She twirled her wand between her long, pale fingers, humming under her breath as she watched the trees bend in the wind. Every leaf rattling drew her pale green gaze, every bird cry made her uneasy. She'd heard the rumors, and occassionally heard the howl of a rogue wolf from where she stood, listening and watching. There was every chance they would eat her, but if she could find them...
Willow shook her head, then tucked her wand in her robe pocket before pulling her hair back with a scrunchie. If she had to run, she didn't want her hair hanging in her face and obscuring her vision. A twig snapped somewhere to her right, and a moment later a fat raccoon hauled itself into a tree. It looked around at her with great yellow eyes and snarled.
"You'd think the wolves would get something like that," she murmured under her breath.
Post by Sparky Cobalt on Apr 5, 2008 7:49:31 GMT -5
"The wolves are going to get you if you don't hurry and get away from here..." A voice came, belonging to the eternally nervous Head Boy who had popped up a bit of a distance away from her. "Come on, now..."
He fidgeted with the cuffs of the sleeves on his jacket as he bit his lip and glancing around them. "No need to risk your life for a short little walk, right? We should go. I won't tell anyone that you were out here if you'll just stay out, alright? Alright. Let's go."
Being this close to the forest was not good for Sparky's already shaky way of speaking, but at least it sort of frightened him into not stuttering and making sense, for once. After the thing with Areya so long ago...
Sparky shuddered.
"Why're you out here, anyway? Actually, ignore that. Let's just get away, first. Come on, come on, come on..."
Boy, did he not want to be there. He wouldn't have gone if he wasn't Head Boy and probably expected to do this sort of thing. He still wasn't sure just how he had gotten the position in the first place; he didn't even go to his classes much! His eyes darted back and forth as he watched their perimeter.
Spring was beginning to be sprung in the high up pine and oak forests of central Spain, and with the turn of the season there came the sun and her avatar upon the earth; the eldest sister of the Nephilim. This creature of the heavens had been gone for some months; this winter, weary with her current surroundings she had roamed in search of warmer climes across the sea where her snow white skin could reflect stronger rays, if never to absorb its power. She had returned to these woods barely two days previously, and the smells she had known were changed; bloodied and diluted. Newcomers were present, and the old lord of the land was now but a rare sighting.
Of course, change was enchanting to a Nephilim. They lived and lived, undying through the centuries of man, and second only to their loneliness was their boredom. Oh yes, change was good. Even now as she lounged in a tree top she could taste the subtle, weak flavour of a child on the wind, below her perch at the edge of the trees, and as she put forth her tendrils of sense felt the desire in the little one's heart. Did the girl understand her longing to its fullest, she wondered, or would it in the end of all things consume her, a mere mortal moth drawn to its death by the lure of fire. A romantic notion, perhaps, but one that Kesterel wished to investigate further.
But lo, what was this? Another joined her. A male. His nervousness was palpable, his heart rapid and pulse thready, but his courage was intact - it had to have been for him to enter this dreaded realm. A feline smile spread over the lips of the creature in the trees as she heard his pleas, his fears. Pleas like that deserved answering, did they not?
Of course, she was not dressed. She had climbed this oak in the darkness of the previous night to sleep in sight of the stars, too often obscured from the forest floor, and had unclothed herself so as to better feel the elements on her flawless alabaster skin. Of course, shame was a human emotion, and the scorching fire in her blood - and that of her siblings - had long since burned away any remnants of humanity which she may have once possessed. Thus it was without regret that she released the slender branch - one which was seemingly too whippy to support her form - from her grasp and dropped like a stone to the forest floor, some sixty to seventy feet below.
She landed, cat like, on her feet and hands, and her skin, gloriously uncovered, glowed with white light. She did not rise immediately, and indeed, every last motion of her head and hand was languid, superbly and almost unnaturally controlled, yet still effortless. Poetry in motion, perhaps. Instead she raised her eyes, their pale violent irises faint and almost indiscernible despite her pupils being mere pin pricks within them. Her hair, too, was almost without colour, some unholy union of sun and moon woven into being and made silk, long and shining, neither gold nor silver. She was an exquisitely carven marble statue fallen from the sky, a work of the gods of sculpture sent from above. After a brief moment of mute immobility, however, she straightened, revealing the full perfection of her form - the flex of her neck, her curving breast partially obscured by that impossible hair, and still her eyes did not leave the two youngsters, though it was clear that her attention was primarily focused upon the boy.
