Turhan is as rabid as the sick magic, as feral, reckless and foolish as the monster who attacked her on a lightning sea. Surely it is madness to foam and spit like a beast before a unicorn, to rear and attack her with poisoned quills and teeth too ground down with age to do more than sting and bruise. It's pity that keep hers from flaying him wide open from shoulder to hip when she watches the quills fall short and his spit fall like acid rain against her skin.
“And still it screamed, loud enough to bring me.” Calliope doesn't move as she speaks. Her rage needs no movement now. It's an inferno that needs no wind to breathe, to devour up the world with a cleansing more powerful than all any flood might be. “Your poisons are not strong enough to spare a rabbit.”
The rain isn't enough to cleanse him now not when she knows what the paint and bones and tangles cover up. He could be black, black, black for all the sin she sees when she looks at him now.
Calliope thinks back to Shrike. How she tore her neck open quick enough that the end was no more than a shooting star, lovely and gone too quickly to think of a single wish. Turhan does not know mercy, not the kind that a unicorn should understand.
So she has little pity when the forest of his hair and the fallacy of his paints wash clean to reveal the mangled scar. She feels no sorrow when the thunder echoes just a little bit off the edges of her own horn. Even the lash of ash and ember against her feral features do little to move her hooves towards him to offer comfort for that empty, hollow space upon his brow.
Surely he cannot think he was the same as her, that even if he had a horn he might stand a chance of killing her. There has never been a creature such as Calliope, a unicorn who has held a lioness in her skin and lightning in her veins. A mortal who dissolved into shadows, traveled between worlds just to hunt justice.
She doesn't need to say that no army of kings and soldiers could hope to hold her down and carve out her horn. Calliope would kill them all, let her blood run with their own until there was nothing left but death and gore. Nothing would be left in the aftermath of her rage. Nothing can capture a unicorn and hope to find anything but corpses in the aftermath of such avarice. There would be only bones left in chains in the end, bones and blood.
“I hope you killed them all Turhan.” Her words are not gentle. Calliope is not made for gentle judgment or forgiveness. She is not made for horses like Turhan to understand, to think that they might fathom all the things that Calliope might be. “But if you can poison a rabbit and call it mercy when it feels enough to scream I doubt you had the will to claim your justice.”
Perhaps it's gentleness after-all that turns her from him, that sends her fading into the downpour as nothing more than a nightmare of an old beast, come to rattle out his sorrows and sins. Certainly it's mercy that promises in nothing more than a whisper of fading thunder. “The next time I hear screams around your fires, you will know that you're not dead. Not yet.” Like the storm she's gone.
Turhan is not the only one that causes flashes of suffering and calls it mercy and prayer in Novus.
Calliope has come for them all.
BUT THE BEAUTY OF HER FORM BRINGS VIOLENCE
A LONG AND LOVELY FALL NO WILL OR FIRE CAN OPPOSE
“And still it screamed, loud enough to bring me.” Calliope doesn't move as she speaks. Her rage needs no movement now. It's an inferno that needs no wind to breathe, to devour up the world with a cleansing more powerful than all any flood might be. “Your poisons are not strong enough to spare a rabbit.”
The rain isn't enough to cleanse him now not when she knows what the paint and bones and tangles cover up. He could be black, black, black for all the sin she sees when she looks at him now.
Calliope thinks back to Shrike. How she tore her neck open quick enough that the end was no more than a shooting star, lovely and gone too quickly to think of a single wish. Turhan does not know mercy, not the kind that a unicorn should understand.
So she has little pity when the forest of his hair and the fallacy of his paints wash clean to reveal the mangled scar. She feels no sorrow when the thunder echoes just a little bit off the edges of her own horn. Even the lash of ash and ember against her feral features do little to move her hooves towards him to offer comfort for that empty, hollow space upon his brow.
Surely he cannot think he was the same as her, that even if he had a horn he might stand a chance of killing her. There has never been a creature such as Calliope, a unicorn who has held a lioness in her skin and lightning in her veins. A mortal who dissolved into shadows, traveled between worlds just to hunt justice.
She doesn't need to say that no army of kings and soldiers could hope to hold her down and carve out her horn. Calliope would kill them all, let her blood run with their own until there was nothing left but death and gore. Nothing would be left in the aftermath of her rage. Nothing can capture a unicorn and hope to find anything but corpses in the aftermath of such avarice. There would be only bones left in chains in the end, bones and blood.
“I hope you killed them all Turhan.” Her words are not gentle. Calliope is not made for gentle judgment or forgiveness. She is not made for horses like Turhan to understand, to think that they might fathom all the things that Calliope might be. “But if you can poison a rabbit and call it mercy when it feels enough to scream I doubt you had the will to claim your justice.”
Perhaps it's gentleness after-all that turns her from him, that sends her fading into the downpour as nothing more than a nightmare of an old beast, come to rattle out his sorrows and sins. Certainly it's mercy that promises in nothing more than a whisper of fading thunder. “The next time I hear screams around your fires, you will know that you're not dead. Not yet.” Like the storm she's gone.
Turhan is not the only one that causes flashes of suffering and calls it mercy and prayer in Novus.
Calliope has come for them all.
BUT THE BEAUTY OF HER FORM BRINGS VIOLENCE
A LONG AND LOVELY FALL NO WILL OR FIRE CAN OPPOSE
@Turhan, let's do this again soon. I love getting weird with you.
