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TEST DRIVE MEME 004
⚰︎ ⍢ ⌲ ⍚ TEST DRIVE MEME:
Welcome to RUBILYKSKOYE — a dark, horror-smut game where player choices will drive a mod-run storyline about the world and its NPCs. This test drive meme provides a medley of prompts evoking the game's general tone.
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: spiders, animated skeletons, aphrodisiac effects, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, knifeplay, potential dismemberment.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
FAQ ✧ SETTING ✧ CALENDAR ✧ RESERVES ✧ APPLICATIONS
THESE THREADS CAN BE GAME CANON if both players are accepted into the game and agree to it. However, if players who'd prefer to start fresh are welcome to reuse these prompts in their own personal logs upon acceptance into the communities. Note: the universal test drive arrival prompt will not be repeated on the coming event log, but players are welcome to reuse the prompt.
CONTENT WARNINGS for this game include: monsters, body horror, dub-con, non-con, religion, blood/violence, and marking/branding, loss of autonomy/self, and mental influences. This log additionally has warnings for: spiders, animated skeletons, aphrodisiac effects, exhibitionism/voyeurism, bdsm, kink negotiation, knifeplay, potential dismemberment.
If you have QUESTIONS about the test drive prompts, please ask HERE. Questions about the game itself or the general setting should be directed to the FAQ.
IN THE WOODS SOMEWHERE
The chirping of partridges in the treetops rouses you. Light barely filters through the canopy, just enough to suggest daylight. By the time it reaches the forest floor, the light has taken on a sickly green. You lie amongst the frost-covered mosses and ferns, the frozen soil cold and just a little damp on your bare skin. Wherever you were before this moment, whatever you were doing or wearing, when you awaken in this forest, you find yourself naked and helpless as the day you were born. As you sit up and get your bearings, aside from a brief wave of disoriented nausea, you seem to be no worse for wear than you last remember.
You seem to be alone. The gnarled oaks and moss suggest no sign of civilization or sentient life. Just flickers of movement from curious squirrels or brave lizards emerging from a temporary retreat from the wintry weather. With your feet under you, and you'll find the wood is filled with berry bushes and nut trees, though much of the fruit has been picked clean. The freshwater stream that runs north-south, populated by both poisonous toads and delicious crawdads, is running actively despite the growing chill.
wildlife encounters
The longer you hike, the more unsettling sights await you: animal remains, some partially stripped of their flesh or discarded entrails left exposed to the cold. As you continue on your way, you might even swear you catch a glimpse of what appears to be a fully-formed skeletal creature observing you from a distance. Surely, that’s just your mind playing tricks on you... These creatures may be unsettling, but they show no signs of aggression to folks who keep their distance.
In the forest, you may run into others with stories just like yours. Some may have already formed clumsy nudist groups, others may still be processing their confusion, with no memory of how they got here. Now is a good time to overcome any hang-ups you have about modesty; it's going to be a long hike, and the weather isn't quite amenable to your lack of.
Turn your back to the darker, shadowy parts of the forest and eventually the glow of manmade lights and the curve of a dirt road may come into view. At the edge of the wood, you'll find a town surrounded by a fifty-foot wall of beige stone. The only entrance is an iron gate positioned on the southern edge. When you arrive, the gate is already open, welcoming people inside.
This quaint, historic town of five-thousand has cobbled street and signs lit by gas lamp. Wooden shutters protect otherwise open-air windows on the buildings, which are all under three stories with gabled roofs. A number of businesses hug the main street — a clockmaker, a cobbler, a grocer — while residential homes sprawl outwards towards the wall. At the far end of the main street, visible about a mile to the north now that the trees and the enormous wall is out of the way, sits a castle with three towers.
