Your Heart Is as Black as Mine... Would You Like to See?

[Zahra Arcturus]

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Miranda - Dead Hollow | [member=Bedrovelse Hevn]​

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Once upon a time, Miranda had been home to the most terrifying inhabitants. Cannibalistic beats who haunted an ancient carnival, preying on those who had been stupid enough to give in to curiosity. Now, since the Confederacy's intrusion, most of those living on Miranda were considered relatively normal. Some semblance of civilisation had returned to the planet surface, but there was one place still talked about in whispers. A place that still displayed the planet's tormented history, surrounded by rumours and tales of a terror that hunted in the night. A place that, save for those who had the unfortunate task of delivering the dead, nobody dared set foot...

Dead Hollow.

The forest had once been alive with vibrant colour and life aplenty, but just as Miranda's people had once been plagued, so to had it succumbed to an unseemly ending. Trees, grass, flora, fauna. All were now encased in grey stone, fossilised permanently in a state of decay. The fresh fragrant scents of flowers and nature had long since fled and been replaced by the stench of death. The people of Miranda feared it, but not because of the disease that had torn mother nature clean away, but because of what lived inside it. Those foolish enough to venture into the depths of Dead Hollow were considered fortunate if they made it out insane, for it was far better to be insane than to be trapped in the clutches of shadow itself.

Centred in a clearing, deep in the heart of Dead Hollow, a woman lithe in form stood silently. Clad in grey and black and statuesque in appearance, those who weren't looking close enough would have missed her entirely. Charred dust in the centre of her outstretched palm seeped through her fingers, catching the stale breeze and scattering wildly into the air. For a moment it seemed to be the only animated thing about her, until...

'WEAK!' The Mother of Nightmares cried out in disgust, angry tones filling the dead forest to bursting point. A deafening crunch followed as the corpse at her feet crumpled into shapes no human form should be able to make. Milk white hands flew through the air, so erratic and aggressive in their movements they seemed to blur into one. The corpse shifted with them, flopping limply one way, then the other. A puppet whose strings were pulled by the Queen of Shadows herself. 'Useless.' The marionettist hissed as her dancing doll came to a stop inches from her face. 'And you held such promise, my sweet.' She cooed, dragging a sharp talon down its pallid grey cheek and across its sunken jaw. 'So powerful in life-...'

Pausing mid-sentence, her eyes seemed to sparkle with the sudden realisation. 'THAT'S IT!' Her tone peaked, filling to the brim with a morbid delight. 'I'll need someone alive, yes, that's what it is. What's the point in ripping a heart out if it's already stopped beating?' The Mother of Nightmares rambled in her eerie tone to a man who had not been alive to listen for quite some time now. Laughing to herself as though the realisation should have come sooner, Zahra flicked her fingers casually to send her puppet skidding across the clearing. With the sound of bones crunching against fossilised wood, a plan was set in motion. The Dream Weaver twirled in place, a look of sheer glee on her snow white face.

The Mother of Nightmares danced to the distant tune of thudding hearts. Bare feet carrying her away from the clearing, skipping and bounding over the cracked stone floor with graceful ease. The first soul she came across would aid her in her task, willing or unwilling.

 

[Bedrovelse Hevn]

“Sounds like a fairy tale, Knight Commander.” When the details of the mission were released to Hevn, he could see why he was chosen, but found the information he was given to be farcical. A witch in the woods whom had been associated with every known disappearance on Miranda since the Confederacy had brought order to its cursed lands. There was no proof that she had abducted anyone, or was making an effort to, but something was leading people into the Dead Hollow and keeping them there. Hevn coldly joked about bringing a cage full of obese children to tempt her from her hiding place, and was found reprimanded by the potential danger of this lurking creature.

The Knights Obsidian required someone intrepid. Capable of combat in physical and magical fronts, as well as scarred beyond the point of inducing fear. Miranda could not shake him. He had toured too many haunted planets to think much on the dangers of spirits, when he thought himself to be scariest thing that went bump in the night.

