Chapter Two: The Gain is Worth the Pain

Abaddon Bell: When he told her to go to the basement, there may have been some confusion because there wasn't really a basement door anywhere in the home. Not until today that is, and down one of those empty halls (unless she decided to put up some pictures or try out finger painting that is). There was no door, only an empty portal that lead down. Down not into a home, but into an underground dwelling. After the first wooden step it instead became hard-packed and molded dirt, and the world got cooler. Down, down, down, what began as a narrow passage opened up wider and wider with each step, till it seemed there was room for four people to stand shoulder to shoulder. The journey down steps too was a.. perilous one, as there was a single torch at the top step and one at the bottom, but that did nothing for the middle of the descent where only darkness was company. Whenever she did arrive down the twenty or thirty feet it was to a torch lit cavern. About a dozen or so of them in a wide circle placed on sections of stone walls that were not complete. There were gaps, big ones, here and there. And from those gaps came frigid waves of air from time to time. Without a flashlight, or aimed light of any kind, it was nearly impossible to detect how far those tunnels went, how deep the black could go. A twelve foot by ten foot obsidian table was covered in candles, symbols, sigils, vials, jars, books, blades, and other random bits of oddities and curiosities. And it was where he was standing in the nude. Skin was sweat slick and glistening while he was currently mixing up something for the evening. She may have not noticed it at first, but the tips of the man's toes, the tips of his fingers were onyx, blackness seething with a icy burn. The same blackness played in clouds around greens, stains of black seeping from the the bottom of his eyes. Seeping out, but having dried after half an inch or so of dribbling down cheekbones. If he was worried, and he should have been if he cared at all for her, he didn't seem to show a bit of it. Even a quiet whistle softly flowed under his breath, an old nursery rhyme whispered in the ears of babes a time ago. <done>



Alice Donovan: The confusion was minimal -- he'd mentioned a basement when he'd brought her to this dark house the first time, though Alice had yet to do too much exploring. The new arrival of the door though, where there had once been smooth wall? That was well noted when she slipped into the house just before midnight. Where she'd been was of little consequence; there was some semblance of an outside life to be maintained given exactly who she was. The water-witch was of some import, though just how much so, Abaddon had yet to discover outside of how high he himself put her. Alice tried the door carefully, a rush of something akin to excitement flooding through her veins, while it's partnering anticipation fizzled in her belly like butterflies just might if they were fluttering about. For a moment, she just stared down. Wondering what could be in all that black between the two eerie glows the torches provided on either end. Never had she been one to be afraid of the dark, but Don had laid it all out plainly and simply. This was going to be the worst place she'd ever gone. Was she prepared for that? A teetering step down onto the first step to put her lower than the house said yes. She let a hand trail along the wall as she went down, carefully, keeping determined gaze on the pilot light that navigated her to the bottom. There was a song in her head, and as the darkest part of the steps came upon her, there in the middle, ten or fifteen feet down, the softness of her clear alto slipped free with some of the words, "I'll dive deeper .. deeper for you. Down to the bottom, ten thousand pools .. Underwater, time is standing still, " Just few more to go, and when Alice could see the flicker of firelight on the ground, she took a little leap -- landing solidly on her two feet, with a grin flashing across her angular beauty. "You're the treasure, dive down deeper .. still all I need is you, you're all I need to breathe," she continued softly singing to herself as she followed moved further from the light and into the depths of the room he was in, but it wasn't just him she sought out. She took in everything, from the bumps of the spines of the books, to the contents of the jars and the ancient marks that had been laid into the surfaces in the room. A slow sort of spin to take it all in, touching things here and there, until she was just there in front of him. His was not nude, a pity. They were going on an adventure, right? She'd dressed for the part. A feminine version of military styled boots were laced over black pants that molded her legs and up the swell of her ass and hips. Whatever she was wearing up top was hidden by a fitted black sweatshirt material jacket, with a cowl neck that she had zipped up all the way, allowing it fold over her collarbone and reveal tender skin. It had deep pockets that ran the width of her belly, broken only by the zipper in the middle. They zipped up too. A good thing, since they were each full of colorful Gobstoppers should she get hungry. You brought food on an adventure right? Dark tawny gold had been pulled up into a high set ponytail, that even now had slipped forward to lay over one shoulder. Alice tipped her way towards him, carefully in the dark of the room, until she was just beside and sinking into the heat that his magic provided. She said nothing now, just set her sights on the man. Taking him in, naturally downturned mouth tilting even further, and her fingers brushed over the black that leaked from his right eye, painting her thumb along the dried bit. -d-