When you enter, the streets are full of people, but despite any efforts on your part to hide or make excuses, they don't seem offended by your nakedness. Even families with children don't gawk or look twice. Those determined to find proper clothing regardless will find that modern clothing stores aren't available — the closest this town has is a tailor's shop and a stand in the central marketplace selling scarves and blankets.
breaking and entering
If you intend to have your character break into someone's house or yard to steal some of their clean laundry, please review the info about game laws on the FAQ and give the mods a heads up HERE.
Fortunately, the people of the town are very generous! Anyone who ask the locals will be directed to the boarding house for both clothes and a place to stay. Accessible through an embellished iron garden gate and obscured by hanging plants, trees, and vines, beyond an overgrown yard in the residential sprawl of the town is a bright-red door, which opens to a spacious cottage of several stories. It's already full of people who appeared in the village just as you did today.
Tonight, a few of the townspeople will help out with the new arrivals. They stock the kitchen and prepare a communal dinner of parsnips, pheasant, and squash. During dinner, they (and those outsiders who've already begun to settle) sit down at the enormous wooden dining room table and help orient the newcomers and answer their questions.
finding roommates
Don't spend too much time in the dining room going for seconds, though. You'll want to claim a bedroom quickly because each one only has two full-size beds, and there aren't enough spaces for everyone. The last people upstairs will need to double up to squeeze in. Roommates will not be mod-assigned; players should coordinate directly with one another to determine their living arrangements.
Get a good night's rest. By the light of day, locals will help get the new arrivals set up on the coal stove with breakfast. You may notice they're dressed in a way you would almost call normal — at least, in a manner befitting 19th century Eastern Europe. As you find your way around town to get your bearings, folks are eager to help you find a place to apply your skills so you can contribute to your new home.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try: naked hiking, acquiring clothing or other inventory items, asking questions at dinner/orientation, or staking your claim on a bedroom!
RECUMITA
The festival fills the streets with dancing locals and all the stuffs of a street market. Despite the challenges posed by the snow-in-summer, farmers are grateful to announce that the situation is not as dire as initially feared. As a result, the harvest festival of Recūmita becomes a celebration of unity and gratitude to their fellow townspeople for salvaging an almost-frozen harvest, the Duchess' magic for protecting and reviving it, and the 'Void-Touched' who braved the Void to strengthen her.Over the weekend, all regular work is put on hold, except for the necessary festival preparations. The streets come alive with vibrant stalls and stands, offering a wide array of delectable treats and refreshing beverages. From barrels of beer and cups of kvas to mouthwatering roasted meats, delightful squash-based dishes like pumpkin latkes, honey-glazed brussel sprouts on skewers, hot borscht in both pork and vegetarian variations, and tantalizing mushrooms stuffed with leeks, cranberries, and bryndza cheese, there is an abundance of flavors to indulge in.
The first day of the festival transforms the streets into a bustling night market, where shopkeepers organize an assortment of carnival-style games. Test your strength in arm-wrestling contests or challenge your pain tolerance in contests where individuals whip each other to determine who yields first, whether to pain or pleasure. In one corner, Terry's Rubean student sets up an unsanctioned fighting tournament, while in another area, a path of hot coals awaits the daring souls who wish to traverse it. Instead of traditional pie-throwing stands, knife-throwing stands attract participants who willingly become targets.
Enthusiastic Rubeans, particularly those involved in integrating the Void-touched, take it upon themselves to enhance the festivities. They recruit local participants and willing Void-touched individuals to partake in an impromptu stage performance, with no need for rehearsals. Come as you are and join the spectacle! Once the performance begins, the passion and excitement behind their efforts become truly evident, as all the performances call for explicitly sexual or violent acts to be performed together.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try entering the fighting rings, watching or joining a live sex performance, or eating some aphro food (deliberately or otherwise)!
the fathomless dark
At the outer edges of the forest, shadows grow long and the air grows thick. Though the sun never grows warm red-gold with sunset, the wood darkens. Birdsong is replaced by the click of mandibles and the skitter of many legs. Anyone who ventures out this way will soon find it difficult to see before them, even in the middle of the day — eventually, even the brightest magical light source or darkvision cannot stretch further than a few inches. In the void, the air feels heavy, as if it were not air at all but some more solid mass. Almost like liquid-smoke, it presses down upon you. Slowing your movements. Characters who push too far into the void may stop being able to move at all, and find themselves given over to insanity if they collapse, unable to draw themselves out. This is just one of many dangers.
