He stood at the throne with his steel-gray gaze locked onto the citrine stone with the sickly light shining within. It was a strange thing not like Wynry's stone or even the one he'd made with Carrie. This gem shone with a different like his Shadow's own body. It was a Tainted light but he was sure that this was a good sign. It was different. Different was good... Different could mean power. As much as he loved the Pureness of Clover he also needed the Taint of his Shadow. She was stronger than him and knew his heart unlike any other. It pained him to be around her but he needed the pain, it kept him sane... in some strange way he liked it.

The stag shook his great head, antlers and ice slicing the air as he stared. He hardly left Orion now. He just wanted to watch the stone of Perfection. Of the King who would soon be born. He didn't want to miss a second of his son's life. He would train him from the day he set foot on the earth and make him great. It would just take a little time before it grew.

The stag's dark nose reached out to touch the stone, he shuddered at the feeling that coursed through him. It was an electric feeling that made his fur stand on end. He liked it, his eyes closed to the sensation as he let it course through his body.

However, the moment did not last forever.

There was some sort of disturbance and his eyes snapped open, furious as he looked around. If any of his children were approaching they would feel his anger but... They were not here. No one was. His eyes narrowed as he rose onto his hooves to gaze about. Something was wrong but he didn't know what. His antlers swung this way and that as he tried to locate what sort of disturbance there was. It was by luck that his gaze landed upon the garden that Beast had grown... Eyes stared as he saw the fronds waving, something was wrong there and he intended to find out what.

With a snort he galloped off in the direction of the garden and crashed into it. He mowed over plants and sliced through anything that got in his way as he came upon the scene. His Shadow... No... This was Clover, there was no cloying darkness or sickening pollution on her body anywhere. This was Clover and... Beast? Hadn't that fool run away? Been tempted away by that damned she-wolf? Apparently not. Apparently he had been here this entire time, hiding like the coward he was. He'd made it just in time to catch the tail end of the treacherous Beast's words. "She is not going anywhere! Neither are you you slithering snake! How dare you hide yourself in this garden for weeks on end? Just what were you thinking and what did you do to my Shadow?" As much as he loved the Pure One... He preferred the Shadow. Love made them weak and Clover suppressed who he could truly be. He needed the sickening pollution back and he would do anything to get it.

"Undo whatever it is you did or so help me I'll kill you right now!" There were always others who could tend the garden. Stupid carnivores were always wandering in. He could just snatch another or even use Jasmine. She seemed to like the plants enough.

The stag stepped forward, tines lowered towards the wretched lion as he prepared focused his magic formed two icicles on either side of the hapless lion. Prepared to shove them into his body if he did not do what Hasira wanted.

______________________________________

"This is how I talk!"
This is how I think!

626
@Clover @Beast
Going to post this as if Hasira hasn't screwed up his roll... which we all know is a HUGE possibility.
7/10

She felt the shadows from her face slowly ebb away, hissing unto death, and she turned to face Vazi with her gaze crystal clear. She should've expected him to show up, honestly, with how he always hounded her; the past while where she'd been asleep was so foggy, she only held glimpses of what she'd done.....but the memory of Vazi persuading her to create a link between them, and how they cried over her when she felt dead inside was stark in her mind.

He wanted....his Shadow back....for some unknown reason. Did he prefer the violence and hatred over her death? That was just....so sad. He wanted his shadow back, that was fine. She was good at mimicking, and creating her voices. If giving him back his shadow would save Beast, she would perform as a monster gladly.

"Vazi..." She said softly, trying it out, feeling her emotions die slowly within her. That was fine. She could play pretend. "Stop. He hasn't done anything at all."

She paused, looking at Beast, feeling utterly calm. She didn't want to go back to sleep again, but this was enough for her. It was something to hope for. "He's worthless, Vazi. He isn't even worth your disgust. He's been hiding in plain sight all this time in just this one spot just like you've taught him, hasn't he? He's your obedient little slave till the very end, even in his cowardice."

She looked at Beast with a dead expression. This was so easy. "Pathetic, isn't he? He clings to his measly little plants and this idiotic rock. Such worthless filth doesn't even earn our pity. And I've already punished him, don't you see?" She nodded to the notch on his cheek. It was so easy it was scaring her.

With a look towards Vazi, she gave him a smile that felt familiar on her lips, cold and broken. "Or do you dare defy your Lady, my Lord?"

"This is how I speak."

