♦♦ 31st CONTRACT - ACTION

[mortemscintilla]

[ Forest: The onyx saplings rise like thin knives from the misty forest floor. At first the only sound is that of the monster's breath, rough and slow as he lopes between the trees. His clawed feet are bare, but the loamy grass feels like cotton wool -- not cold at all -- even as each puff of steamy breath tells him otherwise. There are drops of water, dripping from the tree branches and hitting the ground. Each one is like a glass bell struck, a pure high tone.

Eyes slipping shut, he perches on a tree-stump, breathing in the air, a hundred sensorial messages conveyed to him with every draught. The forest is beautiful and endless, and he knows many have died here, thinking they owned it.

He isn't interested in that. He's drawn to the heat, the heartbeats, saturating the air. Nearby, there are people.

And he is hungry. ]

[ Seaside: He is out by the starry sea again, drawn there with an inarticulate, feral longing, the wind stirring the loose hair over his forehead, his body a strung bow. Perched on the gravel at the edge of the highway, he looks out beyond the curved guardrail to the water glittering below in the moonlight. Takes a deep scenting breath, holds it for a long time, eyes narrowing, as if he is sifting every component of the wind.

Then he lets it out -- and smiles.

There.

Something sweet. Something to feed on. ]

[ Everywhere Else: The darkest shadows. The dreariest corners. He doesn't lurk in wait. There's no need. The City is a stewpot brimming with life. Overflowing and sloshing at the edges. All he has to do is catch the spills in his cupped palms. Open his mouth -- and swallow. ]

(( ooc: Forward dated to the 19th. And the Moon Shall Turn to Blood: For the curse, Hei has been transformed into a creature of the monstrous persuasion. He'll be gravitating to victims who fall into any one of the following categories - Warmth: Because monsters are drawn to hot beating hearts. Light: A radiant aura; a glowing life - how can anything dark stay away? Softness: A gentle soul; a clean conscience. Any tender surface to sink his teeth into. ))

(( If you'd like your character stalked or attacked, feel free. Just specify the extent of damage, if anything, you'd prefer done to them. Backtagging friendly, and so very open to threadjacking!!<3 ))

Comments

seaside;

[anatural]

[Korra is fast asleep against Naga, stirring fitfully with nightmares. (Nothing curse related, no -- just psychic wounds aching in the cold.) Despite the dreams plaguing her, she doesn't notice when Naga perks up, and begins growling softly.

The polar bear dog senses some threat in the wind, but she can't yet pin down where. She won't disturb Korra until she can.]

seaside;<333

[mortemscintilla]

[ The sky is so clear and endless; he can smell the sea, and seventeen-hundred types of vegetation, some of it alive and some of it rotting, and he can smell the clouds blooming in the atmosphere, and a girl. ]

[ He can smell a familiar girl. ]

[ He breaks into a sprint, then launches himself into the air and is at the water's edge in one leap. All without breathing hard, or breathing at all, except to suck in the myriad overlapping smells, that both fill and open him in unimaginable new ways. He runs along the surf line, imbibing it all. Never has the night been as much his element as now -- a monster not just in possession of the darkness, in love with it. But in love too, with the spaklepoints of the stars, with the human lives dotting the periphery like fairylights. Empty-hearted, empty-bellied, he wants to consume each one -- until that black-hole in him is satisfied. ]

[ He knows it will never be enough. ]

[ Near the Beach House, the tantalizing girl-scent is strongest. His footsteps make barely a sound on the fine-grained sand. At the back, he glimpses the Polar Bear. With his eyesight, he can see each fibrous tip of Naga's white fur. And her. He focuses on Korra, his eyes going the bright red they take on just before his fangs flash. He can see every hair of her head. Every shining, precious hair. ]

[ Oh, what a delicious mouthful she'll be. ]

[anatural]

