shotgun [beritty v dullahan; day 7]

[анзие (Anz)]

The night spits the sun out from its toothless maw, spraying red-orange-yellow light from beneath the horizon. The exhausted sun drags itself slowly from darkness, reaching arms shaking with the effort of gaining freedom; its light is feeble, but gains strength with every moment following its abrupt release. Hours have passed before the sun makes itself known to Kitty's sleepless eyes - it takes mere minutes to crawl back into a safe spot on blue canvas, curling there slowly the way Kitty curls on green grass and sleeping girl. 

Harmless green blades flicker in the spaces between his fingers as Kitty passes his hand back and forth, back and forth over a fraction of silky landscape. Over and over behind his eyes he sees an afterimage of the afterimage of the anthem, the ghost of its song echoing in refrain to his mind's ear. Kitty told himself he wouldn't count, but it's harder to stop when he knows now he's halfway home. 

The thought consumes all, greedily sucking sleep and reason from his beaten body. It lingers in the back of his head, teasing him with the thoughts of his return - of stepping off that train for the last time to see his siblings standing... waiting. Kitty imagines his own body making one final effort to run into their welcoming arms, thinks he might start crying at the wholeness and solidity of their warm, living bodies. He thinks he might not be able to stop.

Kitty thinks of seeing Lachlan Callaghan in the streets, and of falling asleep next to the unmarked tombstone belonging to Connor in the tattered edge of the graveyard. He thinks of pulling the edge of Bear's sleeve the way he used to two years ago and whispering in his ear, "My brother saved my life." He thinks about telling Bear the name he bore before he became Kitty, but decides against it. Kitty Keeni is the real boy now. 

He wants to live. He's halfway home, but the sun is always swallowed by the night, and the night promises him hell if Kitty survives the storm.

Chloe stirs, and Kitty shivers, eyes snapping wide open. Suddenly, he can't be in her grasp anymore - of all the people he can taint with the shadow of Death, it must not be beautiful, sweet, innocent Chloe. He can't touch Harbinger too, not without leaving some kind of target, some messed up mark the Capitol will think a message of rebellion. Kitty peels himself from Chloe's arms, shivering in the sudden loss of exchanged body heat.

Beretta is already awake, her pack slung over one fur-vested shoulder. Her wicked nails slice through the air with every movement she makes, the thickened blood of the monster she'd conquered a trophy like the many she'd collected before. Kitty hastens to follow her lead as she strides away, glancing over his shoulder at Harbinger and Chloe still asleep on the ground in their wake. The question, "But what about them?" dies on his lips as the pair slips out of view. He knows what.

If Kitty's going to die, it can't be by their hands. Killing a stranger is haunting enough; killing a friend can end a life as easily as a sword to the neck. Even with the logic working in his mind, Kitty can't help looking over his shoulder at where his friends might be, wishing. Wishing.

The illusion of possibility chokes and suffocates with every step.

The queen of bones says nothing to him, or at least nothing Kitty remembers. He wonders - quietly, tiredly - if he's meant to fight her. Fighting her will hurt. Fighting her will be merciless. Fighting her is useless, because Beretta has become his monarch and he'll follow her to any end she decides worthy. She is midnight with crazy glinting in her cat-like eyes, and fighting her will mean that her bare-tooth grin will be the last thing Kitty will ever see.

She'll still be a damn sight better than the grief-stricken faces of friends and kind-hearted strangers.

A chill descends over him like an unwanted blanket, and Kitty turns to the sound of the drum of ghostly hooves echoing the drum in his chest. 

The night comes, and Kitty's riding shotgun in a carriage running at the welcoming figure of Death.

kitty attacks dullahan
jDTlLuT9spear
Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage

spear

[L△LIA]

Beneath the stars lies the dark. Within that darkness a new mountain has risen by falling, a monument upon the glen where a beast among beasts was toppled. Ultimately it fell not to a weapon — not to sword nor fire nor poison — but to the mere touch of a greater evil. You are that monster. It is unnecessary for you to be twelve feet tall with claws like scythes and one of the sun's many tongues living in your great and terrible eye when the end of the universe is coded into the whorl of your fingerprints.

