shadow preachers | power discovery

[agathe.]

[align=center][div style="width: 500px; text-align: justify; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 12px; color;"]It had started with small things: NPCs approaching only for her to disdainfully wish them away, eyes wide and blank as they turned, appearing as if they had no control of their minds or their bodies. She had watched them go in bewilderment each time, unable to decide whether she had some greater power or she simply looked that uninviting. But after it kept happening, she began to suspect the former, that little seed of possibility within her blossoming at the idea of having limitless control over the minds of others. It held within it so much destructive ability that Agathe knew she had to master. And so she began to extensively train herself.

Whenever she could, the snow leopard stole away to practice, moving from clanmates to rogues to even stray Pittians that she had come across wanting to cause trouble. It hadn't taken long to explore what she could now do, manipulating and communicating and creating a new line of defense for herself. For her clan. Surely if the Typhoon or the Pitt or anyone decided to so carelessly attack them, having the ability to distort minds would help them in the fray. Agathe had at least convinced herself as much anyways, Sybil's words once more ringing in her ears. Her people. She had chosen the Ascendants. Over and over and over again, even with the promise of power singing so proudly in her veins- a promise that indulged her with thoughts of shattering her grandmother's mind, piecing it back together, and then breaking it again until her matron could handle no more. She would not leave. Not anymore.

And that made the stray scout from her old clan all the more interesting. She had been making rounds when, mercifully, she came across her first, the jaguar turning in surprise to see Agathe still within the Ascendants, still unafraid of what fate might meet her if she did not flee to the opposite ends of the earth as her grandmother had advised her to. The first mind she wanted to break had been her grandmother's, but that seemed highly impossible and even more unlikely so she merely smiled at the jaguar as it began to leap at her, overwhelming her mind so much so that she simply dropped. Nothing more than a wide eyed vessel, nothing more than a creature who barely knew how to breathe let alone attack her. If Agathe pitied her, she might had delivered a killing blow so that some scavenging animal wouldn't pick her apart painfully. It was a shame Agathe didn't pity her, or any other part of her clan as she turned and settled a little ways away from her. Let the Ascendants see and ask why this oddly-scented big cat was simply laying there, whimpering, staring at nothing and slowly, painfully dying. "Good riddance."

(hello yes i've been piecing this thread together for like,,, three days bc i just keep getting lazy i'm so sorry if it's choppy bc of that lolllll)

[clarence a.]

[align=center][div style="width: 45%; text-align: justify; font-size: 12pt; letter-spacing: -1px; font-family: times new roman;"]Clarence was more than familiar with witches. It was a common idea where he came from and his own people regularly partook in witch hunts. Some said many innocent women, and the occasional man, died from the hunts. Some claimed the work of God was being done to rid the world of Satan. Clarence wasn't sure what to think about it all. As with most families of his time, his own was rooted in Christian faith but he wouldn't consider himself someone who pondered on religion or spirituality often. Most of those ideas frightened him far too much. He had enough to worry about without thinking demons were bent on destroying his life and all he had, although he had to admit a curse would explain a significant amount of his life. He'd never been a particularly lucky individual to say the least, but these last few years had been a very unique and terrible hell. Then he was in this place, as an animal. He'd heard stories of witches turning people to animals, cursing them to live alone. But that was just it, wasn't it? While he wasn't back with his family or friends, he wasn't alone. All the creatures here were just as intelligent as he was, if not more so, and actually made for fine company. Besides, how would a witch have cursed him during the battle he'd died in? It seemed to complicated and so he hadn't considered that option for very long. It was more likely this was all some kind of terrible hallucination.

He wasn't thinking about witches at the start of the day, though. No, he didn't have nightmares about witches. He dreamed of drowning, of gun powder on a big ship, of soldiers, his soldiers, missing limbs and crying for their surgeon's help. He couldn't get to them, though. He could never get to them. It was his fault they died. Every time. He knew how to brush it off fast enough when he went out for his runs. He let his mind focus on the landscape, on a book he'd found the other day, on anything other than that awful day aboard the Queen Charlotte. Today, though, he saw something unusual. There was a woman who seemed to be the leader of these animals, although he'd never personally met her. Then there was a shape beyond her. A large one. There was a heaviness in his chest as he came closer and came to a halt when he saw the suffering creature. An image flashed to him of a man suffering on the ice and guilt tore at him. He could kill the animal and put it out of pain but these weren't just animals that lived here. They were... something else. Intelligent beings. Killing one of them would be akin to killing a human being. He didn't want to kill anyone anymore. He was so tired of it. He'd never had the stomach for it anyway.

His expression allowed more emotion than he'd shown since his arrival. Distress, fear, maybe, pain. They were muted but obvious in the way he regarded the woman before him with new eyes. She wasn't just a leader. She was a monster. She looked on this suffering being with no pity, despite it being one of her own kind. There was a part of himself that told him he shouldn't expect more of an animal but he still felt sick watching the scene. There was only one explanation for all of this. "Are you a witch?" It wasn't a phrase he uttered lightly, perhaps something that could be deduced from his tone, which seemed more guarded and perhaps nervous. He remembered when his sister had been accused of such crimes following their friend's death. But he still had to know. He couldn't let her continue to hurt whoever this creature was. This was awful. "Why are you hurting her?" Despite his time in the navy, the man was averse to such acts of cruelty and was nearly tempted to kill the being before them himself. But would he dare to commit such an act of violence? What did that make him, that death was his first thought rather than trying to recover the big cat?