ORIGIN

As she rounded back to his head, Magdalena kept her nose pointed in his general direction. It wavered a few times; she didn't know exactly where his face was, but she could feel his body. She could feel that bacteria churning inside of him, eating away at everything that kept him together. That disease she had been cultivating all this time should be coming to fruition soon. She had pumped him full of enough of it and she was growing impatient. If she had done everything right, then he should be showing signs soon - no, he was, wasn't he? That was what this was all about. The weakened legs, inability to stand. The fatigue. This was all a part of her plan. She had to remind herself. She had to be patient. She only smiled.

Magdalena stopped in front of him and cocked her head towards the horse. "Perhaps you should rest..." She suggested softly, and she pulled on his cultures, exciting them, disturbing them. She could feel them dancing now, reverberating inside of him. They stopped and they catered to her, they took hold of her grasp and breathed for her, they gave themselves to her, and she could feel herself becoming stronger.

Yes. This was exactly how it was supposed to go.

A dark indigo gaze caught sight of the pure white and obnoxious violet, standing too close to each other. Talking. While Nemesis had bowed to the dictators of the Merrymen when it came to most matters, she had never liked that big mouthed horse. She had thought that the pretender had shriveled up and died somewhere, but now she saw him in the distance and only felt an unbridled fury rush through her veins.

The rhino stood still for a moment, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath. He was still a Merrymen, but she couldn't hold back the urge to protect Magdalena. The arrogant equine would only ruin those he touched, and if he dared damage her perfect princess then... Nemesis didn't care what punishments came to her, she would accept anything if it meant the death of that stubborn brat.

Still, Nemesis paced herself. Her heavy steps approached the gorge, slowly finding her way down to them. She didn't watch, lest the urge to simply charge him down became too much, but she did draw closer and closer. When she finally got close enough, she allowed herself to look at the pair-- and stopped when she saw Erebus on the ground, Magdalena standing over him.

He wasn't breathing.

"Princess?" The large grey beast asked softly, drawing closer. Had something happened? Was Erebus dead? Her eyes fell on that purple gem, the one that pretended to mimic her kin. That same boiling anger rose in her again, and she swallowed it down. Patience, she urged herself, watching for Magdalena's response.

"Magdalena Speech" "Nemesis Speech"

All the while she was growing more powerful, and he was wilting like a flower; she could feel his strength pulsing through her veins, driving her forward. It was a newfound energy she'd never known before. Where once her legs had faltered and her lungs drew feeble breath, she stood taller, even in-and-exhales pumping her full of nutritious oxygen as her heart stilled its rapid pace. What she felt was invigoration, but was it his, or was it the sheer result of winning? She could run laps around his decaying body and laugh and seethe of her arrogance, she felt now that she could be in control. He was finally succumbing to her sickness and she, she was the strong one, the winner, the unbeatable.

As she stood before him, her lips pulled back in a smile. Finally, it had made itself known on her visage, so aching to reveal that innermost intent laced with the pleasure of victory. A step closer to him, and another, each time she could feel the bacteria thrumming away like a wave of energy cloying to wrap itself around her bones and drive her forward, pull her in. Her straw eyes lingered on his body, she knew exactly where he was now, she knew everything about him; it was him and her, their roiling, intertwined existence isolated in the stagnancy of the canyon. What struggling was soon to die off as conscious left him, she felt it, she felt him grow still and she hummed her pleasure, a long stride taking her around his side once again. As if examining him - no, no, she was feeling him still.

The illness would take hold. It would cast him away into the unconscious where he would lie in suspension, frozen in time, to allow her to worm her way into his brain. She pushed. She stood there, and her eyes closed, and she felt for him again - knowing fully he was there - she shouldered her way into the hallucination of his sleep, only there was a barrier through which she could not pass. Magdalena faltered. She clamored for his dreams, seeking the face that had spoken to her only moments before, the voice, the breath, the very presence. She knew he was there, but he was locked away, and suddenly he was beginning to fade.

No. Wait.

Magdalena opened her eyes and frowned, turning, walking the other way, back to his front. She probed again, but he was weaker this time. His essence was beginning to dwindle, and the barrier she found - that too was fading, as though there was nothing to pierce at all. She was met with confusion, knowing fully well that she should have been able to find him here in the fringes of life and death, but he was drifting beyond her grasp. Drifting into death. Magdalena breathed, and inched closer.

Come back.

Another step, and another, until she felt his head at her paws, long black hair strewn across the floor in dramatic revelry.

Come back!

She lowered her nose to him, trailing it along his cheek to his mouth; the breaths were shallow and scarce, and then they had stopped. Magdalena waited, almost hoping that she would suddenly feel him reel back and scowl at her closeness. She hadn't meant for this to happen. He was only supposed to fall unconscious. She was only supposed to make him dream.

Erebus.

