A web that Burns(Keene ward)

[Assilsa Curare]

Assilsa feel heavily upon her bed and began to dream.

The land was made of purples, blues and greens. It was beautiful, it was a dense forest that smelt like fresh rain, and to Assilsa it smelt like home. Not that she would remember what hope smelt like. As her booted feet touched the soft ground Assilsa could see that it had freshly rained. Looking down on herself she saw that she was in an elegant red dress that matched her eyes, her hair was done in a fancy updo she remembering seeing a photo of her mother wearing. This was weirdly relaxing touching the leaves around her, they were soft at first however the longer she touched small cobwebs would spread out from under her fingers covering the leaves.

This was odd, After all Assilsa wasnt usually in her normal form in dreams, she tended to lose the claws and fangs, holding her hand up she saw that indeed she had no claws, just normal human nails.

“Weird”

Assilsa lifted the skirts of her soft silken dress she padded amongst the undergrowth everywhere her boots touched more spiderwebs appeared. Reaching up to brush the hair out of her eyes Assilsa realised that to have this updo her hair needed to be its original length, Smiling widely she continued her relaxing walkin touching all the plants and trees on the way remembering fond memories of her home and of her family. They were great, sweet and caring apart from the fact her mother was dead and her father had remarried, also the harvest was a bit of an issue but if you forgot all about that it was a perfect little family

Stepping through to branches the over hung Assilsa was faced with a beautiful clearing filled with wild flowers. It was beautiful, even better was that there was a figure standing in the middle holding a bunch of flowers.

Silver blond hair, purple eyes….

“Mother”

Assilsa was unsure of what her mother, her DREAM mother would think of her or even to say to her, even still Assilsa dropped to her knees. Instantly, Webs exploded from the flowevers and covered the clearing turing it to a black and white landscape, what had she done. Head snapping around her she looked for a cause of what happened but when she turned back her mother had turned into her. Staring into her own eyes Assilsa hissed...

[Keene Ward]

A forest.

Correct, a forest. They were not the Zeltivan trees, nor was the smell of the crisp, tangy Zeltivan air dancing about the inner recesses of his nose. The colors were all wrong, shades of shades of shades that were too far removed from the sensible hues of the greens and browns that should have been present. Instead, there were violets, magentas, indigos and amythests, cerulians and impossibly verdant greens. It was a world entirely alien to him, something that could not possibly exist in any world, past or present; yet it did exist. It existed with all the might of nature's strength. The trees grew large and tall, their multi-hued radiance shining against the backdrop of ever changing complimentary colors that seemed to shift with each passing of the earthy, resin filled scent of the rain on the breeze. Beneath, there were patches of grassy clumps of purple vegetation intersected by a curing path of deep blue, the sort of color found at the bottom of the ocean. It was a hypnotizing, familiar sort of thing that drew him along, pulling at his feet while his mind found itself overwhelmed by the sensations that burst fourth from every facet of the environment.

There were strange sounds that rang out through the multi-shaded woods, reverberating with a powerful alternation of both booming bass and piercing treble. What caused the noises and where they came from was unimportant. He found that odd. For something to be unimportant, it had to not matter or matter less that the problem at hand. There was, to his knowledge, no current issue. He walked because he was compelled to do so nor for any other reason. He never thought to test himself by attempting to stop. There was no reason to stop, as he had no reason to walk. Either would have had no effect on the final outcome, so there was little point in doing anything other than what he was already doing; to do anything else would have been a waste of effort. By letting his leg travel on with no regard to his personal whims and desire, he was free to stare at the curious flecks of light that danced in front of him as he traveled.

