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The sun drifted lazily overhead, it's light piercing through the forest canopy in shafts of golden light. Summer was waning, the air turning crisp with cool air promising a white winter. Birds continued to sing their tunes as animals scurried through the underbrush to find food for the winter.

Voudoun paid little attention as she walked through the forest, her Eye floating a few feet behind her. This wasn't the first time the Beholder had walked through this particular patch of forest, she maneuvered through the underbrush with such ease of familiarity she no longer thought about it. Instead, her thoughts turned inward, content to let the Eye alert her for any suitable subjects.

How long? The question echoed through her mind. How long has it been? Voudoun looked down at her arm, the frayed stitching holding it together, the fabric-like 'skin' that had made up her body for so long, she could barely remember when she had made the pact.

A stitched finger reached up, flicking one of the pins sticking out of the Beholder's 'heart'. It didn't matter, she had made the pact, she had paid the price. She was Voudoun now, she would honor the pact until the last stitch snapped, her Eye blinded with age.

She felt the twinge in the back of her mind, and looked up. The Eye had spotted something. Something worthy of feeding upon. Voudoun turned her head and spotted the clearing less than a hundred feet away. There, a cow stood there, grazing idly.

Voudoun's face creaked as a crooked smile appeared. It wasn't a sentient, but it would do nicely until she headed for town. Squatting down, the Beholder moved silently through the brush, letting her one good eye and her other Eye guide her through the underbrush towards her prey.

Voudoun creeped to the edge of the forest, watching the cow graze and occasionally stopping when the animal would raise it's head to look around. Carefully, she circled around until she was in the animal's blindside. The Beholder slipped out of the forest and crouched down, her head barely above the grass level as she began to creep up on the bovine.

The temptation to strike now was almost overwhelming. She could hear the animal's screams of fear and terror already as she crept ever closer. The trick, Voudoun knew, was to sow just enough terror to paralyze the large beast long enough to jab one of her pins into it's leathery hide. She would salivate if she were capable of it.

Thirty feet. Twenty. Voudoun grinned ferally as she squatted a mere ten feet away. She could hear the Eye in the back of her mind, shouting something in it's telepathic voice. A warning? The Beholder shook her head, shoving it's voice out of her mind as she focused. The air around her grew chill as she prepared to strike at the beast's mind. It was time to feed.

((They do make quite the creepy couple. The children will definitely be interesting. wink ))

The cow lowed restlessly as the temperature dropped around it, instinct telling it to be wary despite not seeing, hearing, or smelling any predator. It started to move towards the forest edge when Voudoun struck.

The bovine gave a strangled 'moo' as it stumbled and froze in place. Voudoun rose up slowly from the grass, a terrifying vision as she concentrated on the psychic attack. Terrorizing prey animals was a tightrope act, too much or not enough, and the animal's flight instinct would kick in, usually leading to it's escape as Voudoun despised running.

As the Beholder walked towards the stunned cow, she could still hear the Eye in the back of her mind, calling out a warning against a potential enemy. Now that the bovine was stunned, she shifted part of her mind from the attack and reached out, connecting her vision to the Eye even as she trailed claws slowly along the animal's flanks.

Voudoun blinked as her vision suddenly expanded, seeing the cow in front of her and the forest to her right. What had her Eye seen that-... there. Something hid in the shadows, though she couldn't tell what. Whatever it was, it was well camouflaged with the terrain, if it weren't for the Eye's extended range of vision, she'd never see it's aura.

The Beholder frowned even as she pulled one of the long pins from her heart. There was something... off about the aura. It was jagged, as if it had been stitched together? Even with magic, was that possible? Voudoun shook her head as she drew the pin back, then drove it into the cow's skull and into it's brain. She threw her head back with a shuddering breath as she felt that sweet, delicious terror race through the pin and up her arm. Reluctantly, she let go of the pin so it would fill it's reservoir with the animal's fear.

Pretending to concentrate on the animal before her, Voudoun eased the psychic attack enough to concentrate more on the creature that seemed to be watching her just as intently.

((If it weren't for the fact I'd like to fling her with some of the more... 'interesting' faes out there wink , I'd offer her to Wandel right now.))

DAMMIT. With a speed and smoothness that belied her size and formerly jerky movements, Voudoun pulled the pin from the cow's head and spun around, the bloodied pin held between two fingers in a manner that clearly showed she wouldn't hesitate to turn it into a missile. The cow lowed pitifully as it collapsed into the grass, flanks heaving from the psychic assault on it's bovine brain.

