Dust, heat, dry cracking thirst like a vise in her throat- hurting, pain. Blistered pads rupture at her step, and her tail flicks with tension, her shoulders ache with it, head constantly turning to allow her remaining useable eye to take in every sight, the noises of the vast emptiness echoing tenfold in her ears. Wind, sand scattering, dead brush rattling, my breaths rattling- rattling.

Drawn by the smell of decay, the scent ghosting over dry, bleeding nostrils until she can hardly tell if the death is outside or within, she walks. Her ribs jut and the markings that mimic them are for once more than a falsehood, rather a testament. When a brittle piece of dried offal skates across her path, her lips draw up over her large fangs and she hisses, jumping back until it has passed, and she feels the adrenaline like a constant, malignant entity using her body as its vehicle. The sand is hot beneath her abused feet, and she impatiently shakes crusting blood from one mangled paw and licks it absently, once, twice, three times, and lets it fall, eyes wide with the pupils drawn to pinpoints, little recognition in them.

Where has she gone? Where have I gone?

Days since the separation, weeks since the escape. Weeks since a proper meal, days since fresh water. The sandy stretch through which she had arrived had been full of it, surrounded by it, such as she had never seen, crashing in waves big enough to swallow her and for once she had felt weak. The scent had been wrong but she had let it coat her tongue anyway and retched when it hit her empty belly, salty and sickly. No water since she had left the noise and the endless living mass of it behind her.

Clarity was just out of reach, hovering like a teasing morsel, like the haunting memories that she had become, hers and others. Each stab of pain was at once familiar and foreign, each rock and each gust of wind a reminder. If she lived, she would never forget. But she walked still- she had been hungry before, hungry often, but not so badly as now, not since childhood moments of suffering when she could have reached out to death and touched it. The rotting scent was stronger, and her jowls dripped with small glistening beads of saliva as she trekked over the craggy rise.

The noise of carrion birds joined the whispering wind, pulling her closer as a mass of writhing black feathers came into view ahead. Huge vultures were fighting for scraps of some shriveled brown shape in their midst, some smaller birds being ousted by their larger competitors and driven, screeching indignities, into the glaring day. Some vestige of that old strength crawled from its rest and took her over, some mangled sound of rage and desperation tearing from her throat in a grotesque mimic of a roar, and she flung herself forward in a lunge, bowling through the flock and meeting any opposition with claws, covering the corpse covetously with her body. She did not manage to pull any larger birds close enough to become prey, and they all took to the sky and bounced out of her reach, beady eyes glaring tastefully into her own. Victory having been, for the moment, attained, the lioness bent to the reeking body, flies buzzing against her open maw- it looked like it may once have been some sort of warthog, already thoroughly picked over, leaving nothing but drying swatches of flesh and some meager meat clinging to the disarticulated bones with all the stubbornness of life denied.

The taste nearly brought bile to her throat, but something in her eyes was calmed as she collapsed atop the body, pulling aggressively at the remaining haunch with her teeth, claws holding the thing in place. She devoured the remains with abandon, scraping bones clean with her rough tongue, chewing them until the marrow was exposed. Any brave vulture venturing too close was vehemently denied access, and she had to keep turning to prevent one or another such scavenger from stealing her spoils away, snarling and swatting with tattered paws. Her mind wandered as she gnawed the drying bones, drifting more steadily as though emerging from a heavy fog. Sense was within her grasp- or some semblance of it, as at least some small compensation for her struggles hit her greedy stomach. The sun was a merciless burden against her shoulders, hot and itching with dust and sand, and her throat dry as it struggled to swallow her meal. She sank unto her belly, last traces of the animal's meaty flank pulled close under her jaw to be gnawed clean, flies blinked impatiently from her eyes. There was a strange lack of feeling, more comforting than the fear and anger, suffusing her, though it felt as fragile as a spider's web, ready to break the moment her meal was done and she again faced the unforgiving trek ahead.


_{BG — ART — CODE}

@Arachnae

The witch had been on a trip deep into scarab dunes, collecting various cacti and aloe to take back to Niflheim. A large scrap of hide cradled the bundle of plants, swinging from her jaws as dark paws padded against sand, headed back thought the desert and into the rockier part of the land. I will have to stop and rest at the apothecary before finishing the trip back to the tundra.... It will be daylight before I can make it. she thought.

