastrophe from afar, watched myself run rampant through Helovia with a sick smile and melting flesh. And I hurt her then, possessed by raw hatred and disease, I terrorized a frightened Sikeax, I ruined her— and I couldn't remember it, not wholly. In fragments it may rain down, ("I'm a monster!"(("It's all your fault!")("Look at me!") but never the full story.

A head rises hesitantly to gaze out upon the twisted trees, to sweep through the Marsh, expecting a familiar brown body to be lingering before me, wearing a sadistic grin and mocking aureate eyes. But there, instead, were the snippets of amber champagne through the dark trees, observant amber flickering with interest as I creep forward, sloshing through thick mud, tripping, stumbling, gasping. I'm choking before I even reach her, throat welling before I'm even in her sights, a million apologies ("I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry... I never meant for it to be like this.") caught between my teeth, hanging off of my lips as I push through the much to see her completely. My mind brushes off where she stands, beside the sinister black altar and it's soft glowing blue symbols that make no sense to my scrambled conscious, it's too focused on Sia as I race for her.

But what do I say? It hits me as I madly dash to her side, to be the object of her attention yet again, slowing suddenly as I realize that a flood of apologies is no greeting, that talking at all has never been my strong suit, that my sentences never string together the way I want them to ("Che stupido sei,""du bist schwach.""). Instead I linger there, watching the blue stained queen from a distance, with her broken crown and fragile heart, cast aside by a kingdom she could not keep. And I am frozen, marble skin cold and cracked as I look her over, as the dark, heavy mood that lingers over her like a veil creeps towards me. I can feel the sorrow in the air, the salt of tears and the lingering pain that comes with them, my stone joints are stiff and stationary, allowing only for observation. I yearn to get closer, to speak, but my lips are sealed and I can only stare from afar.

I am fractured and crumbling as I inch closer, silent and alert, shaking nervously as I look at her as though it was she who placed each and every star in the sky, as if she was far more radiant than the sun or the moon, even if she could never look at me the same way. It's some sick, twisted feeling that I have, some clump of emotion that I can't shake off, something that haunts me, tortures me, because I know no one will ever feel the same about me. Certainly not Sia, who I have ruined with my blackened hands and unsteady heart, with my chaotic mind and unpredictability ("She'll never forgive you.")("Give up now, turn back before it's too late.")("Run!").

"Sia..." The name burns a hole in my throat, gets caught halfway, sliding out like a sticky mass, something dripping with melancholy and agony, falling from my lips gracelessly as I look to her, the Sea Soul, the silenced, the one I have destroyed with my cataclysmic touch. I'm sorry.
@Sikeax
feel free to pm me if you have any confusion on the events within amara's posts

Sikeax the Sea Soul Posts: 355
Outcast atk: 4 | def: 9 | dam: 6
Mare :: Hybrid :: 16 hh :: 5 years HP: 64.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Hobgoblin :: Common Rougarou :: Water & Seoul :: Plain White Dragon :: Toxic Breath Zuno
#3
if this was meant for me, why does it hurt so much?
if you're not made for me, why did we fall in love?
if you'd return for me, i'd never want for more.


If she ever had to imagine what it would feel like to have Hobgoblin shatter, his steel towers who had once stood unbreakable, threatening with its gaze searching everything for any source of a weakness, exploitation that has already promised him a perfect outcome(or at least in his eyes), she would have never expected him to roll away like pieces of glass hit carelessly. Yet that's exactly what she's done now, leaping out with claws already armed for whatever they could find, not caring for the face they tear apart when they make contact at last.
How does it feel to have the tables turned? It's an aggressive whisper from reality, laced with hatred and sounding off walls and ear drums with cackled laughter, but as they both linger in the back of her head, Sikeax simply needing to know the reason why and Hobgoblin frightened, searching for that weakness now like it'll save his life against this agony, they both know who it is. The weight of it all crushes him further than emotion she could had created in her chest, split between two souls.
The sound of it is a lot worse than expected, but then again, it always is. She considers him her's, another child hailed from a different womb only to find their way to her guidance, and a child's first weeping, especially at her hand, is never the easiest.
It continues to consume her until she cannot take anymore. He knows it's happening, but no part of him can find the drive to stop it. Every piece of him struggles with the situation at hand. His throat aches from the sobs that crank sore muscles into it, scratched up places where nails have raked through. Rib bones whine with tiredness as convulsions work their way in and out. Hobgoblin is not a beautiful crier. In actuality, he's one of the ugliest, with snot brimming in his nostrils and tears straining the smooth lines of exposed bones, barely visible against his partial transparency. They roll out in waves, made in earthquakes when his eyelids crinkle shut into nothing.
Then again, you can't expect a first time crier, who has gone their entire life laughing and frowning upon weeping faces and sob-filled voices, to cry like a cramp. Sikeax is the master of that, with silent tears rolling down her cheeks even now, the only motion to be seen being the quick batting of her eyes as they work to herd away the rain.
The storm goes quietly for her, and leaves behind only short-lived puddles. I didn't mean to try you that way.
"Then why do?"

