Hallucinations played out in front of her eyes, at times blurring the line between reality and fiction. She couldn't tell the different sometimes between what was right in front of her and what wasn't. Today, she was being followed by a hoard of wasps, but they were only in her head. Their buzzing was so loud, and the touch of their feet on her snout so real, that she would have sworn to anyone it was really happening.
These hallucinations made her twitchy and irritable. Her head was almost birdlike as it whipped around, her eyes staring unblinkingly at the shadows of the great forest her pack had claimed. Jinx struggled to remember them. Their faces seemed wiped from her memory, though really, they were lost to delirium.
Saliva pattered against the ground as she walked. She was drooling so much lately, and she had no explanation for it. Her tongue felt swollen, and when she swallowed everything felt thick and cottony. Her tail hung limply, having somehow lost all feeling recently. Something was terribly, terribly wrong with her, but she lacked the mental capacity presently to identify it and seek help. She didn't know she needed it, nor did she know nobody could have given it, not even Lecter.
A hallucinogenic wasp flew in her nose, and she ignored it.
But Jinx was still her alpha, and when you run across the alpha, you don't lurk in the shadows. The Nightshade stepped forward and greeted the alpha with a friendly wave of her tail.
The concerned look in her eyes didn't go away, however. With asoft, cracked voice, Tyrande spoke.
"Jinx...?"
Her experience with the moon-mad wolf had been surprisingly pleasant. She had doubts about the boy, he was young and perverse, not himself. But he surprised her and left her wonderfully sated. The black-furred priestess stretched, feeling the wonderful ache in her loins. She needed to get back to her den and eat a poultice of Blue Vervain and Hoary Vervain soon as well as washing the scent of this male off of her. She did not need a scandal at this point.
She was halfway down the slope of the valley when she saw a large white female walking through the woods, her head shaking madly, mouth drenched and dripping saliva. Meldresi stopped in her tracks. She knew it. Jinx was inflicted with one of the diseases of Sheogorath, the god of madness and insanity. The priestess did not know the true name, but she did know that it was extremely infectious. If Jinx got even her spittle on her fur, then she might as well kiss her sanity goodbye.
Vectra looked at her alpha as she shook around madly. Her instinct not allowing her to go any closer and get Ty away from the white queen. She could only stand in worry. Watching as the woman she would fight for, struck utter fear in her heart, and yet she knew not why.
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Lecter had returned to his poppies.
Since the conflict with the Wheeling Gull wolves, Jinx had retreated into a confusion that quickly birthed itself into open madness, coupled with excessive drooling and a sort of amnesia even his constant reminders could not stem. He followed her helplessly, at a distance; he had seen the effects of the disease that consumed his mate, and knew it would only end in death.
Long nights had he spent in fevered racking of his herbal supplies, until what little he had found he had ground into the earth and spit upon in a fit of rage. These small leaves, their withered blooms; they would not help Jinx. They would not save the one for whom his heart beat.
Lecter had called to her, had murmured words only for ears he feared were quickly becoming deaf to him, to all of Silvertip. He had raised his voice to Sos, to Lynx; the madman had pleaded and demanded that They save the slyph, restore her to her former self. But they did not listen.
He had taken it upon himself, then, to ingest the poppy, but with it he mixed a small amount of a black spore discovered beneath the light of a full moon. This, he had discovered, once the sickness and fainting had passed, slowed the rhythm of his heart, almost dangerously so. But coupled with the poppyseed, it was a gentle haze into which he settled. Eventually, the carefully separated portions of the mushroom would kill him, but for now his breath belonged to Jinx.
He would not exist without her, for his life was entwined inexorably with her own, and if she fell, his life would be forfeit. Therefore, Lecter would perform upon himself the last rites, and direct himself in service of whatever ailing need she required, until she breathed her last and he was free to do the same.
Grieving, he trailed after her at a distance, hackles prickling when he saw her approached by three females of the pack. Lengthening his stride, Lecter emerged among them, icewater eyes sweeping from one to the other. He stepped into Jinx's shadow, somehow seeking to shield his beloved from their pitying, fearful gazes, though he was forced to remain tense in the event his Jinx turned with baleful eye and tooth upon him.
The first to approach was Tyrande, although Jinx couldn't remember that that was her name. She saw only a dark canid slowly slinking toward her, and she felt the other's presence like knives pricking at her memory. They were unable to pierce to the point of recognition, but Jinx thoght she knew Tyrande somehow.
Yet her memory and reality lapsed at that point, and Tyrande grew to monstrous proportions, towering over even the tallest trees of the ancient forest. During this time, others approached her, including her pale shaman, but she didn't notice them. “Beelzebub,” she croaked loudly, seeking to be heard over the static in her own brain. She cracked a wide grin, showing teeth slick with excess saliva that dripped from her lips.
