Even in these chains, you won't stop me

Somewhere in the darkness, a beast roared in misery, the sound enraged and just as tortured as she was. The dark queen, maddened by pain, answered the roaring bellow with a banshee-esque shriek of her own. Her injured forelimb throbbed again, adding to the sharp waves of agony that coursed up to her spine. Another peel of awful laughter bubbled up from her as tears blinded the mad devil, her body taken to rocking as she cried and laughed and tried to hum to herself. Her tail was wrapped firmly around her haunches as she sat rocking, holding her broken leg aloft as much as she could. Hysterical and confused, Lurid only halted her motions and laughter long enough to allow enraged, pained screams echo through the tunnels and caverns of the underworld. Stupid of her to run from the falling crystals, if she had gone toward the sound she would have been alright, things can't fall twice. "St-stupid girl...hmmmm...stupid, stupid girl..." Her speech was broken by short involuntary hums, laughs, hitching breaths, and forced exhalations that made her lungs burn and her throat clamp shut briefly, repeating words she had heard since puppyhood. Ouranos had not been a kind father, and now his words rang in her head over and over with startling and agonizing clarity. "Hmm...stupid, stupid, foolish girl..." The monster wanted to bite her leg for hurting her, and the sounds of clacking teeth snapping over and over could be heard echoing in the cavernous room she sat in. Unable to bring herself to truly clamp down on her leg, Lurid snapped her fangs every time it pained her. Then she heard it, an alarming call in a hauntingly familiar voice. 'Lurid!'

His voice was so clear over the screaming of her father but lost to her agony Lurid only repeated her tortured mantra. Until Alastor touched her. In her shocked, pain-riddled mind, she fought to recognize his voice. His voice had cut through the fog of her mind, but not far enough.  He knew her name, he was important, but as he moved to her injured side a rumbling of dual vocals rang in the dark. The eerie growling was punctuated by hissing, the sound not unlike a pit viper, and he kept talking! Questions. Questions, questions, questions! Lurid! It rang in her mind again, his voice saying her name, rolling over and over in her mind like a skipping record. He knew her, he was scared for her, but he moved wrong... With a ferocious snap of her jaws before he could touch her, Lurid screamed at him, her eyes gone dark in her madness. "Dooooooon't!" The word was drawn out over her screaming, pain-stricken roar as she turned to face him head-on, saliva dripping from her fangs with a wet drop in her crazed state. Rising up on her hind legs like a bear, the beast of a woman was careful even in her haze not to jostle her leg too much, she aimed to smack her broad forehead against the dark male's and push him back while she screamed at him. Then suddenly, she halted. Dropping to her good forelimb, the rest of his words finally sank through the fog.

The broken empress seemed frozen in her tracks, staring at Alastor with an unblinking gaze as his words sank into her head. "Alastor?" The broken way she said his name - part prayer, part crying question - would have told him everything he needed to know about her mental state. Intense pain had driven her from her mind and placed her unmercifully into a darkness that seemed inescapable. There was so much riding on her, and she could not do what was necessary for those who depended on her most. "Hmmm...stupid girl..." She whispered in answer to his question, unable to get much passed her choking sobs and broken fits of laughter. Lurid leaned on him then, relieved and horrified that he was here. "I'm sooorrryyyyy!" The apology was uttered into his chest with a wailing cry that would break even the hardest of hearts. She repeated the words, "I'm sorry, I'm so soorrryyy," over and over again as she cried. Even when they began to move, her apology was for all the work she wouldn't be able to do, it was for her pack waiting for her back home, it was for Kichi, for Alastor, and for herself. The string was only broken by the stressed humming, demented cackling, or another round of 'stupid girl'. She was lucky she knew Alastor had her even when she was weak, as she had him, but she still hated that he had to see her like this.