[ h battle ] heard the echoes of mistakes ( lurks v otto )

[its me debz]

Lurks was impatient, capricious, volatile, ill-tempered, and a brat. He was unkind without knowing it, cruel without caring for it, and monstrous when he thought he was being generous. And he had ideas: big ones. Thoughts of home and longing intermingled with a desire to keep-and-consume, fuelled by his single-minded desire.

Collect them, especially the ones he was fond of.

He had no way of knowing when he might stumble upon the one that had crumpled so easily beneath his blows, a whirlwind of orange and teal and pain. But Lurks could wait, when it suited him. He'd waited for the mother, once, in a single cave for decades, sure that she would return at any moment.

With that fervent memory and a desire to keep, Lurks laid in wait. There were pits nearby, hidden beneath the sand, excavated by his searching skeleton-bone hands, carved out by Famine of eons past. There would be much opportunity to hold onto the Blond one.

bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

The Sahara. The second location Otto planned to make a training course. The blond walked through hot, dry winds; his coat and scarf flipping violently behind him. His focus was on his surveying equipment, occasionally looking up in an attempt to see past the sandy storm.

By surveying equipment, really it was just a sketchbook and notes taken. This was only the first day of his attempt to begin his new project. He feared this place. It was a land that had brought him pain and suffering. Maybe he could make something from such hardships. He wondered if anything he completed here would come close to being of use. He always hoped, and tried.

However, his soul was heavy. His life was chaos and lies. He felt guilt eat away at his heart.

His hands fell to his sides, as he breathed out in defeat within the muffler over his face. He'd hoped coming here to work would give his mind reprieve. It did no such thing.

With sadness and thoughts that self depreciated, he moved forward. Forward to explore the blind landscape some more; but never too far. He'd hate to become lost.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

Oh, it was him. There was no mistaking the weapon, huge and unwieldy, nor the coat, like the sun bursting over the sea at dusk. He giggled to himself, hiding the rasping sound behind a bony hand, overjoyed.

The figure approached, and Lurks stilled his hands, waiting with bated breath in his empty lungs.

When he was close enough, the Famine's hand shot out of the sand with alarming force, latching on with a grip made of steel. The rest of him soon followed, emerging from beneath in a cascading whirlwind of sand.

"Hello," he said, brightly and friendly, his eyes glittering like two dying embers in his skull. "I missed you."

Bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

Why hadn't he expected to get attacked? Was he so easily led into a sense of security? The sudden painful and alarming feeling that came from his ankle being grabbed startled him, jumpstarting his heart beat into frantic drum rolls. He looked down, and was met with a terrifying and horribly familiar face.

Otto grit his teeth together, cussing within his muffler.

"I ain't missed your ********' ugly mug. Git offa me!" He made a move to kick his foot free; his right arm raising Tenya high up. In an instant, he aimed for Lurk's face and slammed the weapon down into the sand covered horsemen.

Famine. Why was it always famine?

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

The force from the blow sent Lurks beneath the sand again, like a drowning person's head beneath slipping beneath the tumultuous waters of the sea. He released Otto's ankle, and audible thumps could be heard as his bony body hit the pit's base.

But that was not that was all Otto heard: a steady buzzing began to build, thrumming as though he were amidst a hive. The sands parted as Lurks rocketed up into the air, his black wings beating ferociously, covered in their tell-tale red eyes. He was propelled by the force of his shadows, and at the apex of his leap, he arced downwards, skeletal hands outstretched to grab at Otto's shirt once he got close enough.

"We have many many plans," Lurks crooned, bringing his face close. His breath stank of rotted meat and mustiness, and a spider began to crawl out of his mouth, unperturbed.

Bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

Otto didn't like the sound of that buzzing. It filled his ears with a deafening roar. With buzzing came bugs, usually. While he had been learning to conquer his fear of the dark, bugs were still a big trigger.

With a startled gasp, he witnessed the horsemen flying up from within the sand. Without much time to react, claws were dug into the fabric of his shirt, and he was face to face with a face not even a mother could love. Just what plans did this thing think he had? THeir last encounter had found the creature playing some kind of one sided game.

Not much else was considered about it. The stink of his breath made Otto want to gag. Worser yet, the spider that came from his mouth made Otto yelp in fear. His eyes widened, and he began struggling violently against the creatures grasp. He'd let the thing tear his shirt apart if need be, but he wanted nothing to do with bugs; especially bugs of famine. His imagination wrought chaos on his mind, making the scar on the back of his neck burn and itch despite it's age.

"Lemme go!" He cursed and stomped a foot into Lurk's chest; an effort to put distance between them like a wedge as he pushed him away. He needed to stop Lurk's from having any physical contact with him. He was obviously crawling with bugs. Bugs, everywhere, bugs.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

Lurks giggled, and with every shake of his shoulders a new bug appeared, curious and shadowy. Swiping at them would do no good: they faded into othing and re-assembled out of dark motes, their ghostly touch leaving only the barest sensation of movement.

The blond one shrieked and flailed, giving the Famine pony a swell of pride. They were going to play and have lots of fun and everything was going to be fine.

The blond one's kick managed to shake Lurks free, his fingers tear a little at the shirt before letting go entirely. He stayed low as he circled the hunter, head twisted at odd angles.

"Where are you going to go?" he asked, childish and stubborn. "I want you to stay. I'm going to keep you and it is going to be fine. The inky black figments began to march on insubstantial legs towards Otto, a wide array of centipedes and spiders and moths.

Lurks, though, continued to circle, crouched low.

In the distance, a sandstorm howled, edging closer.

Bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

Otto stood after stumbling back and away from Lurks, finding himself a little more than trapped. The Horsemen was the most unsettling creature he'd come across, aside from the Vetela. All of the bugs had his nerves going haywire; the unreasonable urge to panic licking at his neck. That fear and panic made it difficult to breathe, and even moreso to reason or think rationally.

Lurks had some sort of plan, or perhaps he was talking out of his bony a**. Maybe they were hollow threats or ploys to tease Otto into being afraid.

"You ain't get to keep me, you sick ********." Otto trembled through forced bravado. His eyes never stayed too long on the horsemen. They were always on alert for bugs. Bugs. They wanted to dig under his skin, he just knew. The moment he stopped watching them, they would.

Otto held his breath, pulling out the pendant. ******** this noise. No way was he going to deal with this s**t. He'd come back another day with actual backup. Or maybe choose another location entirely.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"No," Lurks hissed, lunging for Otto like a coiled serpent striking, alight with a fury. "No, no, no, you cannot get away, no--"

He clawed and scrabbled for the pendant, the thing that let them get away, the thing that would remove the blond one from his sight, from his grasp, from his plans for the present and future. The bones of his fingers were cold with death, worn by sand, and strong. They wrapped around the blue and gray and snatched and tore, pulling it away and out of Otto's desperate clutches.

The bugs began to swarm at their feet, as if they were a riotous crowd singing and chanting for entertainment, their buzzing growing to a cacophonous volume.

"Yes I do," Lurks said, the words a dark promise, "I get to keep you. Forever and ever and ever, until you are dead."

Triumphant, Lurks held the pendant in his fist, and promptly swallowed it, letting it lodge visible in his throat, distending it with its edges. He choked, for a moment, but what was not truly alive did not need to breathe.

And he smiled, black wings steadily beating behind him, the look on his smug face clear:

Your move.

Bittiface

 

[Bittiface]

Otto had no chance to utter any words. He fought to keep the pendant from Lurks. But those claw like fingers tore and hurt, weakening his grap without meaning to. And bugs, oh the bugs he imagined crawling on the surface of his arms. His way out was taken, and Otto could only stare with a dumb shock. For only that small moment, there was no fear, or wonder. Simply a vacant emptiness of dimwitted bafflement.

How ******** was he right now?

It was too much to believe to be real. This was not real life now. He was imagining all of this. A dream. Otto Graves was no stuck in the middle of a sandstorm with a famine pony who breathed bugs. CLearly, just the result of an overactive imagination. The swirling wave of bugs was what brought him back, the panic once again creating a suffocating lump in his throat.

He cringed, watching the creature gag on his pendant a moment.

"Oh no.." He murmured without control. He grit his teeth and held Tenya up again. He'd have to fight his way out.

Otto spun the weapon behind him before throwing it close range into Lurk's ribs, wishing to crack them with blow after blow. He could take this thing down. He just needed to overcome the urge to run from his fears.

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"Oh yes," Lurks corrected, voice still hoarse and horrible. Fingers reached out again, to grab and snatch and take and ruin--

But a blow to his chest sent the horseman skidding backwards, back arching and twisting much too far for anything alive. But a spine alignment was easily corrected, for a creature that did not truly live, that did not exist without lovely, glorious FEAR.

Lurks crawled towards the Blond one, pulling himself along with his arms alone, his skeletal body slowly untwisting as he closed the distance between them.

A weapon appeared in his hand, drawn together from a variety of shadowy bugs, FEAR concentrated into a rusted sickle.

"Catch!" The weapon-- and its heavy, weighted chain-- flew towards Lurks' opponent, and all he needed this one to do was step a little bit backwards, just a few steps, and then he'd be tumbling down into the hidden pit, tucked away for safe keeping.

Bittiface

FINALLY /surfaces from the deep like a vast whale

 

[Bittiface]

Otto literally fell for Lurks's trap. He'd backed away from the oncoming weapon and the eerie vision of the horsemen's nightmarish pursuit. With a cut off yelp, Otto slipped backward and tumbled into a pit.

He hit the bottom with a thud, taking a fair amount of air from his lungs from the sudden stop. Immediately, he scrambled to his feet, on the lookout for a way up, or out, or through.

Either Lurks had gotten lucky with this pit, or the idiotic playtime horsemen was a lot more clever than Otto had given him credit for.

cherno astra

omg your avi <3

 

[its me debz]

Lurks cackled in glee, but not before digging into his throat with his skeletal fingers to fish out the pendant. It was strange and blue, and glimmered lightly. He peered over the edge of the collapsed pit, beaming.

"I told you," the pony crowed in a sing-song voice, his teeth bared in a too-wide grin. The pit was thirty feet deep, at the least, the walls made of smooth sandstone. "What is your name? Hmm. Never mind. Since you are mine, I shall call you the Confined."

The pendant glimmered in his hand, dangling out of reach.

Bittiface

DANCING FOR THE DIEDRICH GODS!

 

[Bittiface]

No wonder that fall had hurt. He was a long way down. Yet h could still see the glowing way out that was hopelessly out of his reach. He sneered at Lurks from far below, curling his lip at the mention of his supposed new name. He would not be responding to that s**t.

"The ******** you tryin' to do?" He called up defiantly, "This some kinda game to you?"

cherno astra

 

[its me debz]

"Of course it is a game," Lurks explained, as though the Confined one was very stupid and young. "I want to keep many many of you, together. Humans are the source of FEAR, you know. And you are not the Original, but you are very very good practise, because I do not know what a human needs. Can you tell me?"

Bittiface