Abaddon Bell: That man in shadows stood perfectly still in his nudity, bare to the world and soft. Although, it was difficult not to feel a twitch when her enchanting aura came sticking into his. The girl and her wild mind, the soft thing he was helping finds its way. She did make the wolf quiver before grin crept into beard right as she came around the corner. Infinite whispers hissed and sang, squabbling among themselves in infinite languages and tongues all alien to the water-witch, until she bore the shadow. It was the touch of finger to black drip that summoned chattering, the waxy residue stretching with her fingers but in animated drip returned to his cheek. Forests peered at her for what she was worth then, the girl's style always making grin crack a bit wider. The mad girl. Tongue tapped at the roof his mouth while he murmured breathless words back in alien tongue. Quiet as a lamb until voice crackled with life with a language much easier to perform. "It thinks it will have you forever, it says you'll get lost." He interpreted the things voice and the voices again came, but with an expression shared by all manner of beast. Laughter. Chattering things, enough to make the skin crawl, giggling, chuckling, gaggling, in unison until it seeped dead. Abaddon raised his hand carefully along the massive stone table, more of a slab of black rock. The littered items began to shift and move all on their own, tilting and narrowing to let paths begin to form along it. Jars that were close went far, a bowl and new book that was a great distance creeping. The wizard having access to all things with but a simple gesture, the shadow magic that she may one day master at play. It was cold and black. And it laughed at her. "You will come back though." He mumbled carefully and sent greens to crack into her blue. "You will do what you need to do, to be with me forever." There was command in his voice, stretching stern and fierce while eyes even pinched some. Maybe it was the black moving. Grin remained solid while hands moved without eyes tips of black fingers plucking something white from a bowl of what look to be plucked eyes. It sifted away and back deep across the table while it was replaced with another bowl filled with blackberries. Or what looked like blackberries. Eye was squished between black fingers, the white veined in bolts of ebony before becoming onxy themselves. The severed stem still greasy and read plucked and discarded to an empty bowl (filled with others bits random and unused). He again shifted fingers and bowl now was replaced by a little half of a skull that came drifting down the edge of table, swirling with black liquid. The blackberries were taken and smeared with the plucked eye made black, the combination smeared in the palm of his hands. "You still have so many things to get from me." The clumps in his hands, all stained and murky, were dribbled into the skull that had been hollowed and re-structured. The top of it having been lopped up and flipped, made concave to carry that black potion. Bits were dropped in clumps of that material bubbled and hissed before steam rose and bits sank. He cupped the skull with both of those hands and turned to her fully, the naked and painted monster taking a step closer while offering it over. "Drink this, it tastes like death, but you will need it." Once she took it he would also coo to her. "All of it, don't waste a drop." <done>



Alice Donovan: "They're wrong," she whispered up to him, smearing her finger into the black on his face to make it do that move again. It was cold down here, but she was more comfortable in the cold than she ever had been in the heat. Until recently, that is. Still, it stole a shiver down the center of her spine, and had Alice drifting that much closer to the naked length of a heavily tattooed and well toned frame. It was noisy down here too, but she was also well used to noise. To little whispers that meant nothing and everything all at once, to roaring yells that some would just call intuition -- but hers screamed at her, heedless of right or wrong, to act on what it was spewing. It was the movement on the desk that drew her attention back that way, watching as the items there worked themselves about, trading places, scraping sound across the stone in what looked like erratic choreography, but his voice lifted again and Alice turned back to regard him. "Of course I will," she responded to both statements with one, and turned away -- this time, she bent in close to the table, getting nearly eye level with it so she could watch what he was doing. Slender hands rippled along the edge of it, and Alice moved; circling like a vulture as he squeezed and mashed and mixed things that never should go together, but always had a purpose when combined. "I'll take them all," such a grin ate at her mouth until it grew wicked and voracious; blue eyes lifting to him with the words and the smile, though she continued 'round the table and went back to watching what he was doing until she was on the opposite side of him, and guiding her spine back up to reach her full height. His step in her direction was met halfway; the caps of her knees brushing his with their closeness, and Alice heeded his warning -- sliding the warmth of her palms first over the ridges of his knuckles, where markings would forever remain, fingertips finding a path over the lettering along his, to the black that stained each, until she was able to cup the stark white skull with it's wretched contents and lift it from within the protection his big hands provided. "How will I know it's truly death I'm tasting?," Alice couldn't help but wonder aloud as she set her mouth to the lip of the makeshift cup, and with blues struck to greens, she tipped it. It was thick, and vile the second it hit her tongue, and our girl gagged; throat protesting the stuff she was forcing it to swallow down. All of it, until it was nothing but thin residue left within the knotted skull. The back of her hand came up, pressing to her mouth to make sure nothing came out -- swallow it down, dear thing, and accept what's coming. -d-



