[[ TW: unsettling scenes, gore, ptsd, mentions of violence, potentially sensitive content? (Read with a grain of salt) ]]

[ I guess this could classify as a oneshot but uh have fun (send help i cant figure out a good way to tldr) ]
[ Italicized text takes place in the REAL world. He is in Seven's house. It has been a week in roleplay since his collapse at the March Meeting! ]


The first thing that came to mind is that he was somewhere that he shouldn't be. There was darkness all around the male, he couldn't begin to feel his extremities but it felt like he was somewhere warm and wet, judging by the moist feeling of his fur. Focusing on his breathing, he struggled to balance his mind from its confusion and fear. He'd just been talking to the whole of Tanglewood in a meeting, hadn't he? Inhaling noisily, the cheetah broke into a coughing fit  as what felt like water invaded his lungs and throat, choking him. Struggling as life flared into being in his chest and his body, the male found himself able to move, rolling onto his stomach from his back and vomiting into the water he found himself in. Somehow it was shallow enough for him to lay flat on his belly in it, though that fact escaped his mind. Instead he struggled to open his eyes, one screaming in protest against him as he managed to open his right, the world too vibrant and filled with light for eyes that had been closed despite the shroud of fabric covering his face. Lungs heaving as he looked down to his paws, disgust and fear chilling him to the tips of his claws as unknown shapes took form, revealing skulls, bones and flower petals. Lifting one shaking paw to his mouth as he opened it, the male would reach his claws inside and pull out wet clumps of petals. He hadn't been eating flowers had he?

Among the petals at his paws he could pick out pink camelia, tansy, begonia, allium and yellow roses. His breath stuttered as he lifted his head to gaze out at nothing until light shifted somewhere out in the distance and he held the gaze of something with electric blue eyes. His body froze as the scenery came into picture, gaze falling on a beautiful meadow of white and yellow roses where a dark shadow figure - the same as the one he'd seen during his fights he surmised, stood atop a fallen body. His heartbeat rushed in his ears as his eyes remained fixed on the crumpled form, spotting the familiar black, brown and cream fur that belonged to his fallen husband, a muffled wail escaping him. The memories of Aristotle's execution came flooding back in horrible detail, horrible excruciating detail that he didn't want to recall.

The scenery around him faded as the field of flowers turned red slowly, ebbing out from the corpse as panic overwhelmed him. When he finally managed to lift his head from his paws where it had fallen as he struggled to calm himself, tears raced down his face. As scenery returned around him, he found himself in the square where the execution had been held. Things were different this time, instead of being in the crowd and herding his children back while trying to keep them safe behind himself, he was the one walking onto the execution stage. Dread weighed down his body as gray eye watched a body be dragged from the stage, the execution before him. He would think after having this nightmare so many times, he would be used to the fear and pain it brought him, to the overwhelming panic and the heart-stopping grief. He was never used to it, he never could be.

Ears laid back to his head as he looked away from the former executed prisoner, head ringing as chains around his forelegs were pulled on roughly. Stumbling forward, he found his head next on the block, his eyes squeezed shut. He would not look and see who was before him, he already knew. He would always know. When the blade came whistling down he allowed himself to open his eyes, staring into the blank gaze of the first person who had ever loved him. Then it all went black.

Those observing his body as he slept on if there were any would notice that he twitched and trembled, paws reaching for nothing and his claws sheathing and unsheathing as the cheetah's body moved against his will in his dreams. His ears would pin and his lips would curl in some kind of ugly sneer or snarl, eye roving beneath his eyelid as he struggled and fought as hard as he could.

Deep the inhale as he shivered, back in his world of dreams. There was nothing more terrifying than having no senses aside from knowing one was alive. He was stuck like this for some time before light filtered into the darkness, his pupil shrinking as Aesior snarled at the darkness keeping him prisoner. His neck ached like hell, sore and throbbing as he began to feel again, heavy breaths leaving him. Struggling to move his paws, he looked down and found himself staring at his grim body's paws, covered in some dark goop. Heart hammering in his ears once more, his head twisting as he searched for what gave him the instinct of danger, trying to find the cause and source. Lifting his gaze to the sky he inhaled sharply as he took in the multiple planets and stars in the sky, larger than they would be in the world he came from. It was a world he'd seen before in ancient memories, and in hazy hallucinations during battle. It was the ruined world of Gods. Ruined from the War. He could barely breathe as he looked around himself, taking account of the agony he was experiencing in this body, his shoulder screaming protest and failing as he tried to step forward. Around him he could see countless fallen bodies, countless souls wandering around.

