The thin black horse was picking his way carefully along the tunnel. This place was not meant for horses; it was blocks of sheer ice, thick snow, and at an angle that made it very hard to walk. He was moving very, very slowly, pausing often, sniffing over the ice.

His intention was to head up, far, to the distant warmth he could sense quite a ways away. He wasn't sure what was up there--he had never heard of Fornax--but his intention was to spread death everywhere that he could.

The pale, thick-furred rat that scrambled past him, squeaking, chose a poor time for it. He slammed a hoof down, trying to pin it by the tail, but it raced past and beneath an overhanging ledge of ice. Khloros, more like a predator than prey, gave chase--a few swift, echoing hoofbeats cracked through the air, and then he was sniffing, snorting and pawing beneath it.

His diseased coat dripped with pus, the open wounds seemingly not harming him but rather a natural part of his strange anatomy. His ghostlight eyes lent an eerie glow to the darkness beneath the ice ledge--where the rat squeaked in fear, cowering away.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

((ooc - ramifications... get it? 'cause ram? hahaaa... @Aries ))

we burn the brightest

in the dark

There had been whispers of something horrible festering through out the caves. The pools in Pisces had turned foul and sickened rats plagued others with a mysterious illness. Aries had been mindful to avoid the vectors, pus-filled buboes weren't great for his majestic splendor. Still, the ram felt uneasy about the origin of this disease. He may not know much about prokaryotic magick, but the frightening proficiency of which it spreads gave him a sneaking suspicion that it maybe intentional. Whoever was doing this knew their magick.

Aries had come from Pisces' chilled entrance. He was headed to back home to Orion after his stay in Polaris for awhile. Leaving the Spire's energized cavern made his coat feel heavier and muscles duller. The ram hoped he would adjust to the drop in magicka soon because it was nagging him.

Aries had put his worries about the plagued lesser aside during his time in Polaris. As a matter of fact he would have forgotten about the entire ordeal completely if he had not come across Khloros. The foul stench of malady lingered in the air like a sour, miasmic cloud. Aries crinkled his nose in disgusted. What--what is that smell? As he ascended up the icy terrain, the stench grew stronger. His thoughts flashed back to rats he had seen. All of them reeked like this.

It wasn't long before he came upon the source, a gaunt, ashen horse, his skin horribly diseased.

Aries stopped dead in his tracks. Silently, he watch him chase a rat into an overhang. The ram tensed. He wasn't sure what to make of this scene. He couldn't believe this gembound was still alive. What's with the rat? Could he... no.. he's--he's just really sick..

The ram swallowed his shock and approached, but unable to hide his disturbed expression.

"Are you.. okay?" He asked. Cautiously, he took another step forward. "Do you need a healer?"

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Khloros // OOC: Ha! what an infectious pun

Khloros paused at the sound of the voice behind him, eyes locked on the rat bristling and baring long incisors at him from beneath the ice. At length, however, he pushed up from his knees--leaving it cowering, and turning to slowly face Aries.

The creature was aesthetically handsome: powerful, well-built, and healthy. Khloros had no reason to be particularly hostile--and so, in his detached way, he simply told the truth.

"Your offer is kind... but this sickness is a mercy. Death brings its gift of ending to the hell-cycles of the caves," he rasped. His voice was hollow, echoing on its own much like the wind would reverberate through these icy tunnels. It was quite distinctly unnatural. "But no, I do not need a mender. I am Khloros, and I carry death. I am not ill."

He watched Aries indifferently with his ghostlight eyes. Now the ram knew who and what he was; some had already offered to join him after hearing, and some grew hostile, or even fearful. He waited, silent, to see which it would be.

It wasn't lost on him that should the ram attack him, it looked far better suited to this terrain than he.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Aries

we burn the brightest

in the dark

Ending the Hell-Cycles?

Khloros' eerie voice rang in his ears. Aries' expression was a mixture of confusion and concern. He wondered what he just walked in on. Had the sickness ate away his brain? No, Khloros seemed coherent enough. It was obvious, this horse was no ordinary Gembound, and for once, Aries wished his hunch wasn't right.

It did not take long for Aries to connect the dots. He watched Khloros try to catch a rat. He's trying to infect them. A shiver went down his spine. So they can infect us... Aries stood firm, careful not to let his uneasiness show. He glanced over to where the rat had hid. "You.. the rats..." Aries fixed his golden gaze back on Khloros. "All of this sickness, that's you?" The ram furrowed his brow, giving Khloros a convicting glare. "You confess to this?"

He wanted to hear a definite answer. If Khloros was trying to kill everyone in this cave, then he had to stop him.

"Listen to me."
Thoughts...

TAG: @Khloros // OOC:

Khloros watched him. He watched the ram's realization hit, watched the morality flicker over his face. Though he was detached, aloof, he still felt a certain pity for Aries. A sympathy. And briefly, he wondered if perhaps he were not wrong; if perhaps Louie had infected him, long ago, with both disease and with death.

But no.

He had carried death since his hatching; he had known since his birth.

"Yes," he rasped simply, before adding--"Death is a release from the pain that would come. A mercy."

Then he fell silent. It was not his way to give impassioned speeches, to try and sway the ram; he simply did what he was meant to do, and that was that. He might have tried to manipulate him, but at the moment, it did not occur to him. The creature before him seemed straightforward and, he felt, its actions would be too.

Will it join me, or attack? Will it follow, flee? I wonder.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Aries

Aries gave snort of disgust, smoke trailed from his nostrils. "For the mortally wounded, maybe..." His golden eyes burned like spell fire, and his voice, it was just as passionate. "But to those very much alive, death is cruel."

