Futuristic ✧⋄ Project Lilith ⋄✧ | ellarose & starboob

[ellarose]

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✧₊∘ Project Lilith ∘₊✧
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The end of the story is near.

The blind muse is the only one who sees it. One must only listen to the voices of the Gods and hear what they are saying. From nooks and doorways she snagged fragments of whispered plots, lies and cruel omissions. Loyalties changed with the seasons. With this knowledge she stitched together a tapestry of the future she sees now. The end. Lilith bit her tongue, understanding it was the only way to keep it when she already lost so many of her pieces to their grand ambitions. She bruised her knees in prayer before they were lopped off of her. She gave her sight, her limbs. Flesh and bones and blood. To the Gods she is a docile lamb with her head up in the clouds, an odd one to be sure, but theirs nonetheless. Devoted. Helpless. Mortal. It is of no consequence to them that she hears their words of deceit and betrayal. They do not expect her to make a move. She can't even walk.

When the Gods show their hands, their world-rendering might— their egos— will collide and wreak havoc as forces of nature do. Countless mortals will lose their lives to their quarrel and those who remain will see their faith fractured. To hold a teacup in an iron fist is to break it. The shattered pieces may be glued together again, but the teacup will never be quite the same. Even so, the fate of the world is not what moves Lilith's heart.

No. When she learned what would become of the God Ursula, she knew. The rituals, the sacrifice, it was all for nothing. She finally made peace with her pain when she decided she was bearing it for her. For Ursula and Ursula alone. Their moments may have been fleeting, but they sparkle like stars against the dark sky of Lilith’s life. They are kindred spirits. Some might declare their time together was too short for it to have been love. If it wasn't love, it is the closest she will ever come to it in her lifetime. In this lifetime.

“Your horns are delightfully sharp. Ursula will be pleased.” Lilith says, doting on the charm cupped in her palms. From workshop shadows, a crystal cat leaps atop a shelf packed full of other such whim-whams and baubles to gaze down at the trinket in her mistress’s hands. It’s a tiny, handcrafted monster with two large marble eyes, askew and mismatched in color. It bears two pointy horns, an open mouth full of fangs, and it is painted a devilish red. Though she cannot see, Lilith knows this for certain. She used the pigment of her blood for it. While Ursula certainly has a taste for the macabre, in truth she only used it because it was the final ingredient for the spell she cast. They are the last drops of blood she intends to offer any God. The misshapen trinket looks cross-eyed and angry, ridiculously so. “It is time.”

Lilith drops Ursula’s charm, her final offering, into a velvety drawstring pouch and smooths it into her skirt pocket.

If Lilith cannot escape her cage, she will swallow the key to ensure that no one plays with her remains. No more. She has given quite enough of herself away, lost herself to a lost cause. Her young body and soul have been used and whittled away… and she let it happen. From now on, she will decide what happens next. She cascades gracefully towards the death she has chosen for herself, her imagination already frolicking ahead of her in the next life. No matter what, it will be hers.

As for what remains of this one… Lilith refuses to be Ursula’s undoing.

“I’m going for a walk.” Lilith says smilingly, her voice too light a whisper to be heard. The crystal cat springs from her perch and snatches the bell above the workshop door to silence their leaving. The muse eases herself outside, stones and brittle branches crackling beneath the wheels of her chair. Even if she could walk, there is no room for such adventure here. The stone staircase leading to her mysterious tower on the cliff side is steep, diabolically designed to keep her from straying too far.

Lilith hums a jaunty tune, effortlessly casting the spell to flatten the perilous stairs into a ramp. The crystal cat settles cautiously in her lap, claws digging into the stumps of her thighs as her mistress tips them over the edge. Raising her arms from the handlebars, spreading them out like wings, she throws her head back and laughs all the way down. She has a charm to deliver, a weapon to steal. Her end is near.

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Subject: Clarke | Time: The here and now, baby! | Objective: Treasure hunting​

“Wow.” Clarke’s eyes sparkle with stardust and electricity as she gazes down at her latest find. It's so ugly. It's beautiful. Before it ended up in the dumpster behind Meatface’s Pawn Shop, this old trinket in her hands was a piece of a past the world forgot. The past the Trifecta buried beneath their city. That’s what the voice in her head tells her, anyway, and she doesn’t question it for a second.

The trinket is a creepy little nugget of a monster. It came from Carver’s latest badlands haul, which those in the know would know is the optimal time to dumpster dive for underrated treasures. Hollowed craters for eyes, a lopsided mouth, and a strange symbol carved into the back of its head. It's pretty sick. But the most fascinating thing about it is the digital aura that materializes around it. Clarke’s false eye is all a-flash and a-bleep with signals that this little dude is something special. Affectionately, she strokes her mechanical thumb over the creature’s forehead.

“Ew. That’s one ugly mofo.” Kitty says, observing the relic in Clarke’s hands with a hyper-critical eye. Of all the things Clarke has rescued from the dumpster in her lifetime, Kitty would consider herself the sexiest. The robot has cat ears, a boxy head that’s slightly too big for her itty-bitty body, noodle limbs, and a pair of buggy robo-eyes. She’s not even two feet tall. Clarke supports her in all of her endeavors. Bored, the cat-bot turns away to resume her own treasure hunt, digging her way deeper into the dumpster. “Whoever made that thing must’ve been some kind of freak.”

“Yeah.” Clarke agrees, impressed for all the same reasons Kitty is unimpressed. What Kitty can't see is the path of rainbow pixels streaming out of the trinket’s eyes, rocketing up into the sky of Infinity City. The air smells like destiny… and garbage. Mostly destiny, though. 'This is what you’ve been waiting for.' “There’s a trail, Kits. I gotta follow it, see where it leads.”

“Uh huh. Sounds so fun.” Kitty says in a tone that suggests she’d find sipping swamp water from a wine glass more fun. They’ve hit one too many dead ends lately and the robot’s got a blind date tonight. Clarke's already done the math— this is gonna be a solo mission. It’s cool, though. She gets it. “I’m outtie, then. Make good choices!”

“Later tater.” Clarke says with a nod and a salute. Eyebrows arched with determination, she hops out of the dumpster and onto her hoverboard. Without skipping a beat, she kicks off from the ground and zooms skyward. The wind is playful, tossing her hair and baggy clothes around. She grins lopsidedly. This feeling never gets old! Her heart's got more beats than an album full of catchy pop songs and she relishes the thrill. Infinity City becomes a neon blur as she soars high above it.

Flying at inadvisable speeds, Clarke swoops and loops her way around the city. She is careful to avoid the Trifecta’s surveillance drones and spotlights as she passes over baller mansions, company buildings and fancy hotels until she moves further outwards, past the smaller shops and apartments. Eventually she follows the trail into the slums and junky abandoned bits of the city. This is where she met Kitty, where she became a fledgling street performer before joining the circus. Lots of memories here, huh. Lots of ‘em. She shakes her head fast, mimicking a car wash mop. Her hair, the color of steel streaked with rainbow, settles messily around her head in a discombobulated cloud.

Memories are just memories, man. Clarke tilts her head back to stare at the smoggy sky. It's bigger than she'll ever be. She breathes out and the tension floats away, leaving nothing but the path in front of her. All she’s got to do is live. That’s what her heart says, anyhow. And the voice. Okay, okay, it’s mostly the voice. She gets that hearts can’t talk!

Oh yeah, the voice. It’s a wise lady’s voice and she’s been with Clarke longer than Kitty has. She’s a secret, she insists she has to be for their safety— so Clarke listens to her. Her advice has saved her life a few times.

'Yes, only a few hundred times. Perhaps a few thousand.'

Clarke’s fingers twitch at her sides with anticipation. She reaches into her pocket for her new monster buddy, glancing down at her for reassurance. She decided to name her Destiny mid-flight. They're getting dangerously close to the badlands. ‘Make good choices’, Kitty’s voice echoes over and over, till it sounds like a cave in her noggin. This is a good choice. Adventure is always a good choice.

“Is this your home, Destiny?” Clarke asks, slowing and landing at the end of the trail. She's standing in front of an abandoned gas station. An old Turbo Titan. The rundown sign is missing the last two letters, leaving only a shadow of the 'an' of Titan. Which means it says 'Turbo Tit' instead. That's fun. The windows are haphazardly boarded up and every inch of the joint is covered in dust and cobwebs. There's a minefield of litter on the ground and it looks as if someone took a baseball bat— or a set of claws— to the broken pumps nearby. “It’s so dusty.”

Oh c'mon now, Clarke can’t stay still under these circumstances! There's only one thing to do. Grinning, she activates her sneaker-skates and rolls up to the glass doors. She proceeds to draw an enormous smiley face in the dust. “Hell yeah.” Before she can continue drawing masterpieces, such as the cool s, the rainbow pixels hover around her like fireflies to snatch her attention before settling on the concrete behind her. They arrange themselves into a familiar symbol and sparkle appealingly, as if to give her a suggestive wink-wink.

'It’s a mark, silly. Her mark. You know what to do.' Okay… is Clarke missing something?

“Whose mark?” Clarke stares at it. Without giving it much thought, she shrugs and rummages in her backpack for a can of spray paint. She proceeds to fill in the symbol on the ground like it’s a paint-by-numbers canvas. Her eyes glow with a faint violet light, as does the symbol. A haunting breeze enters the scene with dramatic timing. This is what she’s been waiting for. Then, locked fully in a trance, she sets Destiny in the center of the symbol like an offering. Tilts her head to the side. Huh. Is she waiting for something to happen? Is—

Destiny explodes and the concrete around the symbol splits and breaks apart as if got smacked by an invisible axe. "Ai yi yi!" Clarke hops back a step, realizing a second too late she forgot to deactivate her roller-sneaks. It puts her balance to the ultimate test and she fails, falling forward onto her knees. Her fleshy palm splits open on the ground, blood oozing from the cut.

The world goes completely nuts with Halloween spirit, the night sky crowding in and turning blood-red. The shadows grow darker and longer, waving around Clarke like seaweed. The gas station’s boarded windows shimmy and shake, the glass doors shatter— obliterating the smiley face she drew— and an inky black fog rises from the ground and all around. The Turbo Tit cracks in half like an egg, debris flies everywhere. Her robo-eye whirs and strains, it’s frantic, picking up glitched signals from particles in the air, overwhelming her vision with boxes full of text she can’t read. It gives her a nightmare of a headache. She can't breathe.