Monsters thrive this far out. Huge, blood-red spiders the size of hunting dogs drop from the treetops. In addition to their venomous bite, which contains a fast-acting paralytic, these creatures are clever: they attempt to use their webbing to entangle any trespassers, binding limbs together or to trees. If you're unfortunate to become fully cocooned, you don't have long before this forest will be the last thing you see.
In addition to the spiders, you may come across the sharp-toothed furred yetis that emerged during the snowstorm, still looking for a meal. Each one hunts alone, a fifteen-foot-tall shambling creature that drips black ooze and super-chills the air around it until your skin feels tight and icy. If it gets the drop on you, you're likely to be its dinner. It has emerged from a long summer hibernation to enjoy the colder weather, and it's starving.
Those who seem lucky enough not to run afoul of the monsters here are in for a worse fate. The void can play tricks on your senses. As madness sets in and you lose all sense of direction, you may also lose control of your body — what is that steers your hands to turn against your friends? Why does it sound like your own voice whispering?
In the fog, you may also hear the voices of those familiar to you — people you know from the town, or people whom you know with almost perfect certainty aren't here. these figments may recreate unhappy memories or force trespassers to hallucinate their worst nightmares. Nothing is as it seems in the void, and when you swing at these figments, desperate to silence them, it might not be a figment at all, but a friend in the flesh trying to help you. By the time you see their true face, it could be too late to stop yourself.
writer's block?
If you're struggling to pick a way to engage the prompts, try fighting a monster, hallucinating your worst nightmares, and/or attacking a friend or stranger!
HIDING INSIDE EACH OF US
Uh oh spaghetti-os.
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
Rubilykskoye's performance troupe is thrown into a state of panic as they make a shocking discovery: Vyanchaslav, their unofficial manager and conductor, has vanished without a trace! Vyanchaslav plays a crucial role in the troupe, overseeing small inter-troupe matters and having the final say on casting and rehearsal time. He is known for his reliability, making his sudden disappearance all the more perplexing, especially right before a major event.
The last time anyone saw Vyanchaslav was in their usual rehearsal space, just before a crucial run-through of their upcoming performance. His absence during that rehearsal was highly unusual, and it left the troupe members worried and confused. They are now frantically trying to piece together what might have happened to him.
As they search for Vyanchaslav, they notice a faint sound lingering in the air – the distant whine of a fiddle. However, there is something unsettling about it. As they follow the source of the sound, the room grows darker, and an eerie chill runs down their spines. Those who draw close enough to properly hear Vyanchaslav's song will feel inclined to dance themselves til their feet bleed, til their lungs give out. That is, provided they don't cut a devil's bargain with him first, selling something else to the devil in exchange for their freedom.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
The marks worn by all residents of Rubilykskoye aren't just cool body art, as it turns out. The town is full of rumors, whispered in shadows and over candles of a starving creature hiding in the dark corners of your chest. Feed your inner beast, they say, before it finds a way to feed itself.
Alas, its emergence is inevitable — sooner or later, the horrible things that happen here pile up and make someone repulsed by the idea of human contact. Someone holds themselves back, bites their tongue, or simply does not believe the stories. Today, for one reason or another, that creature is coming out. Someone hasn't been keeping it sated.
