ORIGIN

After all this time, the Tunnel still felt like home. The Altar still felt like home. Ultraviolet had not been born here, but he had been raised by the constant feeling of cold nothingness and intimate whispers. He had tried to unmake and remake himself several times, and yet, he always returned. His paws carried him down the tunnel once more, eager to reacquaint himself with the slab of glistening, pearlescent white.

In his jaws, he brought a rat, one that he intended to let rot until he could taste the slick oil upon his own tongue. In the not-shade of the Altar, there would be nothing quite so sweet. His fur prickled with anticipation, and it wasn't until his paws reached the bottom of the slope that he realized that he was not the only one down here.

He heard it: breathing, deep, raspy and... huge. He raised his gaze, teeth clenching down on his trophy, and saw: a pure white mask, framed in a perfect, undulating ring of black.

Elayne found it difficult to sleep.

She found refuge in a dark tunnel, crawling down into the Chamber where His voice was stronger here, and yet still her waking dreams were filled with visions of violence. Was she growing unstable? She wracked her brain, trying to decipher her next moves. She needed to locate Jupiter, and to do that, she needed...

She needed a plan... A sound disturbed her, however. She raised her head to the sounds of echoing footsteps, and almost didn't spot the white feline standing shell-shocked at the entrance to the den. Her lips parted in a smile.

He was small; built purposefully for stealth, perhaps? But his pelt flashed a sickly green-blue with spots, something that tickled her. Curiosity struck her, and reaching forward a limb, a dozen tendrils swept forward to curl about the new creature.

"Hello," she greeted, as her tendrils brushed his cheek.

In an instant, Ultraviolet was met with what could have only have been a meeting with Godhood. It was not the first time he had met a beast so thoroughly imbued with the power of the Altar, but it was the first time he had stumbled into one, here. For some reason, the first thought to his head was a wanting for Purity to share in this moment with him.

Alas, it was washed down with a feeling of pure dread. Blinding white tendrils reached out to him, wrapping about his forelimbs and brushing across his face. The being's voice was-- different, somehow, than what he had expected. (He expected it to sound like the whispers, perhaps.) It was deep, monotone, and yet, the inflection implied a question.

He lowered his head to set down the rat, and head still bowed to the massive beast, he replied. "Hello." The touch of the tendrils burned into his flesh, and he felt more than heard the whispers of the tunnels rise to a fever pitch.

"I am Ultraviolet," he spoke softly, intrigued, "who are you?"

+1 corruption

She tilted her head to one side at the question, smile playing on her lips. She did not immediately grace this Ultraviolet with an answer. Instead, she curled her tendrils around the rat's corpse and pulled it close.

She peered down at the lump of flesh, seeing the small glint of sickly yellow stone buried in its spine. The poor thing, shackled to its flesh even in death. She could free it, she supposed.

"I," she began, as she hooked a claw into its back and began to tear at the flesh, "am Elayne." She tore away skin, crushing the bones, and mangled the entire, delicate thing with a few tugs of her claws. Her heavy hands began to sink through the rotting flesh, and finally she squashed it and shattered the stone in her effort to pry it free, smearing oil upon the stone.

It was an unfortunately gruesome display. She raised her paw to inspect the mess as it dripped from her fur. "What do you want?" She asked idly, not even looking at Ultraviolet anymore.

Ultraviolet stared as his prey was taken, and played with, destroyed in moments. The idle threat was not something he took lightly, and it took some effort to lay his fur back as he fought for composure. Could she do the same to him, if she so desired, and if so, was she playing with him in the same way?

The darker part of his thoughts wanted to destroy her, but... how could he, if she was the same-- no, greater-- than he? Even if he was capable of it... No, he simply couldn't. He had to know more. "the voices," he answered softly. "I came to listen to them." Direct, perhaps. Would that be a satisfying answer to her? He waited a beat, and when no response came, he crept forward toward the Altar.

He crouched, never quite taking his gaze off of Elayne, and gingerly pressed his nose to the sheer white slab. He strained his ears, and tried to ignore the oppressive weight of the corrupted creature looming over his shoulder and instead focus on the creeping whispers and the heavy, cold weight in the air. Slowly, his eyes closed.

"... You hear them too, don't you?"

+3 corruption

Had He been waiting? Watching, already, this other apostle upon its gore-slicked knees? Observing this sacrifice to entropy? Or had it been the touch which wakened Him, or was this no Him at all? Was it only voices, was it chaos alone, that curled down through the soft wisps of gathering smoke to twist and coil tight around Ultraviolet's heart?

