Two tall, gray horses stand face to face on an empty beach. It is a dull gray morning, the wind is moderate but its chill quite biting. Low fog rolls off the water and drifts over the beach, occasionally passing through the horses. They don't seem to notice it anyway. In a flash, they are engaged in a violent, high velocity spar that involves weapons and dirty tricks.
Emersyn initiates, fearless, merciless, and she kicks her sword up out of the sand where it has been hidden and lunges for him at once. If not for his saber he would be pierced through the heart, a loud and sudden clash of opposing metals spook the jaeger birds back out to sea as her partner blocks himself. He thrusts her off, snaps at her face, trips her up, then tries to topple her entirely. Yet the two horses shuffle sure-footed and steady, like dancers as they moved around each other’s forces. The stand off seems to last forever, but once it starts it ends fast, and it ends violently.
For awhile they stand together while they catch their breaths and bleed, then laugh about it. Emersyn helps her sparring partner to his feet and steadies him. A part of his wing has been torn open and she has claimed a hideous rip in his ear. He has bloodied her knees and battered her legs, and to some extent, even provoked her to kill him. Thankfully, she did not.
It is a long way home. You take care of that wing -- and you are lucky I didn’t break it. Her voice is chillingly cold. Though she intends to be friendly it is flavorless and bland, he cringes at her and has an ugly look, a slightly unsettled one. Freak, his expression reads. She can tell he’s more afraid of her than he was when they were younger. She can tell that he cannot wait to leave her here and return home. Home, a place she can never return to. She is abandoned almost immediately, he gives her his sage advice and leaves like a coin operated gypsy out of time.
You are distracted, get some help. He says.
Blood-slicked and disassociated from the spar (despite the glorious win), she feels anxiety and despair filling in all the hollow spaces in her head. Emersyn limps towards the water with tender, battered legs and gingerly steps in. The salt stings and makes her stiffen at the joints. To distract herself, she tries to recollect on what she needs to do later tonight - of the plans she has within Viride. Of the man she thinks she might kill.
A sort of madness sets in on Emersyn’s tired, overworked mind. It thinks with the type of spiraling that vultures do when they follow a sick calf they plan to feast on later. It obsessives over a need to clean up a mess that has been made. And It initiates the kind of mood that causes a sort of wilderness to inhabit one’s mind, when all one can see is the color red. Red like blood. Emersyn falls to her knees seeing without seeing, her city burning and running red with blood.
The tide rises up and up, and if it rises higher and higher, and faster and faster, the soldier does not notice it. When the wave rolls onto the shore, her hair is black, when it reels itself back into the sea, it is white. In the Lull between ebb and flow of water and waves, looms of black and white float in directionless loops. Blood colors the swirls of seafoam around her pink. Her eyes are ice chips that do not reflect the blue of the sea - or perhaps that is the incoming storm’s reflection in her eyes.
@Lucinda A rare and introspective Emersyn for you.
01-05-2020, 03:10 AM - This post was last modified: 01-05-2020, 03:18 AM by Emersyn
She's not sure if it's the smell of blood or the sound of a spar that catches her attention. Either way, it's the blood that keeps her going forward.
Within her is a new purpose and stronger senses. Ever since Anandi changed her, she's felt more alive. It's like she had truly been killed only to be reborn into this new version of herself. Despite the rocky first impression she got from the other kelpie, Lucinda has learned to adjust to her new body (for the most part). Being more attuned to the sea will still take some getting used to, as will her other form underwater. Fins and gills are silly things really and she hasn't decided yet if she enjoys life in the sea. While it calls to her, she doesn't always answer. Perhaps it's the same reason she refuses to answer to Anandi. She is too stubborn and independent.
For now, she walks along the beach, the sea air tousling her mane. Below, the water laps at her heels as the tide comes in and out. It's almost reaching for her and begging her to come in. She feels that tug again, but keeps walking forward. Above her, Abraxia flies high in the air. High enough to keep an eye on Lu, but also where it's harder for others to see her.
With Diaval's return, it's complicated things. She has evolved into a creature of chaos, even more so now. She is no longer the woman that once ruled the Moors with her brother. She was too young and naive then, which ultimately led to their downfall. But when she looks at him, it feels like she is young again and the guilt is overwhelming. The things she's done, what she's become, they are things he would see her differently for. He would not love her anymore - he would be afraid.
