Sunbeam Lair [m] So if you care to find me, look to the western sky

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Depiction of self-harm and poisoning

Dated April 2
Please note that if anyone does follow her, she currently cannot be tracked to Sunbeam Lair. Thanks in advance for playing along <3

Reverie left in the dead of night this time. She had traveled through water where she could find it, only stopping to collect her bundle of poisons and leaving no hint as to where she might have gone. She did not want to be pursued.
When she came to the entrance of some vast cavern, Reverie peered within and thought it the perfect place. A hidden place where the light would still reach her. She did not want to suffer in darkness. She did not want to die in shadow. The gilded girl carried her bundle with her as she stepped carefully through the cave, startling at every noise and every shifting of the light. She was nervous.
To be honest, she did not want to die. She wanted to live, even with the pain of losing Lestan. There were other things to live for, she was remembering that. Moss had reminded her.
But this had to end. This twisted sickness which had infected her. These beautiful little sparks which were sucking the light from her. She still wanted them, more than anything, but she knew that she could not bear it. Not alone. Reverie had thought herself stronger than this, but she knew now that she had been wrong. She would always be a coward.
So she settled where she could see the stars, letting their presence soothe her for a few moments before she started to pick at the foul little feast she had brought for herself. Reverie nibbled at the leaves and the flowers first. Eventually she dared to try the berries. She knew the first two of these things, but the berries were new to her. Mystery berries, again, but this time…
Reverie sucked in a breath and waited. It was not long before she felt the effects; first she began to tremble, and there was a dull gnawing pain in her stomach. Her body protested. She did not care. It had betrayed her, and so she sought now to return that betrayal tenfold. There would be pain in this, more pain perhaps than if she had gone to Ashlar, who surely knew what he was doing. But she deserved this, on so many levels. She deserved to feel every moment of it.
And she did.
The pain spread, and grew, and Reverie began to pant softly. She rolled onto her side and stretched out as if that might relieve it. It only worsened as the time wore on. It felt like hours, but it could have been minutes; Reverie was slowly losing all awareness. At some point it became intolerable; somewhere along the way it turned to fire in her veins, fire in blue and gold.
Reverie started to scream.

Scavengers were attracted to the scent of death.

Many followed the sounds too, but the scent was what really caught the attention of the vultures and the crows. The creature that was, she too followed the scents. An odd bloodhound, in a way, with her over large ears and too sharp snout. She followed the scent winding through her Dark, the small gods whispering dissent in her ears.

What have you brought me? She asked the dark as the screaming began. Her sides contracted, stomach hardening. Alarm spread across the back of her skull, burning and blurring the noise into a thousand mockeries.

She came across her in the dark. Golden and unassuming. Screaming, screaming so loudly in this dark, quiet place. Fascination burned there, in the dark quiet behind her eyes. She noted none of the pain that rippled through her. Her eyes didn’t leave.

What have we brought you? The small gods whispered. In the dark, her eyes glowed black-blue, like a bruise.

Everything. She purred in response.

The rattlesnake assembled herself nearby like a statue, like a gargoyle, riveted and rooted to the spot.

What have you done to yourself? She asked the insensate.

What have you done? What will you learn? What will this give you? A smile like the slice of a searchlight in the dark.

Will you even answer?

Somewhere in the agony of it all, she found clarity. Somehow, between terrible convulsions and ear-piercing shrieks, she remembered who she was;
the girl in the reverie, the fleeting light of a daydream;
and so she dreamed.
She dreamed that she was flying, and there was so much light. The air around her was all pink and gold confection, like clouds laced through the sky, but so warm. She was free, untethered, weightless and the world could not touch her. It was perfect. Until she fell. Then she was falling forever; into darkness, into something that grasped and burned and left her breathless. How far could she fall? Could it really never end?
The Garden; it came to life all around her, all at once, and she let out a breathless little laugh to be in this wonderful whimsical place again. Yes, this was where she wanted to be. This was where she belonged.
But this is not your place —
A woman's voice. Reverie looked and found a pale wolf, one with eyes like flames. How startling! But her face was gentle, almost motherly, and instinctively the gilded girl trusted her.
"Then where?" She found herself asking.
I cannot tell you that.
But I can show you.
Look, Reverie, I have a gift for you…

She felt the moment her eyes were set alight, and her cries shook the garden to its roots.

…

A long, long time ago — or perhaps not so long, but it felt forever all the same — there was a girl. A dancer in gilded tones, a dreamer, a soul so bright it could only blind.
Her name was Ophelia.
She loved art and philosophy, she loved the impossible and the infinite and all the little things no one else seemed to notice. She loved her family. She loved the world. And she had been lost to the fire.
But there are forces in this universe much older than any of us could ever imagine. They see each beautiful little light in the world. And they love. And they remember, even as dozens of them wink out of existence with each passing day.
So from The Garden those ancient powers called forth a new spark, a young flame in gold and scarlet. A drifter with a heatwave smile; sunheart, goldveins, cloudfeet. A spirit not meant for this world. A strange light from a place of dreams.
The girl in the reverie.
She remembered now.
Remembered the day she had been called to this, when the sky rumbled and spoke and said you will live, and it will hurt, and it will be beautiful, because you will make it so. And then she had fallen endlessly, past the clouds and into reality,
and when she touched the flames, touched that girl who had once been Ophelia,
everything changed.

