wotanon | Dreamers After Dark (VII)

[ You open your eyes to darkness.

It presses in at your senses, thick, muffling, your heartbeat loud in your ears. It seems hard to move-- hard to breathe-- and for a long, panic-inducing second, it seems like it might constrict you entirely,

and then your eyes adjust.

It's dark, certainly, but in the distance you can see dim city lights, hear dim city noises. The moon is bright and full, edging the plants in the park around you with pale blue light, faint illumination in the empty spaces where lamps seem to have burnt out. The air is crisp and clear and a little chilled in your lungs, and you're... hungry. Or something. There's a pull, somewhere in the pit of your stomach, but to what?

Somewhere nearby, but not close enough to pinpoint, you catch a whiff of iron tang on the breeze. ]

Edited 2021-01-20 18:14 (UTC)

[Even when her eyes focus, Glory remains tense and wary, looking around her surroundings carefully.]

[ Your eyes cast around, and are drawn to the heavy shadows beneath the clustered trees, some meters away; you can hear the muffled crunch of something being broken.

A pair of yellow eyes blink into existence, staring at you.

The scent is stronger now; the familiar smell of blood, yes, but also something smoky, damp ashes and wood, that is strangely alluring. ]

[Glory locks eyes with the thing, and begins to approach, her movements silent and deliberate, her hand hovering by her side.]

[ The eye-shine lowers and bobs up higher, and closer, with a heavy thud of some large footsteps under it, muffled slightly by the dirt and grass.

It seems to melt out of the darkness, snout long and thick and full of teeth, muscular body covered by thick skin and thicker scales, layered like armor.

And, eyes still locked on you, with a great heave it lurches forward with a roar, those jaws open impossibly wide. ]

[Her hand closes around—nothing, it turns out, since the knife she's going for missing. She freezes in shock for a moment before changing tactics, trying to kick the the thing in the teeth but moving a little too slow.]

[ well, you manage to kick it in the teeth, but also it's mouth is huge so that does put you right in the danger zone of being bitten--

though it doesn't, and just snaps its jaws closed, swinging its head around to ... shove??? glory??? with a rumbling, stuttering noise--

actually, it seems like laughter. ]

Glorrrry.

[ the voice... isn't familiar, reverberating roughly from its chest. ]

[ what is WITH all these dreams about BLOOD

because, like, it's not really a question. she knows what she's hungry for and she knows why she's being pulled toward that scent. she should go anywhere else. go home, maybe.

and yet, she's following that terrible, tell-tale smell. ]

[ you head toward the scent, into the dark shadows of the clusters of trees off the path. The scent is stronger now; the familiar smell of blood, yes, but also something smoky, damp ashes and wood, that is strangely alluring. And strangely familiar, to you in particular...?

There's a hollow crunch from somewhere in front of you, too close for comfort, your shoe slipping in some puddle of slick liquid.

Yellow eyes, shining in the dark, blink open to stare at you with a predatory shine. ]

Edited 2021-01-21 06:32 (UTC)

[ she bristles, slightly, on guard—a predator recognizes predator, and the strange familiarity of that scent is... putting her off-balance, a little. don't like that, even though it's... still alluring.

God, she's hungry. A warning growl rises to the back of her throat, unbidden. ]

[ Are you hungry, though?

I mean sure, you're always hungry, but this settles differently in the pit of your stomach; that hollow gnawing feeling is most certainly hunger but this is hotter, aching, somewhere below it.

... but that's about as far as it gets, even with the scent, because the growl seems to attract the creature's attention further; the eye-shine lowers and bobs up higher, and closer, with a heavy thud of some large footsteps under it, muffled slightly by the dirt and grass.

It seems to melt out of the darkness, snout long and thick and full of teeth, muscular body covered by thick skin and thicker scales, layered like armor. It pushes itself up onto its hind legs, standing, and stares down at you--

and speaks in an unfamiliarly deep, rumbling voice. ]

Hhhhhope.

[ ...ah. that's...

...no, she's still hungry, but it's also—oh. why now...? ]

...a monster.

[ a rumbling, stuttering noise-- a laugh, it's clear after a moment, slick, oily black liquid oozing from around its jaws. ]

I tolllld you.

You did.

[ she looks down at what she seems to have stepped in, in the dark. just wondering. is it blood or is it black goo or both, ]

I wonder if I find it preferable when at least no one's pretending.

[ it's thicker than blood-- doesn't smell like blood. doesn't seem to smell like much at all. the faint light that shines off of it is vaguely iridescent, like oil.

nychta slowly lowers back down onto all fours, stalking closer to her with a gait slightly more casual than before.

The voice seems almost teasing, if one can suss out the tone: ]

Mmm. You preferrrr me, then.

Oh, don't get cocky.

[ just the slightest duck of her head, scuffing her shoe idly through the oily stuff as she looks down and away: ]

I just find monsters who insist they're not to be intolerable.

[ another stuttering chuckle. ]

You are herrrre. You came to mmmee.

Why?

...I don’t know.

Maybe because I didn’t know what would be here and wanted to find out. Maybe—instinct.

I get hungrier than I used to.

[ Rumbles, a thoughtful noise. ]

No food forrrr you herrrre.

Seems not.

[ she scrubs a hand over her face, briefly, and then—takes a few steps closer. ]

I'm not sure what I want.

[ lowers her head, a bit, to be more at hope's level. ]

You'rrrre surrrre?

Don't look at me like that.

I'm probably not very tasty. I've been dead for over a hundred years, you know.

[ Huffs. ]

I don't want to eat you.

Well, good, because I'm pretty sure you could just kill me.

...it's just, that scent is...

[ exhales a long, hot breath against her, watching expectantly, silent except for the occasional drip of viscous liquid from their flesh. ]

cw for implied cannibalism/vore/whatever

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