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 Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:42 pm
 ((Much better than a--))
The silence was broken by the crackling of leaves as they were crushed beneath Eurydice's sharply cloven hooves. In the North, where Eurydice had first searched for her sister, the winter had been sharp, like the gnawing jaws of a wolf pack. It had bitten at her heels wherever she'd traveled. Here in the Kawani Lands, the snow muffled her hoof falls only slightly, and oftentimes her steps were punctuated by the crunch of dead foliage. She'd only recently shed her winter coat, which... felt like a terrible mistake-- not that she had any say in the matter. Shivering, the mare tried to follow the scent of the stallion she'd met in the Northern lands. His pathway was difficult for her to tread, for she could not fly. His descriptions had gotten her this far, but from here on out, she would need to go by scent alone.
A predicament for a mare whose blood was mixed. She continued onward at the sight of a rocky outcropping that seemed to fit with something he'd said. Strangely, the only scent of kin-blood was... faded. Old, like a forgotten song. She raised a hoof uncertainly, her tail striving to lash and only managing to fan out. Such was her lot: the instincts of a Kalona, yet a form that did not conform with them. Her hesitation drew on, like the silence that had stretched out across thousands of miles. It seemed that she had come too late to find what she needed, or else had taken the wrong path at some point. Curses! Where was she to go now?
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:48 am
 His travels so far had led him back to the place where Keiran had been found by his mother, an unremarkable place of craggy rock currently blanketed by winter's frozen embrace. It was hard to believe that the events that transpired here had managed to save his mother, fulfilling her with purpose and the desire to live once more. Perhaps his hooves had led him here so he could try and puzzle out just what it truly meant to be wise. Nemesis never saw himself as a clever thinker, but he certainly wasn't stupid.
Silently, still holding his ruined wing close to his side, the stallion moved with surprisingly little noise despite his bulk. His mother had come here, he thought to himself, worn down and despondent.... only to find a small Kalona colt that surely would have perished without her aid. She took solace in such knowledge, bolstered herself with it and became even stronger despite the fact that her mate had been ripped away from her by skinwalkers.
So lost in thought, Nemesis did not assume anything was amiss until the wind shifted directions. The smell of a mare filled his nostrils, bringing the telltale scent of Kalona... and something else.
Halfbreed.
His lips did not curl as they once might have, but he still felt the urge to run the intruder off this sacred place. Shifting himself around with a low, grating rumble that echoed deep in his chest, Nemesis tracked the scent right to the source. The horns and fangs of the mare spoke truly of her heritage, but the lack of wings and the utter strangeness of her tail betrayed everything. He surveyed her for a moment, sizing her up more than anything, before he spoke.
"Who are you?" Not quite a challenge. Not quite a threat.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:05 am
Judgement. There was no mistaking the look in the eyes of the other who faced her. Eurydice might have been startled by the stallion's arrival, but she didn't show it. She drew herself up, glowing eyes staring balefully back at him. "I am Eurydice... who asks?" Who was he? Was this... his place? Where was her sister? The sister that had been brave enough to leave the family lands. The one that might accept her, if she could but find her? She needed to find her.
And yet... there were other old smells. Smells that seemed... concerning, somehow. She wasn't sure why. Another mare's scent lingered, though the scent was not fresh. Not Usha's. Not of her blood. She watched this newcomer, tail still trying--and failing-- to lash.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:18 am
Her bold stare might have earned her a point of favor had she not been so obviously marred, and his own tail swept out abruptly as though to mock the bundle of feathers she carried. "I am Nemesis, of the Black Skull herd." He snorted quietly. "Let me be blunt: your kind is not welcomed here." She was tainted, to put it lightly.
Best he had found her before she'd wandered any farther into their territory.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:22 am
"My kind?" she asked, a hint of anger lacing her tone. "My kind, or my kin, has been here before. Seemingly long before yours. So, if you would not mind, I am going to continue doing exactly what I was doing." Even if he did mind, Eurydice was not leaving. There was a fresher scent than that old faint one. Something... decidedly of her own blood, yet... somehow different. She was not leaving, thank you. He could lash his tail all he wanted, but she wouldn't budge. ... And what was a stallion who was practically crippled going to do about it?
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:28 am
Her kin? Here? Ridiculous. Nemesis allowed a sliver of his teeth to show at that, his temper stirring at her insinuation that halfbreeds had been here long before his family. "I give you warning, little mare." He growled, resisting the urge to mantle his wings and cause himself further pain. Instead, he satisfied himself by taking a step forward, shortening the space between them. "I have tasted blood for less than this."