…

And now you really see;
This is your beginning, but not your place.
Where we've come from is not always where we are meant to be.
And the point of freedom is to make a choice.
Do what they'll never expect, Reverie.
And know that one day you will return.

…

And somewhere far below, where dreams are grounded in reality and fairytale love ends in blood and tears, the girl in the reverie was twisting; suffering; dying.

Reborn, again.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Some disturbing imagery and gore!

Where the gilded girl flew, the snake, the sawbones, the doctor fell.

Deeper and deeper into that greedy darkness, the light so far up it was nothing more than a haunting pinprick against her pupils. In the dark that swallowed her whole, she had found the small gods.

The small gods had found her, clamoring and raving in her ears, like Gulliver and the Lilliputians.

Finally! Finally they cried Finally! Finally! they wept.

Finally! Finally! Our vessel is here! Finally finally! The mother to birth it! Finally finally!

They claimed her weakened soul in that dark, where she cried for all she ever knew so alone and so lost with a scrambled head and eyes that saw nothing and yet everything. In the end, in that dark, that small dark of the small places of nowhere of note, they had eaten the remnants of the lonesome, they had shot down the dove and devoured it whole.

And she had laid there, her ribs broken, her skin flayed from her chest and laid out to dry, her blood melding with the dust and the dirt and the smell of the desert sun, and the small gods had their fill. They plucked out her liver, wrapped her intestines around their necks like bloody feather boas, took pieces of her heart to eat from their talon tipped fingers like a rich lady eats cheese upon a toothpick. They’d had her, kept her, wrapped her up whole in cloths and stuffed the remnants with cloud fluff and blood.

There was nothing divine about the hyena howling laughter of the small gods. Lonesome Dove, whoever she had been, whoever she was, was not divine.

Perhaps she was the farthest thing from it.

She watched the golden girl, watched her with the eyes of a predator upon a lamb fresh from the womb, as her own twisted into knots, expelling, expelling. The crisp, iron tang that knotted the furs of her thighs and backs of her legs.

She did not flinch.

The rattlesnake quieted it’s rattle, and in its place the dark swallowed all sound whole.

Small gods —
Tiny grasping things with little cutting claws.
Turn back, they whispered. Turn back back back... and the girl in the reverie trembled. She saw the path ahead now, shrouded, a portrait of a soul fallen into shadow. It was not the dark Reverie feared. It was that she might lose her way, that she might never return home.
Turn back...
Small gods and their small plans and their insignificant demands. Dark and underfoot like a thorn you never see. But you know them by the blood, by the venom in your veins. Little things, ground-dwellers. They could not touch her. Not while she still remembered how to fly.
I do not bow to small gods.

I am the sun,
and you will burn with me.

Pupils dilated; lips pulled tight; limbs stiff; and her body began to ripple and change and blood began to pool and she screamed and burned and burned and burned and —

Look, Reverie, I have a gift for you...

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: Birth! Surprise! Also mentions of a stillborn and said disposal of that stillborn in the cannibalistic way

In the light of the sun, the small gods screamed. They were creatures of shadows and dark, not to be wrapped by the light. And yet the light sat. It burned, horrible, in the bottom of her gut.

It was the first acknowledgment of pain, a short gasp, then…nothing. Everything dissolved into the dark, splattered pomegranate red across the black screen.

The End



Is how it was supposed to be. But the small gods had lived, lived through light and dark and cycles of moon and sun and war and famine and sickness and filth and-.

They did not allow it.

Three.

Two moved. One did not.

That one was quick to be pulled between her teeth. Gone.

Like wildflower and the flower eater the loopy note, the low warble. Her head was spinning, cracking, aching. The small gods screamed in her ringing ears. They wanted their vessel. They wanted to see it, know it. Her eyes traveled like beacons in the dark, and found them. Where she’d tucked them, getting their first tastes of nourishment. One the small gods screamed to be rid of, the other…they clamored for. She could see it, see him, from here.

@Earp

Breathless. She named the son she wanted. The other…

Sun child sun child sun child sun child

Her eyes fell to the stiff, bow legged figure. Her sides still moved.

She breathes. She breathes. Dispose! Dispose!

Her legs began to wobble when she moved, but she snatched up the golden sun child, leaving Earp in the dirt where she’d whelped him, and none too gently shoved the sun beside the other girl. Then, with a harsh, pointed muzzle, she shoved her nose into the woman’s ribs.

Be thankful you’re alive.

She hissed aloud, then returned to the boy. They had a lot to do. So much to do.

So much to do!

Burning, burning forever —
Until light was wrung from the shadows, and the dark shrieked in fury, and those tiny scratching claws receded, and Reverie was left with only
this;
a choice;
a future;
a small flame from small gods, because the dark cannot exist without light.

In time the convulsions would subside. But the blood continued to gather, soaking fur and skin, a baptism in red for the new life at her flank.

Reverie slept, and she did not dream.