Thunder Dome WITNESS ME

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@Karma

there's rain caught in her lashes, blurring narrowed vision as the gangly wraith tops the mountain. h u n g e r rumbles within pale stomach, weather slicked fur revealing the hollows of ghoul's frame where the canadian teeters on seemingly fragile stalks. it is only the stolid expression settling as a crown atop the cannibal's head that hints at the she-wolf's utter fearlessness; nay, the exhilaration that pumps through arteries, sluicing between veins with each quickened beat of the heart. toes curl into the gravel earth, relishing in the steadfast contrast to buffeting wind ( its bite a game in mortality, sharp fingers probing at her weakest points. ) there's heat in the air, cold confined&condensed into each icy sheet of rain and lightning rages through the dark, dusty clouds. 
she is made to feel ^SMALL the way only the elements c a n, body running electric with adrenaline, every inch of the lanky ghoul arched into the unforgiving storm. this is what mont-tremblant had failed to provide her, charmaigne's thin frame almost trembling now with sheer giddiness, pale green eyes crackling with something close to madness.  

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^{[ banging pots and pans ] WELCOME TO HELL WELCOME TO HELL WELCOME TO HELL} 

Survival of the worst. For some, the statement rang true enough. Monsters lived in the skin of wolves with teeth even sharper, roaming the world like they weren't icons of sin. He was a much less interesting evil. All those he'd sundered, spoiled, ran red - they'd all been The Enemy, so it hadn't mattered. They hadn't been people. He'd never felt guilty for them then, and he didn't now.

Why think about it at all, then? Well, when faced with your own mortality when a lightning bolt cracks loud enough to spark the stone beneath your feet, wouldn't a little bit of your life involuntarily flash before your eyes?

But very little ever surprised General Karma, and the loud anger of the sky was no different. He blinks away the not-so-fond memories with an absent wave of his tail, and carries on through the stinging rain and howling winds. This. He was used to this. The harsh weather only reminded him of the barracks he'd known as a soldier, the grey slate and chances for death no different than what others might consider home. A world without outside influence, a dingy bauble messy with blood and all kinds of corruption. It had promise, and the big brute found himself smiling, ugly and scarred and twisted.

Promise, indeed.

His thoughts are cut short with that smile, all fading as he finds himself with company. Not a vulture — a harpy. He drops his heavy head, ruined ears twitching as the skulking beast moves heavily forward, buffeted by wind and rain and the ghost in the mist. He'd never been too superstitious, but he knew wraiths when he saw them. Haunting. Haunted. Closer now - but not near by any means - he rolls to a thundering halt, the lightning and rain whipping around them both. He stares, one eye golden and severe in the grey and white. 

You never turned your back on a banshee.

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@Karma

zeus roars, coalesced clouds rippling with light, sound echoing through the sky like a pack of baying hounds. eyes slip shut, teeth baring in wild smile as head tilts heavenward, embracing the vibrations that rock the atmosphere within her breast, breathing in with every loud shudder. each spark, each quake, each wave of sheeting rain against papyrus hide builds at the base of draugr's throat, until with a harsh clap! above her, it releases in trembling howl, a banshee's reedy scream, a harpy's battlecry. ( monsters don't live only beneath your bed )

sometimes, they live in your ^HEAD. sometimes, you meet them face-to-face, creatures that hide their vices behind ordinary faces and unsuspecting furs. ( sloth, gluttony, wrath, pride — how many lurk beneath the ghoul's pale visage? ) the scream dies as a flash of lightning strikes nearby glaring white behind closed lids, lips twisting shut around teeth-filled maw as skull snaps to typical positioning, pale green blinking open. grey and cream brow pulls to squint against the harsh rain and fizzling light, blinking away spots in vision; one black haze failed to disappear on command, and dark-lined eyes pinched tighter yet.

silhouette, offers the mind, senses confirming when the brute has drawn close enough for light to throw haggard features into visibility, sky rippling with steady flashes and yodels. imperious, charmaigne stiffens to full height, chin lifting as gangly limbs shift; turning to face the revenant head on, white toes coiling into the friendly gravel. cold gaze glares down lifted snout, taunting the old man and his singular eye — what will it be?

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Had he been holding his breath before now? For whatever reason, he managed a short siphon of hot air, like his lungs had shrivelled in his chest. Another thunderclap, deep and ancient and dark as the sky, and Karma felt that raw power tremble through the earth. There was nothing quite like thunder; he'd been so scared of it when he was smaller. Now, he only wondered how he could be as commanding, as terrifying —

She moved, a slash of smoke in the hazy grey, and the feeling that shuddered through his bones could only be described as the chill one might get when a photograph moves or a shadow stands before you and not on the wall. It is so unnatural, this haunt, a spectre in the roar of the wind that he's quite convinced will swallow her up like a dream. This initial horror seeped into him to the bone, that first good draught of unease and distrust in reality that kept jaded old cynical farts like him on his scarred, scarred toes. He's no stranger to his post-trauma — he's seen your kind before, immortal taunt of victims past, and he knows you don't exis —

It screams. General Karma had never run on the battlefield, not once. He had scars aplenty on his breast, his shoulders, his face, his neck - but never any on his hind legs, his hips, his tail. And now he wants to run backward into history and forget he'd ever seen the ghost of maiden's peak and her haunting ground. Banshee's sang (though a traipse of sarcasm tells him there's no way this is a tune) when you were close to death, wasn't that how the stories went? 

He's about to convince himself he's seen her before, that she lived in the vision lost to his stolen eye, that she was the white shadow on the edge of his vision like the cool scythe of the reaper — it's a wonder he's never written poetry. But she turns that wet face on him, quite real, quite girlish, cut of ivory defaced with adolescent graffiti. "What are you doing." His voice is an ugly, baritone, once-handsome sound that ruins the thread of otherworldly silence between them, a dumb question before the marble sphinx, a brief stopper in death. For once in his life, Karma feels very small indeed.