Her god, Panoúkla had left her to her own devices. Once more, the plague vector wandered towards her birth cavern, curious about the bacteria hiding in the air and all over. So much potential for death and plague. It made the pale creature just about vibrate from excitement. The bacteria upon Diánysma had been more than happy to root in her flesh and begin to develop upon her. The raven had been practicing her magicks, hoping to hone them better to aid in her god's task. Now, practice made perfect, correct?

She pulled at her stores of magicka. Her stone thrummed in her chest as it glowed a bright crimson, the glow spiderwebbing out. The magicka fed the bacteria upon her body, causing it to duplicate into some sort of a cloud. Clacking her beak and crowing happily at her success at summoning a rather small plume of bacteria. She jumped into it and ruffled her feathers. She was careful not to inhale for a few moments, and then gazed at her back. 'panoúkla, my power grows.' Her god's incarnation would be proud... but somebody else probably wouldn't think much of it.

@Khloros

Khloros was stalking quietly back from Canis, back into the dark, empty cave that had birthed him. He lowered his long, thin neck, his equally slender head--the cheekbones jutting, eye sockets hollow but for the pale glow of his eyes--nosing at the cool, damp floor. The mists seemed to drift, but nothing else; it was empty, as always.

As if nothing was meant to be here.

Yet even as that thought hit him, he realized that it was not true--not this time. There was something in the tunnel ahead; something small, perhaps, but the faint surge of power hit him, drifting to him with the mist. It echoed, it resonated; it was as he was, something sickly and twisting, something buzzing with the strange sense of life that brought death.

In his silent meditations throughout the cave, he had discerned much about the nature of the world, but he had not yet met another like himself. Perhaps this was one: or perhaps it was Origin itself, the tunnel, calling to him. Calling him... home?

Khloros moved forward, the quiet clicks of his hooves the only hint of his coming. His dull, dark coat was streaked with pus and sickness, his ribs and hips jutting out from a nearly skeletal body. He looked as if he were dead, or undead, a walking amalgamation of rot. Really, he simply carried a miasma of disease, of plague. And as he approached, he found himself wondering if this strange, small white bird was the same.

He extended his senses out, like a spider reaching legs into the darkness, toward the stranger that perched on the ground ahead. But he was not close enough, his magic did not entwine with the bird, did not touch it.

Was it sentient? Was it casting this magic, or merely ill? Had the cave cast upon it? Were those caws of joy, or strangled pain? Perhaps she was a Gembound like himself, practicing--or perhaps the cave had caught its prey, and Khloros was witnessing the walls about to feed.

Khloros simply stood, watching in silence at the edge of the darkness, waiting to see what would happen.

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BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Diánysma

The raven cawed out in sheer delight, but then quieted herself. She best not attract those who do not desire plague. Diánysma had quickly determined that the Caves did not normally know plague and disease, so she decided to keep it hidden. She'd allow the disease to fester within her and become deadly. Beady red eyes blinked once as she focused intensely on her feathers, wishing to see the bacteria that she had just spread upon her pale cloak. Slowly, but surely, the familiar crimson glow returned and her back side began to glow with small white dots. They constantly shifted on top of one another, feeding. Excellent. Perfect!

A glaring headache resounded in the Ave's head, and she felt compelled to look one way. Turning her crown to the left, those beady red eyes fell upon something.

The biggest glob of white dots she'd ever seen (in her two days of life).

Extremely excited, the plague vector skittered towards the surging mass of bacteria, tripping over a few stones in the process. Diánysma was too excited by the prospect of plague to care if there was danger present. She ran into a pair of hooves, then peered up. "Plague... it coats you, the raven chirped, "are you one of Panoúkla's progeny?"

After recieving the answer or not, Diánysma ruffled her feathers and gently pecked the skeletal equine's front right leg. "What plague have you created in the name of Panoúkla? May I recieve it?"

