// an : aaaa this took me two days, i'm punting this girl and passing out now. warning between the & symbols is vauge mentions of cannibalism.


The world was still, quiet in a way that was unusual.

The freedom was a bittersweet taste, in comparison to the heat that burned along Virgil’s spine. No longer could she huddle along mother’s pelt for shade-shelter. freedom had come at the cost of certainty, chains exchanged for an open dune sands, and Virgil waited for the other shoe to drop in the way a child of such a beast could:


she feasted. Plucked and strung the only visual for miles beyond dunes and dunes of sands. Even without hunger, without morose the welp stained their face with the blood of the fallen and earned their first title in the wastes: kinslayer- betrayer. the sky was black, silent in the first days of the welp’s birth. VIrgil was flung into the world wailing with open maws upwards, filling that silence with the demand to be acknowledged.

look here- look at me; I am here.

And the milk had to run dry, as it does, and the body under her paws grew stiffer and stiffer and Virgil screamed, cried in a wail of needing to be seen acknowledge by the other, who lay beyond the veil of death, and only silence greeted her. Rage struck her, beyond the need to be seen, there as a need to strike to lash out; to kill-maim; bleed those who bled her of her right her acknowledgement.

She had set the precedent, for her life. Acknowledgement, rebuttal, and violence.

They expected her to die in the desert, and Virgil killed them for it. Strung up the dead and made friends with the carcass eaters brave enough to land; made a meal of friends and livedthrived. it was a cycle of perpetually. As a child, Virgil watched rot take over the body of the first carcas and her befriended corpses and felt only the long awaited satisfaction of a full meal, quiet and solemn as Virgil collected from them their feathers, their bones, precious bundles of scrap often useless. Guts dried out for string, hide shredded for leather strips. Teeth pulled (and some shattered). Virgil had taken it, taken it like she took their life, took it like she took their soul with her, in their remains she made use, under the protection of mother, Virgil grew strong. Wholly so.

Virgil grey strong enough and soon, mother told her so: told her it was time to prepair. The last task vir would ever complete for mother, and the first


it was dusk. the sun's light dying off  as darkness made it's feast in the sky, showing it's brilliance in hues as it played with it's prey of the sun's dying light. both shades intermingling into the open canvas of the sky. there was very little that could taint the image of the sky as the sun sets, withers away eastward and fucks off. dusk were the mongrel’s element, and with the setting sun the tinge of rot came to become known to the mix and she exhaled, part excitement and part disgust.

Mother told her of father, of course. It was an eventuality, watching a mother scorpion with it’s hatchlings along it’s back, vir knew the laws- the rule of the land. Two to create a many, but vir was the sole of a pair, the pair of them. Mother and father created her, but to what extent- what reason vir didn’t understand. Couldn’t grasp the want for another.

Even here, alone vir could feel the echo of mother’s presence. A large wing eclipsing over her form, shading her from the sun, even now, in the shadow of the coming night vir could feel mother, maybe not physically, maybe not even mentally, but it was there, spiritually. Like that first corpse Virgil had stumbled upon all alone, wailing into the sky in attempt to reach her-

Now, it was as easy as breathing.

This land, was tainted. vir could sense it, smell it’s rot as easily as anyone can see the bone-wall border. Now the dead stared at her along their perch atop one another, decaying eyes staring out, watching her step and finding the small welp all the less. maybe she was just projecting, mother told her of this place, of many places- but father was here, someone who she could claim and claim she would. Sickly green eyes scanned the horizion beyond the wall as she squeezed, squirmed between rottin bodies and found a lacking amount of living. Only the dead were here to greet her, and she passed the border- the desert: for this claim, this right. no one person could take it from her, and her determination made her prowl turn quickly into a running dash to the awful stech of rot that was coming from the center of the camp.

It didn’t take too long, to find the place that smelled of maggots and covered in bodies, they were alike in a way. Her mother had noted, and vir felt repulsed by the comparison. Vir would never allow such open carnage, such waste and she would rectify it, amend her father’s sins with as simply as you please. Pulling a small satchel along her wais, she uncorked a small jar and went to work. Plucking the vermin she found squirming and dropping them inside. Slowly, vergil gathered her materials…

It was only a few minutes, a handful of time to gather grub, gather bones, and fur, and tender skin to stretch and tan. A satisfied smile grew along her maw as she retreated away from the rotting den and made her way back to the border, back to home but- something called her.

.

It was a sense, mother called it. A knack for spying the hidden things. Virgil at first, clled it a curse. Watching the mesma float idly beyond them, the glow to mother’s blade in the dim of the night, of mother’s eyes switching from red to blue and green… mother called it a gift, and soon- virgil learned in turn what it were, a sense for the strange and hidden. A game of hide and seek, except they weren’t ever really hiding, it was just that no one really paid attention.

It turned in to a game, eventually. A game of hide and seek, of lost and found. Mother taught them to tan hide, to dust grub into a paint for remedies. Mother taught virgil a few things, disguised them all as games, and told Virgil that, eventually, she’d learn enough to make her own recipes. Her own little magiks, but

.

