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 Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:17 pm
((This is a PRP between a bunch of my soquili. Soqs present are: Samsara, Bushkin, Carmilla, Svanbjorn, Daimhin, Unenlagia, and Mittrei. More will be added as/if they occur!)) 
"I don't understand," whimpered Bushkin in a hoarse whisper. "Please... I didn't mean to do anything. What do you want?" Blood dripped down her flank from long parallel claw marks and the monster that made them was standing before her. There had been a skinwalker in the carnival that had been her home, but the caged batwalker had never been like this.
Bushkin took a shaky step away from the mare. The scene was almost ridiculous. She was much thicker and stronger of body, not to mention much taller than the skinwalker. The skinwalker was so small, yet it was Bushkin that feared for her life. The downside to her size was her speed. She could only outrun older or sick soquili, and this mare was neither of those. She didn't want to die. Out of all the things that could have happened that night, dying was the last thing she thought would happen.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:22 pm
For each step that the other took back, Samsara took one forward. Slowly she closed the distance between them and brought herself closer and closer to her current prey. "Didn't mean to do anything?" she asked, viciously mocking. "Try telling that to the otter."
An otter lay on the ground, maybe even some poor soquili's familiar. If it wasn't for the scent of it then Samsara might not have been able to identify it at all. It had probably been playing in the river earlier that day but now was crushed into pulp on the red-smeared ground. "Looks like it wasn't able to get to the water in time. Clever, to trap it up here like that." She smiled a cat-like smile and took another step forward. She had come to see the end of the mare's attack on the otter and had watched long enough to be impressed by the other's strength and cruelty.
"As for what I want..." She stopped advancing and fixed the mare with a yellow-eyed stare. "I want you."
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:29 pm
"M-me?" squeaked Bushkin. She was breathing as heavily as if she was at a full sprint even though she stood still. Her trembling increased until the pumpkin vines wrapped around her were swaying. Her "demon" was silent. That part was the darkest part of her, the part that the skinwalker had seen and been so intrigued by. Bushkin never would admit to herself that it was her own impulses, always insisting that it was demonic possession that made her behave like that from time to time. She wished she could wake her demon into a fury now, but it had left her more alone than she ever had been.
She didn't ask what the skinwalker wanted with her. It was obvious and she didn't want to hear the answer. She was going to be devoured. Suddenly, looking at the skinwalker became overwhelming. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished to all the gods she knew that the skinwalker would just disappear.
"Please...." she whispered. "Please just... leave me..."
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:34 pm
"No. I will not leave." The mare's terror was pathetic to look at and almost made Samsara change her mind right there. She needed strong and vicious soquili, not those that shuddered and wept at the first sign of danger. She considered it, tilted her head away from the mare, then caught sight of the crushed otter again.
"I said you are mine and I meant it." Her jaws snapped shut after each word as if she was biting rather than speaking. "You will stay where I tell you and follow my orders or I'll kill you. I'll make you wish that you had died as quietly as that otter you murdered." The smell of the mare's blood was ripe in the late summer night. Samsara didn't have to feign any of the hunger in her voice or the saliva clinging to her fangs.
"Do you understand?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 7:42 pm
Bushkin's heart fell. She had been afraid of being killed by a skinwalker but this was worse. If she said yes to this then she'd have to be afraid of being killed every waking hour. It was terrible to think of. Her eyes didn't open all the while she was running over the possibilities in her mind. She couldn't do this. Her mind couldn't take it. She couldn't stand living in that sort of uncertainty. She would rather be dead than to accept that sort of offer.
"I... understand. I'll do it." The words were so contrary to her thoughts that she didn't understand where they had come from at first. "But... why? Please tell me... why?" Resignation gripped her deeply and she knew it was too late to dig herself out of that hole. She was too used to bending to the commands of her "demon." She let the evil into herself a long time ago and now couldn't keep out invading evils either. She still wanted to say no, to scream and shout and run far away... but she wasn't going to. Maybe even her own demon would be silent if she found work for another.
