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» whatever helps you cope - Hope - 07-12-2018

Hope was aware of the Protectors need for company, and so while the Protector called them all, she was busy with the final piece of the puzzle. The remaining dark splotch of land in the middle of the world that nobody had seemingly asked about or even tried to venture toward. At least for the North, people had tried. She sighed quietly to herself as she approached the wall of black, her antlered head swiveling to view the expanse before her. Each light on her tines growing brighter and brighter until her eyes smoked and glowed brighter than ever before.

”Now.” She hissed through clenched teeth, lowering her head and pointing her antlers toward the wall of billowing black. Then, with a straight forward shove, she pushed her head into the black, feeling it writhe angrily around her. It hissed and pulled, trying to close the patch she had opened, but it wasn’t fast enough. Little balls of light from her tines began to spiral out, shifting and spinning toward the black to shove it back over the entire expanse. Her hide twitched with the effort as sweat beaded down her body as she lifted her head to look at what her work had done.

It didn’t take long but eventually, she surveyed the rest of the world around her, the final piece to the puzzle of the hidden world the Rift had to offer. Pleased with herself, she grinned against it, watching as the final bit of darkness simply disappeared and the hope lights along her tines returned to their original position. ”Simply beautiful.” She mentioned, pleased with the idea that everything was available to those that lived within the Rift, one more piece to her puzzle. Now, she simply needed to make a place within it and continue with her plans.

One way or another, everything would be restored. Everything.

“Talk.”
HOPE
changes everything
image

Hey everyone! Hope has revealed the final part of the Rift as well - the HEART!

This thread is only for Kisamoa, but feel free to stalk it - it'll be fun ;)


RE: » whatever helps you cope - Kisamoa - 07-20-2018

He hadn't felt well since the return of Hope.

It wasn't a physical malady, but doubts: he had come into this world a God, the Deceiver, the destroyer of worlds. He had come into this world a godkiller, having snuffed out Helovia's pantheon with barely any effort at all.

And for all his arrogance, for all his commands, he had accomplished two things: causing the Rift to discard the Scint River, and awakening Hope.

He wasn't proud of either.

He was lost, a memory set adrift in the future. None of the Gods had any wisdom to offer—they were mostly dead, just wanting to return to their lost lands, somehow not comprehending that their world was dying.

Too blind, too dead. And Kaos didn't trust Ajani, the wise Loricatrunc, anymore.

So he was a child, left to his own devices. He slipped along the border between this world and the next, lurked in the shadows, watched from the stars. New blood trickled in, stolen by the Portal, and yet some found ways to leave.

He didn't know how to move forward. He didn't know how to find the tattered, broken Helovia, and take back what had been stolen. He had tried, oh yes, he had swum through the heavens and the ages, but godless, Helovia drifted ever out of reach, or perhaps the blood soaking through the earth prevented him from finding it.

Kisamoa had rolled over in the liminal space, snug and aching in his nest of moss, debating whether or not the Protector's party was worth the pain of the living world, when he felt it: Hope was stirring. Instantly, his dark eyes snapped open. Jealousy and anger propelled him to his feet, and across the distance.

He slipped from the cover of the other space, today an angular creature upon four scaly limbs, with thick, yet jutting, shoulders and narrow hips. Spiky antlers curved from behind misshapen ears, and his muzzle tapered into a canine-like point, mouth full with mismatched sharp teeth.

"Hope," he rumbled, not bothering to hide his animosity. Her presence stung him with its warmth. Before them, the red, sloping mountains and valleys of the Heart spread out, disappearing somewhere on the horizon. Nearby, Hraunor roiled. Kisamoa felt like grinding his jaws together in frustration, but due to the shape of his teeth, doing so just wasn't practical. He'd been probing the Heart since the North was revealed, but hadn't been able to convince the Rift to lift the shadows.

Instead, his face settled into a mask of canine contempt. "I see you've found the Heart."
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Hope - 07-20-2018

It was beautiful, the large expanse once the shadows had lifted. She relished in it, the bright brilliant lights, the heat, the distant rumble of lava as it fell and swirled below. Before she could completely enjoy the feeling, another presence distracted her. Luckily for her, instead of having to seek Kisamoa out, he simply came to her. Today honestly couldn’t get any better. His voice rumbled a greeting to her, and she craned her head slightly to view him, her hopelights flickering with his presence, as if the little balls of light wanted to pelt him and remove the darkness from him, too. But it would take time.

She fully turned to him, then, offering him a sickly-sweet smile. "Kisamoa." A simple reply, though she couldn’t find it in herself to call him Kaos. As far as she was concerned, the creature was acting more like a mopey emotional teenager rather than a ravager of worlds. She didn’t have time to try and persuade him out of it. "I see you’ve found the Heart." A brief nod by her, glancing back over the expanse of land. "Indeed I did." She said with a brief cheerful chuckle.

"Someone has to fix this mess." She muttered briefly, sighing quietly and turning to completely face Kisamoa, her hopelights dimming slightly despite the bright light around them. "You know, I’ve been wondering how something like this could happen. How terrible this place has gotten. There’s rot in everything, a cancer that keeps draining this world we both love so much. Our world." She paused, scanning his face. "You were created from them. There’s so much that you can do, and yet you can’t. Are you weak? Unmotivated? Afraid?" She hummed, a dark smirk crossing her features as she spoke the last word.

