|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:09 pm
Time was a strange construct, and concepts of it perhaps stranger still, so heavily subjective they were. Lifespan, species, experience, intelligence, and so many other things factored into the perception of the passing of time. For most non-sentient animals, time was simple, linear and incredibly limited. Memories were vague rather than vivid, processed in the form of instinct instead of image; they did not necessarily remember why something was so, only that it was. And concepts of the future outside of the very immediate were nearly nonexistent. Time was made up of seasons, not years, repeated over and over until, sooner or later, death. Often, sooner rather than later.
As a goddess, Kikechum fully understood and possessed higher perceptions of time than the animals of her domain, but that hadn't kept her from losing track of time...albeit by choice, more or less. She had chosen to go on a wild romp after regaining form, to revel in the freedom of having shape and power again, and she had liked it. And she had been choosing, ever since, to let herself remain feral, and shut off higher thoughts of things like time and responsibility and the quest to restore herself to power. She was immortal. She could do that later, in the far-off future that didn't concern a wild creature.
Physically, she hadn't gone far. There had been no need to. There were still plenty of wild spaces in the vicinity of the Pantheon, not the least of which was the expansive forest whose edge butted up against the grounds, though that edge was not especially appealing, being so close to civilization. Today, however, she had come very near that edge quite by coincidence - a chase, a hunt, had led and ended there.
Animals now stood hunched over the fresh kill, forefeet clawed into the stomach of a young buck as she ripped flesh from it with her teeth - and snarled and snapped when one of her half-dozen 'friends' came too close, trying to move in on her piece of the carcass. The goddess was accompanied by a portion of a pack of feral canines she had taken to, an assortment of dogs, wolves, coyotes, and mixes off all of the above that had mingled, survived, and eventually thrived in the wake of Gehenna. Kikechum herself still possessed a form that was a hodge-podge of various animal traits, the result nothing that could be termed canine, or feline, or any other one thing, but she didn't look entirely out of place: she was filthy. Her vibrant colors were dulled by a layer of grime, acquired deliberately to mask sight and scent of her while she hunted.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 12:16 pm
Shiana had taken to wandering the edges of the Pantheon area in... well, not distress, not exactly. But she absolutely did not feel that she belonged. She was a stranger here, and even the soft weight of Eliade in her body and against her soul was no real comfort. She felt as if those she knew didn't know what to do with her - some of them had closed up and pushed her away immediately, while others burst into tears and babbled praises to her 'noble sacrifice'. She didn't know what to do with any of it. So instead, she wandered, Eliade whispering reassurances and interleaving encouragement with sorrow at what zhi had done to her. A sound caught her ears, a snarl and a series of sharp barks and growls - she took a step back, towards the relative safety of the Pantheon, but Eliade stopped her, exerting just enough of zirself to halt her movements. I feel another, Shapeshift said, after a moment, zir interest rising like a slow tide, the head-tilt of a curious bird. Let us see, and if we are in danger we shall retreat.She did not want to move, but she trusted - she had to trust - Eliade, so she nodded and stepped forward. What she saw horrified her. Not because of death - she knew death too well to be frightened by the ending of a beast - but because of the sense of danger to herself. Wild beasts everywhere, and at the heart something strange and filthy and feral, and yet it was to that creature that Eliade strained all of zir being. Oh! it is Her!Shiana clenched her jaw against Eliade's urge to speak, feeling that to do so would be to call down the beasts' own jaws to feast on her flesh - and yet she lost control as Eliade exerted zir will. "Lady of Beasts! The Transmigrant Breath sees you!" Eliade cried, exultant, even as Shiana trembled.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2014 7:21 pm
The snarling and snapping was abruptly silenced when the deity called out, as seven heads all lifted and seven pairs of eyes fixed themselves on the asari housing zir. One mongrel began to move forward, but quickly halted when Animals rounded on it and snapped, ordering it and the rest of the pack to stay back - this one was hers and they could not have it. She stared at them, long and hard, until they obeyed, and resumed their feasting...but still watched, wary of the stranger.