Two days of marching in circles before he caught on to her gambit. He couldn’t exactly see how someone could aimlessly wander into her clutches when it was defended by spells to repel intrusion. Her totems were not easy to identify, and the second day had been spent retracing his steps to destroy every last one of them. Only then could his gaze pierce the murky foliage into the abyss within. Darkness was rampant. It was alive. It was hers to command.

Pressing inward, he couldn’t help but feel like the forest was watching him. Whispering to her. Communicating his every move. This was the witch’s hallowed ground and he was trespassing. He knelt in the grass to grasp his bearings when he heard a shout. He rises immediately, pacing extra cautiously in the direction of the sound. What he found was unsettling.

Thin, pale, weren’t they all, and putting her magic to use. A corpse thrashed at her behest, like a child angry at a toy, until it came to doing away with it like trash. She smiled. She danced. She was indeed playing, but at what? Random wanton cruelty? For all he actually knew, she was playing with things already dead and hand no actual hand in it until after the fact.

Funny how time had warped his ways and thinking. Who else could actually give the witch any benefit of the doubt other than Bedrovelse Hevn?

Hevn pierces through the brush into the clearing. It was like standing in a fish bowl. Her influence was embedded in everything around him. He could feel her eyes and ears everywhere, though she had pranced out of sight. He could take no chances. Hevn’s fist clenched within the gauntlet of C’thulu. The qixoni gem shines bloody red and fire bright. He was prepared to attack and arrest her by force if she got hostile, but he was more interested in answers. There was a chance her powers could be of some use or interest to him. There was value in such strange characters as their specialties were one of a kind.

“Reveal yourself Witch! I would have words with you! Compliance is preferable to the alternative.” His shout is laced the a mechanical hum, asserting his authority over a space in which he was absolutely not in control. If he was predicting this correctly, first she would cackle ominously, then toy with him. Tough news for her was he was fresh out of patience for witch games, and was going to end up in an arm bar faster than she could say mini bar if she saw fit to try them. You could call it bluffing, but Hevn’s confidence never wavered in the face of conflict.

[member="Zahra Laurs"]

 

[Zahra Arcturus]

Someone crept through the deep, dark wood.

Zahra could feel her defenses waning and fading into the shadow from which she had conjured them. Frenzied whispering had overtaken the howling wind, voices of spirits long since lost to the darkness offering her stern warnings of the intruder. The Dream Weaver hissed sharply and flapped one of her slender hands by her ear to chase them away. With the mechanoid voice carrying on the stale breeze, Zahra knew their warnings had come a little too late. The disappointment on her milkwhite features did not remain that way for long. She was, after all, looking for a heart. How fortunate that one should have wandered into her forest at exactly the right time.

A soft hush from her lips was enough to soothe the spirits, who had worked themselves into a panic over their misgivings. ‘There, there.’ A paperwhite hand floated through the air, catching a stream of what appeared to be grey smoke. It danced between her fingertips, as though a fire had been sparked in the centre of her palm. ‘You’ve done well, my loves.’ The grey wisp fluttered against her pale skin, almost affectionately. With a warm smile bringing the corners of her lips up, Zahra closed her fist around the smoke and set herself back on the path to the clearing. ‘This is just what Mother needed.’

There hadn’t been time to travel much further than a few meters from where she had once stood. Whoever it was had been on her trail for longer than she had been aware. Impressive, even if she had been distracted by the earlier disappointment. His words, on the other hand, where not so impressive. Approaching the treeline surrounding the clearing, charcoal brows knitted together as her features twisted into a bemused glare.

