bury me in roses // settling in, open, brymstone

[VALE]

[align=center]

graphic gore ★ genderfluid ★ skullhead tiger

While Vale settled into vis room on the Sanctuary’s second floor, a flurry of noise crashed around vem. From hoisting up strange paints with red splatterpaint art (Vale’s own work, naturally) to shuffling the three-way mirror around, Vale had plenty to make a ruckus with. But it wasn’t the bang of furniture against furniture or even the slam of a bed against the wall which caused most of the noise.

No, the worst sounds came from Vale verself.

Vale sang, muttered, and talked to verself, always the same poem on refrain, as the bandit stalked through vis quarters. Ve tested the inflection and pitch as vis throat warped, dripping black sludge and making a mess on the floor.

How could one settle on a voice? Vale changed voices more than skins, always testing and trying out new “settings” across various bodies. And how did Vale do this? By singing a rhyme of vis own devising, of course!

FEED ME, PEASANTS, FOR I
AM SO HUNGRY I MIGHT DIE
I’M HIGH AND DRY, OH WHY
DID I SELL MY DRUGS TO BUY
A GIFT FOR THE APPLE OF MY EYE?

The tiger pawed at vis throat, grunting and gurgling at odd times. The shapeshifter’s red eyes widened and narrowed independently of each other, as Vale worked around with the vocal cords and internal nasty-bits within the throat. Grimacing and sneering at verself in the mirror, the feline twirled around, then frowned.

“No, no, not this voice with this face,” Vale tutted, rolling vis eyes and tapping a paw. Grumbling incoherently, the tiger ripped off the flesh and skin on vis head, throwing the bloody scraps into one of many buckets scattered around the floor.

Vale turned to the side, drawing a claw over the sleek white bone of vis new skullfaced look. “Yes. Much better. But too much like Brym? Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery… however, I doubt anyone wants to look at a copy of themselves…” Vale’s fangs chattered together, much like when ve displayed displeasure as a crow, and began modulating vis voice once more.

FEED ME, PEASANTS, FOR I
AM SO HUNGRY I MIGHT DIE
I’M HIGH AND DRY, OH WHY
DID I SELL MY DRUGS TO BUY
A GIFT FOR THE APPLE OF MY EYE?

// please wait for [member=16886]BRYMSTONE[/member] to post first!

YOU NEVER TRUSTED ME ★
BUT I’M OVER IT NOW
[sub][W]isker[/sub]

[rhosmari]

FIRE AND "BRYMSTONE"

The Dragon often found himself within the second floor of the Sanctuary. It was where those that were in consideration were often housed and well, he needed to know just who those individuals were. Where their strengths lied. Were they loyal to the Ironfolk or was there more to it. Each day that passed they were growing stronger and stronger,  and their numbers were increasing. He was proud to be their King and he would stop at nothing to bring about their golden age. Their moment of prosperity. He just hoped that they could face whatever tried to halt them. It was always a dangerous game on this unholy island but he aimed to win it. His ear pulled back as he listened to the vigorous chatter but there was a particular voice that kept shifting, tone and pitch breaking and smoothing. Someone else's voice and then someone else's voice again but always with the same phrases. It drew him away from the crowd and toward calamity as the hellish creation made his way toward what he saw as an entrance to another's room. It took him a moment to enter, nothing to give way to his intrusion simply because he took the time to listen.

He knew whom the voice belonged to and he found he didn't have much patience because he wanted to see vem. To look upon their visage as he always did with almost delight. When he saw Vale he was almost perplexed in what he saw. What stood before him was a skullfaced tiger. Much like himself, much like the thing he had been born as. Yet he didn't find it strange, nor offending. He found it tempting. Was that the word? His head tilted to the side, grinning face always the expression he wore but his eyes, those orbs of haunting light spoke a thousand words. "It looks good on you. Did you settle on a voice? I bet it'll sound just as divine..." He mused with a clatter of bones and dried sinew.

AND I'M BACK TO MY WAYS, CAUSE I'M HEARTLESS
SEVEN YEARS I BEEN SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS NOW

Reggan

[VALE]

[align=center]

graphic gore ★ genderfluid ★ skullfaced tiger

The Dragon King’s replica glanced to him as he entered vis domain. On closer inspection, Vale’s recreation failed; the red markings on Brymstone’s body had been left off, with the most prominent only a smidge darker or lighter than the surrounding fur. The bandit hummed, rubbing vis throat, and tore vis gaze from the mirror.

“I decided on a temporary voice, yes,” Vale said, voice smooth as honey. Vis pitch warbled in the androgynous area between masculine and feminine; Vale always enjoyed discombobulating idiots with such a tool as simple and malleable as a voice. 