The balor does not rest in peace, but pieces. Gentle hills of discarded flesh rise up from the landscape where you cleaved muscle away after stripping her fur, cutting her down post-mortem as if this creature were the tallest tree in a forest of horrors, conquered simply to prove you can. From the ivory lumber of her legs and twisted ropes of her skin you have built yourself a throne of bones and are now seated at her skull: the head of the table. That massive eye is often described as being the size of a dinner plate and you smirk while confirming this truth, laying a feast out upon it. Fried eggs and mushrooms, sausages, bacon, grilled tomatoes, buttered toast, and baked beans are heaped upon the unblinking, golden iris. It is still warm from the hellfire flames that kissed your cheeks earlier in the day and the scent of the food wafts into the air like a confession of servitude to you.

Razored fingernails slice the meal into polite, well-mannered bites before you spear a piece of sausage onto the tip of Leticia's finger, drag it through a soft yolk, and bring it to your lips. Two more bites follow before you systematically pause to sip from a bottle of fifteen-year single malt scotch whiskey. Your drink possesses more fire than your fallen foe and you laugh, although the only one around to share your amusement is yet another one-eyed ghost of the dead. The sphinx lounges upon the Balor's chest as you eat, keeping watch while absently sharpening her claws upon the ribs.

"I miss you," you declare too honestly to the strange specter of the two friends that have stayed by your side not just this past week, but for every minute of knowing you before that. Surely the spirits are to blame for this outburst, although your voice is unslurred and steady with factual confidence. JohnLyon gapes, rigid with shock, and you do a double-take at the misty air as it seems to sizzle with disbelief for your sentimentality, rejecting you. A hum rises up from the aibell's lungs until her gawking mouth begins unfurling in a cloud of smoke, screaming as she burns alive from the inside out. The high-pitched shriek crawls into your own mouth and you echo it, clawing your way up and over the balor's face — egg and beans smashing between your toes as you clamor across the carefully laid out feast — leaping forward in an attempt to reach the sphinx before it disintegrates.

There is nothing there to wrap your arms around. Maybe there never was.

Momentum carries your feet past the stump of the muttation's lower torso, as if you are jumping off a small cliff. Rolling into the grass, pain reverberates through the atmosphere and for once you find no enjoyment in it. Your heart thuds like a threat. You forget who you are, the stars spinning dizzy circles above you and your cheeks damp with what must be yesterday's rain. I miss you, rings out silently, as if there is a devil worse than you and this is how she laughs, thinking her foe has fallen. If you truly have, then it is only because you are Lucifer being thrown down from heaven. What you were a moment before is angelic to what you know you have just become.

Devil, your throne of conquered bones still stands, awaiting you as you pull yourself up and breathe in the gruesome mist whirling across the glen. It is kerosene, as Elya and Circe have always been to you. Fuel for your rage, you sink your bare hands into the balor's corpse like a savage, clawing flesh from its forearm and hurling it through the war-torn air. It splatters upon the ground like bombs of atomic blood. Your nails sink into the warm, death-weaken muscles of the creature despite the way sinew and tendons attempt to snare your fingers in one final fight. The infectious scream still strangled in your throat persists and you do not pause, tearing fistfuls of flesh away until the muttation's arm is twice as naked as the bird's wing you striped of feathers two days before. It is sad, but you are not. You are too busy using your war hammer to pry excess claws out from their sockets to feel anything now.

With several thunderous, clattering smashes, you swing your weapon into the elbow until the forearm is freed. A single meter-long claw remains and you pick the scythe you have created up as if it is a royal scepter, heaving for breath. Your pupils are drawn long and thin with exhaustion, but you can't stop when this is simply the beginning. Raising up the Balor's own hand against it, high above your head as a triumph, you tear into the rest of its corpse with unrelenting fervor. Bones seem to spill out as easily as entrails, dawn bleeding out above you as you toss the banshee's glinting skull away in favor of a new one armed with horns and serrated teeth, binding ribs to your legs, half a spine to each arm, and spare fingers and hand bones to your feet. A twelve-foot skeleton is a full suit of armor on you.

Morning argues with itself about whether you are glorious or hideous, wearing more white than a wedding dress.