"I can help you." She offered, jutting her head up tall, the hopelights dancing around her head as little spirits, searching for some form of life and yet refraining from their need to pelt Kisamoa and fix him. "I think you know what we have to do."

“Talk.”
HOPE
changes everything
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Kisamoa - 07-25-2018

No. Definitely not proud of being the spark that started this wildfire. He couldn't exactly place her in the past of the Gods—perhaps she had been some minor deity in a time before the Gods ate the rest, or perhaps she had been stowed away to keep her from just that fate—but he found himself wondering if her stay in the Pinnacle had infused her with an arrogance strong enough to rival Vjanta's, or if she'd always been this way. The smile she graced him with made him want to throw up.

He found everything about her offensive. He knew he was the pot calling the kettle black, because he was an arrogant bastard too, but he didn't care. The Rift was his.

And he didn't like where she was going. He didn't care for her assessment, her thinly veiled accusations, her—not so thinly veiled accusations. Kisamoa's lips pulled back in a grotesque snarl to match her smirk.

She was ice, he was fire. Black clouds and teal lightning crackled around him.

"I was made for vengeance!" he roared at her, his pulse running hot and fast, thrumming in his skull. His claws dug deeper into the gravel, scoring the rock below, leaving black marks. He wondered if she would bleed light, if she would become radiant when her skin was peeled back: a bright, bright star, snuffed out.

For how long would her death feed the Rift?

But she stopped him dead in his tracks. "I can help you," she said, his memory full of her fake sweetness, her accusations, the sickening smirk. He really didn't like where she was going. His anger cooled into wariness, something tight and frigid forming beneath—an emotion he was not ready to name, much less feel. His black eyes narrowed. "I think you know what we have to do."

"What are you implying?" he demanded of her, but the heat was gone from his voice, replaced only with cold.

That thing forming in his gut?

Dread.
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
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RE: » whatever helps you cope - Hope - 07-26-2018

He couldn’t place her – for she was created during the fall. When the gods were alive but separated from their realities, where her mother had hid her away as a young fawn under the protection of the Pinnacle’s Protector, hoping one day someone might awake her when they needed her. But what her mother didn’t anticipate would be the sheer mass of the corruption that had spread through the Rift. The gods had died, Kisamoa birthed, and Hope had slumbered the years since deep within the Rift. It was only by luck that Ajani had thought to try and bring the hope to her, to wake her despite being hidden for so long.

It was only by luck that she had opened the Heart and snagged Kisamoa’s interest on the way here.

Yet her attacks had only angered Kisamoa, and where his booming voice might cause others to flinch, to apologize, to flee, she only laughed. ”I was made for vengeance.” She wanted to tell him how much of a lie it seemed, too caught up in his own existence to try and fix things. Perhaps Hope felt like she could be the true savior, to be the sacrificial lamb so to speak in terms of figuring out how to better fix the Rift, how to fix and mend the Hearts from bleeding out. But she wasn’t the one.

”What are you implying?” His voice had grown cold, but Hope’s warmth spread across the ledge they stood upon like a soft hug, grinning ever so kindly to Kisamoa, a mask upon a darker thought. ”Come with me?” She began with a tilt of her antlered head before slipping down a path toward the inner portions of Hraunor where the heat would be unbearable from the lava. But they were lesser gods, they could handle some heat.

When she stopped, she hoped that Kisamoa had followed, and she shifted her antlered head to glance at him as her hopelights continued their anxious dance. ”The Hearts are dying, bleeding out, as you know. I think there’s only one thing we can do to try and fix it.” She began, edging him toward the corner of the cave should he follow her into it. Deep within the center, a large hopelight danced and spiraled around a little spread of volcanic glass. She peeked into it briefly before lifting her head and closing her eyes. ““We must find them, their spirits, return them to the world.” Her voice had taken on an almost summoning type of sound, an echoing lull that vibrated around the cavern. She knew she didn't need to elaborate, that Kisamoa had already known this to be true. “You are scared.”

“Talk.”
HOPE
changes everything
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Kisamoa - 07-28-2018

He hated how she stopped him dead in his tracks.

He hated how she laughed at him, as if the power he wielded did not frighten her—as if the power he wielded couldn't hurt her.

He wanted to show her how wrong she was. He wanted to show her what four wronged, furious gods were capable of. He wanted her to pay the price for her transgressions in blood and pain.

He wanted to cut her to the bone, to feel her hot blood sizzle against his midnight skin. He wanted to break her open.

But she had him. She had his curiosity, his dread. And somewhere, deep down in him, four dead Gods raised their heads, as if scenting the wind.

Kisamoa licked his lips when she turned her back to lead the way. He said nothing, nor did he immediately follow; instead, he watched the distant glow of lava, the curve of Hope's back, the anxious shimmying of her hopelights. Perhaps she seemed cool and composed, but the lights dancing in her antlers gave her away. Judging by her demeanor, he thought it was excitement.