All of the pinprick neon lights of Infinity City go out with an audible whoosh. It's never been this dark, not once in Clarke's lifetime, and she finds it... strangely peaceful. Comforting, even. The Trifecta's watchful eyes are closed.

The lights in Infinity City never go out.

Clarke gasps when her breath comes back to her. Moments later the lights in the city snap back on, bright and newly alert. She blinks once, twice. The text boxes disappear from her sight and in their place she sees a pair of hypnotizing red eyes, gleaming in the dark ruins of the abandoned gas station like rubies. A person? She blushes. Oh man, did they see her fall? That's friggin' embarrassing. “Oh wow, hi…" She makes sure her roller-sneaks are sneaks again before she climbs to her feet. "You really know how to make an entrance. You into fog machines and pyrotechnics and stuff?”

Except the power went out. Could it have been... magic? There’s no way Clarke’s gonna drop the m word out in the open, not until she knows it's safe to. She learned that lesson the hard way. Either way, that’s not the right way to greet a person. (There is no concrete evidence thus far that this is a person.) Nah, she’s gotta keep it classy and casual.

“I’m Clarke, by the way. I like your style.” Clarke tries again, extending her hand to offer it for a shake. It's still a bloody mess, hovering right over the mark she drew on the ground. “I think Destiny led me to you... before she exploded.” She glances at the spot where the placed the trinket down. All that's left of Destiny is a dark smudge. "Sorry, Destiny. My bad."

 

[starboob]

“Name.”

“I’ve none.”

“Ursula it shall be, then. Rise.”

Blood had gripped her jaw like a lover. It clung to her front as a skin tight dress, the only thing that gave her cover at the time of her birth – at least until the Exalted draped an arm around her shoulder and dressed her in silks. Between the warmth of the arm and the heat peeling off the animal carcass in her lap, she could not tell which had thawed the frost from her bones first. Though it was immediately obvious, even then, that it was the Exalted’s gaze above all else that was most searing. Most endearing.

Two pools of tarnished silver with a thin ring of white flames at the center.
Eyes she could never forget. Eyes she would have given everything – her life, her divinity, her power – for.

She would have torn the world asunder, raked her claws through Ephemera to sow a new world that would have given delight to those eyes. That would have given those eyes something beautiful to behold. She would have, she would have, she would have, and she had.

Bitterly, Ursula could never forget that.

It was a humiliating anger to learn of the Exalted’s betrayal, even worse to know how wrong she had been. A proverbial, “I told you so,” that was destined to be the ghost breathing down her neck.

Within the confines of her minuscule prison, the vortex of her power pressed against her skull – if she still had a skull; one could never be too sure – with all the care of the executioner’s dull cleaver. It pressed her into the corners. It held firm against her throat, kept her jaw clamped shut. A blink or a century fighting against these bonds grew tiresome. Acceptance was easier, albeit an admission of her defeat.

Defeat was an uncommon flavor for a god, and one she had been forced to swallow each day until her belly became over full. Until her tongue grew tired of its flavor and the spoon bringing it to her lips was no different than a sadistic tormentor.

It was, of course, deserved. For her own betrayal, for choosing poorly; choosing wrong when the muse had been right there in front of her the entire time. How foolish she had been to believe she ever could have been more than another tool, another piece in the Exalted’s game. Dew eyed and eager, she thought… What does it matter anymore? Done is done and she’ll rot for her negligence.

The god pressed her eyes shut – though it was hard to tell whether they had even been open. Her head, if it was still there, tilted back against the curved cradle of the nether. She gave up decades or millennia ago on escape. What could escape even do for the god who had lost all worth serving?

The muse was gone – she knew this. Whether it had been seconds or decades after she first came to know this fate, a mortal was mortal. With no muse, her cycle made all the difference of a drop to the ocean. Her power would still be, she would be, for a god could never die, but what was destruction with no inspiration, nothing to drive it forward from the initial cruelty that comes?

Ursula shifted, growing weary of the endless queries.

A second or millenia could have passed and the god would know no difference. All she knew – what she had come to understand – was that the Exalted had been right.

And she had been wrong.

(Both of these things could be true
She had come to know this, too.)

Memories upon memories blurred by the stain of time. Blood soaked and melancholic. Bitter. The curse of time kept her wandering through those memories, though each pass clouded their accuracy until doubt of what had been twisted the god around. Perhaps it had all been a lie, a comfort like a wish to hold together whatever remained of herself, if she had ever had a self. At least her anger was there to keep her warm, to be her red eyed companion.

Some memories she hoped were false. Some names she wished to be erased.
Those were the ones that haunted her most, coming to her with clarity as others faded around their edges.

‘Will it be this way for all my eternal eternities?’

The answer to her thoughts came with a crack. A split raced down the center of the nether, light pouring into the abyss – a lesser being would have cowed, but the god stared as the faintest pinks to the deepest purples flooded all she had come to know. The ribbons of light danced around Ursula, caressing her ankles and looping around her biceps with a gentle warmth she knew to belong to only one. Her eyes widened. Could it be – ?

A god did not pray. A god was never the supplicant. A god could not understand hope, but this one felt she must have been close to knowing all these contradictions. (Perhaps she had some stains of humanity touching and rubbing upon her soul – if a god even had a soul. She was not sure, though she had her doubts.) And she could not help but to wonder –

Was this the answer? Was this – ?

The god followed, reaching one clawed hand towards the knotted ribbon. “Lilith.”

It is and is not Ephemera. The first breath is like the new perfume of a paramour, familiar and distorted. As right as it is wrong. Malodorous, Ursula decides as the chemical cocktail – petrol, urine, blood, acetone – blends and emulsifies in her nose.

“Oh wow, hi…" ​

Gods do not startle, but this one stills when a voice makes herself known. (And not the one she wishes to hear.)

The two red slits of her eyes narrow into razor thin knives, flicking down towards the affront. The shadows shrouding the god drop in a column of dark smoke that is there and gone in less than a blink. From the column, Ursula steps into the artificial starlight. Her bare foot crushes the debris to powder. Her robes weave around her body from the shadow, giving her the appearance of a woman with a wolf’s head. One silver clawed hand reaches up then behind her head, grabs the scruff of the wolf’s neck and pulls him off. The wolf-shadow scrabbles in the air and, once released, gathers behind Ursula, clinging close to her calves. He peaks here and there, curious and timid at the same time.

The god stands tall. Even without the two horns twisting towards the astral planes, she towers over the mortal. The gasping artificial stars make it difficult to discern by exactly how much. One instance she is only a head or so taller and others she is nearly double and triple the height of a woman.

“None of these words you speak are in the scripture.” Once neon eyes are now pale, almost white. Her earlier suspicion is entirely erased by her perplexity. Her head cants to the side. Fog machines do not sound like food, but perhaps a pyrotechnic is edible. The mouth that stretches from her sternum to her lower abdomen, where she knows humans have “buttons,” grumbles, reminding her that her last meal was a blink or millennia ago. (She is certain that it has been a millennia now.) She eyes the human's wounded palm, the blood curling up in her nose. ‘Just a taste…’

But she reminds herself of what, ‘Just a taste,’ meant last time. The dead bear flashes in her vision, as does the Exalted who found her soon after her first feast of flesh. (God flesh, she was later informed. But the loss of the fertility god does not seem to have had much effect on Ephemera. It still teems with life.) Callous as gods can be, tempted as she is, the predator-look in her eyes evaporates when a plate of metal slams into the concrete behind her.

She turns, finding Heaven’s Cleaver in a new crater. Another memory tries to rise to the surface and the god suffocates it. She sticks out her hand instead and the weapon flies into her palm, the ashes of what had been Destiny reforming into a trinket that attaches to the end of her halberd. She turns back towards dinner – no, Clarke – folding both arms over the beak and resting her chin over it. While her initial set of eyes stay on Clarke, a second set opens below the first on her cheeks and sweeps over the decrepit… Turbo Tit.

Two layers of echoes play out in her vision – one that replays the events of the last few minutes and the second that brings her back to one endless night. Outlines of trees rise through the paved roads. She sees herself. She sees the gone muse in her lap, reaching up to touch her horns; to hang a trinket on the point. The god shivers. That night… That night —

Turbo Tit violently comes back to focus, the trees disintegrating as the Clarke of a few minutes ago traces sigils into the establishment’s caked on dust. Red closes in on the god’s vision – the juxtaposition of holy and sacrilege, the pent up fury, anguish all coming down on her shoulders like meteors to Ephemera. The artificial stars flood with light, then burst — pop, pop, pop! As she reaches into the depths of her being, clawing for destruction, it fizzles with a rumble. Her torso-mouth protests, reminding her that even a god needs sustenance to perform her miracles.

Her second eyes close, full focus back on the rainbow mortal. (Should she turn her horns rainbow? No, no. Hombre is more her style.) She deliberates for a moment, considering the mortal as a morsel before she can remember that this particular human – Clarke – is her benefactor; a patron. Gods, creatures of tradition and pretense, cannot feast on benefactors. She would not fill her appetite anyway.

“You summoned me. With the help of Destiny.” Freed is the more accurate word, but she cannot find it in herself to remind herself of her ensealment. “And you fell on your wheeléd shoes. Are all shoes with wheels now?” That’s an improvement. Perhaps one Lilith would have enjoyed before her legs were taken. Hard to say. Her pale eyes glance at the few drops of blood on the pavement. She swallows. “Unless you are a sacrifice, take back your hand.”

Do humans need their hands? Lilith did so fine without many pieces of herself. Then again… Ursula shakes the past from her head, blending it with the slightest dip of her chin. “I was named Ursula.” Her torso-mouth grumbles again. “And I hunger for flesh, for it has been eons since my lips last touched even a sip of wine. What offering do you bring, minion?”

