just one single moment - open; burning home / new body

[rhosmari]

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In the middle of the night, something sparked. Something happened. A flame had been lit and there was no going back. She couldn't stop it but there wasn't like she had much control over the inferno that raged within her body. Her mind had been vulnerable while she had slept and something had snapped. Her body became consumed in heated flames that grew and twisted, coiled into the shape of flaming snakes that struck at the walls of the home she had been given. Immediately wood and stone caught alight and began to burn. It burned and burned, her skin was on fire and she tired to put it out. She tried her hardest to drain the fire's energy, to cool the anger that she could feel warping and manipulating the flames yet as she tried pain hit her. It hit her hard. It was like the very flesh was melting from her body and in truth and reality it was. Pieces of her body began to melt, to turn to sludge against the floor of the burning home. Skin oozed from her face to reveal skeletal features and she screamed. Her eyeballs melted as the heat of the flames consumed her and she eventually lost consciousness to the howling rage that was her own home.

Teeth turned to dust and ash, claws blackening. There was nothing but the roaring of the flames as it consumed her home and herself. Yet on the outside of the house that was coated in hearted vicious fire it did not spread. It did not go anywhere else. Almost as if something was keeping it contained from doing so. The fire raged and continued on long after her cries of pain had become nothing but silence and waiting. By the time the sun had risen over the trees the house was nothing but smoldering piles of ash and smoke. Embers slowly dying out. Whatever she had had left was destroyed and gone. Most would probably think to only find the woman burned to death from the screams they heard. Possibly only finding her skeletal remains in the middle of the house. But if they treaded inside they would find a fire laying in the middle of the debris. Her breathing slow and steady, parched lips slightly parted as a soft grown left her throat. Slowly bright blue eyes would open up and her fiery tipped tail would slowly drag against the ground. For a moment she just looked around, utterly confused.

Her skin felt like it was a live wire and slowly the pale colored lioness would push herself to sit up. A hiss of pain would leave her maw before she lifted up a paw, half conscious that this paw was so much different. She felt different. ''What...happened to her? ....the...house?'' Her voice was different, a smoother richer sound. Power oozed from the lean figure as she pushed herself to stand up, wobbling precariously and if she tried to walk she might just fall over. But she stayed where she was as she gazed at the destruction that had been wrought upon the once standing cabin.

[arrow]

CAUSE EVEN BLOOD WILL RUN, LIKE THE TEARS OF A SAINT !
She'd seen a lot of things in her life. Everything from watching someone fall from the skies, to an entire invasion of vengeful spirits in the library. But there was nothing that was going to replace the sounds of agony mixing with the unholy chorus of fire crackling as taking everything with it into the night sky. That was a sort of sound she'd expect from the deepest reaches of Hell.

As she was beyond dead, Arrow did not need sleep, and so she chose to never take her rest. It wasn't as if she was missing anything anyway, when she was alive sleep became her enemy. And even if she had slept, she surely would have been awoken by the raging inferno and screams of the damned as Elsweyr's entire body melted away. Not exactly the soothing sounds a restless soul would use to sleep well at night, unless you were someone like Stryker, perhaps. The very obvious con to this lied in being awake and conscious to see the place go up in flames, and as Arrow watched with a sense of horror that she had only ever felt once in her entire existence on this bitch of an Earth, the ghost would soon become almost unnoticeable without a shadow as the ground beneath reflected the brightest orange light she'd ever seen.

There was nothing she could have done.

What she had expected by morning was nothing, or perhaps blackened remains of charred bone, what had once been a woman she had just watched get promoted to a proud position. She had almost been too scared to investigate, having simply stayed where she was, wide eyed, until the fire began to die out into nothing, the same as the cabin that had once been there, mere hours ago. Her ears twitched as she still heard a gentle crackling from within, and it was enough to get her paws moving forward, albeit in a way one could only describe as disconnected, autopilot. She smelled nothing but cinder and smoke, nearly choked on it despite never needing air.

She had been right about hearing the fire still, what she had been wrong about was what remained.