It rips another hole into her to imagine why, so she lets him feel how it makes her feel, choking on his tears and snot in an achy windpipe, coughing briefly as the guilt sinks in like a grey cloud rolls over the Sun. The heavy shadow rolls in quietly and takes its place like its always deserved it, known where to go, and knows that it will be there to stay for at least a good while.
"Okay." He tells in his choked up tone, sniffling now but nonetheless still caught up in his mess. None of speaks 'apology accepted,' but she can't begin to think of accepting it.
All of this takes such a beating on them mentally that they dissociate in gentle succession, Sikeax's tail swinging with a lazy, effortless motion to swat away flies that probably aren't there. Her eyes still remain locked on the shrine, except now nothing really has a grasp of her attention. An image fills up the blank spaces in her vision, but not a single specific location can make her eyes focus.
Hobgoblin simply stands, silent excluding the muffled noises of sorrow and weakness, looking as frail as china despite the transparency in his bones. He could die while taken as an actual ghost now, and the whole world would shutter in fear. It's just that bad.
He's the one to notice Amara. No customary "Monster" runs through his head to Sikeax's at the sight of her, nor is there an obivous display of hatred and disgust. His gaze follows her as she approaches, body holding no other movement other than the flick of his pupils. Nothing has gained the willpower to do anything, and it's beginning to look like it's going to stay that.
Nonetheless, his position next to Sikeax's shoulder remains filled, giving only a hard look once as the winged mare arrives, still looking worse for wear but when does Amara not look that way?, refusing to budge his spot.
If anything was to happen to Sikeax, he'd rather see himself be the first thing to go. A world without her would be so dark and meaningless that it's likely he'd give away his life simply to be with her again, just to know that she's okay and at least somehow happy.
She gives him a look over her shoulder that reads light surprise and confusion, haunting her with the aftermath of his breakdown but not letting it reach the light yet. She only lets it known through the tuck of her eyebrows into a place further up her face, barely clmbing as they go. It ends after only a handful of short seconds. Sikeax's attentions seeps into Amara, and all he can manage to do now is lean into her shoulder blade, damp, smelling sea salt and sweat with the most minute pieces of red sand left buried in it.
Almost gone, almost free, almost someone else who isn't Sikeax the Sea Soul.
Every motion from her is off, the swift movement of her head to the side to see Amara choking on a name that barely feels her own these days, because who is around to call her that anymore? No one loves her that deeply these days.
The smaller mare looks terrible, the familiar ache of worry and heartbreak at the sight of her friend? once-friend???? best friend?? lover? regardless of all the attempts at recreating and finding someone to take her love when Amara makes it scream in fear when it's never brave enough. She wishes that she'd try a bit harder and see that the world is worth living and enjoying, that finding a place in it takes a different kind of courage and willpower, strength and self-confidence, love than what she thinks it does, but Amara is a brick wall she cannot get past, like Hobgoblin.
A huff momentarily stamps an unseen foot in her head. No apology, not this time.
"Amara." It doesn't come out the way she intends, voice still unintentionally sharp and jaded, a stone to be thrown carelessly into a river when you are attempting to avoid something, but she's come here to face the beast, study it, understand why, and Amara is a forced portion of that beast.
Its now or never. Sincerities are not going to fit the picture any today.
"Have you decided to come back to your old haunting place?" Blurred memories of their shared childhood makes a run for it, sprinting to make it back into place as she remembers Amara telling about the marsh, especially the stench of rotting bodies, now vacant with their presence, but they'd all grown and found a touch of life to carry themselves away, to carry Sikeax and Amara both away. The world falls black in that time until she reaches the one.
Hobgoblin only catches a glimpse of it before she snaps the lid down on her chest, slamming her preverbial body weight down atop the top so that it makes that distinct THUMP! when it strikes the wood on the other end. The picture is Amara, skin rotting, jaw looking as it was barely holding on, body changed and barely noticeable. What follows after, he can dig through at his own pleasure. None of it really captures his attention though, flooded with the rainwaters of depression.
Brows thicken. The corners of his eyes are raw with the burns of his tears, sore as he rips the sick skin to make an expression she can't catch. "Fits."
Sikeax doesn't answer. Hobgoblin didn't expect one anyway.
"Everything looks a hell of a lot different without all the corpses, and more specifically, all the living ones that like to drag you into the waters." More unneccessary snaps, only now beginning to fade out the aggression and sink more in a monotone attempt at sarcasm. Her eyes instinctively scan the area regardless of the lack of death lingering here now, ever fearful. She is not ready to return to such a life.
"And I guess for you, turn you into a corpse." The last word flicks out of her lips with a crack of a whip. Sharp crackling would follow short if she had it her way. Amara had become the dead, seeking out her, finding her place in nightmares and ruining lives. Things might have been different if you hadn't gone and died.
The thought makes her want to take it back, hesistating as her brain runs through the idea of whether or not she means it. She does, and none of her feels wrong about it. Amara has done a great deal of things without care for how it will affect them.
Careless, selfish runs through her, and Hobgoblin finds himself taken back like she should be, but no part of her is ready for it. All of the wounds are still fresh, still licked in silent hours when she thinks Hobgoblin is not paying attention, hidden away in the depths to ignore her curse.