Symptoms escalate over weeks, from monstrous irritability to full-blown body horror transformation, where people physically shed their human forms and evolve into the monsters this place made them. Once a person becomes something more (or less) than human there's only one way to go back — sate the beast.
someone else transforms
Rubilykskoye's performance troupe is thrown into a state of panic as they make a shocking discovery: Vyanchaslav, their unofficial manager and conductor, has vanished without a trace! Vyanchaslav plays a crucial role in the troupe, overseeing small inter-troupe matters and having the final say on casting and rehearsal time. He is known for his reliability, making his sudden disappearance all the more perplexing, especially right before a major event.The last time anyone saw Vyanchaslav was in their usual rehearsal space, just before a crucial run-through of their upcoming performance. His absence during that rehearsal was highly unusual, and it left the troupe members worried and confused. They are now frantically trying to piece together what might have happened to him.
As they search for Vyanchaslav, they notice a faint sound lingering in the air – the distant whine of a fiddle. However, there is something unsettling about it. As they follow the source of the sound, the room grows darker, and an eerie chill runs down their spines. Those who draw close enough to properly hear Vyanchaslav's song will feel inclined to dance themselves til their feet bleed, til their lungs give out. That is, provided they don't cut a devil's bargain with him first, selling something else to the devil in exchange for their freedom.
(There are other monsters lurking in every townsperson — feel free to invent your own npc monsters and scenarios!)
you waited too long
At first, as you hide yourself from your darker impulses, a subtle itch develops under your skin. An irritability that makes you snap at the person who bumps into you on the stairs because all those fleeting emotions that you've been repressing bubble to the surface. Every dark thought you've had about being here, all the fears of never getting home, of being surrounded by ticking time bombs, the anxiety of wondering who you might hurt or what relationships you might betray by doing what you have to do. The anger. Oh, the anger.
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
Maybe you shut yourself in your room or run into the woods to hide away, but there's only so much you can do to deny the itch that grows into hunger like a spark catching and growing to wildfire. Someone comes to check on you. That knock on the door or crunch of leaves in the wood that fills you with dread at what you might do and hope that you will be sated.
As claws and fangs and scales and spines and fur grow and your body transforms with a sickening crunch of bones and peeling of skin, so do your appetites. If you won't sate them, you'll lose yourself to your beastly impulses sooner or later, mauling friends and taking your fill. Is it better or worse if only your claws get inside of them?
no subject
No, he can see the creature for what it is. He can see this is no dumb animal, which would have likely snapped and tore at the cloak, rather than observed it in turn with suspicion. This is a worg. He can't make out identifying features through the mist, that is, not until he sees the mismatched eyes.
He couldn't ever forget those.
What should cause him to cower, should cause him to curl up as small as possible and hope to never be founds, instead fills him with a bitter indignation. Ankari doesn't think, his bloom flows back through his veins like a spike of adrenaline and he stands carefully, speaking in his darker tone,
"You. H-h, how... No- When did you get here?" Ankari demands to know, something rattling him deeper than terror, the realization of a broken vow. He'd promised to only be this worg's once, a promise long discarded as it was made so suddenly irrelevant arriving here. Now, it hurts, it tears at Ankari from within because it is just against his very nature to say truth and turn it to a lie. That aching clouds his judgement now, makes him see red, makes him so reckless as to put himself in front of this wolf and stand so foolishly to interrogate him.
no subject
It is all too much - over the course of the past few days, he'd quashed the initial jolt of shock and confusion from his abrupt arrival, the piecemeal explanations he'd received and the sheer cruel senselessness of it all, shoved them all into the back of his mind. Anger and anxiety would not serve him; the only thing that had mattered was survival. Knowledge.
Only now does the seal upon that black mass of fear-worry-fury crack, revealing the thrashing, panicking animal beneath. His mind is a jumble of thoughts, circling like a flock of vultures, spiraling down and down into the dark. What does it mean that he is here? Him, of all people? What does he mean by how or when? Had they not only just parted ways not three days ago?
"You." A single word spoken in a deep, guttural snarl. No pretty, pleasing elf-prince this, garbed in royal silks and speaking honeyed half-truths, making pretty promises.