 

[ellarose]

So, turns out she's not a person! Or she is a person, somewhat, half person and half something else? She is something else, no doubt about that. The woman is otherworldly, a stunner and Clarke's convinced that she's made of whatever stuff dreams are made of. That said, she would not be surprised to see her hand go right through this lady. She has to brace herself for the soul-crushing reality in case this lady is nothing more than an elaborate hologram. (Because, let's face it. She's probably an elaborate hologram. Clarke could check for a heat signature, but she doesn't want to kill the thrill of the illusion too soon.) The lady's figure shifts around like she's standing behind a waterfall, her height changes with the blink of an eye and never settles, and... puppy! A ferocious boy! A shy boy!

"Ah! Ahhh!" Clarke gasps softly, immediately dropping to her haunches to get a better look at him. She gazes at him with round, glimmering eyes. The classic 'just let me love you' eyes. When the woman's height changes, she has to rise onto her tip-toes to see him. Rinse and repeat. She goes where the puppy goes, up and down and up and down. The first bit of the woman's answer, the part about the summoning, settles in the back of her mind for later... it's only when wheeled shoes are mentioned that she snaps into conversation-mode.

"Dude, if only! A world full of wheeled sneaks would be too perfect." Clarke says wistfully, swaying back and forth as she shifts her balance from her toes to her heels, staring down at her beloved sneaks. "Everyone tells me they're a safety hazard... and I know I fell, but I fall just as much in my boring regular shoes! I fall when I'm not wearing any shoes. If anything, I'm the hazard here! Roller-sneaks have a bad rap, but they're fun and I love them a lot. They're my favorite, next to my glow in the dark and light up sneaks. I keep a whole collection of them! I collect a lot of things." Kitty is not here to give her the 'shut up' elbow to the ribs that she sometimes needs to, well, shut up. She grins warmly, tipping her head far to the side. "Like Destiny over there. You brought her back to life! That's a... pretty cool axe..."

Sacrifice. Clarke purses her lips. That is... a passionate word. A word with bloody, gorey implications. (...Could a hologram have brought Destiny back to life?) A disturbing chill rolls over her body, nerves wrapping tightly around her calves, numbing them. Her vision blurs and clouds with darkness, as if she hit her head very hard. She doesn't understand it, but everything inside of her is adverse to it, repulsed. Sacrifice. The axe flashes in her mind, a blade flies towards her chest, and she shuts her eyes tight.

The voice that tells her to live is grim. 'It is all right. She will not hurt us.' Mechanically, Clarke reaches out with the arm that isn't really hers, taking the wrist of her flesh hand in her cybernetic one, and physically pulls it to her side as if she were rearranging the limbs of a doll. As her senses return to her, she closes her fingers over her wound. Opens one eye and then then the other. Okay. She's okay! Everything's fine.

Weird. Anyways...

"Ursula." Clarke repeats. That's an uncommon name. An uncommon name for an uncommon lady. And yet something about it feels familiar on her tongue. Romantic and mystical, with a flair for the dramatic. Her robo-eye logs this information, though the facial recognition features lag as it struggles to process Ursula's form. Instead of breaking down, like most machines would, it adapts and diligently creates a file for the lady called Ursula. It illuminates her heat signature, but it's an alarming shade of red. If she were human, the reading would suggest that she's been set on fire. But she's fine. She's fine and she's the real deal. Wow. "It suits you! I'm glad you were given a proper name. I had to name myself Clarke. My first name was a bunch-a numbers... I don't even remember it." She shrugs. "The square who named me had no imagination."

A lack of imagination isn't uncommon around these parts. Plenty of people in the city have been wiped clean of it, their individuality programmed out of them. They sing praises about the Trifecta's shithole every single day and think Clarke's the one who's bonkers! ...Ursula is an interesting one, that's for sure. Definitely not from around these parts. Each word she speaks is more exciting than the last-- hungering for flesh? Calling Clarke her minion? That can only mean one thing.

"Oh, oh! Are we gonna dismantle the system together?" Clarke asks, her eyes wide with wonder. Cool. If anyone could stand up to the Trifecta, it's this lady. Ursula. She's so down. "Flesh... okay. Do you like tuna? 'Cause I have these recurring nightmares about being chased and eaten by a shark... I'm so afraid of meeting a shark and being eaten, you know, because of the nightmares. So I did the only logical thing and built this nifty tuna compartment in my arm in case I ever meet a shark!" She's so smart! Except there is no ocean near Infinity City. Clarke has never even seen the ocean and the probability of her ever encountering a shark is non-existent. The dreams felt so real, though! 'Sides, it's coming in handy now. Her new boss lady is hungry. She hums to herself as she punches a code into her bicep. The secret compartment opens with a hiss. She grabs the can of tuna inside and tosses it to Ursula. "Incoming! I've also got candy, if you're interested."

"...Hey Ursula, what's his name?" Clarke asks, pointing to the puppy behind her. She loves him instinctually. It's hard to explain... but it's like she already knows his smell, and the sensation of his fur beneath her fingers. It feels just the same as knowing the ocean, even though she's never seen or swam inside of it. "Something tells me he likes scritches behind the ear. Is it okay if I pet him?" He's so shy. He probably won't reciprocate her feelings, not right away. D'aw. "Nah... I probably have to earn his trust first. Challenge accepted."

 

[starboob]

“Fascinating,” the god murmurs. Stars dance in her pale eyes as she bends – unnaturally so, like she’s made of putty – stretching her body over her axe and lowering her face until it’s level with the cylindrical offering. Experimentally, she taps one of her claws against the top of the tin. Plink, plink. “Most fascinating indeed.”

To think the mighty tuna has been reduced to no more than an armored puck. Perhaps Ephemera has taken notes on trapping mighty creatures into small metal objects. Her torso-mouth grumbles once more, saving her before her thoughts can take over.

She sweeps the tin into her palm and retreats, her spine straightening to a more human-like posture. Without thought, she opens her mouth, revealing rows of shark-like teeth, and pierces into the tin like its a stick of butter. The pieces grate against her teeth as she works out the metal and the meat, swallowing both as she lowers the neckline of her robes and drops the second half of the armored tuna into the vertical mouth along her torso while her face mouth finishes chewing. A faint pink color returns to her irises. It’s not enough, not even close, but it will have to do until a more appropriate meal shows its unfortunate face. She wipes her mouth, burping as she does. “Have you considered a fear of orcas instead? They are far more ferocious than a shark. Malicious, too. I adore them.”

Mischief, meanwhile, pretends that he cannot see Clarke by averting his gaze away from her. He presses his snout to the back of Ursula’s calves. Ursula looks down at her shadow, frowning. (“Yes, of course, but I do not see what purpose an animated shadow could have.”) She clicks her tongue. “His name is Mischief, my faithful shadow. You may pet him, but I cannot promise he will not bite.” And he does like ‘scritches’ behind his ears. Ursula quirks a brow. How could she know this? (Aside from it being obvious.) “He is also a minion of sorts. A higher rank than you, but I am sure with time you can prove yourself and perhaps become my third in command.

“In any case, I’ve little interest in dismantling the system.” The last time did not work out so well for herself and she is not so keen on returning to that nether. “Whoever won the last war can keep their throne.” She will not entertain any ounce of curiosity. She will not wonder what became of the pantheon; whether the Trinity were vanquished or victorious; whether that traitorous bitch still walks free. It will become obvious, she assumes, and thus is not worth even the effort of asking. Never mind that this could very well come back to bite her later. She will simply bite back harder. She’s spent a millennia sharpening her teeth, after all.

“Clarke.” She tries the name on her tongue, lapping over each letter. She whispers it a few more times until it tastes funnier in her mouth than the armored tuna. “I have never heard anything like it. Nor have I met someone with rainbow hair who was not a god. A unique name for a unique minion. I shan’t have it changed. You are lucky to have chosen yours.” Perhaps Ursula should have done the same, but this one tethers her to the past and the past is what has made her, for better or for worse.

It’s also the reminder of what she must do, now that she is free.

Ursula lifts her axe and spins it over her wrist so that the end is at the top and axe head at the bottom. She tilts it forward so that Destiny is dangling in front of Clarke. “I would rend worlds to preserve Destiny and her numerous siblings.” Ursula nods, then narrows her eyes, scrutinizing her minion. “How did you come to possess this artifact? Have you others?”

She bites through the temptation of divulging more. Clarke may have freed her, but she has yet to prove herself as trustworthy and she knows better now than to trust the first being she comes across. It’s only the millennia of isolation that tempts the god to confide in her minion. Nothing more.

The glint from what remains of the artificial stars then catches on Clarke's tuna procuring arm. Letting go of her axe – it continues to stand on its own, hovering at a bent angle – she reaches for it and lifts it up, appraising the piece. (The tuna compartment had, momentarily, distracted the god but she is no less curious about this contraption.) It hums beneath her touch where a pulse should be. "Your arm..." Prosthetics are nothing new to the god, but this one is unlike anything she has ever known. She brings the arm to her nose. She inhales. Then licks, immediately coughing and spitting out the acrid flavor. Her tongue pales and curls back into her mouth. Disgusting. “My axe and your arm are of the same curse and come from the same putrid place.” The weapon’s master work, no doubt. (Or at least some off-shoot of his work.) It's a small confirmation of who might have won and if she follows that trail... “I am going to eat the bastard. Take me to him, minion.”

 

[ellarose]

“Can I be ninth in command? I wanna be ninth!” Clarke requests, bouncing on her toes at the idea of it. She wouldn’t dream of dethroning Mischief as Ursula’s second in command and she never cared much for climbing the ranks. Getting to be a part of something outside of the Trifecta’s hive mind is enough for her. Plus, nine is her favorite number! Although she’s not sure what kind of hell they’ll be raising if they’re not dismantling the system. Adventuring? Treasure hunting for Destiny’s siblings? Technically, Clarke was already doing those things before she met Ursula. She guesses it’s okay if the boss lady tags along and calls her minion. It’s a fun dynamic, sure to make things interesting. “I promise I’m worthy of ninth! I’m a treasure hunter and I rescue little buddies like Destiny from the dumpster all the time. I keep them snug as bugs in a rug in my workshop.”

Clarke would've struck a cool pose resembling a superhero on a comic book cover if Ursula hadn't grabbed her arm midway through.

