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[player]https://file.garden/ZrkaRa96QzsRXIbJ/Eternal%20Eclipse%20-%20The%20Ritual%20%20Dramatic%20Violin%20%26%20Strings.mp3[/player][break]
eternal eclipse - the ritual
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the water laps at opal scales, running like little rivers around thick, pearly teeth. freya sways, looking down as the last of the black ink leaves her eyes. her heart thunders once, twice, and then she inhales sharply, fresh tears springing forth as the borrowed energy coursing through her drains in an agonizing flash.[break][break]
malformed, malignant claws shed chitin into human fingers. her bones ache and groan, shifting slowly - meticulous, concentrated pain lances through her and all the while declan stands beside her, unscathed. untouched.[break][break]
she hears snippets of his voice through the creaking of her own body cobbling itself together -
stand down. our city and our people. cooperation. petalburg.[break][break]
and a foul, horrible anger festers inside of her heart. bent haunches snap upright as her spine unfurls and though she wants nothing more than to
scream, she manages to straighten with barely contained composure.[break][break]
"ca - crk" she starts, though her jaw jolts back into place with a sickening crack, cutting her off. squelching muscle and sinew slither over bone. her teeth recede; sharp little points prod at her already-lacerated mouth. through a grimace, she continues.[break][break]
"cassidy, stand down. shift all able-bodied men and women to search and rescue operations." she pauses, sizing up the rocket boss.
"rocket operatives will not impede you."[break][break]
questions come flooding through the channel. freya growls and pulls the device from her ears, holding it in stained crimson hands.[break][break]
i'll still remain.
[break][break]
her palm glows a faint blue from where she'd made the pact. it mocks her impossible promise with all of its inevitabilities, a price she must and still isn't ready to pay. golden scales wrap around her wrist and through the haze of blood and tears trickling from her eyes, they almost look like chains. [break][break]
how
long has she run from the gods, from that poisonous pink mist?[break][break]
- fernando's fingers around her throat. upon her compliance, upon her begging, upon her undoing, would he sate her with that blinding, binding madness. and afterwards, after her betrayal, tapu fini's offering, with its webbed hand outstretched then turned malignant by divine right upon her refusal, had left her bathed in the blood of her dragons. [break][break]
only to be here, at last, thrust once again into the deep.[break][break]
she clutches her chest and her sygna suit slowly folds over the wounds of her own making, but she does not fear the holes she put in her own chest. she fears, if she is not too careful, she might lose her heart. somewhere nearby is lyune, and his dizzying frenzy turns her vision scarlet. [break][break]
she could lose herself again, let all the rest of it fade, waxen wings melted and shaped into manacles, and wouldn't it, after all this time, be so glorious a fall? but
how could she do that? how could she do that to - [break][break]
ana's body, half of her glinting in the light of parted clouds, falls in front of her. her breath hitches, holding fast, and she is unable to step forward because her legs are still not wholly
her legs. [break][break]
"men like you have tried to shackle me before," she murmurs; in there lay an unspoken promise, an always-and-forever rebellion. [break][break]
she licks her lips, tasting copper.[break][break]
water drips down the kyogre's gaping maw. one falls onto her cheek, trailing pink. bloodshot golds rest on the shape of a receding eldritch shadow and she lifts her chin, then looks to her side, eyeing him wearily.
"how long before you realize you've chained the wrong monster?"[break][break]
and when ana clambers over teeth, across this once-sacred ground, freya kneels. she takes hands that feel like hers no longer and she folds against ana, cut and mangled mouth to forehead, and promises,
"i'm here."[break][break]
but that feels a lie too.
[break][break]