"No no," she purred, her low tones almost to soft to be heard above the gentle breeze as she moved toward him, her steps imperceptible so graceful was her flow. "There will be no leaving this place, not when there is so much to be known." Her words were as the falling of spring rain upon his ears, and before he could do anything she drew her arms about him and rested his cheek upon her soft chest, one silvery caressing hand upon his exposed neck.
Post by Sparky Cobalt on Apr 5, 2008 15:39:40 GMT -5
Though Sparky's attention was focused on the rule-breaking gryffindor girl, he found that he was unable to keep his attention there as a glowing form appeared out of nowhere in the corner of his eye. Slowly, his eyes slunk over to where, to his surprise, they found a very tall, very pretty, and very naked woman crouching on the ground.
He found he was speechless as he watched her. Surprise and fear and desire and loneliness all mixed in his brain until he was left with a windmill of emotions that he could not sort through. Oddly, he noticed that this was close to the effect Teagan had on him at some points, and wondered wildly if there was some connection.... and shook it off, because that just wouldn't make sense, right?
Right?
After a moment or two of stunned gazing, however, he found himself blushing and immediately dragged his eyes away and towards the ground near her leg. He found he couldn't stop himself from glancing back at her face as she spoke, though. His thoughts slowly and surely slipped away from the girl nearby and turned towards whoever this... person was.
Normal people wouldn't jump around the forest naked, would they?
Strangely, it seemed like the environment and state of undress suited her...
This did not stop him from being embarassed, however.
And now, she was walking towards him..
It was like mind control, how he heard nothing but her words, and they filled his mind completely. Every word she spoke was like poetry melting through his ears, accompanied by her voice as the soundtrack to her song. She was coming closer, and closer, and closer..
He found himself oddly calm, yet his breath was still growing rapid.
As she reached around him, he found his eyes automatically closing as she brought him to her unclothed body. She was warm, yet... cold, somehow, at the same time. He bit his lip absentmindedly at her last word, about there being no leaving, and found that he could not find a particular need to object to what she said.
After all, it couldn't be wrong if she was saying it, right?
He started to grow dizzy, and leaned into her skin, arms almost automatically raising themselves in a hug as he stood there, breath finally slowing...
ooc- *points* PDA! No, just kidding. Nice posts. I'm such a nOOb...
bic- Willow looked around with mild surprise, her green eyes flickering with some unknown emotion. She did have a habit of meeting authority whenever she was near the wood. First Morgan in the Nymph and now Sparky on lycan turf. Why was he so...jittery?
A moment later a extremely pretty...and naked woman made her way towards them, while Sparky was busy begging her to come away. She brushed her bangs from her eyes, and flicked her gaze from one to the other. As a straight girl, the Nephillium had no real effect on her, and Willow was mildly irritated. "What about Teagan?" She said with a smirk, taking a step away from the head boy.
"And if you can drag your eyes away from her legs, I'll go with you," she added, dropping her hands to her side after tapping Sparky on the shoulder. When he took a step toward her, Willow's eyes widened.
"Sparky..." she said slowly, softly. Then louder. "Sparky Cobalt, come on!"
ooc- And homg, this would be so much longer if my friend wouldn't leave me alone. I apologize from my noobness.
All the little girl's words were futile; useless folly spoken too poorly and too late to have the remotest effect on the spell which the great Nephilim had woven with such a practiced and delicate touch. The girl was nothing more than a buzzing fly; Kesterel the spider-queen, herself spun of the most subtle and cultured of silks. Her web was on the boy now, he was netted and ready for her to enjoy at her leisure. Without the faintest motion of her head, though her taloned hand continued to brush at her captive's neck throughout, her eyes flickered upward to meet the face of this girl who had wandered into dangerous realms wanting power and who had found only despair. Pupils contracted and dilated, the green light below the canopy reflected in their depths, and then she smiled.