[Naga's snarls grow; they don't yet disturb Korra, but they do wake up Hamlet and Mocha. The two smaller dogs take position in front of Korra and Naga, standing defensively. (Little Mocha quakes in fear, but his snarl is nonetheless fierce.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He isn't interested in Naga, or the two dogs. His gaze, superheated and ultrafocused, registers them as vague blurs. Not-food. Just mass of warm white fur, and two little tumbleweeds full of yipping sounds. He could open his powerful jaws and snap them to pieces in an eyeblink. Splash in their hot arterial blood, soaking and purring, as a cat rolls by a warm fire. But that's not what he wants. ]

[ He wants the girl. ]

[ His skin, the wafting hairs on his skull, bristle electrically -- sparks dancing like fizzes of soda around him. Then his red eyes blaze with hunger -- and in an eruption of catastrophic force he whooshes toward the animals. Dead-set, like a winged monster in a horror movie, to leap past them and snatch the girl away. ]

[anatural]

[The courage of the smaller dogs only goes so far. Korra wakes up abruptly as Hamlet and Mocha yelp in terror and dive away from the approaching beast. Her mind is too fogged with sleep to register what's happening at first.

Naga is neither intimidated or confused. She jumps her feet and swipes one large paw at the monster's head, with enough force to break its neck.]

between her shop and her flat

[mightbeconcussed]

[ Lucy had gone to the shop to get more bubble bath, more soap, more of anything that might soak away some of the veiny blackness that's invaded her skin. For the most part, it's left her face alone, just a bloom of it at her temple, which she's trying to keep covered with her hair, but her arms, legs and torso are covered in them. Her fingertips are nearly black. Needless to say, she's panicking a little and she's covered up as much of her skin as she can with clothing. This is what she was seeing in the mirror; this is what she's had nightmares about.

She's on her way back to her flat, high heels clicking, inappropriate for running errands, but they make her feel better and she'll take all the confidence boosting she can get for the moment. Her hair is down, her head is bowed and she's just trying to get back to her flat so she can take another bubble bath. She's fairly sure that the only thing she's accomplishing right now is to add pruney to the blackness, but she has to try, right? ]

between her shop and her flat \^^/

[mortemscintilla]

[ On the rooftop of a building, Lucy's scent hits him like gingerbread baking. ]

[ On instinct, he shifts direction, moving along the concrete ledge. Where a moment ago he'd simply been basking in the glow of moonlight, now he's tracking. His mind isn't human tonight. It's an animal design, with the barest traces of a human accent. Intelligent but navigated by instinct. He doesn't care if this is right or wrong. He certainly didn't care for morality as a human -- and now the subject has dissolved to white-noise in his altered brain. What is important -- what is crucial -- is that he can hear, clear as a drum played in open air, the heartbeat of a woman. She smells young. Frightened. Alive. ]

[ Delicious. ]

[ A swift movement brings him down the building, and to the pavement. His clawed feet make barely a sound. He lopes after her seamlessly, easily -- it's like floating except faster, the scenery blurring to colors and shapes around him. Eyes fixed on the back of her shiny golden head, fangs already bared in anticipation of sinking into the soft flesh of her nape. Excitement suffuses his every pore; it brings out a crackle of electricity to the surface of his skin. ]

[ Lucy will register a prickle on hers. A cold tingle, like cells freezing one by one, before he closes in. ]

between her shop and her flat \^^/

[mightbeconcussed]

[ She's just focused on getting home, but that cold chill racing up and down her spine is enough to make her look over her shoulder. She catches sight of the beast that Hei has become and her eyes go wide. She drops the bag of bubble bath she's carrying and fumbles in her purse for the laser screwdriver the Master made her. One of these days she's going to learn to just carry it in her hand when she's out at night.

Tears fill her eyes and a scream rips itself out of her throat. She knows she's not going to find the screwdriver in time. ]

<3?

[candothat]

[Chekov, out and trying to help where he can, knows that scream. Pulling out his phaser--it's set to stun, and he doesn't intend to use its kill setting or the old-fashioned gun he's also carrying out of a suspicion that tonight's monsters are just cursed Cityzens--he runs towards the sound.]

Lucy?!

Forest

[moonlitrequiem]

[She doesn't often stray too far from her apartment, especially at night, but Yin is out there now, expression almost grim. Her eyes stay lifted to the moon, her pale skin glowing in the eerie red light.]