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:05 pm
"Why? Something that occurred to me while stalking one of your pathetic kind." She remembered that moment clearly. It was when she had thought back to her time spent with Zulian and Felise. Their potential for destruction had been limitless but they could never have worked together for long. The lust for blood and death was too strong in skinwalkers for them to make good companions for one another.
"It occurred to me that I can do damage on my own... but only so much. There are some things I cannot do." Her gaze grew distant with the visions she was enjoying. She could kill one soquili but not a herd of them. She could destroy baskets and kill parents, but not hold the parents at bay to watch her while she did her work. She needed more than just herself. She needed minions less erratic and dangerous than Zulian was. She needed something to be to her what the Padmapani herd was to her father, her hell to their heaven. Mahapadma was the worst of the cold hells, in which one's skin cracked and peeled away in the freezing cold until the organs beneath cracked as well.
"You will be part of my Mahapadma. If you don't like it, you can go to the grave instead." Her prey was at a point beyond fear now. She could afford to give her something other than a threat. "But if you stay with me, I will see to it that you can indulge that side of you to your black heart's delight." She didn't need to say which side she was referring to. The corpse beside them made it unnecessary. "I think you'll enjoy that, don't you?"
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Posted: Mon Aug 29, 2011 8:14 pm
"Yes," breathed Bushkin's demon with her voice. The sane part of her mind was sobbing in the background, terrified and alone. In the meantime, the bleeding on her flank had stopped. It wasn't as deep as she had thought it was, more of a scratch than true slashes.
Mahapadma. She might not understand what the word meant but she could recognize it as a symbol of what was to come. Her demon laughed and she wanted to cry, but all she did was repeat that one word. "Yes."
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Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2011 7:51 pm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2011 2:22 pm
Samsara, in panther form, dug her claws a little deeper into the shoulder of the mare that she had pinned. The other flutter's shrill shrieking hurt her ears and she didn't have to try hard to pull a menacing growl from her throat. The flutter's mate, a strong looking ceryeni/kalona, was somewhat scratched up himself but mostly looked in shock at what was happening.
"You will join me and obey my commands," she spat at the half-kalona. She had no need for his mate. The only use she had was in a good hostage to ensure the male's cooperation. It was the stallion that Samsara had wanted to own as soon as she had laid eyes on him.
She had found him dragging the carcass of a freshly dead young mare. It was obvious that he had killed the mare himself and equally obvious that he was accustomed to pulling corpses through the forest. He was exactly the sort of soquili she needed, one that would not shirk to murder innocents and who had the ability to do so too.
"What is your decision?" she snapped. "Make it now! Join me, or she dies!"
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:55 pm
  "Svan!" cried Carmilla. "Do it! Say yes now!" She was close to sobbing and had never been so frightened in her life. She wasn't truly injured yet, but she felt fully confident that the skinwalker would make good on her promise if Svanbjorn allowed her to.
Her day had changed so quickly from languid to horrifying. She was meant to be lounging around in a bath of the dead mare's blood now, not begging for her life under the claws of a monster. Her vanity was shattered and she would consider herself lucky if that's all that was injured in this encounter.
Svanbjorn felt like he was trapped in a nightmare. He had heard a lot about skinwalkers. He had even seen one from a distance once, but had taken to the air too quickly for it to follow. The skinwalker would have been laughably small and no threat if she was any other breed, but as a cat she was long, lean, and deadly.
"I..." He hesitated. Like his mate, he was independent and hated to bend himself to the will of any other creature. His wings were already almost open. He could do what he had done the time before and leave her there. He did care for her, but he cared for himself more and it would save his life from certainly unpleasant servitude.
He met Carmilla's gaze. He knew her as a proud and disdainful mare but now she looked as frightened as a filly. Tears clung to her eyes. Had she ever cried in front of him before? If so, he couldn't remember such an occasion. "I... agree," he said quietly.
