all welcome! uh.. the darker text isn't totally necessary to read... but it would be cool if you did because i enjoyed writing it... :')

Lost somewhere between the waking and the dead, she searched. Her mind was not in the place it belonged; it was a sojourn, a long wander through the sightless dark that consumed her always, and yet here she hadn't even the clue of where she was. Dreams were unreliable that way. She would feel the ground morph beneath her as though it couldn't make up its mind of what it wanted to be. Even and smooth, or dusty, or crooked and rolling like hills, either way its landscape was always some place unfamiliar and un-traversed. Makeshift environments pieced together from her memories to forge something of her dreams not entirely real, a place she'd never been but inherently knew all the same because she'd walked its earthy pits, yet it took her to corners that didn't belong and paths that never once existed in the light.

When she dreamed, she walked for ages. And she heard the voice of ones that had left her behind. Once, Magdalena had told someone that she didn't dream. She hadn't necessarily been lying. Images of the yearned for and the desired had rarely entered her mind because she had very little to yearn for or desire at all. When she was young, her sleep was black and endlessly yawning til she woke again to the roar of the twister or to the prodding of her mentor. When her Fire had been trapped in her chrysalis, she dreamed of her. But the dreaming stopped when she had emerged. For a long time, the dreams hadn't come. But when they did, she found herself reeling in a pathetic attempt to understand what she'd never encountered until now. Dreams of things she couldn't have, but these weren't things she anticipated - like how she anticipated Nemesis' revival. They were dreams of things she had and lost. Dreams of things that only existed in memories. How she hated memories.

That's all they were, those voices. They were memories. A sweet, childish lilt, all at once in pain and reverent and admiring of everything that she was, she associated the voice with a warm skin covered in short, coarse hair. A pulsing feeling. The way her blood pumped through the veins close to the surface of her skin; that feeling, most prevalent, comprised the being that she remembered entirely. She was massive and warm and naive, but most of all she was pulsing, she was alive - but only as far as her dreams. There was a tiny voice that always sounded like it was far away, and it came with a smell that made her stomach turn. With sickness or with desire, she never could tell. Then there was a voice that was low and rumbling. Foreboding. Daring her to come closer, daring her to keep her distance because he knew, he knew how guilty he was, and she felt him prying for her forgiveness but she held it above his head in a compartment in her chest she locked out of cruelty.

As tangible as they felt in her dreams, she knew that they were memories because they only ever repeated the words they'd spoken before. At first she found it charming, these fleeting memories that came to greet her in intimate passing like they were ghosts vying for freedom from the cold earth. Then she found it exhausting. Phrases she'd hear over and over again. Oh, what's it called... Scar, I think. I've a scar, it's big and not very pretty to look at but in all, it's not so bad. And then Magdalena would smile and repeat the same thing she'd said in response every time, A seamless skin makes for dull topography. And she would hear a laugh and a cluttering of hooves, and the phantom would morph into something else and it would take the conversation with it, Okay well... You'll be able to keep up? Or should I walk slowly, And her heart would darken because she knew what she'd done.

Sometimes she wondered what it would be like if she could find those phantoms. If she could ever feel their dreams. If she could know somehow what they were thinking and feeling, if they dreamed of her; was she just a recording, just a feeling deep in the recess of their mind too? Just an afterthought of something they'd seen long ago? But she knew the longer she craved, the madder she would become. She tried not to dwell on it for long, but the dreams continued to plague her as she sought warmth against the side of her Fire, unwilling to leave her since that accident. Until tonight.

Sometimes... I get nightmares and it makes sleeping difficult but it's gotten better, I think. As long as I distract myself with thoughts of good things, it's not as bad. The voice came back again through the darkness, somewhere behind her. The mist and the aether made her cold. She turned her head slightly, but as soon as she did she plunged into icy awareness. Struggling. Her chest tightened because she knew what was coming next. It was always the same thing, the same manifestation of her fear and dread and disdain, she hated it because it was right, she hated it because it was what she remembered the most, it was what haunted her. It was the core of all these hallucinations and fever dreams. If she could just stop it before it spoke again - if she could cut it off - but suddenly she was drowning like when Eeya had lost her in the river. She was sputtering and clamoring for relief, the water filled her lungs, and she threw her head towards the light. Breaking the surface. Too late.