And here came Vazi. In he tore, all snorting and pawing the earth, like a skinny bull. Beast didn't feel what others might have--disgust, hatred. He felt surprised--he hadn't seen the stag in some time, and he hadn't been hiding--but he also felt vague pity. If it had been yesterday, he'd have gently risen, asked Vazi how he was, if there was anything he could do. He felt bad for him, as he always did; something had happened to make the stag a bitter monster. He couldn't hate him. But... he'd done this to Clover. The sweet, innocent, pure white being. Vazi could beat Beast all he wanted, and Beast would never see how wrong it was--the beating of another white, pure creature. Clover, though? That was too much. It was... it was... "This is wrong," he murmured, eyeing Clover. She was speaking down to him, again--hostile, her words sharp and biting and hissing, as if her tongue was the snake that Vazi claimed Beast to be. He had a brief inkling that maybe she was faking it--faking it all--but he wasn't sure. And it didn't matter. Gently, wide-eyed, Beast rose from his place in the dirt. He was larger now--Vazi had last seen him as a cub, but he was now an adolescent lion, weighing a couple hundred pounds. Still, he didn't try to seem intimidating--it didn't occur to him. Perhaps his size would surprise Vazi, but it wasn't meant to try and scare him off, any more than Vazi's antlers frightened him; he was too used to them. He did, however, turn those moonshimmer eyes on the stag, not accusing, not afraid, but... horrified. "What did you do to her?" he nearly whispered. His glow began to return, at last, a soft golden-white that ringed him like a halo, holding back the residual lashing shadows. "She was--... bright. Kind. Gentle. What did you do...?" He let the words hang in the air, soft and deadly poison, the murmur of a lamb from the throat of a lion. ______________

@Hasira

He stood there, gemstone glazed red and steam fuming out of his nostrils as he held the icicles above the beast. Ready to launch them into his body to kill him but Clover's words held him. Clover? Or was it his Shadow? The pollution was not there but that voice... It had to be his Shadow. His tattered ears pricked at her words as they washed over him in that cold tone. He felt the electric currents up and down his spine prickling the hairs up on his body. That had to be her, it couldn't be his Pure One. Clover never had it in her to talk this way. She was too soft and too kind, not made for this type of thing.

"What do you mean he has not done anything?" Now his eyes turned towards her, questioning as she began to explain. Her words were harsh but true as he listened to them, ruminating. "All carnivores are worth my disgust..." His eyes narrowed suspiciously for a split second before it passed. The garden did look as great as ever with even more plants growing. That could only be accomplished if someone was tending to it... Someone like Beast. Perhaps he really had been here the whole time. Arkrael did say that she hadn't stolen him away.

The stag tossed his antlers, frustrated but yielding as per the command of his Lady. He did not dare defy her... But... Did she not enjoy pain? Suffering? She always seemed joyful in the pain she inflicted in others so why not inflict it now? The icicles remained perched above the lion as it rose and spoke...

Spoke out of turn...

The stag's eyes turned on him viciously and in an off-handed way, noticed the size difference. Beast was no longer a cub. He was a grown lion and he was big. The stag didn't give in to his instincts that wanted to back away. He held his ground and glared hatred down at the white beast. "Do not question your Lord and master! You live only because my Shadow wills it but do not think that you will get out of here unscathed for your impudence!" He stamped a hoof on the earth and at this motion one of the icicles crashed down towards the lion, straight at his rear leg. If the lion didn't move or his Shadow didn't say anything he would let it go right through. "Shadow of my Heart, you enjoy pain, do you not? So I bring you the gift of it."

______________________________________

"This is how I talk!"
This is how I think!

427
@Clover @Beast
---
7/10

Nervousness fluttered in her when Vazi looked suspiciously at her, questioning her appearance versus her words, but he took her at face value. Her lack of want for violence was lacking in her act, though, and he only wanted to appease what he thought she was.

Clover stared with a completely dead look in her eye as his ice spell speared into Beast's leg, the quick sound of tearing flesh the only sound that tore through this once peaceful garden. Blood soaked into the soft grass, and the silence of horror and confusion and filthy triumph the only things they heard beyond the crumbling emptiness of Orion. She paused with this air of impatience before speaking, but internally she was sick, sick, so sick. How did she ever think that Vazi was her friend? Was she completely blind?

Slowly, she turned to Vazi, faking her complete and utter contempt. She leveled this stare at him, keeping eye contact with him, letting it almost devolve into a sneer.......then broke it and showed him this sickly sweet, disgusting smile that didn't reach her pretty yellow eye. "Vazi, my Lord."

"Didn't I tell you to stop?" She asked, her voice so deadly calm. Slowly she shook her head, speaking so softly, "Do you think you're above me? That you can choose to disobey me at your whim?"

Her smile dropped. "You disgusting piece of cave-damned shit. You are nothing, self-proclaimed whining brat who thinks they rule over an empty, dead city. You are a worm, useful for nothing more than churning dirt. Your only purpose is to listen to me and your King when he wakes up, do you understand?"

She turned in a half circle till she stood in front of the lion but she didn't pause there, no, she kept walking intimidatingly on this nasty, horrifying monster. How fucking dare they hurt Beast, who was nothing more than purity in its finest form, the light shining despite the void trying to swallow him up. He was what she should've been, had she not given up. She advanced on Vazi, making him back up, away from Beast, and she let her actual anger show through her face and her body. She practically shook with it.