It had been some time since he had slain a halfbreed, true, but... Nemesis had certainly killed many in the past, seeking to wipe out the abominations that had formed from the unity of Kalona and lesser.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:33 am
This threatening hulk of a stallion would not back Eurydice down. The little mare flared her tail out, refusing to allow him the ground beneath her hooves. "Do you think that I am frightened by such threats, you great, colossal bully?" Oh, she was angry now. How dare he threaten her? "And what precisely do you mean by that?" Oh, if her tail could lash...!
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:47 am
His teeth ground together with irritation, resisting the urge to simply lash out with his head and rake her with his horns. "What does it sound like?" He snapped in return, her indignation only fueling his own distaste. "I have killed your kind. You dilute the purity of what it means to be Kalona." A simple lesson, was it not? He had been raised with the knowledge that his breed was superior--that those who bred with lessers were a disgrace. Why not choose to wipe them out? Their union, their offspring.... it was a mistake.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 8:54 am
That struck a nerve. "My mother," Eurydice ground out, "was ostensibly a pure Kalona. She lived her whole life until I was born believing that she was pure. That she was no so-called 'halfbreed'." b*****d. Oh, that just inflamed her rage. "You murdered Kalona's blood... because of such a crime? How dare you presume to judge what HE does or does not value! How dare you murder your own kind! You spilled your own blood." And that mother had rejected her, had cast her out... and had lost everything. Everything.
"Monster."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:04 am
His eyes narrowed to mere slits at that, his tail snapping at the air to betray his temper. Before he could begin to argue that her sullied genes were no t of his concern, she called him a monster? Nemesis truly advanced on her then, his eyes wild with rage and his mouth gaped to bare his ferocious set of fangs. "Do you even know what true monsters are?!" He roared at her, snaking his neck out to snap his teeth only inches from her hide. "I have seen monsters! They wear the skins of animals and care not for what they kill!"
He would show her monsters, he would ring her slender neck until it was bloodied and torn...
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:13 am
"You're proving my point," she snapped. How dare he? "And do these monsters that you speak of... these skinwalkers," Oh yes, she knew what a Skinwalker was, "do they have reason and morality as we are meant to? Do they have bonds of kinship and family? No. That is why they are Skinwalkers and you are a monster. They do what they do because that is what they are. You do it out of choice. Or does my blood not shed as well as yours? Do our foals not cry out for nourishment as yours do? Do we not hurt, and hunt, and fight, and die as you do?"
Eurydice's eyes were hard as she stared into this snarling stallion's visage. "You have spilled Kalona's blood. Knowingly. You have killed his children. You are worse than they are."
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 3:03 pm
This was no Kalona.
This was a halfbreed. A mutt. An abomination. And yet, Nemesis knew the wrath of a Kalona mare enough to flinch back in the face of one. Her tirade washed over him, accusing and hateful as it pricked holes in his hide. Kalona's.... blood? The mixed breeds? He shook his head as though to deny her words, but they chased him, nipping sharply at his thoughts. Kalona's blood...
The blood that was already so scarce. A bellow of a roar ripped from his throat even as he lunged at her, possessed by the maddened notion that by silencing her, he could silence such a damnable notion.
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Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 7:13 pm
"The truth is... I'm as Kalona as you are. You just don't want to admit it." As he lunged at her, she sidestepped him. He was an enormous stallion. That size put him at a disadvantage here. And perhaps she could not fly, but he was grounded. If he decided to press his attack, she'd have weapons. "If you're even worthy of the name anymore... and I wouldn't count on it. If I were you, I would beg Kalona for his forgiveness." Eurydice wanted to scoff at this laughingstock of a Kalona, but no. No, that would not help here. ... Even her words now probably wouldn't sink in.
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2016 10:29 am
Miss Cherie I apparently never wrapped this up... so doing so now!
But was he not better than they? Those words had buried into his brain like a parasite, and even with anger roaring through his every vein, he could not shake them. He was no Skinwalker, no monster that ripped families apart. And yet, those halfbreeds had been sired by someone.
Cloven hooves dug into the ground as he spun to face her, his nostrils flared wide as he took deep, ragged breaths. The stallion seemed frozen for a moment, seeing something beyond this small, purple mare. He backed up a step, as though overwhelmed by the sudden, traitorous knowledge that had been allowed to take root in his mind, shaking his head with a vicious snap of his teeth.
For the first time in his life, Nemesis turned and fled. He ran like a coward, thoughts howling after him like the souls of the damned. He ran as hard as he could, crashing through the underbrush like a demon possessed, uncaring of the way branches snapped against his hide as though to strike him down for his failures. In truth, he was not thinking of much anymore. All he knew was that he needed to flee, to get away.
But there was nowhere he could run to escape.
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