Do you get nightmares?

Magdalena jolted awake. Her nerves had all at once electrocuted her to life, peeling those useless straw eyes open to behold nothing but blackness. The warmth of the rhino at her side bled into her back, but she barely felt it beyond a cold sweat that had started from her paw pads. Magdalena sucked in a strangled breath, whistling through her dry lungs before she coughed and cleared her throat of phlegm. Her heart palpitated inside its cage. She had to get up. Had to move. Without a second thought, Magdalena rose and parted from the rhino. She fumbled her way towards the entrance of the den, her limbs still tired with want of sleep. The twister raged eternally ahead of her, guiding her with its tugging winds along the edge of the rocky outcropping until she had distanced herself from the den. Her shoulder followed the wall, each step calculated, though hesitant. For a moment, she entertained the idea of visiting Louie and the growing shards, but just as quickly dispelled that thought. She'd rather be alone.

She traveled the pathway along the platforms until it had led her to a few ledges above the ground. The pull of the twister wasn't as strong here. Magdalena's legs shook and she stared into nothingness, wondering how many steps away she had stood when Delphine had come to visit her. Then, she slowly reclined to her haunches. There was sickness smoldering inside of her. She swallowed the urge to vomit.

The young cub was strong and was already developing an intimate knowledge of the cavern world into which he had been born. He had found himself going farther and farther afield, though he grew anxious if his charges were left unguarded for too long.

Always the shadows seemed to cloak his form, his passage silent as death, his shadow the only companion he had. He was strong, and growing stronger everyday, managing to go a bit farther each day, drinking in the knowledge of the world around him, as if he were dying of thirst.

This was his purpose, yet he didn't know why it was his purpose. Often when at day's end he would come home after his peregrinations, he would dream, strange dreams. They were filled with horror and fear.

He could smell blood in the air, taste it in his mouth, the hot iron and what was more terrifying was that the him in the dream enjoyed it, relished it, hungered for it. He watched helplessly as his dream self, night after night, slew innocent creatures, no mercy or remorse ever crossing his mind.

When he woke, he realized he had wept in his slumber and would cry, for he knew not who the demon of his dreams was, only that on some level he knew that it was him, though that wasn't possible because he had been born not long ago, but even if that were true, to whom did the memories belong?

Each night, the nightmares grew worse, and what's more, he became used to it, slowly becoming desensitized. For whilst he watched the demon's slaughter he himself was caged in the darkness that he, ironically, found comforting. He could not move, could not cry out for the innocents to run.

No matter how hard he tried, his voice could not reach them, his strength was never enough, but it was his body committing the atrocities, though he never stopped fighting, he could never best the demon. Yet of late something new had come into his nightmares, a light of sorts, blinding and brilliant, warm and soothing. It stopped the demon in its tracks, trapping it in the warm embrace.

He felt his voice come back and when the light touched him, he all but wept, he did not deserve the kindness of the light, he didn't want it, though he could not stop the demon, it was his body that had committed these atrocities, because he had been too weak to stop it.

Yet despite shying away from the light, it continued to embrace him, his heart filled with anguish and pain and he relived every single death the demon had wrought, and always the voice of the light.

"You are not at fault child, I have watched you valiantly try to stop this demon, yet there is no denying that it is you who must bear the punishment for him, for he has not physical body. For now you will sleep, and when the time comes, you will awaken to atone for a demon's sins. This is the most merciful punishment, though it should never have been yours to bear. For the sins of him, you will watch over lives yet not born, you will guard them, and you will lay down your life if that is what it takes. For every life that was taken, you will protect another life that has yet to be given. You will be an Eternal Guardian, you will not know rest until this task is done. For now sleep, rest until I call you, but know it will not be a peaceful slumber. Those whom the demon has angered are not kind, and this is all the mercy I can give to you, please know that I wish it could have been another way, for you do not deserve this. For now sleep in darkness, and heed my call that will awaken you."

He often mulled over her words not understanding what it all meant, though he was shocked from his reverie when he came upon another canid. Keeping to the shadows he looked at the sad figure and wondered what happened in her life to give her eyes all the sadness of all the ages.

