Fox
Trainee
The Trickster's Lunatic[A1i:6]
Posts: 14
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Post by Fox on Oct 15, 2012 4:33:52 GMT -8
She was here.
Fox let the boot push her, not showing her surprise at the contact through anything but a small flinch. Rolling with it, she ended up on her back, still clutching the left arm. She let it go, glancing at the drying blood on her palm before licking it off contentedly. She pulled herself up into more of a sitting or leaning position, weight on her palms pressed in the hard ground behind her. Despite seeming relaxed, anyone with a keen eye (so pretty much everyone here) could see, she was ready to react if she had to.
"I heard that you died."
Fox's rough voice had a sort of laughing edge, bolder than she felt. Inside of her, the animal felt fear, knowing it was facing death itself. But Fox had never been one to shy away from the threat of death. Her scarred chest, ridge of flesh running from neck to sternum, poorly stitched surgical scar on her abdomen, they all were a testament to her will to fight. Even that crudely stitched eye didn't make her seem weak. The cold, almost vulpine angles of her face made the injury seem less like a hindrance and more like a wound of battle, a battle Fox clearly hadn't given up.
There was determination in that hazel eye.
Determination to live.
"Clearly, rumors of your demise were greatly exaggerated."
Fox's source hadn't been the best, not a first- or second-hand source, but a third-hand one. By the time it had reached Fox's ears (under a little persuasion from a nice sharpened piece of glass), it was distorted, barely true. Too wild to believe. That this girl had died, had been impaled in a pit of spikes, had come back to life and ripped a man apart. Fanciful delusions. More than likely, she'd simply avoided being impaled.
After all, she couldn't be immortal, not really.
Could she?
"Let me live, you get another soldier, one without any crippling fear of the bloody madhouse that's around us, one willing to fight and die for you and your cause. I fail, I'll die. I succeed, you get a new soldier. Either way, you win."
She wasn't subtle, proposing this, and though she was afraid (if she was a dog, she'd have her ears pulled back and tail tucked in.... She was already showing her stomach as if to say "You're the boss"), Fox knew she didn't have an option. She could sit there, dumb as a rock, and let a homicidal femme decide her fate, or she could speak up, do something, and live.
"I know enough about you to know that if I can't hold my own, you'll kill me without hesitation."
"All I request is a chance."
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Post by Vespyr on Oct 15, 2012 5:32:09 GMT -8
Mouths to feed/impulses to indulge
Vespyr regarded the girl disinterestedly, neither impressed nor annoyed by the manner in which she spoke. Whether the girl seemed meek to her or if she spoke with audacity, didn’t make a difference because in Vespyr’s eyes, she was already dead.
“You can’t kill death.” was all she said in regard to the rumors, the exaggerations, which in their own way were still true. Vespyr lowered the scythe from her shoulders, digging the blade-end of the pole into the ground to lean on it slightly. For a moment it might have seemed like she was considering the shirtless female’s proposal.
But she wasn’t interested.
Another soldier. Vespyr never had soldiers to begin with. She had skilled—but still expendable—lackeys who ran about and did as they pleased as well as what they were told. They were no organized group of militia, but a slipshod gang of hedonists, psychopaths, and criminals. Vespyr hardly knew why she kept them around in the first place, but as long as they didn’t get in the way, she’d keep them around for their useful potential. But nothing obligated her to raise an army in the first place, so one more worthless soldier made no difference. The meager flesh on her bones would feed a few hungry mouths for a couple of days, though.
With that and other irrelevant thoughts in mind, Vespyr stopped leaning on the upside-down scythe and casually took up the handle in both her hands again. The long arched blade glinted savagely under the moonlight as Vespyr half-turned her slender torso in preparation to strike, holding the long weapon somewhat like a baseball bat, the blade pausing behind her at the level of her waist. Then she unwound, swinging the scythe in a swift horizontal arc toward the trespasser’s chestline so that even if the girl ducked, her head and neck would be caught in the path of the heavy razor edge.
Aside from habit and impulse, there were actual reasons that Vespyr was slicing the girl into two pieces. On the surface, it was fairly obvious: Vespyr didn’t like trespassers. She didn’t like females. And the trespassing female seemed, somehow, to embody a sort of canine demeanor, perhaps slightly in appearance as well as mannerisms. Vespyr hated dogs.
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Fox
Trainee
The Trickster's Lunatic[A1i:6]
Posts: 14
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Post by Fox on Oct 16, 2012 17:36:59 GMT -8
Fox lost both her eyes in that moment.
Falling backwards as soon as she saw the girl moving, she collapsed, first from palms to elbows, then from elbows to back. A scream was torn from her throat, as blood spurted from the new wound. Part of her skull was cracked, and there wasn't a doubt that she would never get her sight back. The eye sockets were now marred by one long, thick trench, causing an insatiable pain to ravage her system. Nothing else registered for that moment.
Her hand shot to the crucifix hanging from her pained neck. With one vicious tug, she ripped it off, then, wincing in the uncontrollable agony, rolled over onto her chest. Her sightless gaze turned up to Jaq.