Abaddon Bell: Despite its recent boil the drink was cold and harsh. It was frigid and oily, pouring like molasses and stretching fluidly as it leaked in her pour. A long stretching drip of ice that reached down her throat and began filling her belly. The taste of it was several things, but dirt seemed to take over. There were things rancid and spoiled, fresh and sweet, but in everything dirt. It had a way of getting into every bit of cold horribleness that she would experience. "When you can't taste it anymore." The skull could only hold so much, but seemed to be nearly three times as full in her swallow. Either a trick on the mind or the dense concoction stretched thin in the tilt. Once the drink was completed she'd feel it coiling in her belly, and drawing all the heat. It sucked at her, a black hole making her cold, but right hand took her left and he spilled warmth into her. That simmering black heat fighting back at the draining chill that undoubtedly felt like an alien inside, her a child of darkness writhing as it sapped at her. Left hand continued to play at the table and that bone handled blade, was plucked. He lifted her hand, locked with his, where he fed her himself in steady pulses in that blazing heat. He opened her palm cautiously and slapped the tongue of blade down across her skin. The golden lines of fortunes were broken and disrupted, the deep wound bubbling up hard as he tore into muscles. Hand disfigured and handicapped with the severity as it poured red from her open palm. The blade dropped to the dirt floor while both of his hands cupped over hers now, clamping fingers hard down despite the pain he knew it'd cause. The burning fire still seeping into her. "Trust me. Trust me. I will show you how to move in the shadows with me. How to live forever. How to make the darkness yours. Come with me, come with me. I will show you, but you must come back." He said it again with that edge of strength and seniority, punishments awaiting if she somehow got lost. He would find a way. Blood continued to pour out hard from the slashed hand, dribbling in a trail while he tugged at her and pulled her towards him, but his feet kept on moving. He back-pedaled out of the circle of torches and between a gap in the walls. He pulled at her, kept on pulling and keeping his hands wrapped around hers. He dragged her by that arm, bushing his energy into her--his fire to feed that swelling bile and shadow growing in her stomach. Its icy swell consuming and growing against her insides, as it it would cause her to burst. He kept drawing her further from the light now, through tunnels so deep, only faint shadows him while the ground became less even. He paused then, right when the mind began to play tricks on you, showing you illusions in the dark and breeze carried whispers. He moved into her vision and out, in and out, face close and then shadows until he wasn't in front of her any longer. He released the hand that leaked red and took her by the shoulders, the hard press of his cock wedged against pant clad ass. He pushed hard against the swell of that ass, the way it felt against him. He would miss it so, if she never returned. "Keep going, my little golden bird. Keep going, into the dark and hold your hand out. When it feels fat and plump, eat what you have gathered. Eat and listen to your monster. Do as it commands. And the shadow will become your pet. Go." The scratch of his beard against her ear was the second to last thing she felt from him, the last being the tiny shove that put her in the pitch black. The moment she was without light and without the heat he poured into her the cold began to come hard and fast. It grew in her stomach and swarmed at that hand that bled. A slurping swirling blackness consuming and peeling at the cut of her hand, like cotton-candy... waiting to be devoured when she thought she had gathered enough. That is as long as she ate it before the cold in her belly consumed her all. Freezing the little water-witch beneath its gelid spell. Voices though alien, now sounding familiar. And voices.. that seemed to become only one. Right there at the tip of her eardrum. She could almost understand. <done>



Alice Donovan: With the cold creeping down, consuming her insides with frost and ice, Alice dropped the bowl in her haste to double over against the pain that the cold brought. A deep pain, one she wasn't sure for a moment if she'd come back from. She tried to make a sound, but her throat had closed to anything but the taste of dirt and black death. When he found her hand, she clutched at it; digging her nails in as if drawing his flesh to bleed might give her his heat faster. She could feel it. Pouring molten over the dismal feeling of all that cold, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't ever going to be enough. If she'd not been able to make a sound before, she did now. A keening cry broke off her lips at the tortured feeling that the deepness of the laceration brought on. For a moment all she could do was look down at her hand, at the way in one single swipe, he'd torn through flesh and bone and muscle and left it gaping wide and flooding the floor with what was inside her. When his hand closed harshly around it, Alice's first reaction was to yank it back, but that only hurt more and he'd see it in the eyes that flashed up so quickly to his face. Things were moving too fast, and without explanation, and tears glittered like diamonds against the infinite blue that held them; but still she stepped herself closer into him. Trust him, he bade, and he already knew she did. It was twisted and wrong, but Alice had asked for this. More than once, she'd made it clear she couldn't go on unless it was as one -- and deep down, where she let herself listen to the soft singing in her soul, she knew it wasn't going to be easy. "I trust you," burst in a manic tone from her lips, and pulled close, her other hand clamped at his shoulder where it lead into his neck and Alice let him take the brunt of the job of moving them. She rose up, making herself go weightless despite the unease and panic that came in these turbulent moments. High enough, that she could press her brow to the bridge of his nose, and breath in the apple that forever tainted his tongue with sin, no matter how faint or how overpowering it might be. "I'm coming back." So confident, when she didn't know where she was going, or what she would find when she got there -- or on the way. Her feet found the floor again, and she stumbled over them a little; her stomach lurching and heaving, and Abaddon would hear her gagging again as he hauled her where she needed to be. He'd have to pull a little harder to keep her moving for just a moment, when her legs felt to heavy to be moving and the cold threatened to turn her entire being to a statue of herself there where he bled the darkest magics. Alice tipped with it, and saw him -- didn't see him -- saw him, and confusion flooded her expression, until there he was. Pressed against her from behind, erect and persistent against the plump of her rear end. A groan echoed too loud in the shadows, and Alice keeled back against him, her head lolling back up his chest to tilt her face towards him as he whispered the last of it in her ear, but he gave her no time to question -- and then she was alone with a shove that had her stumbling again, but righting herself before she might fall to her knees. She saw nothing. Trapped in the pitch, with nothing but the sound of her own hitched and broken breath, and the thundering of her heart too fast in her ears. But the last of his heat abandoned her, and she was surrounded by what felt like the heart of winter. The wreckage of her hand cast out, and Alice forced her feet to move. Keep going, keep going, keep going. Steps too heavy. Muscles not cooperating, hardening and cramping with each step she took, until she could feel nothing of her hand, only what webbed around it. It was brought to her mouth, and teeth snapped and pulled at it until she was swallowing it down, mostly without chewing. Choking on it like a glutton with their favorite dish and no one there to tell them no. Sobbing softly against the sound of it, until many voices became one, and spoke against her ear. Alice went still; head lifting like a bird, there in the darkness, to the sound. -d-