WIP WIP WIP BC I WILL FOREVER HAVE TOO MANY FEELS AND TOO LITTLE TIME :HELL_KIM:

FINISHING THIS TOMORROW and probably fillering any other posts bc priorities lollll

DON'T MIND BERETTA WHILE SHE DRUNKENLY BATTLES THE DULLAHAN

THAT'S +AESTHETIC TOO, RIGHT?!

attacks dullahan with scythe bc she's the real reaper

4G3_0NZAglaive

miss — accuracy re-roll below

[KAYAK KILLS JOHNLYON; I THOUGHT SUICIDE WAS AGAINST THE RULES]

[improvises a glaive from one of the balor's claws/forearms, a new helmet from her skull, shin guards from rib bones, spine into a pair of vambraces, and fingers/hand bones into foot armor]

[BALOR BONES BALOR BONES BALOR BONES FULL SUIT OF ARMOR :JOY:]

[makes an actual throne of bones out of balor legs]

[eats a full english breakfast off the balor's eyeball, casually using it as a hotplate]

[drinks whiskey]

[oh right I almost forgot to roll for infection from the banshee gut n/t]

1-9

[7 — no infection]

[accuracy re-roll]

glaive

[Deep Gash on Back of Head — 9.0 damage]

glaive�1-9�glaive

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

With a twitch of his skeletal fingers, the mist swirls to him: a silver cloak weaves itself of faces, of animals, of monsters, the souls of souls of those damned by luck to his domain. He wears the fog like a crown of laurels draped over his absent head, a pile of pelts swirling and shifting — one moment a hyena, next a crocodile, next a dragon, a leopard, a bison, a serpent. Like the living, they linger here only for a moment. Thanatos has no use for the spirits he collects.

The Dullahan may be silent as the very grave he has come to claim collection for, but the hoofbeats of his horse scatter the smooth stones on the beach beneath him, an empty echoing off the cliffs and crags. He needs no herald. The too-low thrum of the reaper's mount is the answer to any fool brave enough to demand the name of their death.

Between his empty shoulder blades, a lion becomes a sphinx, becomes a spider. A scythe cuts through the fog, cleaving the arachnid into a pair of hawks.

His torso turns, as if to look at the pair on the ground that might challenge him. Death will have his due.

Thanatos reaches out a hand to summon the boy to the grave:

[reaps kitty]
nuMCw77u1-5

1-5

[анзие (Anz)]

The skeletal hand brushes the air an inch away from Kitty's skin, and he's never been so close to Death as he is now. His heart pounds out its final beats, threatening to burst from his chest like doing that would leave him behind, as though Death cannot hold him if his body chooses its own end. Kitty is only half aware of pulling away, lips parted in a swallowed gasp; his spear collides with Death, shudders in his hand, but does not shatter like he fears.

His queen disappears from his side; Kitty wants to look for her, but his eyes are drawn to the place where Death's head should be, where blank space pins him in place and silver mist crowns Death king. 

Kitty trembles, made no one and irrelevant in the face of the man-made reaper. Every instance of rebellion has left him; he's left with just the young boy too stupid to run away with the rest. But even though he grew up a fool, that boy found courage. His knuckles whiten on his spear, staring down Death as he reaches out with a gentle, loving hand. 

"Take me with you." Through the haze of smoke and pain, Connor's voice stirs life back into his little brother. They're moving, stumbling away from the heat, and he hears Connor scream: "Take me with you, please!" 

He repeats them years later, words pressed into his brother's shoulder as Connor doesn't stir. His heart struggles under Kieran's ear, and the child whispers the words like a prayer to a deity he doesn't believe in - over, and over, and over, and over again, words breaking on sobs and a genuine fear of being left behind.

"Please."

kitty attacks dullahan
4etaDd63spear
Miss -- 0.0 damage

spear

[L△LIA]

Sister and I are having thanksgiving dinner a day late so I'ma filler bc I'm not even done with my intro feels yet hahaha XD

JOHNLYON IS DEAD AND I'M STILL CRY

Beretta is hella drunk, ngl. She's so drunk she fell in a hole. She's so drunk she fell on Someith's spike. :smirk:

Aya and Anzie are writing goddesses and I am filler trash. But I have streusel crumble cherry pie so my life could be worse. Yep. This post has a cherry fillering.

attacks dullahan with scythe bc she's the real reaper

zMMuxgfvglaive

Deep Gash on Right Bicep — 8.0 damage

glaive

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

The boy trembles away from him, the Dullahan's bony fist clenching on empty air. A hazy phoenix bursts from the horseman's chest and dissolves into a silver firework of rabbits and hedgehogs and kittens. They are comical companions for the headless rider, but perhaps not enough to relax the guard of the boy in front of him. He wants it, almost. The reaper can tell.