The scattered, roiling maelstrom of his mind latches onto a thought. Is this.... Elven magic? Devious elf magic, Aaravis had claimed, surely the only way the elven prince had been able to enchant himself a worg groom. Khoriya had tasted of Ankari's power, yes, had thought himself immune to those charms, acting out of spite and duty alone. But perhaps...
"Was this your doing?" Had Ankari done this on purpose, pulled Khoriya away from his soldiers, his kingdom and his duties, left them abandoned to the council's so-called leadership, his uncle's cruel and capricious whims? Ears flattened back and black lip curled in a snarl, he is already lunging forward, rapidly gaining speed with every intent of tackling the elven prince to the ground - nothing could stop him from wresting these answers from his betrothed.
no subject
"Heel!" the word quiets seemingly all of the forest around them, every insect and skittering creature set to terrified stillness by it. All there is that primal thud-thud-thud of terror, that distant echo, the heartbeat of a goddess that he calls himself blessed by. Maybe Khoriya won't be stayed, maybe even with all Ankari's better understood and wielded power, the worg prince will simply tear his throat out. Might beating out cleverness, yet again.
no subject
Massive paws scrabble against the dirt; he can feel the foul magic tugging at his senses, commanding his body, but Khoriya still bowls Ankari over and comes to a skidding stop right atop him, trapping the elven prince beneath his furred belly, slim body caged between his legs.
"So you think me some dog to break to your leash." Slavering jaws snap bare inches away from Ankari's face, and Khoriya's voice is incandescent with rage. "Ha! I should have known."
no subject
His tongue burns, his mark searing. A snake hisses in his mind: Bite your lip, Ankari, spill blood and spit it into his face.
"I would have submitted to you," Ankari gasps out, bitter and truthful as ever, "but I got sent here..! I had no say in that! Nor in y-you following after-"
Seal his mouth shut forever, let him cough and choke on his own bile..! It goes on and Ankari wants to obey it. He wants to indulge that more wicked part of him, that desire to finally lash our and strike at those who make him feel powerless with venom. Yet, Ankari matches an eye to Khoriya and sees.... he see wild fear, fear Ankari cast into him without care, and his heart is indeed too weak for for violence.
Unwilling to indulge that urge, his face calcifies at his bad eye, slowly turning ivory white and smoothing over. A half of a half mask forms; just the one eye up to his temple and antler, during to brittle porcelain. He doesn't notice it himself, can't see it happening, only feel the cold chill of the first part of his own monstrous transformation creeping into place.
cw: threats of enslavement
But Khoriya, the mind behind the beast, wants answers above all else. Corpses yield no answers and so - he does not bloody his teeth, does not close sharp-fanged jaws over that bared throat or rend the frail body beneath him into tatters. Unwilling to direct his strength toward violence, his claws dig into the dirt and that vicious instinct turns toward threat and cruelty instead.
"I should have razed Stilmyst to its foundations and turned your lot into slaves and cattle, fit for only the pot and the pen. I should have left you to the council, let them make you their plaything and whore. And I will rip that worthless tongue of yours right out of your head, should you try your disgusting magic upon me again. "
Honeyed fragrance thickens upon the air, cloyingly sweet, sticky against teeth and tongue, and Khoriya stares down uncomprehendingly as green skin gives way to white porcelain, slavering jaws already bared to snap if Ankari attempts to command him a second time.
"What kind of fool do you take me for, to think that you had nothing to do with this?"
no subject
The bloom fails him with a shattered sigh, color draining from his features and ears sagging low and pathetic at the sides of his head. His expression remains furious, at least in the parts that remain expressive. Khoriya is close enough to note the subtle dotes upon his lips are actually scars, lined up remains of stitches, very much not upon the pretty prince consort he left behind in Stilmyst, wed and bed to him. It lends weight to Ankari's quiet response even more-so than his natural, gut rending honesty usually does.
"I h-h, have been here.... for months," he hisses out, stubborn and angry and heart broken tears rolling from his still good eye. The other is just stone.