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Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:18 pm
"Good," hissed Samsara. She did not yet release the mare. She wanted to make certain that the stallion wasn't going to try any acts of hasty heroism once his damsel was free. She crouched atop the mare with her tail thrashing behind her. "You will both be part of my hell, Mahapadmi. It will be the hell to other soquili and not to those who are part of it... unless you attempt to betray me." Her lips curved upwards slightly, cheered at her threat.
"I will ask you to help me hurt or even kill other soquili, but I can see that won't be a problem for you." She favored him with an appreciative look to the dead mare behind him. It had taken her some time to work up to being able to fight soquili prey well and he did not even possess a skinwalker's powers. "I will not ask these things of you often and sometimes you will not even see me for a week or more... but you will stay with the group and you will obey when I tell you to." There were no more threats now. He knew the line he walked and what would happen if he strayed from it. He could run but not run far enough to be free from her if she wanted him dead. She had been defeated by Hayagriva, but that was some time ago and this one was no elder.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:10 pm
Carmilla's quick breathing did not slow through the skinwalker's speech. They were going to have to live with other soquili? She didn't like that idea. She didn't like that, or the thought of her Svan becoming nothing more than a lackey to a skinwalker. She was the only one who could tell him what to do. She didn't want her stallion's efforts stolen by some mutt of a skinwalker mare.
Though her thoughts were defiant she was still. She didn't want to follow the mare's orders but she didn't want to die more than that. There was no way out of this situation.
"All right," said Svanbjorn. He didn't know what else to say. The skinwalker held his mate at the point of her claws and apparently he cared enough about her that he wasn't going to risk her demise. If he changed his mind later he could always leave her to her fate... but for now he would obey. It disgusted him to be trapped into this, but there was nothing he could do about it. It probably wouldn't even be too bad if the skinwalker only asked them to do things every once in a while.
"Your wish is my command." The cheeky retort slipped from his lips before he could stop it. He froze after he spoke, wondering whether he had just caused the death of Carmilla.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:29 pm
Samsara froze. She could feel the mare beneath her tensing in anticipation of pain and could see from the stallion's face that he expected it too. She let the silence hang over them until the tension was so thick that it was almost suffocating. Then she laughed. "Well!" She stepped off of the mare as she spoke, smiling with bemusement and taking a few steps toward the stallion. "My wishes are your command? That is the sort of thing I enjoy hearing."
In a flash, her mirth was gone and only anger remained. She bounded to the stallion in one leap and swiped out with one paw, claws extended toward his side. She slashed him and then spun away too quickly for him to react.
"And next time you say something like that it will be sincere, or I will hurt you and her until it is!" she snarled at them. Animal rage seethed within her and she fought the desire to tear them both limb from limb. She hated that he dared to be sarcastic at her. He bled for that crime but the yowling part of herself told her that it was not enough.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:40 pm
"Svan! Svan!" cried Carmilla in fear. As soon as the skinwalker was off of her she scrambled to standing, but she was too shaky to do anything once there. She didn't dare try to run. She was too frightened. "Just obey her!" she cried. She was filled with shame to say such a thing, but it was better than death.
Svanbjorn gaped at the gashes that had appeared in his side and stared in shock at the skinwalker who had made them. He couldn't fight this mare. She was too fast for him to defend against and almost certainly could have killed him then if she had desired.
"I apologize," he stammered. "It... won't happen again." He had never spoken words like those in his life except to his kalona mother.
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Posted: Sun Sep 04, 2011 5:46 pm
The desire to kill still burned brightly within her but Samsara choked it down to the background of her mind. "Good," she hissed through clenched fangs. "That's more like it." She looked sharply between the two of them. Of the stallion and mare, neither of them looked like they would cause any more trouble. They were hers now. Two more to her Mahapadma.
"Follow me now." She transformed back into her true form and stood before them with her pelt worn on her back and her flutter wings held high. "I will introduce you to your new partners." She stalked forward to lead them, leaving behind the dead mare that the stallion had killed. Now she had herself, Bushkin, and these two.
Together they were four, but four was not enough.
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