But the spear swings wide, and Thanatos knows where his opposition lies:

He doesn't need a nose to sense the stench of evil on the girl. Skeleton-clad and reemerging from whatever fresh hell she's discovered all the while, it is not hard for the harbinger of death to mistake this disappearing devil for the master he's been said to serve.

He extends her a hand, a chivalrous invitation to share his undead mount, to take the reigns and — IDK RIDE OFF INTO THE SUNSET PROBABLY.


[reaps beretta invites beretta to come chill in hell c:]
qM13GJ1V1-5

1-5

[анзие (Anz)]

tonight imma lose my mind

what were you saying about writing goddess? xD

filler filler

kitty attacks dullahan
Ku9pt0dbspear
Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage

spear

[L△LIA]

I know I shouldn't be fillering in the fight with a 20% probability of being insta'd but also it's friday night and I don't wanna get insta'd irl by the GMs. c:

Seriously though I know everyone writes in their fillers about how they're gonna fill them in asap, but please actually yell at me to fill these in asap this weekend. I probably have sunday off lol. Also you probably don't have to yell at me about it bc I'm legitimately hyped to write this, I'm just braindead from working black friday retail life.

SO IN CASE YOU MISSED IT ON SLACK, I SHIP BERETTAxDULLAHAN SO CAN SHE JUST VOLUNTARILY TAKE THAT HAND? BC RIDING OFF INTO THE SUNSET WITH DEATH ITSELF IN A CLOUD OF SOULS AND RATTLING BONES SOUNDS LIKE THE ACTUAL BEST. NO BUT REALLY. PLEASE REFER TO THE FLOWCHART.

Beretta might still be alive, but these mutt posts are slaying me.

attacks dullahan with scythe bc she's the real reaper

AVqAzcMKglaive

Shallow Cut on Left Shoulder — 3.5 damage

glaive

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

His invitation is spurned by a slice to the shoulder, a scythe as a scepter bidding him kneel and rise as Sir Thanatos. Her Majesty could make him a knight in the way no stallion, no armor, no red-smiling badge of bravery ever could. Perhaps he is unworthy to be claimed by this devil as her consort.

But death will have his due, and the headless rider needs a soul. If he could not have the Queen of Bones, her macabre pet would be an easy collection — the boy already has one foot in the grave.

[reaps kitty with his grim reaping equipment]
JFh4YqEY1-5

1-5

[L△LIA]

gdi aya is giving me feels and I want to actually write this but I'm slow asf and don't even know where to start while she's killing me like it ain't no thang and it's already saturday where she is so you get some super legit bizarre shipper fluff later

but not now

now you get me going AHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH bc

KITTYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY~

and also bc "did this just turn into some sort of weird love triangle of death?"

I mean

kinda

attacks dullahan with scythe bc she's the real reaper

Nsd|tunxglaive

Deep Gash on Right Thigh — 8.0 damage

glaive

[gm bourgeois decadence [aya]]

Bony hands prize spirit from sinew as Thanatos compels his latest capture to follow. Like a medal of merit, the soul pins itself to shroud of mist that hangs over the rider, a funeral pall for the burial that would never be held in his honor. Thanatos lingers in the haze of the horrors he has wrought, a veil of boy and beast and banshee all vying for one last corporeal moment before they are drawn back into the horseman's gravity.

He shifts in his seat, turns his headless stare on the reaper that remains. Am I worthy? he might ask, were he a lesser beast, or were he one with a mouth — but the scythe to his thigh is answer enough. Still, he beckons, one set of skeleton hands outstretched for the other:

[xoxo beretta]
y4eTfMyf1-5

1-5

[L△LIA]

lbr beretta is feeling up his leg with her scythe bc this is how she puts the moves on people

I'd probably write fanfiction about this ship if I weren't actually gonna write it :smirk:

no ragrets

xoxo Thanatos

wSODlrbYglaive

result

glaive