[P] we enter her circles of hell

[Arawn]

underworld

do i still taste of war.  can you feel the battles on my skin stitched across my back 

A feral man, Arawn loves his freedom.  His wilderness.  His war.  Somewhere in the taiga forests, in her endless beauty, the immortal moon embraces Arawn with a lusty whisper of primordial need.  Beneath the breathless whispers of dusk, by grotesque eve, Arawn dances into the night like a wild, ravening animal.  Arawn is a godless man – a heathen king, a pagan prince.  In the dead of night, by the baying, fog-chill and purring want of the sickle moon that shines low with silver lust and hellish sanctuary – Arawn laughs, Arawn howls. Arawn begs his blood to spill. His voice croons like infernal flames viciously crackling against deadwood.  His laughter is so devilish, so empty, it all but echoes like siren-songs in the deep, crying woods. 

With the raw taste of whiskey on his breath, with blood running down his mouth, and the caress of fire and ash, still clinging possessively against his reptilian skin, he feels so unholy – so wanted.  So reborn.  With divine blood coursing his veins, he can feel the heat of thunder crashing like God's wrath in his heart.  Still, even with all this twisted joy coiling like bile in his throat, he can taste the memory of the flames consuming him alive.  He can feel the iron shackles, that bound his wrists and locked him in a kingdom made of the wretched Underworld.  Arawn embraces his new-found freedom with a twisted, devilish smile.  With a ragged breath of passion, of desire, of criminal need, Arawn breathes in the raw moonlight with unadulterated ecstasy.  

His heart bellows with rage. His breath falls thick with sin and avarice.  He wants to consume worlds.  He wants to devour the universe. With darkness so unholy, it pours like black oil through Arawn.  When the moonlight falls upon his masculine form, he can feel his every nerve being set on fire.  His body coils like a python against his kill.  Purring and reptilian by the effervescent whispers of moonlight.  His rugged form dances like a predator dances around it's kill, hackles raised and fangs bared with instinctive hunger.  When he finally spears the wild boar with his horn – delivering its heart to the slaughter house   – a hunger snarls through him, too.  He licks the blood from his lips.  He whispers.  He laughs.  He smiles, inviting the stranger with a husky purr.  Dark and impossibily sinful, handsome and arrogantly male.  "Won't you join me in this feast?"

@Obsidian 

Am i still rebuilding bone by fragile bone

[Leonidas]

I am not like any ordinary world

As he watches the Imperial Hound Leonidas does not know that this is not the only hungry creature out this night. He tracks it through the woods, stepping silent and carefully as a deer. The leaves barely rustle, but if they do, they are not heard beneath the heavier footfalls of the predator. A predator, the wild-wood boy knows, does not need to step lightly, when there is nothing for it to fear. It wanders, lead by a scent. It lifts its head and lets its nose be turned toward the scent it follows. It slinks off in that direction, its face impassive, its ears twitching. Though it seems quiet, calm, Leonidas knows how the creature years for meat, his this is a scavenger hunt and nothing else. It is spring, the dog has to be strong, ready for the heat of summer and the onset of chilling winter. 


Deeper and deeper into the dark of the wood the hound slips, shadowed by a pegasus boy. Soon, soon the scent of blood turns the air metallic and sweet and wrong. It is not a small trace, but a thick pooling of scent, like a deluge of blood has washed out from a body. The boy’s ears twitch as indecision and discomfort lance through him. He knows what was to come when he chose to follow this beast with its growing hunger. 


Rounding the corner, pushing through a gathering of trees, a dark swine corpse lies, spilled open. Above it, victorious, godly, a stallion stands. His white horn is stained with blood, its point wicked sharp. Moonlight gleams like diamond atop its tip. The boy’s stomach twists for the loss of life. He wonders if this stallion is a kelpie, if sharpened teeth lie behind his crimson lips. He would think more, but for the low growl that rips through the darkness. The boy turns his antlered head to the hound as it levels its gaze upon the stallion and dares to claim the corpse as its own.


Leonidas’ ears fall toward his skull, his chin dips, warily in toward his chest. He knows, already. That more blood is to be spilled this night. The claiming growl that rattles like bones from the hounds’ throat is a mockery to the stallion’s words. Nature has come to claim what is hers and the boy turns his head from beast to stallion and wonders which is the more dangerous creature here. 


“I do not eat meat.” The boy says, without anger, without disgust. He knows how the cycle of Novus’ wilds is one of death and life and how the two engage in their deadly dance, over and over and over. “But I think the hound does,” Leonidas muses lightly and turns his golden, dragonic eyes upon the dog. His head lowers his breath escaping in a low, low huff.


@Arawn

"Speaking."

credits