She didn't know how long she had been sitting there for. The night could have come and gone for all she knew; she couldn't see the way the lights dimmed and brightened with each daily passing, she couldn't tell when it was supposed to be night and day, and she had lost track of time stagnant in the suspension of her dreaming mind. It had dared to bring back to the voices that lived in her dreams, and only there; she wasn't sure if they were still alive or just ghosts. She dwelled on them. And then she hated that she dwelled, so she pushed the voices away until all she could hear was the festering silence and the dull roar of the twister, turning, rushing, breathing, one of her last lingering constants. And even that was unreliable. It had vanished once on her. Everything had to vanish at least once. There was no telling whether or not it would come back.

The silence too was short lived. Pawsteps through the dust had brought her back to life. Her skin crawled at the sound, but that was the only visible evidence of her notice. Otherwise, she was still. Her nose still pointed forward, her blind eyes staring down her muzzle into the shade of a flawed and distant gaze. She listened to him as he stepped in from somewhere unknown, and she only knew that it was a him from his scent. The twister had taken it and whipped it around them, and now she was bathed in the knowledge of his arrival, whoever he was, where ever he had come from.

Idly, she wondered if he too would come and go. Maybe he would slink along the wall and eye her like she was some carnival freak on display, a sightless hound staring wistful into the air embellished in rumors that she could see the dead, or phantoms, which she did; entrenched in fanciful myth that she was an ethereal angel, when she was no more than a fragile paper crane. But he didn't move on. He lingered. She could feel him still, the pull of his internal fauna wrestling with the sickness that yearned for release from her gut. The war raged for a couple seconds as she isolated the direction he stood, but once she knew where he was, her head turned abruptly towards him. Those blind, yellow eyes lingered just left of the stranger. There, she wasted in silence for seconds longer. Seconds that stretched on like years. An eternity spent in stripping him down to the basal bacteria that coursed beneath his skin. "Finis originae pende." Magdalena whispered suddenly, widening her eyes.

She didn't know this one, but maybe someone else did.

@Zephyr Bloodking

She saw him, though when he looked closer he realized she was not looking directly at her, rather she was looking slightly passed him. His eyes widened slightly with the realization that she was blind. Yet even blind she still had a look of such profound sadness.

He then realized that she had used magic, though of what nature he could not be sure, instinct took over as he felt his will to live take over. He looked around and tried to sense any sort of change in the environment, though if there was one he didn't know it, so rather than panic, he took a deep breath and turned his eyes back to the canine before him.

"Finis originae pende," were the words she whispered, though they were in a language he did not understand.

"Are you alright ma'am?" he rumbled padding from his place amidst the shadows and stones.

The silence suspended between them for a few moments more, and then his voice broke it. It was juvenile, but deep. Had it not the prepubescent strands of youth woven into his words, she would have thought him older, wiser, damaged but well-intentioned. Instead, she was met with but a curious, shallow child; at least, in her eyes. Her folded ears lifted ever so slightly, enough to tune into the sound of his paws shuffling against the dusty ground. She stared at him still, keeping her nose trained in his direction while she acknowledged his scent - dusty, just like everything else. Stale. He hadn't come from Eridanus or Cetus, that much she could tell. After a moment of considering his words, she turned her head away, settling her gaze on some distant blackness just ahead of her.

"You shouldn't be here." The canine uttered finally. Her deadened voice barely above a whisper was hoarse and clotted as though steel wool was lodged somewhere in her throat. It was devoid of any feeling for now; of warning, of worry, of threat. But her words rang true. This was territory of the Merrymen, and she knew that if somebody else had encountered the young wolf they'd have driven him away or tangled themselves up in a fight by now. Merrymen territory was sacred ground; the home of their treasures, their plans, their secrets, their lies. "You might be burgled." She added, but this time her voice had sort of a detached, lofty humor behind it that sounded like it didn't belong. Or killed. It was true: this was a dangerous place for the youth to be.