Maybe he's seen her sharp teeth, maybe he hasn't. Either way, she's determined to keep it all from him. She doesn't want him to find out or to worry. She wants everything to be the way it used to be whenever he's around.
And that is why she follows the scent of blood. Diaval is elsewhere and he'll never know what might transpire on this beach.
Lucinda approaches the woman who is kneeling, curious and hungry all at once. However, she keeps her composure and just offers a fake, warm smile.
"Rough day, stranger?" she asks, stopping by the mare's side and looking down. It would be so easy to knock her down, sink her teeth into her neck and drag her into the sea, but that could always come later.
The sea seems to react with Lucinda and becomes wilder by the minute. Dark gray clouds are beginning to roll in with an oncoming storm, setting a grim mood for their evening. She welcomes it, unphased by a little rain and lightning.
It starts off as a dream. A want. A desire. Soon we begin to gather all our hopes and dreams into one big chest, thinking that maybe one day we will get what we want. It ends with Obsession but begins as Desire. So big for something that starts so small. Like a disease, it begins with one cell, one auxiliary function in the brain, one rush of hormones and adrenaline and it starts the fires in my soul. It manifests infinite possibilities, but it paves a path of devastation once you start reaching for it.
Is that what I want?
Is that what I have come for?
Is that what I need?
It is as if an answer rises up to meet me in the shape of water. The sea, such a simple yet complex thing. We see it and all we see is blue, and the curve of our earth if we reach out far enough with our eyes to find it. What we don’t see is its power. We think we do, but we will never understand it if all we do is stand on the shore and look out.
Can we ask things of the sea?
Will it bring us what we wish for?
Or, will it bring us death?
Then, nothing.
I don’t know what I ask of the sea other than for it to wash the blood away. To wash my life as I have known it, away. I believe it has the power to do that - to take away the things that make me weak. If I could get rid of my father, I would set the memories free in the waves right now. I would let it go and I would not go in after it. I would watch it ballast against all the suffering and wrongness I have known, that I have been taught. At first it would float, it would struggle to drown. For that is what most of me is made up of, the desire to survive against all odds.
Eventually though, eventually, the weight of the world crushes in on it. Then, all of the displaced pain and chaos of my life will eventually sink to its desired, forgotten death.
My thoughts seem wild, or maybe that is the amount of blood I have lost, or the ringing of adrenaline and exhaustion burning in my ears. I have forgotten the feeling of my legs or maybe sea water has numbed me. If I am cold, then it feels more like an inferno inside of me than it does winter. To return home right now seems hopeless. I wouldn’t want anyone to see me when I am not me, when I am not Emersyn the Emissary, the representative of Dawn Court’s Regime.
One day they will all learn to hate you. Just as they learned to hate me.
“That is not true. I am not you.” I mutter, but the churning air takes my voice from me and makes wind out of it before it can become words. I gaze up into the swirling clouds above me, it is just enough of a distraction (amongst other things) to not notice the danger creeping closer, closer, closer ..
‘Rough day stranger?’
It is already here.
When I look up I see a great black horned beast. Lightning streaks overhead but from where I am looking, it seems to come from the stranger’s horns. That could be the salt and hair in my eyes, or the memories of a monster that I remember so long ago (is it me?). Lightning growls like brawling tigers in the clouds, I reach out with one leg and brace against the bloodied knee to rise up . . I rise, slowly, with dignity, and with cracked ribs that leave me breathless.
“One could say that. Yes.” But I won my brawl, so I am not disappointed. Although I am beaten and bloody, I am victorious. I try to remember that as I meet her eye-to-eye.
Yesterday I was a soldier. Today, I woke up a warrior.
Lightning lashes again, thunder unsettles the horizon. The soft rain turns into hard rain, it nails down all the flyway hair to my bloody chest. Even after all this time, my heart beats fast - as if it is frightened but I don’t know why. I try not to look too hard at the woman who has come to me like a spell (on no account can I explain how she got here without me not noticing).
It is as if magic itself has delivered her to me. Even the sea too rises to meet her. The tides surge strangely around her ankles, and the rain seems to caress her rather than torment her. Even when the wind blows violently, it is only to gently comb the black hair out of woman’s sour apple eyes. They burn like lamps in the dark stormy afternoon. Once I have met them, I can’t seem to look away. It is as if a ship is being drawn to the shore. She is an enigma. I find her beautiful in all the ways I all the ways wished I could be, but never was.
