ORIGIN

'Damn the dog, ' Dianysma thought in distaste as she had returned home after a few weeks spent healing in the Belladonna bush. Her god had been eerily silent through the connection, and the vector almost feared the worst. Perhaps Panoúkla's vessel had been destroyed beyond repair and they would have to find a new one. But her worried curiosities were quickly laid to rest as she reached out through the link and still found the ethereal energy of her god, the writhing mass of dark snakes still prsent in the sea of many penumbras.

In her absence, she had learned how to fly. She couldn't go too far due to the strain it put on her wing, but it was sufficient to escape quickly, rather than scampering away whenever life reared its uglier head and forced her to retreat. The raven felt empty, void of purpose. What better way to solve that problem than to find her next victim?

Better yet, find her old victim, it seemed. Dianysma found herself flitting around in a tunnel that led off of Orion. It was the only one that she had yet to visit outside of Tunnel M, and it went by simply the letter 'J'. Boring. What was not boring were the stony faces staring from the walls of the dimly lit corridor, almost unsettling to those who were not raised by lovecraftian horrors. That is, not to Dianysma. The pale corvid's carmine gaze fell upon an old... victim. They were still suffering, it seemed. Blinded by the very shadows that would consume the caves. She fluttered to a nearby stone, making a small scraping noise as she landed. Her cinnabar 'heart' shimmered and crackled with raw magicka as she brewed a disease deep within, but only one that would cause temporary paralysis... so that the tapir could barely grasp her saving grace if it even came. Dark thoughts twisted her mind once again, and the corvid's features were graced with a wicked smirk.

Feeling a swell of magicka fill her being, the Avian smirked devilishly, coaxing the pathogens closer... closer... closer to one another. She would not bother to give this disease a name, for it would likely be used only once. The clubfooted tapir was a constant supply of suffering and misery... and it was absolutely sublime. It was a buffet of emotions, a rocking rollercoaster of emotion kickstarted by her very own self. Unlike Belladonna, however, she hadn't stalked her victim. Licks of shadows cast by her master still clung to her frame, but she shrugged the dark serpents off, clacking her beak. With the plague coalesced within her saliva, she flitted closer to the tapir.

Ruffling her feathers, she blinked once or twice before tweeting lightly in a voice that seemed not to be hers, "Hello!" It was the song of a bird called Bevy, one that she'd learned to mimic quite well, thanks to the shared Corvidae lineage. She'd carefully measure her time, and wait. Dianysma's victim was now blind, and it would be easy. Do the same as before. Get them to confide in yourself, disguise yourself as a friend, then snatch it away as soon as possible, destroy them, feed upon their misery. Red eyes were bright with a sadistic glint.

The pastel raven's beak opened slightly, the corners upturned in a nasty smirk. Beady red eyes glanced about, making sure that no others were about to witness what plans she was soon to put into motion. Seeing the strange trunk of the tapir begin to shift about and search for a scent, the plague vector fluttered higher up in the room, for she knew that she reeked of carrion and disease.

Want? 'Your demise,' her mind spat nastily, but she held such cruel words back, for now. "Just a friend! You look really nice!" she tweeted sweetly, scraping her claws on rock as if she were jumping up and down in happiness and joy. Rubbing her feathers against the wall to mask her own scent, the raven chirped again, "wanna play?" She flitted closer to the tapir and gave a long whine, "it's just so boring in the Caves when you don't have any friends to play games with."

The raven ruffled her feathers in sheer excitement that this was working so well, tapping her claws on the stone she was on and chirping happily. "Yay! We can have so much fun together!" she sang out, hopping closer. Dianysma then stopped as the tapir asked, clicking her beak as she thought. Oh. A perfect game and disguise. Yes. "How about... tag? I'll be it!" Then she shuffled around as to pretend she was turning around to give the tapir a headstart. "You can have a head start!"

Then she began to count. "Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five..."

Dianysma was visibly disappointed with the fact that the tapir did not make it very far. I mean, she hit her head on a rock. The fact that she was blind did not excuse this, in the raven's eyes. She finished counting and then called out, "I'm coming for you!!!" But when she spoke, she allowed the tail end of the voice to take on her own, instead of the fake songbird sound she'd been mocking. Hearing a complaint, the raven's features were covered in a wicked smirk as she took flight and easily caught up to the bumbling and stumbling beast.

The pastel raven landed atop Penelope's ever-shifting shoulders, and she cooed wickedly, "oh dear." Her voice went from the sweet song to the maliciously spoken sound of her own. "Life isn't fair. I thought you'd learned this by now." With this, she drove her sharp beak right into the cut above the tapir's ear, feeling the sticky sensation of sanguine fluid flooding her beak. A coppery taste was placed in her beak as she opened it slightly and spat right into the wound. Now, just a few seconds... for it to take hold. Meanwhile, she drove her claws into the tapir's nape, holding on tight.