lunarblues!

@Amara


you were angels,
so much more than everything

:: please tag me
:: minor force and power play allowed


Amara Posts: 136
Outcast atk: 6 | def: 8.5 | dam: 3
Mare :: Pegasus :: 15.1 hh :: 6 years HP: 60.5 | Buff: NOVICE
Sameira :: Royal Hellhound :: Hellfire dark
#4
Amara
I wish there was a way to turn back time, to erase the mistakes of my past, to erase it all, to wipe my slate clean and start anew— but there isn't, and I have to face the world each and every day bearing the weight of every awful thing I've ever done, crushed beneath the weight of my decisions, of the things I've said and done. It tears me apart, ruins me as I carry it, Atlas of my sins, bearer of the worst— I don't know how much longer I can take it, how many more years of this can I withstand before it becomes all too much? Before I give up entirely, before I'm crushed wholly and completely by the pressure of existing ("It really hurts mama!"), letting the raging sea take my limp body, emptied of life ages ago, wandering Helovia without purpose, without life.

I stand before Sia, still and cold to the touch, holding my breath in hopes perhaps if I hold it long enough I'll pass out and sink into the welcoming water at my hooves. Instead I just stare at her, trembling before a queen I let down, a raging storm trapped within amber champagne hide, acid burning on her lips as she looks down at me ("They always look down on you."). I can feel it in the way she says my name, says it like she wants it out of her mouth as fast she can, like a bad taste she's so desperately trying to dispel. My ears swivel back and amber loses focus, gazing beyond her, into her, looking for some shred of decency, something to cling to as her blue eyes burn into my skin. I don't want to face a frozen ocean, do not want to let my fingertips burn against her frigid kiss, not anymore. It hurts too much, repelling my obsessive and desperate mind, unable to touch her anymore the way I'd longed to before I tripped, stumbled, crashed into her life, destroyed it.

My lips are trembling as I look to her, licking them with a dry tongue and tight throat as my body tenses at her question. The Marsh, my old haunting ground. I can almost see the scattered Asylum members wandering casually, unafraid of the bloated corpses and wisps of spirits, unmoved by the rot that encompasses the territory or the darkness that lingers. There's none of that now, just a faded atmosphere of despair, dusted aside by the cleanliness and filtered sunlight, something that makes my stomach turn uneasily ("It's not supposed to be like this.")("Wrong, wrong, wrong!") "I suppose... it's... a little cleaner than before..." My words are weak, dull and intriguing as I look away from her, amber burning against the body of the Sea Soul with her foul mood that's spoiling the air around us.

And I am receding there at her words, at the velocity at which they fly, harsh and piercing, sinking into my flesh and leaving me bleeding out before her. My mouth is dry, my mind is wiped clean, left blank, stuttering and spilling out as I cannot meet her gaze, flinching at the syllables flying from her tongue, spitting venom and crushing me in the palm of her hand. I am a fly, something insignificant, something to squash beneath a heel or crush with a nearby object— and I feel it, crushed, flattened beneath her anger. My mouth is stupidly hanging open, caught between closing it and leaving in a hurry, rushing to forget about her entirely, to toss myself away like a worthless item that's never used, or just leave Helovia, start anew somewhere else. My brows twitch, itching to furrow, face begging to frown at her cold attitude.

