Post by Deilakrion on Aug 25, 2008 18:09:34 GMT -5
What have you done now?
Would you mind if I
killed you?Would you mind if I
Understand that I need to
Wish that I had other choices
You know that there's no denying
I won't show mercy on you now
Why does Fate make us suffer?
I will not fall
We will be free when it ends
There's a curse between us
It's over now
Within Temptation "What Have You Done"[/center][/i]
Wile is presently on a lifeless Tenebrae, beating her beyond all reason.
The trembling had started again. It had hit her back in the Corpse's cellar, when she had gathered the two weapons she'd desired, and put them on a belt around her neck. She'd shifted then, as though it might help. Maybe it would. She'd deposited the knives and belt to the side with a gentle lowering of her head, and then the wolf had trotted forward. Searching. Sniffing. Tracking. She followed the scent of the fierce hunter, and the molting corruption that spread within it. Her head was low, yellow eyes mild and haunted. When she arrived, the fury sparked next, and it fueled her adrenaline burst until she nearly vibrated with the need for action. The wolf stood, mutely looking at the trick, and then circled closer. Closer. She leapt with her weight low, shoulder forward with the intent to knock Wile off of Tenebrae.
The idea had suddenly sparked within him that Tenebrae's eyes were in need of removal, and his fingers had hooked dangerously in preparation. In his mind he saw her blind and scared, waiting for a blow she could not anticipate or witness. The dark inevitability of her death seemed especially poetic considering the light she had burdened him with, the terrible fragility of mortality she had shared with him. She and that mimicking slut. And then he felt the great force of the Creature drive through him, taking him so firmly that his jaw clicked and sent sparks of remarkably human pain licking through his frame. He struck the interior edge of the fountain's basin and flipped entirely over it, landing on his back on its far side. "You."
Deilakrion woofed in response. The sort of woof one wolf might give another, if that other was in need of the basest of confirmation. It was low and rumbly, but that was the only sound she made. Her scarred hide gleamed dully as she approached. Her head was low, and her eyes emptied of any recognizable emotion. This was not for revenge or vengeance, but simply a hunt that needed completion. Ever so simple, the creature, and she would seek out that ending. She approached him as he lay, and started to jog closer to him. She showed teeth, and her movements were the quick, certain movements of a wolf ready to blood. She leaped then, a shallow dive that would end with her forepaws in his gut, with jaws parted to exhale hot breath and slavering drool. Her ruff was lifted, and her tail was high -- all muscles bunched in paranoid preparation should he move.
The laughter began, hoarse at first and clearing steadily as her great paws landed on the slim stretch of his belly. Green eyes, those terrible green eyes, danced with disbelief as he spoke, oblivious to the great dollops of drool that landed on his narrow features. “You?!” The question left him with a sudden and furious explosion of movement, his deft hands slamming up into the beast’s furred chest with tremendous force. It was meant merely to hurl her from him, to send her back into the street aware of his strength and that he was far from finished. The rage now spilled to madness, his own words twisted with froth as he spoke them. “Come on then, pup! I’ll show you just how fresh off the tit you are!”
Deilakrion snarled as she was forced away, arcing back to complete much the same style of backflip as Wile had entertained not long before. She, however, regained her feet immediately: the necessity demanded by instinct she couldn't deny. Her ears would flatten as she came in low for a second round, jogging wide with teeth bared. Her yellow eyes and their grey flecks would be pinned to him, full of wolfy innocence as she picked up the speed. She had nothing elaborate to face him with; teeth and claws and a bodily maintained attitude about her place in the world. This time, it was her teeth that were shown first, as her speed increased. She would flit in near to his ankles, giving a new meaning to the word 'ankle biter' as her teeth sought to take out his heel with vicious strength. Stronger than him? Likely not. Faster? She was betting on it as her hindquarters bunched to run again.