"I would spare this place your cruelty, prince of Theros. I would not invite you here to rend and tear the little I've found worth living for..!"
no subject
Months.
Internally, Khoriya trembles, caught upon the cusp of some great and terrible truth he cannot bear to acknowledge as he stares down upon Ankari's handsome face, watches it drain of color and fall into gaunt, sunken lines. His ears quiver, pupils shrunk to pinpricks and jaw working as his throat fills with snarling denial, vicious rejection. He wants to spit venom. He wants to savage the withered, fragile creature beneath him. He wants to turn tail and hide like a pup in the dark.
You think to deceive me with your pathetic weakness and lying tongue? he almost demands, but even in the grasp of bestial rage he has not been rendered blind nor senseless. The elven prince beneath him smells nothing of the perfumed palace Khoriya had only just left him in, no lingering tinge of fine food, silk, and luxuries. Of spilled blood and damp stone. The scarred face that glowers up at him is not the same as the pristine elven prince that had fluttered insincere smiles and honeyed promises in his direction.
And this truth, at least, he believes. That given any semblance of choice, Ankari would want Khoriya nowhere near him.
"Months, and you have not found a way to return. How can that be possible?"
The assumption being that of course Ankari should want to return to his home, his castle, his people. Just like Khoriya does.
no subject
"W-w, why would I ever want to return there?" he bites back with cruel bitterness, "What is left-? A fractured people I failed to protect, who would scorn me for abandoning them in their moment of need-? Their least loved prince... arranging a marriage only to disappear before the feast. No better than the other royals of my line... all dead in the mud." Where he expects Khoriya will leave him, too, the moment he's had his curiosity sated.
Ankari feels such devastation and mourning for Stilmyst. He hid that with others as best he could. Pushed the past to be out of sight and out of mind, only looking forward and charging ahead to this new life. It only works so well, the guilt haunting him at any memory of home. He was the last person who could have stood between Stilmyst and destruction, yet he ended up here before he could wed the wolf prince towering over him. A coward not even by his own choice, but dictated so by cruel fate.
no subject
Khoriya remembers clearly - it had been only a few days ago. The taking of the capitol, the storming of the castle, blood in his teeth and the sceptor wrested from the bony hand of the elven king, now held in his claws. The elegant, poised figure that had stood before the throne, waiting for them. For him.
If Ankari had disappeared prior, would he not have realized? Would the elves of the castle not have fled, as soon as they realized that their prince was not there to offer himself up as tribute. All had been going according to plan, as he'd thought... right up until he'd awoken here, naked in the woods.
The jagged shards of knowledge he had gathered in his short time here do not fit together and form no greater whole. No matter. Khoriya is a tactician at heart. There is more to learn, before he makes his move. He cannot give in to despair. He will not allow himself to think that there is no going back - back to his soldiers, to his command, his duty and his purpose, to Mother...
"So you abandoned them, first by fate and then by choice." His growled voice is thick with contempt. Where is the elven prince whose daring offer he had accepted despite himself? Where had that boldness gone, that resolve to protect his people? All flash and façade, it seems, and Ankari himself nothing but a lovely face with little of substance behind it... and now, stripped even of that. With a deep scoff, Khoriya draws back and away, black lip curled in disgust. No, he would not kill the withered, pitiful scrap of elf before him. It would serve no more purpose than treading upon an ant.
"Worthless indeed. They are better off without you."
no subject
"Fuck you... and all of Theros' slavering hounds. I did everything to protect my people. Would have given you everything I had to give! My body, my meager pride, the rest of my miserable life bound to you..." he's sure of that, he's sure he could speak it in truth if it wouldn't get his head bitten off,
"I've had no choice to return. Don't call me coward for accepting a fluke chance at freedom. At least here I can be my own man," he spits blood aside that had run down his face and into his mouth, "you may have found me, but now you're stuck here, too."
no subject
"Even now, you think you had a choice? Your body, your pride, your life... all those things and more, Theros would have claimed as its rightful due."
