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Willow had found that watching the humans she saw one that looked.... as if she could take him out. Limping a bit before shaking it off enough to charge towards the human teeth aimed for his throat. Somehow she actually managed to kill him, it was... almost satisfying.... after the deal with the hunters... The tigress watched the humans eyes noticing the fear as blood stained her maw. She felt... stronger.

This...this fighting, it wasn't what she wanted. Temes had come along to the class hoping to learn something, hoping to get something from it like with Conquest, but instead she found herself grabbing an ax and holding it close. It was so light, so easily moved in her grasp, and she had no time to think when the waves of soldiers started to come.

The Death Clan were sending her off to die, sending her off to be cannon fodder for these humans and this war. All the safety she had felt faded from her mind, all the thoughts that the horseman were honorable faded from any trace of her thoughts. The end result was a chupacabra holding an ax, watching the blood and bodies around her start to spread.

She was going to have to fight. Temes was going to have to kill and then she was going to die horribly against the field with her comrades at her side. A sense of fear, of dread, ate away at her and she felt like and though about dropping her weapon and running away - but she could be no coward.

Temes had come here to be brave - and being brave she would be!

This wasn't something Willow was use to. She'd been burnt by fire, beat up, and almost constantly dissipated in some way or another, and shot in the head and killed.... However, the pain of this, was almost... weird... being trampled to death was a very new... sensation. She felt bones crush under the hooves of the steed and the cuts. Fear.... bleeding... It all left....

Willow closed her eyes body shuttering to a stop after it rolled from being trampled and kicked.

She was surrounded again, her limbs not moving enough to carry her away from the group. The feeling of her body spreading thin took over once more as she turned to flee. Her legs, both of them, trembled as she moved to get away.

Chuppi could have turned to natural form, could have taken them down with swipes of her tail, but she had been told to wear her pin and to shift seemed so painful, so unworthy of trying right now. The time it would take her to shift would result in her death and by then it would have been entirely in vain. Her only comfort would be that of dying in her own skin, of being able to grace the sky without this false form, but even then it would mean she was dead. The chupacabra did not want to die.

Surrounded, kicked, sliced, beaten. The blades and attacks kept coming and all she could do was run away. Her eyes were dry, no tears threatened to fall, but drops of her blood left behind a trail of red like shiny pebbles. She was not going far, she was not going to escape. How many of her classmates, of her friends, lay dying or dead? Their bodies would fade before she could reach them, their souls returning to FEAR.

Halloween would never die, could never die, but that didn't mean Chuppi was game to try and willing to surrender to death.

How much longer would the song stay in her head? It seemed to move her body for her, to keep her limbs moving and the ax she carried always swinging. The blade cut into flesh and seemed to be humming as it went through the air, the sounds of slicing just part of the symphony of death. She was merely an instrument in this whole orchestra, a member who was playing with her own notes here and there to add to the overall song.

Cries littered the area around her but they were not her own, instead the weeping of her enemies taken down at the ankles and the knees. Her ax ended their lives with hard strikes, their bodies still and smelling so gross of lost energy and warm blood. It was not tasty, she could have feasted on the red being spilled, but this was a battlefield, a war. There was no time to taste, no time to have fun and to play. She needed to kill all those who came towards her and she turned to run away and find another location when the sound of hooves took into her ears.

It was a man on horseback (Chuppi had to smile and think of Calder, however briefly) and he was charging at her as though neither of them had anything to lose. His weapon was drawn, her fangs were bared, and the monster leaped into the air and took him down with a heavy swing. He crumpled in the saddle and fell to the side, his horse moving off into the distance still in its charge. The human was dead, his soul gone before he hit the ground, but that did not stop the monster from severing his head from his body. There would be no second chances here, no thinking if a human could reform like those of her kind.