"The end of East 28th. The basement of the blue house. You'll find an armory."
She tossed the crucifix to him. As it flew through the air, he could likely see.... Taped on the back was a key.
"Might as well give it to someone..... Someone who's going to survive this insanity....."
She wasn't foolish, just realized that she was going to die. For years, Fox had been stockpiling weapons. Some, she'd made in the factory. Some, she'd won, bought, or earned on the streets. But some, some were from her father's own factories and labs. High-tech rifles, endless handguns, and even a missile launcher. It was all locked away in one of the most secure vaults in the area, one Fox had built with her own two hands. Surely it had survived the latest apocalypse. She'd intended to use the supply to end Loki....
But it wasn't meant to be.
Fox staggered upright, motion made difficult by the way her head felt dizzy, the fact that she could not see a thing, the pain ricocheting through her skull. Somehow, she managed to turn and face Vespyr, empty eye sockets staring passively at the girl. A contented smile came to Fox's face. She was no longer afraid.
"Do it."
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Post by Vespyr on Oct 17, 2012 1:16:55 GMT -8
Along the edge
Vespyr’s hands clenched viciously at the handle of the scythe as it tore its path along the girl’s face, the grinding vibrations of the metal and bone passing along the blade and into the reaper’s palms like a shiver. The girl fell backward with a scream that caused the crickets to shut up for a moment, and pitiless silence filled the seconds between her roar of pain and the words that followed. Vespyr stared indifferently as the girl tore at her necklace and muttered a few things about some hidden armory.
Jaq, who’d taken an instinctive step backward when Vespyr lashed out with the scythe, furrowed his brow somewhat curiously and caught the piece of jewelry before it sailed past him. He glanced at it, noticing the key, then glanced at Vespyr, and tossed the charm over to her. She snatched it out of the air in her black claws and let the chain slip between her fingers, ensnared. The glinting cross dangled from her deathly white hand as she gripped the handle of the scythe and once again swung it backward...
…The girl would perhaps hear the sleek blade as it sliced through the air toward her neck, cleaving unbiased between every molecule of matter, air or flesh, in its path.
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Fox
Trainee
The Trickster's Lunatic[A1i:6]
Posts: 14
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Post by Fox on Oct 17, 2012 3:36:09 GMT -8
Fox's body fell.
Her head joined it a moment afterwards.
The last sound the girl known as Fox Ritten Lokidottir ever heard was the whistling of the scythe as it came for her throat.
Then slowly, everything faded away, and Fox left this world with a blissful smile on her face.
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Post by Vespyr on Oct 17, 2012 5:51:38 GMT -8
Things happen
Curling her long fingers loosely around the pole, Vespyr swung the dripping scythe back to its original position across her bony shoulders and then glanced over at her right hand to casually scrutinize the crucifix hanging lifelessly in her claws. Not unlike countless instances in the past, the sacred symbol didn’t seem to signify anything at all; the only difference was the tiny object taped to the back of this one, which Vespyr plucked off before discarding the necklace. The crucifix landed in a muddy quagmire of blood between its owner’s severed head and body. With the key in her fist, Vespyr vanished from the Boneyard.
Jaq stared at the cross lying in the crimson mud and felt nothing. Where he was raised, there were no gods. Only nature had the power to dictate the fate of creatures with its unbiased methods, and when the apathy of nature left them with their own will, the creatures decided for themselves what their fate would be. Jaq could never understand the significance of the holy charm, so the irony was lost on him, while to Vespyr it was simply too familiar.
The man flicked his yellow eyes over to Saul, regarding the boy with a blank stare for a moment. Then he pointed to the larger of the dead dogs and made a gesture with his thumb that they were to get going. Jaq turned away and stalked back over to the other dead animal, lifted it over his shoulder, and began making his way across the dead fields in the same direction that Vespyr had disappeared.
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Saul Kelly
Adept
[M:150]
I never wanted this[A1i:3]
Posts: 148
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Post by Saul Kelly on Oct 17, 2012 20:28:59 GMT -8
Saul had watched the demise of the other girl with a distracted indifference, having had his fill of overly confident, noisy girls for the year. Soon enough though the girls were quiet, probably quieter than either had ever been, and they laid enviably still as the remaining blood trickled out of their bodies. Their lives until this point would cease to matter, and in a year or two anyone who remembered them now would likely forget, maybe sooner since the bodies would be seen exclusively by animals and Rogues only.
His tired, blue eyes watched as She departed, leaving the men, the dead dogs, and the dead girls behind. At Jaq's gesturing, he nodded before absentmindedly walking through the puddling fluid towards the dead dog. Trailing behind him was the bloody imprint of his foot, and with each step more dirt clung to the bottom of his feet, creating an extremely unsanitary muck. The dog lay still slightly warm in a bloodied heap on the floor and Saul picked the heavy body up, placing it securely over his shoulder.
The boy followed behind Jaq quietly, listening only to the soft sigh of the dirt and grass giving way beneath their feet. After a few minutes, he spoke, but only to mumble "They were terrible." in reference to the girls before returning to his previous state of quiet and not all there.
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