[Yin is just on the outskirts of the forest, unable to turn away, but she doesn't seem very pleased by the moon's alteration. In fact, she's so preoccupied with it, she hasn't considered where Hei is, no looked for him. For once, he's definitely not being spied on.]

Forest <333

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's impossible not to notice her. The aura around her is faintly cool, like the dew clustering on the forest's leaves. Delicate too -- as if one swipe would send her scattering in sparkling fragments through the air, sugary diamond-like dust refracting the moonlight. ]

[ He wonders how she'd taste. ]

[ He slows his steps so as not to be heard. His breathing blends with the rustling of trees, the secret skitterings of small animals and insects in the grass. His eyes are well adjusted to the gloom; he can see Yin clearly, strands of her fine hair floating along the breeze, her face bone pale under the rise of the colossal reddish moon. But the curse has switched off all human sentiment, all rationality. He doesn't recognize her as Yin. He's sees only prey -- a succulent dollop of sweetness, placed solely there to satisfy his endless hunger. Harsh and itching, it urges him to creep forward. ]

[ To stop, barely eight feet away from her -- then lunge. ]

Forest <333

[moonlitrequiem]

[It's only before the lunge her observer spirit picks up the monstrous form. Yin turns, feet ready to run, just as claws sink in through her jacket. Her eyes widen, mouth parts soundlessly as she registers the burning ruby glow staring back at her.]

[She didn't even have time to run, and there's no scream. She does, however, give the lightest most slight struggle; her feet still try to carry her away.]

Forest <333

[mortemscintilla]

[ Pretty porcelain doll. He'll play with you tonight. ]

[ His red eyes sparkle with hunger, fangs extended halfway down his jaw. The girl is deliciously sweet -- her mouth like a pink thumbprint, her skin so pale that the rich blue veins in her neck stand out in long thin stripes. Her struggles are like a moth fluttering its delicate wings in his grasp. Ticklish whispers of sensation -- reminding him of his own power to crush her to powder. ]

[ Grabbing her up from behind, a hand clapped over her mouth to stifle any noise -- (But she isn't noisy, is she? No, she's as cool and quiet as snowfall in the night.) -- he fastens his fangs on her neck and bites down. Then he lets her mouth go, because it is necessary to his pleasure -- his intense pleasure -- to hear any desperate little sounds she might make. He's much too powerful for her to have a chance. He loves her dainty pedaling feet, her useless flailing bringing exquisite savor to this, the tastiest dessert of his life. ]

[ Her blood like a cool sip of wine, flooding down his throat. ]

[water_wine_wizard]

[The craziness in the city has been bothering Laruna more than she'd like to admit (especially with Jimmy dying and coming back) so she's gone down to the sea shore to try and think. The huge body of water still amazes the heck out of her every day and makes her feel much better. It makes her feel much bigger than she is as well. Stronger and more powerful.

But it's water and she's a water wizard... it makes sense, yeah?]

8')

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's drawn to the sea shore too. But not to relax or think. In this cursed state, the functions -- the demands -- of his body are simple. Hunt. Kill. Feed. Even so, the constant noise -- everywhere, even in places that he'd have called quiet in life -- strike a secret part of him over and over with strangeness and disquiet, but the worst disquiet rises from the silence at his own core. He can't sleep because it is impossible, because his heart is so still. When he tries to drift, to let go of consciousness, that absence inside him is too bottomless. ]

[ So he prowls -- focusing on the energy, the lightness -- of this cursed form. Alert for the tick-tock-tick-tock of pulse, of human warmth to kickstart the dead mechanisms of his own heartbeat. (Even as he knows, in an inarticulate recess of him, that it's impossible.) ]

[ And then, having covered miles of shoreline in just a quarter hour, he smells something fresh and rich near the sand-dunes, that same sense tells him what it is. Prey. ]

Re: 8')

[water_wine_wizard]

[She would be insulted to be called human but she's pretty much human when it comes down to it.

Hearing someone in the sands (or maybe just something tingling and warning her) she turns around looking.]

Hello?