The night air was a dry cold, one she was familiar with, but still a biting presence. She felt at ease until she smelled the blood.

It was as if she were a walking corpse, a loose blanket of red on a skeleton, shuffling forward. Blood caked her emaciated frame, the smell of rot and decay permeated the air, even from the distance she stood. She looked.... Feral. But most importantly, she needed help. Setting down the pelt, the rose woman chuffed gently, staying where she was. She had no idea what this woman had been through, no idea what horrors she had seen. "Hello there..." She said, eyeing the blood dripping from her nose.

Code by Naya Image by Tippy

Blood tracing a tender path through warm golden fur. Locked in an embrace, like the hold of a lover- their heart pounding with hers, their touch growing light as the flutter of a bird against her skin. Others watched from all around, eyes sparkling with perverse joy, as warmth pooled beneath their forms like a fresh slick of rain. Their eyes, staring eyes, always there, always watching- watching, watching! She snarled, and the lifeless young prisoner dropped from her jaws; his claws had to be tugged away from their hold on her shoulders, the wounds pricked fresh and stinging, a penance. Not near enough. She stared at him as voices swam in and out of her ears, eyes frozen and distant as a ship lost at sea. Muddled thoughts pushed slowly to the surface, as though trapped and isolated in amber, unable to break free. An impatient shove sent her stumbling, and a snarl tore from her statuesque form as her claws instinctively flashed out for his throat, punishing blows raining down upon her as she fought free, tossed without ceremony into the darkness of an empty cave to cool her ire, clawing at the walls and with a noise tearing from her throat like something dying, something dead-

Claws scrabbled at the silty earth, shoving the rotting scraps away from her nose where the blood dribbled, irritated airways wheezing and splattering it against her paw as she jolted into awareness. Her eye darted across the landscape, gone silver-black with the onset of night, and she felt herself trembling. Shaking, falling apart, falling away from it all with a swiftness that alarmed her. NO! lips pulled tight around her fangs and she dug her paws into the ground, lifting her shoulders up to a sitting position, clinging desperately to sense for fear of losing it forever. Her head pounded, ebbing and flowing, her eyes adjusting to the dim light as she pushed the memory aside, clawing her way to blessed clarity. She felt it like a junkie feels his drug entering his veins, cooling, overtaking until it was a full-body high- it wouldn't last. Not when she was so broken, so pushed beyond her limit. Perhaps not even when she was old and frail and soft, if she ever lived that long. Even in the clarity, there were holes- sounds and fragments of memory, a creeping paranoia, a sense of danger that had never left her, even when she was alone.

They saw to that. Never safe no matter one's role, that hated place made certain that those beneath the reach of their mercy would never know peace. She had been many times a tool of such misfortune, a bringer of death, a dog whipped until it knows only how to bite, how to kill. She craved it even now, the satisfaction that only death could bring, how it had been drilled into her until she knew not whether she enjoyed it or whether it terrified her. Maybe two things could be true.

The wind is cool. Blood, warm, in my mouth- mouth, mouth. Licking her lips, where her bloody nose had dribbled between them, she pushed to her feet, nudging away the cleaned bones where they lay at the mercy of the lingering flies and parasites. The birds, it seemed, had disappeared with the sun, leaving the earth to the blessed chill of early spring. The cold had seeped into her bones as she slept- she welcomed it, and though her muscles were stiff and sore, there was the feeling of being soothed, as though the chill wind was a balm for her aches. She wearily lifted one of her blistered feet, examining the damage done with a detached eye. She pinched a bit of sharp stone with her teeth and tugged it free of the swollen flesh, blood welling where it had been. She awkwardly cleaned it, never having been very skilled in such matters, but knowing the necessity. Her lips pulled up at the pain, but she kept on, working it over until the broken bits of skin were free of dirt. The dry rasp of her tongue over the pads was distracting, but through them she began to hear a whisper of noise.

