The two of them both looked at the owl with varying expressions; Clover looked on with a frown merged with concern and worry, and Belladonna sneered at him with the worst look of hatred and malice, her mouth bared in an unrealistic, impossible manner.

"I am your death" Belladonna hissed, "Your demon that whispered in Bevy's voice as you lay there on the ground, infected you with sickness and broke your sorry little leg. I watched you cry out for her, and I killed you."

Clover's mouth set in a hard line. "I am Clover, whose body she's possessing. Fly away, little one, and save yourself." She turned her gaze to Belladonna.

"As for you...." Clover's calm look of determination turned into anger, righteous, pure fury, and instantly the light that surrounded her grew as bright as a miniature sun, and the sea she was in immediately was repulsed away from her. She tilted her head, and the light's rays solidified into hundreds of spears that swiveled and directed their sharp points to Belladonna. "Go back to sleep and dream your sick nightmares."

The spears all immediately rushed and gored Belladonna in hundreds of places, in the neck, the torso, the mouth, the eyes, and she couldn't even scream. She just fell limp into the sea and sank down, down, down.

Clover sighed, as if she'd done this fight with her demon a million times over, and she gazed back up at the owl.

"I knew your mother. I'm sorry." She said, quiet sympathy pouring from her. "She was a wonderful gem."

"This is how I speak."

The anger still gripped him; it was hard to think past his rage, but he did. His mind was sharp, a needle, a knife, and he watched and listened and hissed as Clover repelled Belladonna, her bright white light spearing her into nothing.

The owl looked at Clover, and heard her words. Bevy.

I miss you.

But this new sharpness--he couldn't afford to let it go. He had things to say, a message to pass on--and if he couldn't find Bevy... if it had been this deer, this twin-soulled mad creature, then so be it. She would have to do.

But first, he made an observation. This rage that trembled within him was good, it was empowering, it was strong. It made things clearer. Perhaps if he'd been sucked down just a little more, maddened just a little farther, he'd have descended into incoherent madness. But as it was, he had passed through a forge, and come out hotter, stronger.

He looked down at the twin deer, one dissolving into nothing, and he cocked his head to one side, still hovering overhead.

"You are the same," he noted, his thoughts simple as ever. "If you hate each other, than you hate yourself. You shouldn't. This black is anger. Anger is good. You're fighting yourself."

It was more another observation than a fact, or some deep wisdom. Dark knew what he wanted to say--what he meant to. He tried to put it into better words.

This was the last chance he'd have.

"If it's two parts of you. Two parts need to make peace. All this black should not be down here, in a sea. It should be with the white. Anger protects. Protects the children. Protects the ones who are hurt. You don't know how. You push it away. You become the hurt."

That would have to do... he didn't know all the words to talk about unity, about inner harmony, about pain and the nightmares of the past turning into a raging horror of a mind. He didn't know, too, about Clover's past, what had made her who she was.

And he didn't have time. Didn't have time to go over it all. He could feel his body, behind him, failing. Falling.

Slipping away.

"I was already dying. I still am. I don't have much time. I came with a warning--for Bevy. But Bevy is dead. You are not Bevy."

He paused, eyeing her again, the fury still filling him, still coating him black. But it was a good anger. It kept him sharp, and it kept him determined, fixed on his goal.

"I will try to show you."

Dark gathered everything he could--every bit of magic, every pulse of anger, all the concentration he could muster.

He turned, and rose up high, his black form quickly nothing but a distant silhouette against Clover's white marble mindscape.

He showed her what he could: a thousand gem chrysalises glittering along the walls, in a rainbow of colors. So many shapes, sizes, textures; so many lives, waiting to be reborn.

The screams faded, faded around them so Clover could hear. Dark forced it, he shaped the dream to reflect what he had seen.

Footsteps approached.

Tap. Tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. The echoing grew louder, and visions of wicked claws filled the air. A thousand eyes opened, and turned to look down upon the gems--and then, one by one, they began to shatter.

Dark swept back down, his shifting black dream-form pierced by those twin green eyes, which blazed as he watched Clover.

Waited for her to understand.

A word seemed to hang in the air, a sense of something, the very idea of moonstone. Then the chrysalises smashed, one by one, the clicking wicked-clawed feet circling, the eyes fixed upon each one. And for every that smashed, another life--no, another soul--was snuffed out forever.

One, by one, by one.

Until there was nothing left.

"I am dying, and I saw it. My magic showed me. I will be gone, soon. This will happen. You need to stop it. Find your peace--and stop it. Please."

