Despite the regional climate transition from summer to autumn, the northern edges of Alacritis were untouched by seasonal effectiveness, the land here was petrified in glass-like frost. Small flakes of snow drifted at a leisurely pace, decorating the forestry in a coating of iridescent glitter, filling the air with simple magic. But the childish precipitation did not phase the lonely stranger, who only noticed how dark the sky had become over the past few hours. The night was moonless, sombre and quiet - minus the occasional whisper through the boughs of the trees. She did not care for the angel-fluff descending from the Heavens, or the endless mounds of snow that could have been used for infantile tunneling and folly fort-making. She sought solitude. She had lost count of how many days it had been since her delicate nose detected the miniscule scent of a wolf. She assumed that she had been lingering close to unidentifiable territories, homelands that boasted unfriendly and hostile hosts. And for once in her life, Caedena could not find the courage to care. She was no gain, she had nothing for them, and certainly had nothing to lose. Her home had been taken from her by an invisible hand. Her King, Helios, all his glory and grace, had been reduced to a collection of fragmented memories. The children she tended to, and the sick she healed with nothing more than her God given talent. Pack members who cared and nursed her, family that rose before the sun to praise the day before it had even arrived. Her Gods. The Deities that sewed her genetic fibers together in a gossamer of beauty and intelligence and more importantly the heart capacity of a saint. But Caede could not recall why she woke up in a different world, void of a King and her chestnut-furred child. Her son was not cradled in the nook of her hip he had vanished, combusted into blurred ashes along with a sense of reality. Her Gods had been hushed, answerless when she cried to them and begged on her back for an explanation. Everyone was taken from her: including her personal demon. Though his picturesque image remained intact perfectly. The last time she saw him she had turned her back and fled, sliding and cascading in the downfall of rain. She evaded the look of murder in his eyes, she escaped his wicked vice on her unintelligible emotions. They way he coddled her and reprehended her, his haunting voice, and the unintentional coercing of unfamiliar sins into her once pure body. Morte. Her heart murmured painfully in her breast. She dare not recover her feelings for him. She finally made her way into the mouth of a cave, dark and damp, but as welcoming as she would come by. She lowered her limber body, curling up her elegant limbs and resting a petite chin up-top of her unproportionate paws. Her pale blue-grey eyes threatened to close in sleep as she sank in to a state of silent tranquility. --------------------------------------------------------------- OOC: LET THE HEART WARMING REUNITING COMMENCE <3

Time was a cruel, sickened beast - something that the behemoth of a man usually had the taste for. However, it was not to be in this particular instance. A split from the lands that had previously been considered a home - had been considered his - and a loss of the white angel had only served to cause some type of mental break within. Never the most stable of beings, a bastard addled with blood lust and chaotic desires, Morte had indeed only grown more mercurial as time had ebbed and flowed and left him to waste away, to recede into the twisted caverns of his mind. The sweet siren?s song of his angel had never departed, plaguing him day in and day out. The gentle perfume coasted gently on the breeze as he followed, yet never close enough to find her, never close enough to taste her. Yet, as he had learned as a mere whelp, his persistence was often met with reward sooner or later. With exact precision the behemoth moved, strained muscles quivering beneath that obsidian pelage as he navigated oh so carefully across the snow laden ground.

Ebonite nostrils flared and quivered as the icy air entered and exited, breathe rising up in misty tendrils. Cruel, crimson eyes scanned the area meticulously. She was here, he could feel her, could nearly taste her perfume dancing upon the frigid air. A sort of pain tore through his chest and burrowed its way into his bones - an aching desire to see his angel once more. Oh, how he had missed her so. Yet, it was not in the way a man misses his lover. No, it was in the way a hostage misses his prisoner. From that first encounter, she had become just that to him just as he had become a prisoner for her. As Morte moved, large mitts sinking into the powdery substance, the gentle whispers of a fractured psyche echoed around him, a sound only he could hear. Rumbling deep in his chest, the booming growl of irritation sounded and were the earth able, it would have shaken with fear and retreated to a safer arena. However, it was the earth he inhabited and so long as he stalked the grounds of it, it would never truly be safe.

Midst the velvety darkness of a moonless night he crept, the only signal of his existence those shining evil eyes and the white mask. Morte was a phantom, a being of illusions and nightmares. The type of thing that pervaded the dreams of children and adults alike and turned them into something putrid and terrifying. Stalking, closer he drew, the smell of the woman drawing him on. He was a true nightmare, he was her nightmare. Morte never wondered if she would remember him or think him a figment of her imagination. He knew that Caede would not forget his name, his face - he was forever to be ingrained in her mind. Poisoned her he had, forever tainted her and the thought of such brought a sick simper to twist his already twisted lips. Silently, he glided. The tantalizing scent grew stronger with each motion, and he knew he was close. Confirmation was soon provided as hardened eyes caught the motion of the babe, that pallid form almost unnoticeable amongst the pure grains of show that littered the earthen floor. Supple movements awoke something deep within the pit of the beast and that entire, monstrous frame shuddered with perverse delight.