“and when you’re done, don’t forget to return home,” mother’s voice was always gruff, a rasp. As if she had been screaming, sometimes Virgil wondered what happened to mother, other times she didn’t want to imagine what could cause such a large and imposing figure nightmares, the kind to leave your throat raw. And now she heard it, in her mind


time to return home



something stopped her, stilled her departure and it tugged at her skin like a ghost, like a maggot festering under her pelt. for a moment, she faltered, and when the sun rose in the sky there was a small little pup, smelling of rot and pitt already- waiting at the border, with a smile along her maw.

intuition, Virgil knew, was a delicate thing. trust in it and you can open up something dark and terrible and slippery with quick decisions and playing catch up- recovering from the same split-second decisions mistakes you make with it. intuition was a double edged sword for the untrained, half-right and half unrestrained lethally wrong. in the desert it lead to dying, it lead to dying a painful death. drinking cactus juice, battling pit vipers or black- mawed snakes- it all was levels of dead, slow and torturous.

insticts came after, the fight-or-flight, driving needneedneed. it told virgil to fight for her food, told her to retreat towards the shade. it looked at a rotting corpse with milk staining her maw and told her to consume it told her to dominate that which would not bow to her whims- her world: and her instincts saw such defiance and told her to deface it, consume it and take the animal pleasure of dominating that which would not b o w.

mother told her it was the combination of both that created the beasts of the world. who would roam in forever torment, thriving in their short pitiful lives and would die- pitiful, incomplete. they would return to their dens and never come back to face the morning sun; would no longer see the sands or taste the chilly breath of the coming winter in the water. they were nothing more than beasts and the cycle would continue: such beasts were no more than prey to her, to her and mother. Intuition and instinct driven things fell so easily. no more use than rotting for the grub or a compost for the soil of the superior, her children.

the sight curse ; girft mother had bestowed upon her was the difference. the stench of rot, rolling and spreading as the sun would slowly rise and consume the night; Virgil knew that the pitt would wake, would spot the decimation vir had left of her father's blood-den and know of the thief. it was only a matter of time before she was found- before she was had. it was the gift mother gave her that gave her her edge. cunning little ears twitched at the rustle of sand without a pitch in wind. Virgil knew, someone stood, tred the sands and they made their way towards her.

Virgil took to the air, her nose high in the sky and she inhaled nothing but rot. Nauseating pungent beasts clung to this land and bled into it, fed it in a way that was unholy, savage- bestial. Virgil wanted to turn, to flee to return home but the calling of home, the need to return- the instinct that tugged at her with maggots and rot and unholy- divine savagery-

called her deeper into the pit.


her indecision was her plague, and oil slunk into her ears and dolled along her brain, slogging through it sickly eyes stared down at the vile infested- thing that dare speak to her. a beast her intuition told her ; p r e y her instincts sang lowly. [glow=#cc3232,2,300]mine[/glow] the voice, new and loud and booming into her mind called. bathed in blood and savage and free it called to her, this beast called to her and crooned sickly sweet nothing. it spoke on the behalf of it. spoke through this beast, the red seeped into her vision and she felt drunk with the lust to maul, to shred.

along the corpse wall, rotting piles of flesh stood Virgil, maggots swam between her toes as her claws sank further into the decaying-death-wailing echos of static that fell to white noise. along the wall the resemblance was clear, in the dawn of a new light Virgil cocked her head. Sickly hued eyes narrowed on the beast before her and she knew-

your father is a dead thing, little moon mother had crooned to her once, grinding bone into dust for their own want. a rotting corpse just wasting for the next hit to be fatal; and looking, truly seeing she could see it. Her father was a dead thing, no longer even fit to be a beast. something other, something new and it t a u n t e d her.

she broker her silence, her vigil and her daze in equal measure a slight cock into her head completely bestial, and hoped he saw the tang of blood lust and shook with the fear. knowing that even if he didn't, wouldn't look at her with nothing less of devoption of reverence virgil took the oath to promise: oh, he will

"what is there to stay for?" a question already decided for her, and the slow matching grin along her maw told this "what kind of place smells of rot and death, could call such a power- home?"

in death, there was a stillness: it was unsettling to sit alone in it's presence, but now it became her companion, it called her dottir and it called her mona- [glow=grey,2,300]little moon[/glow] mother hissed to her, night after night of the silence, of the abuse these wastes slashed into her, cut into her [glow=grey,2,300]you must learn, or you will always be alone[/glow]. so little Virgil had learned, learned inside the silence to watch. watch life bloom from the dead; parasitic, vermin swarmed and lay claim to their love; dead. watched as the dead's mesma was sucked at like milk from a newborn into the decrepid. parasites sucked the earth of it's life, they all hunted and thrived under the strain; the death of others, and who was virgil to stop this cycle? who was virgil but a watcher?

Virgil's first steps in life had been to watch, to learn. but now, without mother, with one voice whispering in her ear and one speaking to her through them; these pittians, virgil would make the choice, she was always meant to make.

"within the ashes of the nebula, a star will be born" virgil recites, a prophecy told from her mother. a vision a correspondence from her divination, in the shreds of the dying night vigil knew that the sun's stretch would start soon, the corpses underfoot began to warm as the sands still held the air of a biting chill as Virgil jumped down from her stand amusing the dead, rotting-crawling, vile thing to watch the shadow encroach upon such a woefully-delightful reunion.

there was something in the air of this place, and it stunk of rot. but it was not the earth that was the carcass, it was he. underfoot the desert flourished, Virgil knew it, mother knew it too, told her of a guild that replenished the world where the rest would fell it to ruin. it was what kept her here, it was what birthed her, the mother of her body and the mother of her powers- the earth saw fit to deign her the gift and virgil saw before her the sacrifice to which would bring ruin- and with it the rebirth. the great rebirth.

"within the carcass of the quiet a scream will break the chain, and life will again complete the circle" it is spoken with a note of reverence, sickly green-yellow, an infection of mesma as the curs run it's coarse through her, tackled her body silently with an edge of fever and a [glow=#BF5FFF,2,300]greed[/glow]. "i am known as Virgil Mona" and her eyes drifted once again towards worm, a silent note of apprehension that was washed out by the vicious nature of such a beast deigned by her mix of hyena and wolf. ferocious, ruthless, wrathful, watchful- cunning