________________

@Belladonna

Clover listened to the owl's words with a pale, stricken look on her face. it was a a lie, all a lie, Belladonna was nothing like her. There was no good to that monster that enjoyed using and tormenting all for her amusement. There was no reason, no justification for anything she did, no gain, no reward but mild enjoyment for her. To make peace with devil made her sick to even think about it. Belladonna wasn't anger, she was sadism.

But he was right. Clover didn't know how to protect. She was a kind and patient soul who believed that the world was a good and kind place, and that the matter would resolve itself if she bared her neck to her attacker. If she had others who needed to be kept safe, her ways wouldn't save anyone.

And then she watched what the owl needed to show her, how this monster with claws came to destroy and kill so many unborn souls, and her stricken expression gave way to panic and fear. No, no no no no no, this couldn't happen, this shouldn't happen. She stepped back, shivering as she watched each and every stone break, and she closed her eyes in some feeble sort of way to protect her own gem in her eye socket.

She took deep breaths when the owl asked her to stop it, and she looked back up, her eye so wide. She was afraid, she was terrified, but she said softly, "I will, I promise."

"This is how I speak."

The owl hovered, his dream-wings barely beating. He seemed to move in slow-motion, for a moment, his dark shape shifting and blurring as he struggled to remain alive.

But this anger within him, this determination, kept him there, kept his green gaze locked on the white doe. She was promising to help, and he gave the gentlest of nods; some part of him, at least, was calmed by this.

"It will kill everyone, I think. Warn them. Warn the others. And... good luck. I hope that you find peace."

Peace--for her sake, and for everyone else's. He'd tried to give Leon a fleeting glimpse, too, of what he'd seen, but he didn't know if the bear had gotten his message, or even if he'd understand.

Back in the tunnel, nestled in a hidden crevice near the stairs, the owl's body began to cool. Dark could feel it fading, feel the breathing become too tiring to keep up. Could feel the faint beat of his heart falter as it failed to race as it had been, as the dehydration, the irradiation and the plague took him over. He simply couldn't survive this.

Maybe his gem might have rallied, tried to protect him, but his magic had now been expended in contacting Clover, and Leon, and in viewing the future, in all its forms.

In Clover's dream, he turned and gazed down at her, a faint melancholy washing over him and over the scene as a whole as the shattered chrysalises and the myriad eyes began fading from her sanctum. The anger washed away as the melancholy hit, as the black slid from his wings and left him dusky brown. He was too tired to be furious, anymore. It was time to rest.

There was so much more I still could have done.

Watching Clover, realizing how difficult her struggle must be, daily, he felt something else--pity. He wished he could offer her hope, but he could not.

"I forgive you," he offered--the last gift he could give.

The thought was muted--it was barely there at all.

He wished he could have listened to the stories on her walls.

And then he began to flicker and fade, the shape of an owl becoming nothing at all. He felt himself falling away, leaving her mind, drawn into a nothingness--peaceful, blissful rest. And for an instant, he thought that this room of gilded white wasn't all that bad a last place to have been.

Bevy.

Dark could swear he felt the faintest rustle of feathers at the back of his mind, and he turned, slipping away. He faded completely, leaving Clover alone in her mind. Clover, and Belladonna.

He had left no mark, his dream-shapes fading utterly; no echo of his voice remained.

It was as if the owl had never been there.

________________

@Belladonna ; exit Dark

She watched the owl fade away with his last warning, watched the monster fade away too, and Clover swallowed again, the lump of fear in her throat growing bigger by the second.

And as he faded, the owl said one little thing, one thing she almost missed, and when she heard it, tears pricked her eye, and she couldn't swallow now. Guilt and relief washed over her in waves, one after the other, and she nodded her head and closed her eye.

"Rest in peace, dark one. May you and Bevy sleep and dream sweet, peaceful dreams."

And at the same moment the owl disappeared from her mindscape, her mind was released from his spell and she was jolted back into the waking world. She physically sat up, her fur standing on edge, her mouth slightly open in a gasp, real tears at her eye. She had disturbed the raven that was sleeping in the curl of her body and she flew aways a little bit, her downy feathers disallowing her real flight.

Clover and the raven exchanged a long, silent look between the two of them, Clover with her pure, unfiltered golden eyes, Dia with her red ones, and then Clover stood up in a flash and was running far, far away.

She had to run. She had a purpose, now.
She had to warn the others.

[exit Clover]

"This is how I speak."