Wolf RPG

sequestered among the channels deep within the listener's den, the keeper was under the heavy influence of eldritch berries. the cavern which the listener had chosen was a place of light, a glistening idyll of pale mist and deep earthy-greens faintly gilded in cracks of sunlight. a place of peace.

soon they would surround themselves with death.

for days she kept him there, maintaining a steady dose to keep him in the realm of spirits and whispering to him to guide his path. he must make peace with wanlida, she told him; he must invite the change, accept it with his whole being.

to place one paw into the realm of spirits was perhaps the easiest feat ahead of him. many wolves were born as such; it was only a requirement of harboring the power of a void-prince. the true key to it would come only after ingram had made himself a suitable vessel.

after he had given himself to the madness.

she seldom left his side, departing only to tend her children, and often found him as she'd left him. yet on this day, she sensed something had changed in her absence. she swept to his side swiftly on her return, an inquiring silence about her. it seemed too soon to hope for his success, yet she did.

in the velveteen nightworld of that the elderich berries kept him in, ingram dreamt. there were moments of clarity: startling moments of stark awareness that were nothing more than wisps and vanished like smoke within the void as he faces the burning fires of the inferno: eyes he swears he sees, whispers that are indecipherable.

as the days pass they become clearer. wanlida appears to accept whatever prince has arisen from the mouth of the void to greet the new presence that walks in their realm. there is a violent, chaotic sort of understanding between the void and the bringer of death; the respect of two chaotic creatures who share similiarities.

ingram has accepted his fate; desires it because he loves her. it makes the transition easier ...but still the commanders of the past fight. slowly, one by one, they are snuffed out as wanlida and the prince of the void merge into one. despite the acceptance: it is not easy. his dreams are violent: of pasts that were not his own...at first. gradually, the images become like memories: weaving into ingram's mind until he can no longer discern him and wanlida and the void.

there is no longer a distinct line between them. they are one.

there is a struggle to wake from the fog of the eldritch berries; his eyes open slowly, vision blurry, mouth heavy and sandpaper'd. but he's — they are — awake ...if not all together entirely coherent.

something had changed, yes.

something was wrong.

she could no longer sense the thrumming, fluttering energy of mortality within him. too soon, far too soon. her eyes flicked over him with urgency. what had summoned this creature? had she underestimated the power of her own grief? was the creature within her truly so bestial as to rend reality with its savage sorrows?

or perhaps wanlida's own power had summoned it.

he was not ready.

the prophet hastened in her preparations, gathering the stones and shells and bones she'd collected for the binding circle which should have come first. it was too soon. he would rise, terrible and hungry and so very unprepared. all around them the spirits began to shriek and moan and sing. something terrible had happened, something dark, something wrought by the prophet of light herself.

she who had been born of darkness, she who had crossed into the light —

the shadow she'd cast was dreadful indeed.

quickly, before he could truly rouse, she bled him. a shallow cut upon his foreleg; a smear of blood to mark the circle. she arranged the bones, the ocean treasures.

you will not cross, she commanded as the last piece fell into place, uncertain even now that such crude measures would hold a creature of this power. a creature of her power.

an equal.

the metallic taste of blood surged on her tongue, and for a moment she looked on her keeper and saw only a rival; a foe to be slain. only the weight of her own chains held her back.

they linger in the between — the void and the physical world. the void writhes ‘round him, metallic and cosmic and awful taking shape and mirroring him, his face looking back at him, flashing bone with with fiery red eyes before the small flash of pain draws them to the physical world.

the shallow cut of their foreleg draws glassy seaglass gaze to cut to the listener; sharp and offended. a soft hiss of pain passes betwixt lips — delayed; offering the uncertainty if it was from the bewitchment cast and the lack of permission to pass …or if it was from the cut.

the time for bewitchments have passed. for the dread father and wanlida have already merged and ingram’s soul was wretched and dark; and though he feels this power thrum within. a strengthening. an awakening.

