We'll never be apart

ISAR

Arm yourself

Light clawed at his eyes, long since accustomed to the darkness of the tunnels beneath the Crust. He would have been content to remain in the darkness below, but hunger was a roar in his blood and a driving need that kept him moving, staggering along on bare feet. His clothes were little more than tattered rags, remnants of a past life he no longer wished to recall, and here in a realm of fire and rock, he had little need for the paltry protection they offered.

The bottom hem of his ragged trousers smoldered as he climbed up to the edge of the pool, and began to walk along the rim. The man had a gaunt, ravaged look about him that spoke of hardships, and his focus was singular. Anything that moved was fair game; anything he could possibly grab hold of and fit into his mouth - which, given his sorry state, unfortunately ruled out anything larger than his two hands could catch.

At least he still had a knife.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

Oh she has zero idea that there’s someone else wandering about out here – especially wearing the tattered clothing, winding his way through the Climb. The Harpy herself has a one tracked mind, folding the red jacket so that she can set it beside her where she chooses to take her lava bath – it’s with a singularly focused mind. Dressing down into nothing and completely nude, the Harpy folds her clothes alongside the edge as well – aiming to have something to slip into after its done.

And with it all set up, she steps into the lava with a clenched jaw and a deep breath (after all, it had been the cause of her death previously), she slips into it deep enough to sit and settle, the heat and red glow of the lava coming up to her chest as she exhales a sigh, glancing over the edge of the pits toward her jacket and clothes, wondering how it might soak up the heat.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

He saw her from a distance, a delicate silhouette in the drifting smoke and heat haze. Hunger drove him to approach even before a sliver of sanity whispered of other implications, reminding him that he had been craving more than an end to hunger when he approached Dygra.

Family... That was a sister, over there. Had to be. How else could she survive the churn of lava? The unimaginable heat, the crushing weight of molten rock closing around her – a shudder passed through him in sympathetic understanding of what it had to feel like.

Like a feral dog, starved and wary in equal measure, he drew closer. A shade of the arrogant man he used to be, he came to hover on the other side of the Lava pit. Just standing there, staring down at the woman.

Words eluded him. What was the right way of expressing this desire to approach, to be close, to crawl in beneath her skin and melt together in a perfect union that would never be parted again? 'Hi, we are kin. Let me share your everything, as I will offer everything I am for you'...

Was that coming on too strong?

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

The lava warps and moves around her body and it’s with such an intense warmth that she can’t help but to feel like she’s melting in it. It’s as close to a high as she’s comfortable getting – the relief from the anxiety that had torn her mind apart, to feeling this good in such a short amount of time. She feels dazed almost, like she’s imagining things around her.

Especially the man that hovers, peering down at her from the other side of the pit. At first, she doesn’t imagine he’s actually real, but after she blinks a few more moments she realizes that he’s very much real and very much still staring at her like something was wrong? But he looked like her, too, in the sense of the horns and the tail, and she wonders how long he’s been out here wandering about.

The fact that she’s wholly nude beneath the waves of lava doesn’t bother her to be viewed upon, nor does it affect her when she sits up a little to actually let her iceberg gaze stare at him – her horns glinting with veins of red from the lava around her. “You can come closer, you know.” She offers, calling out with a tilt of her head – part of her curious if he will, part of her daring him to.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

He could have been a statue, for all his immobility. But when the woman called out to him a spasm had him flinch. Drawn in, like her invitation was some command he couldn't fathom disobeying, Isar staggered into motion and came shuffling around the rim of the lava pool.

Upon reaching her, he hunched down by her shoulder. Black eyes seemed bottomless and inscrutable as they observed her. Heedless of courtesy - he had never known it - and uncaring of her nudity - somewhat, at least, he was a fully functioning man - he took in the clothes set aside beyond the reach of the lava, and then her expression of welcome and challenge.

"Sis...ter?" he rumbled, foggy with hunger and raw from his recent rebirth. "Who are you..?" Without much thought he reached out and tried to touch her hair. It seemed like a living thing in the shimmering heat, glossy and soft - one of very few soft things in this harsh and rocky landscape.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

Approach he does, and with it the Harpy’s casually toying with the newfound fire magic within her veins, as if just in case (despite knowing it would do nothing to a fellow Ancient, still the thought aligned. She could shift, if worse came to worse.) But for now, he hovers over her shoulder, her head tilting slightly to give him some room but also to better try to glance toward him.