Abaddon Bell: Abaddon left her. Alone. In the dark. Once the shadow was bit into and she gobbled it climbed at her. Blind in the black let her feel the cold thing, sinister and wrong sliding through her teeth and down her throat. It flowed through her like rushing water and met the alternate coldness she swallowed and then exploded through her, the bag of flesh gone and only consciousness. And shadow. The foreign words became a clear voice that croaked in her soul. Weak, weak, weak girl. Weak girl. Weak. Flimsy thing. Flimsy. The shadow cooed at her deliciousness as it fed on her meat, but she blazed through shadows. The world over. Across the plane of reality and into astral form, part of a blackness that stretched the globe of earth and in other places where shadows lurked. She was stretched and scattered and given control, the blackness a seething mold that she could find malleable to her mind. Although where the consciousness and the shapes moved she had not control, shape was all hers. A monster out of the dark given body, a thing that would be hers alone. A seedling of the voice that stretched onyx veins of black through hers waters and grew in her power. A voice made of that which mocked her arose and groaned, a wail of newborn beast. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. Hungry. It was her thing. Her pet. Her monsters. She would know that, the new voice that came all from her. It knew only hunger and it continued to rip at the physical form, something lost to Alice as she drifted from place to place. Mountains. Caves. Tunnels. Homes. Corners. Beds. In planes. In cars. Under bridges. Everywhere that light could not go. Until she found herself in the black, heaving shadows swelling around her and the shape she became.. whatever it was began to materialize from the darkness. Baseball stars and cars made on paper were on walls painte blue. A bedroom window open to let the breeze through, and the rise of mountains out said window proof they weren't in Kansas... er.. England anymore. The boy that rested in his bed was shirtless, no older than fifteen, no younger than twelve. Thin armed and snoring in the black of his room, the seething whispers again exploding with its ravenous hunger that chewed at her waters and meant to freeze her to death. Hungry! Hungry! Take him! Bring him to the shadows! Bring him to us! He is ours now! Bring him! He is ours! The shadows cackled and howled at the boy that was marked by the boogie man for deeds once sown. The howling unheard by boy, but instinct kicked in stirring from slumber to draw knuckled hand to eye and rub. <done>



Alice Donovan: The feel of water was a comfort, something she could understand, something she could hold on to alone in the dark. The water was something she could use -- but just as soon as the thought hit her, she was made into nothingness. Nothing, there was no feeling. No thought. No cold. No gravity. But there was a voice. Taunting, and Alice tried to find her voice. No. She couldn't get her lips -- no longer there -- to move. No. She couldn't make herself louder than the insults that slung her way. She might be broken, but I am not weak!, Alice shouted back to the creeping lick of the growing blackness that consumed her. Hungryhungryhungry, the word an echo in her head, until Alice swore she could feel the growing ache to feed in herself. She tried to pull away from it, tried to gain the upper hand -- tried to conjure up a vision of home, of crashing sea against the cliffs that rose high and low from the earth of England's western coast, a vision of home, of a dark man with darker intentions who looked at her as if she were the answer to every question. But all she saw in flashes were mountains. Caves. Tunnels. Homes. Corners, beds, in planes, in cars, under bridges. And then there was nothing, and Alice wondered a moment if it was over, if they'd taken her to a place she'd never find her way back. Nothingness, left to nothingness, but no more than seconds past before she could swear she felt -- she felt! -- the shadows begin to wrap and form about her, making her bigger than she'd ever been. Rising her above, in the bedroom of a young boy who slept without a care to what lurked in the dark. Even within in the shadows, she could feel the near fall breeze picking it's way through their lack of density that surrounded her. Everything moved as if on it's own accord, or maybe Alice willed it so, to bring the thing that she'd become closer to the bed where the lad slept, already shifting as if hearing himself the things that Alice was urged to do. But what would the shadows do for her, if she did for them? To win, deals