She paused, lifting her head and scanning with growing apprehension. It took her a moment to catch sight of the form in the darkening landscape, with her single eye trying to take in the whole sight at once, but when she did, her hackles rose, and she felt a growl bubble up in her mouth, past her dry throat. The figure made a chuffing noise, and Svetka hissed at the sound, dancing around so the stranger was facing her directly- clarity was slipping, threats approaching, and she struggled to keep her head, instinct and experience driving her forward.

She felt her body lunge, though the stranger was too far away to be affected, a roar of warning erupting from her lips as she skidded to a stop a few feet away from where she had been, dust kicking up in the low light. Her eyes baleful and confused, but no less determined, the red lioness grimaced around her large fangs, ears pinned, beginning to pace the space around her in short lengths, forward, back, forward again, and eventually turning away only to spin back around, lest the other take the opportunity to close the distance when her back was turned. She chuffed a small spray of blood from her nose, swaying as though to soothe herself, fighting through memories, sights and sounds past and present, lost. Danger, pain, running, running, running, don't make me kill you. But she had been lucid, and her mind still pushed back against the tide, and she felt herself come to a stop in her frantic movements; muscles twitching as her eyes glared into the other lion, likely female by the scent that floated up into her consciousness, permeating the rage, the desire to fight with a brief sense of pause.

"You…" she stopped, inhaling with her mouth slightly open, letting the scent wash over the glands there, calming her more than words could. Females rarely spelt pain. "Don't move. I won't be able to stop if you move."
She said, her voice strangely calm despite the warning there, the gleam of bloodlust that lingered still in her eyes. Its sound was dry and parched, not bearing its usual strength.
"Pretty thing. Pretty, pretty. I've scared you?"
This was said with a questioning lilt, though her face held little emotion yet, though it was slowly thawing, ice melting in the dawn.

"Maybe I am too weak and shriveled to scare you. That is for the better, hmm?"
Slowly closing her eyes, taking a breath deep into her chest and letting it out all at once. She slowly sat, as if forcing herself to do it, like a dog commanded to sit when it would rather chase a running squirrel.

"Do it slowly, if you are going to approach me. Such thoughts I have… what is that you have there?" She asked suddenly, seeing the small bundle at the woman's feet.


_{BG — ART — CODE}

@Arachnae

Arachnae had once been riddled with madness, soaked in blood and too wounded by the terror she had experienced to see the world for what it really was. She had come a long way since then, since the needless slaughter she participated in, since the cruel games and rituals she often had to do. The pain in the sharp blue eye made the witch want to rush forward, but she needed the raspy warning from the scarlet lioness, dark paws rooted to the sand. Her twisting and writhing seemed beyond strained. "Pretty thing. Pretty, pretty. I've scared you?" she questioned, a rough sound from dehydration. "Maybe I am too weak and shriveled to scare you. That is for the better, hmm?"

A soft smile lifted on the rose woman's maw, her voice as gentle as she could make it while still being heard. "If we all feared those who need us most, the world would surely crumble." She answered, shifting her eyes to the pelt laying on the ground. "Aloe and cacti. Both with help with your dehydration and wounds." She said, picking up the scrap and moving cautiously towards the scrawny woman.

Code by Naya Image by Tippy

This content might touch on topics that are sensitive or triggering for some readers. Trigger Warning for mentions of suicidal ideation, intrusive thoughts, PTSD.

A startled sound of mirth escaped her, and her eyes, rimmed with whirling cacaphonies of thoughts and emotions that came and went with little urging, seemed to widen in surprise at the noise, as though uncertain it had come from her.

"You say this as though it has ever been whole."
She blinked, hard, her lids feeling strangely heavy as the adrenaline pounded away, leaving her bereft. Weak. Too malnourished and too thirsty to maintain a proper defense. If the woman was going to kill her, she might even have an easy time of it. She drooped, breathing hard as the effort the anxiety exerted on her battered body came to a head.

She smells strange. It all smells strange. Dead flesh, blood and herbs, dust. Can't keep focused. Madness or tiredness? Madness or pain?

Ah, but pain is madness. Pain made her mad, experience did. Did everyone lose their minds, eventually? If it hurt enough?

Her mind was wandering. The woman was closer. Svetka's skin jumped when she came near enough for her warmth to be felt, and her body froze, listening to herself breathe, to the other woman breathe, scarcely daring to move. The little hairy bundle made a soft rustling sound as it swung from the lioness' jaws. The red female crooned under her breath, watching it move with a distrustful eye.