He gives a shake of his head before drawing back, the transformation from wolf to worg seamless and smooth as Khoriya rises up to his two feet to loom over the fallen elf. In those mismatched eyes is a cold and glittering contempt, the gaze of a beast with a heart of stone.
"Did you think I wanted to bind myself to some elf weakling? To forfeit my command so I could play butcher to Stilmyst's carcass? But I know my duty. I still do."
And he would not allow himself to think of this - to be cast into some otherworld, stripped of everything he had ever known - as freedom.
cw: suicidal ideation
As for Khoriya, he saw right through him.
"You made your choice, just the same. I witnessed the pain in your eyes, having your command taken from you. I felt your impotent fury, the spite that fueled your acceptance," Ankari mutters, remembering well Khoriya's outburst and the surprise and indignation of the council that he would accept Ankari's proposal, "you were leashed and broken by your very own, long before our engagement,"
no subject
What did his pain matter? The rage he had felt, powerless against his uncle's edict. Khoriya is but a blade in the hands of the King, his Claw, and what weapon dares resist the will of its wielder?
What worthless weapon feels bitterness or regret at the destruction it has wrought?
"Such is the nature of service. I am sworn to my King and to Theros. And I do not forget my vows so easily." Bitten off in hard, curt words before Khoriya turns away, determined not to show how the elf's poisonous words had pierced him through. Ankari is no threat to him now, and... whatever he might believe about Khoriya's cruelty, he is not so eager to spill blood without cause in this strange place.
no subject
"Neither do your vows, nor any mine... w-w, we start here fresh," another spit of blood, a cough, trying to leverage his cane into the wet ground to lift himself to his feet. He can only really get to a knee for now...
no subject
"Believe what you will of your vows." Khoriya would dwell on it later, piece together what it means, that Ankari has managed to carve some semblance of a life here in the months(???) he had spent displaced, all while Khoriya had lived on in ignorance.
"But I suppose this much is true. In this wretched place, you and I have nothing, no ties to bind us." The flat stare he levels down upon Ankari - pathetically wobbly as he attempts to stumble to his feet - is utterly merciless, without pity or kindness.
no subject
"That's right," Ankari agrees, finding accord with the wolf on that one thing. Proclaiming himself enemy to the worg here and now is only foolish. While he should not make this offer, should simply warn all he comes across of the newest beast in their midst, there is selfishness in Ankari. His new life... he has been maintaining it by keeping certain facts of himself only known to select company. Having Khoriya loose lipped over matters of home would not do.
"We are of no royal provenance here. Call me not prince and I'll call you not conqueror. Such arrogant titles could draw the ire of the Duchess here... which I assure you is not worth the hassle."
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"This Duchess of theirs means nothing to me." And so he could not give two figs about drawing her ire, whatever that means. Though Khoriya is in no hurry to lay claim to his royal title, and has no desire to re-establish himself as conqueror in some foreign backwater. In this they are in agreement, and that should settle whatever... acknowledgement... they are owed one another. Though his brow furrows as Khoriya glances back to say as much.
"Your eye..." What happened to it? he does not ask. It is neither concern nor curiosity that drives the comment, only that the strange patch of white flesh had manifested before his very gaze, and Khoriya had never seen or heard of such an elven ability before.
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His hand reaches to his own eye at the mention. He looks briefly surprised, tracing the edge of the porcelain where blood and honey clung. What is this-? He taps it to his tongue and immediately recoils from the shock of sweetness, spitting it aside again. The tinny taste of blood didn't bother him, but why sappy sugar-? His nail moves to where his eye should be and tap on the forever stuck open pupil, clicking off of it like a porcelain shell.
"T-th, th.... monster," he says with distant sadness, realizing he's transformed in some part, "in this place, if you cannot indulge in your lusts for sex and violence... you transform into a monster." Then, just to be cruel, he adds...
"How luck you are to already be one."