He remembered this godforsaken place, he'd seen it too many times in his dreams and in records he no longer could hold. Breath stiff in his lungs as he choked on bloody spittle, looking down this time to see a pool of blood under him. Frowning as he watched it grow, faintly aware of flowers at the grasps of his vision and how they bent and sprang up from the growing pool of gore despite his efforts to scoop it back towards himself. His head felt so full of so many things, only staring as the spirits and shades he saw earlier began to circle him, his fur standing on end. He felt claustrophobic all of a sudden, heart screaming again in his ears as a pair of electric blue eyes appeared in a mass of darkness before him.

Struggling as claws grasped his chin and lifted his head, a set of jaws appearing on the darkness in an ugly smile. "It seems like you can finally see me, Child of The War. You're wearing my body, and we are in my memories though it seems like you already know this place. Your own memories are a taint upon mine, weak creature. I wondered who you were for the longest time, whose soul I'd been entrapped within. Oh. Do you feel the emptiness?" A claw reached out to tap on his chest, above where a wicked wound was, the wound that wept blood without end. He hissed in shock at the deep cold from the touch, inhaling a snort as he glared at the shapeless shadow creature. Somehow, somewhere, Aristotle's voice pierced the veil with a clearness to it, "Thedes. The Former God of Death. That is your opponent, Aesior Opheles, Grim of Death."

Taking a breath as he struggled for a moment to control the wheezing breath leaving his chest, "Piss off. Let me out of this forsaken world, wherever the hell we are!" He snarled.

The other's voice suddenly overwhelmingly loud, "HAHAHA! YOU THINK YOU CAN ESCAPE THIS PLACE!? You are forever stuck here, Child of Abandonment!" wicked laughter escaped the shape as it began to change its form into that of a lion, a lion so similar to his own appearance. Pinning his ears back as Thedes' face was pushed into his own with that ugly sneer, "You wear my body and trample in my memories, Grim. I was once the Master of your kind, and to think that my soul was trapped here. Within your weak soul. That damned God of Life, Kallen. I raised that brat like my own child and he turned on me for what? That pitiful scrap of flesh that you called your friend?" A hum, the scenery changing as he squeezed his own eyes shut, the crackle of flame too familiar. He already knew that his friend's body would lay before him, before he had died lifetimes ago himself.

Shaking his head angrily, he opened his eyes to hold Thedes' as a deep snarl ripped out of him, finding his body was able to move as he stepped forward, ignoring the wounds that should have killed him seven times over. "You are a traitor to your own kind, Deity. You cannibalized countless Gods and Goddesses after making them fall to you and your pressures. You were no God of Death, you were an Unnamed God of Calamity and Desiccation! I name you, Thedes the Unnamed Destroyer, Golden Traitor of the Gods!"
"Ohoho. Kitty's got some proverbial claws, huh? Name me all you want, Sunflower Child. Your Son of Cornucopia will not save you now. That God is spent! He lived his last days a fool! THE GOD OF THE HARVEST IS DEAD AND GONE, CHILD OF ABANDONMENT! LET THAT KILLER GO!"
"DON'T YOU DARE TO SPEAK OF ARISTOTLE IN THAT MANNER YOU TRAITOR, KINKILLER, GOD-EATER!" He raised his voice as loud as he dared. What he couldn't control was a sudden tidal pool of bitch black ink rising up around  his legs and swallowing him whole all too swiftly, blue eyes sparking in surprise before everything faded away with a furious hiss from Thedes, "Fall into despair you stubborn bastard!"

For an unknown period of time, he was swallowed in the cold darkness once again. He stayed there for the Gods only know how long before the sensations of warmth and comfort reached him, a sense of all consuming peace overtaking him. For those who had witnessed the Luminary's bodily convulsions and changes over the last few days, they would notice that this had become the quietest period of time that had ensued since he had fallen comatose. He could hear voices, and he could almost swear that he could feel the warmth of sunlight on his body, the sweet and familiar scent of lavender hanging in the air about him. Inhaling as he struggled to open his eyes, a gentle voice reaching him, "Come home, Aesior. You're missed here."