must be struck, and this was a thing she knew full well. She crept, ever closer still, taking with her all that cold and hunger. Forced herself deeper, to find what she was beneath the filth. These shadows were hers, and she was going to prove it. But what if I want him? What if I eat him and leave nothing for you? Tell me what you'll give me in return. She tried to move her arms, if she still had arms, tried to use her hands -- tried to pull at the moisture in the room that came from the air, from the boy, from what she'd been forever, and would always continue to be. Beckoned it forth to create something corporeal. Something she could use. -d-



Abaddon Bell: The material body she had was still in that basement under the ground, but the shadowy body was darkness itself. The shadows oozed and flowed together stitching together to make black leather, scale, fur, flesh, whatever guise she formed to make her very own legend out of the black. The devourer of children. She'd feel the blackness writhe, enflamed, enraged, furious at her contempt and it hurled its fire through her mind causing the blackness to cave in her mind, stretching her like taffy and seething into her. She spoke to bargain, but possessed no power. FEEEED GRAB THE BOY GRAB HIM FEED USSSS!!! The thing inside of her, bore of her, part of her mind now continued to howl FEED FEED GRAB THE BOY. The more furious the tantrum became the more the ache she could feel far and away, the connection to her body beginning to bend as the darkness' ire grew. The boy waking a blink and staring into the pitch black while shadows instinctively lurched out, the unconscious of the shadow monster Alice was distracting his attention from the seething beast that had yet to step from black and make its form known. A form that would haunt the shadows for as long as she drew breath, never the same, but always in similar shape. Windows clattered and the boy gasped peering, and then the door shut to the hallway, lock clicking shut. He sprang from his bed. "Mommy!" Or maybe half of one if the shadows caught it in time. The sea of darkness never ceasing in its rolling seethe, howling its hunger till it shattered any chance she could have had of having a word of her own. The tremors of hunger fierce in its tantrum, but there was something impending. Something deep and far, that she risk losing herself to if she didn't do as commanded. The pull of her body and the sweeping coldness that stretched across cords of power leashing her consciousness still. Threatening to become brittle. <done>



Alice Donovan: Glued together with bad intentions, Alice could feel the peeling and the patching and the work job that was going on to make her real again -- even if it wasn't really her. She'd pissed in someone's Cheerio's though, that much was true, and with the anger that came within the starvation, she felt as if she were being split apart, atom by atom, and shoved back together whole. Not like that rush of water that had burst her to nothingness, no. Fine, fine, fine. Cool your jets, you don't have to get so pushy. Things were happening in the room beyond her control, and she suddenly hated it so, and as the boy who was far too old to be calling for his `mommy` did just that, Alice sprang through out of the shadows. But instead of the golden dancing bird that she was, she was black as a raven, and just as beautiful. Skin as pale as the moon and half as translucent; skin that dripped here and there while it still formed, but that would fortunately go unnoticed by the swell of black that looked like clothing -- shadows she wore like a dress, molding and forming over curves far more voluptuous than her own ( hey, if she's gonna be something, it's gonna be big titted and with an ass you could bounce a quarter off of ). The face that took over where a face should be turned out to look a bit like a Hollywood starlet of old, a classic beauty that was beyond compare in this day and age, with soft billowy pitch black hair that if one could see behind her was connected to the black that garbed her. "Shh, shh, no please, shhh, please don't call out." A voice that would never belong to her, it was soothing within the raw sexual temptation of it's rich tones, and Alice crept closer, urging the shadows to make it look as if she were using legs she didn't have. "I'm not here to hurt you," she lied, bracing herself for the shouting that was sure to come. "You just looked so peaceful. Tell me, were you dreaming? What was it about?" Eyes like midnight bore down on the boy, softer than they should be with the way what was inside her craved to consume him there and now, and she let the bowtie lips on that face pull into a gentle, tempting smile. -d-