"Elsweyr? You're not bones?" Arrow asked, voice cracking as she softly wheezed from shock and disbelief, large ears pinned back against her head. A weak laugh passed her lips, which were pulled into a shaky, nervous smile. "The place went up in flames, watched it burn to the...to the ground. You sounded like you were dyin', I thought you were dead."

[Ares]

A R E S

They said "Be strong," they said, "Never be weak."
So I cut everyone off and isolated myself. I will never be weak.

The girl had woken to the screams, following them to Els' house. She had found herself her own home now, but it still hurt to watch her old one burn, and hurt even more to hear her former mother figure screaming. Silver tears burned into her skin and she could only watch alongside Arrow.

When morning came she didn't know what to expect. But a stranger standing in Pretty mother's ruined and burned home was definitely not there. While Arrow seemed shocked, Ares only felt anger. Hot, white anger. It boiled her blood and steeled her stare at the lioness. She gritted her teeth and Ares shook her head violently.

She lashed her tail, staring down the lioness with a furious anger. This intruder. This was not Elsweyr. This was not Pretty Mother. Claws worked into the ground and she simply stared, anger steeling her eyes and threatening to set fire to whatever she stared at.

"Speech"

— Reggan

[rhosmari]

''Bones...?'' It was like Arrow's words were coming to her slowly. Her mind trying to focus and come to terms with just what the hell had happened to her. Fire still crackled here and there but for the most part the home itself was gone to the foundation. Her eyes looked glazed over as she tried to remember what had happened. Only for a grimace to pull across her face as flashes of the memories passed by. The feeling of her own flesh melting from her bones, the way some began to regrow just as fast. It hurt like nothing she had ever felt before and the world swayed. She tried to not fall, but her body didn't want to say up and she slumped down upon the charred ground with shoulders trembling. Breathing harshly she would pull her ears back and she looked at the corporeal form of the oriental. Focusing on the world around her as much as she could. She didn't want to slip back into that nothing, into a void that could potentially eat her alive. ''She was....she was sleeping. Then there was just fire everywhere, her body melted...'' Her voice carried that pain and then she finally lifted her paw to look at it. This was not her paw, but she could move it. This body was heavier, she felt it in the way the limbs moved. ''Is...does this one look different now, Arrow?''

Suddenly her eyes were filled with the angry form of a child. One that she had helped to bring in and had tried to help care for. She had never thought she would see such rage and anger. It made the pale lioness flinch back, paws pressing harder against the very home that she had once lived in. Confusion fluttered across her brilliantly blue eyes and her tail wrapped around her paws, the flaming tip catching her eyes and causing a smidge of panic to flutter into her chest. Yet she looked at Ares with pain in her gaze. It hurt to see the child so enraged and at her no less. ''Ares..... she...why?'' The woman stumbled over her words, not understanding the situation and what she looked like to everyone else. A perfect stranger. She didn't dare move toward the child in fear of making the situation worse.

[wormwood.]

[Grimm]

[div style="margin: auto; max-width: 475px; padding: 5%; min-height: 20px; font-family: verdana; font-size: 9pt; text-align: justify; line-height: 17px;"]Unstable the foundation, new fledgling the peace erected in the burning wake of combat, keen for the first touch that may dismantle and leave only ruin once more. False cycle the supposed absence, held breath all it seemed, tranquillity but a rose tinted cover for the rot.

Brief their time of relatively assured calm, the storm quelled by uprising conducted upon their own soil and elsewhere, exchanged celebration for the effort of repair. Such may not dismantle the entanglement his thoughts had grown, thorn laden those strands lashed together in taunt draw, capable of ignorance when the day permitted means of distraction. Different the night that drew close, nothing there to act as ward, solitary his examination of each in turn. Given once more to them the overactive passages of his mind, a cacophony that grew within volume, the static crackle grown indecipherable white noise.

Realisation slow, unawares caught and forth bubbled sound laden with such, choked that wheezed laughter adorning heavy tongue. Dream the light painted against far wall, a flickering kaleidoscope bearing warm hues, the sharp crack and infrequent pop. It was her voice, above swelling until central piece of the horrendous chorus, the creaking groan accompanying heralding forth the crash as support beams gave. Answer dies on tongue, miniscule and twisted, a broken groan falling from lips curling. There is no aid of thought, propulsion performed with the memory of muscle alone, dark the vision that skirted along halls wreathed in shade. Banished the darkness as threshold is crossed, ravenous the flames that lick along the underbelly of the sky, envelope and consume all it may.