The wolf's movements were feral, but they were not otherworldly. He was neither fooled or surprised, and readied himself to crush that long snout under a sandal. Then two things happened. The first was that instead of his foot drawing back and extending with perfect synchronization, it merely drew back. A consequence of his sudden and forced conversion to mortality was that some of the tricks he had once been able to perform simply could not be summoned, and while he was still well-beyond the strength and quickness abilities for most lycans and vampires while that terrible power still dwelt within him. He was not what he was. And so his timing was off, and instead of crushing the wolf s long snout he merely gave her three of his toes instead of his ankle. She claimed them with a harsh snap, ripping them free from his foot with a stretch of flesh and sinew. Blood spurted across the cobbles as he shrieked his agony, finally bothering to to push himself to an infuriated stand.
Deilakrion darted away from the man, slightly unnerved by his quick response and thinking. She hadn't had much experience fighting one such as he, but neither had she the time to think it over. She'd had time. Now was the fight. She looped around, and charged back at him as he stood, and this time there was no leap. She moved to slam into him again with a shoulder, ducking down that it might connect with a knee or leg. For all his powers, bones were still bones. If she could connect, she would have. She had moved slower then, with greater possibility to whirl on the pad of a paw and snap with ivory teeth at mortal flesh. She hungered for it, even as she was repulsed by the taste of Wile-blood still in her mouth. There was, after all, a reason why she typically hunted beasts and not humanoids.
Wile had ceased talking. His breath was low and even as he watched her draw in, pale eyes narrowing to follow her movements. There was no denying grace, but he lacked the capacity for these things now. Instead, with a furious foaming grin, he merely dropped his weight in a brutal attempt to stop the lupin in her tracks and savagely drive her face into the cobbles under his weight. His intention was to once again lift her and toss her back into the street, wounded but alive. There was a rhythm to this game he adored, and the sparks of pain that shot through his wounded foot was inducing a feeling he'd not know before. Adrenaline, surging through him, feeding his madness.
Slow as she might have been, his total weight would not fall faster than her horizontal speed. She was lucky in that, and as he clipped her haunches she found herself overbalanced. A turn pulled her too late, and she found her paws scrabbling upon the ground in an attempt for purchase. She slid, and when her backlegs found purpose she would be forward again. This time she had not the room for momentum, or for speed, and so she'd be tangling with him close and tight, forelegs extending as if to catch him in some sort of flux, hoping his weight would work against him. She shivered against him as they clashed, again, echoing remnants of pain firing from ghost neurons as she made contact. She sought his blood with her teeth, and the hard, sharp claws upon her forepaws.
Wile screamed, and in no bestial way. It was a shrill and furiously wild thing, barely intelligible as he let his hands find the "wrists" of the beast. Claws bit down, finding flesh and raking it, but he revelled in the pain. Holding the great wolf too far for those teeth to catch throat or face, and making a great effort to pin her there. "You can't kill me playing house pet, slut! I was -inside- you. I -know- you still!"
Deilakrion was not a normal wolf, which was perhaps her only saving grace. She lifted her back legs and raked with those down his front, at the same time throwing her own upper body backwards. If it would work, it would do so at the cost of one or both of her shoulders -- but wolves were also diggers, and the wicked claws upon her back feet were meant to claw out bellies and muscle. Her frame would strain with the effort, and a series of growling grunts would exit her wide jaws as she snapped at the air.
Wile tightened his grip, but the damage had been done. Those hind-feet were coated in the slick heat of his blood, drawn from deep rents down his scrawny abdomen. The audible pop of her left shoulder dislocating mattered little, lacking in the satisfaction one might have hoped. But he -had- to get her off of him, that was suddenly clear. The Thing was beginning to feel a prickly sensation ripping through him, the very real essence of fear. Snapping a leg out, he sought to brutally boot the underbelly as he released her, aching to get some distance between them.