Abaddon Bell: The voice inside her head, that was a voice that was her own was a piece of her soul broken off and dipped in shadow. It was sprung to life and born inside of her and it still howled, but less frequently now that they were working their way to feeding. It salivated and dripped, each passing second it felt pain and it made her feel it too. Clawing like a nagging pet at her spine, hungry, hungry, hungry, hungry. The shadows sang and hissed around the windows clattering again when her shape took form fueled by imagination and what she chose to haunt the dreams of children everywhere. For while she quivered in shadows in the boy's room, thousands others dreamt of the curved creature that seduced young thing. Wide-eyed and quiet, the fear quelled by blooming hormones that left the shirtless thing clad in boxers utterly still sitting up in his bed. Breath gone shallow and voice quiet when he responded. ' ... who are you.. what are you doing here...' Hungry, hungry! Feed! Eat him! Grab him! Swallow him whole! Swallow him whole! He is ours now! Please, please, please, please, please, please, So hungry! And somewhere else in the back of her, a hiss and scowl. The roar of Don, seething words and a snarl. So far though. And cold. So cold. The boy swallowed hard and blinked at the door that had once been shut, unsure of whether he was dreaming now or not. And why the door was shut. Windows rattled again by the angry monster inside her, casting its magic without her consent and hammering them to reveal its aggravation at the Alice that let it starve so painfully. <done>



Alice Donovan: Rolling back against the nagging claws that echoed their demands down the back of what she'd created, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of any other reaction. Not when the boy looked upon her in fear still. She didn't want him to fear her, not until he knew that the breath he gulped was his last. "Oh, what would you like me to be?" She made the voice giggling and girlish, flirting with the young lad to lure him in, to make him come willingly towards her when she manipulated the shadows and forced them to each that beautiful butt she'd given her form onto the bed just beside him. "We can play a game. Do you like it in the dark? I can show you there's nothing to be afraid of in the dark." Pale fingers pulled at it, brought it forward in smoking tendrils, and Alice once again ignored the demand, no matter how loud it screamed. Until it became something else, something too familiar -- and black eyes that peered almost lovingly down at the boy flashed into the brilliance of blues that were all her own, and when she snapped out, it was in her own British born cadence. "Fine, have it your way." It was clear, it was not this tender innocent chap she spoke to, and Alice dragged the shadows around him like a blanket with the sweep of the falsity of the arm; while the windows rattled, and the boy had every right to question what was around him. There beneath it, she let him see what she could really become. The way the face bled out, and the mouth of it went wide, wider than it should be; a mask of something insidious and wrong. She let him see how hungry she was, and it wasn't just the shadows now. Let him see, in those eerie blues, what she was going to do. If he screamed, she cut it off -- forcing black into his mouth until he choked on it, and only then did she let the shadows, and herself, truly have him. Truly suck him down; leaving nothing behind, not even the marrow in his bones. -d-



Abaddon Bell: Nightmares and sounds that were powerful enough to make the world weep in sorrow found themselves in blistered screams muffled in black when the retributive shadows consumed its prey. The thing in her reviled and swooned, swished and screamed in ecstasy as shadows leaked and claimed the boy in the dark. The room screamed in shrills of joy to her ear alone, deadly quiet to the realm of the world, but black magics seared with the flavor of the water witch in the room. Tainting it with the scent of the devouring monster that was part of her now, growing in her, taking her. She fed it. And it rose. It swelled in her. An all encompassing thing that squealed and felt its shadow rise. The threads of power still cold yanked hard, pulling apart the woman that swallowed boys whole. Breaking the spell and casting shadows back to corners, consciousness thrust and back the it came. Twisting through visions of corners and dark spaces, until a phantom self.. a feel of body, but not of it all cold and empty. Returned to a world of only darkness that swam across her skin. The cold got colder. Frost felt growing on her skin, her right hand coiled tight in a fist like she gripped something, but nothing present. Not that she could see that in the black, but she held on still (willed by something more than her presently). Blackness everywhere and dirt that felt like snow between her footfalls, not even the feel of clothing offering comfort from the howling bites of blackness. Somewhere though. Out there. He radiated. He coiled his own black tendrils into the black and tried to lead her in the right direction. He sent coils out and fed into her. Her stomach flooding with icy chill again, but then filled with heat. It would feel as though he came inside of her cold and frigid frame, even though she was empty, filling her with heat and filling her whole. Lending strength and fire, but no light. Only wanting to will her through the bitter chill, and the broken maze of dirt-carved tunnels. <done>