Tighter..? Squeezing. A black choking shadow pressing pulse from chest, crushing life away--ahh, but it was only for a moment. Something was there, and its regard was impossibly vast. The cave fell away. The stranger fell away, its yellow eyes and tentacle-wreathed pelt but a delicate echo of what lay beneath.

And Ultraviolet fell away. A cascade of flesh and oil and smoke, tumbling, one indistinct from the other but ahh--they were alone. The falling was glory. A landing would be glory. Bones torn asunder, and blood and flesh scattered in new offering. Or they could do the tearing; yes, that might work. Rip gravity asunder. Shred darkness from its mysterious berth.

Green eyes snapped open in the violet darkness, impossibly large, glowing, an acid glare. Ultraviolet had earned its regard. For better, or for worse, it stared at him. This gaze caressed his dark fur, this echo of its own void. It brushed the skull atop his head; it could always see such things. It stroked--paused--at the Hackmanite in its tail.

"AN ECHO OF PERFECTION," and the voice was large and terrible. Each word reverberated and tore through him, rippling through his bones and searing his flesh with burning ice. Were these words mockery, or approval? He was regarded a moment longer.

Appraised.

And then he was dropped, as if still tumbling, down and down and-

-back into the little chamber with a hiss of smoke, though had he ever left-? Or had he been obscured by the thickening smoke, a smoke which now drifted into nothing, wisping into thin air?

At least his bones and flesh were once again intact.

@Ultraviolet

Elayne witnessed the shutter flash through Ultraviolet, her blank eyes cold with appraisal. She did not hear voices, her nose crinkling with mild disgust at the way he framed the situation.

Did he think himself an equal? She watched the smoke swallow, and said nothing until the feline-like beast spasmed on to the floor once more, spitting up oil that hadn't digested in his stomach. She flexed her toes in the remains of the rat, and gave a long suffering, patient breath before speaking.

He might need a moment to compose himself, after what he had likely seen.

"In a way," she elected to say, her meaning stretching well beyond what any stranger could presume. "You may rest here," she stated. That was all she offered him, settling her paws criss-cross in front of her body, settling back against the wall comfortably.

Ultraviolet lost control of himself for a moment, slipped away into another, horrible world. For a split second, the cacophony of sounds, whispers, and horrid thoughts all clicked into place-- and for a moment, everything made a twisted, dreamlike way of sense. He understood.

He was touched, like a mother licking his forehead fresh out the womb, brushed all the way down his pelt. Every piece of him was brought to the forefront of this reality, and then he was offered a booming answer. His eyes wide, he continued his fall-- when, when would he reach the bottom? an echo? Was his only thought, as the world came crashing back to him, and he jerked, all six limbs splaying out about the stone floor.

It took him a moment to catch his breath.

A vision? He stirred, raising his head, and then Elayne's words made his ears prick. He turned to look to her, and wondered with a start if he was a mere echo of her perfection. Surely, that wasn't what the voice had meant, but he shivered regardless. The feeling of understanding, of knowledge, slipped away the moment he came back to this realm, with nothing but the foggy feeling of forgetfulness to fill the void.

"how gracious," he replied, lips curling back-- though he didn't know whether to laugh or snarl. His twinned tail swished, and he lowered his head once more. "we'll be seeing more of each other, then?" He prodded, feeling particularly like he was testing thin ice. He didn't feel like sticking around, his stomach growling with a need for food that wasn't pure rot. "maybe next time."

--

And indeed, she was still there when he returned the next day. Something about the cold white of the voidlight made her blue eyes pierce right through him (would they be orange, in natural light?). "when did you find this place?" He asked her quietly, prowling up to lay by the Altar once more. It seemed strange to him that she had only just shown up here, after all this time. He spent a good amount of time coming here... though, since the vision, he couldn't shake her nor it from his thoughts.

As his paws touched the pearlescent white slab, he wondered how the two of them were connected. Her vague, curt answers told him he wouldn't come to understand from interrogating her, however. Instead, he felt pulled to this place, to this sense of... worship, as though focusing on the voices would eventually make him reach that dreamlike state once more. He would come to understand.

+3 corruption

ultraviolet

Elayne

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Elayne

ultraviolet

Game Master Dark

Elayne

ultraviolet