miscreant | Mental Link;

[ Rey's loss felt like a limb had been severed, and he had persevered. She was young, short-lived, a candle alight at both ends. Ren had been a brother in arms, in comprehension - his loss is too close, and the Darkling is unable to escape the nest's sway in this moment. It's a weight, dragging him in the undertow as easily as Ilde had brought him below the surface.

He steps towards her and taunts her with it. ]

Come, then.

[ Perhaps unsurprisingly, he turns on his heel and flees. Maybe remembering their last conversation - the one about the thrill of the chase. ]

[He approached, so full of pain that she can taste it on the air he breathes. She reaches and doesn't expect him run, until she feels him tense. She swipes and just barely misses, growling with the slightest hint of frustration. How dare he bait her, when her loss was still so fresh in her mind.

The pit in her stomach grows, her shoulders tremor with rage, and she launches herself from where she stands, hitting the wall outside of her door with full force as she gives chase. Whatever thrill of the chase their might be, the end is always the sweetest.

She tracks him as a bloodhound does, following the scent of his pain, pulling the mental link between them taught to remind him that he can't really escape her.]

[ It's still fresh upon him, the hurt and the hatred that boils within him because of it. Seviilia's hands reach for him, and he moves from them. Frighteningly nimble for what amounted to human ( witch, abomination ) - and he flees her.

The sound of her body following him allows him to keep his head, and he weaves through the halls. Away from the quarters granted to hosts that remained, passing the open doorways. He moves away from the populated areas of the ship, deeper into the other halls - not to the rooms full of the dead, but anywhere the ship might take him. A hanger bay, foreign to him. A room full of small drawers, begging to be opened. He threads deeper into the station, until the rooms are faceted, strange. He doesn't know their use, but he enters one at random - the one with the largest area within which to move.

It's there he waits, black against the white surface of the floor, the walls. He tugs on their connection, and taunts her again. She'll find him: he's not making any attempt to hide. ]

[She feels something slide past gritted teeth and down her jawline, ripping through the air as she continues to give chase. Saliva. She doesn't care to acknowledge or correct it. Its too easy to give into the hunt as she feels her hunger deepen alongside the tearing of her muscles, still screaming from the absence of Peter. The pulse of hatred and anger from the Darkling guides her, hardly a taste of the suffering she needs.

When he tugs at her again, she bucks backwards like an unbroken horse, snarling in indignation and snapping out with mental claws that cut like falling stalactites. And it isn't long before she catches the room he's cornered himself in, hulking around the corner like a behemoth overburdened by the weight of its own shoulders.

Seviilia lacks the presence of mind to understand his intent -- or perhaps she simply doesn't care. It isn't as simple as giving into base instinct anymore. Without the Lich King's mind to press on her own, her Self is loud, reigning the natural beast enough to keep her from trying to pounce him blindly.

But not enough to keep her from circling him. Something electric shocks the fried connection she can no longer feel -- she imagines Murphy writhing in pain, and she is forced to pause to allow shadow magic to once again coalesce at her fingertips.

Her nose wrinkles. Something about his pain, his state of soak, is still puzzling.]

You play dangerous games.

[ He can feel her, a vibrato hovering at the edge of the amassed consciousness. Her prowling, unyielding hunger leaving a pit in his stomach that twists and aches to be filled as he sinks his fingers into her peripheral existence and seeks to pull her closer. If only they could choose brood, he would have chosen all of the beasts within this damned hive and pulled them close enough. To keep them close at hand, with all their unpredictability and fey nuances.

He still hurts for Rey, asleep in a state that may not end. ]

You knew this would happen.

[ He'd suggested as much last time, when she had taken as much from him as she could. He'll have scars from this woman, he knows it. Standing in this void space, watching her encircle him with her form, he's aware that there is no Tailor who's services he can use to pick and choose the scars he wears. ]

At least you won't grow bored.

[The chuckle that is born from her chest is sardonic and cruel, perhaps a touch unhinged. So close, she's already bonded to the Nest, she could not escape Ilde's screaming, the shred of lost bonds from every brood -- that closes to her, of Peter Parker, Murphy's crippled pain he desperately sought to soothe using the pods.

She thrives on their suffering, enough to become drunk on it -- but not immune. She stares, confused by the feelings that filter that she'd only known through the experience of others and had never been forced to encounter herself.]

Few are rarely so eager, dinoriel.