“Oh, my arm is, uh—“ Clarke stutters and swallows her words when Ursula’s tongue flicks out over the metal of her forearm. Although she can’t feel it the same way she would have if she licked her skin, she feels it all the same. Electricity buzzes and pops in the socket that connects the mechanical arm to her body, jolting her up and down with arousing warm and tingly sensations. She laughs nervously. A pink blush spreads from her nose all the way to the tips of her ears. It’s reminiscent of her recurring nightmares, the adrenaline of the chase and the fear of being eaten by the shark. And it’s not at the same time. (Like maybe she wouldn’t mind being eaten by this shark.) From that moment forward, any lingering thoughts that Ursula could still be an elaborate hologram or illusion are buried and laid to rest. She is the real deal, no question. She's somethin' else.

Ursula may begin to wonder if she broke her minion, because Clarke is left staring at her for nearly a minute before she can speak or even blink.

“My flesh is tastier.” Clarke says, finally breaking the silence with all the wrong words. But it had to be said (it really didn’t)— she’s self conscious about the cursed taste of her arm. “Um, what? He who? I'm confused, I dunno which him you’re talking about.”

Someone who Ursula wants to eat. Someone who is not Clarke. That's... probably a good thing, though. No. Definitely a good thing. Duh! She doesn't actually want to be eaten. She wants to live, has to live! She's just really gay. And stupid.

"I got my arm fixed a long time ago by this old dude named Smiddy." Clarke says, rubbing her arm, tracing over the sleek curves and bolts. Then she wiggles each of her fingers individually, from her thumb to her pinkie and back again. She remembers the sounds of the drill and all the other tiny tools at work. Scree, clink, clank-clank. "He's a geek, not a bastard. Works underground, helping people who don't want to get wired up with official Trifecta tech."

Nah, Clarke won't lead Ursula to Smiddy's hideout. He's one of the good ones. The taste of her arm, the source of the metal, seems to be what she's referring to more so than the person who installed it for her.

"He gets some of his spare parts from the Trifecta's warehouse dumpsters. I know 'cause I did a couple odd jobs for him to earn my keep." Clarke twists her mouth to the side, considering this approach. "If anything's cursed, it's their tech. It messes people up, takes control of their minds and shit. I'm okay 'cause of Smiddy, but..." She steeples her fingers, metal and flesh collide. "I bet you've got beef with someone in that warehouse... or someone who's affiliated with it or whatever. That'd be the best place to start your search."

"It's all the way on the other side of the city, so we better get going." Clarke says, stepping up onto her hoverboard. "What's the story behind your axe? Is there a curse? Is this a revenge quest? Also, do you want a ride? Or..." She gasps. "Can you fly?"

 

[starboob]

“I am certain your flesh is exquisite,” Ursula nods, rifling her hands through her minion’s colorful hair. “Alas, it is poor form to eat a minion, my aspiring ninth in command no less.”

Her pale eyes linger on Clarke’s arm – the one of metal, wires, and curses – then shift to her levitating plank. An impossible chasm opens between the ancient and modern; millennia come and gone, leaving behind the god, perhaps gods, in the wake of this whirring, humming, clicking technology.

Humans, of course, have always been with their innovation; their technology a cute approximation of what a god can do sneezing. Their magic, a gift from the gods to aid their development, brings them closer to the image of their dominator. Yet this and that, the arm and the plank, are stale, hollow. Where magic screams, this all whispers.

Somewhere, the god recognizes the question asked and blinks away her stupor, returning her focus to her minion. “Indeed, I can fly. I am not… how do you say? Real.” This is not entirely true. The god is somewhere in the liminal space of real and unreal, as most are.

The god pulls up one leg, then the other so that she is sitting cross-legged in the air. She rises a few more feet while Mischief chases obediently behind her. “I must admit, I was unaware that Melachor had allowed for mortals to take to the skies. Such a change.” Then again, she recalls the earlier mention of the Trifecta and their apparent influence over Ephemera. It's something for her to gnaw on as they climb higher into Ephemera’s blank skies. ‘Where have the stars all gone?’

“My axe, I stole.” Her voice drifts, sounding further away than the stars she cannot see. “I plucked it from the stars, from Amal’s constellation.”

In the distance, a halo-esque glow casts itself over a glaring city – one that has buried all she had known. It stretches beyond the old borders of Ephemera, spiked with towers taller than the giants before Melachor felled them, establishing the dominion of the divine. Artificial stars dot the city, never breathing or blinking like the ones above. Some move, becoming the streaks of an unimpressive meteor shower.

“The weapons master,” Ursula continues without betraying her distraction, “whom I am sure you know, is the bastard I intend to hunt for sport. His craftsmanship may be worthy of legend, but I shall never forgive him for what he did to my axe.” For the blood he split, for the life stolen, no price is high enough for his malfeasance. Ursula will do what she can to ensure that his punishment at least breaks even. “His continued existence is a curse I shall break.”

It will start with the weapons master and end with the Exalted. 'For Lilith.'

Wind sifts through her hair while her eyes pierce into a future she intends to wrench to the present. Her long pointed ears twitch as they pick up on new distant sounds – distorted yelps, metal grating against metal, a stale ocean. The city is alive and yet it could not be more dead. Even the air is that of death, lacking all the sweetness of the trees, soil, and magic.

How dire is the situation that Clarke described?

Though some part of the god wishes to ignore the parallels, the illusion that she can pretend this new world order does not affect her shatters the second her eyes lock onto the city’s highest towers at its heart – a triplicity of pillars that stand in a triangle formation right where she knew the temple of Melachor to reside. Three cylindrical affronts outlined with neon green, blue, and red lights. Even from this distance she can read the scrawl spinning above each pillar: SEED, MYTHOS, and HAMMER.

The Exalted had been careful to keep Ursula away from the Trinity. She knows not the scent of their influence, how they move, or what they might look like beneath their glamour. Yet the placement of these pillars – perhaps coincidence – laugh at the pantheon.

Her vision lights up with echoes of Ephemera that overlay the new city. Where the statue of the Exalted once stood – a house for scholars and their texts – now is a flat lot covered with metal basilisks and giant wheels. It smells of hot oil and sugar and sounds of tortured screams. (A torture yard?) The spirit springs have been filled and paved over, covered in juvenile art. Even the mountain where the priestesses held their rites has been flattened in favor of a glass building. 'It's all gone.'

“Clarke,” the god whispers. “What has become of Ephemera?”

 

[ellarose]

Melachor? Clarke doesn't know who this dude is either, but Ursula speaks as if she must. She's beginning to suspect that this is going to happen a lot (which would be correct) and solemnly accepts the fact that ninety-eight percent of the things her ethereal mistress friend has to say will confuse her. 'Tis inevitable! One might say it comes with the territory of befriending an ethereal mistress. Clarke decides she's gonna roll with it. It'd be awful rude not to play along after she summoned her and everything.

Still, she doubts she knows someone qualified enough to be considered a weapon's master, pfft. When in her life would she have met someone like--

B̴̦̤̠̋͠u̴̳͓̼̍͠r̷͚̩͓͊̕n̵̰̜̯͝ ̶̢̲̞̈͝t̶͕͌̅ḩ̴̅̊̎e̷̛̙̹͕ ̵̩̩̬̏s̵̞̈i̵̯͙̹̒͐͛ğ̶̟̬h̵͓͕͗̕t̴̠̹̄̽ ̵̢̠̙̒͂õ̸̪͓f̶͎̰̒ ̴̫̆̀͌m̶̘̖̏̽e̷̯̝̊͐̓ͅ ̷͙̕ȋ̶̘̺̝ñ̵̯̣ẗ̶̻͉̺́̎̎ọ̷̗̜͠ ̸̭̗̈́̈́̈y̸̖͓̞̑̔̽ó̵̗̞u̷͍̖̰͋͋r̸͖̈̋ ̶̹͈͐m̵̠͐͊ḛ̷̫̠̓͐̀m̸̡͔͋͛͆ô̶͙r̵̗̗̈y̷͉͗̍,̸͚͇̪͐͝ ̶̙̈́L̶̬̏͋̚ḯ̸̱͍̍͂l̸̼̞̗̿͒ī̴̼̱̥̿͗ṭ̵̬̾h̶̙̍͜,̵̧̢̮͋ ̶͎̼̼̄͆f̴̧̝̅͂o̵̺̣̾r̷̳͈͊͐̚͜ ̴̞̥̪͛i̵̝̩̟͆͠t̴͙̱̋̉ ̶̟̖̺͝͠w̶̩̘̓͆͘i̷̮̬̐̓̕l̶̦̙̞̾l̷͓̝̊̎̓ ̴͚̎̑́ͅb̶̯̼͘ẻ̶͈͖̩̒̅ ̷̖͝t̸̙͊͝h̷̪̥͈͑̍e̴͈͚͖͑ ̶̢̨̲̄̉l̶͔̼͎̈́̏a̵͎̔s̴̱̳̋͘t̵̬͋͠ ̵͓͈̀͝y̶̜̝͌̾̇o̷̟̓u̷̧͙̰̔ ̵̘͎̲̽̐̽s̴͔̓ę̵̙͓͌͐ę̶̲́ ̷̜̝͙͗b̸̯̝̓̍͝ę̵͙̫̇f̴̤͍̖́̇o̷͍̤̐r̴̡̦͕̉̐̿ḝ̴͉
S̵̫͒h̴̗́e̵̥̓'̵̞̍s̶͙̃ ̶̣̃á̸̼ ̴̖̇w̵͕̆a̸̟̓ś̸̱t̵͙̆ḛ̵͛ ̷̥͘o̸̥̓f̸̗̒ ̸̰̈́o̸̫̐ụ̸̀r̵̜̉ ̷̮̅r̴͖̈ę̸̔s̸̊͜o̴̟̒ú̷̳ř̷͚c̵͓̓e̸̋ͅs̴̖͂.̶̭͆ ̴̧͆G̸̭͊e̷͖̋t̸͇͗ ̷̨̊r̵̝̀i̶̧͠d̵̩̑ ̴̗͐ö̵̼́f̵̥͘ ̸̦̑h̸̬͛e̵͇͊ŕ̷̥.̴̞̂
G̴e̷t̵ ̷r̵i̵d̷ ̸o̵f̸ ̶h̷e̷r̴.̸

...Sick, so Ursula can really fly! She even reached the unreachable stars to find her beloved or beloathed axe. Clarke's gaze lingers on the weapon for a moment longer. Something about it says 'long lost sister' to her, which... is weird, admittedly. But Ursula did imply they came from the same place, more or less, so hey! Maybe it's not so weird after all. The thought promptly dissolves, because she's distracted by Mischief following his mistress into the air. Ah, he can fly too!? So fuckin' cool. If only he'd look at her! 'One of these days, my fluffy friend...'