Alice Clare: The feeding was a frenzied thing, an orgy of too many things reducing the boy to memory. The ecstasy she felt, the elation, it wasn't just from the blackness she towed, but her own. Again and again, she took from the boy, filling herself up in the glory of easing the insatiable -- for now. She could feel herself growing. Getting too full. It broke her heart, broke on a sadness that had her sobbing out denials in head when she realized that this was over, that there was nothing left for her to swallow down -- but then she was gone. And it didn't matter anymore. Now, she lay against an unforgiving cold floor, flesh and bone. Herself, but not. As she came back together where she belonged ( or close to it, so close ) Alice took inventory. Willed her frozen toes to move within her boots to make sure they were there. Twitched her fingers -- the left at least, her right refused to unfurl. She tested muscle, flexing and straining and found herself whole. Pushing her knuckles into the ground, she hauled up -- only to stop halfway, heaving out a breath that misted and froze audibly. Heat. She could feel it. Pricking at her skin from the inside, from her belly, from deep within where Abaddon poured himself nightly. Muscles there clenched too, reacting to the feeling as if she went lax it might pour out of her to stain her thighs. "Don," his name puffed from her breath, and Alice planted both hands to the ground and pushed herself to her feet. She had to get out, she had to get home. Calling to that heat, she beckoned it closer. Closer. Just a taste, so she knew the way to go. Opening the bridge that gapped them internally, and she felt another rush. This one didn't come from her, but her own sea. From an lineage full of navigators who'd always been at home in choppy dark waters. Filling her chest with a hum of power that threatened to slosh up into her throat if she didn't use it. So she did. Her body lurched, on it's own accord; arms cast out, the right hand still wrapped together as tight as can be. Her feet moved, she didn't make them do that. Step after step, each time her foot collided with the barren frigid ground, it was his name in her voice that called to him. Step after step, closer and closer; weaving through the maze, without even seeing it. Watching through another's eyes, many eyes. Those Irish eyes. Always smiling. But this time, within the magic that carried her, black followed. Latching to her feet like the suckerfish she'd declared herself the other day on the Green. Following. Stalking. Going home with baby. -d-



Abaddon Bell: The heat kept drawing and pulling, she'd feel it on her skin. Pouring through her everywhere to try and break apart the bits of ice that grew on her. Into the dark, never knowing if that was the right way, but always knowing. And then it was there. Blackness and shadow seeped from her eyes and she was dumped into a reality that she had been blinded to. Her mouth was gooey and wet, bits of gobster, dirt, and blood. Flesh. Meat. All in her jaws while she was planted face first in a smear of globbed blood and dirt. Sigil on the ground lit by torchlight that pulsed with blue fire, power strobbing through it as it melted shadows into skin. Sheathed in her cunt was the swell of his prick and the dig of her own hand, wedge around his shaft and spreading herself wider and trying to pull him into her. The memories swirling back of shadowsoul that could see in the black. The golden haired thing stuffing mouth with gobsters and giggling in the black, ripping pieces of clothing off as it spotted Abaddon in the dark. And it knew his name. Alice did too now, because it was her. The beast that had its own name inside of her knew Abaddon, the inked man. It found the blade and .... { -sings- priiivate eyes aren't watching this .. }



Alice Donovan: Closer, closer. The heat welled up, burst at her limbs -- sucked in by her own power, then leaping out of her belly to dance away and leave her cold once more -- only to thrust back into her chest and out of her mouth. And that's when it all changed. That's when Alice wasn't alone, and the lights turned on. But they didn't. It was still dark, abysmally so, but she could see in it, almost as if she'd been born in it. Baptized in it. It all came to light in the dark, and Alice was on the ground. A mouth full of muck, and retching with it. There, just beside her, the one who was hers, and the one who she is fucked. The obscene squish of it reached her ears before anything else, and Alice dragged her head to the side to watch. { But only Alice gets to watch.}



Abaddon Bell: Sweat slick body picked up dirt and rock easy, smeared and staining his body as he weighted hers down. Though, he no longer needed to anchor the feral thing as fiercely as before as more trusting forces regained footing in the form. He heard the name of his shadowed monster, the most real thing about him that she had discovered in shared obligation to servants of the darkness. They would serve a purpose in the ritual of the world, consuming the flesh of young that had done wrong or would do. Creatures of darkness returned to darkness, consumed by the shadow and things greater beyond the scope of flesh and skin. Monsters in the deep that served the justice of nature, bringing things back into the black by way of those that bound themselves. As he was bound. The nameless boy from a millennia ago. Abaddon, the piece of him that was blackest. When he felt her explode it pushed him through into his own raging inferno of lust that was being spurned by the scent of something closer to his own species. She took steps further became more of him, even if she was just a sapling to his roots of shadow that dug deep. She would learn, and grow, in his shadow.. till she crept towards the stars with him . He bled on her from where skin had been cut open, body arching above hers laid out and the fires dulled. "You found your way, I'm so proud of you." Face clenched and wreathed in shadows that began to fade let tongue hang from the gap of his grin. Face ducking to draw tip of his nose to the girl who would forever eat children to gain the shadow. <done>



