Bloody Paws [Open]

[Treble Tiderunner]

It was dark, the woods around were shadowy, lit by the light of only the slightest sliver of moon. The otter stumbled into the clearing, lit bright as day, his heart racing, his breathing quick and shallow. He tripped over a body and realized with horror that he recognized it. The blood was everywhere, and he backed away, trying frantically to erase the picture from his mind. He stumbled over something else, this was also someone he recognized, another near and dear to his heart.

He scrambled up and ran, faster and faster, finding bodies strewn in clearings, hanging from trees. There were bodies floating in the streams, and the blood! All the blood everywhere, creeping, flooding. Some instinct and he looked at his paws, they were red with blood. He scrubbed them in the stream but red tendrils in the water found them and turned them brighter. He shuddered with distaste, getting up and running, running, trying to outrun it all...

Skipper sat up with a gasp, his eyes wide, his pulse racing. Looking frantically around the room, he saw he was in Cavern Hole. He scrubbed his face with his paws, then looked at them, almost seeing the blood that hadn't come off. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, staring into the coals of the fire that was the only light.

[[ is getting near to midnight]]

[Maxodis]

Gruesome dreams were not exclusive to the older otter on that moonless night. A similarly grotesque experience visited the mind of a particular creature, though to say they were 'Dreams' would imply that they had slid easily into the realm of his thoughts in the vulnerable state of sleep. In truth, this creature's mind had not found rest for a disturbingly long time. Weeks. Months, perhaps. To be certain, there had been brief lapses when his otherwise indefatigable body had shut down from sheer exhaustion, but these periods never lasted more than a few hours and had yet to be witnessed by any creature other than his companion. As a result, the denizens of the sandstone building that had once housed verminkind were inclined to believe that this creature did not rest. An unnatural and unnerving concept, but simply one of many things unnatural and unnerving about his character. Still, for all the distrust and open fear he tended to inspire, what others knew(or thought they knew, a great many of his secrets he kept firmly away from the only one who could even begin to claim to know him) only scratched the surface of the malignancy that lay beneath, and only that if regarded generously.

Dreams. Visions. Urges. What passed through the weasel's mind was all of this and more. An experience unbidden yet not entirely unwanted, provoking and even inspiring sensations and emotions that indescribably satisfied needs deeper than any carnal desire. Vicarious fulfillment, only outshined by reality. The actions depicted in painfully exquisite detail, every one of his senses aching with familiar pleasure, would strike stark horror into the heart of any creature, perhaps even break the frail lines of sanity in the weak-willed. But thoughts, even thoughts as seductively abhorrent as these, do not need justification within the mind of their creator. A creature defines reality through their own perception, however what a creature perceives to be is unbound. By this, anything is possible.

With such frail and easily manipulated ties to reality, a creature tends to put their full faith in the sanctity of their mind. They know their thoughts, their emotions, their existence. That much is certain, and from that they function. Without that stability, without a solid bedrock of trust in one's own thoughts, there is precious little left for a creature to hold on to and maintain their sanity.

It is unsurprising then to find that Redin Outmir has not slept in such an astoundingly long time. It is less surprising to find that while for the most part stable, when left alone with the chaos of his mind he begins to wax and wane, and that from the quickly deepening suspicion he holds in himself a new form of insanity has found him.

The things he saw within his mind were not unlike the Skipper's at all. Bodies strewn about like leaves after a gale, piled upon each other with careless disregard. He put them there. He has no recollection of doing it, of how he killed them, or why, but he knows he did. He never remembers, because its not him that actually does it. Its whatever is inside him. The thing that is not of him but part of him all the same, born of something that was originally his mind but mutated into something worse... or greater. They bleed, the bodies, crimson gouts of blood, made more stark by the pale flesh and matted tufts of fur around the gaping wounds. There are countless bodies... but far more blood than there should be. It is almost as if the very sky is bleeding, its dark essence swirling around him, mixing with the blood, and seeping towards him. Its horrific yet beautiful. Tranquil but sickening. He desires to indulge in it all but somehow he knows that in doing so he will lose everything of what he is. His perception begins to split, and the images start to shake violently as if vibrating with the sudden tension within his mind. Its wonderful and he must stay, must smell, must feel, must leave while he can, too much, so much taste, so much sensation, its not right its not right he cant get enough but there is still a chance to getawaymustgetawaymustgetout

