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 Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:46 pm
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Damn him. Damn the lying hunter, using his words to cloud her mind. Of course Herryk wouldn't talk, because Herryk was dead, wasn't he? Dead and gone, forever.
Her eyes flickered up to Tuck, anger flooding them. It was all she could do to not swing at him at that very moment, but his last question caught her off guard. It could have just been another trick. She knew that she was being led in this game, but she had no choice. She had nothing left to lose. She'd already lost Herryk.
Her hand slid down to the edge of her towel, tugging at it until it split enough to show her thigh. There, etched in black, were the exact same three runes Tuck's weapon held on it's chain.
"I will never forgets my Herryk, hunter. No matter what yeh does. No matter where yeh goes. That is how I knows. Because he was my Herryk first."
She spoke to Tuck, because she believed the human was just toying with her, making her believe that Herryk was still there inside. But he couldn't be. He just couldn't be.
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 8:55 pm
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A powerful flash of blue left Tuck feeling utterly drained, but it was Herryk's reaction to the sight of the runes inked along Freya's skin.
<Herryk is...>
"...so frustrated," Tuck finished the entire message aloud, speaking just as his bonded did. He didn't take a step back, despite the flash of fire in Freya's blue eyes, his own expression etched into a mask of hurt and confusion.
For a brief moment there was a puzzled picture blazoned across his mind, some sort of avian, Tuck couldn't grasp the message and Herryk was left feeling as frustrated and baffled as before. The picture flashed again, and again, and Tuck let out a growl.
"He keeps showing me a bird. I don't know what it means, but he keeps showing it to me."
Tuck tightened his hands on the weapon's hilt, knuckles white.
"I'm sorry. I didn't know, I.. he can't remember."
There was one thing he was certain of. The emotions that Freya blatantly showed were very real. There was no denying that simple fact.
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:04 pm
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The flash of light spurred an echo of the hope she'd felt a moment ago, in her heart. She let out a tiny sound of distress, and let go of the edge of the towel. Now, all the strength she had left was put into setting one foot in front of the other, finally moving closer to the hunter and the weapon. She didn't know which to look at, anymore. She kept flickering back and forth, her hands pressing hard against her chest to try and quell the ache that swelled within her. It hurt so much to believe. It hurt to feel this way, to know that there was a chance.. just a chance.
Freya stopped just a step away from Tuck, looking up at the tall man. In her expression, for the moment, there was nothing there that spoke of an enemy. All that stood in front of Tuck, staring up at him with wide, childish, owl-like eyes, was a scared little girl.
"Ladybird." She whispered, offering the answer to Tuck's question without him asking it. She looked down at the weapon again, and sighed a deep, wistful sigh of longing. "That was his nickname for me." She felt the energy there, so close. It spurned her hope, it made her believe. She reached out, still so scared to touch, but impossible to stay away. "I was - "
Her throat closed up in agony, and the tears ran fresh for her loss. "I am his Ladybird."
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:21 pm
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Tuck didn't feel threatened, didn't feel the urge to back away. If anything, the trainee felt as if he needed to get closer, make some sort of contact with the wide-eyed young creature that he felt inexorably drawn to.
He listened intently as Freya spoke, his expression falling as her words sank in. Faced with so much raw hurt, Tuck wasn't entirely sure what to do. The big brother in him kicked into action, and Tuck softly cleared his throat.
"Don't cry, now," Tuck cajoled, shifting on his feet. Herryk was completely distraught, beyond words at this point, and prowled restlessly in their shared headspace. There were a million rapid fire questions tangled with emotions and laced with determination to get answers. Tuck ignored his bonded blatantly - for now - and gave Freya a helpless look.
"I'm Tuck," he introduced himself in a show of good faith, "and I'm sorry you're hurtin' like this, miss. He's.. got a lot of questions. I don't know if now is the right time."
He paused.
"Herryk knows we have to go back home, but.. he's demanding to see you again."
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Nio Love rolled 2 10-sided dice:
1, 2
Total: 3 (2-20)
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:33 pm
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"NO!"
It was the wrong thing to say, now that she'd finally gotten enough courage to come closer. Her hands reached out, grabbing Tuck by the jacket and clinging to him desperately. "Yeh can't leaves me. YEH CAN'T LEAVES ME! Herryk, Herryk don't lets him.." She'd tipped over that ledge, and she fell headfirst into the madness her weak mind had already been corrupted with. Her hands let go of Tuck, only to wrap around the weapon itself. The runic energy crackled to life, singing her skin where it directly touched. She didn't so much as blink, even as it burned and tore away at her, leaving raw those spots where she held the weapon in a lover's embrace. Her eyes closed, and her hair began to stand on end. Slowly, but surely, touching the weapon was sapping her Fear away.