@Khloros

So the bird was not only not the cave's meal, but she could speak. Her caws came to his ears like soft but raucous music, and she pecked at his foreleg. He gazed down at her indifferently.

"I have not heard that name," he replied, his words slow and measured as he observed her.

Then she was asking for his plague--his friends...? A strange, brief wave of possessiveness overcame him; it was his plague, not hers. Then, close on its heels, came malice. He could infect her. It might kill her, even. But if she asked for it...? He pushed that thought away, and instead turned, striding quietly to the cavern wall. There he lifted his head, high on the rock, and drew his magic within him like a gathering storm, to exhale some trace of his plague there, for her to see.

She will see the black death. I wonder what she will make of it?

His gift, his disease, came willingly; the bacteria surged forth, coating the wall of the cave, flickering there. They would not last long--if the raven did not take them into herself, he would take them back. They could not survive on stone alone.

He turned his empty, glowing gaze on the white raven, his voice equally hollow as he spoke.

"This is what I bear. I am Khloros."

A flicker of meaning ran through him again at the sound of his own name, the words he had heard whispered in a dozen voices just previous to his birth. A sickly horse, a shadowy steed astride it.

But would the raven know the name? She knew another name, one he hadn't heard, yet somehow, it seemed familiar. Perhaps she would recognize his, as well.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Diánysma

The plagued beast seemed to not know of the god? Panoúkla? This could not be their progeny. Perhaps this was a creature that spread disease of their own volition. But still, she was curious as to why. Were there other gods that tasked their children with starting an epidemic? Impossible! Maybe he was just misguided!

When she requested to see what plagued him, he had stopped and thought for a moment. But then, she could see a small glow from the creature's right side before he leaned against the wall. The raven turned to the wall and hopped onto a rock, clambering onto stones to reach where the great steed of death had laid his head. Her gemstone glowed curiously, and she strained for the white dots that showed bacteria to appear once again. The bleeding heart marking glimmered and she blinked as she saw a surging mass of dots, almost yellowish-green in color, appear on the wall.

It was so fascinating.

"May I take it?" she peeped in curiousity, and upon hearing the name Khloros, she felt oddly connected to the equine. "Diánysma. I am the child of Panoúkla."

@Khloros

The horse simply stared, empty eyes watching the white raven. Something about her name fluttered about in his mind again, something that he liked; he let the thought linger, tasting it there. It was sweet and rich, cloying on the tongue, rancid to some, perhaps, but it was something that belonged to him.

And she wanted his plague. Of course. It was hers to spread; just as she was his, in some sense.

"You may keep it. And spread it. Spread it; it is a gift, to all. It is death." Khloros said this softly, for he knew it was true, and for a moment, the beauty of it danced within his thoughts. Everything rose, and fell, everything a kaleidoscope of color and life and vibrancy and a silent end, and he stood waiting as the darkness fell upon it.

It was a gift.

And then they could return.

He lowered his head to sniff at the floor, thinking. Memories drifted through his mind unbidden: Booker laughing brightly at something just out of his sight, a memory of a whirling wind where the rock was still and silent, a white calf struggling in the mud, bleating in terror at Khloros's approach.

Yes.

"Just don't let it kill you," he added at last, raising his head again to watch the bird.

He simply stood there, staring at her, his empty eyes not even flickering: just a dull, pale glow in the darkness, bereft of anything even remotely resembling the spark of life. Silent, he waited: waited for her to take up his gift, and spread it on ivory wings.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Diánysma

Diánysma blinked once as the skeletal horse spoke softly and spoke of approval. On her pale wings, the disease would be spread. Clacking her beak in delight, the plague vector first willed her gemstone to glow, hoping to summon positive bacteria to aid in keeping the plague isolated and from killing her whilst she hosted it. With the success of that spell, she sent it towards the disease before she began to rub her right side against the wall, gathering as much of the bacteria as she could. For now, she'd keep it safe. The disease would not be in full force, but isolated as long as she was able to hold it at bay and allow it to incubate.