They bobbed and flickered, some time a pale, translucent blue and other times completely invisible, reappearing some distance in front of him where they flitted about until he caught up to them, disappearing and reappearing as if it were some sort of game. There was laughter somewhere. During his intense focus upon the glowing lights, he'd failed to notice the first sounds of the forest fading to make room for the small, bubbling laughter of a child that echoed all around him. It was faint and distant, similar to the sort of echos heard from an empty well. His flicked from tree to tree, his gut telling him the culprit of the disconcerting frivolities resided within one of the millions and billions of wooden structures that reached high into the sky, their branches housing the bright, pastels of blues and purples, casting the yellow shade down across the path. Or perhaps was a pink or an orange, though black was a distinct possibility.

The height of the trees began to vary, becoming thin and spindly, though others seemed to grow, becoming wider and wider until the burst into bushes, scattering and dotting the landscape with their jagged edged leafs and bouncy, flexible protrusions that reminded him of whiskers on a cat. From beneath the bushes snaked vines that pulled themselves over the branches, blossoms of bloody reds and rotting yellows dotting the creeping plants like festering wounds. There was something terrible in their quality, something sinister. They shifted as he passed, reaching out their anemic claws in a vain attempt to attach themselves to his legs which sped up to avoid their contact. It was then the color began to fade. The bushes and trees had been covered by the thin, gossamer threads of the a spiders handiwork. The ornately embroidered silk swatches decorated the surroundings like a fresh fallen snow, securing the suffocating plants beneath its all encompassing blanket.

He had broken out into a run then, air rushing into his lungs, the taste of dust and age filling the air. There were no longer vibrant swaths of color that hung itself from the tops of the power, sturdy trees. In their place floated gently flowing tapestries of black and white, the shining silver threads one and the same as the webs that had sprouted from seemingly no where to cover the world in their embrace. His legs could not carry him fast enough. The webs crept up along his body, starting at his feet and swirling about his person until only his head remained free. He did not remember falling, but when his body was suspended in the air with a sharp tug at his ankle, he was quick to realize he was now upside down, staring at a sharp angle of decline at the back of woman dressed in red. She seemed to be saying something, but when Keene moved to open his mouth, the silk leaped up like lightning, attaching itself over his lips to maintain his silence; his struggle falling upon deaf ears.

There was the sound of several others falling from the unknown realm above, their tethers snapping them back into place with satisfying slaps of the webbing or whatever suppressed their movement and served as a leash hit against itself. The woman continued to stare on, her features entirely obscured save her red dress and black bun of neatly ordered hair. He felt a deep, heavy sadness deep in the pit of his stomach that ceased his struggles. There was something about her that was familiar she was so isolated, so alone. Not even the threads had thought to claim her as their hostage. She existed outside the reality of the internment. She was both beyond and below him, a figure that could not consort with him for he was not the same as she, an inequal. The sadness grew, pulsing through his body with steady beat that grew heavier and heavier with each sounding until he finally could take no more.

He screamed.

His voice filled the air, a distant foggy quality to the timbre that made it impossibly quiet. It drifted down from his lips, a small fuzzy creature that turned to give him a small, mischievous grin before disappearing to the whiteness of the webs all around. More fury creatures proceeded to crawl from within the confines of his mouth. There was Pain and Frustration, Hatred and Sorrow, and a myriad of others, climbing out of the cavity in his head like new born spiders from an egg. Not a single one remained, however, as they all disappeared into the blinding starkness of the web's contrast with the oppressive darkness. Still the woman stood, and still he had yet to sense his presence. As if reading his mind, the tether hold him aloft was cut by some force unknown, sending him hurtling down to the ground below where he landed with a sickening crunch upon an bed of snails.

.

[Assilsa Curare]

The other Assilsa, the face Assilsa, turned into a darker a version, her ruby eyes began to sparkle with evil intent, Something deep inside her had turned sour. the snow white skin had turned ashen grey, the colour of sickness, Everything about the girl in front of Assilsa screamed wrongness. Yet she couldnt turn away, she was held by some unknown mencing force. her vision blurred but the girl still stood, still in perfect focus how was she supposed to escape the gaze of her own eyes.

“Please….”