But there was nothingness. There was no semblance of acknowledgement, not even a fleeting sensation of what final memory had played in his mind. She reached for him and she grasped only empty air. It was useless to pad around for anything remaining, she knew that it had dissolved, and now she was alone. Her heart quaked in her chest. An accident. No - a failure. She had been all too ready to accept her victory and it got out of hand. Magdalena stepped back again, distancing herself from him, his embodiment of her weakness, the reality of her lost control. She shook her head and breathed again, but it was shaking, and the heart that thudded so confident in its cage skipped a beat. It caught itself, it stumbled. Her breath hitched.

Foot steps.

Magdalena's muscles tensed and everything in her stomach threatened to come back up, rebelling against the desire of her own mind, her body now of its own volition. She only pointed her nose at him, she couldn't move, and when the trino's voice dampened the air she shuddered. "Fire." She trembled. "I killed him."

Nemesis tried to meet the blind gaze of her Princess, but the dog was staring emptily at the dead horse, tense as though the world was falling apart around her and if she moved, she would be crushed. The words escaped her lips, admitting to murder. A crime. Something horrible.

The trinoceros only felt a deep, simmering pleasure from the quiet admission. She stepped over to the pale ghost of a dog, gently lowering her nose to bump into the canine's shoulder. Her reply breathed into Magdalena, free of guilt or even restraint, "Good." She watched the corpse over the bristling ivory fur reacting to her breath, a sick smile breaking across her wide lips. There was no ounce of pity, no remorse.

Just a quiet satisfaction, as though this was how things were supposed to go. She couldn't bring herself to care about what Fang thought, or if anything horrible would happen in repercussion. Nemesis was too absorbed in the deadly satisfaction that came to her, seeing that unmoving equine splayed out on the floor.

For now, however, she held back, judging Magdalena's emotions. It was, she had to admit, a shame that her dearest princess had to muddy her paws. If there was any regret that the canine held, Nemesis was ready to shoulder the burden of it, to take whatever cost came with the weight of death. To her, this was all she had ever wanted for the stallion.

"Magdalena Speech" "Nemesis Speech"

Has she sight, she would stare. She would behold all that she had done. She would observe the destruction she had caused, every inch of it, every small detail, the way his face would have contorted with exhaustion and then slackened with sleep, the way his legs splayed out and his hair tossed across the cave floor. This was her fault. She was the one that did this. If it wasn't for her, the arrogant horse would still be clipping around the canyon floor, minding his business, hating everyone he thought about - and she wondered, for a fleeting moment, if it was for the better. But that moment was soon consumed by horror welling up inside of her, horror at her actions, horror at her failure.

Nemesis' voice wrenched her out of it. Good. As though the horse's death wasn't a detraction from their numbers. As if ripping the life out of another Gembound would benefit them in some way, but how? Magdalena furrowed her brow, her breath caught in her throat. Her heart felt like it would wither up. A feeling of cold had settled in, crawling down her spine and into her gut and down her legs. "What am I going to do?" She whispered, momentarily lost. There was no escape from what she had done. Magdalena would have to face the fate of murder, be it Diamondfang's rage or a memory that haunted her eternally, the knowledge that her failure had been so intense that it had cost another their life.

She struggled to wrap her mind around it. Rationalize it. But, for once, she was trapped and left floundering.

Nemesis waited, watching the canine's fur twitch in response to her. Her flawless princess whispered after only a moment, words barely a whisper in the dull roar of Monoceros. The rhinoceros' ears twitched thoughtfully at the question, lifting her head so that it was just above the dog's head, and her gaze narrowed at Erebus' corpse.

Even in his death, he caused suffering and misery to those around him. To Nemesis, his death was a blessing, but Magdalena perhaps did not know the equine as well as she did. She did not know his greed, his uselessness, the way he swore oaths to Diamondfang and then did nothing with his word. The rhino turned, stepping with delicate care around Magdalena, to the horse.

She put her foot on the still warm neck of the creature, lowering her head to meet her reflection of her own face in the deep violet gem. He was always a filthy liar and a coward. Slowly, her voice spat venom into the dead horse, beating him with words she almost longed to say to his face when he was still alive.

"Erebus," she rumbled, her tail sweeping behind them slowly, dusting the dry ground at their feet. "He always was weak. It is his fault that he couldn't survive, and if he failed than it means we never needed him. Erebus was nothing more than a pathetic leech, taking from us without giving back." She felt the heat in her body boil to a breaking point, watching a crackle of flame wash over her face, over her neck. Her weight shifted on to his neck, flames licking at her toes and greedily eating at the horse's corpse.

She snorted, enjoying the sting across her grey flesh and the smell of burning hair in her nostrils. "When Louie called, did he come? He abandoned us, yet he dared to hide away. A filthy coward, unfit to be a Merrymen. To mourn him would be to mourn a traitor." Perhaps she was too eager to see his body turn to ash under her, but she could not pull away. She wanted to destroy him, to take away the pain in Magdalena's heart.

The princess had done so much for her fire. Nemesis would not allow the weight of blood on her paws pull her down into the abyss and drown her. She would wash it off, over and over, until the borzoi forgot what the color crimson felt like between her toes.