Sister, means that he’s definitely either out of his mind, or starving to death, or both. And Kiada is just about to respond to the initial inquiry when she feels his hand touch her hair. “I’m Kiada.” He offers, reaching up to let her incredibly hot lava warmed hand lift to touch his arm, tilting her head back to peer up at him. “Who are you?” She asks, the question returned.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

To feel the softness of a living thing beneath his fingers was to remember kindness. A sentiment all but lost during his long years of solitude; it came rushing back now, and lingered like her hand on his own arm. Stunned into silence, the man blinked slowly. Dredged his thoughts from the churning hunger. This was not a hand to sink his teeth into.

Sister. Kiada.

"I am... Isar. I am... hungry."

A canine whince underlaid the last word. Without knowing how he did it, or even that he could, the man shimmered and warped, and sank to the ground as a massive Fyrhund. Embers burned with a ruddy glow at the depths of its eyes, and it gazed with pleading at the woman; would she be done with her bath soon? It was all he could do not to think of her as a meal and yet the urge to sate his hunger demanded attention.

There was no one else who could help.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

She can almost see the way the thoughts filter through his head, as if trying to decide whether or not to take a bite out of her. A thought that is relatively amusing for the Harpy, given that she’s confident that she could stand her own. But, his voice rumbles out again and her gaze focuses on him, unsure why he hasn’t just shifted and eaten something out here in the pits, but… She also remembers when she changed.

And she can be kind and gentle and perhaps a touch motherly toward this newly turned Ancient, and with his admission, the shifting he endures, until his eyes plead with her and he looks like a kicked dog. She hums thoughtfully for a moment, before she continues to contemplate, licking her lips a brief moment as she goes to stand on her knees in the lava, casting one last glance back toward the bundle of clothes, praying to Dygra that they remain on the edge and do not catch fire.

She shifts then, too, her body turning into a large lial, scaled and toothy and sharp edged, warmed and glowing from the inside out, she moves now – as if to guide him, but not before she bumps him with her long snout as if to tell him to follow her.

Up along the ridge, there are other fyrhunds, two wandering about, searching for prey, and with it Kiada stills, looking back toward Isar with a dip of her head in a nod as if to say “go get ‘em”.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

Thoughts came grudgingly to the hound. Like dredging through mud, whatever passed through the hunger came out warped and sullied. A low whine was in his throat while the woman contemplated. The wait was torture. Every moment an eternity of ravenous emptiness, of thorny vines dragging through every vein of the massive body. There was so much space to fill.

He was on his feet in an instant when Kiada shifted. Drool was a torrent of molten rock dripping from his jaws and the impact of the bloodlust was as a warhammer to the head. Physically staggering with the internal struggle between leaping at the lial and holding himself back, the fyrhund shook his head, followed in her fiery wake up on the ridge – and caught sight of the figures moving through the heat haze.

All thoughts ended there. There was a mad frenzy over the way the rangy, emaciated creature rushed the closest Fyrhund. Starvation incarnate, the kind of nauseating, blind devouring need that sapped strength away and numbed all capacity towards mercy or self preservation.
Compared to the wild creature, Isar was thin and scrawny. Nevertheless he charged in with ferocity and went in for its throat like a hound might a bear. Initially it balked in surprise at the sudden assault, but then a snarl rumbled like thunder as it retaliated.

Massive paws slammed the newly made Ancient to the ground. A yelp of pain tore from him; but he was struggling to get up again in a blur of movement, heedless of the way his ribs groaned, and leaped again. Closing burning jaws around a leg of solidified rock and furnace blood that sang like sweet wine on the tongue. He had never tasted anything so sweet - and the craving for more rose like a keening in his ears, into a si gel, vibrating point of focus that wiped out every other sensation.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

The lial watches as the change occurs in the fyrhund at her side – vibrating through her own bloodlust needs (she’d been sated not that long ago, so the edge isn’t as strong as it otherwise would), but she’s quite content to watch and help should he need it. Which… It seems as though for a second he might, when the larger, more healthy fyrhund turns on the new Ancient.