A small whimper escaped her ruby lips, Assilsa did not understand this, any of this. Closing her eyes into silent blackness gave her some relief but the draw was still there, whispering deceptions into her open ears. Opening them slowly after the small whispers had told her it was for the best Assilsa was no longer face to face with herself, even if it was a twisted copy Assilsa could still feel it had come from within her. Without the twisted copy Assilsa finally noticed that the landscape had changed and not for the better. The apple greens, the aquas even the voilets had all turned to sickly yellows and drying browns. The only shiny remaining colour were the webs. in their shiny silver they looked like they moved.

Assilsa gasped, it wasnt that they just looked like it, they were, the webs were crawling along the ground like triffids suffocating the landscape and taking over, taking control of everywhere… Everywhere except for Assilsa in her blood red dress completely clear of the glistening silver tendels.

With a sickening crunch a lump of such misleading silver landed in front of Assilsa, Screaming she stumbled back landing on her back. As she did the leaves seemed to ripple around her like water, the webs slithered out from underneath where Assilsa laid. Sobbing softly she tried to crawl away from the shifting pile of Cobwebs, small creatures seemed to be seeping from the webs crawling towards the dying undergrowth. The lumped seemed to stretch and shrink, causing Assilsa to scream once again. The slivering monstrosities hiding under the cover of her webs seemed to enjoy this, writhing with each plee and sob. Dancing with each scream/ They were feeding off of her fear and Assilsa seemed to be filled with it.

Finally her back thumped against a tree, Its bark felt slimy against her shoulders and neck. Like cheese after it have been left out for, a month. She sat there panting and sobbing, all why never taking her eyes off of the thing that had fallen from the sky.

“w-What do you want from me!?”

She screamed into the air falling from the tree and onto her side the ground once again rippling, but this time there came an effect. The webs snapped their focus onto Assilsa’s sobbing form and crawled towards her wrapping her slowly from her feet to her hair. Her breath quickened and another scream erupted from her crimson lips. The webs Tightened and constricted until Assilsa couldnt breath or even scream any more.

A bright light shone through the webs becoming brighter and brighter and slowly Assilsa regained her breath and let out a sob. All along her skin it burned slightly. More the lighten increased causing small stars to appear in her eyes. Without warning, the webs slithered off and left Assilsa, Snow white covering in grey veins, Fiery red eyes dancing with hunger, fully extended fangs and long black claws. She was a pureblood, A pureblood Symenstra once again.

[Keene Ward]

There was a scream. It pierced through the air like a knife rending flesh from bone. It tore into him, demanding of him some response beyond the shocked stiffness that immediately reacted to the disturbance. It clawed at him, its talons digging into the threads that bound him, severing them in synchronization with his struggling. The silver strands released him, hissing into the darkness that was the earth below him. He stared at nothing for a moment, intoxicated by the sheer emptiness of it before his attention was drawn by the sound of trashing behind him. Struggling to his feet, he turned to stare at the writhing mass of silken fibers.

Its motions stopped the moment his eyes made contact. They pressed themselves against the cocoon, drinking in the heady scent of blood and fear before they returned to him, perfect orbs with impish grins that warped the spherical nature of the iris. Popping them into his mouth and swallowing, he felt them travel through his throat to his brain, sketching out the images they'd seen on the wall of his mind. Sheep. Cotton. Clouds. Spiders. That was it, spiders. His skin shivered, sprouting from its pores tiny gossamer worms who, in turn, molded themselves into the little flecks of light he'd seen earlier, the pale blue glow even fainter than before. He stared as the creatures drifted towards the mass of webbing upon the ground, awful in its stillness. From within, something bleed. The crimson liquid spread out across the ground with a viscous slowness that pulled him forward like a quiet whisper.