"Magdalena Speech" "Nemesis Speech"

Magdalena felt numb until the trino had broken away, and she realized how comforting the presence of the trino had been to her otherwise cold form. She almost moved to maintain contact, but the lingering shock of what had happened kept her rooted to the ground, staring blankly at the dead horse before them. She did nothing as Nemesis stepped around her and made her way to the equine, looking as though she was lost in another realm even as the trino spoke. Repeated his name. Convinced her that the creature she had killed was worthless - and her expression eased. What once was shock and fear slowly ebbed into nothingness as the weight of the trino's words sunk into her mind. Perhaps this was why she had never seen him before. A leech. Like me. But Magdalena... she wasn't so hated, was she? She was a Merryman. This horse was nothing.

That made her stronger than him; even in his death, his very essence, his reputation, had been brittle compared to her.

The stench of smoke and burning hair touched the air. Inhaling it had nearly made the dog recoil the first time around. It was a dark, rancid smell that burned at the back of her throat, but while her face scrunched up in response, it soon eased as well. The smell eventually settled there, and she grew accustomed to it, tasting it, remembering it. She was right. Erebus had only been a weak link, hadn't he? He had only been a traitor. Meant to be one of them, only to hide when trouble came. Like smoking out a pest, she found him and had done away with him. Perhaps this accident wasn't so much a failure as it was a blessing. Was it her intent? No. But now she knew she was strong enough to do it.

"Break it off," She said suddenly. Behind the trino's back, the dog's expression had slowly decayed. She wasn't afraid anymore. "His stone. Get rid of it." Magdalena's voice hadn't the capacity to exceed a whisper, but the look of her solemn, cold visage would speak enough of her realization. They had to destroy him, every piece of him, or he would haunt her forever.

Nemesis was absorbed in her work, speaking harsh, condemning words in her soft, raspy voice. If Magdalena had slunk off to go curl up and cry, she might not have noticed-- but the Fire thought better of her Princess that that. Despite being blind and frail, the sickly borzoi held a strength no ordinary gembound could rival. Anyone else left to her condition would have surely given up by now. Nemesis surely would have succumb to her wounds had Mags not come to save her, less than a cycle ago.

These thoughts were brushed away when the canine spoke abruptly, commanding Nemesis to finish the job. To destroy the stone, so that Erebus' weak blood could never return to Monoceros, to the caves. He would be gone, forever more. "Of course, love." A cruel smile twisted on to her face and she exhaled, blowing smoke over the corpse as she raised her opposite foot. She heard a crunch from the horse's spine in his neck, a crack like a drum that urged her to stomp and destroy.

The rhinoceros set her foot atop the horse's ugly nose. A fake horn, painted royal colors, trying so hard to be a rhinoceros despite being so lanky and weak. Erebus would never be half of what she was, and he would always be nothing compared to her Princess. She shifted her weight forward, on top of the gem, feeling its hardness struggle under her. She felt his spirit resist as her flames tore through his flesh, down to his rotten core.

But the stone could not hold under him. It cracked, and splintered into useless pieces-- scattering along the ground. The wind whipped up pieces and shards, like dust in the air. She watched the crumbled mess scatter, a proud snort blowing through her nose again. She stepped back, letting the fire die on her skin, and she reached over to press her still hot snout to Magdalena's own muzzle.

"Magdalena Speech" "Nemesis Speech"

The fire crackled and the stench crawled its way down her throat, and from where she stood she could feel the heat gently lapping at her face and chest. Her nose wavered, pointed at the bonfire that slowly mounted, tongues of orange flame coming to lick at the air above. The thick smoke wove its way between the two of them and she could smell blood coagulating and burning, she could imagine a layer of skin bubbling and peeling away under the heat, and some part of her almost wished to see it - see what it would look like, see the all that remained of the horse slowly dripping and burning away beneath the fire. She could watch that ghost melt away and it would leave her.

The crack of his stone breaking beneath the trino's foot had caused her to flinch. As much as she encouraged her Fire to destroy him, she still hadn't been expecting the noise. It was one of finality, victory. An ultimate end. He would be gone now, forever, every trace of him ground into the dirt and dust where he belonged. Her breath hitched in her throat and she listened to the sound of his stone crunching beneath Nemesis, and when it finally stopped and they were met with just silence and crackling fire, she let the breath go. It was done, then. The horse was mangled, burnt, broken, and his stone was decimated. Nothing would remain of him. The gentle wind promised that as it combed its fingers through her fur, whispering gentle reassurances.

Nemesis had turned back to her, and Magdalena could feel that heat radiating off of her skin too. For a second she didn't respond, still so enraptured with his death that it took her a couple more heart beats to relinquish her clamoring. It was done. There was nothing else they could do. He was dead and there was no going back. "Come. Let us be clean." She finally spoke, hushed, withdrawing from Nemesis. Her head lingered, her straw eyes - could they see, they would vie for her Fire's gaze. Magdalena turned away, and she still trembled, but at least she could leave.

The sick, dead horse had released her.