"Herryk," Her pained voice whispered out. "If yehr really in there, don't lets him takes yeh away from me again. Please, baby boil." Her voice broke in a sob, and her knees wobbled with weakness. "Please. Herryk, please."
Damage done to self: 0 x2
HP: 50
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 9:50 pm
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Theodore wasn't expecting Freya to act the way she did, and he certainly wasn't expecting her to wrap her arms around Herryk the way that she did. Herryk's response was the most powerful, soul-draining thing that Tuck had experienced to date.
Enraged, driven but the inescapable need to get closer, Herryk prowled like a caged beast. Tuck expected the runes to burn Freya's flesh, but there was a definitive moment of suppression that he was powerful to stop, not that he wanted to. It was entirely too heart wrenching, entirely too powerful. Instead of burning her skin, there were only faint welts left behind.
There was primal need to get closer, one that pulsed almost painfully at the back of Tuck's skull, and he couldn't break away.
Not yet.
"He's really in here. He is," Tuck tried to console her, but deep down he knew she was beyond consolation. He'd never seen such blatant agony, and Tuck forced himself to make a very rough decision - only to save the girl from herself. Despite not wanting to feast on her Fear, it was what Herryk had been created to do .
Tuck desummoned his weapon, the rune-etched ring returning to the middle finger of his right hand.
Herryk roared in dismay, and Tuck forced himself to take a step back from Freya.
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Nio Love rolled 2 10-sided dice:
3, 10
Total: 13 (2-20)
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Posted: Mon Apr 29, 2013 10:01 pm
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She let out the saddest giggle when Tuck tried to convince her that he really was in there. She just clung harder, her face pressing against the flat of the axe and brushing up and down it. She was lost in a world where she wasn't hugging a weapon that drained and injured her. She was just hugging Herryk again. Her mind let her live there, for a few moments.
And then it was all ripped forcefully away.
She snapped her eyes open when she held empty air, and she roared to life, a perfectly timed mimicry of the roar that only Tuck could hear. She stared at the hunter, her breathing hitched and then shallow with rage. "Brings him back.." Her whisper warned him, as the long axe re-formed in her hands. "Brings him BACK." She took the step forward that he pulled back from, her weapon held pointed at his neck.
"BRINGS HIM BACK!"
If only he could.
Freya's axe plunged it's heavy top against his neck, pushing him back. She felt the ache of her own attack, burning into her body - but it never felt so good to be hurt before. She wanted it more than anything, at that moment. She wanted the hunter to hurt her, because it meant bringing Herryk back to her. Anything to be with him again.
Damage: 7
HP: 43
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bipolar bee rolled 2 8-sided dice:
7, 2
Total: 9 (2-16)
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Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 10:43 am
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Her attack ignited something inside of Tuck, something that had been simmering just beneath the surface. He knew what he was about to do was wrong, but there was a deep urging to summon his weapon - Tuck couldn't discern if it was Herryk, or the odd whispers that slithered around his skull.
Theodore stumbled back when Freya pushed her axe into his shoulder, the biting pain enough for him to grit his teeth. She was crazed, and yet at the same time so was Tuck - and Herryk fed off of everything, a sad mixture of unspeakable yearning and the need to defend his bonded.
The need to defend his bonded won, and Herryk demanded to be summoned - not to ask questions or to seek answers, but to bite into the ghoul who had fallen into madness, to feast on her Fear, to devour her alive.
The massive axe was summoned once again, and Tuck swung out at Freya, only to feel pain of his own jolt down his side.
There were no words spoken, all urge to speak lost in the bloodlust that slowly overtook hunter and weapon.
HP: 37
CHG: --
DMG (to self): 3 |
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Nio Love rolled 2 10-sided dice:
6, 3
Total: 9 (2-20)
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Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 8:14 pm
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Freya laughed; a choppy, short bark of a sound. He'd re-summoned Herryk, and she was grinning
at it widely. But there was something completely off about the ghoul, now. It was clear by
the way her head tilted at a disproportionate angle, and by the wild, twitchy motions she
made, that she was no longer fully there. She leapt at tuck, her weapon aimed only at the hunter, but her free arm reaching out to take the blade that cut into her so sweetly. The feel of injury stopped her before she could reach him, and she blinked, her hand pulling away from its reach to touch at the part of her body where she felt the sting.
"It hurts." She whispered to herself. She wanted the sweet pain that came from Herryk's touch; not this phantom burning sensation that the air itself was giving her.