She was up to something, and he did not like it—but he followed her all the same, down into a cave system near the roiling pit of Hraunor.

Once within, Hope sort of shouldered him a little to the side while saying what was on her mind. He didn't even notice, or didn't think about it, too busy trying to fight down the entities he was made of; too busy trying to retain his hold on his body.

"Find them?" he got out in a guttural snarl, wondering if she had, in her brief time awake, failed to comprehend that he was the Gods. He was not simply their tool, their means to the destruction of another world: he was their flesh, their blood, their hearts, their spirits. “You are scared,” she said.

But they weren't. And after all, he was them, and they were him, and they spoke through the misshapen mouth of the one who had learned to love being alive.

"We're right here," they said.
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Hope - 07-28-2018

There was a certain beauty in the way that Kisamoa lagged behind. It was almost as if he knew what she had planned the second he showed up - but had he known, he most certainly wouldn't have followed her. Hope’s hopelights danced around her head, wary and ready to spring the moment she allowed them to try and restrain Kisamoa, though while she kept her leash on them they buzzed anxiously in waiting. Her voice had taken on an almost other worldly sense as she spoke, eyeing him cautiously in case he chose to strike.

But something within her knew he was powerless with the battle internally.

So she continued to speak, her voice trailing off as she mentioned that he was scared. She had completely disregarded the fact that the gods had been with him all along, she had known this. She merely wanted a reaction. Her smile had turned into something more of a smirk, the warmth growing stronger as she stared at Kisamoa now with the voices of the gods speaking up through him.

”Good. I had hoped you all would be. Do not worry, I will set you free.” She said with a brilliant grin, a sort of hopeful happiness echoing somehow from her voice. Then, with that giant orb in the center of the cavern, she allowed her hopelights to spring. The orbs slipping from her head toward the bigger orb in the center, shooting out toward Kisamoa. She almost that a glimpse of pity in her smoky eyes while she watched them float toward Kis with startling speed. ”It won't take too long. Hopefully you can sit tight and forgive me when all is said and done. Think of it like a vacation.” She offered cheerfully, watching as the giant orb began to encase Kisamoa in the warm ball of light, suspended in the center of the room, unable to slip into the folds of the world. The smaller hopelights acting as guardians for the other deity.

But she wasn't done. She had more work to do, she only hoped the gods within Kisamoa would realize how she hoped to help them, and with it be able to restrain Kisamoa enough that her magic worked. She needed to revive them somehow, and she had an idea of where to begin.

“Talk.”
HOPE
changes everything
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Kisamoa - 07-29-2018

He was no longer sure if he existed.

It was impossible to tell where the Gods ended and he began.

He was, after all, the compromise of their minds, the merging of their thoughts. He was their accord.

They—it—listened to the bright deer, and they liked what they heard. The promise of restoration, the idea of once more being their own, separate entities, freed from the burdens of being dead; perhaps even cleansed on their corruption, and once more the brilliant, vibrant minds they had been before.

Naivety was not a trait of dead gods, so when the hopelights sped towards the shadowy body, it was something else that kept them from moving. Perhaps a lack of comprehension, and whatever presence had once seemed an entity of itself—living, breathing, thinking, feeling—barely seemed to flicker in the depths of those dark eyes.

They were empty, now.

"Good," the Gods sighed, as they were engulfed in the bright light, and lifted into their prison. The ever-shifting body ceased to shift, simply hung inside the chamber of light, limp—dead.

Its lips barely moved as he said on a faint breath, "you misshapen goat."

It was not said with rancor; it was said with fear.
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Hope - 07-30-2018

A resounding sigh from the gods brought excitement to Hope’s chest. Her hopelights darted around, securing the orb as it engulfed her fellow deity as a dark grin crossed her features. It should be enough to hold them tight, especially with the Gods on her side. If she had any chance of trying to revive them, now was the chance – while Kisamoa was weak, confused, torn. Luckily for her, the Gods were on her side enough to be able to tame the creature the four of them had contained.

She’d be lying if she said she didn’t feel slightly sorry about the whole ordeal.

But she moved on. She heard his curse, that of a child’s and offered him a small apologetic smile and click of her tongue before she turned from him, leaving her hopelights behind to keep watch over Kisamoa. ”I will return.” She said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster before the plans began to swirl in her head. Then she left the cave down in the volcano – she needed to gather them, the inhabitants of the Rift.

They would be in for quite a treat.

“Talk.”
HOPE
changes everything
image



RE: » whatever helps you cope - Kisamoa - 07-30-2018

She left him.

And he was alone.

More alone than he had ever been.

A child writhing in the darkness within the light.

Gradually, as the Gods returned to their death-slumber, the creature's eyes grew soft again: soft and alive and sad.

The cage of light was too warm. He hung within it, rotating slowly, seeing nothing but the biting glare and the hazy outline of shadowy cave walls.

Trapped.

Condemned.

Hours had passed. He'd cried out, once, furious and fearful, but who would even hear him, this deep into the mountains?

Who would even miss him?

He was alone.

[ The end. <3 ]
beauty in darkness
kaos in light
image