Alice Donovan: Yummy yummy baby bones. She'll pick her teeth with them! Full, so full. Near to bursting, and a gluttonous moan rolled past her lax mouth. Alice arched, then eased back, wanting to feel all of him against all of her, and would make it so if she had to do it herself. Which would account for the clutch of her hand high on his hip to jerk him even closer. Had she been cold? Alice wasn't sure. It could have been ages ago, in another life, for how hot she burned now. With him still buried deep, still seeping his love inside her. A hoarse laugh tripped from her tongue, and she turned her face so that her nose would nuzzle with his when he came in. She took a mouthful of his beard first, tugging on it with her teeth before tilting back. "Nothing could have kept me away." She'd told him so, before he'd even shoved her into the darkness already bleeding, already sick, already shivering. "There was a boy. Young. Scared. I tried to make him not scared, but they wouldn't let me. They wanted him, and not in my way. But it won't always be so, will it? I'll do it, without them screaming at me to hurry. I'll take my time, suck them dry how I want them. I want them," a dreamy sigh, and Alice rolled her body against the heat he blazed; teased him from the inside out and remembered the bubble butt she gave herself for the dead boy in his bedroom so far away, and wondered what it'd feel like for him if she had that working against him instead of the pretty plump of her own. She half turned, to face him a bit more, fingers on a loving trail along the cut she'd watched herself open on his skin. There at the end of it, where she'd gone left to right, she dug in. Sinking pointer finger halfway down the nail into him; curled it in so she could scoop some of him out -- hot and red, and tipped her head back to drip it into her mouth. "When was I eating Gobstoppers?" -d-



Abaddon Bell: "Yes. I know. The first time is hard to hold on, but you found your way. And it will be easier when it taps at you. And you can ask it it's name. And whisper it in my ear." He mumbled carefully because the thing would grow on its own. Using her memories, her experiences making them its own, and turning into a piece of her. It was going to be her and not her, a voice, like hunger or desire but something far more ancient and bound in magic. He rolled against her and then came out of her, prick hot and and slick slid around her still pant covered thigh where she had hacked unreasonably at the material to expose herself. She dug fingers into him and ate and he dug fingers into her and fed, his was against her breast. An exclamation of pain when she peeled him out, and fed. She asked about gobstoppers right before he took her in his mouth. He returned pain to her in the bite on the edge, and again suckled from tender flesh before he shifted again. Fingers pulled at her to draw her up to her feet with him. "What's a gobstopper?" He wasn't really curious, but he was. If she ate it, it was worth knowing, right? He grinned covered in dirt, sweat, blood, and made to glitter with the licking tongues of torches light. "You'll hear things now. See things. Faces in the black that weren't there before. And you'll learn to call it. Change it. Make it more than what it's supposed to be, but be weary about using it. It drains the thing in you, makes it hungrier faster. And it leaves pieces of you scattered about, pieces that the light might try to find and burn out." Thumb rose up in a quick stab, the stub of it stroking cheekbone to chin. "Or don't be careful. And we can see how many lights we can put out together." He wouldn't be able to say no to her, he realized as he told her to be wary. No, he would let her eat the world up if she wanted. He'd do it right along beside her. <done>





Alice Donovan: The pain that burst from his mouth drew a delighted laugh from Alice Clare, but one that was cut short when he sought his revenge; biting into her tender flesh without any disregard to what might come from it. But that was the way of it wasn't it? Actions done, hands forced, fates snipped here and there, just for their own pleasure. To get reaction. There was no consequence when you knew you were on top of the world. And that's exactly how she felt; her hand sliding into his hair to clutch him a moment to her breast and let the feeling claim worship in her veins. "I'll tell you," she whispered, nuzzling into his sweaty, dirty hair. But then he was peeling away, and drawing her to her feet, and Alice realized she wore nothing but tatters. Pants shredded, her jacket the same in order to have bared her breasts to her beast. Damnit. She rather liked this jacket. One slash of a brow lifted, and Alice felt about for where the pocket might be .. unzipping it and letting the rainbow of colorful candies spill out to bounce onto the cold floor and roll where they might go. She caught a few though, and those were pushed at his mouth, and into it with her bloody finger. "Taste it. Suck on it, until it goes to powder. Love it. Looove it." Her clothing was irrelevant now, and Alice peeled off the remains of it to be left where it fell, forgotten until they traveled this way again another time, and as he brought to light what would always be in the dark, she pulled and tugged on him to get him to go upstairs, where they could wash away all that clung to them, and make use of that big bed of theirs. Her laugher echoed off the cavern walls. "How on Earth can I be careful with all this? I want to play with it, sink my fingers in it and paint myself with the dark. I want to watch you do it. Oh, baby, can I watch you do it?" Eager little voice on the dangerous stairs, and she tug tug tugged on him more. "I want to do it with you. Can we do it at the same time, with the same one?" He was peppered with question after question like that until he'd be forced to silence her with parts of him that made it impossible for her to babble on. Andthenlaterhetotallyputhertosleep. -d-