[Quest] a furious search

[Random Events]

the heart's cavernous longing

How long had he been bound? Caged, and chained and kept. For so long he had been imprisoned and nothing had changed. He had looked at the same walls, the same floor, day after day after day. At first he had fought against the bindings holding him, but their magic had been too strong for him to break through. Every second, minute, hour, blurred into the next, and all his soul had cried out for the entire time was his Polyxena. She was all that had ever mattered to him, and they had taken him from her and locked him away and now? Now where was she?

But then one day the men came, they came and they took him away from that place. Erebos was observant, watchful. They treaded carefully in his presence despite the magic that kept him from being able to escape, but all he wanted to know was where they were taking him. He feared they would only take him farther from Polyxena, but all he wanted was to search the entire earth until he found her and they were together again. He couldn’t know their intentions, however.

So he waited.

The journey was long and hard, and Erebos felt the chasm in him without Polyxena only growing with each passing day. The men were not kind to him, ignored him often. But he listened to their conversations as though they thought that he could not understand them. They talked of rewards and trades, and some man who prided himself on a garden full of strange beasts. Erebos could only assume that that was the fate awaiting him, to be some prize. To never see his beloved companion ever again. Every day his soul cried and cried, and reached out, searching. Everything felt hopeless.

He had almost given up, almost resigned himself to whatever destiny may have had in store for him. They had unboarded one ship on a strange land, the men and their magic forcing him forward step by step, threatening him that they would not make the next in time if he didn’t move quicker. The desert was endless, the sun high and hot in the sky, the men and their scathing words biting into his skin like the grains of sand burying themselves into his fur from the wind.

That was when he saw the small shape, a dark shadowy beacon against the shining sea of gold. He felt it suddenly inside him, like a thread being pulled taught in his chest. He did not need to see her sharp violet eyes or magenta curls to know. He knew it as surely as he felt the emptiness inside him filling, bursting, soaring. Erebos, great massive beast of the underworld, son of Cerberus, suddenly knew no bounds. He lifted his head and bayed, his voice shaking the earth beneath his feet. He fought his chains as wild as a storm and in the confusion, the first man dropped his spell.

That gave Erebos the upper hand he needed, the smallest sliver of space to break free. He threw off the magical bindings one by one, each man falling beneath his massive paws. They could be no match against the power of his love and his devotion, for there Polyxena was, just across the desert, shining even with a coat of dark charcoal. He was sure of it. “Xena!” he cried, his happiness, his longing, outweighing every other thing inside him. “Xena!” he hoped, he yearned, he believed. He had found her at last. It was her. It had to be her.

---

@Polyxena's Bonded has been unwittingly brought to her, his captors taking him through Solterra on their way to what they believe to be the home of his buyer. However, Erebos catches a glimpse of his companion through the haze of the desert, and seeing her gives him the strength to break free from their magic that bounds him. His roar echoes over the desert, his mind and voice alike calling out for her. Will she help free him from his captors, and finally reunite?

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This quest was written by the lovely Katherine. <3

Enjoy!

[Polyxena]

She despises the sun.

Months of captivity in the endless sand-sea beneath the relentless sun has birthed her scorn for the heat that sears her dark skin and strips her lips of moisture. The sand is everywhere. She never feels clean and for one who is always immaculately groomed, it is a form of torture that somehow seems far worse than when she consumed horse-flesh at the behest of the once-king Raum.

While the taste of the flesh of her kin is seared into her memory like a hot iron brand, it doesn't linger physically and ever-present in the same way that the sand coats her tongue and scrapes her throat like swallowing glass. At least the horse-flesh had gone down easily and there had been a starched napkin to dab the red pearls of juice that had beaded her chin. How had she fled one mad-king only to land in the grasp of another?

There was no escaping this empty, endless expanse of the great sand-sea and yet she was more than willing to die trying. She had spirited away in the middle of the night during the chaotic aftermath of Raum's death. Her usual guards had been too preoccupied with the death of their king to be bothered with one of his irrelevant, captive toy song-birds taking her usual evening stroll in the palace gardens. She'd snatched her scythe and belongings and the darkness had swallowed her whole.

But now, seemingly countless days later, the sound of the keening, howling wind was enough to drive anyone mad and dreams of serene Denocte seem distant and hazy. Had Raum spent too much time in this empty place of death? I could very well be on the verge of madness... How many days had it been? Three? Thirteen? She had lost track of how many times the sun had risen and fallen once her water supply had been depleted and that was some time ago now.

She staggers to a halt and lowers her head against the onslaught of the wind and sand. Breathing in the hot air burns like a scorching wildfire that sears her lungs. Her bones ache and her legs tremble beneath her and she is all too aware of the sand that grasps at her ankles...waiting for her to sink into its embrace. The desire to close her eyes for just a few moments is all consuming. And she almost does.

If it had not been for the earth-shattering howl raised even above the screeching wind she might have surrendered to the desert. At first she does not dare believe what she hears...surely it is a dream of delusion and fever and madness? But it is a good dream, nonetheless. And what is the harm of entertaining a delusion before Death rests his final claim upon her as she wastes away into sand and nothingness? She stumbles forward and falls to her knees. She squints and strains into the veil of billowing dust. The wind carries forth her name and a desperate, pleading cry...

Erebos....

She throws herself forward, adrenaline spiking her veins with an invincible sense of strength. She can see him now; a massive black hole hurtling across the desert, his captors hot in pursuit. She hears the chains trailing behind him like metal serpants and the collars on his three necks glitter cold and metallic in the hot noon sun. His eyes are bloodshot and wild; there are sores around his neck and ankles. Something cracks inside her; something breaks.

They will pay, my darling... she promises him silently.

Her wrathful scream intertwines with his blood-curdling howl. They are reunited. 

The weight of the scythe is comforting and reassuring as she draws it forth from her back. The blade glimmers like moonlight overhead and the flash of Erebos's fangs are like lightning as they rain down upon the soldiers like Death himself.