From a safe distance, the devil watched the angel seek refuge in a darkened cavern. Position would not allow her to see with a simple scan. No, she would have to look with extreme care if she wished to see him and since the woman was unaware of his presence, she would have no need to do such a thing. Kissers pulled back, revealing pearly weaponry before jaws unhinged, strings of saliva connecting top and bottom as a chilling, disturbed and resonating laugh bellowed forth from him. It was an eerie sound, something from the pits of hell surely and it filled the silent air, riding upon it to the perfect ears of the babe. Taking a step back, he removed himself from total sight and crept forth, crown hung low as malicious intent filled his eyes. Nares flared to draw in the precious perfume of his angel until he was certain he was precisely center to where she was. Forward he stepped, careful to maintain the perfect distance, just far enough away to lure her into thinking he was a trick of the fragile mind. Morte stood, stoic as though he were carved from stone, reddened eyes blazing in the darkness. The vision of him remained blurred by the flurry of falling snow, only serving to create a more haunting apparition out of him.

Moments of silence passed as he watched her, the hunger welling within until his jaws unhinged once more. Deep baritones sounded, worming their way into the frigid air and carrying to the angel he had sought for for so long. The sound of the word as it reached her was eerie, terrifying and real - at least for Morte. The nomenclature had rolled sweetly from his lips, a murmur of unbridled desire, one that would certainly strike the woman?s heart and send a chill of recognition and fear down that perfect spine, through the gossamer body. It was just one word, and it was all he needed to remind her that she could not escape him, ?Caede.?

"speech!"

table copyright argent 2013

A wicked laugh echoed through the dismal expanse. A laugh that could only suggest the machinations of the devil, and it carried on the wind, light and fluid, night-mare-like, as if she were dreaming. But the ache in Caede's bones was confirming her that she was wide awake, alive and witnessing her faith in reality - in anything at all - fall apart at the seams. A dull throb in her throat told her who was coming, who dared to interrupt her silent paradise, the only one who ever thought it was appropriate to reach their black hands inside of her, toying with her sentiments, corrupting her character. She sharply inhaled in an attempt to soothe her pains, to bring in a sense of She breathlessly whispered in agony, "Go back to hell." Her lower lip trembled as it struggled to fight back her hushed whines. She used to believe she was fearless, used to be sure in herself. But the absence of her Gods in her life had shaken her, crushed her self confidence. He was standing in front of her - a behemoth silhouette she could not conjure by herself. She thatched her eyes shut in refusal to see him. "Please," she murmured. Her heart palpitated in emotional fury, fluttering, trying to flee her ribcage like a frightened doe from a predator. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Her crystalline eyes were rimmed with tears when she reopened them. He was still there: an obsidian statue in an opaque blur of snowfall. If only she knew not who he was, what his jaws were capable of, what lechery he could perform, she would have mistaken him for an angel. But the fire that raged in his eyes was hot like boiling blood, threading pearls of saliva hung from his ivory teeth as he spoke her name. Caede's lips moved to speak the curves of his name, but she couldn't find her voice. Her forelimbs quivered as she tried to rise on her feet, yet her posterior would not leave the floor as she lifted her chest, elevating herself into a seated position. She mustered just enough courage to lock her jaw shut, to stop her trembling and appear as if she had been waiting for him to come for her. She exhaled gradually, gripping her new found strength in fear that it might evaporate and leave her. How had he found her? Where had he come from? A thousand questions fired in her synapses like rapid bullets. But not a single word left her pale lips. Feigning security, Caede raised her chin in challenge to him to try to test her tonicity. ----------------------------------------------------------------

Wicked was he, truly so. Impure in heart, mind and soul; his pleasures derived from the pain and suffering of others. From the distance, the behemoth could still sense the panic in the white angel and oh how sweet it truly was. Gentle murmur of the faint words she spoke echoed upon the frigid fingers of the air, yet none were intelligible by the time they reached the cupped ears of the bastard. Morte could only imagine they were a plea for her sanity, for her safety for while those words had never left her lips before, he knew she wished his existence had never been known to her. The man was like a disease that spread through the bones and the muscle, that etched it?s way into the body, made it?s home there and never left. He was poison, a tempest that was unrelenting and unwavering.