He let his finger dip into the pool, slowly his hand followed then his arm until he was a hair's width away from the glistening puddle of gore. With a cautious but deliberate release of the muscles in his neck, he plunged his face into the pit of sanguine liquid. It rushed over his face, a warm kiss of ebbing life that forced its way though his lips, filling his body with the rosy elixir. It tasted of pain and loss, a bitterness that enveloped him, wrapped him in its withering grip, gnawing upon the very marrow of his bones. He gasped, but no air moved to relieve him of the crushing pressure upon his chest. He had risen to his feet, but he could no longer support himself, his legs having left to find their own path. As he plummeted towards the silken swaddle, he put forth his arms to brace his fall. Instead, he stepped forward, catching himself and placing his hands upon the smooth taffeta, finding a strange comfort in its heat.

Within the coagulation of claret and thread there came the sound of heartbeat. It pounded against his hands like fists against a wall. The vibrations resounded through the entirety of his being, compelling him to cast aside the useless strings beneath his hands to reveal that which lay trapped inside. He clawed, gnawed, and struck at the structure, slowly cracking and snapping it apart. The closer he came to freeing what had been encompassed by the silvery mass, the faster his heart raced. It was close. So close. His fist smashed into the final layer, sending cracks along the egg that danced in the form of tiny black lines. He jumped back, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, standing straight, hands at his side as he saluted with a wave and a rub of the nose.

There was the sound of water, of some salty nectar of anguish splashing against the cold, unfeeling ground of the ice below.

Then there was peace. He stared at it and she did the same. Red eyes boring into grey, hands pressed against claws, and pale skin against translucent covering of a network of veins. He was incredibly close, so close he could her heartbeat, her thoughts, her soul. Then he was distant, watching her, waiting for her. She was Peace, and she had not chosen him. He was in Turmoil, its fingers latching onto the holes in his chest, dragging him down into the mud, and she stood, gazing down at her hands in wonder at the strength and beauty she possessed. She was not his savior, and he was not her charge. There was no bond between them, no delicate strand of hope that he might cling to. She was great and mighty, while he the fly, resigned himself to his fate. He feel at her feet, unable to do anything more than crumple to the ground.

There he remained, inert and impotent. He had striven to release the strength of that which he had discovered, but it had not been his own. His sovereignty was as tarnished as the black steel from which was forged, melting in the fires of his inadequacy that burned with the scarlet eyes of the creature before him. He did not beg for mercy, nor did he ask for pity. His words failed him, as they had always done; no sound could his empty lungs make. A tear pulled itself from his eye, carrying with it a chain of grief that it wrapped tightly around his neck, forcing him to gaze that the splendor of the ascended before him. She towered over him, her shadow a freezing void in which all life found itself under her domain. And he was life, that which could not control its fate, its destiny. He had become a thread in the tapestry of life, woven into its intricacy with a single swipe of the needle. Inconsequential, meaningless.

"Nader kasai rosatl."

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[Assilsa Curare]

Blinking her eyes Assilsa began to think. Why was this happening? why was Assilsa surrounded by yellowing plants and glistening white webs. The sky began to darken and so did her eyes. From ruby they turn a dull blood, like it had been sitting and festering. It was a world away from what she had seen before, the purples, the sparkling blues and the shining greens had been sucked from the lands and changed into a desolate murky landscape, sickly yellows and dark browns to drain the happiness from their surroundings.

Assilsa ran a clawed hand through her hair, as she did so it slowly changed into the colours that the landscape had once been, the bright colours shining like gemstones. Looking around her Assilsa noticed the ground begain to ripple again as if it was water and Assilsa was a rock. Taking a small step forward the water began to fall, the small droplets turning into diamonds. They were so beautiful, sparkling with their rainbows and talking with their sparkling. The water and the gems didn't go anywhere, the disappeared at the centre, a centre without a centre. If that was even possible.

Closing her eyes Assilsa attempted to picture the landscape of her dreams. The tangled vines and the thing under growth. Wide thorny leaves that could swallow you whole and then some. It was the kind of place that made you tough, yet Assilsa was made of glass, just as Assilsa thought of how fragile she was her snow white skin began to fade, slowly turning into a silky smooth glass, The life of a Symenstra, the race with glass bones and deadly teeth.