"Elsweyr…" No movement beyond the flame, that cruel cloak that writhes about exposed surface grown blackened beneath wandering sparks, almost beautiful as spat a shower into the still air. Impossible to tell when the cascade began, nor when his throat closed about rejection of reality playing out before until only a whimper fell from clenched teeth. Present others, vein the attempts staged as though quenched may be the flames assured of their feast, the hours drawing each away in turn, spectators all as proven the futility behind their efforts.

Long since gone the last tear, dry now the cheeks he rubbed, a heavy touch once more forcing open lids that wished only to close. The soft strokes of first light allowed silence to bloom, heavy as the final embers burned among the rubble left. Nothing present beyond remains fallen into ash and fragmented portions holding false shape, among the little that may be left, that was if the flames had been kind enough to permit anything survive. Proven false this thought in manner that drew head upwards with a sharp jerk, briefly closed eyes as the world twisted into a mess of colour, a haze given no definition. Spoken her name, remarked upon an impossibility, the movement now of own volition, cranium roughly shaken.

She was gone. The flames had stolen Elsweyr when nothing else may, that which lodged beneath her skin, rested there along veins and heartstrings, dormant as awaited the correct accelerant.

Deny laced tongue as eyes arose, swallowed as she spoke. Changed the voice threaded across her own tongue, the dialect solely her own, remnant of her people held with a pride of teaching begun young and upheld for uncountable days. "No, she died." Sure his conviction, even as voice broke, grown a rasp as the toll of his sorrow grew apparent. Closer did he step, worn now his rage, this impostor incapable of acting as she had though supposedly perfectly performed her speech. "You aren't her."

[Ares]

A R E S

They said "Be strong," they said, "Never be weak."
So I cut everyone off and isolated myself. I will never be weak.

Words died on hollow teeth, eyes fixated on this impostor only to snap toward Aurum as he spoke the late woman's name. "That's-" Salvia's words halted her and she turned to face the cub.

Gently she went to stand by his side, anger rippling through the raised fur on her shoulders, new limbs peeking from beneath skin. Amber eyes filled with fury. Words hardened as metal as she steeled her words. "Pretty Mother died in the fire. You are an impostor. You are not Pretty Mother."

Words cut the air and she turned around, hidden horns threatening to break skin. She moved paws delicately at first before she sprinted away.

Out, unless stopped//

"Speech"

— Reggan

[arrow]

CAUSE EVEN BLOOD WILL RUN, LIKE THE TEARS OF A SAINT !
"Different is a word for it..." Aurum's arrival answered the question for her, just as stunned as everyone else who was witnessing the current unfolding events. Els looked like she was still in pain and probably confused as to what just happened to herself and what used to be her residence, and after taking a few minutes to really hammer it in her own skull that she would not blink and find a corpse, Arrow briefly opened and then shut her mouth a few times, like she couldn't quite figure out how to respond accordingly. What was there to say after someone had just...y'know, melted?

"Yeah, what he said." Having nothing to fear from any possibly still hot foundation, she went pacing around the lioness with an expression somewhere between curiosity and exhaustion from the entire endeavor. She'd save the compliments for later. She felt more than content that she was, indeed, looking upon Elsweyr and not an imposter, she figured that even with the change in voice and body, it would be difficult suddenly mimicking the way she spoke and her mannerisms in general. The children, however, were not as convinced. She frowned, making a last minute decision to not anger the kids and let Aurum handle it himself. Although, she wince she gave when Ares and Sal denounced the larger body sitting in the remains as Els was more than visible, and less than subtle. Even if she wasn't one to do anything in the shadow regent's defense, she wasn't exactly a good meat shield, Arrow gently circled back around in front of the distressed woman, putting herself between Elsweyr and Salvia. Green eyes darted from Aurum to Sal, as if she was trying to deliver the simple message of "come get your son".

"If you ever need a place to stay, Elsie, lemme know, but I'm getting you a fire blanket."