The one shoulder was lost. Her very unbalance left her vulnerable to his own powerful kicks, and she felt more give within her as the foot connected with brutal force. She arced backwards. She was not so quick to get up. The one shoulder grated painfully, moreso because her body could not heal the dislocation, and the important organs within her stomach were not just going to let her fight without letting her know about it. Every second. Still, Deilakrion moved forward. Towards him. She was drawn like a magnet, even if the force of the pull was weakening with every wound either received. She knew not, however, why she could wound him and why he weakened. She might have decided that the simple act of beating upon Tenebrae had made him weak, though she would have liked to prevent that regardless. There could have been another way. There would have been. She would have seen to it. She savored the smell of his blood as she limped after him. Likely he would have gained some distance, but she would follow. She always finished her kills.
Wile did not wander far, not far at all. A stand nearest the northern corridor afforded him the answer, and he seized it. The length of timber that formed a leg on a nearby table was snapped clean off with a harsh jerk of a hand, and he rounded on his bloodied foot to level it. "Come 'ere, pooch." The slur weighted on his words as the intoxication of madness wore on, plaguing him as the wounds mounted. For the first time since his arrival he was sincerely hurt, though how bad? Truthfully, he could not accurately say. Everything had -felt- bad. The loss of his toes, which seemed so inconsequential, had been shockingly painful. And so, blind to just how badly hurt he was, he rounded to continue the fight. The fatigue in him was new, and he could not hide it. His lungs drew in air and rasped it out at a harsh pace as he waited for the wolf to draw closer, length of timber in hand.
Dominic drifted silently around the apparent conflict, the phantom hovering silently in the air as he witnessed the scene playing out before him, as though it were on a stage and he were the audience.
Deilakrion slowed while she was still out of range of the man, and turned to follow the line of this range. She walked outside of it, circling him from afar. She could feel her insufficiency, the knowledge that wolves were supposed to hunt in packs, and that the wounded did not last long. Even with accelerated healing, her own breath was coming in gasps as her eyes remained set on the other. Yet she did not close. She was wary, and she waited for an opportune moment. She had patience as a hunter and she -- now! She bulled forward with her rear legs, favoring her right front paw as she swooped in, paws churning an arc to come at him from an angle. She hoped by speed alone she would avoid the length of wood. Not too likely. Her jaws flashed for a knee, any knee.
Wile had hobbled the creature, but her tenacity was stunning. If there was any capacity for compassion within him he would have allowed her to take him, allowed her a moment. But to the Thing, mortality was not a gift but a horrible curse, and with it came naught of the traits that made mortals so unique. In his limited means there was no reason for their compassion, for their tenacity. For the favor upon favor afforded to them early in the years by the Gods. Those lithe arms concealed a ghastly strength and they arced with blinding quickness, against the ache his twisting torso afforded him as the rent flesh spilled more blood. He aimed the very flat of that great wooden board into wounded shoulder, looking once again to send her out into the street. This time, though, he meant to do real damage... to crush bone under the impact and make deadly clear that for all his wounds there would be a penance paid.
The streets of Vailkrin did not offer a lot of room for paws to dig into, but they did offer some. As the wood descended upon the flat of her shoulder, painfully digging into the upper portion of the ribs even as the main force decimated her shoulder, she once again caught the ground with a defiant growl. The blow sent her not up, but down, and she could withstand that. She lifted the injured leg completely off the ground, then. Her three legs, versus his two -- but why did it hurt so much? The pain fuzzed her brain, and thoughts descended into a stupor of instinctual muddle as she closed a shorter distance this time, still quick enough. She didn't bother with an attempt for crippling though -- she would brute her way past the wiry strength in his arms and bury her muzzle within his stomach. If she imagined it hard enough, she would. Such was the cost for running on hope and fumes.