Vale chuckled, turned vis face behind a paw. “Divine? You’re flirting again. But I do like this body. I might use it again.” The bandit shook out the paw, popping every joint from the toe beans up to the shoulder.

The imperfect copy exhaled a puff of smoke between vis massive fangs. Red flames curled on vis ear shells, snuffed out in a moment, as Vale couldn’t help verself. Perhaps watching the dragons show off for each other had rubbed off on Vale; the shapeshifter stole more than other’s faces.

Tapping their foreheads together, bone clicking on bone, Vale’s red eyes met Brymstone’s glowing sockets. “Are you…” Vale paused. Searched for the right word, amongst the salt and smoke between vis ears. “Courting me?”

YOU NEVER TRUSTED ME ★
BUT I’M OVER IT NOW
[sub][W]isker[/sub]

[rhosmari]

FIRE AND "BRYMSTONE"

Temporary. The King would disagree for whatever voice that they decided to have it belonged utterly to vim. No one else would be able to copy nor mimic it in his own opinion. He enjoyed the ever changing cadences, the scratched and torn strings that made up their voice. It was different and unique to vem. Perhaps he was getting too entangled as he turned his own gaze toward the mirror for a short moment. He didn't often look at himself, but when he did he knew what others saw. They saw a monster, something disturbing and cryptid. Lurking in their nightmares, ever evolving to find their worst fears and bring it to light. He had once believed that perhaps that was his purpose all along, to bring fear, pain, misery, maybe even death. Sometimes he enjoyed the thought of it, preyed on those that were terrified of him simply because the looked at him and saw the monster watching them back. Humming lightly he would pause then as the other suddenly pointed out that he was flirting. It stopped him cold and if his eyes could have widened they would have. Surely his eyes if he truly had them would have been popping out of their sockets. ''Well I've never met someone like you before...'' Did he just admit to it? Surely he should have denounced it as quickly as possible but that had never been the Dragon's away.

The beast didn't see imperfections within the creature before him. Everchanging, ever moving, shifting, twisting, any form that vey took was perfect to him. Fit them like any skin could. It was them, always would be them and he admired that. The way vey could slide from one skin to another effortlessly, no pain, no nothing, the coils of a form did not bind them. It was simply amazing. Slowly his ears pulled back and he turned his purplish blue orbs toward the other as their skull heads clanked together. His skeletal tail rattled, a odd noise of bones and stinger almost as if he was pleased. Though at the question that was laid out before him the monster found his jaws clicking together audibly over and over again. Thoughts sweeping back and forth through his mind as he stared at vim. ''Is it that obvious?'' Never one for subtlety, never one to wait. Never one to let moments pass him by. Vey meant something to him. ''Is it working? I think I've been pretty smoothing, honestly. But if you want I can stop...don't want to push boundaries.'' Or make a mistake with the Iron Guard.

AND I'M BACK TO MY WAYS, CAUSE I'M HEARTLESS
SEVEN YEARS I BEEN SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS NOW

Reggan

[VALE]

[align=center]

graphic gore ★ genderfluid ★ skullface tiger

“You’re a smooth-talker, indeed. But in an endearingly honest way.” Grey tongue lolling, the mutated beast eyed the Dragon King, voice soft and bloodshot eyes unblinking. “Nobody’s ever tried to romance me. How… odd.”

Red flames engulfed Vale’s skullface, crackling between vis teeth and showering embers onto the stone floor. The fire, cool to the touch, burned over the the shapeshifter’s eyes and turned the fluid sacks into weeping liquid. “Whoops. I don’t know how to process this?” The grey tongue licked the eye squish dripping between vis teeth.

Vale chuckled, teeth clicking together as the chuckles became quiet cackling. How ironic, Vale thought, how ve could flirt so easily with Brymstone up until one question was answered. “But I like. This.”

When Vale looked at Brymstone, the shapeshifter saw an authentic monster. Ve hated nothing more than ve hated single skins, those fools locked into normalcy as an aspiration and their minds shut to new perspectives, experiences. Monsters attracted the shapeshifter like a beacon in the night—or, in Vale’s case, a cozy darkness in harsh daylight. It was not easy to be the outsider, as Vale understood from personal experience, but the shapeshifter had shed the itch to fit in and replaced it with freedom.

Vale tapped their heads together again, click-click, and ducked vis head. Bone scraped together until the bandit rubbed the side of vis jaw into the monster’s neck. But, then again, Vale had become a formless nightmare in vis own right. When swapping faces, voices, bodies became as trivial as cleaning your paws, you tended to forget trivial things like how your authenticity terrifies the rest.

“I like this,” Vale repeated. Ve dug around in vis head but found nothing to communicate the right feelings. “So you may court me.”

YOU NEVER TRUSTED ME ★
BUT I’M OVER IT NOW
[sub][W]isker[/sub]