Satisfied, Kikechum turned to face the deity-in-host who had addressed her, sizing them up with blue eyes made to seem all the more vivid by the filthy state of her fur. She licked blood from her maw, and ran the fingers of a now raccoon-like hand through her beard to rid it of any stray bits. "That is a title I have not heard spoken in a long time." Her voice was rough, gravelly with disuse; she had not needed words in months. "What name do you call yourself now, Shapeshifter?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Tue Mar 04, 2014 8:24 pm
Shiana took a step back when the beasts focused on her, and her heart pounded inside her chest as her hindbrain urged her to run!; for a moment, blue light sparked close to her skin as her biotic abilities flared in response to danger, though it had no direction or focus. She started when the leader - the goddess - spoke; it seemed odd to have any intelligible voice emerging from her, despite her knowledge of the vast number and forms of sentience in the universe. Her mouth felt dry, and she had to swallow before speaking. "I bear Eliade, l-lady of Beasts... and I am Shiania," she said, her voice only shaking a little. She felt her lips continue to move after she stopped speaking. "It is as she says. I am enfleshed, by her gift." Zir voice was warm, approving, and her cheeks colored faintly purple. "You run wild, Lady - if I could but join thee in thy roamings, I would be content." Shiana felt an odd sensation then, a sense of exertion, a soft tingling like a harbinger of numbness in her fingertips - but that was all, and Eliade fell back in her mind with gasp, as if zhi had put forth great effort and gotten nothing from it. Shapeshift... would zhi change zir form and run with her? I would, zhi said, yearning. She shuddered as she also felt her own body as something stagnant.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:28 pm
"Shiana, Eliade," the beast-goddess tasted the names as she spoke them, blue nose twitching and sniffing. "Greetings to you both. Kikechum is the name I have taken to using." When she used a name, anyway.
"And you would be welcome to do so," she said, forefeet returning to the split-hooved shape she had inherited from her host. A low growl, the beginning rumblings of a disagreement amongst the canines causes her to turn her head, but she did not interrupt. They would sort it out themselves.
"We should leave them to it. They will be...poor company for you, Shiana." The sounds her little pack made while eating - and fighting about eating - were hardly a suitable backdrop for civil conversation. She had...missed conversation. A little.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2014 8:18 pm
For someone who had been snarling moments before... but no. Shiana mentally shook herself. She could not - dared not - judge gods by mortal measures, so instead she just nodded and tried not to look too closely at the goddess' retinue. She still felt vaguely strange inside her own skin from whatever Eliade had tried and failed to do. "Kikechum, is it. A fair name for a fair lady," Eliade said, content. "How fare thou in this new age? I had not even known you walked this life again." An odd flicker, in the deity's mind - gratitude, that the Twin Crown had not revived merely the great powers, but also the lesser... such as zirself. I am no great deity, zhi whispered, softly, sensing her internal regard. I shall never be such. But together, we shall be more than has been in many an Age.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2014 7:39 pm
"As you observed, I run wild. I have done so for some time, since I came to myself. Few know that I have, so I am not surprised you did not know." The goddess turned away from her canine companions and began to walk, expecting Eliade's host would be glad to leave them behind. "I did not intend to wander for so long, but one thing led to another and...you know how these things sometimes go, I am sure."
After all, was it not a risk associated with taking an animal's shape, warned against by those who did so? To lose oneself to the animal. For Kikechum, fortunately, it was only temporary - though temporary was relative, for an immortal. She could lapse for years, decades, centuries, and likely had, in her previous existence.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat Mar 08, 2014 10:06 am
Shiana quickly moved to keep up with the goddess, feeling a bit off-kilter even as Eliade spoke through her lips. "Yes," the deity said with that same sense of deep longing, of being incomplete, even impatient - and yet, as soon as she sensed it, Eliade soothed her with a wave of wordless caring. "Though to master the shape, and have it not master me, is in my nature... to let it take me is my delight, betimes."Flashes of old, eroded memory leeched of nearly all color: running on a thousand different feet, hooves claws paws. Shiana listed to one side until she found a tree to prop her up. "Ah... sorry," she said to the goddess, taking a deep breath and closing her eyes. "When zhi gets, um... intense, it can be hard to see what's in front of me..." She lifted her hands to press at her temples.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:40 am
Kikechum dipped her head in agreement, with a pleasant rumble that turn to words, "The romp has been most satisfying, after so long contained in jewel and host. I feel...better."
The goddess paused when Shiana staggered, turning to face her while she regained herself. "You need not apologize. Carrying a god can be trying."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