"Do you understand me you pathetic Fucking PIECE OF SHIT?!" She snarled.

"This is how I speak."

One moment, he was staring at Vazi with confused horror in his eyes; the next, a lance of ice pierced his haunch. It wasn't deep--it didn't go all the way through, at least--but the cold pain had him turning, staring in equal confused horror at his leg. It took a moment before blood began to seep past the wound--but by then, Vazi's venomous words were leaking more than the injury, and suddenly, inexplicably, Beast had had enough. Clover was speaking again, and her words were darker than any strike Vazi had ever inflicted on him. The idea that it was him--the stag--who had turned the only kind person that Beast had ever met, into a monster... Clover was spitting out hatred, and the light shining in her eyes was not kind. Not gentle. It was fire. Beast felt a rage overcome him, and without thinking through it, he threw himself at Vazi's face. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do--to kill? To maim? No--he just wanted him to stop. Wanted him to go away, to leave this place, leave his peaceful garden, leave Clover alone. "GET OUT!" came his sudden coughing roar, a guttural bellow the likes of which he'd never uttered. It was commanding, it was furious. Unsheathed claws hooked for Vazi's face, and the young lion tried to grab on, to curl his weight beneath Vazi's throat, to hang and drag and pull him down. He no longer cared that there was blood streaking his haunch, that his body was bruised by abuse. He wanted Vazi gone from his life. He wanted him to understand what he'd done--and to leave, or to apologize. To change. He didn't know what he wanted. He wanted all of this. None of it. He didn't want Clover hurting anymore. ______________

@Hasira ; @Clover

He thought he had done right, he thought he had done good. He thought his Shadow would appreciate the pain of the Beast.

He was wrong.

He turned towards the doe, eyes widening in disbelief as she spoke. "I did not kill him..." That was his only pathetic defense, as if the difference between injuring and killing an already tortured creature gave him any merit. Now, she ripped into him. Did he think of himself above her? Of course not. He was above every other creature in the cave, yes, but not her. Never her. He only aimed to please her, to make her happy like how he thought she would be happy over the injury of the Beast. She'd proven time and time again that she was the master of his life. And now... yet again, she showed him once more that she could tear him down and make him feel like nothing.

She was the only one in the caves who's opinion mattered anymore. She was the embodiment of all that was evil within him so of course he had to listen and do as she bid. He didn't know why he even believed that he would be able to appease her after she'd explicitly told him to end his torment over Beast. The white creature wasn't the one who was in the wrong right now.

Hasira was. The Shadow would punish him for it now.

Her words made him tremble, made him quake in his fur. The second icicle which floated unused now dropped to the ground and melted into the earth. Hasira's head dropped submissively, eyes averted to the ground as his Shadow spoke those vehement words to him. When he could finally get something in edgewise the once proud Lord's voice quaked and stuttered with unmasked fear. "I am sorry, my Lady. I did not mean to disobey. Please have mercy, I only meant to please you... To make you happy I-- I-- I-- AUGH!" He felt the claws scrape his face, fangs closing over the already sensitive burned fur. He didn't know how it happened but the part of his antler that he'd fixed with ice snapped off, leaving him with half a rack once more. It was fitting. The doe took away his pride and dignity and the lion who was once his slave took away the physical example of that.

He fell back under the weight, completely helpless as the lion brought him down to the earth. He couldn't fight back, not with the cries from the Tainted One telling him that this was his punishment. He had to bear it, he had to suffer under the claws for her as a lesson. He would never disobey again... Never... He knew the rank. He was the Lord but she was the Lady, the one who held him.

______________________________________

"This is how I talk!"
This is how I think!

475
@Clover @Beast
---
8/10

Clover didn't realize that the shadows had stopped struggling for control within her, she didn't hear the screaming in the background eventually fade to appreciative silence, watching this turn of events with patient glee. The sea was biding its time and enjoying the show. the only thing she payed attention to was this monster right in front of her. He had manipulated her, lied to her, twisted her head around till she couldn't see straight, took her captive, ignored her unhappiness, had broken her love and tore them apart just as they'd finally found each other again.

And the worst part, the thing that had made her want to vomit and rage and scream and stomp Vazi's fucking eyes out was that he'd made a child with her, the memory of it coming to her slowly along with every other horrible thing she'd done. She wanted to tear his lying tongue out with her teeth, make him moan wordlessly and cry and take it like the fucking worm he was!

And when he backed away and looked at her with such horror and regret for disobeying her, she finally felt that sick satisfaction that her shadow had been looking for this entire time. She enjoyed every minute detail of it in his hideous face.