“Who are you?”
With wings and horns and poise as beautiful and perfect as she, I should have simply asked, ‘Are you the devil?’
All around them, the storm brews. Lightning cracks in the sky as a rumble of thunder can be heard faintly along the horizon. The sea responds and so does the beating of her heart. It anticipates something like chaos or destruction.
It's all she knows (and craves).
It's clear getting up is a task for the other mare and she can hear the cracking of bones when she stands. It makes her ears perk and her mouth water. She feels like a lion.
When the rain pelts down onto them, Lucinda is not phased. Not anymore, anyway. Not when the sea has claimed her as one of its children and the water has become her newfound element. There is not much for shelter around here anyway, but it seems the stranger does not mind. Maybe together, they will weather the storm.
This mare looks on at her with curiosity. It's not quite the same fearful expression that most have among her presence. For this, she is slightly disappointed.
"I am Lucinda," she says like it's a secret being revealed. As if on cue, there is another crash of thunder, this time closer. "And who are you, wounded soldier?" The blood that spilled on the shore has since washed away into the sea, but Lu has not forgotten. The waves are churning beside them while Abraxia has landed on the shore close by. She does not seem afraid of the storm either.
“I am not a wounded soldier.” - I say. “Being wounded would suggest that I heal.” - but I know I won’t. Cuts will mend and bruises will disappear (in time), but I am not wounded. I am damaged, as - is. What has been done to me, cannot be undone. All I can be is destroyed - possibly rebuilt. I thought Delumine would really be a step in the right direction, to distract myself from Oldewood, my father's Compound, and all of the forced conditioning and training.
It did nothing for me, it has only stoked old fires.
“I am Emersyn.” I can’t take my eyes off of her -- what is this sort of beauty? This enchantress? Is Lucinda even real or do I just desperately want her to be?
To answer that question: The thunder cracks and lightning races along the eternal, living waterscape of her - she’s incredible. “I’m from ..” -- -- “ .. up north.” Lucinda is very real once the illuminations are gone. Is it possible? Oh - All I can think of are Tempests, Pirates, and Sirens! They were in almost all of the provocative stories I learned down in Denocte. Could it be ..
No, I absolutely have no idea what it means.
But I must know.
My heart skips a beat and my wonder is very real - I can’t stop myself from asking, “Lucinda, how did you find me?”
What the hell does that even mean? I don’t know what else to say. I so rarely allow myself to be caught off guard that this is a first for me. Lightning slashes through the dimming evening, I see her poison cyanide eyes looking at me. They are focused like a predator’s eye. Dilated and deep. Hungry. Consuming. She has me pinned like a butterfly caught, holding me in place. Time ceases to exist in moments like these.
" -- or are you hunting me?"
The storm is relentless. The wind rages and shrieks in my ears. The water is so cold as it shocks my stomach - how did it get so deep? The tide is surging in now. It greedily consumes the shore. It is clawing through the sand and stone, making stardust out of sand beds as the sea takes back the land. Did the sea happen to wash up Lucinda as well?
@Lucinda Thank you for waiting!
04-02-2020, 02:27 AM - This post was last modified: 04-02-2020, 02:30 AM by Emersyn
Emersyn seems troubled, but this only tempts Lucinda more. She wants to show her how much better life can be after being Changed. How much more powerful you can become and how everyone's heads turn and cower in fear. If she feels she can never heal now, she could find relief. Lu takes a step closer, but still does not open her jaws, as much as she wants to.
The mare does not seem to want to tell where she's from and it only adds on to the mystery of her. Around them, the storm continues to rage, but Lucinda does not flinch. It appears that neither does Emersyn and this is starting to add to her appeal. Someone who is not afraid may not make a good victim, but perhaps they would be a worthy candidate for being Changed.
And still, she could fulfill her bloodlust even a little bit.
As more lightning lights up the skies, the sea responds with stronger tides. The water laps at her ankles, begging her to come back and retreat to safety. She can feel Abraxia's nerves through their bond and Lu nods at her to be off to find her own shelter. For the ebony mare, she is not afraid. If anything, the storm is fueling her as is the madness of the sea. Her heart is pounding faster with anticipation.