He 'awoke' as he had since this whole mess began. Not with a start, as if being jarred from a nightmare, but with great, slow, weak effort, as if pulling himself back from the brink of death by sheer force of his will. While it was a practice he had preformed more than once before, it never comforted Redin that coming back to consciousness would feel the same way. He waited several minutes while the thundering of his mind died down the the familiar distant roar, enough that he could begin to actually form coherent thoughts and find out where the hell he was this time.

Glancing around gingerly with eyes that were accustomed to the dark, he found himself leaning heavily against a door. Two beds, a sleeping figure in one, the other a sorry tangle of sheets half on the mattress and half on the floor. He was still in their 'guest room'. He found his paw clenched tightly around the door's handle still, his claws scoring deep marks into its wooden surface. Deep enough for them to split and bleed. Their pain hardly registered in his mind, even as he opened the door, nearly falling through it and out into the hallway.

"Well..." he murmured softly to himself, all but under his breath. "Got out. Now wot th' 'ell 'm I supposed t'do."

Still somewhat delirious from fatigue and disorientated from his abrupt awakening, he stumbled down the hallway, clothed in only his pants and the sling that the healer had put on him. His face-bells jingles softly with each uneasy step as he made his way along, unaware of where he was heading to as he unseeingly took a turn down another hallway and then down a flight of stairs. Slowly sliding back into the depths of his mind, his ears did not hear the otter's sharp gasp, even as he entered Cavern hole, shrouded in darkness due to the candle nearest him having burned out during the night. Like a moth to flame, his footpaws carried him from his linear path towards the fire, where the light exposed his scarred form as he unknowingly neared the Skipper.

[Treble Tiderunner]

Skipper’s eyes glazed as the flickering embers lulled him to sleep. His lids drooped, and his mind grew silent, stopped racing. The old otter settled into the chair, his body relaxing muscle by muscle.

Jingle. Skipp’s eyes snapped open, but he remained otherwise motionless as the weasel moved into sight, standing in front of the dimming fire. The Skipper took the opportunity to once again evaluate the possible threat he posed to his creatures and crew. Skipper had long lost the compunctions of youth, the reluctance for killing beasts in cold blood. For although he was a tolerant otter, he knew an unstable beast like the one in front of him, blocking the slight light, would be the first one he’d look to when anything happened to the Abbey. Particularly while Redin resided within the walls. And he would not hesitate to kill.

You’re jumping to conclusions again. Said a voice in his mind. And he’s bigger and younger, stronger. You would die.

Treble Tiderunner wavered at that thought. Skipper of Otters took it as an acceptable risk. He sat more upright in his chair and cleared his throat.

[Maxodis]

The weasel stood, swaying unsteadily on his footpaws, only a few feet from the dying hearth. While now merely a shade of its former ferocity, the flames dancing around the ashen logs within its grasp were still painfully bright in the otherwise obscure darkness, yet Redin stared deep into them. His eyes were open wide and unblinking, and fully dilated despite the light. Dark streaks ran through his fur from them, looking so much like blood in his crimson fur.

Like his balance, the state of his mind was waning. His awareness continuously slid from the stark memories of the images that he saw to the strangely more surreal reality of being awake. To his suffering mind they began to fuse themselves together into one unquestionable existence. The "Other" pushed at the boundaries of his mind in a fashion that was not only metaphoric: Redin could almost feel the pressure inside of his skull. It would not escape tonight, however. It would not be free.

He'd already been taken by another sort of ethereal insanity.