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"Indeed, so I have nothing to fear from this supposed transformation."
And so he sees no reason to 'indulge' as several townspeople and foreign denizens have advised him to. Khoriya cannot imagine how strange magic might twist him into something worse than the ravenous, blood-soaked beast of slaughter that he already is. Though the strange white mask that Ankari describes as his own monster does give him some pause... and just as quickly, Khoriya sweeps the thought from his mind. What does it matter, when he fully expects this to be the first and last time he converses with Ankari?
"We are done then, and I wash my hands of you." Said over his shoulder, as Khoriya turns to stalk away.
Jumping ahead to "Rabid wolf" cw: stalking, nsfw
Spending his evening completely focused on this isn't cultivating a fixation. Surely not. He's just being mindful. With denial on the brain, he sees Khoriya sniff and eat a few stray pieces of the spiked food. Oh. Oh no-
When the wolf is clearly starting to feel it, Ankari breaks away and follows after him. Khoriya ran off somewhere- was he chasing some poor fool he isolated and was going to jump out and attack?
Ankari turns down an isolated street and doesn't realize he's the poor fool chasing the hungry wolf.
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This does not feel like the usual lustful stirrings of worg rut, a cycle Khoriya is reluctantly all too accustomed to. The black depths of his hunger, the ache in the back of his teeth - it is closer to the oncoming storm of his berserker's rage, the animal lashing out in anticipation of pain. In the back of his mind, he wonders if he'd been poisoned somehow, if some human with a hidden grudge had slipped wolfsbane into one of the morsels Khoriya had sampled. Serves him right for accepting food from a complete stranger, for letting his guard down for the first time in however many years.
Except... the twisting in his guts is not one of pain, not exactly. His breath comes in ragged pants, and the faint chill of the air, usually unnoticeable to a creature of thick fur and hot blood, prickles at the sensitive parts of him - his nose and the tips of his ears, his nipples, his groin, sparking sharp jolts of sensation that are somehow too much yet not enough. Absently, he realizes that he is half hard, naked beneath the long cloak that still only reaches his knees.
Too late, Khoriya's ears catch the faint scrape of shod foot against stone. The hungry animal is already moving, whirling to launch itself at fresh meat.
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His cane clatters to the cobblestones below and he grasps with both hands upon Khoriya's mighty forearms pinning him at each side. There's no hope to budge him with strength or leverage. Ankari speaks in his lighter voice despite a want for his more real tone of voice to escape. He's sure the worg is more familiar with the flashy, princely way about him... even if all he really sounds is scared.
"K-k, Khoriya," he tries to be stern, but he's small in the face of a hungry worg. Still, he's no meal for a worg, smelling not of tantalizing, fresh meat but instead sharp, snapped sap and bitter moss.
"It's me," the tone says you don't want me, that's ridiculous, hoping against hope that it's true, that Khoriya will simply be repelled by him by merit of being.... himself.
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Even half out of his mind with lust, he knows this scent. Remembers it all too well, the memory of that day burnt into his mind. Wet fur, rain dripping from his armor, the shuffle of the councilors behind him as he found himself faced with a lone, elegant figure standing in the throne room. The green fragrance of growing things, honey-sweetened and sharp with fear.
And above all, the bitterness of resignation, tasting of ashes upon his tongue.
The sharp jolt of remembrance is just enough for Khoriya to seize some desperate measure of control back over his own limbs, his tongue. Enough, he hopes, to drive Ankari away while he seeks some measure of isolation.
"Get... away from me."
cw: implications of sa
"You jumped on me..!" Ankari snipes back indignantly, trying to focus up on the matter at hand if Khoriya is at least half in his mind, "That food you ate, it's full of aphrodisiacs so you sate zadza... if you're trying not to hurt anybody, you need to be locked up the rest of the night,"
cw: thoughts feat. cannibalism & dubcon
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cw: threats of cannibalism & sa
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cw: thoughts of sa
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