"Little healer. Pretty healer. I've not heard of using those plants to heal. Better to die if you're going to."
She curled her lip and cringed away, swiping at her nose with an absent paw, smearing thick congealing blood across the side of her muzzle. Her stance was closed, guarded.
"Maybe I'd like to die, little healer. Or maybe I deserve to. Would you know the difference?"

Her eye shifted up to her face, her jutting fangs so like her own, her eyes rimmed in crimson as though bleeding. Curious creature. Dangerous creature. They're all dangerous. for a moment her mind fills with an image of raking her claws across those strange eyes, making them bleed for real- it fades quickly, and she chuffs another cracked laugh, a secret sound of amusement. Best to keep that to herself. Such things came into her head and left with the whimsy of a child's musings, and she never knew if they represented true desires or if they were merely the fictions of a tainted mind.

"you should carry the river in your little bag if you wish to help me. I could drink the world dry of water and blood, such is the pain in my throat."
She looked away, pensively sheathing and unsheathing her claws, watching the dark keratin dig into the earth.

Why is she here? Run, run, run. Safer on your own. Safer for others if you're on your own.

Yet she knew she could not run. Her body betrayed her, beginning to tremble with the weight of her own skin and bones. She welcomed the night air, the coolness of it, but it was not balm enough for what ailed her. Could she accept another, offered without apparent guile, and risk the sting of the scorpion when her back was turned?


_{BG — ART — CODE}

@Arachnae

The scarlet corpse was right, honestly. The world has always been a broken place, riddled with chaos and spite. Her own god thrived on such things. But that is why she did what she did, and risked her life over and over just to make it a bit better. To make those around her a bit happier. Her following words left a deep gnawing feeling in her heart, remembering when she craved death, considered using her very own companions venom, to feel some other pain besides the one that filled her chest. "I think you deserve to live. To decide what you deserve on your own.... That is selfish." She uttered, her expression gentle as she opened the pelt, picking up two large aloe leaves and placing them slowly before the other lioness. "They are bitter, but they contain water and will fill your belly just a little. Eat them slowly, or they will not stay down. It is no river.... But it is a start." She stated, backing away a few feet and sitting back on her haunches. "I am Arachnae, and my purpose is to fix this broken world, a little at a time.... And to help those who need it."

Code by Naya Image by Tippy

Her eyes were drawn back by soft words, her gaze touching on the neat shapes of the aloe placed before her to the blood tinted eyes, soft with caring and a want to heal. A bitter laugh rasped in her throat, and she closed her eyes for a moment, shutting it all out.

"And so I am berated? Noble little thing. As if I have any recourse."
Still, she bent to gingerly break the leathery skin of the aloe with her fangs, lapping at the thick and oily sap until it coated her mouth and slid uneasily down her throat, cooly soothing yet nearly making her retch for the tang of it. She pulled the leaves towards her with an outstretched claw, bending stiffly over them to do as she was bid. The leaves sat uncomfortably in her empty gut, but it was as though she drank of a healing nectar, such was the sensation as the gooey sap lined her parched throat. As she finished the first, her eyes drifted back up to lock with Arachnae's- such a fine name, beauty and strength all spelled out so that it could be felt in the throat when it was said. Her brow subtlety raised, a challenging look of confounded petulance as it warred with gratitude in her unfocused eyes. Naive girl, stupid girl, kind girl.

The ache in her joints was agony now, too long standing still, too long walking, and she was locked to this feeling of helplessness that crawled up from the earth and ate her up from the inside. Sinking bonelessly to the sand, her defenses scattered, at the whims and mercy of the other woman, unable to lift a paw to stop her. Teeth bared as memories washed over her, beaten and bloody and full of wrath and fear- Get up! Pain, snarling haze, the struggle of heavy, reeking bodies against hers, dead ones pressed against her sides, foul waste left to rot under the sun, weeping, lifting her voice to the moon and shrieking so the stars would hear her pain and fall to crush them, to end it swiftly in cleansing fire.

