Everything was silent.

She left Beast waiting in his safe garden and walked the lonely halls of Orion. She used to love this place, she used to stare up at the ceiling in breathless wonder and imagine all sorts of stories about this place. But now, with its ill memories and haunting horror hiding in the shadows, all she saw was a dead city. It held no splendor for her anymore. Only the stars that shone above still kept her attention, still left her yearning. As soon as she was done talking to Vazi, she would leave with Beast and search for Bartos, and her cubs. She was no prisoner of Vazi anymore. He couldn't hold her down with fear any longer.

Her hoofs clicked against the cold ground as she made her way to the throne where she'd told Vazi to be. His violence and hatred still disgusted her, but it was okay. She was swathed in light and she was in control for as long as she could keep her head above water. The light she cast kept the dark at bay, and she would keep her sanity for as long as she was able. She wouldn't let the dark take control of her now, not when she had so much to do.

Clover kept the light going bright, a shining beacon, a bitter, fallen star on the ground. She very much felt like the star that had been swallowed by the shadow in her story, but with those two, they didn't have to fight each other for control; they simply coexisted.

She didn't want to coexist with a monster. So she would fight.

"Vazi," She called gently, looking around. "Where are you?"

"This is how I speak."

After the whole ordeal with Beast and with Clover the Lord had decided it best to go back to the throne and watch over their child. The tiny God's chrysalis was still there, still pulsing with darkness. It was obvious that this was a sign of great power. He couldn't wait until the child came out.

The stag laid at the foot of the alter, his head lowered to the ground now as his slate eyes gazed outwards. He could see his Goddess approaching... but she was different now. Her body pulsed with a light that hurt his eyes. It was blinding... It was not his Goddess. Beast had done something he just didn't know what. However, when he questioned her before with those harsh words it was undoubtedly his Shadow. Did they coexist in the same body? A Goddess of Light and a Goddess of Darkness? A strange thing to behold.

At her approach the stag's head lifted and those eyes landed on the doe's own singular gaze. "My Goddess, I am here as you bid looking over the Holy One." He dipped his head politely to her, gentlemanly. "Though if I may be so bold... You are not the Goddess of Darkness that appeared from the darkness in my own heart. You are the Goddess of Light instead... You are Clover." His eyes didn't narrow, he didn't raise his voice. No. He'd learned better. If they coexisted then his wrath would bring on her own and he did not want that right now. The wounds on his face still bled and stung and he didn't not need to incur more of her anger.

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

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She reached for her magic just as her glow was starting to fade, coming to Vazi with a slight frown. They were so....polite. It made her hesitate, made her wonder. Could she....actually just talk with him? Make him understand? Ask him why he was like this in the first place? - and she paused for just a second, her eye wide, almost unbelieving, before casting, letting the light die for just a second. That shadow that had been waiting patiently this whole time took the moment of hesitation to drag her back into its depths. She thrashed and fought back, but compared to the shadow that had saved up her strength, she was no match. The shadow opened her eye, the glow completely faded now. The pale white of her eye swarmed with black ichor that overflowed the iris and poured out and down her face, obscuring it in void. She laughed, the stuff coating her tongue, and she tilted her head in a sly way, her voice cold and slithering. "Wouldn't you like to think so, my Lord?" She said, her shoulders tilted and her eyelashes batting coyly. It was a disturbing combo, with the bright pink and golden glow to her just freshly dead and the shadows and poison new. "She broke free for just a little while with that putrid slave to help her. She is a feisty one; but she's easy to swallow once she lets her guard down." "It is rather helpful that she did, though..." She said thoughtfully. "Now I can do whatever I want to that piece of carnivore filth as long as I pretend to be her. I can send the thing to do all sorts of tasks...." She smiled at Vazi, her voice low and sickly seductive. "Capture little monsters, asking the filth to protect them with me....bring them back here....and we can do whatever we want to them." The thought of ruining and poisoning little ones like how Vazi had tried and miserably failed with that wretch Cure was as delicious as ambrosia to her; she could almost taste their blood in her mouth. The little deer was screaming inside the raging sea, and the shadow just smiled. Lay there in your grave, where you belong, she said to her. "......."

And after the shadow was done talking and gloating, it looked like she was choking on something, and she lowered her head, her eyes scrunched tight, the poison and shadows evaporating from her form. "Get...get out of my head," She said in a strangled voice, Clover's normally clear and pretty voice struggling like a hand was around her throat. She coughed, nasty shadows dripping and falling from her mouth onto the floor like they were solid things, and she shuddered.

She looked at Vazi, tears sparkling in her eyes, and she was shivering. "D-..." She coughed again. "Don't listen to her. She's a filthy liar."

I will not bow, she replied to her. She wouldn't lay there in that coffin, she would fight.

"This is how I speak."

Hasira watched as it seemed the light from his jewel completely died out. She was no longer the Goddess of Light but the Goddess of Darkness. He wondered what it was like to have an eternal conflict. To suffer inwardly because of a demon lying in wait to suck your good soul under. Hasira didn't have that problem... There was no light within him anymore, his entire soul was black.

At his Goddess' words the stags lips curved up into a cruel smile. "But you are clever, my Lady." A laugh erupted from his throat at the thought. Perhaps Beast would be better in her possession. She could truly use him to lure in more worthless pieces of filth for him to enslave. It was the absolute perfect plan.

