Welcome to Gaia! ::

It felt like a dream. Everywhere she turned, people were dancing a feverish pace, their laughter loud but strained. Guardians and familiars wove through the rubble of the castle, chasing one another in delight and good fun, or so it seemed. She felt that she should have questioned what was going on, questioned why the dancers were dancing, why the smell in the air seemed to be shifting from sweet to sickly.

But every time she started to question, to swim up out of the miasma she felt lost in, something would pull her back down and she would forget the questions.

Questions? What questions? There was nothing wrong! Everything felt so right. The fruit squirmed in her belly, but she laughed as if it tickled, the horrible thought of what it could be inside her lost along with the rest of her senses. She felt a terrible need to dance, and did so. Her legs seemed to carry her of their own accord, away from Rajani--Who was Rajani?-- and towards the thick of the guests. The proper girls and common girls alike danced without a care, shedding layers of hindering clothing so that there moves were more graceful and less burdened by stuffy cloth.

Dressed as she was, Soibhan moved with the grace of a doe, leaping here and there, twirling between the slower dancers. Men gravitated to her, their eyes feverish, faces red. They watched her dance more intently than they should have, but proper decorum was a lost term in this miasma, this feeling of rightness. One man with berry stains on his half-unbuttoned shirt swept her up into his arms, spinning her around and around and around until she felt like she would be launched into the sky. Instead, she vomited all over him, but instead of shouting in outrage, the man laughed uproariously and dipped her, wiping her mouth with his sleeve.

Time passed in a blur. Wine filled her, giving her head an even stuffier quality. But now the dancing felt....forced. Her legs ached, but she couldn't stop. Dozens still danced, but many were collapsing in the grass. Again, she felt like she should have questioned what was going on, but as soon as the ghost of the thought came to her, it was as if a giant hand wiped the slate clean that was her conscious thought.

The animals....The animals still chased, but now there was a more sinister quality to their game, a flash of terror in the eyes of the chased and a feral gleam in those of the chasing. Women were stalking the crowd of dancers, looking dishevled and wild as they pelted others with rotting fruit and empty wine glasses. The men around her were suddenly crowding too close, reaching out to touch her or grab her. She felt panicked as she dipped beneath their outstretched arms and suddenly, she was the hunted.

She ran through the crowd, feeling the coward. Something wasn’t right here! Something was going—

Her mind went blank and she stopped running, but the men were no longer following. No, they had all returned to feasting and dancing and other debauchery. She spun around, overwhelmed by everything around her. Though her dress was revealing and small, her skin felt hot and sensitive even to the touch of the air. The wine and fruit sloshed heavily in her belly, but she craved more, wanted the sweet and cloying tastes on her tongue.

As she ran to a food laden table, something caught her eye. It wasn’t the something that she had seen at the edge of her vision. No, this was a real person. Two people. Even as she watched them, she stuffed handfuls of grapes into her mouth and swallowed gulps of wine. It tasted like heaven one instant, like ash and death the next, but she kept eating it, watching the couple so far across the way.

A seed of something sinister blossomed in her gut, worming its way to her heart and foggy mind.

That b***h thinks she can take Rob from me? She is nothing! She is a flower! A dainty, weak little flower that has no backbone. He would do better with me! I'm not a flower to be tended and watered. I'm a weed; weeds never die, they only stand strong and proud. They always come back. And some of them are prettier than any flower.

She dropped the glass pressed to her lips, the tinkling of shattering crystal like music to her ears. It even prompted her to sing as she turned and tilted her head to the side, a feral light entering her eyes.

“Run from me, run from me, sweet little dove.
Beware of my claws as I leap from above.
Hide from me, hide from me, dear little one.
My hunger is great and equal to none.
I’ll rip you apart and leave nothing behind,
Nothing at all for your sweet one to find…”

Hey voice drifted eerily in the courtyard, soft but so captivating that it grabbed the attentions of everyone she passed. Their whispers and pointing fingers were easy enough to ignore. She wanted…wanted to hunt the woman that had dared take Rob’s attentions, to show her who the strongest and most desirable really was.

Hadn’t she told him that they would share a song some day? Too bad it would be this one first…This song of revenge…