ORIGIN - Devil Never Sleeps

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Tsetse does not have words to say for this—for the sweet joy of not only destruction, the battlefield wrought before her, but of dragging someone down with her. There are no words for this. She's never had words for the pure, sweet delight that sings through her veins like adrenaline, feeling the magic take.

She does the only thing she can: she laughs. Bright and harsh like summer sun, her tail curls, coils until she thinks (it's hard to tell in the aftereffects of hallucination) it touches at the cat's ankle. It's almost affectionate.

The cat—she understands. Oh, but she is going to go so far with that knowledge. Perhaps Tsetse will even get to witness; it would be a sight as sweet as a plagued battlefield.

"...indeed," she replies to the cat's turn of phrase. Truly there is little else to say. Tsetse lulls into a comfortable silence, finding the rat stuck between her hooves still squirming as if trying to free itself from knotwork, all wide eyes and slavering mouth.

Her gaze turns to Mossie as she blinks (for a measure of the word) the last few remnants of that beautiful vision away. Her hooves shift the jungle mouse ever so slightly.

"Would you like the honor of killing this?" She's in a good mood today; ordinarily she would reserve the swift, sharp thrill of violent death for herself and only herself, but, ah, the cat seems inexperienced with such matters. She'll indulge her.

@Mossie

Tsetse's laugh sounds beautifully harsh in her newly changed mind. The enthralling song of Corruption hums in her, though for now it's naught but a faint tune.

Mossie thinks, faintly, that now they're on the same wavelength, that she finally feels her demand for purpose. And she hungers for one even more strongly, the sharp teeth of ambition needling at her hollow belly.

When Tsetse's tail taps against her ankle, she doesn't hesitate in wrapping her tail around the other's in turn, and she's surprised to find that she's purring. It's a warm, rumbling sound that reverberates through her chest.

Her eyes glint and her fur bushes out on her back as Tsetse suggests that she slay the mouse. She'd always delighted in the matters of the hunt, but the newfound chaotic instincts surging through her have her nodding enthusiastically and pouncing, heedless of the illness it bears. She tears it from between her hooves and sinks her claws into the thing's soft belly. She pauses for a moment, feeling it struggle beneath her claws, before remembering--Tsetse had wanted to test the poor wretch's pelt. So she splits it open in one clean stroke from throat to tail, watching as its lifeblood and entrails spilt onto the mud.

"Thank you," she rasped, eyes wild.

@Tsetse

Her expression is not kind—it never is—but it is... warm, when she looks down at Mossie. The corruption changed something in the cat, made it right—how eager the cat is, in all things! Tsetse looks down at her and she sees something familiar looking back. Kin.

She has not felt this way in a long time. The last time she felt this way was when she hatched, when she was with her siblings. The warmth of it sings in even a corrupted creature like her; the soft joy of like me, like me, like me.

There is blood on the cat's paws, and it is because of her. The feeling buzzes electric beneath her skin.

"Of course," Tsetse responds, mouth curving into a smile. "Consider it a gift for an eager thing like you."

A thought occurs to her, and she almost laughs—sitting so close she can feel the cat purring away, and yet she doesn't even know her name. "My name is Tsetse," she says. "And you are?"

@Mossie

A gift. From a friend. Mossie's tail curls with delight.

"And what a gift it is," she rasps as she cleans her bloody paws off on the soggy ground. She was, for a moment, so very tempted to lick it off herself, to taste what once had been living--but a scrap of reason in her Chaos-soaked brain recalled that that was likely a one-way ticket to infection. She cannot die, not yet--not when she has not found her Purpose, not when there are still creatures to chase down and sink her fangs into and feel the life fade beneath her jaws.

"I cannot thank you enough," she said, gently bunting her head against the other creature's leg.

Names. What a funny thing. Either Mossie forgets to ask them entirely, or asks too many times. "Tsetse," she says, sounding it out. "What a lovely name. I'm Mossie."

@Tsetse

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