Cities By Shadow
Oct. 2nd, 2013 03:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lady_elfleda in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
birthright_rpgThere was a shadow flowing across glass... A dark, perfectly smooth surface, flush with trapped faces of agony pressed tightly against it. Whether sculpted that way or rendered so in paralytic contortion, was not for mortal mind to know. The presence willing its way across the room, from one end to the other; hunting, searching for something, as the floor beneath it darkened yet further. Glimpses from another realm filtering through the murk.
There... It wanted to go there...
A place of the living, no longer fully claimed by the dark. Merely looked back upon with envious desires. She understood that. Elfleda. Bride to that which laid... Beyond. And it was she whose emergence was made without fanfare, like a silky-smooth handkerchief falling in silence.
Nor, here, was her chosen attire that which others might be more accustomed to viewing of her depiction. No black dress here, nor pale complexion seen. Instead, there stood a teenage girl. Pretty, yes. Diabolical, likely not. Her choice of clothing something more conventional. The tone of her skin, relatively healthy. Eyes no longer inky pools of black, but perfectly normal.
White... That part was a deliberate mockery. A challenge, almost. A veiled insult to the forces she stood against.
But it was not geography which brought her here. It was the girl. Elfleda's usual unseen cloud of spiritual filth now held tightly against her for reasons of stealth. Reined in, so that erstwhile shivers up spines would not alert others to the arrival of one such as she.
"Hello," she said in greeting. Here, spoken like anyone else. Not the half-telepathic tease she gave to most others. Just a voice. Yet, one still spoken in that same clear-cut, educated English accent. "I'm sorry, have we... Met? You seem somewhat familiar..."
There... It wanted to go there...
A place of the living, no longer fully claimed by the dark. Merely looked back upon with envious desires. She understood that. Elfleda. Bride to that which laid... Beyond. And it was she whose emergence was made without fanfare, like a silky-smooth handkerchief falling in silence.
Nor, here, was her chosen attire that which others might be more accustomed to viewing of her depiction. No black dress here, nor pale complexion seen. Instead, there stood a teenage girl. Pretty, yes. Diabolical, likely not. Her choice of clothing something more conventional. The tone of her skin, relatively healthy. Eyes no longer inky pools of black, but perfectly normal.
White... That part was a deliberate mockery. A challenge, almost. A veiled insult to the forces she stood against.
But it was not geography which brought her here. It was the girl. Elfleda's usual unseen cloud of spiritual filth now held tightly against her for reasons of stealth. Reined in, so that erstwhile shivers up spines would not alert others to the arrival of one such as she.
"Hello," she said in greeting. Here, spoken like anyone else. Not the half-telepathic tease she gave to most others. Just a voice. Yet, one still spoken in that same clear-cut, educated English accent. "I'm sorry, have we... Met? You seem somewhat familiar..."
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on 2013-10-26 02:21 am (UTC)A realm of shadows, indeed. Elfleda seemed often to mentally swim within a sea of them. Ambiguity her weapon of choice with a flavouring of subtle inversions.
"A taste of what you are," she supplied of her sensual technique. This time, more of a calculating implication behind it. "Of what it means to be... In touch with oneself."
A truthful eel... At once, seemingly honest and yet slippery. Perhaps treacherously so. Maybe the girl was right to wonder why she should have drawn the attentions of a creature who could command even physical contact from afar. One who claimed to speak on behalf of powers greater than she.
"I relish potential, Miss Vause... And a Slayer's is considerable. To wrong ourselves with the illusion of captivity - to deny ourselves the capacity of change, of alteration - is the gravest possible sin... One which pleases me to find so many willing to rise above."
Interesting to hear a being such as this speak of its philosophical definitions of sin, but there were hints, too, that she seemed not to view the entirety of humanity as a lost cause. Elfleda tilting head as she closed the distance a little more. Black orbs closing as she breathed in Valerie's scent with the look of viper savouring the body heat of paralysed rabbit, then re-opening tto glance back upon the girl with a somehow kindly expression.
"Who I visit... When... Where... How... Is not for you to know." No fingers weaved their way into the blonde's palm, but from brunette could be felt the spontaneously materialising gift of an impossibly jet black stone. One as smooth as glass to the touch and willingly given over. "But should you seek me, all I ask..." A smile. "Is that you pray."
From behind her, a world of infinite horrors opened up. Unseen, unheard, but veiled behind the darkness. One could simply feel its existened laying there. An odd concoction of temperatures, both extreme cold and heat, being sensed as the swirly, gaseous blackness stretched open like a newborn ready to engulf its Mistress of damnation upon her whim. 'Beth' beginning to slowly glide back into its maw.
no subject
on 2013-10-26 03:31 am (UTC)Colour her confused but technically she already had a destiny. Currently one which she worked hard at maintaining. Valerie tried to remind herself that she didn’t even know who she was dealing with, the words from the girl’s lips were hearsay at best and outright lies at worst. Regardless they shouldn’t matter at all. So why hadn’t the blonde walked away? Why did she stand there and listen to words she knew were designed to keep her guessing? The dark essence within her had created an almost tangible sense of kinship with Beth, it called to her the way an infant would a relative.
“Are you saying I can do that too?”
A taste of what she was… Valerie’s thoughts instantly went to the cause behind her abilities, her calling. The very thing that responded to the girl in front of her. The demon playing word games. Honestly it was a lot to take in. Yes, she might have, at times, felt like she was in captivity, but that didn’t mean she wanted to rip out her tracker and make a break for it. That would be suicide.
The way Beth drew in her scent reminded Valerie of Sabra. What was with the flux of seriously powerful demons? What were the chances of someone actually meeting two in a year, let alone in a few months? Valerie felt the object in her palm, uncurled her fingers and gazed at the small impossibly dark stone. The kind of darkness that never ended, just absorbed light like it never existed. Valerie’s thumb smoothed across the surface as she contemplated Beth’s choice of words. Sin and Pray both held religious notes, which contrary to popular horror movies, wasn’t uncommon with certain kinds of demons. Religions it seemed knew no boundaries.
“Who do I pray too, you never gave me your real name.”
Valerie might not have had any desires to pray to anyone right then, but curiosity demanded she ask all the same.
no subject
on 2013-10-26 03:56 am (UTC)Valerie's assumptions did not always lead to truth, however - and neither did the being before her elect to reveal she was no demoness. Was something different, altogether. Had always been something different. Something which had flowed to another's rhythm for a very long time.
"Names are not required, only my face... Only me."
Even as she revealed the secret of summoning, so did that walking contradiction of zebra-like monochromes steadily immerse herself in the blanketing swirl from behind, swallowing her in like a butter-soaked skeletal fish. One only had to think upon her essence and, using that imparted beacon of black stone, the Corruptress would come. That gateway between worlds now sealing shut with the distinct aroma of burning sulfur.
Compelling her to leave? Now, there would be a different matter...