The ram jumped down from his ledge and trotted up to the plagued horse. He held his head high, displaying his impressive horns, as he turned his body to the side, eyes still locked on Khloros, and carefully strode back and forth. Aries made no attempt to hide it, he was sizing the horse up.

"Khloros," The ram announced, standing valiantly before him. "I am Aries, Defender of the Weak, and if I can't change your mind, Aries lowed his neck. Pointing his large, curling horns at Khloros, he pawed at the ice. "Then on behalf of the caves, I must stop you. It was a clear threat.



"speak!"

@Khloros


OOC: Lmao! I was writing this I just realized..

Khloros watched the ram move, watched it squaring up, lowering its horns. It was impressively healthy, large. With a soft snort through his nostrils he slowly turned to face it.

"We are all dying. Dying, trapped here, only to be birthed again from stone. Do you not remember..? Have you not seen the homes of stone, the throne, the tower? Have you not seen the fortresses of bones we must have once made, in a final desperate stand to survive..? A fort of the bones of the already-dead. This cycle will wind to a close and we will suffer and die, only to be born again. Unless," he added in his weak rasp, "we end it now. Or rebel, and kill those who hold the whips and the collars. Tell me, sheep... Are you strong enough to do this? To kill those who you call, friend? Or will you serve?" In Khloros's mind, the implications of this last, were clear: the Gembound of the caves would need to kill either one another, or those who claimed to "protect" them, in order to break free of this cycle at last.

Of course, the cycle was likely all in the plagued horse's mind. He had seen evidence, but the conclusions he had come to... they were a leap of logic, at best.

His misguided monologue complete, he shook his mane out, bits of pus and gore splattering to either side.

"If you feel you must stop me," he said calmly, almost gently, "then do so."

Those with the willingness to stand up for what they believed in--and for the weak--deserved respect.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

((ooc - does this make Khloros an anime villain..?!))
@Aries

Aries closed his eyes and sighed, shaking his head. This horse was more sick than he thought, yet still strangely coherent. Aries hated to admit it, but some of Khloros said made since. He just did not agree with the whole 'killing and betraying part'. This horse was demented, sick and twisted. He spoke of ending the 'Cycle', to destroy young and old with his concocted contagion. Khloros seemed hell bent on killing them all and Aries severely doubted that anything he could say would sway him.

Perhaps his disease had eaten away his brain after all.

Aries paused as he glared down at the diseased horse. Abhorrence and contemptment swirled in his burning gaze, but there was also sadness. If Khloros could not be reasoned with, then what would become of the rail-thin horse? Aries shuddered at the thought of snuffing out another Gembound's life. He wasn't sure if could handle that kind of blood on his hooves, even if they were trying to end every life in the cave. The ram looked at the oozing sores on the horse's body and felt himself grow cold. He knew if he engaged Khloros, he would walk away from this as sick as the rats he infected, if he walked away at all.

You wanted to be a hero, Aries, a savior...

A voice rang in his head.

Sometimes... heroes need to make sacrifices.

He stood tall and steadfast in the face of Khloros' monologue. His mind had been made up long ago. He promised defend those who could not defend themselves. In the event that Khloros spoke the truth, Aries' promise still rang true, even if it put him on the side of "whips and collars".

His voice was solemn.
"...So be it."

Suddenly, the ram snorted and pawed at the ice. Aries lowered his skull, and in a blitz, he flung himself off the ledge and towards Khloros. His aim was to butt the horse, perhaps he would slip on the ice.

"speak!"

@Khloros
OOC: Ha! I guess so!

Round: 1/7
Attempt: Give Khloros a classic ramming
Defense: none
Injuries: none

Khloros jerked to one side, hooves skittering and clattering on ice, but the ram's slam still struck. It wasn't full-on, at least, so he didn't fly back in a tangle of broken ribs, but he still stumbled and slid hard across the ice on his back, a shrill, shrieking neigh echoing out like the cry of a banshee.

Black legs flailed in the air, and he knew the ram would immediately follow up, unless he stopped it. Immediately, he called upon the upwelling of his magicka within him.

Serve me, as I serve you.

In an attempt to give the ram pause--perhaps even do him some damage--Khloros summoned a blind, powerful energy into the viral life within the room. His intention was to rapidly sicken Aries; but he had no idea how effective it might be.

Hopefully it would give him time, at least, to get to his feet.

He did not want to think of the damage those horns might do if he failed. But then, he did not fear death: he carried it. He feared only for the others stuck within the cycles.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

Round: 1/7
Attempt: Sicken Aries
Defense: None
Injuries: Horn-thumped

((ooc - are we still doing phrasing? ... @Aries ))

As Kholoros' spell went to work, the ram's boisterous strides degraded into sluggish movements and his coat dulled as he dragged his head. Suddenly, Aries did not feel so well. He felt dizzy, he sweated while he shivered. Suddenly, he was sent into a violent coughing fit, his throat felt like it had been skinned alive.

Determined not to let this stop him, he shook his head and tried to focus on Kholoros. Snot and saliva drippled sickly from his nose and mouth, and his eyes were sunken, but that did not smother the fire burning within them. As a matter of fact, they burned brighter.

"This.. will not stop me!" He rasped.

With a brazen snort, fire flared from his nostrils like a dragon. He summoned heat to his extremities, making his horns and hooves glow brightly with internal fire. Aries lunged forward to deliver fiery blows on Khloros' hide in a heated flurry of hooves.

"speak!"

@Khloros
Round: 2/7
Attempt: a beat down but with hot irons for hooves
Defense: None
Injuries: Sickened