Within moments the Dark Goddess was gone, the light replacing the shadows as Clover took back over. Hasira offered no help to what sounded like a choking dame, instead he simply watched with mild interest at her mental torment. "A liar? But my dear Clover, she has done no such thing. Does she not share your body? Does that not mean she can take over whenever she wants and use you as she will?" The stag shook his head. "Like it or not the Goddess of Darkness has us both. Her shadows are about both of our necks like a noose. Unlike you, my sweet Clover, I have accepted and embraced my fate. Perhaps it would do you good to do the same... It's easier that way." His smile when he looked at her soft features was sympathetic. Despite himself he still cared deeply for the light doe but he also knew when he was outmatched... and Belladonna was that match.

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

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She just watched him with a wide eye with an expression of shock that slowly dissolved into disgusted disbelief.

"She may have a noose around my neck, but I will never let her win. She is everything I despise, a monster that I have to watch. How would you feel if you watched your body torture and murder your children, hmm?" She spat in his face, advancing on him till their noses were almost touching. "How would you feel if it was you murdering Wynry, or- or- the child you made with her? Your perfect little child? That's what she is, Vazi, she's a filthy murderer with no regard for anyone."

She turned away from Vazi, her delicate features and her pretty face tight with pain, oil stains smeared down her cheeks. "She hurts the ones I care about because I love them, and it gives her pleasure, and I will never bow to such a monster. Regardless of how she chokes me and tries to drown me."

"This is how I speak."

The stag shook his head, not understanding her reasoning. Perhaps it was her "love" that always tended to cloud your judgement. Clover got right in his face and spat at him. Hasira didn't even flinch. He'd had worse things thrown in his face before and really, her anger was kind of cute. "I'd bow to her will. The Goddess of Darkness knows best. She knows how to properly make all of us herbivores stronger. Everything she does is for the betterment of us all." He sounded like a zombie, braindead like this was something he repeated to himself to keep going and keep on listening to the words of the evil doe. He didn't particularly answer what he would do if it was Wynry... He was dead and this situation wasn't about him.

Hasira rose to his hooves and walked over to her, coming abreast of the radiant female. "That's why you should simply let go. It hurts less... Just as I am with her you are as well. If you let go of the emotion then she cannot hurt you, not really." Another thing he told himself but he believed in abolishing emotion because it made him less of a liability. It was a terrible way to do it but in the end Belladonna made them stronger.

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This is how I think!

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Clover just looked at him. "Letting go of emotion..." She said, and her face slowly clouded over with dark anger. "Look how well that's looking for you, Vazi. Belladonna can see into you, that's how she uses you so well. She knows you still feel and she laughs at you for it. She knows you love that little child and if she thought it would bring any sort of satisfaction to her, she would murder that child right as it emerges right in front of your eyes."

She shivered with fury and drew on her words to paint the picture vividly for him. "He would awaken, fresh and new to the world, with his pale fur and his golden eyes - she already knows who he is and who he will become, and she tells me in excruciating detail - he will open his eyes and look up to you and smile and he will be beautiful" She sneered as she said this word, "He'll be everything you ever hoped for, he will understand you from the minute he sees you, and then when he reaches for you, Belladonna will come up behind him and take his neck and snap it with a sickening sound till he falls limp and when you cry out, she'll just LAUGH."

"If you think I'm lying to you, just ask her." She said, bitterly looking at him. "I've gotten tired of listening to her gloat about it."

Belladonna wasn't a noose, she was a guillotine, Clover thought sourly.

"This is how I speak."

Hasira turned away but he could not deny those words, they were true and he knew it. "So what? That is why I let her win and do what she says. She can see into me so what is the point of resisting when she knows how to break you? I have already been broken, Clover, many times over. If she kills him then that is her will and that is that. I know better than to fight her now." Why couldn't Clover just see? The darkness won in the end, it always did. the darkness in his heart had won and it had won in his Pure One's. The reason that it did win was because it was so strong... They would do well to learn from it.

The stag's head dipped, all of a sudden he felt tired and old. "I know you speak the truth, Pure One but again... there is nothing I can do. The darkness has won. I would simply make things easier by giving into it without a fight." The stag's slate gray eyes stared at the earth below him. There a flower was blooming, a bright yellow one like the gem in Clover's eye. It was young, small... He remembered when he had been that way once. It felt like years ago now. He wondered if something would come by and kill it... A weed? Another herbivore? Perhaps.

His eyes clouded over and when he spoke again there was a harshness to his tone. "Is it for you to say that her way is completely evil? There is truth within her words. She knows me and thus knows of my failures as she does with all. The way she speaks and the things she does makes me stronger... or makes me wish to be stronger, like she is." Out of the three of them, Belladonna was clearly the winner and clearly the one in control. Why fight such an extreme power? He'd wanted to destroy the carnivores and now he was getting what he wanted... he just had to surrender.

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

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@Clover
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6/10

She just stared at Vazi, her mouth open slightly, her brows knitted.

"This isn't you, Vazi." She said quietly, watching him turn away and sound so so tired, and harsh. "Where's the little stag that just wanted to protect those close to him? Has she really beaten you down so much that you wouldn't even protect your own son from her? Has she killed you?"

"The way you are...this isn't strength. Strength is the determination to fight, to stand up for what you believe in, not listen pathetically to someone else and let them take everything from you, no matter who they are.

You can't just give up," She said. "That's not being strong, that's allowing her to use you. She would poison you until you got to the point of murdering young herbivores because she wants you to, and you wouldn't even think about it because it's her, until you become the monster that broke you. She wants to drive you to the point of breaking, not to make you strong, but because she finds it enjoyable to watch.

How can you tell me that's not evil?" She said bitterly.

"This is how I speak."