The word could have been sucked away, leaving only that creature's feline curved lips to exist in a sea of void so beautiful was that smile. Unspoiled by man-made adornments, touched with the palest of natural rose they could have gone on forever. If she had been beautiful before, now she was beyond words, a poet's dream that could never for even a single moment be captured in the tawdriness of ink and paper. Her skin became almost translucent, lit from within by a burning, boiling star harboured within her chest, and, with infinite slowness, she tutted, shaking her head daintily from side to side as if chiding the child.
Thrice that silver tongue flicked off of the roof of her perfect mouth before a languid hand was raised, a single finger poised before her face, and she shushed her with a long, almost silent breath that could just have easily been made by the breeze in the boughs above them all. Looking back down at her captured prey, the golden creature resumed her caress, feeling his heart rate slow, his arms tighten around her. She controlled his energy, it was just that simple. She could feel in him the need for this; the painful longing which he had carried for so very long now. Love, unrequited, unfulfilled. He was empty with it, hollowed out with rejection... and all he had wanted was this. Contact.
"He is loved here," she crooned to the girl, her voice retaining its ethereal tones. "There is no need for him to leave now, he can be happy here, so long as he stays with me." A slightly raised eyebrow. "Do you not wish for him to be happy?" With that she leant her head down, surrounding the boy in her shining tresses, a curtain behind which he could hide, forever if need be, it seemed, and with the touch of an angel planted a feather-light kiss upon his crown.
"Now my dear," she murmured to the boy, nuzzling him close. "I will return to you shortly. Dwell in the breath you find between two stars until I come back to you. Know no fear, no pain, no voice." With that the Nephilim released him from her embrace and took a single elegant step forward so that she was within reach of the girl.
"Come away from him, child," she said simply, her voice laced with something new, something hot and proud and deadly. "He cannot hear you now." Tilting her head to one side, bird-like, Kesterel surveyed her new toy. A clear white hand reached forth and took the girl's chin in her grasp, forcefully turning her gaze upward to meet probing crystalline irises.
"Yes..." she purred. "You do want power, don't you? It is just a shame that real power, true power is beyond your fragile, undeveloped mind." Another smile, shimmering like a mirage in a clear white desert. Something was coming, a sudden storm, raging fires. Her violet eyes burned white hot and cobalt, and without effort she picked the girl up by the throat and threw her unceremoniously into a thick tree trunk. Following the living projectile, a streak of flame across the forest floor, the Nephilim reached down and lifted the girl once more by her delicate neck, holding her steady, her grip unbreakable, peering at her with that disturbing and devastating smile with all the detached glee of a barbaric surgeon before asking a single, simple question;
Willow's breath caught in her throat when their eyes met, green against a swirl of color. Only when Kesterel looked away again, back to her pet, Willow regained her energy. She felt dizzy, light-headed, and stumbled forward a step. "Sparky," she called again, but he didn't answer her. She chewed her lip, knowing it was too dangerous to continue, she'd have to get help.
"He is happy," Willow croaked. Her mind was awhirl, Kesterel's magic making her puzzled and unsure. Why was she hear? Then her gaze focused on Sparky again. "He's very happy. With Teagan. Leave him alone!"
When the Nephilim continued stroking Sparky, apparently ignoring the young Gryffindor, she took a few steps back, ready to run for help. Surely this creature could move faster than she could though, much faster. What do I do? Willow thought dazedly, a breeze touching wistfully at her back. Stay here, it seemed to whisper. Everything is fine. It was all her fault, Sparky had come to help her and now they'd both probably end up dead.
At that moment the Nephilim locked Sparky in place with a few well-chosen words, then approached Willow.
"Yes..." she purred. "You do want power, don't you? It is just a shame that real power, true power is beyond your fragile, undeveloped mind."