[She steps into the water so that they cover her feet, as protection.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her soft little Hello will float off into the salty wind, unanswered. ]

[ The mind in his altered boy is an animal mind, dressed up in vaguely human clothes. But an animal, all the same. He can't speak to her. Swift and silent, he lopes across the sand instead. Sniffs the sea air, a deluge of information crashing on him, yet his mind is perfectly able to fit it into a system of understanding. This girl -- there's something about her scent. Perhaps her aura. Something cool and aromatic, like pine or dew, that drifts in the air around her. Something liquid. A more reticent monster would try to puzzle this out. But he isn't so timid. All the scent does is spark his hunger -- high and bright -- like a comet in the vast darkness of his empty belly. ]

[ In the gloom, his eyes glow red. Fangs bared, half-intoxicated with greed, he drifts to the crest of a sand-dune. Waits, for the heartbeat of a second -- then lunges at her. ]

just before midnight

[sleepingstar]

[Trouble. Pai can feel it like a tingle in her skin, like a weight in her bones. She hasn't seen or heard from her brother all day. Considering what's happening to many other Citizens, she has no doubt that Hei has been afflicted too. The only monster her brother can't defeat is himself.

She has no magical connection to Hei, no way to "sense" his presence. And of course, while he has plenty of tools in place to track her, she has nothing with which to do the same. (Something to be remedied -- later) Unable to get in touch with his Doll, and not knowing whether she can trust July, Pai is forced to rely on her inhuman patience and her innate intelligence.

If she were human, this would have worked better, but her inability to anticipate irrationality, to intuitively understand emotions & darker impulses, leaves her always a step behind the monster Hei has become. It's well nigh midnight before she finds him.]

just before midnight

[mortemscintilla]

[ Wounded, livid, disoriented -- he's left a trail that's easy to track. ]

[ A spectacular smear of blood, lightly garnished with fur, glistens on the grey tar near the forest. Its unkempt expanse of earth, grassy in parts, churned up mud in others, is engraved with clawed footprints, speckled here and there with drops of black blood. In the desolate distance -- a maze of trees and bristling shrubs -- nothing moves. But the closer Pai gets, the better chance she'll have of catching a fugitive glimpse of gleaming red eyes, a sinewy flank, a twitching limb. Over the ambient rustle of leaves, the creature's quiet breathing is hypnotic, like a drug suffusing the bloodstream. Filling the listener with curiosity and a claustrophobic pity, a desire to locate the source. ]

[ Which is a trap. The monster is lurking, waiting for a meal to traipse by. Something he can feed on, to regain his strength. ]

[sleepingstar]

[A trap that won't work on Pai. She's capable of curiosity, but not of pity. It's just as well, for she doesn't have the bright innocence that he craves either. There is nothing pure about her -- her innocence is tainted by cynical experience, her cynicism tainted by childish innocence.

When she finds the monster-Hei, she approaches it cautiously, but without fear.]

Hei?

[mortemscintilla]

[ He smells her before she approaches. A small dark shadow inching towards him on delicate feet. He bristles all over, emitting an irritable growl. Focuses on her -- slowly, as if his eyes aren't working too well. The red gaze is feral, no sign of sanity, let alone recognition. But when she says his name -- he freezes. ]

[ His mind isn't wired for speech. The name -- Hei -- means little to him, just repetitions of other meaningless words, floating down to him out of context. Stop. Help. Please. Don't. It's the timbre of the girl's voice which appeals to him more than anything, the music of it, which carries with it an echoing picture of the speaker and an irresistible air of familiarity. From fragments of emotion and color, he can visualise enough to make him feel he's part of a life other than his own empty semblance of one. As if, whoever this girl is ... she's part of him. The scent of delicious death clings to her -- years of blood and cruelty wrapped in a kinship that's as intimate as his own cold breath. ]

[ With a low rumble, he lopes closer. Right before her, towering in the dappled moonlight from the trees. Then he crouches, nearly to her height. She's small and radiates warmth, but it doesn't spark a lick of his hunger. Instead he nudges his ridged skull against her shoulder, a glad nuzzling, a nuanced marking of territory. ]

forest;

[sociomonere]

[[No death please o3o His little heart is too black and withered for eating anyway.]]