On antother note! Is it possible for Tyrande to be bitten, but she turns out to be immune to the disease? I don't want to kill her off, but that plot twist though >.> So if that's a possibility, I'm down. But if it's not, let's not do that, thanks! >.<
Tyrande swallowed, and looked around at the others that had gathered. She made a small cough and motioned for Vectra and Meldresi to stay back, though she wouldn't stop them if they did. She turned her head to Lecter, with a look of sympathy on her face, and she wavered, as if wanting to walk over their and embrace the one she had learned to call an enemy.
She focused back on Jinx, and grew even more wary as the alpha gave her a spit-covered smile. She gave a nervous laugh, deciding to break the awkward and nervous air with a bit of small talk with a crazed wolf. She thought wild thoughts, if only to calm her nerves, including one rather guilty thought: I think I know why Lecter and Jinx got along now...
"Er, yes. Beelzebub... Er, Jinx, are you, uh, I mean... How are you this fine day?" She returned a small smile, though her muscles twitched.
Meldresi backed away slowly, ready to break and run the moment Jinx lunged at one of them. She looked at a strange white wolf, stained with blood who approached Jinx, closer than any of them dared.
She sidled up to Tyrande, who was laughing awkwardly at Jinx's response "Beelzebub". The priestess whispered in her ear. "Who is that wolf, and why is he so close to Jinx? Does he have a death wish?"
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The hair along his shoulders rose unbidden at her hoarse, cracked voice, and the palpable fear of the three females sickened him, for it fed his own. Lecter could not fear Jinx, however, and pain slithered into his gaze as he kept it trained upon the haggard shell of her former vital self.
Three of you,
he growled at length, three of you and our borders unpatrolled. There is work to be done here. We do not know all there is to know about this place,
Lecter intoned, turning to face the huddled trio of women, and so we cannot afford to stand and gawk at the one in our midst who is sick.
Sick, sick unto the point of death, with no recovery in sight — You are not mountain sheep, yet you stand idle with stupid eyes! Tyrande,
he snapped. On the island there is a golden plant. I am a healer, not a poisoner, but I trust the blooms I saw were lethal. Go and carefully clear the area where they are. Uproot them and bury the stems with mud if you must, but they must not be allowed to grow rampant.
Vectra,he growled abruptly,
I want you on a patrol of our southernmost border. You,Lecter added, motioning toward the dark female whose name he did not yet know,
go with her.
Having allotted their duties, the Beta turned back to his mate, intent on following her wherever it was she intended to wander.
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“Your wish is... My... Command,” she said, pausing between her words as though contemplating their meanings. Soon, her mind would deteriorate, her throat would grow numb and non-compliant, and she would scarcely be able to formulate sounds without gagging herself. For now, her speech remained intact, if somewhat halted. Others spoke around her, but when she turned to peer at them, she saw only more lords of the underworld. Another sauntered up beside "Beelzebub", and Jinx addressed him as, “Azazel,” with a hiccoughing laugh. Meldresi probably would find her new name amusing... Or disturbing.
The one who barked orders from behind (Lecter) could only be Satan himself, and the other that lingered (Vectra) was Astaroth, perhaps the gentlest (she was of course making that up). Sitting down heavily on her haunches and panting out spittle, the female stared at them all, oblivious to what Lecter was really telling them. "Astaroth" turned and began to leave, coaxing a thin, high wail from the other's lips. “Astaroth! Do not leave me with these fools!”
Tyrande was, for once, grateful for Lecter's intrusion. She nodded slowly before ever so slowly backing away. "Golden plant? Poisonous? Hmm... I have a feeling you mean Laburnum, but how am I supposed to dig up a tree?..."[b]
With that, she edged away from Jinx, praying that the crazed wolf wouldn't suddenly decide that she didn't want to follow her "commands". She began turning around and padding away, silently thanking Lecter.
Her ears flattened on her head when the male approached them and started snapping at them. She lowered her head submissively, starting to follow Vectra when her alpha babbled something else, madly. Azazel? It was the name of one of the Daedra, or demons. What in Oblivion is going on in Jinx's head.
She backed away, watching the alpha suspiciously. "I am not Azazel, he is a follower of Malacath." She muttered.
Vectra turn back to look at Jinx as she had seemed to call out towards her as she was leaving. Confused Vectra assumed Jinx thought her Astaroth, one of the gods she had heard about from her father. Though Vectra herself had never believed in them. Her father loved 'studying' these beliefs.
Often times he would elaborate about them, in his mentions Vectra remembers him telling her that Astaroth was a god of the underworld, and the kindest of them so turning to the rest of the group she shared a confused look "i think she beleves us to be gods? She just called me one of the underworld I think...." Vectra suggested though she could not be sure. As she hardly ever listened much to her fathers ramblings, now though. She wish she had payed more attention.
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