It wouldn't take the man much longer to awaken there, in a field of lavender located not far from the home he had raised his family in. The laughter of children rang in the air, startling him from his thoughts. Was he truly back in time, before tragedy had struck? Back before the executions? It was a tempting promise to believe, though all of his experiences led him to believe otherwise. The thoughts of another world, of the one where he should be awake, were distant and not so tempting as to give into the belief that he was once again at home with everyone again, where starvation, murder and death did not exist, where his children could grow up safely. Where he was happy, kept in the comfort of Ari's presence, in a place where he knew he was loved. Where Thedes did not exist.

It was tempting, so tempting to stay there, in the warm sun that soothed every ache of his battered body. It spoke more to him, the abandoned and hated man that he was, with family and loved ones leaving him at a pin's drop. That had to hurt a lot more than he could articulate, and it did. It bore a hole in his heart. The time he spent there, playing and frolicking in the sun in a whole body with his children, singing songs with his beloved partner, relaxing in the evening sun in a peaceful world. It was a world and place that he didn't want to leave behind. It was a happiness and love that he didn't want to leave. But there was an itch in the back of his mind, a nagging sensation he wanted to get rid of. There was something he had to do, something that had to be done before he could relax there beside his husband with his children settling close.

"Awaken, Dark Smith." He blinked his eyes open as he heard his husband's voice, twisting to roll over and stare at the other with surprise and confusion in his chest. Reaching out to stroke his cheek, he nearly recoiled as it felt like he'd touched a burning iron, "Aristotle? W-What?" he asked, looking at his steaming paw with frustration, reaching out once more and recoiling yet again as his husband's form burst into burning flowers.

"Your time is not yet done, Sunflower. Go back now."

The world came reeling back all too violently and cruelly as the Luminary's only good eye flew open in reality, all of his fur standing on end. Some time in the week that he had been out, his body had changed into that of his Grim body, the lion's form the one he wore when he was thrust back into the ugly reality he lived in. For a good few seconds the Luminary did not breathe, eyes wide open with fear as he struggled, a paw flying to his face and scratching at his mouth and eyes. It felt like he was covered in spiderwebs, in some kind of death shroud. Loud the inhale as his jaws parted, a broken and ragged defeated scream of loss ripping from lungs too weak to hold so much air. Left gasping for any amount of air that he could receive, the lion all but collapsed back upon himself as his stomach twisted and fought him, coughing and sputtering as his claws hooked into the poultice and leaves covering his left eye, flinging the offending herbs far from himself half across the room from himself.

Unsteadily he found himself on his paws as his stomach heaved and he emptied nothing but spit and unsettled acids onto the floor. Shaking as his head drooped to the floor, world spinning as he gave a pained moan as his paws shook, legs trembling until they gave out underneath him, half spilling the barely conscious man from his week-long bed. Head slumping onto a paw he managed to draw close to himself, he shook and trembled as a gray eye stared dizzily out into space, looking at nothing in particular for a while before he inhaled deeply. The unfocused gaze slowly sharpened as his breathing evened, though his head felt like it was split into two and he could not make sense of his surroundings come hell or high water. Taking account of his surroundings, the lion groaned long and deep as he tried to recall where he was, who he was and what he was doing. His ears flicked at a whisper in his mind and the nudge of his shoulder, he was Aesior.

"I am Aesior Opheles, the Luminary of Tanglewood and the Grim of Death. You will not win against me, Thedes."

FEEL THE THUNDER START TO CALL
[ speech ] | [ american lion ] | [ appearance ]

WE KNOW WHAT YOU WHISPER!

By the time his motion started to stir, Seven knew it was about time. She had kept a much closer eye on him by the later half of the week. But she didn't expect his cheetah outline to change. Perhaps it was fear that had planted her by the patient bed without movement. Even when he had almost fallen off the bed. But that spurred her to move, gently trying to place him back on.

Hearing him speak nearly brought tears to her blind eyes, but whether or not she was successful in getting him onto the bed, she had almost quickly turned away. "I will alert the others."

Feeling her way to her partially opened front door, she looked at Corrupttimelines' feline body. For a moment she didn't recognize him, but then she opened the door more. "He has awakened. Tread cautiously, he's obviously a bit shaken."

SEVEN - BLIND TIGRESS - SHADOW REGENT OF TANGLEWOOD