"I'm so good at breaking things! Curses shouldn't be any different, I'd guess." Clarke offers with a grin, adding to her resume-- which must be glowing at this point. She's a shoe in for ninth in command! She'd ask what this weapon guy did to Ursula's axe... but intuition tells her that's a question she ought to ask over drinks when their mission is complete. Kitty always says that smooth timing is everything when bonding with a friend-to-be. No need to speedrun the backstory! Or something like that.

By the time they've soared into the depths of Infinity City, Ursula asks about something else that Clarke does not have a single clue about.

"Effehmira? I'm drawing a blank. I dunno what that is, boss." Clarke confesses with the shrug of her shoulders. "I'm just a minion in training, after all."

Clarke assesses the three buildings towering over the city, trying and failing to see exactly what Ursula sees in their place.

"Trifecta's been here since I was born. Been here since the beginning of time... or so they say." Clarke continues with an even bigger, more exasperated shrug. "It sounds fake to me, but people get into a lotta trouble if they try to tell them otherwise." There's evidence, like the relics, that tell tales of a past long forgotten. And now she's found Ursula, a stunning ethereal mistress hidden in plain sight! There's more to the world she lives in. So much more than the Trifecta's propeganda might claim. Clarke's been onto them for as long as she can remember. But even as someone who is confused ninety-eight percent of the time, she's not dumb enough to challenge them alone. "They've got their hooks into everything and everyone... makes things kind of boring around here. That's why I thought it'd be fun to dismantle their system together."

That's not what they're here to do, however! As a minion in training, she's determined to stay on task.

"Anyway, the warehouse is behind the blue building." Clarke points to it, noting the militant 'stomp-stomp' of robotic feet on the streets down below. "Security's tight tonight. Follow me, I know a shortcut!" To the alleyways they go! Then, she adds, "Hey, Ursula... what's Effehmira?"

 

[starboob]

Time has done more to Ephemera than merely change it – it has wiped it clean from the map. Clarke’s confusion confirms what the god has already observed. ‘If it is all gone, then what becomes of me?’

Slipping into irrelevance is the single fear that drives the divine. It is perhaps their only natural predator and yet it is so core to what they all are, the fear hardly registers as a fear. It is only when they are threatened that they start to cannibalize themselves, as they had at the time of Ursula’s miraculous birth.

Ursula tilts onto her back still managing to keep pace with her minion as they soar through the skies of what had been Ephemera. She folds her hands behind her head and stares up, again, at the blank skies. It is easier to look up than down below. “My darling light, my bright star,” she whispers, never once pausing to question the terms of endearment. With Clarke, it simply feels natural. She is a minion and all minions to the god are sacred. “It is Ephemera. Not Effehmira. And as a minion, I should think you might know something of it.”

Clarke clearly does not, however. Ephemera rolls off her tongue like it’s being strangled and that says more than Ursula cares to accept.

“Ephemera is – or was all of this,” she waves her arm over what has become of the once beloved collection of cities and townships. She hugs her axe, flipping it around so that she can stroke the top of Destiny’s most perfect head. (Lilith had been right. Ursula is pleased.) “It was home.”

Can she even quantify what it had been? How can words ever capture the gravity of what was?

“And now it is buried,” the god shrugs, flipping over onto her stomach to peer down at the streets, bustling with unnatural life. Her eyes narrow. “This… Trifecta you speak of have deceitful tongues. Ephemera came before this slop. I came before them and that was after Time began.” At least, she is fairly certain of that.

“I shan’t blame a mortal for not knowing any better – your lives are so short that forgetting is almost your function.” She considers Clarke for a second, stealing a glance from the corner of her vision. “You are wise to question those weak fools.”

Weak fools who seem to need to automate their minions. Tsk. Even so, it is not her business. If this Trifecta want to suck the life from the living and reduce them to automae, then so it shall be. The god war has been won. So long as they do not get in her way, this god sees no reason to meddle in their affairs. Criminal as their actions are, the past is best buried.

… After she has her revenge, of course.

Not knowing this land as well as she once had, the god follows behind her minion. They weave through buildings, skip across metal ropes, and flatten themselves into dark corners as red-eyed orbs sweep past. Occasionally the orbs – bugs, Ursula would have guessed were their buzzes less ZZZZZZ and more ZzZzZz – stop, hover in place, and one or a few of the multi-eyes glare and shoot thin papers of light over the surfaces. Mischief trembles against his mistress when one gets a hair too close for comfort. But always, they hum on, searching for what? Ursula does not know and does not care to wonder. She is on the hunt herself.

If the promise of flesh were beneath those metal bugs, the god might have crushed them between her teeth. But all she can suss beneath the armor is metal twine and snaps of lightning, neither of which sound particularly appetizing.

As they travel deeper towards the heart of the city, the more her torso-mouth reminds her of its emptiness. Her flight falters and an unfamiliar exhaustion tugs at her eyelids. Even when they land in the dank low-lit alleyway, she stumbles and it is Mischief who has to put his head under his mistress’s palm to steady her. She pinches the bridge of her nose, squeezing her eyes shut to put her feet back underneath her. ‘Just a taste of my minion…’ Mischief snips at her hand almost immediately. ‘Oh, hush, you.’

“Clarke, do you perchance have more tinned flesh?” The god sways, then places her palm against the wet building to hold herself up. “I fear a millennia or so without feeding is, ah, catching up to me." She grimaces. Her torso-mouth shivers. "Even better than a tinned flesh, is there a nearby enemy I might consume? After this venture, of course." The weapons master she can take without her height of power. He always was the weakest of their links. Bastard.

 

[ellarose]

It's true. Forgetting is one of Clarke's functions.

It's not as though she chucks her memories into the garbage on purpose. One day several years ago she woke up and entire paragraphs of the story of her life were blacked out with marker, redacted. Off limits to everyone-- including herself. It left her with plenty of room to get creative. Instead of wallowing, she made herself a badass backstory. There's no harm in comforting herself with lies as long as they don't hurt anybody! And it doesn't make her the same as the Trifecta, no way. She doesn't force people to believe her, she doesn't make anyone do anything they don't want to do. Forgetting is normal in Infinity City thanks to those bigwigs. They steal the past from people to make the future they want.

Instead of acknowledging how lost she is, Clarke carves her own path. It can't be theirs if she makes it her own.

Most people get left with nothing after a tussle with the Trifecta. They're hollowed out, mechanical shells of their former selves. Left empty, broken, or reprogrammed with rage. Clarke always had stories. Stories of her own invention, the rich world inside her mind... for a time, they were all she had. Though impossible, it feels like she's had them longer than she's been alive. She overflows with soul, she has so much of it that they couldn't take it even if they tried. And hoo boy have they tried.

Ursula doesn't blame her for forgetting. She's the first person-- entity-- in Clarke's whole entire life to call her wise. Gee whiz. That's an extraordinary compliment, isn't it?

Wise. A darling light, a bright star. In her life, Clarke's had to learn the hard way what sarcasm is. She still struggles to sense it. Kitty usually has to spell it out for her, oft acting as her translator of missed cues. When she receives compliments, they are usually drenched in sarcasm, which-- she's been informed-- turns them into something else. (Not compliments, that's for sure.) Is she being sarcastic? Kitty's not here to tell her one way or the other, leaving her stranded in unknown territory where she is, you guessed it: confused.

Ursula seems super serious, though. Her words of praise stroke something untouched and unnoticed in Clarke. Could someone as otherworldly and powerful as Ursula see something precious and worthwhile in her? Even if it's a lie, it'd be awfully fun to believe in it for a little while. What harm could it do?

"Yeah, well, the Trifecta speeds up the process. They steal memories and personalities. They steal friends. They're total dickheads." Clarke muses, sharing the secret thoughts she can only share with her coven and familiar. Ursula can be trusted with them. She puffs out her chest, feeling rather-- ahem-- wise. "No one challenges them 'cause of that. They're the ringleaders-- they run the show and expect everyone to play along. I know all about this stuff as an ex-carny."

Clarke hops off her hoverboard and leans against the wall, listening intently as Ursula explains her hunger, and nods slowly. Tinned flesh is a funny way to refer to tuna. She did eat the whole thing, can and all, and didn't throw up afterwards. Clarke has a feeling Ursula would actually eat a person if she pointed her in their direction-- and that's a lot of responsibility. Too much responsibility to comprehend at the moment if she's being so real.

"My shark compartment only fits one can... sorry. We could grab a meat lover's pizza after this if you wanna come with!" Clarke brightens, "I'm stopping by the pizza place on my way home. I promised my friend I'd get her an order of cheese fries. Oh!" She rummages around in the enormous pockets of her cargo pants, revealing a fistfuls of candy. "My offer still stands for candy! Think that might tide you over 'till then?"

A small piece of hard candy falls through her fingers and to the concrete in slow motion with a clickety-clack. It rolls out from the mouth of the alley within range of the robots and their scanners. With a swoosh, the candy registers on one of their radars. Every light in the vicinity turns red in an instant. Turrets whir to life and deadly gunfire rains down. While neither Clarke or Ursula stand in their path, safely tucked in the alley, the candy outside is completely vaporized. An alarm blares, loud enough to wake the entire city.

"INTRUDER ALERT, INTRUDER ALERT!"

Whoopsie.

 

[starboob]

"Intruder?" Ursula's tone drips with venom. One clawed hand tents over her chest, lips parted to match the incredulous look in her pale pink eyes. "Do you wenches know to who — whomst? — you refer?"