A sudden pain hit her from behind as the ax dropped from her hands, forcing her body to lay beside it. There would be no getting up, no song to drive her forward like a beast without a will. The horse had gotten her, kicking her head and snapping her neck. She was aware, so faintly aware, but she hit the ground and would not be coming back up.

The whole aesthetics of the Death Isle – cold, sharp and pallid – reminded Wylfenne of home, where outside the Hunt time life was strict and sober and somewhat dark. So they were anxious to start their training to see if it reminded home true – cruel, and detached, and somewhat brainwashing? Wylfenne was clever enough to guess that at home most of the things were organized so as to pursue a certain kind of illusion; they wondered whether the Death clan with their priest-hierarchy might be similar.

All the students gathered at the Temple of Guidance, the largest one within the Isle of Death, though Wylfenne distrustful of all the things that have to do with cult and worship had not explored it yet. So they were not quite sure whether the temple was supposed to look that deserted, or whether it was intentional. They looked around trying to read from the faces of other students whether something was going wrong, but everyone seemed to be too preoccupied with themselves. The usual thing with the monsters, egocentric – all of us, Wylfenne smiled to themselves. Moreover, it looks like the Clans do not try to instil a sort of comradeship in us, do they?

A large pyre in the center attracted the fae’s attention. Did it have any special meaning? Was it where they burn their deads? Or victims? Or humans, to raise even more fear? Wylfenne wasn’t frightened – at least, not yet; neither they felt shy or awkward; just curious, and that detached curiosity made them note lots of things that probably were not supposed to be noted. The light was blue and even, the smell was calm – and peaceful; too peaceful to Wylfenne’s liking. Never in their life things that looked peaceful brought anything but mischief or misery. They were old enough and clever enough to know better and not to trust any situation that looked so awfully nice. Besides, it was a training with the Clan of Death, and every living being – even if it is already dead – feels a certain shudder when thinking about anything death-related. Moreover, everyone knew that the Clans were not actual allies of the Halloween monsters – though naturally a part of their world, they have chosen their path long ago, and while being neutral, made it known that certain disagreements exist. The fay didn’t know for sure what the disagreements were about, but they still felt that the relationships between the Clans and the rest of Halloween were not too warm. Lukewarm, at best.

The smell reminded them of their experience being a student at the Isle of Conquest, where odours and perfumes of various kinds were a treat and a threat at the same time. They have changed the Clan, but does it necessarily imply change of battle tactics. Wylfenne was not entirely sure about the degree of sharing and interaction between the Clans, so they stayed wary of the peaceful smell. And wasn’t it this sweet burning odour that made the room quaver, and spin, and caused the floor to shake as if they were at sea. For a moment the fae closed their eyes – and since then were never sure about what was happening around them.

Everything was fading to white now, as if they were swimming in milk – it reminded Wylfenne of the silk of the gowns of high-ranking nobility of their realm. The fog rose like the sea, ebbing and flowing, slightly condensed, making it hard to breathe, and changing the contours of the temple. As Wylfenne’s special abilities (that somehow never worked on the Islands) dealt with illusions, they were almost sure that they were all being manipulated into a sort of trance, but with the white silky substance blurring their eyesight – and their mindsight – they were not sure in anything. Suddenly it all just faded into nothingness, into pure and unbearable whiteness. And – was it yet another illusion? – a figure appeared layered into dark purple contrasting with the whiteness around, and beckoned to the three ornate doorways behind.

Medea, the head priestess of the Clan of Death – or so she introduced herself – warned them about a ritual, a ceremony they have to participate in to discover themselves. Then she ushered them to the left door. Wylfenne felt uneasy – as you always would in the presence of a Death priestess – besides, they didn’t quite like Medea’s idea of teaching: “Questions are only second place to answers, which you shall experience, learn, and find." It was not natural for the fae to rush into action without having it processed in their mind, but at the moment their ability to assess the situation seemed quite limited.