‘Oh, my sweet dreamer.’ The Mother of Nightmares purred in a ghostly tone that echoed through the clearing. From the distance she stood at she could make out nothing but a hazy outline of his stature, but what intrigued her more was the ebony aura that surrounded it. Still, Zahra did not pause in her speech. ‘I can’t decide whether it’s incredibly brave or foolishly rude of you to wander into my home, entirely unannounced.’ A pale wrist twisted through the air, a simple command made to the fossilized fauna who obeyed immediately. With creaking joints, they closed behind the shadow in her vision. Bending and twisting just enough to cut off the path he had used to enter the clearing with ancient stone branches.

‘Perhaps a little of both?’ Like a set of dominos, the other trees surrounding the clearing seemed to follow suit. Each one folded willingly, branches scraping against crusted grey earth, till the only gap left in the stone barricade was the one the Mother of Nightmares stood in. She was still cast in shadow, body lost to the black hole created by the gnarled trunks, but her milk white eyes caught the pallid light that managed to seep through the gaps. ‘Were it not for your bravery I would already be feasting on your darkest fears, and I can see they are so... delicious. But as it is…’ Zahra brought herself through the gap with a graceful twirl to finally allow the man to cast his gaze upon her. ‘What words could a mortal soul such as yourself have with the likes of little old me?’

Though there still remained a distance between them, Zahra could make him out more clearly now. Half-man, half-droid. Interesting. Confident, curious, and dark. So dark it almost rivalled the Queen of Shadows herself. No matter, he still had what she needed. She could hear its rhythmic thud so clear she could practically feel it in her hand already.

[member=Bedrovelse Hevn]​

 

[Bedrovelse Hevn]

Hevn’s intellect only took a second to assess the miserable nature of the situation he found himself in. There would be no escaping her clutches as the trees bent and twisted to her command. What she didn’t account for was that there would be no escaping his either. A cage match with me witch?! Your folly is unbecoming of your skill at the Craft.

The dark side of the force rallies to his call. He was already quite sick of witch games indeed, and she saw fit to play more. Hevn wasn’t in a playing mood. However, his natural strategy was found wanting as the witch’s influence over the grove resisted his call. The bones of the dead on her soil would need heed his direction. The earth, wind, and water around them ignore his decree to assail her. So he settles for telekinesis. Reaching toward her with both hands, two giant invisible fists try to wrap around her petite form, and rip in opposite directions. His snake bite can take no hold. Her aura flexes in response to his attempt and pries his fingers and palms from her bubble of influence.

The trees weren’t so interested in allowing him to continue the attack either. Petrified roots clamp his boots to the ground while stoney jaws clamp around his body like giant’s fingers. His physical strength is no match for her magic, but his cunning never failed. The branches crunch his arms together in front of him, and he hooks his fingers together. Force Lightning rips through his finger tips into his other hand, conducting only through himself. His growl becomes a roar as his body conducts it in circular fashion until his body burns a glowering red in the darkness of the rocks eclipsing him. At the pinnacle of his shout his super heated arms smash through the trees gripping him, scattering their blistered branches in an explosion of molten rock.

His smoldering body burns his clothes and synthetic skin off in tattered ribbons of flame. A luminous god of flame billowing smoke charges toward the witch. Pillars of earth crash against his form, rocking him from side to side painfully while he sprints, though they melt upon touching him and harden into slag in his wake.

The plumes of smoke dance around him, beginning to sing and dance, shadows of the witch a hundred fold merrily holding hands and prancing. Good girl, you’re having fun too.

“Cybernetic command override, Enter the Dragon.”

:ain limiters, disengaged. Strength limiters, disengaged. Speed limiters, disengage. Warning, all limiters disengaged.::

“RRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!”

His shout echoes in the forest depths. The organic elements of his body scream in protest against the insufferable pain of his scalding metal form pressed against them. What would have made a lesser thing collapse, charges Hevn with a lightning bolt of power tearing through his being demanding release.

His right hand slams the ground, and his gauntlet releases an earth shattering shockwave. With the wave of his left the shattered rocks attack the smoky clones conjured by the witch. The ones he manages to hit fade into nothingness while the rest close the merry go round and sing louder and faster.