The vaporized candy is hardly of concern to Ursula — what is one smote candy to a god? The godly nature of the smiting, certainly, is a new development of mortal technology, but this city's curse is tainted with that bastard's influence. That he would betray the gods and impart these imitations of power unto mortals is hardly surprising. So it seems he is still the traitor he has always been.

"Minion, my candy." She opens her palm expectantly and when the candy slips into her palm, she drops the pieces — wrappers and all — into her torso mouth. Her eyes brighten, though the shade remains as pale as it had been before. It will have to do until she eats the meat lover.

The points of her ears twitch, picking up on the thundering boots through the city streets. Orbs whizz, answering the summons of the dragon whose battle cry fills all of Ephemera. The moving turrets track every movement, shooting at everything but the dust in the air.

A pack of orbs races to the alleyway, arriving first. Ursula peels away from the shadows, standing between her minion and the cannon fodder. They glare at the god, red eyes blinking then turning to pinpricks that dot over her form. Her fist tightens around her axe.

The orbs make a cute noise — like pew, pew, pew! — and fire bright red bolts at the god. Each strike absorbs into her skin, leaving no traces of a mark.

She drops form, sinking into the shadows while Mischief takes to veiling the minion from the ever watchful eyes of the city. The lead orb chirps and a mechanical voice declares, "Target: Neutral —"

"INFERNAL SPAWN, RETURN TO THE UNDERDARK!" The god's voice booms in the same breath that she reforms from the shadows, behind the pack. Her wild grin stretches from ear to ear, showing off her rows of teeth. With her axe already poised to swing, her arms blur across the bots with a swift shling!

They turn towards each other, each then falling into two clean pieces.

The gods steps on the halves, flattening them into plates. Her nose wrinkles. 'Disciples of cowardry.' She kick the pieces of mechanized armor to the side, then extends her hand to her minion. "Come, my minion. The alley puts the enemy at the advantage. This shall be your first lesson in strategy." She tilts her chin up. Overhead, blades chop through the skies while indistinct shout fill the streets, grower nearer. "The call of the dragon has roused the cavalry. Let us make haste."

"Over here!"

Her face darkens as five soldiers pour in from the streets. The beat of their pulses along with the hums and click of their machinery flood her senses. She spares them half a glance over her shoulder, observing their matte black armor with neon red accents outlining the crisp angles of their uniforms. Their helmets make them look like smooth skulls with a thin red line over their eyes. She snarls, returning her attention to Clarke. "New lesson: How to feed a demon."

"What the fuck is that thing?" The appetizer asks, banging the side of his helmet.

"I dunno. Can't get a read. Think my scanner's jammed — piece of shit tech," first course replies, ripping off the visor from his helmet. His eyebrows raise, taking in the god. "Think its just one of those cybernetic freaks, probably tweakin' out."

"You creatins!" Ursula shrieks. The lamp lights flicker, even the neon accenting their armor glitches as the god reaches inward for the burning core of her power. Her shadow bleeds into her form that, much like at the Turbo Tit, grows and shrinks in dizzying succession. The wisps of darkness curl and unfurl around her; her hair fans out in billowing waves without a breeze.

Her body stretches, new arms sprouting with her gained height until she's twelve feet long with eight sets of new limbs.

"Envy's tits! What the fuck —"

One of the god's arms darts for the one-bite starter, wrapping around the upper part of his bicep and tearing off the mechanic limb and tossing it into the appetizer and palate cleanser course. Her other arms strip off the rest of one bite starter's cursed prosthetics before tossing him into the air and catching him in her wide open torso mouth. Bones and metal grind between her teeth like a mortar and pestle.

The four remaining courses hide behind their guns — the fingers on their hands peeling back and rebuilding into cannons that fire red blasts at the god. They hit her body like stones to water, rippling as they sink into her.

The god's thunder crack laugh rips through the air, then is choked on a sudden cough just as she downs appetizer and palate cleanser.

Her massive body crashes into the building, cracking the reinforced glass. Her form flickers, indecisive, before she crumples, crushing the main course while dessert deserts, strings of curses fleeing their mouth as they call for back up.

Bad meal. Gradually the extra limbs disappear in puffs of black smoke, though she remains like a paper ball on the ground. Blood and other fleshy bits cover her cloak and are smeared across her cheeks. She moans, struggling to lift herself. "Do not gaze upon me, minion." One arm dramatically drapes over her eyes. "Slaughter me and free me from this unworthy stench that follows where I go."

So embarrassing.

 

[ellarose]

Welp. Cannibalism confirmed. Then again, does it really count as cannibalism if Ursula is something other than human? (Boss did assure her that her flesh would taste exquisite. Clarke took that seriously... and she also took it as a compliment.) Right now she's mighty thankful to be considered a worthy minion instead of a meal. Heh, dumb luck strikes again! Hell yeah! ...Is she taking this too lightly? She did see Ursula eat three guys. But you know what? Whatever. She also took like a bazillion bullets for her! It's eat or be eaten out on the streets, that's how it is.

The Trifecta's dogs wouldn't have hesitated to kill Clarke-- or worse-- had they captured her. And some shit's worth than death, she already knows-- she already knows.

"You gotta pull yourself together, my dude." Clarke says. She reaches out for Ursula and stops herself short, hesitating. Her palm is still cut open and caked with dried blood. Sacrifice. No biggie. She switches, using her robo-hand instead to rub consoling circles on her boss's giant arm. This is a full-body effort, requiring arm circles, flexed fingers and tip-toes. "That was wicked!" Her voice glides with enthusiasm, implying that 'wicked' is the best thing Ursula could possibly be. Perhaps responding to her touch, Ursula shrinks down to a size that is more or less compatible with Clarke's-- she's still taller, much taller, but not towering. "I get sick if I eat too much candy. You ate all that candy and a couple'a nasty d-bags."

Plus the candy wrappers and a can of tuna, including the can. Ursula ate all that and she didn't vom. Respect! It's the kind of badass behavior that'd win her the title of queen bee at a sleepover. At least that's what she thinks would happen, based on her experiences in the laboratory dorms. The toughest girlies were the ones who could unflinchingly down a vile concoction of orange juice, milk, fruit punch, squeezed lemon, and any other accessible liquid in the kitchens. Clarke's been training ever since and still hasn't mastered the skill.

"What kinda minion would I be if I offed you for being the coolest, most fearsome boss ever? You can be as tall as you want. Your hair floats around like you're in a shampoo commercial, even when there's no wind. Your laughter strikes fear into the hearts of grown-ass dudes! You can grow a million arms--" Clarke raises her robo-arm and waves it around a little bit. "...I'm puny and only have one arm. One real one, anyway."

For some reason, she wiggles her toes to remind herself they're there. Clarke still has both of her legs, yep. Somehow... sometimes she forgets, that's all.

"Those bullets would've turned the likes of me into swiss cheese in five seconds flat." Clarke says, shuddering at the thought. (Not at the thought of her own broken body, mind you. It's the thought of swiss cheese that gets her. Gross.) "You and Mischief kept me safe. You're so worthy and even better-- you're real ones. And we're officially bonded for life." She opens her arms wide. "So bring it in! ...Are you a hugger? Or would you rather seal this deal with a pinkie promise?"

 

[starboob]

"I know not half the words you speak," Ursula frowns, peeling herself up from the blood splattered concrete. Her minion speaks with such conviction as if things like 'sham poo' are something that anyone and everyone ought to know and yet Ursula, a god, cannot understand that and more. It is like another birth, though this time her cycle never ceased; it was only suspended as she wasted in that dreadful place between existence and not. "Minion, I must confess that much of this world confounds me."

Wistfully, as if she has not just eaten three men whole, she stares up at the starless skies. "This world… All of this used to be the dominion of my kind and now there are gangs of 'd'bags' who rule the roads." She pulls her arms around herself, resting her chin on her knees. "And their flesh is riddled with rot. It sits not well in my stomach."

That Ursula once unleashed a curse that rapidly deteriorated the bodies of mortals is beside the point. Those bodies were still tasty enough to eat as her curse was like a special and favored seasoning, punching up the umami of the dish. This recent meal that should have filled her to the brim with power seems to have done just the opposite. Oh, she could just languish for the rest of her days in this decrepit not-Ephemera.

"I fear an ounce more of this will be poison to my core." It's not as though she cannot eat other things, but mortals — specifically her enemies — were always the most satisfying and imbued in her unparalleled strength. Now she knows not how she will survive.

Where other gods could accept offerings to their name, Ursula had not a follower to hers. Perhaps Lilith would have been the devotee she would have needed, but alas Time cut her cycle short. 'No, that was the weapons master and the Exalted conspiring against me — us.'

Her brows furrow together, looking off to some far away place before she banishes the distracting thoughts. She holds onto the small hope embedded in her minion's rousing speech.

"You really think me the most fearsome and wicked?" Her rust colored eyes twinkle with little stars. "This statement — you would not be so frivolous with such a remark?"

If she had a heart, it might flutter with the butterflies poets wax on about. Instead, she only grins the barest amount.

Still unsettled by the effects of her meal and the leaden feeling that weighs on her limbs, she rises with less grace, wobbling. Mischief offers his head to steady her. Very awkwardly, she embraces her minion, trying out this 'hug.' "Come, minion. Let us continue the hunt and, perhaps, you can explain to me what this 'sham poo' is and what it has to do with hair…"

 

[ellarose]

"Never ever, my dude. I only speak the truth when I speak of your terrifying ferociousness!" Clarke swears, nodding and flashing the rock symbol to upgrade the sentiment with undeniable swagger. "I don't hand compliments out to just any 'ol scrub on these streets. Like I said, it's boring out here and you're--" She gulps quietly when Ursula actually returns her embrace-- she didn't really expect her to-- and gently leans into it. "Extraordinary."

Ursula lays out the details of their next move and Clarke can hardly think, it's like she's been spun around a few times. She smells like blood and tuna and sugar and oodles of something else that she can't put her finger on. It's a distant memory. Like a misty world teeming with rain-washed trees and muddy footpaths. Wildflowers and rustling leaves and bonfire smoke. A world untouched by technology. A world she's never known, and yet--

It's overwhelmingly familiar. Ursula smells like someplace she belonged a long, long time ago.

