poly_chromatic | ♦♦ 31st CONTRACT

Entry tags:

darker than black - hei

♦♦ 31st CONTRACT - ACTION

[ 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 ))

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[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.]

[ 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. ]

[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.)]

[ 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. ]

[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.]

[ The Polar Bear has paws like sledgehammers. A grotesquely loud snarl of rage fills the air as Naga hits him. A deep claw-gouge slices from forehead to brow to cheek -- bubbling and splattering blood everywhere. Black blood, the wrong scent and temperature. ]

[ Rancid. ]

[ Fangs bared, he crouches down like some sort of deformed primate, his arms swinging low through the air, brushing the sand -- before he swipes viciously with his own serrated claws, electricity sparking at the edge of his fingertips, shimmering all around his form like an eerie blue aurora. All of it concentrated on Naga. ]

[ 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? ]

Edited 2013-10-19 04:34 (UTC)

[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.]

[ 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. ]

[ 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. ]

[Naga manages to dodge the blow, the scruff of her neck only a little singed by the sparks. Korra scrambles back, eyes wide, terrified. The monster is huge, as big as -- bigger than? -- Naga. If she had her bending, she wouldn't hesitate to confront it. But she doesn't have her bending.

Get up. You can still fight. Get up. Her body won't move.

Naga has no such difficulties. This creature has marked Korra as its prey, and Naga will not allow that. Korra is hers. Roaring, she lunges for the monster's throat, intending to cut off its air supply and break its neck.]

[ Naga is fierce. But she is no threat. ]

[ Most monsters play with their food. He is too hungry for that. Or perhaps too menacingly fixated. Why pretend like there's any possibility the outcome is in doubt? The Polar Bear runs, then doubles on him -- knowing her size, her power to overrun and crush. But he moves like wind, puffs of sand whipping in his path, faster than the animal can track, and between one blink and the next, he has hold of Naga's fur, two thick white fistfuls at the nape, as he vaults sleekly up to claim her back. In the darkness, their shapes are a tangle of darkness on whiteness, his form covering the animal, his charged hair flying, claws sunk tight in the fur. ]

[ Then, in a snapping motion, like a cobra darting, he swings low and forward, clinging with one leg to the animal's spine, and seizes on its silky throat where the flesh is thin. Biting with a fatal crunch, right into the artery. ]

[ The released blood scents the air. ]

NO!

[Korra's anguished scream rips through the air, almost drowning out Naga's dying howl. She watches as the polar bear dog convulses, then crumbles to the ground. The smell of blood floods her nostrils, strong enough to make her gag. Her friend's liquid gasps are the only thing she can hear. None of it happens in slow motion; everything leading up to it was a horrible blur and now that it's done, time has stopped so that she can take in every horrifying detail.]

[At that moment, something inside Korra shatters.

She rises to her feet as though lifted up by the sudden gale. A wave lifts up from the ocean, but never crashes to the shore -- pulled instead into the whirling vortex surrounding her. The ground shakes as rocks push up through the sand to join the storm. She clenches her fists and is surrounded by a ring of fire.

Her eyes glow when they meet his. The demon Hei's become has awoken her own slumbering monster: the Avatar state. A fully realized Avatar can tap into this state at will, channel the power of their past lives to augment their own. An Avatar still on the path to Enlightenment can't access it consciously...but that doesn't mean they can't access it at all. When their lives are in mortal peril, when the danger is overwhelming and their need unspeakable, the Avatar state activates itself. This is how Aang survived a 100 years after being lost in a storm; how he saved the Northern Water Tribe from utter annihilation.

How he reacted when he realized Gyatso had been murdered. For the first time, she understands how he must have felt.]

[The earth quakes as the ground beneath the monster's feet rises into the air. If it doesn't jump off, she will hurl it as hard as she can away from the Beach House. If it tries to jump towards Naga, she'll hit it with a blast of air strong enough to send it flying. If it's foolish enough to jump towards her, she will burn it with a fire fueled by rage and grief.

Better run while Naga's still breathing.]

[ The wind picks up and washes through his hair as Naga falls, stirring the hem of his strange floaty coverings, carrying the coppery smells of blood up to his nose like offerings. The immense animal is a fountain, limitless, delicious. But his eyes are on Korra, her scream like a beautiful symphony of sweet, bell-like melodies, her pulse like a tom-tom stirring the air with an enchanting beat. Her grief and anguish seem to spice the atmosphere, stirring his excitement, feeding a surge of fresh hunger into his empty belly. ]

[ Oh, what a tasty treat she'll be. ]

[ Except ... ]

[ Except something shifts in the winds. ]

[ He senses it before he feels it. Incandescent light, impossibly bright, seems to spark from Korra's eyes. The energy that plumes out of her is the exact shape and flavor of a star when smashed free, huge fluffs of white-blue waves spilling out onto the sand like solidified foam, bright yellow flames bursting in a protective circle around her. A gale of fierce wind bears her aloft as if dangling her tantalizingly out of reach -- or as if the universe has broken its engines of paradox. All the materials of cosmos-making seem to be suffused in the air here. ]