It was several moments before the phantasm moved, disappearing and reappearing between the trees as each near silent footfall pressed him closer to the proximity of the babe. Bloodied eyes burned like the fires in the pits of hell, the lust for her emanating from him in waves. It was far from a sexual lust, however, but the lust of a master for his slave. There was an increasing need to contain his angel, to make her his once and for all and to never let her leave him again. The wench had escaped him once and Morte would ensure that such a thing would never happen again. Jaws unhinged, hanging and menacing as strings of saliva dripped and threaded between upper and lower, salmon oral muscle slipping forth to drag across jagged weaponry and blackened lips. The sweet scent of his angel was tantalizing, and it took every ounce of control that he had to keep from tearing through the snow to devour her.

The gentle twitch of her own kissers could be seen, moving silently to form the name that she could not speak. In flashes, he could see her as he moved between the trees, watching as she struggled to come to grips with what she was truly seeing, the fear and pain etching itself across her face in a clear and beautiful display. Sickly glee at this spread through the man, delight at her pain. Morte wondered if she still believed in those foolish gods she had spoken of in their brief past encounter. Such foolishness was that - there were no gods for her. They were false idols, ones that she put blind faith in and foolishly got nothing in return. Nothing but the haunt of the demented bastard, the man who could not quiet the whispering voices in his mind. The man who saw her as his and would kill her just to savor her - would kill her to keep another from having her. Oh, how beautiful that alabaster pelt would look stained with the crimson liquid of her body. The heart of the woman would make a fine adornment.

Yet, the thought sent panic through him as well. Time away from his angel had been a living hell, a thing that had torn him apart from the inside out and had left him a demented and twisted mess of the already sickened devil he was. It had only caused him to descend further into madness. He certainly could not endure such a thing again. No, he would leave her alive, leave the blood in her veins and her heart beating in her chest for he needed her. He was unable to live without her at this point. And as he drew near, the flurries of snow sticking to that obsidian coat, breath curling up in wispy and frigid tendrils, he knew. The wicked laughter cascaded from him again, head tilting to one side slightly as he gazed upon that pure frame with a gaze of pure fire. Demented simper twisted grotesque lips into a haunting grin as the titanous demon halted only feet from the babe.

He could sense the insecurity within, the fear that flowed from her pores and tainted the air about her. Despite the resolve that held her body tight, that settled over her and kept her from quivering, Morte was not fooled. Any would be terrified to come face to face with him more than once - and he knew that she was just that. Terrified. Shaken to the core by his presence and my, how it pleased him. With a wet click, his jaws parted once more and deep tones called forth for her, like a haunting lullaby, ?I knew I would find you again. I told you I would. You can not escape me, Caede - no matter how far you go.?


"speech!"

table copyright argent 2013

The archfiend approached Caede, and as he did she began to mirror his movements. After she had finally convinced her lower half to rise off the floor, she gradually backed into the cave, the net of her gaze searching for him, seeking his figure. As her tailbone caressed the back wall of the cavern, the mouth of doom swallowed her. She had no where to flee to, evading Morte was not an option. A little light spilled in from the mouth of the cave, flickering faintly like dying fireflies, yet even immersed in darkness she seemed to emanate her own lambent bioluminescence, as if a pale moon on a cloudless night. She could not conquer her crowning fear - yet she fought the obscure urge to touch him, to feel the heat brewing in his skin, to confirm that he was wholly present in the flesh. Someone from her past had materialized, a small gift from above to remind her that she was not crazy, but it was a tantalizing thought that she disregarded immediately. How dare her conscious mind lead her into such outrageously wrong deeds. The doe knew better, she knew that these feelings would multiply - breed like festering insects - into something sinful, into a desire she wished not to recognize any more. The fiend in front of her evoked immorality, and it was painfully genitive. Internally, she waged war on her emotions, praying to the deities for salvation from this hot and sticky confusion, to save her from feelings of wrath and lust. But they remained silent, her faith deteriorating as every fleeting second her counterpart came closer. And it finally occurred to Caede that her Gods could be punishing her. They were forcing young Caedena to realize her responsibility, reminding the female that abandoning her duties as a follower in Heaven was immoral. She was supposed to lead Morte into the light, redeem him for the unfaithfulness he had shown through the years. Caede was the vessel. She silently recognized her mistakes, acknowledging her tests in faith and purpose. The games of make-believe were at an end. She was sure that her infernal pheromones remained unknown to the enemy, covered and hushed like warm, unspoken secrets. "Morte," his name came effortlessly, gently, and too familiar for her to feel comfortable. "What do you want from me?" Her song-like voice was a tame plea for sanity.