archaic and yet not entirely unknown to him. trikova. a croon, to show that while ingram is more he is still her grim; even while he ( still ) desires to be her dreadhusband — in this life and the others that came after.

in the infinite expanse of the void, a prince might live a thousand thousand years without ever crossing paths with one of its own kind. the listener remembered this faintly, a memory from another time, another life.

she had never met one of her own, had never prepared herself for the sudden surge and clash of feeling at this meeting of kin. within ingram lay a potential ally, yes, but a potential rival too.

he spoke, and the prophet seethed with scarcely-contained rage and grief.

her mortal lover was gone.

trikova.

no, her rejoinder was tense and immediate. you have new eyes now. look on me and see me as i truly am. this is the boon you asked of me.

look. look, and see the chained beast you have become; see the rot you now feel in your writhing, malevolent soul reflected in my own.

a breath; a sigh —

his head still swims — from enchantment or residual haze of the berries, keeping ingram in the purgatory of his new existence — and he tries to focus upon her.

to see her beyond first glimpse. to peer into her mis-matched eyes and see what he could never before see.

shadows and primordial darkness that he craves; gravitates to. yearns for. he still loves her but suddenly as he studies what is more in her, it is intensified. a ringing starts in his ears: not ringing, he realizes. screaming. of the souls that existed in the darkness of his void for ...well, exact times were hard to tell. his existence preceded time and would exist long after wolves ceased counting years.

so many names for her, whispers of spiders as their spin their webs and store in each silken strand a secret. her title, the listener is almost ironic to the vision that ingram creates. to give name to it her feels almost sacrosanct; none of her names should be uttered. but he recognizes her.

and still, he loves her.

i see you, replies the keeper; not necessarily seeking to reassure. still, i wish to be wed to you. to be your dreadhusband. a pause is given. as i have been in all lives previously. as he would be in the lives yet to come.

ingram had always been iron; a blade forged in the blood and sinew of the unforgiving wilds, a soul like clear seawater under sunlight. fierce, bright, beautiful; fatal to the unwary.

now the blackness of the void crept in like inkblot clouds of disease, darkening him from within. his eyes, ever windows to his savage soul, glimmered with the void-magick.

and she was bare to him. seen, after so many moons, and

she shuddered

a deep,

bone-deep shudder.

and she knew her weakness. her folly.

the prophet sank to the floor, shaken. you are here to restore the balance, she knew it for the truth as she spoke. i have failed, i... i could not do it alone. her god had known. the unnamed god knew all, and had led her here.

her salvation, and her punishment. her long-forgotten husband, a creature of the void who had stepped into the realm of mortals with an ease, a knowledge, a serenity she hated and envied and adored.

i believed i was meant to do this alone. my... husband; do you come bearing the will of our god?

did he, in all his effortless power, hold the answers she so yearned to possess?

would his limbs not have felt so heavy: like lead appendages instead of moveable limbs, the voidwalker would've went to her as she sinks to the cavern floor. the cavern he was summoned to, this flesh and bone body vigorous and willing to succumb to him, his will, his power, his life spark. but the haze of the drugs hold him immobile.

softness is not something the dreadfather knows; not in truth, but there is some sort of twisted and dark affection for his nightwife all the same; though it is perhaps not the affection that ingram had previously known. it is older. deeper. a rough sort of affection that was written in the sky and bones of the earth.

husband.

all feels then as it should be.

well, almost.

he is hungry and this body feels strange ( after affects of the berries ), his head still hums and his limbs now feel less like lead and more like jelly as he tests them slowly. the cavern wall is rough and biting against his shoulder as his weight presses tightly against it as he tries ( and fails ) to stand. on unsteady legs he settles back down into a sphinx-like position.

do not despair nightwife, the voidwalker croons. we are stronger together, as we have always been. as we always be. not directly an answer to her question, for it is hard, presently, to focus on one thing for so long when the hum in his ears grows demanding.

soon, the fog in his head would clear, his legs would become steady beneath him and he would require substance. food, blood, death.