NIGHTMARE | awakening + new body.

[DELILAH.]

DELILAH EVERGARDEN

"The Gods have forsaken us."

It was getting colder, Delilah could feel it from the outside of the comfort of her cocoon. The very way it had hardened over the long week, the female never awakening for that whole time. She had heard Wormwood's soft voice, pleading her to return to them, but she never answered. It was peaceful here- her world was quiet, and yet empty. It felt like she was floating.

Until it got too uncomfortable. Until it got tight, her cocoon stretching to accommodate her size no longer. Maybe she had gotten fat somehow..

Crack! Craaaaack!

Chip after chip of shelled cocoon, Delilah kicked her way out, as if to free herself from the tight confines. What stuck out of the shell that she had kicked through was not a furry leg, but a scaled, smooth one, sharp claws flexing, black goo sliding down the surface. With a few more kicks, Delilah snapped her other leg out- wait, she had another back leg? What..

When she rolled out of her cocoon, it was a mess- black ichor stuck to the ground under her, strong wings extended and flat on the ground, as if she hadn't figured out how to hold them up. Because she hasn't. They just felt like extra weight on her. It hurt her shoulders.

Her eyes hurt. Eyes closed tight, the now awakened Delilah called out for her boyfriend, for Worm, anyone she knew personally.

"Ah, ah.. What's going on- Why does my mouth feel so weird-"

tags - penned by [member=1260]ryuu-tan[/member]

template by orion

[wormwood.]

As the days had continued steadily onward, Worm had continued his usual pattern of stopping by Ren and Delilah's house to check in and see how the both of them were doing, as well as help take care of Flint, since he so desperately missed his own child these days. It seemed that, no matter how much Worm and Ren and everybody else hoped, Delilah's condition wasn't really changing at all. Sure, the cocoon was occasionally moving, stretching and twitching and shifting with Delilah's breathing, but other than that? Nothing was really happening, and Wormwood was beginning to grow discouraged. He would never just give up on her, of course, since he had grown to like her far too much and didn't want to lose another friend, but it was getting harder and harder to convince himself that eventually he would see Delilah out and about again. However, it seemed as though Wormwood was losing faith just a bit too quickly, since things had finally changed that day. The winged lion had done as he usually had, climbing up to the front door of the house and knocking on the door, moving inside and chatting with Ren for a bit, before he went to inspect Del's cocoon. This time, he realized with a start, he was beginning to see cracks in the rapidly hardening outside of the "bed" that Del had made for herself. Worm made a soft startled noise when he noticed the cracks, and had rushed back inside, eagerly telling Ren about the new change in her condition.

This change was what motivated Worm to stay at the house for about an hour longer than he usually did when coming to check up, just helping out with Flint and heading out for a hunting trip for a little while. Just before he was about to finally throw in the towel and go for the day, the angel's ears perked up at the sound of a soft and confused voice, sounding almost drowsy. He whipped around in excitement, rushing out to see... Delilah. Or at least, what he believed was Delilah. The reptilian creature had the same colors and features as Del, and it was speaking with Del's voice, but he still found himself kind of just... staring, dumbfounded. Last he had known, Delilah was just a blind feline with some pretty unique features, but now she seemed to be a sort of dragon, and Worm actually found himself to be pretty impressed. Instead of her only coming up to about his elbows, she now came up to around his shoulder, and he was sort of unused to most people being comparable in height to him. Slowly moving over, the guardsman rumbled as he set a reassuring wing on Delilah's shoulder, "Del? Delilah, wow, you're finally awake... I wasn't sure you were ever going to get out of that thing you wrapped yourself up in. You look... a lot different. How do you feel?" He wasn't sure he could truly explain what had happened to Delilah, since truthfully he had no idea how to describe what had happened.

[glow=black,2,300]THE FREEDOM OF FALLING[/glow]

[DELILAH.]

DELILAH EVERGARDEN

"The Gods have forsaken us."

Home. She could smell home, and Wormwood, and Renegade inside. She felt overwhelmed by the intensified sense of smell, yet pleased with the fact. When the sun was covered by clouds above, Delilah's eyes slowly fluttered open, shapes slowly forming in her vision. However blurry, Delilah watched as the blurry colors soon turned into people. Into animals.

Into sight.

"Worm..wood?" Delilah rumbled softly, blinking ever so heavily- she must be dreaming still. It had been over nine months since the Pitt's own Stryker had blinded her. Her eyes had a sparkle to them, pits of magenta and sharp black pupils that narrowed as they focused on the creature before her.

She must be dead again. Did she die in her sleep?

"How long was I.. Asleep? And.. Why are you.. Wait, you have wings? What the hell-" Delilah blurted, her forked tail coming up to shush herself. Oh man, she never cusses. Lilith's influence.. She'll have to scold Lilith the next time she talked to her in her dreams.

The approach of a new figure had Delilah gasping, jaw dropping as she shuffled her large body across the ground, wings dragging against the floor beneath her as her forked tongue tripped up her speech. "Yesh! Wha- Why ish my tongue.." She muttered, slurping her tongue back up into her mouth, sharp teeth snapping as she closed her mouth.

"..Water, please.. I'm incredibly thirsty-"

She was having a crisis right now.

tags - penned by [member=1260]ryuu-tan[/member]

template by orion

[wormwood.]

It was... odd, to see Delilah raise her head to look at him and actually seem to have some sort of recognition in her eyes. He was used to Delilah acknowledging him with a touch of the tail or a gentle bump of their shoulders together, but her eyes never really focused on anything. It was understandable, of course, since there was no sense in focusing when you couldn't actually see anything, but Worm still felt himself make a startled noise when Delilah spoke, her eyes blinking slowly and tiredly at him. He supposed it also made sense for her to seem drowsy, considering how long she had been sleeping within the unexpected cocoon. Worm opened his muzzle to say hello to her, his wings shifting upon his back, when all of a sudden Delilah seemed shocked, her vision drifting over to Worm's wings. Wormwood almost recoiled when he heard Delilah curse, having never heard her curse ever before – she was so soft and delicate, as well as very refined. The lion hesitated for a moment before saying softly, nodding his head to the now dragon and shifting his wings to the side so that he could glance at them, figuring that everybody had known he had wings, "Erm, yeah. I've had wings for a while now. But I guess you wouldn't know that, huh..." He had never really thought about it, but it wasn't as if Delilah could've seen them. She had probably thought whenever he touched her with a wing to let her now of his presence, it was just his tail, rather than a feather.

She still seemed to be adjusting to her very new form, and Worm held back laughter as she struggled with her own tongue, not wanting her to feel like this was funny somehow. Sure, he had gone through several form changes in the past, so he could certainly understand how awkward it was to adjust, but he still wouldn't have wanted anybody laughing at his discomfort. So, instead he nodded and rumbled softly, glancing back at Vierra for a moment and giving her a soft nod, "V, could you go and get her some water, since you offered? Please, of course." He then refocused on Delilah, moving a little bit closer and raising a paw to drag over one of Delilah's large new wings, taking in the pink wing and mumbling, "You have wings too, you know. I think you might be a dragon now? Or at least something that looks very similar to a dragon. That must be why your tongue is so long now... I'm assuming you can see now, considering you saw my wings. That must be... very disorienting for you."

[glow=black,2,300]THE FREEDOM OF FALLING[/glow]