She took a step back in sudden fear, and suddenly Kesterel had her by the throat. She was flying through the air, and then the tree bark smacked hard against her spine. She cried out, and crumpled to the base of the tree. "Damnit," she murmured, then looked back up at Kesterel. The Nephilim drew closer once more, and picked her up again. She knew very well that this creature could just as easily break her neck as Willow could kill a butterfly.
"Would you like me to show you?"
She shuddered, the fear rippling through her body in a way, goosebumps rising on her pale limbs. Then, she looked back up, eyes dark and slightly more determined as she looked at her captor. The magic was...dizzying. "I-" She swallowed, which was difficult with the Nephilim's fingers around her throat. "I'm not here for power that you give. Not today," she replied as calmly as she could. "The one I seek is deeper in the wood. I think you know." Surely Kesterel had heard the howls, knew what lurked so deep in these woods. "Sparky has no part in this," she added, glancing at the head-boy who was still dumbstruck.
Post by Tristan Pendragon on Apr 7, 2008 2:46:15 GMT -5
"Reducto!"
The reducter curse, a simple spell crafted by wizards as a basic 'I'm a gonna blow your ass off' technique without the evil of the Avada Kedavra or the corniness of the Bombardo. When fired from a wand, it would certainly be able to blow Pluto up, or Uranus, this author having forgotten the joke from the fifth book. However, this spell, in this instance, was not being fired from a wand, but from the finely crafted barrel of a gun. A fine remnant of the War of the Shadows, where the artifact had been exchanged for a weapon most precious to the holder.
This just made the 'I'm a gonna blow your ass off' factor ten times worse. The sound the following explosion made - mostly to alert the three to his presence, not necessarily to harm anyone - would've woken the dead themselves. Or the Lord of the Forest, anyhow, if he wasn't off gallivanting and being his usual self. Oh Richard Rutherford, perhaps Talon was ever so right about you. It was a pity, thought the mysterious man with the gun, for Richard had been an interesting fellow at a time.
The figure, hand outstretched with his finger pressed against the mock 'trigger' of the weapon, was dressed entirely in red bandages, giving off the appearance of a mummy. At some points [more or less around the 'do not tell' regions] the wrappings were far more numerous, and at others [such as his eyes and mouth] there was nothing to hide at all. He leapt out with extreme agility from the tree branch he stood on, falling to the ground on one knee. After this graceful movement, he continued by shouting out a challenge to the unearthly monster.
"You creature, oh you wicked spawn of the Devil himself, will lay no further hand upon those two children of God. For your issue lies not with their tender hearts, but with the faith in such a generous Lord that keeps thee from the Gates Pearl or Obsidian. Such as it is, you would have issue with me, for I am his most treasured servant, the pious Exvind."
The ivory skinned goddes.s merely smiled wider, little by little, as the girl burbled her protests, her taloned grip tightening but slightly as those translucent violet orbs brightened like iridescent pearls. The words were useless, really, unnecessary. Kesterel knew the dark desire that lay within the girl’s heart; what intrigued the golden creature was why this child was so willing to give up all that had gone before in her short, short life. The curse of lycanthropy was an arduous one to bear. Her talents in that primitive thing that mortals named magic, her friends, her home and family, all would be systematically erased by the parasitic infection. There were advantages, certainly; no longer would she be a tiny dullard of a thing, she would be an animal, a predator, feasting on those she had formally counted as her own species. Kesterel simply wondered if this child was aware of the implications of her decision. It was doubtful, but still, the girl had something to her – nobility, perhaps, for she bargained for the safety of the boy before herself. It was useless, though. Kesterel would have her way with them both.
“Perhaps,” she acknowledged with infinite grace, tilting her head once more, raptorial, sending a cascade of flaxen gold shimmering down the length of her pale torso, shredded silk over crushed lilies. “Nonetheless, you must realise that the fates sometimes toss their toys without letting them first know to which corner of the room they go to. You may not have sought me, but you did find me, and now you have me. If you so wish, name it a test of the strength of your desires. I, though, know far, far more of the longings you feel. Let me be your temptation. Let me be your – “
Before the softly spoken sentence could be completed, however, there came a very sudden and rather obnoxious explosion just off to one side of the little party. Without releasing the girl child from her living bonds, Kesterel narrowed her amethyst eyes and traced the motion of the offender from the tree tops above down to the ground in a single, reasonably athletic arc. She did not fear his weapon in the slightest, but his rudeness, that was naughty. Turning back to view the girl for a split second, she smiled sweetly, an expression that didn’t sit quite as well as the predatory curvature she had sported before, but nonetheless still beautiful beyond comparison.