[ He's been having trouble keeping away from the forest. It terrifies him, assuredly. He thinks of what could be lurking out there, knows that there are black-hearted women with dark dreams lurking out there. ]

[ But their dark dreams are his dark memories, and those memories bear a shocking longing, like electricity running currents under his skin. He thinks of the window in that twisted house, where he had kissed a girl through curtains of hair, sharing cigarette smoke back and forth. He thinks of the blackberry patches that only Bethle and he tended, the light that dappled them from above, the way the wind sounded in the trees, the deep smell of pine and wet earth. The way the mist had swirled. ]

[ It's midnight, and for all his fear the night and the moon still call to him to come out and put his bare feet into the soil. The Hill will give him a little peace if he does as he is bid--(will sink its hooks a little deeper, and call more strongly next time.) ]

[ He is still hesitating, and the crow in the trees above flaps its wings, agitated. ]

forest;

[mortemscintilla]

[ The forest is many things for him. ]

[ A playground, for one. He has plenty of space to roam around in -- virtually unlimited space. All around, gloomy acres of trees extend in all directions, unpunctuated by fences, roads, or other dwellings. The susurrations in the air are engrossing; the scrabbling made by the worms and beetles in the dirt, the mice and rabbits and birds, the leaves and the water, are all pleasant white-noise. His night-vision makes everything sparkle. Darkness is lit up bright as day, colors so vibrant they're almost surreal. Storybook illustrations. Which is another thing the forest is, to him. An open book -- dank, dark, expansive. Inhaling the smells in the air, blinking at the sharp delineations of color, he absorbs All That Is There. Lets it wash over him, allowing his mind to spread out, to creep into every leaf and pebble and stream, every landscape, every touch, taste, scent, sight, sensation, to question and assert and take charge of this new province. The Forest. The Forest that -- doesn't belong to him -- but which he's connected to, with the City's magic. ]

[ That's how he smells the boy. ]

[ Soot. Crackling leaves. Dead flowers. All these aromas cling to the boy. They stir, not Hei's hunger -- but his curiosity. Loping between the trees, silent as a shadow, he edges closer. Stops, eyes narrowed in the reddish moonlight, following Tallendi's silhouette with its windblown halo of black-and-red hair. A stranger. Not prey ... but perhaps a plaything? ]

forest;

[sociomonere]

[ The ground is cold underneath bare feet, the night air making him feel small, pared down to bones and nothing but a child. Too often he feels as if the greatness of a vast dark world is looming over him, and he is confined to his small corner where few things are understood, but at least the horrors cannot encroach. A childish vision. The creatures always have a way in, from the corner of his eyes or through the stuttering weaknesses of his heart. ]

[ He can smell Hei in a way as well. Nothing that Tallendi would consciously understand, but he had spent his time locked away in a cage in the basement, surrounded by beasts of all element and creed. It twists at him, the sense of belonging and the revulsion for where he belongs. ]

[ He inhales deep, ignoring the way his chest jerks, wanting to let in to tears. ]

[ He hesitates there at the edge of the forest another one moment before he wanders into the shadows, a cage of tree trunks, his head drooped forward, like a martyr marching to the glowing cross at the crest of a hill. ]

forest;

[mortemscintilla]

[ The boy is acrid with repressed anxiety. It's not an appetizing scent -- but a piquant one. ]

[ Something in Hei corkscrews, like a confetti streamer, as Tellendi enters the woods. Interest. And something else also unfurls, something arrogant and bored that tells him this boy is a nothing, his presence of no interest. The two somethings duke it out with Hei's curiosity, making his hunger throb like a cold pulse in the air, making his stomach roil. He edges a little closer; and his eyes go red. Closer still and the ridges rise; his fangs descend, and a rolling growl will reach Tallendi, skirling down his spine. The night is cool and indigo, with a full moon. The world is still as a forest that has been chopped down -- and Tellendi is just a small scraggly bird, hopping uncomprehendingly from stump to stump in the darkness. ]

[ Hei lopes near, his long taloned claws whispering over the grass, and sniffs the air delicately. ]

[ Then he lunges -- an explosion of flashing fangs and brute force. ]