The door opened into a violent outbreak of colours, green and blue and yellow. For a moment the fae felt blind without having a fixed object of reality to refer to. Then they saw that they were all standing in a natural valley that recently had been a battlefield (or, judging from what was happening around, still was a battlefield), and all students changed… their clothes and shapes? Wylfenne found they were wrapped into a sort of a light grey cloth, cocoon, as they called it, that made their movements free and easy, and standing in front of a huge and menacing centaur who was rapidly discussing the situation with a bronze-armoured figure. From the fragments of explanation the fae understood, they were thrown into the middle of the battle between the monsters of Halloween (who were running around in chaos and not quite looking their normal selves) – and the humans. There was something very wrong about the situation – the monsters were defending some temple, and they were definitely loosing to the humans (how that was possible, Wylfenne didn’t understand. Between the two races, weren’t the monsters the strongest, the fiercest, and most battle-fit?) The students – and nobody was actually paying attention to them or at least acting surprised at their sudden arrivals, it seems they were taken for the new recruits – were ordered to choose a weapon and be ready for battle.

Wylfenne picked up a battered sword. My my! Were the horsemen so low on funds? Or did it all go to the luxury-loving Conquest? At home, they would have been ashamed to be seen with such bad weaponry, but here… well, it is not a sword that makes a soldier, but the mastery of he who wields it.

He couldn't move.

Every bone was broken, and his essence was retreating further away, into his phylactery. Into the safest place he had left. But a pile of monster bones on the battlefield was an oddity. Those who died dissipated, faded, disappeared. Only the human dead littered the battlefield. The humans seemed to suspect as much, and as they passed over him their weapons took a dig at what little remained of him.

This was different, somehow, than any other 'death' he'd suffered. This place seemed real enough, would death here be real too? There was something about those weapons - if he dissipated, would he return?

He didn't have a choice. The blue glint of the phylactery had drawn attention. A human swung their weapon down hard on it, shattering it like an egg. Ghostly blue fire spilled out and began to wane in the open air. Everything was growing dimmer, the sounds of battle, his senses, his thoughts. And a question.

Why had they lost?

((DEATH POST

continuing from here))

Here comes the pain! Shenny would never anticipate the steed could be that heavy; hitting the ground the ghoul could hear her bones crackling. The pain was incredible, but then again, a bit of pleasant: perhaps, there's something about it Shenny wouldn't have a chance to understand, something ancient and familiar, a pleasure of the pain. But it hasn't last for long: suddenly the pain left her as fast, as it has appeared. The ghoul realized her muscles and nerves must have been damaged, she could no longer feel her body, she couldn't move, but all for good: she didn't feel pain at all.

She was dying. That was as real, as the reality could be: she could still hear screams and shouts, shadows moving here and there beneath her eyes. Would any of the students manage to hide, to flee, to run away? No, that would be cowardice, none of them should be capable of such infamy. Would the horsemen come to avenge them? Might they lose a battle, but win a war?.. That would be great. But anyway. Shenny was happy. It was a good fight, an honourable fight. They did good, they did their best. Moreover, they stood together, Amityville students and students from other schools; monsters, reapers and demons united. Boils and ghouls she hadn't known a month ago, some of them she didn't stand a chance to get introduced to. That might be the only thing she would regret at this moment: she didn't know the names of all her companions.

But it didn't really matter, too. They stood together, - and they fell together, not alone. Shenny felt happy, it wasn't anything like the perfect sense of happiness she experienced in Famine, but more like a deep satisfaction of the achieved goal. At the very least, her fate was kind enough to her saving Shenny from an absurd death in the hidden lair of Famine. How miserable that would be to die alone in a meaningless fight with no effect on the course of events! And, on the contrary, how honourable and perfect is dying among others, when she could say "we" instead of "I". It all looked accomplished now, it all looked complete.

No pain. No regret. Satisfaction.

A moment before fading away and dissipating into various fear particles Shenny worded the last phrase in her life:

"I found a good way to die".