“Choice,” she finished, though her meaning was now altered somewhat. “You will forgive me if I am momentarily distracted, won’t you?” she purred gently. “Do not think that I am forgetting you... please stay.” Without flourish or fanfare the silver skinned angel placed the girl neatly and tidily back on the ground before reaching briskly downward and with a swift motion of her hands and wrists took the girl’s lower left leg in her hand, feeling the tautness of the muscles beneath her palms and then, with icy detachment, forced her long, iron hard nails through the girls skin at the knee. Quickly and with practiced nerve she navigated between the cruciate ligaments and the primary meniscus before brutally hooking her probing fingers around the kneecap itself and with one efficient movement tore it from the girl’s body, severing both the patellar and quadriceps tendons in the process. She would have repeated the process with the other leg, but time was pressing.
Ignoring whatever noises the girl was making, she turned swiftly, three fingers of one hand bloodied and dripping with the gore of her makeshift surgery, until she was facing the man in red. She tilted her head downward and paced first this way and that, never for a second taking her eerie gaze from his ragged form. A caged tigress faced with a new prey item, sizing up how best to proceed with her attack. The weapon was his primary defence; best to remove that first, to make sure he didn’t get delusions of capability.
She paced very gradually toward him where he remained kneeling on the ground, her entire naked frame rippling with suppressed energy, putting out her feelers as she tried to ascertain what he was. Human, yes, but a strange kind of holy man, dressed and armed as he was. She licked her lips. Anticipation. Then she too lowered herself, a sideways crouch of unsurpassable muscular flexibility. Her knees did not touch the forest floor, though they were scantly an inch above the leaf litter, one knee up by her breast, the other leg straight out to her left, toes pointed and poised to perfection – a ballerina’s envy. She was looking him in the eye now – well, where his eyes should have been beneath his scarlet bindings – and, shockingly sudden following her patient approach, seized his weapon and wrenched it easily from his grasp; the strength of the Nephilim could not be denied. A moment of inspection, holding it flat in her palms, one of which still held the unfortunate girl’s bone shard, and her fists balled around the length, bending it in two as if it was little more than a strand of bison grass.
“Exvind, was it?” she asked, delicately polite as she rolled the severed kneecap over her knuckles, as a human would do with a coin. “Man of the Lord, you should learn humility. That is what your lord preaches, is it not? Perhaps I should instruct you.” She dropped his weapon on the ground, heeding it no longer, and with her free hand reached for the bandages binding his head. A quick wrench and one was neatly ripped. Her fingers rubbed the fabric softly, and she bit her lower lip coquettishly, tugging gently at the wrappings. “Tell me,” she murmured softly, a breath of sweetly scented air. “Why do you not wish people to see you, Exvind the pious?”
Last Edit: Apr 7, 2008 11:01:07 GMT -5 by Kesterel
Willow had been thinking over the same thing, more or less, about what she'd have to leave behind. Her family, that was not a problem. They were dead, one by her own hand, although that was unknown to anyone but herself..She remembered the coursing hatred as she'd cast the fatal spell, leaving her uncle lifeless in a gutter when he'd attempting to strangle her.
Of Nephilim, she'd forgotten them. Her only thoughts had been on finding Fenrir, the Lord of the Wood. And now there was a good chance she'd end up dead, or worse. "I-" she began, but the explosion cut her off. Hope sparked in her chest, and the Nephilim set her on the ground. The air was thick with intoxicating magic, and when Kesterel told her to stay, she almost obeyed. Almost. Willow began to rise to her feet, but then she crumpled again with a scream, her knees bleeding freely onto the ground. "Son of a..." She screamed again as a fresh wave of pain struck her, then looked down, panting.