Wile found it insufferable that the creature simply did not stop coming forward, blind with rage or madness like he or some strange combination of the two. This was not the creature that huddled and screamed, wailed and sobbed against the horrors he could unfold. This was something else, something worse. And he was afraid. Teeth caught flesh and rent it open, splitting it with an ease that may have surprised them forth. A gout of blood soaked that face and he was screaming again, shrill and sharp with unmatched agony. The board fell from his hands and at once he was on his back, pounding at that hairy face as his belly opened. The blind agony of it was lost in another fresh feeling, desperation. Each blow of his fist marred those proud and wolfish features, but she would not relent. She was a crippled, hobbled thing standing over him... her teeth buried in his stomach, seemingly oblivious to the savage blows that punished her face and muzzle.
Deilakrion accepted the pain. She accepted the crunches, and the blood of opened cheek and gum. She accepted the blindness in one eye, when his fist hurt something there that roared like fire within her brain. It was cleansing in its familiarity. Her jaws worried themselves deeper as she locked those terrible teeth within. She didn't care what she ruined. It was not the cleanest of kills, not by her standards, but it was quick and merciless. . .or merciful? Truthfully, she did not desire to torture him or maim him, only to end the sickness that had spread through her pack. End it quickly and, well, peacefully. As Caedan would say, ghosts. Her face would not heal completely from those pounding fists and ripping nails, she would bear his marks upon her for the rest of her days. She collapsed upon him, mindlessly holding onto his entrails even as she wavered on the brink of unconsciousness.
Wile found his fists and fingers could not fall as quickly, found they lacked impact now. The blows rained, but he could not feel the rage anymore. The Thing opened its mouth to beg, but blood ran from his lips, choking back words that could not make their way from the flood of it in his throat. At last he laid an open palm upon that beast's mangled head, atop the eye that'd swollen shut. It gave a great shake of his head and the pale coils of intestine ruptured, tearing free and sloshing on the cobbles with a fresh wave of his vitae. It was stinking hot and coated everything, until at last the great creature was shaking a limp frame. The arms wagged lifelessly, a sick play on the dolls that he once had performed with. But this marionette had no strings, no master, and no life. The Thing was gone.
Deilakrion lay there. She lay there for a good long while. But she could not go, not yet. Minutes passed as she howled pain, struggling to effect a shift. She was lucky; she'd fed well. Her wounds would wait, and the one within her stomach was not so painful, not so dangerous. Once she shifted, she'd rise to her feet, and shamble to the daggers she'd left nearby. Gripping those, she would return to Wile's body, and with slow, awkward cuts she'd begin her work. First to go was the head. It took time, and she had to balance her weight so she would not fall forward onto her face as her right arm hung uselessly. Then, she would attach the belt to the head, and hold the strap within her mouth. She'd grab one lifeless arm with her free hand, and would begin the drag down the street. If she could make it to the kitchens, she could rest.
HCT
Slowly. Achingly slow. Deilakrion came through the tavern door backwards. Behind her was a humanoid corpse that, perhaps, had had a hand or two in creating the mess that was her face. One arm hung loosely, and the other was attached to the corpse's wrist, which she tugged with a lycanthropic strength (if it was fading fast) into the bar. Steadman stood, gapemouthed, and watched. Urghdak seemed to not know what to do. Deilakrion paused, and dropped Wile's arm to take the strap from her mouth, the strap which, upon the other end, dangled a head. She threw it towards Urghdak. "Hang it." Her voice was a ruined thing, rasping and coarse. But she didn't stop to consider the others, and once more picked up Wile's arm, to continue dragging him into the kitching with waning strength.
Kitchens
Deilakrion dragged the headless corpse of a man into the kitchen, and from there she stared helplessly at Chef, who was staring in surprise at Deilakrion. The staff ground to a halt, and all was silent for about five seconds. "Back t' work wid ja. Useless!" Chef's iron voice snapped like a whip, and suddenly the kitchen staff were back to their frantic pace. She strode up to Deilakrion, and looked down at the corpse. She did not seem pleased. "Carve it." Deilakrion slurred. "For me." Then she was tripping back through the door. She'd thought she could sleep but. . .Tenebrae.