[She doesn't understand him -- normally, she wouldn't care to. The living, for all of the future generations they were worth, were still little more than food. Playthings, to the undead. It was rare that she openly desired to understand someone's motives.

The Darkling clearly has another plan sitting somewhere in the tangle of his thoughts.

Understanding might come after she bleeds him again, and she finds herself aching for the return of mindless bliss that she once knew. There's nothing to hint it, other than the quick feral snap as she bucks back his mental pull in favor of the physical rush.

How soon before she would drink until the bug in their skulls silenced her again?]

Edited 2017-03-19 04:25 (UTC)

[ It might be unfair, that he goads her into such a state. The edge of her limits, before the symbiote would cast her down into unconsciousness. For how much longer might it allow him to do this to her, to walk this narrow line between giving of himself to the nest's needs and toying with where their limits lie. ]

I'm a simple man. I like to learn.

[ The manner of things that he likes to learn, though, are far from simple.

Her own magic is foreign to him; something more metaphysical than grounded in the manipulation of matter. Or, in his case, the creation of un-matter. Corruption, ripping through reality and fashioning monstrous things from nothingness. A blending of his power and abomination, like some fucked up version of Ekhidna. She throws off his mental reach as it plucks and taunts her, tugging at her ankles and wrists with invisible hands, vibrating along the slender thread that connected them.

He's slipped off the outer layer of his uniform, by the time she comes at him. If she's going to be brought down this time, he has a feeling he'll be taking that fall with her. Only this time, he steps to meet her halfway, hands upon her person and weight counterbalancing to swing her to the floor. It's such a dull, boring room. All white, no visible angles. And briefly, he considers fighting her instead -- but drops down besides her with a dark smile. No doubt that she'd be cross, and back on the offense soon. ]

[Her fall is heavy and full of wild confusion -- down, like a load of metal cut free from a high place. She pants like a wild dog, wrestled into obedience, blinking owlishly as she processes what had just occurred. If he'd chosen to fight, he might have gotten the jump on her. But since instead, he chooses to give in and gloat, he is met with a snarl of frustration.

He must think himself so clever.

Her hand shoots for his throat as she stands, and she intents to lift him high until his feet no longer touch the ground. Only once she has done that, will she throw a fist directly into his stomach with a pleasant smirk to match his own dark smile.]

[ She's fast. Faster than he'd expected, but not godly. Whatever he is attempting to do, it hinges on learning to gauge her prowess and her speed. The strength she puts into a blow, and how well she holds herself back. She is a powerful thing, undead and cold and battle-tested, and he admires her for the fine-tuned weapon she is.

He twists, countering her hold upon her throat, to wrench himself free of her. There will be bruises - on his throat, across his midsection. He'll test them with a sick sort of fascination, and record her skill when he's alone. He keeps such dutiful notes, after all. ]

What did you call me?

[ He asks, even as he rubs his throat and circles her. Slow, lazy. ]

[His question is ignored, her eyes betraying the calculating thoughts of a high functioning predator. He was avoiding her -- why? They had an agreement, and she had reached the end of their chase. He hardly seemed the type to go back on his word, even if he was a creature of shadows and void.

Or perhaps she was simply blinded by hunger. It was so rare to find someone altruistic outside of stories and fantasy, after all.

Her impatience is clear, the bleed-over from the various pain and minds of the hive, the raw wound that is Peter, and even though she knows what will happen if she ceases to reign herself in, she is sorely tempted to show him the creature he dares to taunt. The beast raised for chaos, the monster made as a nightmare incarnate. She already knows his fears -- she could reach for them.

She snaps out her wrist, the bug in her head writhes in pain as she calls for her magic again, a tendril of shadow to grab hold of him and pull him back to her with whiplash force. And then she squeezes him, the very blood of his body beginning to boil to levels too high to be healthy.]

[ Undoubtedly, he is goading her. As she passes over his question in favor of physical violence, he knows that he's pushed her just far enough - to the point where she will not stop and he will not stop, until they are stopped. Already, his symbiote is reaching out - a flicker of siren-bright alarm as it engages, burning through him like a warning. A cease-and-desist command. This foolery was enough, it was pushing beyond sensible limits. His mind-but-not flexes, and something tense and ready begins to spread within him --

or perhaps, it was just Seviilia's magic, boiling his blood

She has him again, back in her grasp. Only this time, he's infatuated with the idea of a fight. He can taste blood in the back of his throat, and every inch of his body aches and burns, until it feels as though his very flesh will begin to slough from his bones ( he wonders, briefly, how Seviilia might become - if she were adorned in parts of him, the way so many others had wished to be ). And as he brushes against clarity, fighting through the utter pain found in every single nerve-ending misfiring and ricocheting signals around his form, he pulls.