"Damn you," she muttered, gripping her knee with one hand. Finally, she remembered. I have a wand. She pulled it from her pocket, and looked over at Sparky. "Lumos," she murmured, and the soft light of her wand lit the woods. A bird had taken flight at the blast, and she looked around to see who or what had startled it. A wizard, wrapped up like an Egyptian dead. She almost laughed, but the pain broke through again.
She couldn't remember if spells would work on Nephilim or not, most likely not, as the Nephilim had so much magic of her own. Willow muttered something under her breath, and the blood flow became sluggish. She wasn't good enough to stop it up, to heal it, but she could at least slow it down.
Post by Tristan Pendragon on Apr 7, 2008 13:59:34 GMT -5
Exvind felt no fear - okay, maybe a little bit...alright, so he was on the verge of wetting himself - as Kesterel approached him. Her slow walk, like a vicious animal playing with its prey, only served to weaken his resolve in fighting her. He had faith in the Lord, alright, but when was the last time he'd had a real chat with his own personal savior? And if this really was the spawn of Satan himself, then what was he thinking going up against her? It was honorable, of course, but suicide.
Then, when the Nephilim reached him, she grabbed the gun out of his hand with incredible force and snapped it in twain. Aw man. All that work making that thing and it was broken just like that. Then she spoke, and when she did he could feel the stillness of the air and the supernatural echoes coming from below. Her voice was not of this world. Even the strands of words poisoned Exvind's soul, feeling the unholy power of the Nephilim. "I...uh..." The enigmatic man began rather stupidly, before screaming out towards the Head Boy, "SPARKY! RUN!" Though Sparky may not have remembered him, he certainly recalled the boy. Oh the letters Morgan had sent him over the past year, telling of the comical exploits of Sparky Cobalt and Teagan Monolayre. Despite having the talent of sticking names to faces, he probably would not have known it was him if it weren't for his Head Boy badge.
"Humility," Exvind said, responding to the Nephilim, "is for the brothers and sisters of Christ, the sons and daughters of the Lord in Heaven. It is not reserved for the damned such as thee, no matter how highly you believe of yourself. As for why I keep myself hidden - let's just say it shields me from sin."
bic- Willow gritted her teeth and attempted to rise, then let out a short cry of pain. "Shit," she spat, and the flow of blood began anew. "I swear on my uncle's grave, I will not die here," she said under her breath, and drawing her wand. "Accio branch." There was a pause, a great crashing, and a branch almost two yards long dropped to the ground a few feet away.
"Well that doesn't help," she said irritably, now fully ignoring Kesterel and Exvind. "Accio branch!" This time it rose in the air and shot to her so fast she barely caught it before it broke her nose. Coughing, she massaged her throat with her free hand, then pulled herself up with the branch. She let out a stream of cursewords, and looked towards Sparky. "Please wake up," she whispered.
"Damnit, where's a lycan when you need one," she said through gritted teeth. Hopping on one foot, every hop sending a jolt of pain through her, she made for deeper into the wood. Oh god...Willow hadn't had pain like this in years. A birch tree snagged at her clothes, throwing her off balance, and a thorn dropped down to scratch her face. Was the whole forest against her, or was the goddess of men using more magic?
Teagan Offline: This board is full of nostalgia.
Aug 22, 2020 8:39:09 GMT -5
Missing the old MH: gotta say missing when MH and all that was around.
Nov 6, 2019 0:02:30 GMT -5
Willow_lazy: why tf are there 400 posts about adidas
Sept 6, 2018 17:35:57 GMT -5
Azrael: I'm not hard to find, since I'm the only one there who goes by "Azzy", I'm pretty sure. XD
Feb 10, 2018 16:44:41 GMT -5
Azrael: Dunno if anyone still pops by here from time to time, but if any of you mofos do and still feel like gettin' yo nerd on, I've been hanging around this here place a bunch recently: www.roleplayerguild.com/
Feb 10, 2018 16:44:10 GMT -5
Azrael: hold onto your pantaloons
Jul 25, 2016 5:16:43 GMT -5