Stepping closer to the diamond droplets and rippling leaves Assilsa felt her boots unraveled slowly, sinking into the whirlpool of non existence. It would be nice, non existence, to not live and not think, it would be oddly calming. Assilsa ran another hand through her hair attempting to loosen a few strands, as she did so emeralds, sapphires and amethysts fell in dust and and lumps of the precious stones. All to bounce off the ground and into the swirling leaves and swirling nothingness.

As the gems bounced and glittered into the puddle they slowly began to form a shape. At first it seemed like a boot, then a leg, then the rest of the shape. It was a man, a man with crystal eyes and crystal looks, He shined and sparkled as if he was watching Assilsa and trying to tell her something. Reaching out she traced the crystal mans cheek. slowly crystal began to form into blood then into skin. slowly opening her ruby lips she murmured.

“What are you doing in this land of mine?”

[Keene Ward]

The scene shifted, his inferiority fell away, twisting down ever deeper into the darkness below him. That darkness shimmered and slowly faded, leaving behind it an empty, blank whiteness that expanding from below his feet, bleeding into the landscape until all was stark emptiness. The woman had disappeared, replaced by the sterility that was found all around him. Instead, he floating in the emptiness, his burdens cast off giving him the feeling of flight. It was both everything and nothing, a sea of white that gave him the feeling of numbness enough to still his mind. His eyes slowly moved from left to right, drinking in the milky, featureless surroundings with a lazy thirst. It was quiet and calm, but there was no peace there. There was nothing there but himself and the emptiness. The absence of fear was not peace, nor what is it courage. It allowed him to be callous to that which had once afflicted him, but it offered no relief, no conciliation, only emptiness. Though he could wish for nothing more, his soul still yearned, immune to the strange, silent stillness that wrapped itself around him with its invisible embrace. Though the void gave whispered its promise of euphoria, it could not deliver, for in absence there was nothing to feel joy or any other humanity over.

He was released from from his empty world by the advent of a crystal dropping down from somewhere above him. It floated slowly, scintillating from some unknown light as it was joined by more and more of the rotating diamonds until they cascaded all about him, their light penetrating the fog of his mind. He gazed upwards at the small crack in the nothingness of the once void where the little stars leaked through. His hands extended upwards, drawing his body behind them as they slid over the stream of jewels like snakes, reaching ever towards the growing ripples of the sky. He passed through, the icy bits of stone tickling his skin as they began to meld with his person, gently burrowing into the malleable flesh of his body. He stared down at his hands as they began to morph and change first into a deep, dark onyx before the diamonds slid over the darkness, smothering it beneath a bright layer of radiant, multifaceted light. His shape began to lose form, compacting itself in a small, simple pearl that drifted through the portal like a leaf on the wind.

He drifted for a millennium, carried by the dreams of worlds that were born, aged, died, and gave birth to new life who in turn did the same. He could see all of eternity, spread out before him in a vast, unending cycle. The rise and fall of ages, empires, cities, and time itself. There was no end, no beginning. He was both time and outside of time, a phenomenon that existed outside the realm of existence. He had become the perfect observer, a being that held an infinite amount of power with only will to watch and remain removed from the never ending tale that was existence. Countless lives passed him by. He saw children sitting before strange boxes of metal and glass, their eyes glued to a string of impossible moving images. He saw wars waged in aired deserts, heard the screams of women and children and men alike as metal tubes were cast out of the sky to land upon the earth below with a force of destruction that was godlike in magnitude. He saw two armies, charging at one another on a vast, scarred battlefield. He saw love. He saw betrayal. He saw embitterment, and he saw annihilation. All these things passed before his ubiquitous eye simultaneously, his mind ablaze with the impossible nature of everything that he saw, felt, and experienced.

And as he thought his mind would explode, it stopped.