'Don't, Amara. Sameira does not want Amara doing more pain to Sikeax. Enough is enough.' The hound is close, she is lurking somewhere within the Marsh, wading through muck, hovering near the clearing but not close enough, the altar makes her too nervous to approach the area. "Oh but Amara! Aren't you fed up? Aren't you tired of taking her shit? Isn't it your turn to be mean? To be cold? Let's see it now!" Wicked ivory grin curls, cheshire and mocking as They whisper into my ear, giggling at the implications. "Tell it to her face! Tell her how you really feel!" How do I really feel? I'm searching, reaching, desperate to find what I feel, how I feel, turning up with all too much, a prosperous bundle that cannot be untangled, a big, shitty knot that makes me gag as I look at it. Ok, fine. Chestnut brow furrows, hollow features solidify, stone cold gaze locks onto the blue mare and heart beats furiously, begging to turn back now. "Amara, Sameira does not like this feeling." "Listen to me, Sikeax—" her full name feels foreign, does not come out smoothly from my lips as I meet her at full height. "You cannot blame me for the things I said and did at that time, cannot make me feel guilty for doing what something else did— not me— some twisted parasite, something that took me over, not fucking me.
I am tired of feeling guilty about what I did not do to you. You cannot keep this up, cannot keep acting like it was me who said whatever was said and did whatever was done. Because it wasn't me,"
I take a deep breath, shaking, slipping, grip unsteady on my consciousness as I go on, feeling them looming over me in preparation for when my hands slip and I fall down, down, down..

"You tell me to get over myself, to stop feeling the way I do, to stop acting like a child. But Sikeax, have you listened to yourself? Looked at yourself? Who is the child, Sikeax, pointing the finger, looking for someone to blame for your feeling shitty? You get over yourself, stop blaming me for all of your problems. I'm not the one who made you fail the Throat or put you in that position in the first place, not the one who always makes you feel like shit— that's all on you. Start taking some fucking responsibility for how you're feeling and acting and stop putting it on other people. You know I didn't say what the wraith said, but you continue to act like it was me. It's been years, and you're still blaming me for it. I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't do, I'm sick of apologizing for things I had no hand in, sick of being your scapegoat so you can keep being sorry for yourself while telling me to stop being sorry for myself." My words are churning, heating up, my blood is boiling and Sameira is howling rampantly somewhere in the distance while They cackle madly at my side, finding gross pleasure in the way my spit gathers at the corners of my lips while I raise my voice at Sia.

I think I want to spit at her hooves then, but keep my lips pursed as I breathe momentarily, letting her take in what I've said before moving on. "You think I'm the selfish one, doing things without thinking them through, but you're over here guilt tripping me and blaming me without ever once taking into consideration how that makes me feel. It fucking hurts. And you cannot tell me to get over myself, to stop sulking, because I've tried, I try, and it's going to always be there Sikeax, they're always going to be there and I can never stop it." I look out at the Marsh, at the dancing shadows as the clouds roll over the sun and the world grows quiet around us, Sameira's howling silenced, Their laugh faint but still there as they weight for what comes next. "So just... just stop. Is that too much to ask for? Is it to much to ask of you? Can we both agree to just... try and stop moping, just for a moment?" There somewhere in the distance I can see us, racing together through the Marsh with panic clear on our faces as we run side by side, the worry and fear settling in as the world closes in around us, leaving us trapped in our own bodies but unable to escape. It was then that we were distanced, separated, ruined, for when I returned to the conscious world, Sikeax was fearful and cold, traumatized. And all she could do was blame me for it, and I could not understand why. It has such a heavy impact on her, has crushed her, but she does not know how life changing that time spent only spectating was to me— I did not return the same person I was before, split between a million different pieces, listening to the rattling of a thousand voices whispering in unison about every moment of my life, watching the toothy grin of the Walker teeter over me whenever They have the chance. And she was there with the accusatory finger, the anger and hatred loaded like a gun, ready to fire in a moments notice.
@Sikeax
feel free to pm me if you have any confusion on the events within amara's posts

Random Event Posts: 1,286
Helovian Ancient
Stallion :: Equine :: ::
#5
random event

Gentle black petals begin to rain down on the former lovers. The scent of a thunderstorm on the horizon saturates the air, despite the lack of rain. Everything seems to close in on the mares, like a loving curtain of privacy being swept around hem, hiding them from the world.

Where the black petals touch the ground, onyx blossoms begin to appear. Some are like sprouts of clover, others like tar-coloured lillies, but all glisten with some inner light as they stretch towards the sky.



image


Forum Jump:


RPGfix Equi-venture