Her breathing shuddered, and she again met eyes with the woman, gaze dull and adrift on a blanket of stars.
"I am selfish, healer. I have died a thousand deaths and return to die again even now. Selfish, evil, dead. I go for weeks forgetting my name, going hollow only to fill up again with the things I have done. What have you in your bag of healing to fix that?"
Her gaze went to her paws, tucked beneath her chin, and she flexed her claws, the frayed and battered keratin loved and hated in equal measure.

"I have killed. I will again."
This was said simply. There was no dressing such things with words and metaphor. Even now she felt herself slipping, lucidity leaving, and she tightened her claws in the dust, unwilling to let go. The hard earth was uncomfortable beneath her jutting bones, her dehydrated skin, her weak muscles trembling with the effort of lifting her head- why bother?

She let it fall.

Did she want death? The question was simple, and yet it was not. Perhaps she should, perhaps she deserved it, and yet had she not feasted on rot and killed to survive? Could she not have died before, curled up as a cub and starved, threw herself at the Elite until their teeth met her throat? But she was alive. To wreak more pain? Perhaps. Or perhaps not.

"My name…" she paused, digging into her mind for it- it had been so long since anyone else had said it. She used to repeat it over and over, trying to keep it from slipping away. "Svetka- darkstone, I suppose."
The sound of the name- the name of that place- brought a sound of hatred ripping from her lips, and she pressed her forehead, hard, to the sand, paws clawing at her ears.

"it was not always! Mother's name- fuck!"
She cringed into herself, grasping at memories so foggy as to be nondescript, moments of love trapped beneath a lifetime of madness. A tear tracked through the fur of her face, and she tried to hide it, swiping at it with her forearm.
"They ate it up. I have long since forgotten the family name she gave me…"



_{BG — ART — CODE}

@Arachnae

The rose woman chuckled lightly, "You have no need to, I have a special knack for finding those who need my help. Who have a calling for a better life... But I do not mean to berate you, sometimes the only right way to say something is to sound harsh. But you do not seem like the kind of woman who has not heard harsh words before...." She said. No, it was clear she had gone through many kinds of abuse. Verbal was usually among them. She watched as the corpse woman carefully consumed the aloe, her head lifting after a moment, a locking of blues and scarlet. Her eyes, or rather, eye- told a thousand stories, stories she wanted to hear, wanted to heal her from. Below the caked blood and shredded fur, she saw a heart that needed her. Pain, resentment, gratefulness. And once again, she was prepared to risk her life so that another person could finally have the life they deserved.

And in a moment, she collapsed. Concern brought Arachnae to rush forward, taking her moment of helplessness to examine her wounds more closely. Her words were ones she felt reverberate through her body. "Selfishness is not always our fault. If you will let me, I can help send your cycle of death, I will be here to bring you back when you slip away. I will help you remember. It is not in my bag that I have this, but in my heart. I will heal you with what bountiful medicine I have to give; love." She smiled. "I care for those who need me very deeply. Perhaps I am naive to care so much about strangers." She admitted. "I have killed. I am always prepared to do so again, for the ones I treasure. I think perhaps you simply need to search for a better purpose."

Her head collapsed onto the ground, and strained, a name was given. One that she had become quite familiar with. Carefully, she began to groom the blood from the struggling lioness, trauma once again slipping through the cracks. "I know of Darkstone. Of what happens there, of the horrors they put others through. In my home land, I went through something.... A bit similar. I consider myself very close to some of those who have been freed. Alexon Skye.... I'm not sure if you know him, but I am very close with them. They are also a healer, they witnessed the horrors from the inside. They can help you too.... @Svetka. There are others, as well, a group that helps free prisoners from Darkstone." She wasn't sure how many names she should mention, as she didn't know what exactly Gawain did to free them from that place.

Code by Naya Image by Tippy

Trust. She wanted trust.

Acutely, the red lioness felt each grain of sand against her belly, each gust of wind against the inner fur of her ears, each steady song of sound that came from the woman as from a gurgling stream, honest and forthright. Could such things truly exist?

She had always thought not. But she remembered the Great Yawning Water and how it had beat against dry land as though determined to crack it to bits; she felt that way now, gazing into a fathomless expanse of blue, the blue of her eyes.

She wanted trust.

