ashes to ashes

thinking "speech" "others"

Oh how the mighty fall.

With each breath, his flanks heaved. Once brilliant eyes were glazed over and empty of even the tiniest cognisance. Paranoia rooted so deeply in his brain he couldn't differentiate between reality and the whispers of a familiar voice at the back of his mind. The phoenix had fled from the home he had only just found, fitful dreams and waking nightmares crafting the illusion in his mind that each and every one of the wolves there was looking to snuff him out. Stealing away in the midst of a shift change, the man had run until he'd collapsed. Ragged pelage was buffeted by cold winds coming off of the looming mountains overhead, and he clung close to the guiding lights of the spectral fireflies. He lay in a heap, investigated with great interest by the dancing lights that moved all around him. They seemed to reach out and collide with his body, disappearing as soon as they touched his shuddering flesh. The whites of his eyes rolled frantically as he searched for pursuers, too weak to get up and flee from any that might have come to drag him back to his death.

He faded in and out of consciousness for hours, fatigued body struggling to recover from the exertion. Limbs twitched furtively, though each clench of his straining muscles seemed to drain him all the more. He was too tired to move, and he was out in the open- a pitifully easy target. Despite the terror that flooded his veins with cortisol and adrenaline, he couldn't get up. He was simply half sprawled in the grass, praying that no one came looking. Alongside every heaving breath, more bioluminescent ooze dripped in a steady stream from each nostril as he panted heavily in the grass. Desperate to draw in a full breath, unhindered by the fluid that threatened to fill his lungs with each inhalation, he found himself stretching his jaws as far apart as they would go so that he could take in rapid, shuddering gasps. Soon enough, his head swam and his vision blurred as he hyperventilated and lost consciousness. The moment his cerulean eyes fluttered shut, he was gripped by horrific nightmares.

There was Kaine, half swathed in flames with flesh melting from his charring bones, closing in. Those mismatched eyes stared into his soul, gaping jaws hanging limp and wide open as the tethering muscles and ligaments were devoured by the flames of their funeral pyre. From the slack, abyssal maw came the haunting litany of his sire's disappointment. You failed me, you failed your mother. Kefka still lives, free of retribution for his sins. You did n o t h i n g. With each singsong syllable, the volume of Kaine's voice rose into a screeching crescendo. Skeletal jaws closed over his throat, their grip relentless and impossibly powerful as the embers that kissed his auburn pelt turned his own body to kindling.

Mephistopheles wrenched himself from the realm of slumber, screaming. As consciousness filtered into his feverish mind, he realized the sound that seemed to echo for miles was still coming from his throat. It petered out with a coughing fit, battered larynx like a branding iron in his gullet. He was trembling, and even the blue orbs that surrounded him when he'd lost consciousness were maintaining a wide berth. The safety of their light had been lost, and he felt the clinging shadows against his skin like a thousand insect legs. Fighting his way to his paws, the exhausted godling staggered after the nearest swarm. Each time he thought he was close enough to feel the safety and comfort of their gentle light, they seemed to dance further away. Panic gripped his heart like a vice, getting tighter each moment as he chased desperately after the fireflies. A steady keening built in his throat, though saliva had suddenly dried on his tongue and his jaws were glued shut by terror.

He didn't notice the way the wavering auroras overhead suddenly vanished, and the wheeling stars that encircled the azure face of the moon were lost. Mephistopheles would never gaze upon the heavens again, and he couldn't even recall what the clear skies of a sunny afternoon looked like anymore. All he knew was running, pushing his body to its limit as he chased the cloud of flickering blue fireflies ever deeper into the crypt. Ancient bones clattered away from his paws as they drummed the cold stone floor, some shattering as they were kicked into a nearby wall. In his wake, a glowing, viscous trail of aegean and the fading echoes of his terrified cries. Deeper and deeper into the dark he ran, and suddenly he could hear heavy breathing and heavy paws coming up behind him. You will never escape, boy... ragged vocals, horribly familiar, crept into his mind from somewhere at his back. He couldn't utter a word, his throat tight with panic.

It was too late, when he realized that the ground had crumbled away beneath his paws. He was in free fall, tumbling headlong into awaiting darkness. Finally, he could force a wailing cry from somewhere deep in his chest, cut off with a sickening crunch as he collided with the stone floor far below. There was no pain, the impact had given done him the courtesy of snapping his spine before the rapidly firing neurons all over his broken body could dump the excruciating pain into his traumatized brain. With the feline grace, his sire landed nimbly on their paws and padded slowly closer. The edge of his vision were fading away, and he was bathed in the gentle light of the small swarm of fireflies, descending to observe his final moments. Mephistopheles found some degree of peace, bathed in their blue glow and safe from the darkness all around him. The warped, grotesque wolf that had been lurking around every corner for innumerable days and nights was gone. Instead, the familiar kindness sparkled in the odd eyes of the only parent he'd ever known. He tried to swallow down the blood that was climbing up his throat, but he couldn't move. The swirling mixture of pale sapphire mingled with sanguine as it poured from his agape jaws, but he wasn't afraid to see it. Instead, he felt impossibly light, warm. "Come on, my boy. Your mother is waiting, she's missed you." Kaine murmured, and the gentle nudge of his snout seemed to jolt through his form.

Spectral form climbed unsteadily from the remains of its mortal coil, and the ruddy male shook out his ethereal pelt as he steadied himself on translucent paws. Mephistopheles did not look at the broken husk that had once tethered him to the physical plane, he couldn't tear his attention away from his beloved sire, relieved of the influence of nightmares and paranoia. "I missed you. So much." he said softly, leaning into the familiar body that felt so solid and warm against his own. It had been so long. With a lopsided grin, the ghostly Abraxas led the way back out of the crypt.

.:exit Mephistopheles via death:. (final wc: 1186)