The lial takes a few steps forward and Kiada’s tail lashes out against the volcanic rock beneath her as she watches Isar yelp before turning back on the attacker. Blood spills and Kiada’s attention is so bright as it zeroes in on the attack. Only, when another fyrhund seems to see the commotion does she attack – using the speed that her shift allows to body slam the next attacker away, letting Isar continue with the one he’s wounded while she focuses on the other one, her large maw tearing out chunks of rock.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

Ugly and brutal, the battle between the two canines raged on. In his weakened state Isar should have been no match for the other, but the sheer ferocity of his attacks kept pushing the larger fyrhund back. He paid for every step in blood; bruised and scratches added up for every time he was thrown down, and pain became a counterpoint to the bloodlust that sang a dirge through his veins.

Ultimately it was a simple misstep that decided the outcome. The wild hound stepped too close to a rocky ledge, and it broke beneath its weight. In a shower of rocks and gravel the creature tumbled down the ridge, and got pinned beneath a crushing mass of boulders without any means of escape.

A moment later Isar caught up. He was at the throat of the beast before it could make a sound; a flash of teeth set a torrent of blood washing over stone, and a quiet settled over the area, punctuated by the tearing of flesh as he ate and by the lial's battle some distance away.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

As she focuses on attacking the larger predator, Kiada can hear the sound of a creature slipping, the rock and gravel colliding over stone as she goes for the throat, tearing into the volcanic rock, feeling the blood spill into her large, wide maw.  It sates her, even as the fyrhund struggles, swiping at her and drawing a gash of her own into the soft scaled underbelly.

She launches at it again, slamming it down and superheating her body to melt away the rockery, and the second that she does, she tears into it to complete the task of murdering this fyrhund, and in the silence of Isar devouring his own, she tears apart hers as well – leaving some remnants for any other creatures as she returns toward the new Ancient, returning back toward the pit of lava as she shifts back into herself, a pale ghost full of puncture scars down her spine and the swirl of burns that trail up her legs, over the curve of her backside, reaching their tendrils up her hips.

Blood coats her, too, one hand resting at her side where a small gouge remains, wondering if perhaps she were to slip into the lava once more if it would cauterize and prevent from tearing. A thought that has her hesitating on the edge, peering down into it.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )

ISAR

Arm yourself

The Fyrhund was a comfortable shape to inhabit. Big and strong, with sharp teeth and a tail that could wag or stiffen in displeasure. Its belly was big too, and swelled gradually until nothing remained of his prey but scraps of meat clinging to the scattered bones.

Once he'd eaten his fill, gorged and sleepy, Isar returned to the woman. While his eyes remained fiery, the edge of madness had faded and he approached her calmly. Grateful for the aid she had rendered, and for not running; if she had, he might not have been able to stop himself.

Noticing her injuries, he was reminded of his own. Aching ribs and numerous scratches added together into a throbbing ache. He limped, one front paw was beginning to swell up - But he was alive. They both were. Upon reaching Kiada, Isar sidled up to her and lowered his head, offering his huge mass to lean against. If she wanted to enter the lava he would join her - and if she was headed elsewhere, he planned to follow.

After a nap,  hopefully.

Because no one else here will save you

troy falls a thousand times // in every dream i dream

Confidence is something that burns through Kiada’s mind like nothing else – it’s why she’s able to stand here as he approaches, a stranger despite having been frenzied beforehand, without the worry he’d come for her too. She’s prepared, she’s strong, she’s died and been reborn, and reborn yet again.

So as he arrives and lowers his head to her side, she does welcome the closeness – leaning against him to guide him into the lava along with her, hissing as it seals up the wound to only add to the scars that litter the harpy’s body. And for a few moments, while they get situated to resting, she decides the next steps. “Once we’re good to go from here, more of our siblings live in the Hollowed Grounds. You’re welcome to come back with me, Isar.” She offers, letting her iceberg gaze linger along the Fyrhund, content to let him take a nap before they depart, provided he wished to join her back home.

KIADA

( like ashes, like ashes // like a star burning out )