It's super funky monkey, that's for sure. Clarke manages to capture the gist of the plan and is eventually able to give a coherent answer.

"Mkay!" Is what Clarke says, but that's not how it sounds. When embraced, her agreement is muffled into Ursula's chest, turning it into something along the lines of 'mmmfay'. Pressed to her, she is vaguely aware of her proximity to the torso mouth that just swallowed a couple'a dudes whole... if she wanted, Ursula could sink her teeth into Clarke's chest and rip her heart out like a midnight snack from the pantry.

When this thought occurs to her, a chorus of Tristian, Kitty, and Ryker's voices echo in Clarke's ears, sing-songing that this is a bad idea. (Tristain's version.) Bad Idea! (Kitty's version.) BAD IDEA!!! (Ryker's version.) The coven appears in the form of an imaginary, mini rock band on Clarke's right shoulder. Their sound is pretty dope, she'll give 'em that, but she doesn't approve of their message. She has to shake her head just slightly to poof them away.

If Ursula wanted to kill her, Clarke would totes be dead already. She's gotta be doing something right, befriending her instead of acting tough. No need to be insufferably disaffected, antagonistic or defensive. Sometimes friendship wins! Besides, there's something about Ursula...

They met for a reason. Curiosity led Clarke to Destiny. Destiny led Clarke to Ursula. Curiosity only ends in death for cats, as the saying goes. And like most possums, Clarke is not a cat. (Not that Clarke is a possum either, but... you get it.)

Dizzily, Clarke starts off in the wrong direction until she catches a subtle hint from Mischief, motioning his shadowy snout the other way. Oops! She turns on her heel to catch up with Ursula and backtracks through her winding thoughts to find the subject they were discussing before Ursula turned her world topsy turvy with a single hug. Shampoo!

"...So that smell wasn't your shampoo?" Clarke muses. Where else would Ursula get that earthly smell if not from a bottle? Huh! Either way, she's not so cruel as to leave Ursula hanging. "Shampoo's like soap for your hair. It's super goopy and colorful-- some come in these deep, deep shades of purple that I could totally get lost in. They have all kindsa' wacky names and scents-- like mango kiss, bubble parade, salty breeze, winter wonderland, chile pepper, ghoulish glitz, berry blitz and stuff like that."

She might've made half of those up, but there's like a ninety six percent chance they all exist.

"I use candy-locks. The brand's been discontinued, but I made sure to stock up!" Which is to say that Clarke found at least twenty years worth of the stuff in the dumpster behind a convenience store and called dibs. "It's meant for dyed hair, but you can use it sometime if you wanna give it a try." Waving her forefingers in a little dance, Clarke can't stop herself from singing the terrible advert jingle. "It's cheap, but it smells so sweet!" She procedes to tilt her head towards Ursula, offering it for sniffing purposes.

 

[starboob]

"Curious." The 'shampoo' has nothing to do with false feces. A relief, to be sure, and it is nonetheless far from what the god had been expecting. Omniscience may have never been her gift and yet strange is it for Ursula to be unknowing on matters as simple as the proper name of hair decontaminate. "Humanity has strayed far from the days of simple bath oils — though, truthfully, I preferred my minions of yore to smell of fire and blood."

Ursula, of course, only ever had one minion — well, no. Lilith was no minion and she certainly never was hers. She was as equal to a god as an mortal could be. And she smelled of sea salt and deep earth.

If she concentrates, she can still bring that smell to memory.

But before the seaside can sweep her away, Clarke's chemical rainbow assaults her olfactory senses with it's artificial sweeteners and whorls of dyes. "Oh," she whispers, nonplussed. She wraps a strand of Clarke's hair around her finger and takes another whiff. Experimentally, she goes for a strand of a different color and sniffs. "That is a kind offer, my minion. Should I need to hide my scent from the hounds, I shall be sure to raid your stockpile."

As for the dyed hair… Ursula cants her head to the side and gathers her near floor length hair over one shoulder, inspecting the ends. Her finger circle around the bunch and, slowly, a deep red bleeds a finger length up the tips and gently fades into the black. "Is this what you do to your hair? Are you fae folk?" Truthfully, Ursula was not aware the fae folk still lived — the Exalted, she is pretty sure, ate the last of their queens and her final brood. But if Ursula can defy the Exalted's will then perhaps the fae folk have as well.

"You may keep your preferred battle scent — it will be the element of surprise that is only befitting of a ninth in command," she nods, stepping around an abandoned rusted metal arm on the concrete path. Rats scatter in the god's wake, slipping into the sewers or hiding in the trash receptacles.

Ephemera has become a dump. Or whatever it is now called.

Her minion blames the Trifecta, but the Trifecta are not of Ursula's concern, even if they have wasted something once great. That is their choice. Ursula's only concern is avenging Lilith. That is her choice.

… Though perhaps she can stand to vaporize some of these ill-begotten bottom feeders. She picks up her legs, floating over the half-body of a man with exposed circuitry. The wires snap at her ankles and miss. His mouth is frozen in permanent horror, though as far as the god can tell, he is dead where it matters. Perhaps it would be a mercy to crush him, but that musing leaves her as quickly as it had come.

She slings her axe over her shoulders and wraps her arms over the handle. "Mischief, scout ahead." Her shadow nods and sinks into the concrete, lurching ahead of the woman and the god.

Once he's out of range, she looks down at her minion and continues the conversation. "My kind do not require shampoo or other elixirs. Our scent comes from our origin and our origin comes from our fate." She nods. "I suppose it is a good thing mortals have chosen shampoos. In your current state, I imagine most of you would smell like oil and hot metal." She says this as matter of fact without any hint of insult. She has not been awake in this new world for more than three hours and its smell is only just masked by the chemical perfumes.

The god stops, suddenly. Her ears perk. "It's quiet." The hullabuloo from before is gone, of course, but it's a distinct lack of any activity that perturbs the god. All they have run into are petty orbs and a few rotted mortals. Aside from Clarke... "Where are all the plebeians?"

 

[ellarose]

'Plebeians. What does that mean?' Clarke wonders, 'Is that like a cousin to lesbians?' She stops walking and watches Ursula as her ears lift. Aw! She finds this very whimsical, delightfully so. Shyly, she averts her gaze before she can stare and idly scratches her cheek. Her right eye flickers in response to her thoughts, offering a definition in the form of neon blue text scrolling across her vision. If Clarke wills it, a robot voice will read the text for only her ears to hear.

[ Plebeians: Noun | A commoner. Used to describe members of the lower social class. ]

'Oh. Thanks.' Clarke tilts her head to the side, curious. 'Hey, can you tell me about Effe-- Affirmia? Ephemera?'

[ Bzzzt......... Error. ]

'I fucked it up again.' Clarke concludes, deflating. She musses a hand through her hair, remembering the way boss had her fingers in it a few short moments ago. That felt kinda nice. Nonetheless, it's good news that she's allowed to go on smelling like candy. She prefers it to the smell of blood and fire, truth be told. Not that she's gonna judge Ursula for her taste or anything! Everyone has their own thing.

For a boss, Ursula's not especially bossy. She's been extremely cool about letting her minion be herself. This, in Clarke's mismatched eyes, makes Ursula a top tier boss. Five stars!

"Don't worry, this ominous atmosphere is totally normal. We've chosen the sneaky route, hence the pleb-less strolling." Clarke says, bobbing her head in a reassuring nod. "It'd be bad news bears if it wasn't quiet."

Once the duo continues down their 'sneaky path', a handful of the rotted corpses on the street behind them crack open their cybernetic eyes. Yellow, red, green and blue circles whirl within these eyes, discreetly zooming in on them like the lenses of miniature cameras. They make no noise, no sudden movements.

They just watch.

┌── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──┐
...Loading...
Subject: ??? (Oooh, so mysterious.) | Time: Creep Hours. | Objective: Watching. (Like a creep.)​

"Ursula."

A dark, mysterious lab is illuminated only by the light of dozens of flashy computers and holographic screens. Each screen displays Ursula and Clarke from different angles as they traverse the alleyways. The Ursula on the screens does not at all resemble the Ursula Clarke sees. She's a flame-like blur, a smudge of colorful pixels. As much as technology has advanced since these lands were known as Ephemera, it cannot begin to perceive or define her. However...

The hulking, unnatural silhouette standing before the largest screen sees the god clearly. The weapon master's skeletal claws are embedded in the desk in front of him, screeching as they draw ragged lines of rage into it's surface. The workers in long, white coats around him either have their ears stuffed with cotton or they've learnt to control every muscle that has to do with facial expressions— without so much as a grimace, they continue tapping diligently at their keyboards. It's as if nails on a chalkboard is elevator music to the likes of them! Background noise and nothing more. Sick bastards.

The Trifecta sees a great many things, but they will not see this coming. They expected Ursula to have perished along with the rest of her ilk.

He who knew Lilith best, however, knew this day would come. After the senseless child disobeyed him and fled, leaving her workshop in a state of disarray, never to return again... he realized too late that she did it all for that mere hatchling of a god. Incomprehensible!

Thanks to the project, to the inane choices Lilith made that fateful day, he understood that one day her soul would resurface in this world. When she did, her flesh would bear Ursula's mark and she would summon her from her place of what should have been eternal rest. He fully intended to recapture the girl to ensure it never happened. He collected countless marked children, conducted hundreds of thousands of studies. The Trifecta would never have to know...

This god known as Karmagan thought he could stop Ursula's arrival. (He thought wrong.) His yellow eyes lock in on the primitive trinket, which swings from the pixellated suggestion of Ursula's axe in a taunting dance. Though the desk did nothing wrong, his claws dig deeper inside of it, as if to search and see if it has any guts to pull out.

"Access the human girl's cybernetics. I'd like to send our visitor a message."

"Doctor, that girl is not in our database." The worker to his right replies, squinting as she leans closer to her screen. "She's... inaccessible."

"Inaccessible?" Karmagan spits, glaring at the human girl beside Ursula as if seeing her for the first time. There's no mark to be seen on her, not even on her x-ray scans. He doesn't recognize her, and yet there's something about her facial structure, perhaps, that makes her familiar. Somewhat. He sets his skeletal claw into his employee's shoulder. Though he doesn't apply any pressure, this can be taken as an unspoken threat. "We're going to have to change that, aren't we?"