A terrible feeling fills his head. As though he had been plunged underwater. Sight, sound, and thought grow momentarily disorganized as he realizes she’s attacking his mind. She spoke of his fears and feasting on them. She had underestimated her opponent. On the first count of being a mortal, and the second on having a mind weak enough to pray on.

Another roar from Hevn unleashes a Force Repulse. A dome of his will exploding in every direction in a massive wave of destruction. The shadows vanish, and the incantation halts as he sees the witch glide across the ground with her bare toes just hovering above the dirt.

She was a goddess on her hallowed ground. He was going to have to give it everything just to stop her, never mind trying to kill her. Annoyed as he was his motivations remained the same. He pushes himself to the absolute brink. He could not defeat her by any means of the force or magic, so he’d have to get close by abusing his size and strength.

He pulls the rest of his amassed power to his body, the faintest sheen of light swallowing his dull metallic form as he leaps like a pouncing predator. His legs scream in protest as the mechanics are pushed to near breaking. The witch’s eyes grow wide for the first time since their battle began. The entire forest bends to stop him, every tree falling as though chopped in an instant folding down to protect her.

Another roar tears from him as his arms flurry with all their might, protected from impact by his Force Armor, pulverizing his way to the bottom of the pit where instead of another punch his now cooled hand finds the witch’s throat. His massive frame puts his weight on top of her, his palm on her throat, and his fingers wrapped around.

A furious metal monster glares down at Zahra, and she giggles. He feels one of her petrified branches position itself at the peak of his spinal cord, where it met the brain. He was completely compromised, but determined she too would have to struggle with finding her way back to this realm if she saw fit to strike. He heaves with exhaustion as his knees settle on either side of her waste. The skin on his face, chest, arms, and legs is gone. What looked like a man entering the clearing was now more of a terminator-esque, Grievously damaged hybrid, vulnerable and exposed in every sense.

The tension was nuclear as he tries to choose his words. Anything to entice her not to finish this standoff with a blanket of black over his eyes. “You....are powerful witch. I.....have not come for this fight. Only to ask you......with such strength....why you meddle.....with the peons....of this world.”

At last the air filled his lungs, and he caught his breath. “Those who wander into the clutches of such a predator deserve their fate. That I do not dispute. However, your body count is garnering notice from more than just the simple folk.”

[member="Zahra Laurs"]

 

[Zahra Arcturus]

His bravery was commendable, she could feel it rippling through the force and trying to build up enough strength to cause a tsunami big enough to rival hers, but it would not save him. The only thing that would was the fact that Zahra needed him alive. For his heart, and to sate her own curiosity. Ordinarily the people that were foolish enough to enter her lair were lost souls seeking the dangerous help she had to offer, souls who had exhausted every other option they could before daring to traipse through her forest. This man was neither lost, nor searching for impossible answers, so what was it that he wanted?

The forest stirred as the battle began, spirits and flora alike calling out in protest as he bid them to obey. When they refused to do his bidding, he instead settled for a weak attempt to claw at her aura, to command where he had no authority. Zahra laughed as she peeled him away, pure amusement echoing out across the clearing. ‘Don’t you know, little fly? You’ve wandered into the spider’s web.’ Fossilised branches broke free from cracks in the earth, lashing out to encase him in a stone prison. When they found their mark they held fast, eagerly squeezing at her behest with the intent to crush any bone they could find. For a moment it seemed as though she had him. A constant onslaught of branches slowly turned him into a living statue, and she believed he could do nought but struggle. Like a caged bird.

Until a bright white flash of light broke through the gaps in the branches.