When was the last time someone had come this close? Before she'd put a pin through his eye, that is. The beholder pulled her arm back for the strike, then hesitated as the creature's sight registered in her brain. Not creature... fae... faenix? Voudoun's arm lowered slightly as the thought slipped through her mind. She'd been feeding on non-sentients for too long, her own intelligence and sentience had been slipping for years. Was this a faenix? It was as stitched together as she was, had it made the same pact as she had?

She tilted her head as she listened to the approving tone from the strange-looking faenix. He approved? Voudoun lowered the pin slowly. Hmm, perhaps she could catch him off guard, feed on his psychic terror to regain what she had lost... But how to get him closer?

Voudoun looked down at the cow by her side, then up at the faenix. Pointing towards it's head, then to her mouth, she shook her head even as she slipped the pin back into her 'heart'.

((Viking rocks, I think we need more Vikings in the modern day to pillage and plunder. wink Now to see if that evil little mad scientist brain picks up she's going to need some more 'high-quality' terror/fear before she 'remembers' how to speak again. :p))

Voudoun's smile was anything but pleasant, but she knew she had the strange faenix's attention now. She was still tempted to strike, but now an innate curiosity, buried under years of neglect, was starting to outweigh her animal instincts. Still, she hated playing mime games, even before her turning.

Nodding his question, she pointed down at the cow, then to her mouth, shaking her head. She then pointed at the faenix, then herself, before pointing to her mouth and nodding. If that didn't get the message across, well, there was always ripping one of the cow's legs off and drawing symbols in the dirt. Perhaps this strange faenix might have access to larger food supplies than what she could find scavenging through the woods.

Voudoun's eye lit up with a hungry malice as she loped across the field with a speed that seemed odd for a stitched-together creature. She knelt by the faefox and motioned for the faenix to move his foot. Before the fox could bolt, Voudoun's iron grip had her pinned back against the ground by her neck, canvas-like thumb pushing against the fox's chin so her head was pinned against the dirt.

The beholder watched the faefox thrash and scream, already feeling the psychic energies being absorbed through her hand. It was a cold, sharp wind blowing through the barren plains of her mind, whipping up a mental sandstorm that threatened to overwhelm her senses. Shaking her head, lest she get lost in the sensations, she glanced up at the faenix, looking to see where he was. She needn't have worried, the Eye was making it blatantly clear she was to be left alone by hovering a mere three feet away from the faenix with an air of malice all it's own.

"Shhhh... don't... cry..." The words were dry, a rasping sound from a throat that hadn't spoken in years. Voudoun didn't even notice the words escaping her lips as she pulled a clean pin from her 'heart'. Centering it between the fox's eyes. A short, sharp jab had it punching clean through the skull, and the faefox barely had time to gasp from the brief pain before the terror poured into her mind with a hungry fury.

((Hah, well, Voudoun wasn't at one time, but she's pretty much accepted what she is not. She still has her decent moments though, I swear. <.<))

Voudoun's head snapped back as the psychic energy assaulted her mind nearly as hard as it did the faefox in her grip. She almost lost her grip, her hand spasming open several times before clamping down hard enough to almost suffocate the thrashing fox. The Eye alternated between watching the faenix and watching it's charge, an air of concern seeming to crackle invisibly around it as the beholder fed.

Voudoun knew none of this, nor did she see or hear anything other than the howling roar of pure ecstasy that seemed to flood her stitched-together body. Memories, instinctual and learned, awakened from their dormant sleep as the sentient terror worked it's way deeper into her brain. Parents, friends, fire, hatred, the Pact-maker, all once again became crystal-clear. Still, she tried to pull more from the faefox.

With a shriek of psychic energy, the pin jumped from the beholder's grip and shot straight up into the air. It barely made it to eye-level with Voudoun before vaporizing in a cloud of eye-searing colors that blew the beholder off the fox. Voudoun flew through the air before slamming into a tree hard enough to leave a dent.

A strangely deafening silence seemed to fill the forest. The Eye floated lazily over to the spasming faefox, seeming to inspect it closely before looking up at the faenix and giving what could only be a nod. It then floated over to the slumped form of it's mistress, patiently waiting for her to awaken.