┌── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──┐
...Loading...
Subject: Clarke | Time: A few minutes later. | Objective: Sneaking!​

"Oof!" One of the corpses snaps his leg out at an unnatural angle, successfully tripping Clarke on the first try. The back of her head hits the pavement with a sickening crack, throwing a handful of black sand into her eyes. Ow! She's barely able to react before the corpse is crawling on top of her, staring into her eyes.

"Dead man cams!" Clarke manages to gasp before said dead man's hands wrap around her throat, snuffing out the rest of her words. 'Damn it!' Jerking left and right, she pinches and pries at his wrists to no avail.

"...Why, Ursula. Fancy seeing you here." A voice crackles through static, it seems someone else is using the corpse to speak. He ignores Clarke entirely, cold and unresponsive to her struggles, and his neck twists all the way around so his yellow eyes bore into Ursula instead. "Surely you haven't come all this way for my sake. Are you searching for Lilith, perhaps? I'm afraid she's not here. In fact, she perished just before you were laid down for your nap! It was a grisly scene... shame you weren't there to see it."

"Now, I'm sure you won't mind if I borrow your new toy?" He chuckles. It's a gnarly, messed up noise amidst the static as the weapon master's voice speaks through every reanimated corpse in the alleyway. They're clambering to their feet, approaching with dozens of beady eyes. "...I'd say it's only fair after you stole mine."

 

[starboob]

What a delicious sound, that crack against the stone like a failed fledgling from a tree. Her stomach grumbles, the mouth along her torso rippling at the thought of fresh meat.

"Minion," Ursula spins on her heel, but whatever thought she had to share dies on her tongue when her eyes lock on the mechanical creature straddling what is hers. A lesser god would shrink at the sound of his voice, but, then again, lesser gods than him have yet to born.

The Exalted had been wrong to keep him, but she had been right to keep him close, the traitor.

Red sparks crack around her eyes, horns, and hands. She grows three times larger with each of her strained breaths that blow out huffs of black smoke. Her eyes glitch out of focus as past and present blend. Lilith overlays her minion; Lilith with her remaining limbs bent out of shape, her face, once peaceful, an unrecognizable mess.

The god squeezes her eyes shut, but the image is a wildfire in her imagination and it cannot be stopped.

"You keep her name off of your tongue, sialoquent lout." She swings her axe in front of her. It cuts through the air with a silver shling! that turns to a whistle as she brings it over her head. "And keep your wilted hands from my minion!"

She starts for the silver goblin on top of Clarke, then pivots at the last second, sensing the four or so assailants coming at her from behind, and slices clean through them. While their pieces clatter in neat halves like the orbs before them, these ones writhe with more life in them than the god would expect. 'Cockroaches.'

One reaches with its fingers for the god and she simply lifts her legs up, evading it. She could pay them more attention, but Clarke's face is turning a disturbing shade of blue that, last Ursula checked, is deathly. (Not to mention that hit she took from the stone slab earlier.) She grimaces.

"I have thieved nothing that is not already mine," she hisses, chomping through the dead man's head and tearing it from its post on the neck. Still the body holds onto her minion. The tips of its fingers peel back and thin metal ropes slither out like snakes. They move up Clarke's jaw, worming behind her ears, attempting to wriggle between her teeth —

Ursula does not know what happens next, but the metal man is but confetti in the air and now she stands over her minion, hunched over with her axe at the ready should other creatures not take the hint.

Spikes break out of her spine. Her claws grow and sharpen, along with her teeth and horns. "Be gone."

"Rude," the weapons master chides through one of the yet to be destroyed corpses. "I was not finished with her, Ursula."

The bodies of half- and three-quarter- men crawl down the sides of the surrounding buildings, spawning from air (or perhaps from the dumpsters full of failed projects). Their multi-colored eyes shine down on Ursula, the colors spinning too fast for a mortal eye to discern — not that the colors alone bear any significance to the god.

"You are finished." Doubly and triply so for daring to lay a hand on her minion's chemically sweet head. "Come out from the shadows and face me!"

"Hmm." Ursula can practically hear him tapping his chin. "Request, denied. I only meet with real players, not the pawns."

Oh.

The entire world fades to red and while the Ursula of the near future will have no recollection of this, it does not mean it does not happen.

It starts with the spiders — big as saucers — crawling out from her long hair. Their needle-like legs pierce through the buildings' stone and easily puncture the metal plates on the quasi-men. Then silver hornets fly out from the spikes protruding from her spine and fire their stingers like arrows at the onslaught of assailants. Ursula passes out somewhere between that and when her head splits open and a multi-headed worm thrashes through whatever remains of the weapons masters' lot. (What is his name, again? Something ridiculous, she is sure.)

She wakes up some seconds or minutes later on top of her minion, back to her normal size — though her body flickers between here and not. "Ngh," she mutters, feeling Mischief's cold tongue lapping at her forehead (as well as Clarke's). She looks up groggily. "Has that bastard perished? Is it won?" Weakly, on shaking limbs, she pushes her torso off of Clarke, still hovering over her. Half of her face appears melted though the god does not seem to notice or mind. "Minion, what harm has come to you?"

 

[ellarose]

There's a violent splash of red. Clarke sputters, coughs, gasps. Deluges of black spiders wander in and out of sight, obscuring her vision, blinding her.

L̵͚͐ị̶͠l̵̓ͅí̴̼ṯ̶͆h̷̩̑. Clarke's breath hitches. A decrepit face grins down at her through the shadows. It feels as though all of her limbs have been restrained, strapped down, and her heart pounds like it's trying to break free from her chest. L̵͚͐ị̶͠l̵̓ͅí̴̼ṯ̶͆h̷̩̑ 'Not again, not again, never again.'

The world darkens completely. It's hard to say how much time passes before a voice cuts through the ringing in her ears. When Clarke registers it, her soul is drop-kicked back into her body, awakening her with a jolt. Minion... that's right, that's her. L̵͚͐ị̶͠l̵̓ͅí̴̼ṯ̶͆h̷̩̑. She's a minion now. She's Clarke. That's boss's voice.

'Harm... what harm has come to me?'

["Diagnosis pending... Beep, bop, beep! User diagnosis has been determined. You are concussed."] The tinny voice in her head serves up the answer to her question like a waiter at a five star restaurant. ["Physical and mental rest is recommended."] Concussed. The word bounces around inside of her aching skull, it takes a minute for her to catch the word and deliver it. In comparison, Clarke is a waiter at a one star restaurant. She's the delivery girl who gets sidetracked following a mysterious cat to an alternate reality on her first job and never ends up delivering anything to anyone. Oh, she'd be fired for sure.

"I am... con cussed." Clarke finally announces, finding that it hurts to talk. She brings a hand to her throat. Conned and cussed out? Hm. She moves her hand from her throat to the back of her head. Feels like she was whacked with a comically sized mallet. "Did someone try to bonk me to death? Thas so not cute." If she were in a cartoon, her eyes would be spirals right now... and she probably wouldn't be bleeding this much. That's what this warm, sticky stuff is, right? She checks her fingertips. It looks like she's got fifteen fingers and they're all smeared red. 'Blood confirmed.' If this were a cartoon, it'd have an M rating.

Blood. The word pulses in a sea of red. When she glances around, she sees the hazy destruction, that this alley is a dead man wonderland. A deader man wonderland. The cut on the palm of Clarke's three swirling hands seem to smile up at her, sinister and conniving.

Clarke hallucinates, recalling the tuna can just before she handed it over to Ursula. The illustration of the fish on the can looks at her and speaks grimly. "Your blood's in the water, kiddo. She's going to eat you. Them's the breaks. Blub, blub." The tuna can is promptly crushed betwixt the teeth of Ursula's torso-mouth. Then she remembers the d-bags she noshed on, hears the echoes of their screams. 'Oh, frick.' Clarke had a good run, didn't she? At least she was blessed with a sweet little forehead kiss from Mischief before her time was up. She can die happy now.

"I flubbed the mission, didn't I?" Clarke grimaces. Smashed her skull and her chances of being ninth in command hands down. S̵̫͒h̴̗́e̵̥̓'̵̞̍s̶͙̃ ̶̣̃á̸̼ ̴̖̇w̵͕̆a̸̟̓ś̸̱t̵͙̆ḛ̵͛ ̷̥͘o̸̥̓f̸̗̒ ̸̰̈́o̸̫̐ụ̸̀r̵̜̉ ̷̮̅r̴͖̈ę̸̔s̸̊͜o̴̟̒ú̷̳ř̷͚c̵͓̓e̸̋ͅs̴̖͂.̶̭͆ ̴̧͆G̸̭͊e̷͖̋t̸͇͗ ̷̨̊r̵̝̀i̶̧͠d̵̩̑ ̴̗͐ö̵̼́f̵̥͘ ̸̦̑h̸̬͛e̵͇͊ŕ̷̥.̴̞̂ "Are you gonna eat me, or— yo, your face!"

"Not trying to shame you or anything, but is it sposed to do that?" When Clarke picks her jaw off the ground, she squishes her cheeks up and down dramatically. Needless to say, it's a poor demonstration of what she's seeing right now. "I, I mean... your face is melting like cheese off a slice of piping hot pizza. Are you okay?" She stretches herself out trying to catch Ursula's cheek in her hands so she can help her put it back into place. Dizzy and unbalanced, she miscalculates her aim, missing completely and falling against her instead.

Ah. Being this close to Ursula is like soaking in the warmth of a crackling fireplace in the middle of winter. She smells the woodsmoke and everything. It occurs to Clarke that while she might be injured, she's safe. Whatever just went down, there's no question that Ursula wiped the floor with those guys after they bonked her.

"Looks to me like you trashed all of those d-bags. They're deader than dead now. Mission complete?" Clarke acknowledges. She's sleepy. Hm. Rest recommended. Piping hot pizza. "Hey, you still hungry? Wanna go get that pizza now to celebrate? It'll be my treat." 'So sleepy.' Lulled by Ursula's warmth, she closes her eyes. "...In five seconds it'll be my treat."