The question that Emersyn poses makes Lu smile. Her sharp teeth flash in sync with another lightning strike. This one is very observant, it seems. Another good quality perhaps. Now it's just deciding if she should tell the woman the truth. Would she shy away from Lu after all? Of course there is always a thrill in the chase.
Instead, she decides to answer with her own question. "Are you afraid of being hunted?" Another test of this woman's strength. Another chance to see how this might end up- will she become prey or get the chance to be reborn?
Another rumble of thunder sounds overhead. "You know..." the kelpie woman trails off, looking out at the sea with longing and brightly glowing green eyes. "I know a way you can heal."
The way the woman looks at her is different, she can tell. It's new to her, but it could very much work in her favor.
THERE IS SOMETHING SCINTILLATING ABOUT THE WAY SHE TALKS TO ME. Or, perhaps I am indubitably impressed by the power of the sea, and how Lucinda commands it - commands me - without words. I am not afraid, I am so much more than that; hungry, needful, and wanting.
What is it that I want though?
What is it that I crave?
The blood in my body is electric, “I am invigorated, this storm energizes me.”
Or maybe it is you.
I am gravitating towards the black mare the same way Bexley Briar drew me in. Something in the way these beautiful (and very dangerous) women smile at me. I don’t know. She makes my teeth itch. She makes me hot under the skin. She makes my heart feel like a feral animal tearing at its cage desperate to get out.
Lucinda could melt glaciers, I think. I believe this because I’m coming apart .. and in the best way possible. Something within me, that has been frozen for a very long time, is thawing under the kelpie woman’s influence. I’m shaking from adrenaline. I’m sweating in the cold. And then, just like that...
You know … I know a way you can heal.
Something flutters up from the deep dark of my soul, a glimmering piece of lost treasure that floats up - up - up to the surface. A smile from me is a rare gem, Lucinda could not have come at a better time. I’m losing my ground in Delumine and the edge to my blade is dulling, what is the price to pay to sharpen my sword through Lucinda. I do not know what she wants - but I am encouraged to give it, if the price is right.
“I do not want to doubt you - perhaps that is where I am most afraid. Can you, heal me?”
The sea is slowly swallowing us, maybe Lucinda is just trying to buy time. If so, I hardly notice it. I reach for her when she looks away, I can’t help it. The deep black of her skin is as soft and as cool as I imagined it to be, I want to get lost inside of it. I want to be different in ways I can’t explain. I want to be powerful, the way Lucinda is. I know a way you can heal, it echoes in my mind.
If you trust me. Famous last words for almost everyone. I pray they aren’t the last from Lucinda, I want to follow her to find the meaning behind her words. My heart is pounding and my mind is racing. My skin thrills with the prospect of the unknown - of the danger that could come of it.
“Can you trust me?” Because I find that might be the better question to ask.
Emersyn says the storm energizes her, as it does to Lu, and so this very well may go according to plan. The sea acts like it knows this and only laps more furiously at their feet. It begs for them both to come into its waters to get away - to join it. It's somewhere between a worried mother and a hungry predator.
But the woman still has fear. She doesn't want to doubt Lucinda, but there is a part of her that does. Maybe Lu can't blame her given how this is their first meeting. She can see it in the other mare's eyes though, she is so close.
"I can," Lu reassures her, not taking her eyes off the woman. The glow of her eyes does not waver.
Then Emersyn gets closer. With every step, the sweet smell of her blood is stronger. The warmth from her skin is more noticeable, as is her bare neck she so badly wants to grab hold of with her teeth.
And so she does.
Lu does not answer Emersyn's question of trust because she doesn't need to. She is merely a pawn. Something to satisfy her hunger and desire to destroy. Even if it's not to completely kill this woman, she's still destroying a part of her. The part that is entirely mortal and manipulating it. She will not be the same after this, but that's what makes it better. She will be Changed and even stronger than before.
Maybe, there will even be a link as Anandi claims there to be.
Lucinda drags Emersyn into the sea and as they go under, there isn't so much a splash, but a sigh from the water. It's a sigh of relief that finally, its daughter has returned and she's brought another with her. Lu sinks her teeth into the mare's flesh as they go down. Her form has changed within an instant and her brilliant fins and tail replace her wings. Above them, there are still flashes of lightning, but the sound of thunder can no longer be heard.
There is only the sea and the pounding in her chest.