And

reality

screams. A beast, insect-canine-mineral-unrealunnatural creeps forth. Curling around his spine, born from some unholy union between his power and nothingness. It snaps and thrashes, attempting to sever the magical-physical connection between the two of them. A chittering, erratically-moving thing. He wants to be FREE of her grasp, and in the same breath, he wants to cleave her in two. To pull the matter of the room into the palm of his hand and Cut her, and he needs to be free to maneuver. ]

[She is an unmoving wall, stubborn, proud and fearless even as the void threatens to consume her. Her spine is stiff, a tomb of ice and fury -- what causes her to falter is not the beast alone, but the combined power of it and the draw on her reserves from maintaining the rolling boil of his blood. She holds him until her very arm threatens to crumble away -- a warning vibrates and relinquishes her grip when there is nothing left of her.

A pillar of ice, higher functions reduced to calculations, no consideration for collateral damage, only her hunger -- the free meal in front of her, that dares to shy away from her cold and her brutality. The meal that still fights.

Seviilia recoils only a short distance to catch breath she doesn't draw, her fingers flex for swords she doesn't have on her, and her focus rests on the creature that shouldn't be, calculating ways to pick it apart, ways to make it bend to her whims, ways to summon the Darkling at her feet, begging for her to end his miserable existence.

She sees the passing thought, of being cloaked in him, a hulking lich of a woman that had no business being, in present company or in mere imagination. And suddenly, she years for his marrow between her teeth, not for its power, but because she hungers and he is there filling her with thoughts of ripping and tearing.

Seviilia lunges again, clawing like a geist, aiming for his eyes, his throat, his groin -- the softest, most vulnerable parts that will cripple and leave him at her mercy.]

[ This act between them allows him to chase physical pain, replacing the dull ache that he feels - now that one of the few things he has chosen in this world of assignment and unnatural bond is gone. His body is a singular nerve that Seviilia has run her magic through, setting him alight from within - his hands shake uncontrollably, his chest seizes as he forces his way through the agony. He marvels at her, even now, but does not allow his admiration to prevent him from defending himself - she is so infuriated by him, that he doesn't believe the act of supplication will be enough to calm her.

Nor does he feel very much like supplicating before her, at this time. He throws up walls - the howl of physical pains from his youth and the very, very current pain within him. He'll stuff that down her goddamn throat, if given the chance. And until then, as she lunges, he drags his un-creature before him with unspoken command. The sound it makes as she rips into it is unnatural. The shattering of glass and the buzz of a hive, as the Darkling steps back another pace and braces.

Power, he calls on, as quickly as he can. Pooling it dark and insidious in the palms of his hand, curling fingers around the matter of the world - an invisible blade to cut her with, to cut the Station beyond her with. He doesn't care, he just wants her at his feet ( as badly, perhaps, as she desires him upon his knees as well ).

There is -- a sharper ache now, behind his right eye. A bead of blood trickling from his nose as he strains to raise his arm, to lash out at her - and it is akin to moving through tar. His movement is sluggish as he strikes out at her, the power is... flickering. And all at once, there is nothing. No Cut, no power. The symbiote has had enough, and drops him directly into the quiet, black of unconsciousness. Bad, very bad. ]

[Within the cocoon of the pods, the Nest feels both like blanket and ocean. A thick layer of comfort and warmth to be wrapped in, to muffle all else out; a vast body of connection, unfathomably deep, the threat of sinking present with every heartbeat spent floating at the surface. In it Murphy's symbiote calms and the pain of Elnath's deterioration is soothed. He drifts, not quite asleep, not truly awake, and even the sense of Seviilia's hunger doesn't stir him. A mild discomfort to be tolerated until it passes.

But it grows, instead. Goaded, incited, fury and frustration gathered to it until it pulses black and raging at the edges of Murphy's mind. Ignoring it becomes not only impossible but also stupid, like ignoring a fire spreading through the trees nearby. Waiting for it to burn itself out is an option, but it isn't one he can take. Not this time. Not while the rest of their brood sleep in empty silence.