Her latest joke had brought the ghost of a smile to her lips. The expression felt alien, and it too had fallen away into the blank slate that usually occupied her features. How much convincing would it take for him to leave? The last thing she needed was somebody snooping around her business, discovering her monsters gestating under Louie's watchful eye, the hybrid rhino under her and Nemesis' care. Another child for her to fall in love with. Another child to leave her behind. This time, she frowned.

The young wolf heard her voice and was not shocked to find that it sounded as if it came from a corpse. Though why she sounded like that was something that filled him with sadness, why did she look so lost and heartbroken? Was she looking for someone? Had she lost someone who meant the world to her, and then when they were gone, her world vanished too?

He knew nothing of any Merrymen, nor of the other groups that were well known through the caves, he only cared for what he believed was his job, and his wanderings, the ever present desire to go out and find something, something that could teach him something. Yet she was telling him to go, and though the youngling in him rebelled against her words, the old soul in him was telling him something very different.

Who was this she dog? Why tell him to leave? If she was telling him to leave, it was not necessarily that she wanted him gone, but someone else did, she also gave him a consequence of what happened if he were to stay. He did not fear pain, his nightmares had seen to that, yet in her voice he heard a kind of pride behind an unspoken threat.

If he stayed there was no promise that he would not be killed, warnings came about because something happened again and again to warrant them, meaning this was not the first time an intruder had come here. And who would be most likely to give out warnings but someone who belonged somewhere, she was a part of a group, though what group he knew not, yet she had warned him, why?

The hollowness in her voice, spoke of a pain, a kind of pain one only felt when they had suffered loss, and her loss was different that when someone had lost a mate, no she had lost something else entirely. She had lost a child.

All of this went through his head as he looked in her eyes knowing that though she might be able to see she was looking at him too, and yet he would allow curiosity to get the better of him, if only so he might be able to hear a new story. "Who is going to burgle me?"

Staring into space, she had almost forgotten that she was frowning, or sitting before a stranger that she was trying to dissuade from entering her home. Her memories had slowly lifted to the forefront of her mind and were beginning to distract her, and she was thankful for his voice again, ripping her from the depths of remembrance. When it came, the eyes that had grown distant suddenly snapped back to reality and as she mulled over his words, she found the frown flickering back into a small smile. "The ones that live here." The dog answered wisely, and there was a stirring in her chest, her lungs. A tickle. She dismissed it for now. "Why, they will gobble you up without even asking who you are. You don't want that, do you?" Magdalena's eyes snapped back to him, still lacking much else of an emotion on her face; even the smile had faded again, changing hands in rapid succession as the dog stagnated, unable to decide what his fate should be for asking so many questions.

Being the little spy that she was the mongoose sat in the shadows, waiting. It wasn't like she intended to stop and spy it just happened that way, especially after she heard Magdalena building him up with tales of the dreaded Merrymen. She had to admit that she liked how the blind one was doing this... Building him up with fear of the dangerous creatures within. A smile formed on the tiny queen's face. Yes. She could work with this.

The red meerkat pulled her dagger-sword from the vine belt at her waste and began to walk forward, slowly and steadily towards the pup. Her pawsteps were even, quiet, no one not even the blind dog would hear her. She had many cycles of practice under her belt which allowed her to keep from stirring up dust and dragging her long claws across the ground. Like the silent owl she descended and on the last few feet she ever so carefully slid her free paw behind his head while the dagger-sword rose up to sit at his jugular. The blade was done in such a way that if he moved she would easily be able to slit his throat. The queen gave a maddened laugh --a purposeful one, mind you, a queen has to be sane to hold a position like hers-- and then said, "Reveal thy purpose or I'll slit your throat and gobble you up." Then she laughed again, breath stirring the fur around the pup's ear.


____________________________________________________________________

"Talking looks like this!"
Thinking looks like this...

---
Magsie, Zephyr
I... I just had to... I'm sorry XD
6/10

Zephyr was painfully well aware of the weasel coming up to him if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was how to be aware of his surroundings. The mongoose queen assumed he was scared, the sad truth was, he wasn't, in fact he really just curious. He had never heard of anything close to the Merry Men, he just knew what he had seen in his wanderings.