HP: 40
Damage: 3 (to self)
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bipolar bee rolled 2 8-sided dice:
7, 4
Total: 11 (2-16)
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Nio Love rolled 2 10-sided dice:
9, 6
Total: 15 (2-20)
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Posted: Tue Apr 30, 2013 9:08 pm
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Freya absolutely loved the way Tuck's voice changed. She heard it in his inflection, and her eyes were on him, glittering with hatred and satisfaction all at the same time. "Mmm.. yeh don't sounds so sure." Her grin turned sly, and her hands crept up, the fingers 'walking' across Herryk's blade. She felt the sting of his touch, and let it soothe her. "There's only one way, I thinks. If he's really yehrs, and I've really lost him, then yehr just goings teh has teh kills me here and now." The smile faded away, and her expression turned dark, filled with all the hurt that lived in her heart, flowing easily to the surface. "So duu it then, Tuck." She growled, lifting her axe up and swinging it wide behind her, the heavy weapon moving swiftly in her hands. "Before I KILLS YEH FIRST!"
But the slam of her weapon against Tuck's body made her lose all her breath, as if she'd just thrown her axe into her own body. She stumbled back a few steps, her hand pressing against her stomach, and the ghost of a scar.
"What kinds of cheap tricks is this? Are yeh goings teh fights me, or plays yehr little game like a little baby boil?!"
HP: 31
Damage: 9
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bipolar bee rolled 2 8-sided dice:
8, 4
Total: 12 (2-16)
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 9:21 am
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Nio Love rolled 2 10-sided dice:
6, 8
Total: 14 (2-20)
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Posted: Thu May 02, 2013 6:26 pm
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She felt.. nothing.
Freya stopped to stare as the axe fell upon her hip, leaving nothing more than the soft brush of physical feeling, without the pain she expected. She couldn't comprehend it, but she was so very past caring. If Tuck couldn't hurt her, then.. then the only answer was that Herryk was defying him.
And that made her lips twitch upward in a maniacal grin.
"What's wrong, mister hunter? Performance issues? Is okays, lots of men suffers from it. Here, lets me shows yeh HOW IS DONE." The axe windmilled above her, before coming down on him hard. As soon as it touched his shield, the entire force of her swing beat down on her, bringing her to one knee. She screamed, a pitiful sound that started strong and ended with a broken, choked cry. It hurt. It was just physical pain, but it hurt. She placed one hand against her face, sobbing into it quietly.
"Herryk." Her choked whisper whined. She wished; no, she imagined him standing between her and Tuck, hands flailed out to the sides, protecting her. Once upon a time, maybe. But not now.
HP: 23
Damage: 8 (to self)
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Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 7:19 am
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Suddenly overcome with terrible sadness, Tuck fell back, stumbling slightly.
<This creature is killing herself, Theodore,> Herryk mourned quietly, saturating Tuck's thoughts with a grief so acute that the Moon couldn't put words to it, <just as Theodore was. Herryk would.. Herryk would like to leave, Theodore. This is a sad place.>
Tuck had so many more questions to ask, questions that felt as if they belonged more to Herryk than they did to Tuck. Despite that, there was a heavy, thick guilt combined with the horrible grief that tainted his thoughts. A guilt so poignant that Theodore took a moment to process it.
Don't, dude.
<This is Herryk's fault. Herryk did this.>
You had a good reason. We'll figure it out.
<Herryk cannot stand to see this creature so broken. It is difficult, Theodore, to see such a thing without being able to remember. Freya must have loved Herryk very much, but Herryk... only faint unfinished memories.>
Tuck rose to his feet, desummoning his axe though he remained outwardly silent. The pendant around his neck burned against his skin, but he ignored it, watching the blonde, winged Freya with that horrible grief, sadness and guilt etched plainly on his face.
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Posted: Sat May 04, 2013 1:51 pm
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Her imagination must have been a powerful thing. She waited for the end, for the hunter to strike a final blow, but it never came. That shimmering vision in front of her, protecting her; she could almost believe it had worked, somehow. And that was the saddest thing of all.
"Just-" The word came through, choked off by a sob. "Tells him." She couldn't get more than a word or two out before her body heaved in another violent sob. "That. I loves him." Her eyes squeezed shut, as the pain racked through her. "And. I'm sorry." Her lungs rattled with a shaky breath, and she forced her tears back to get her words out in this one last chance. "I'm sorry I wasn't. Enough. And. I'm sorry I couldn't." But the tears forced their way back, chopping up her words like minced meat. "Sorry. I couldn't. Save him."
Freya had used up every ounce of her strength getting those last words out. They followed with a pitiful wail, and she stumbled, dropping down off her knees and landing hard on her a**. She curled in on herself, and stopped fighting the tears; and the soft, pathetic sounds of melancholy that mewled out of her freely now.
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