The blaze of it crests and Murphy reaches, his mind to Seviilia's coming still wrapped in the softness of the nesting pod, slow and thick like syrup. Articulate thought doesn't form, either out of reach or unnecessary. It comes pure and unfiltered: irritation, fear, request and warning, pressing and dragging at her, heavy, insistent and urgent.]

[There. She's done it, brought down her prey, and it was at her mercy, damn her blurring vision. She fights the symbiote's warnings through pure stubbornness alone, shrugs it off viciously like a horse tossing its rider--

But something else smothers her and keeps her from reaching for the Darkling to finish what she'd started, something that causes her to notice how she's cut her own lip with how hard she's clenched her teeth around it. The mindless state of existence bleeds away into the tar, replaced with the press of Murphy's irritation and fear.

And she comes out of it exhausted, dead limbs heavy like she was devoid of any strength at all, small as a newborn and weak as a bird. She's forced to catch her own weight as she comes back into herself, just short of blacking out herself with vision still swimming. And the hunger hurts deep in her stomach, bounces back across their connection until its eaten away by the Nesting Deck.

She wipes away blood with the back of her hand and clutches her side, slowly and sluggishly going through the memory of what had just occurred -- not quite a full descent, but close -- she had let the Darkling lure her, and he hadn't any interest in stopping her. Testing limits -- as he had before.

Irritation would come later. For the moment, her self presses back against the warning Murphy's offered -- a weak acknowledgement that almost doesn't seem to belong to her for how far away she feels, a mechanical pre-programmed response as she moves for the unconscious man across from her. She sees how he bleeds, remembered what she'd done to him.

There is a momentary struggle where she must stand and lift him to her shoulders. She should leave him there, a punishment for daring to break their pact, for risking Murphy -- but she is better than that now. Her part of the bargain will be upheld. She cleans the blood from his cheek and licks it away from her thumb before retracing her steps with a half-muddled memory, intent on returning him to a pod to heal the damage she'd done.]

( Fool. )

[ The vicious turmoil within him is silenced as well, the symbiote cutting his consciousness the way fate might cut the strings of a damned soul. At the very edges of whatever is left aware, he can feel Murphy's reach through Seviilia's proximity and his errant, weak thought is to swat them aside. Let them go, push them away. He's torn into Seviilia, though not as badly as she had gotten to him - and when he awakens, he will turn his face from regrets and attempt to mend this broken thing.

He's just

his brother is gone now

and the rush of unfathomable distress ( a feedback loop, from himself to Ilde and back -- ) had been unstoppable. Whatever barriers he had built over time are challenged by the connection to this hivemind, and weakened over time. Even he would bow under the weight of pain. And -- he's smaller than Seviilia, both in height and in mass and her jostling causes him to shiver and claw his way back towards some semblance of awareness. Gone, he breathes, more emotion than conscious thought. And he doesn't care if Murphy picks up on it, this deep well of grief -- similar to the state Seviilia had originally found him in, when he had bid his mother goodbye. ]

[It hurts to move. She knows now that she went too far, in allowing herself to be goaded. She remembers cornering the Darkling in that room, open -- it should have been easy, if he kept up his end up the bargain. But he hadn't. He wanted her fury, pulling it from her and weaved it to his own devices. It bothers some part of her -- something distant, a feeling she can't summon again past the ache of her limbs as she carries his weight back.

Eventually, she makes it to the Nesting Deck, pausing only briefly when she feels the tug from Murphy's pod again, before she allows herself to be lead to the nearest unoccupied set. Shaking off her own headache is impossible, and the hunger in her stomach dares to summon tears to her eyes that she stubbornly blinks back even as it burns her vision.

Once she lays him to rest, hooking him up with fingers locked up in resistance, she sits back against the wall to try and regain herself. Were she living, she'd be wrought with fever, no doubt unable to catch her breath and on the verge of vomiting. Nothing felt worse than the hunger at its peak, so nearly impossible to resist. It had been years since she had been brought so close -- she'd always fed long before it had been allowed to be so unbearable.

Like a starving animal, she crawls to another pod to hook herself up before she loses her self control again. Even once she manages to hook herself in, even as the calm forces its way into her skull and her blood, her hands continue to shake for a time.

And there she will sit, until Darkling rises and she is able to scold him properly.]

DEVOUR beg for mercy and i will deny you	ASSIMILATE the scourge will wash over this world
LEAD we do what the living cannot	WANDER your kind has no place in this realm

Mental Link;

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