[ None of this should matter to him. He's concerned not with the universe's past or future but only with his own present. He wants to play while there are things to play with, to have his pick of the tastiest morsels, to despoil and infect until there's nothing left. Until he's extinguished himself -- or his hunger. Whichever comes first. ]

[ What else is there for a creature of darkness to do? ]

[ This isn't like that. ]

[ He feels trapped in an endless hot-house or a snow-globe -- something infinite like space and thirsty like time, but closing in around him. Suffocating him in the radiance of ten thousand other temperatures, tastes, sensations. From inside his empty chest, an anxious, inhuman snarl makes itself heard, growing steadily louder and more despairing. He wants to feed, to attack, to kill. But presaging every synapse is the instinct to run, before this bright, bright substance that is Korra melts his eyes from their sockets. ]

[ He's a mindless monster, tonight. But even monsters have a sense of preservation. A sibilant noise -- full of dismay and frustration -- rises from between his fangs, and the tiny stars twinkle in the sky above, bearing silent witness as he whirls and takes off -- full-pelt into the night. ]

[ 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. ]

[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.]

[Korra doesn't chase after the beast; her first last and only priority is Naga. Eyes still glowing, she floats to the polar bear dog's side and reaches out her hands. But it's too late. The Avatar has the power to do many things, but she cannot cheat death. Naga's spirit is gone.

The light fades from her eyes as the Avatar state ends, its job complete. The air gently lowers Korra to the ground, but her legs are too weak to stand on. She falls against her friend's body and sobs. Blood soaks her clothes, her face, her hair; she doesn't notice or care. She cries as though her tears could bring Naga back. She cries until it seems like every ounce of water has left her body, until she's just a desiccated shell of bones and grief.

She doesn't call anyone. She doesn't want to be told that she's overreacting, that Naga was just pet, that she'll come back City!dead anyway, so what does it matter? Naga wasn't just a pet and that's not the point. Naga was her last connection not only to her world, but to her home, the South Pole. She was the one constant in Korra's life -- more constant than her parents, more constant than her teachers, more constant than her bending. They had known each other almost as long as Korra has known she's the Avatar; they had grown up together. No matter how lost Korra was, she knew Naga would find her. No matter what danger she was in, she knew Naga would save her. Naga had tracked her all the way to the mountains outside Republic City after Tarrlok kidnaped her, and now, Naga had died for her.

And Korra couldn't return the favor. She hadn't had the power to kill the monster, or the power to heal Naga's wounds. There are no more deities to bargain with. Korra's struck, with searing clarity, by how completely helpless she is. She would rather relive being assaulted by Hei, or stabbing Chekov, or killing the zombies of her friends, than face this moment, and the soul-crushing reality of her weakness.

Cautiously Mocha tips over and tries to cuddle against Korra. She allows the little dog to worm his way into her arms, but it's too boneless to be a hug. She doesn't even seem to recognize Mocha's there. Hamlet pads over to Naga's head, licks some of the blood off of her face, and then sits down and releases a long, mournful howl.]

[Chekov has been out since darkness fell, trying to help where he can (but, if we're honest, mostly looking for his friends who aren't answering their network devices). He has already determined that this is a curse and that it's likely that the monsters stalking the City are cursed people; regardless, he has an old-fashioned gun along with one of the phasers that Kirk and Janeway had concocted. It's set to stun.

He heads towards the beachhouse eventually, needing to make sure that Korra is safe (although he isn't hopeful). Hamlet's howl reaches him from blocks away, urging him to move faster.]

Korra!

[The phaser is out before he reaches the scene. He stops in his tracks, unable to find an appropriate response.]

[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?!

[Korra doesn't move or acknowledge Chekov; her focus is still on Naga. She strokes the polar bear dog's fur and murmurs soothing nothings into it. She doesn't actually know how long it takes for the City!dead to rise, assuming Naga even becomes City!dead, but she doesn't want to leave her friend's side.

Hamlet ends up being the one to greet Chekov. The Great Dane trots over and butts his head against Chekov's leg, whining as though he thinks Chekov can make everything better again. Not understanding, with his limited capacity, that nobody can fix this.]

[He stows the phaser and pets Hamlet absently, unsure if it's wise to disturb Korra, upset to see that Naga is, without a doubt, dead. It must have been one of the monsters. Focus on that--on what caused this--instead of what has happened already.

Steeling himself for a violent reaction (he doesn't think that Korra looks like she has any fight left in her, but underestimating someone with her strength is unwise), he gives Hamlet a final pat and crouches next to Korra. Gingerly, as if approaching a wild animal, Pavel puts a hand on the avatar's shoulder.]

Korra?

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♦♦ 31st CONTRACT - ACTION

seaside;

seaside;<333

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between her shop and her flat

Forest

between her shop and her flat \^^/

Forest <333

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1/probably 2 but i'll let you know

2/make it 3 sorry

done

1/3

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between her shop and her flat \^^/

Forest <333

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<3?

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