The Mother of Nightmares hissed, bringing her arm up to protect the milk white orbs set in her hollow features. When she looked back it hard changed hues, casting the clearing in a pool of crimson blood. Ebony brows furrowed in the centre, she had assumed him to be weaker than he was. The realisation that this would take longer than planned was most displeasing, but at least his heart would be strong. Once again Zahra was forced to protect herself as the branches exploded out in a spray of molten shrapnel and sharp stone.

After the shimmering grey blanket that fended off the worst of the debris faded Zahra was met with the slowly growing frame of her advisory. He was running toward her. With graceful movements akin to a gentle flowing river, Zahra’s arms cut through the stale air. The earth vibrated underneath them, sending ripples across the loose dirt littering the floor. In a sudden crescendo pillars of hard, cracked earth shot up at the figure streaming toward her. They attacked from all sides, following his movements, tearing up the ground in their wake. The worst it seemed to do was melt onto his already destroyed skin. It was in the aftermath that she found her footing.

Great plumes of grey smoke that poured from his body, filling the clearing and casting their vision in a blurry haze. Perfect. The Mother of Nightmares played best in the dark. Her harrowing voice called out into the fog, calling out an incantation that unsettled the spirits living in the forest. Her soul split in two, and they split in two again. Soon enough the entire clearing was filled with her twirling frame. It was easy to see how she earned the moniker Shadow Dancer. Her many clones danced together, determined to confuse and dizzy him enough for Zahra to build the foundation of her final attack.

As the ground beneath them vibrated, disappitating more of her shadowy twins than she would have liked, Zahra decided now was the time to act.

Her tendrils of her power wormed their way through the smoke toward him, blacker than coal and darker than night. They sought out the one thing the Mother of Nightmares held ultimate claim over. His mind.. When they reached it Zahra could do nothing but grin from ear to ear, as though someone had placed hooks in her cheeks and pulled tight. ‘My, my…’ In the thick of the remaining fog it was hard to tell which direction her voice was coming from. She pressed further, exploring deeper, attempting to pick out his deepest fears and his greatest regrets. ‘What a deliciously broken mind.’ The further she dove, the more she craved, but in her haste to feast Zahra had underestimated him.

A bubble of aggressive force sent her stumbling backward, setting her feet one more upon moral soil. A sharp curse exploded from her lips as she caught herself, having little time to do more than ensure she didn’t land face first in the dirt. When she looked up again, she was face to face with the angry fire of her foe’s approaching face. Her eyes went wide, and all she could project was blind panic as his fingers curled around her throat and stole the air from her lungs. Adept in the force, but not quite so in physical combat, Zahra was left helpless.

When she hit the floor, ebony hair flying wildly in all directions, she did so silently.

The Mother of Nightmares bared her teeth in a sickeningly sweet grin. One of her slender white hands wrapped around his wrist, not threateningly or in an attempt to pry them off, they simply rested there. The other stretched up to stroke gently across the charred flesh on his face, not enough to cause him pain, but enough for him to feel her icy touch spread across his skin. The Queen of Shadows didn’t seem to mind that his flesh melted away from bone as she did. ‘I can smell your fear…’ Though his grip on her throat was indeed tight, and making it increasingly difficult to breathe as the seconds ticked by, she spoke with barely the hint of a rasp. Her haunting tone had turned so soft it barely carried the distance between the two, but it was filled to the brim with an unmistakable desire. Hunger. ‘...I’ve tasted your pain.’

Her chest rose as she drew in a deep breath, the air around them so filled with power, anger, hate, fear, pain… it was practically an indulgence. Zahra’s eyes disappeared behind milkwhite lids as a delighted hum of a quenched thirst vibrated through her chest. Her body seemed just as unwilling to contain the fulfillment the crazed battle had provided, so much so that it squirmed under his weight. Not enough to make him think she was attempting to escape, but enough for him to know that it was a shudder of sheer satisfaction. When she finally snapped her eyes open to meet his gaze again, she spoke plainly. ‘Your bravery does you credit, as does your skill in the force, but I do not like your curiosity. It kills cats, you know.’