He floated down from the heavens, a minuscule speck against a vaguely familiar backdrop. In the middle of the thorny forest stood a woman with hair that shone a different color with each breath. Her hands were delicately crafted glass against the milky shine of her translucent body. He moved closer, descending with a gentle grace as a flake of snow, twirling in the flurries of time until he found his place before her. He tried to move, but his form was incomplete, only a small piece of the entire being it held within. She gazed down at him, her gemstone eyes twinkling but take no note of his presence. He moved again. The ground around him rippled as it had done in the empty space, diamonds trickling from his point of singularity. His form was slowly reconstructed out of the precious stones, working their way up from his feet to his head, a delicate construction that left him a shining sculpture of deceptive perfection. He gazed down at his hand, his vision coated by the greens and blues of the gems that composed his eyes.

She spoke.

His head turned, facing her with a questioning gaze. She sounded distant though she was close, the small curve of her lips morphing itself with each word she spoke until it returned to its delicate place. Her hand extended, gently tracing the contours of his icy features, her eyes awash with a strange melancholy that could not be explained with simple words or complex gesture. As the arm fell back to her side, her words came as a soft hiss, a gentle whisper of inquiry. Her land, her time, her existence. He had left his place in the grand cosmos of all realities to find himself encased in the terrestrial riches of her world, to speak with her if he so wished. Yet words did not come to him immediately, the hovered at the back of his throat, shy children in the presence of a new face, unafraid but giddy as children could be. Instead, he stared on at her strange, delicate face. Her features, though glass, were light and airy, a fragility unexplained. With deliberate tone that rang out like the rain against stone, he spoke, his words sounding strange and alien, a mortal sound that was so very juxtaposed to the being he had just fallen from.

"We-I..." The pronouns came slowly to him. "There is strife here, and harmony. It... suits me."

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[Assilsa Curare]

The man was right, in her mind there is harmony and strife, all in a whirlpool in her mind. Spinning and clashing causing an Eternal war. This is what this dream was, the final battle, the final leg of the race. One would win and one would die.

Assilsa dropped to her knees and put her face to the man’s, Her eyes studied his features as you would a book, reading his words, reading is very essence. Yet Assilsa came up blank, she could tell nothing of this man, It changed every second, sometimes the words that appeared begin to sound more like herself than him. The lonely child that ran away, well that was certainly her, she was reading herself of this man.

“Assilsa Curare…”

It was but a whisper yet it seemed to echo throughout the world, bouncing off the webs with small hums. This was her world of madness and hatred, how could she have created such a place? What had happened to the Happiness and…. And the colours, Assilsa wanted the colours back, the calming sea of greens, blues and purples.

“My.. name That is.”

Sitting down with her dressed bunched to stop it touching the webs she began to think of all the the things that could cause such things to happen and her mind always came back to the same eyes, the same soul. She couldn’t be the sole source of this war. This was the type of internal war that would break a persons spirit, change them completely. One person couldn't be the sole source. Unless with her ways Assilsa had finally found home only to have it ripped out of her again by the very same woman….

The landscape began to shift, It looked the same but everything began to look as though it was made of thousands off slivering bodies, each tree, each vine all made from Snakes. With their scales textured to be the exact same as it had been before the only giveaway were the blinking beedy eyes and their silvering movements. The subject of gravity did not affect them, nor did the concept of solids. Where they would touch the ground the snakes would melt into each other then into the ground. Assilsa was the controller of this world and yet she couldn't make it pretty again she could turn it into something that would make her happy.

Squeezing Her eyes close Assilsa attempted something new, she began to think of happier times, off times that Assilsa had forgotten about the evil in the world or even when she felt as though nothing could bring her down from her happiness high. As she did so the world slowly began to turn still. The world’s snakes melting into each other and melting to reform trees and leaves. However Assilsa did not want to open her eyes, the world outside, even under her control still managed to hurt her and maim her, in her mind she could retreat and see the happy things. Her time and friends in Nyka, The people she had already met in Sunberth , the beautiful landscape that she had seen. All it of it brought her comfort. even the small stones she used to collect as she working in Nyka brought her comfort.