And when Beast acted on her hatred and attacked him, telling him to get out, clawing at his ugly face and pinning him down, clawing at him as he did so, she just shook her head and laughed, "You'll let him hurt you, Vazi," She commanded, "This is your punishment, a fitting revenge for disobeying me. Let your slave tear your flesh and your last remaining shreds of dignity that you cling to, and maybe, if I feel so inclined, I'll forgive you."

Never, never ever in a million years would she forgive him.

She watched as Vazi simply laid there on the ground, accepting the new tears and rendering to his flesh, and she just shook her head, walking up close to Beast, and peered over his shoulder, knowing that the lion well and truly had him pinned. "I couldn't possibly hold you in lesser esteem, Vazi. This is low, even for you. Remember this moment well, my 'Lord', should you ever think to disregard my words again."

She smiled them, humor showing through. She'd never thought she'd play such a convincing villain, never would think herself to be so dominant, would never've seen herself in this situation before even in her wildest dreams.

"Let him go, Beast. Let him crawl back to his throne and lick his wounds." She said to him, nodding slightly. Then she turned to Vazi, looking down at him in pure contempt that she felt from the bottom of her aching, pitch black soul. "The Beast is my slave now, Vazi. If you dare to touch him again, you will reap all the consequences you'd never bear to suffer. Go and watch over our child....while I still allow you the privilege."

All she wanted from this situation was to protect Beast. She would gladly become a monster to keep him safe.

"This is how I speak."

Moonshimmer eyes remained blank, at first; he simply clung, hanging there, as Clover spoke. He didn't want to kill Vazi. That had never been his aim. He wasn't even sure what to do, now; her words washed over them like the sea, and as her tidal hatred receded, his rage went with it. His own anger paled in comparison to her own. She ordered him to release, and so he did; he gently retracted his claws, falling fully to the earth and rolling slowly away, moving around and behind Clover to take up a station at her side. He wasn't her slave--he knew she would never treat him as Vazi had done. Yet he was willing to become as much. If it meant being able to protect her, maybe even keep some sort of peace, he would do as much. He wanted to threaten Vazi--to tell him never to turn Clover dark again. But he wasn't sure what the stag had done, exactly, wasn't sure what even to threaten. So he simply remained silent, his pale eyes staring at Vazi, his large head--wreathed with its young mane--held low and predatory. His tail twitched, the tuft lashing once, but he said nothing. Clover would speak. Vazi would listen, and obey. And so would Beast. ______________

@Clover ; @Hasira

And let the Beast hurt him he did. The stag simply lay under the weight, allowing the claws to rip into his flesh while he clenched his teeth in pain. He didn't cry out again, he would bear his punishment with what little dignity he had left. Which, admittedly, was not a lot. He would never disobey again. He was sure of that. The Shadow over his heart was in complete control. Just like when Wynry died and the hatred had taken over then it took over now, it just had a physical form to punish him with should he stray or fail. To disobey it or even challenging it was like running from his problems... He could not. He would not. He was a slave to his anger and hatred so he was a slave to the living Shadow.

Finally, he could feel the release of claws. The pain fled and he looked up at the Harbinger of his Terrors. She who was in control of his life fully and to the extreme. He knew he had killed Clover the day he'd tried to take her as his. In her place had been the Shadow... but now, looking at her standing above him, he believed that she was even more than just his Shadow. He'd always toyed at the ideas of gods that enjoyed playing with his life and taking everything away. Now though, as he truly stared at her... He fancied that this Shadow was some sort of Goddess of Darkness. One of the ones he had cursed the day Clover fell. Only a Goddess or Divine creature could turn his life around and make the Lord of Herbivores grovel like a sniveling cub. Only a Divine could know what was in his heart so fully that they could twist him and carve him out until there was nothing left. Only a Divine could render him into the pathetic Beast he now was.

He shuddered, elated and terrified all the same. There was something in him that enjoyed being carved up and beaten, to feel the pain and failure that she thrust upon him. It made him happy because he hated himself and he needed to be reminded of his failures. The fools who happily followed him would not remind him, the looked to him as some sort of father that could do no wrong but they were idiots. All of them were worthless, stupid, followers that would only help with his takeover of the caves. But this Divine Shadow, she was the Goddess who could see the darkness in gembounds' hearts. Only she deserved his awe and only she commanded the Lord.

When their child was born he would be part god because of her. That was why his gem shone with the sickly light because he was Divine and full of Her Dark Magic. His child, the King... How could he be so lucky as to help create Her child?

He would go as She bid and he would tend to the child. The stag's head dipped down, bowing to Her while his eyes remained averted submissively. Wordlessly Hasira rose to his hooves and scampered away back to the throne where he could watch their child and think further about the Goddess in his life.

______________________________________

"This is how I talk!"
This is how I think!

549
@Clover @Beast
-exit Hasira-
8/10