Kelpies are expert anglers; hook, line, and sinker. From stranger, to lover, then to killer, all within the blink of an eye. As quick as a lightning strike a Kelpie will take you. No matter the manner, no matter the cost. If she wants you, she will have you. There is no such thing as ‘choice’ once she has decided. Strangely, the victim feels the same way. I would die for Lucinda but she will not die for me - her beauty makes me okay with this absurd arrangement.
There is magic about the way Lucinda lulls my battered spirit. Later, when I wash up post-storm in some brackish pond water, I won’t remember how hungry she made me feel as a woman who wanted her. I will remember the fizzing gray chaos of the moment when she decided that she would have me. Not as a dinner, but as a dark horse. Something inside of me must have seemed intriguing enough. Strange, I never could imagine anything about me being desirable in the slightest.
I am gambling without knowing my odds, what are the chances that I survive this attack? Lucinda’s frightfully powerful in ways I’ve never experienced, ‘supernatural’ is the only thing I can call a strength like that. Her teeth are ferocious, painful, tearing. The shape of her is feral, and to me, alarmingly beautiful. It takes my breath away,
Wait, no.
All the air leaves me when I succumb to the pressure of the depths. Bubbles cascade around me, from within me, I would fight her, if I did not think that this was what she meant when Lucinda said she could help me, that she could heal me. Or, perhaps that is what lies and murder means, something I am no stranger to - yet the moment feels far more transformative than my gospels tonight.
I am drowning. Quite possibly dying.
I don’t know what the difference is.
Blood blooms from somewhere, is it my blood (is it blood?) - or is it my soul leaking out of all my cracks? I cannot tell. My world is tilted, I am staring up instead of looking down. I can feel my heart and it hurts from beating so hard, so fast. I must be scared - but I am not acting afraid. Why am I not afraid? Am I to live or die? How does drowning heal me?
Dying is easy but drowning is not. What happens, then, when you drown and do not die? What happens next? Do you fall into a deep and watery, blue coma? Does everything go black and cold like space? Or, do you experience a metamorphosis? If so, what reality is expropriated - what replaces it? The answers to these thoughts are as vast as the deep blue sea. Every life lives differently - when it dies (or changes) , the same principle applies. My life has never been anything but a prison sentence, up until this moment - I have never felt more free.
Metamorphosis, what does it mean to me? Not much. I am a soldier. Something hollow, but strong, and terribly cold like ice. I am dense, not porous, and it is difficult to hurt someone who has already felt and dealt their fair share of pain. My story is like so many others, but my truth has less in following. Lucinda doesn’t need to know my story to taste it in my blood, in my flesh, and even in my bones. Even I know that I taste acidic and bitter, poisonous. She doesn’t seem to mind - when her teeth sink into my skin all the air leaves my lungs. I have a choice - to clench down with empty lungs and struggle until I can no longer - or I can breathe in.
I take a deep breath.
Everything goes black.
@Lucinda We can end this when you'd like! Cause I'll definitely be throwing another thread at Lu. Let me know if I need to add anything! (Sorry it is so long-winded)
05-20-2020, 01:07 AM - This post was last modified: 05-20-2020, 01:07 AM by Emersyn
Her mind is buzzing while adrenaline rushes through her veins. Is this what it felt for Anandi when she turned Lucinda? No - she is not Anandi. She is better, stronger, deadlier.
It would be so easy for her to sink in deeper and to snap Emersyn's neck, but she doesn't. There are many she could use that energy on and enjoy the taste of their flesh. No, Emersyn is much more precious than that. Tonight she will become a sister. She will learn what it's like to gain power, to embrace the sea, to become.
When she feels the woman's body become limp, she knows she's passed out and will transform soon. Unlike Anandi, Lu will not leave her to die at the bottom of the ocean floor like a piece of shit.
Using all her strength, she pulls Emersyn back out of the water and to the shore. The air smells like fresh rain and blood when she places her on the ground. The storm has passed, but the waves continue to lap at the shore and Emersyn's ankles. A strong breeze pulls her mane back and Lu stands in triumph. Closing her eyes, she breathes in.
And so, she waits. Abraxia comes to sit by her side and leans in. Lu will wait however long it takes for Emersyn to wake and then, she will be reborn.
@Emersyn yeah I think we can end it here! Maybe we can just assume they have a conversation once Em wakes up and Lu lets her be on her way. I can't wait to thread them together again <3