The wolf turned his head slightly, fully aware of the dagger but feeling no fear, the young cub was a strange one indeed. "I am a guardian, nothing more, nothing less. I wander here and there when the wanderlust takes me as is its modus operandi, I know not who you are, nor why you feel the need to sneak up on me from behind like a coward."

"You are quiet when you move, and you know how to handle that weapon, you have done this sort of thing before," motioning toward Magdalena, "she knows where I am at all times, which means she could probably sense you or at the very least knows you are here."

"Typically someone your size would not take the prey of someone her size, yet you show no fear, so you are a in position of power, a power you are confident in, so this would indicate you have held that position for some time. I will guess based on your method of approach that you frequently make it a habit of sneaking and hiding, you are skilled enough to avoid her detection, meaning you have a lot of practice. So that all leads me to believe that you are a thief, a queen of thieves."

His scarlet eyes did not leave the mongoose's gaze, he did not fear death, he did not fear the dagger at his throat, the things he feared were something born from hell, and this weasel was far from the demons of his nightmares.

"I have no purpose here, I know not who you are, nor what group you reign over, I was just passing through, if that is a problem, I apologize. I'm new to the area and not familiar with the terriotiral politics. I mean you nor your group any harm, I was on my way home and thought this might get me home faster, I won't make that mistake again. So that being said would you be so kind as to take the blade away from my throat and then I can continue on my way, and we need never meet again."

She waited patiently for the wolf's response, quite honestly rather curious. He didn't seem too put off by her warnings. More curious than anything, and she hadn't yet decided if this was foolish of him or cunning. If he truly was as smart as he acted, then he was playing a dangerous game in his attempt to glean more information on the Merrymen. He would have to be careful so as to not incite her wrath, or the wrath of her groupmates should they be lurking nearby. She was intent on watching his next move - in a figure of speaking, considering she couldn't really see anything - but it was already too late. The next thing she knew, she heard the shuffling of paws and a slick voice easing into the air like a toxic grease, tainting everything that it touched. Sure enough, Diamondfang had heard Magdalena's subtle threat and rode it out in her sneaky advance on the wolf. By her wording, she had to assume Fang had brought her dagger with her.

Magdalena was quiet; there was no change in expression as she listened to the exchange. The wolf suddenly plunged into some idle diatribe and Magdalena's very existence shifted into patient, if intrigued stasis, listening closely to his observations. First, he delivered his purpose as requested: that he was a guardian, to which Magdalena had to resist responding right off the bat, and then accused Diamondfang of being a coward. He described an analysis of Diamondfang's approach, which Magdalena had to admit was fairly on point. She'd known Diamondfang long enough to identify her as a sneak, a thief, a quiet walker and an opportunist. But she wasn't a coward, and now she was wondering how the mongoose was going to respond to this.

He went on, claiming that Magdalena had probably known where Diamondfang was during her approach. In truth, Magdalena had not anticipated the mongoose's arrival. She'd been foolishly sucked into her intrigue with the boy, too distracted to listen for the betrayal of scuffling on the ground or the telltale pull of Diamondfang's bacterial culture. Magdalena didn't bother to correct him. For all intents and purposes, he was right; she could have detected Diamondfang if she'd been searching. Then he went on about prey, and approach, and determining that she was a thief - she would have liked to say that her attention began to wane at this point, but in all honesty, she was still listening attentively to his vocal assessment of the situation. Finally, he admitted his lack of purpose and that he didn't know who they were - duh-doy - and attempted to plead his way out of here, claiming he didn't know where he was and didn't intend to trespass. Only, that wasn't the reason they had ensnared him here. At least, that wasn't Magdalena's reason. She didn't care about trespassing. She only cared about blood.

Eventually they were met with silence, thankful, blissful silence, and Magdalena turned her attention to Diamondfang. Her eyes didn't move between their bodies, but her focus, this was a tangible, noticeable shift. She begged to reach out to the mongoose, to say quietly, the boy talks too much, you should kill him before he becomes an annoyance, but ultimately it was Diamondfang's decision. Instead, Magdalena stretched thin a quiet simmering silence before uttering a gentle and flighty hum.

"The boy's tirade has made me hungry."

No more than a whisper in the quiet. The drop of a heavy pin in stillness.

@Diamondfang