When the Skipper cleared his throat, the sound took ages to register in Redin's chaotic mind. The noise reached him instantly, and echoed around his consciousness, some part of his sane mind distantly insisting that it held some sort of significance. His reaction was far delayed and unceremonious at best. He reached out with his un-slinged paw, closing it around the handle of the black iron fire-poker beside the hearth(Somehow he had know it was there, and exactly where to grab it, but then again he'd always known there was someone behind him, and that it was an otter, hadn't he? Or was that an illusion of truth too?) and whirling to face whatever may or may not be behind him. This was an instinctual reaction, born of long practice and survival during times when the weasel was able to, at the very least, think straight. It is then unsurprising to see that in his current state the maneuver ended differently than anticipated, with the world tilting sickeningly to the side as he lost his balance and fell against the side of the hearth, slamming his good shoulder against the sandstone brick, driving a grunt of pain and fear from him. His eyes darted back and forth, passing over the otter sightlessly as he mouthed an expletive, unaware that his words would be silent without the air that had been driven from him.

[Treble Tiderunner]

The weasel swayed on his feet as he stood in front of the fire, and Skipper recognized that the creature was unstable. Of course the creature was unstable. He seemed to be a psychopathic killer, yet he had come to reside in these walls over concern for his friend. Skipper knew Sleet was an assassin, it was a great stretch of deliberate obtuseness to insist that he hadn’t known from the start -- or close enough to not matter. Yet he liked her well enough.

Well, the old otter could not pretend to be better than either of them at the base of things. He had been killing for the greater deal of his life, and made decisions, good or bad, that resulted in deaths, many of then gruesome. But there was a sort of vibe, a sixth sense that told him he would regret having Redin here, be it sooner or later. Skipper massaged an old ache in his paw as he waited for the weasel to react.

He just wanted the old mouse warrior to hurry up and choose an abbot already.

Finally the other reacted, reaching for the fire-poker and whirling around. Skipper shifted in his seat, but before he could stand Redin had fallen against the hearth, looking rather frantic and confused. Skipper sighed and leaned forward instead.

“Well, an’ ye aren’t exactly who I was expecting.”

[Maxodis]

“Well, an’ ye aren’t exactly who I was expecting.”

The seemingly disembodied voice did nothing to soothe the weasel's distress. Redin had never been one for fear: He'd been thrown recklessly into the face of danger(Willing or not) for about as long as his memory extended back in his chaotic life. In better conditions, any sign of danger would quickly be met with well-founded confidence, arrogance, and more often than not, vicious enthusiasm. More creatures ended up getting into more than they bargained for when provoking the violent, battle-worn creature. But these were hardly normal circumstances. For one he still had not reclaimed his lost breath, and was only just then becoming aware of its absence. Along with that came the knowledge that his slamming against the hearth and his uncharacteristic lack of stalwart mental constitution was making it impossible for him to draw breath past the brief shock his body was experiencing. He heard the otter's voice clearly, and it had registered in his mind quickly enough, but his oddly dilated eyes still viewed the word as a collection of dark blurred shadows, defined and yet hidden by a menacing red glow. His world looked no different from the nightmare environment that had plagued him not so long before.

So fear, an enemy that Redin had long since conquered and left to his instinct to deal with, reared its ugly head once more. Having no trust in even the most base of his instincts, or anything else for that matter, he quickly discovered that he had long since forgotten how to deal with this unseen enemy. Some sane part of his consciousness raged behind the maelstrom of his mind, starkly livid at his showing of weakness, not to mention his inability to get a grip on himself for even a few precious moments. These sentiments were brief before they were lost among the chaos of all the others.

He felt air finally filling his lungs, and pushing off of the mantle with his shoulder he regained his footing, if not unsteadily. "Shit..." he hissed, his wide, tear-soaked eyes shutting tightly for a few brief moments in wayward hope that the action would help rectify his vision. It didn't, and he stood swaying lightly on his feet, the uneasy flow of his balance belying the tension clearly evident in his muscles. Were it not so visually apparent that his motor skills were in desolate order, he would have the appearance of a creature ready to bolt. "....Shit," he cursed again, glancing around, his eyes passing over the otter once more. In the effort made to regain his breath, his focus on the creature behind him had faded, and he had since forgotten of the Skipper's existence. His voice, however, still burned in his mind. "Now th' damn blood's talkin' t'me..."