She imagined the spread of the black death. Gembound fallen onto their sides, unable to do anything but slowly die. Her god, Panoúkla gaining power. Only those strong enough to resist the plague would survive. There were many things to resist...

But disease was not one of them.

Once she was satisfied with her work and saw the sickly colors disappear from the wall, she blinked. Diánysma turned to Khloros and bowed her head. "Thank you. Once the plague I bear has developed, I will share it with you." And that was a promise.

@Khloros

Khloros watched, feeling the faint hum and buzz of magic as the raven called forth her own "friends." Her own disease.

Her own plague.

He watched her, silent too, as she took his own, coaxing it into the shell she had created for it: just another egg, ready to grow, to develop.

And, some day, to hatch.

Slowly he clicked forward, then, one hoof tapping and then another. He was going to ask for mercy for one, or for two: specific ones, friends. He lowered his head to gaze into the raven's pale pink eyes, and he stared, ready to ask his question.

But then he remembered the pain that wracked them, from time to time, and he paused. Still he stared at her, but he was thinking: was this not a potential release? Perhaps when Booker was at his worst, the pain in his eye and in his heart destroying him, maybe this would be a release. Perhaps when the strong fire that was Nemesis faltered and failed, and lay wallowing in her own pain--she had fallen once, and died, had she not? And come back.

Perhaps this was a gift to them, too.

And so rather than ask his favor, the black horse left it all up to fate. To chance. That was what he was: fate. But then, was it his place to judge who was to receive it, and who not? To his knowledge, even the small bird ought to be tested. Perhaps this was already her time, though she seemed young, somehow, to him. He tried to gently nudge her, the softest of touches, his pus-smeared muzzle to her pristine ivory feathers. Either she would fall ill, or she would not.

Fate.

He lifted his long thin neck once more, and looked down on the raven, nostrils flaring wide.

"Use it well," was all he rasped, gazing vacantly down at her.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

@Diánysma

The raven bowed, but she recieved no answer. The equine had fallen eerily silent, standing and staring with hollow white eyes. The skeletal horse barely even blinked as his gemstone glowed once again and he bowed his head. She was nudged softly, pus smearing upon her rosy beak. At first, she was a little disgusted... unsure how to react. When he spoke again, she tilted her head and instinctually raised her wing and rubbed the fluid onto her feathers. "Have you... plagued me?" Then it occurred to her.

This great beast... his plague may be more powerful than hers. Diánysma was certainly a lot smaller than the spindly horse. It might be developed more... deadly even. Perhaps... it would be good practice. Blinking once, she shuddered. Hopefully she'd be able to fight it, but for now... she was kind of excited. Cawing once, the plague vector skittered away down the tunnel, away from the diseased horse. 'Panoúkla, I've contracted a new plague,' as she thought, her god replied in her thoughts, 'You are a wonder among the filth, my child, you are a wonder that will grow as your plagues grow.'

She'd cure her own plague and make it stronger... and develop her own to gift to Khloros.

[ exit Diánysma ]

@Khloros

Khloros stood silent, watching the little bird scamper away.

Had he plagued her?

...Yes. But she seemed to have figured that out easily enough on her own.

He tapped along more slowly--hooves clicking against the rock. He was making his way toward Orion. There was little more to do in the situation. She was touched by his disease, his bacteria; either she would die, or she would not.

Fate would decide.

The black horse stepped further along, lowering his head to gently brush his muzzle against a shard of pus-colored stone. Pale green-yellow, like his name.

Khloros.

It was his hatching stone: his egg-shell, shards of a chrysalis long-abandoned, yet he came back, now and again, to visit it.

And now it seemed to speak to him: something about the white raven's presence sparked something within him, something that seemed to echo from the egg.

From all the tunnel around him.

It is time.

________________

BRING OUT YOUR DEAD

exit Khloros