RUIN and RAVAGE
make me your priestess
rip me to pieces
make me your priestess
rip me to pieces
♛
T
he muck was a warm ooze that pulled in the things around it - sucked them beneath the surface, trapped and squirming, until the breath left its lungs. For smaller things, it was certainly a sentence of death - for the larger ones, usually not so much. But that did not stop the Tinea swamps from trying, grabbing lazily at passing hooves. Pieces of it left with its visitors - clinging to the fur of their legs, shoulders, and sides. The more its visitors took, the more the swamp wanted to take back — so its mud became stickier, less liquid and more ooze. Now, it irritated the skin - like an unpleasant reminder that those it once claimed were still here, hidden just beneath the surface of the rot. And so was she, rising only after the swamps spit her out. Her golden bones too foul, too rich, too powerful to be contained in the muck and grime among the rest of its dead. She had spent the days as the one hidden among the trees as her body composed itself. As she laid at the base of a tree, the golden crown above her head had spilled over and poured golden ichor over her eyes and skin. It burned, and she knew she was alive.
Once she knew, she steadied herself on gilded hooves and moved through the swamp like something akin to a wraith. Her steps were silent and her breath just as warm as the humid, sticky air around her. Golden eyes drank in the landscape as far as they could see — which, admittedly, wasn't particularly far in this fog. It all seems so familiar yet so different. (How long has it been?)
Here the near-ghost was, almost lost in her thoughts as she wandered the swamp. It pushed her towards civilization, as if she was now wholly unwelcome and it was ushering her out of its home. She did not care, so her pace remained at a lazy amble. The muck did not suck in around her hooves; it did not want her.
Eventually, she stopped and her gaze fell upon the bay and gold-streaked back of Maiden @Jane. The young mare was preoccupied by a swamp-bird — those things might as well be the rats of the swamps, second behind only catfish: the cockroach of the swamp.
Ophelia (is that what I am called now?) must have spent minutes staring at her from the half-guise of one of those tall, arching trees. She was not particularly hidden — she didn't try to be, at least — but Jane didn't seem to be particularly observant right now, either. The two weren't far away from each other to begin with but, eventually, Ophelia lifted a leg and stepped forward... snapping a twig unexpectedly beneath a cloven hoof.
The bird immediately took flight; it knew better than to stay, but did Jane? One ear flicked lazily at the sound and vivid eyes regarded Jane as the mare stiffened; Ophelia's head tilted curiously as a mess of ivory mane fell into and also away from her gaze. The crown atop her head glinted dully in the drab moonlight... her skin's translucency as hazy as the mingling Tinean fog.
The ivory and gold wraith closed the gap and came upon the young mare from behind, her semi-prehensile tail curling itself along the backs of Jane's hocks. Not a grab — just a light brushing against — but it may surely spook the bay maiden nonetheless as the kirin stepped out from behind and stood alongside her.
"The Tinea Swamp is not friendly at night, you know," golden eyes meeting Jane's similarly colored ones. She did not break her gaze, even as the two drifted into temporary silence.
@Jane ♥
"Speech." — (Thoughts.)
"Speech." — (Thoughts.)