Such things were daydreams, legends. That anyone could be relied upon was a falsity, one she had uncovered early in life and that had frequently been driven home. Each around her spelt death sooner or later. Trust? She wasn't capable. But could she be?

Her mind thrashed in the fresh onslaught of confusion, guilt and helplessness and the terror of being known compounding to rattle in her skull along with her senses. Wincing against the agony in her head, she raised a fragmented gaze to the healer's, drifting in and out with little prompting.

"Determined, aren't you?" She attempted, though the words lacked any fire. Her voice was a shaken husk of sound, certainty and wrathful guardedness lost to desperation. For what, she could not say. The healer had edged closer as she talked, and Svetka almost wanted to flinch away, to curl up from the careful, assessing gaze of the woman on her wounds, knowing her weakness and looking on her with total control. It was too much to bear.

"love." she repeated incredulously, gasping it out as though it hurt, in some deep place in her chest. "I would not know… It is- unfamiliar. I-"
Her body was quivering all over, as much from strain as from her words. It was too much- a friend, a concerned pair of eyes and a soft touch, and she was broken? All the evils of this world she had seen and taken part in, and it was kindness that felled her? She groaned, pawing at her head with her ebony claws extended, their sharp touch grounding.

"I am not well. You know not what you take upon yourself." this was grated out, dragged from her unwillingly by some weak defense remaining, some pitiful grasp at propping up her walls to the onslaught. The thought of her claws rending that soft pelt, spilling blood in the sand, prying life from her lungs with the force of her teeth- she flinched from it, how her eyes would pity her, how she might be endangered trying so naively to help her when she was not in control of herself. How she might kill her.

She nearly jumped out of her skin, jolted from her darkened musings by the careful rasp of Arcahnae's tongue against her fur. She was stone-still for long, tense moments, alarm and confusion zinging through her mind in a numbing jangle. She was so vulnerable, so like the babe she had been the last time she had felt such a sensation- a ghost of a memory, a mother's scent, and with wide, glazed eyes, her body relaxed, the telltale tremor of her limbs her only movement. A broken, rasping purr seemed to drift from her throat in slow, labored breaths. The healer was gentle, and even as she worked carefully over the myriad wounds in her flesh, she felt no pain. Her thoroughness lifted the crusted blood and grime from her nape, and Svetka cried. Her tears were silent, tracking down her muzzle, and she gazed determinedly away, unwilling to meet her eyes though they were so filled with compassion.

"the name… seems familiar." she said at last, that ragged, beaten animal in her chest ducking away from the memories of what she had done, what had been done to her. "I am not certain I would be welcome. Welcome, welcome. The reminder would have me- hunting them. Hurting them. It is what I do. Any who know my face know me only for my madness, for my hate. Hate is all I have ever possessed that was mine. If they see me, they will remember me as I am; a mad dog who knows only its teeth."

Did she not see? She was the villain, as much as the Elites had been. What was she if not their creature? Was she not what they had made her to be? Even the revelation of those that sought to rescue the captives of Darkstone dropped hollow into her mind. What good was it, now, when she was free? Free, and empty?



_{BG — ART — CODE}

@Arachnae

The battered woman struggled with accepting the affection Arachnae offered, the witch making each move carefully, cautiously, listening to the woman's warnings of danger. "I take upon myself one who needs me. If it is blood you crave, I can give it to you, if you wish to use your claws to carve flesh, I am willing to offer it, if it will help you heal."

Her tongue ran lightly over the various wounds, the blood colored fur beneath her shaking, a beautiful sound emitting from the woman. A purr, contentment, comfort. After a moment of peaceful grooming, she spoke up, "oh Svetka, my dear bringer of death. I will keep you safe, I will change their thoughts of you. And they will know it's not your fault, lovely reaper. You are not a monster, it is others who made you look that way. I have many friends who killed before, it is the life you create anew that matters." Slowly, she stopped back up to her dark feet, outstretching a paw to offer to the skeletal creature laying on the dry ground before her.

The sky turned from dark blue to dark tones of orange and pink in an instant. The sun threatened to rise. "Come with me darling, I'll get you somewhere safe and warm, with a real meal." She purred.

Code by Naya Image by Tippy