How long had it been since she had last prayed? Long enough that she had begun to feel sick. Homesick. Lonely. She could feel it; Something was missing. Whispers in the back of her mind were growing more incessant by the day.
There was no use in speaking to it, not really. There was no verbal exchange of words, just images; memories. Thoughts that weren't her own and lives she had not lived were how they communicated. It was unsettling, still, how the Void had wormed its way inside her head so easily, and yet she continued into the depths anyway.
Her footfalls stopped echoing as the whispers grew louder, and her paws became slick with the familiar oil that marked Its presence. She had tasted it, now, and she would crave nothing more than she craved it now. She steeled herself against the urge, forcing herself onwards, downwards. Until the cave lights seemed to turn themselves inside out and the light became dark. It consumed her, as it always did, mocking her, encouraging her to become... more.
And she would. She would become more, give more, DO more. She would realize her master's dreams and she would give It soldiers. Perfect carnivores capable of carnage, of Chaos. It would never be enough, she knew, but it would give her some recognition, wouldn't it? She just had one more thing to do, one last loose end to tie up before she reclaimed Erdianus as their home. She just had to know.
But first, she would pray, nose to oily stone.
This time, it felt as though that presence swelled, a lazy eye shifting toward her in the dark; the way she herself might take note of an ant crawling past as she slept. A predator's eye, immense and implacable.
The whispers rose to a crescendo, their sudden harsh stabs of sound easily maddening to one unused to them. Trying to make sense or meaning from their words would have been equally maddening; but it seemed they came together now to form a greater voice, one that crashed through her mind and body.
As it spoke, it seemed Tema was gripped in immense claws, shrouded by a choking black smoke, regarded by that baleful unseen eye.
"THEY... BELONG... HERE." The whispers were Chaos. Discord. Madness.
"THEY... BELONG... HOME."
A pause, and it felt as though those claws lifted Tema--as though she weighed nothing--so that the eye could examine her more closely.
"JOIN US."
A thousand judgments flooded those two simple words. Why had she not yet purged herself of this treacherous magic? Why was she not yet one with Chaos? Was her DEDICATION lacking? Was her faith to CHAOS weak?
A thought, a sound, like a hum of thought: "HMMMMM..." ...and she was set back down, though not before a dozen battles, wars, fights, deaths, flashed through her mind's eye. Cracks of green lightning, claws cutting a bloodied swathe through an army under an alien sky.
Judgment would be withheld, for now: but it was watching her.
Would her children be placed here, to be born of Chaos? And what of her? When would she be reborn..?
The whispers receded, becoming a chattering, a chittering, almost mocking, always maddening.
It was watching her.
@Tema
Eyes were on her. Eyes? Eye? A single eye, as if it couldn't be bothered to look, to face her truly... She had disappointed It, somehow. Not somehow. She knew what she had done, or rather what she hadn't done. She had strengthened her bond with the Chaos, consumed it, fought for it- but not enough. Never enough. She was still... Wrong. Still hungry. For Oil, she now knew.
Yes, home! Here! It wanted them, It wanted her, her faith, her teachings to pass on to a new generation of followers. She would be better, she would make them better! She would make a family, one that did not shun Chaos but embraced it fully. There was no love in it, only violence and disruption. It was honest.
Would she love her children?
The visions swarmed her mind, and she allowed them, allowed It in. The whispers somehow remained whispers, unintelligible unless they wanted to be understood, even when they became loud and harsh. They were there and yet not, a feeling she could not quite comprehend and yet tried to allow herself to get used to. Something in her, some small part of her still recoiled at the nightmares she would have after this visit.
Would she grow them here? Raise them here?
She had planned on clearing Eridanus, somehow- On remaking the place in her name and Its image. She'd planned on hiding them in plain sight, training them on lessers and moving up to bigger things, better things; Things that she had not yet dared try herself... She would have to practice, first, to solidify her bond with her Master. She could not teach what she did not know.
That is what It wanted, wasn't it? Death and destruction... of greater Gembound and their caves, their homes. Chaos and confusion, violence. Sunny had tried, they had all tried, to ignore the urges... and for what? They had pledged themselves to Chaos, and this was Chaos. She would submit herself wholly, as one does to their Master, their Overseer, knowing that this was no pacific place nor being.
But it was honest. It did not hide its nature, and neither would she.
She would wait, a small hesitation, to see if the Void's watchful eye would comment further on her intentions; to become corrupted, to kill a greater, to remove Erdianus from the Hive's control and instead fill it with her (soon to be) Corrupted brood. If the whispers remained incomprehensible at the edge of her consciousness, she would leave, believing her plan to be sound.
They whitened but they darkened, Oil seeping through them as they grew.
Chaos, corrupting them to their core, before they'd ever hatched.
That was its demand. That... was what would be.
@Tema
There is a nod, a deep nod into a bow as her nose stops an inch from the oily floor, and then she is gone, knowing what she must do.