With her next words the forest around them seemed to grow darker, as though they were stealing the light of the moon itself. ‘It does not do anyone good to question other’s motives. You think the ants you call your “superiors” would noticed my body count if I didn’t want them too?’ Her expression turned soft, condescending almost, as though she looked at a mere child instead of a man touched by darkness. ‘My sweet dreamer, you see only what I want you to see, and hear only what I want you to hear.’ The branch shifted, putting pressure enough on his neck to cause a dimple in the singed flesh. ‘I have seen what you are capable of, Bedrovelse Hevn. I have seen the terror, destruction and death you have brought on many an innocent soul… Yet you question me?’ The Mother of nightmares giggled softly, a laugh that seemed to continue long after her lips had closed.

The hand placed on his cheek instead gripped the metal that encased his chin. With some gentle coaxing from the tree branch pressed against his spinal cord, and a ginger wave of force, Zahra brought her foe down toward her face. Inches away from each other now, it was easy for her to see that there was indeed a man behind the metal. It was easy to feed off the pain he did so well at covering up. ‘Tell me…’ One of her talon like nails traced across his cheek bone, bringing burnt flesh along with it. ‘...Who sent you, and what do you really want?’

[member=Bedrovelse Hevn]​

 

[Bedrovelse Hevn]

This incremental victory was hardly a savory one. With each second he held her fast to the ground beneath them, he felt control slipping through the vice grip of his hand around her throat. He could feel her writhing, almost against her will, in ecstasy. She was pleased. Humored. Far from defeated. Her whispers grew more unsettling with each ragged breath she took. With each blink of her milky eyes and flash of her teeth. His anger pours over her, and she drank it in and made it her own.

The light that had been pouring over the forest vanishes. Eaten and swallowed by the forest around them. By the mother of nightmares. She sucked the light from all. She could see through him just from touch, or proximity alone. Those unsettling whispers, unnerved him because they were true. She was wrong on but only a single account. A weakness perhaps he’d identified in the being smashed beneath his physical force at the moment. She underestimated both his mortality, and his motives.

A tree pushes him down to face her. As closely as lovers might speak to each other. A temptation grasps him. To steal a kiss from this wicked thing, if only to have said he’d done so. To decimate her perception of his fear with an astonishing act of foolhardy confidence. The pin prick at the base of his neck reminded him that such a small act to taunt her would be the end of him. What happened next would need to be executed carefully.

His hand eases on her neck. The branch does not ease from his. His response mirrors the whispers she offered him. He could feel her desire pouring from her skin into his fingertips, but it was not for his body. It was his heart she sought. “I have watched from afar, Queen of Shadows. Unsure of whether it is your strength or their weakness that enables you to do as you choose. I am certain now.”

Hevn pushes against the branch, blood trickling from its pressure on his spine as it pierces into him. He offers her no wince, or even a breath out of place. Would she refuse his surrender? Surely not. He rises from his knees, extending his arms to show his hands free of her, and of weapons to use against her. He takes a few paces backward from the mighty witch of Miranda. As he offers her a hand to rise, her cackling laughter echoes all around him. From every gap in the trees, from every leaf upon them, from every star in the sky, from the darkness that obscures them now. Her figure airily floats upright from the ground, without need of him. As she soundlessly touches her toes back to the ground, Hevn folds.

He bends the knee before her, and lowers his head as the branch keeps him firmly in line. “You are the only superior to which I am called, Dark One. I answer to no voice but the call of greater power, as you have wielded against me. I offer you a heart strong enough to endure your witchcraft. I ask that you bestow upon me the knowledge to wield earth, wind, water, and shadow as you do.”

As far as he could tell she had no coven. No sisters. No rules of master of any kind. The perfect master with which to barter over the training of such powers. If he could but convince her he was worthy. He hoped he already had. She was everything the Confederacy has failed to offer him.

[member="Zahra Laurs"]