[color=gray][CENTER][img]https://i.imgur.com/HOCghre.jpeg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=978184][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]Ünterland.[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=#978184][b]Human #5.065:[/b][/COLOR] [I]in deliverance.[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][center][sup][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#928b85]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#9b948d]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#928b85]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][/sup][/center][INDENT][sub][color=#978184][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR]&[/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=#978184][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [color=gray][I]never there.[/I][/color][/right][/SUP]
[indent][INDENT][i]She was dreaming again. Or was this truth, a premonition, a retelling, or a taunting perspective to perceive such circumstances from the outside looking in? She was a spectator to her own misconstrued reality and was helpless to wake, forced then to endure the prophecy.

It's all carefully defined and sharpened, the clarity flawless and simultaneously damning as Amma experiences the dance anew, scarlet drapery accentuated in gold, blood ran through in rivulets on patterned floors of black and white, ichor glimmering in its splendor liken to cruel paint. Decorative resplendence of death and a smattering of corpses thrown askew and bedeviled in crimson convergences of her wrath, it’s all frozen in time, facades now agape in eternal screams and nevermore. In this, the gargoyle lays slain, and it is she that has risen above it, a crown of silver bone impaled over her brow, a queen of the ashes heralded and risen on wings of leathery malice that churn lazily through the fires of a forged netherworld. She is as she was made to be: rage, pain, death, destruction. A weapon. Less than human. Chaos sown betwixt heart, body, and soul– a void of omnipotence, the final answer to all things unknown, the foundations of all lain in her blood.

	[color=000000][b]The key is in your blood.[/b][/color]

Tiamat, perhaps, or the other that rises as the harbinger of this immediate ruin and despair. A name that lists through on gargled whispers and pleading cries of those fallen under her might. A name that was given through the convergence of amber-yellow and crimson sparks of passion and heated desires, burdened by shared pain and sorrows, amplified tendrils of fear that wove even still through her malformed gestures as she stepped over the stone beast that now lay at her feet in pieces. In the sphere of dread, she is Made and sullen, eyes of blue forlorn and decrepit with smudged tears of black and gold, and in her manacled grip lies a pale throat torn asunder by wicked fingers stained rusted-dark. Her bones crack, fingers splayed, torrents of carmine bidden through the crumbling barriers of this world suspended on her emotional throes as she completes her mission (one of many, but it was this one that had begun her descent) and postures under the moonlight with a terrifying wail of anguish plied from her bloodied lips. 


	[i]Ummu-Hubur.
	Mother of monsters.[/i]

None of it matters anyhow, for everyone is dead.

Rory’s inadequacies, Haven's cries, Harper's pleading voice, and her sister’s lament. Banjo's inability to act. Lorcán and Aurora were gone, simply vanished, never there. Katja, too, is missing, perhaps locked and lost in a prison of ice. 

Even the lullaby one had pulled from the depths of her mind. All for naught and hummed prettily from her quivering mouth, ribbons of flesh webbed betwixt her teeth. 

And there… Gil’s body.
His death. His murder. 

His blood warm and wet and heavy on her hands, arms, pores sopped and engorged with the death of his wavering strength and defiance in the face of the reaper to bring her home. Dare she weep over his mangled form when it was she who brought this hell upon them? As she cradled a severed limb, a hand that once sought her own in the dark, a simplistic gesture that had invaded deep to the rungs of her heart and plucked at the sorrow she bore.

A quiet, pained voice whispers through the mayhem, her true name a pleading token as she lay there mangled and wingless, feathers clumped and drowned in reds, stuck to her beautiful face plump with youth and drawn in immense pain. Sickening displays of bone and sinew and twitching muscle, tears of anguish melded into the bronze and golds Amma had drawn onto Haven’s eyes earlier that evening as she reached for her, called to her. She left Gil’s broken body to answer her, poised over to gaze unto those eyes of green and melded browns, glistening and brightened by her miseries, her anguish so profoundly felt as Amma kneels, skin stained and wet, crackling energy formed into her palm and she reaches for her and stops as Haven asks:

	[color=#d2b48c]What name did you choose? [/color]

She opens her mouth to speak.

	[color=#fe650d]What have you done? [/color]

The prince now stands aloft over ice and blood, arrived too late, the floundering hero with his princess at his side, horror-stricken over her mouth and features, twisted with sadness; heated vengeance alighted in the eyes of the prophetic heir bathed in righteous flame at the carnage witnessed and the beast left to languish over it. Amma trills and laughs, a chittering call heaved from a shattered cavity that plunges with a growling timbre, a beast steadfast in the eyes of a would-be savior, rage and hate quickly replacing kindness and acceptance, a once-seen beauty exchanged for the ugliness of what was rooted in her body. Poised over Haven’s battered self, her beautiful wings torn ruthlessly from her back, tawny feathers decorating Amma’s lap as she cradles in her scarred hand a twisting, pulsating wreath of scarlet power that snaps and drags over her arms, coils descending to meld over Haven’s chest that rises and falls unsteadily.

	[color=#d2b48c]Ammaranthe[/color], she begs, and it falls upon deaf ears.

Lorcán shouts the name that is not her name, descending to appeal to her wavering humanity, hands stilled and trembling as the field of ice begins to melt, the air sweltering with his churning powers that rise, prepared to meet her ascending plumes of red that boil and froth, they lance through the air ripe with death and meet as tangible waves of vermillion and darkened scarlet, near black now, melding as one as they had before. He pushes against her might, and plasma blooms and churns through his hands as blades poised to strike, but they tremble as he calls to her humanity and roars once more.

	[color=#fe650d]Why?[/color]

She laughs, she cries, body and bones trembling with the loss of her heart. Unable to stop it.
	[color=#978184]For the role I have to play.[/color]

And then she plunges her blackened fingers into Haven’s chest with the droning manifest of her power drowning out their screams.[/i]

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Her eyes suddenly flash open and flicker with a sheen of tears, but Amma refused to allow them to fall as her body begins to tremble, the lingering visions of her nightmare weighed so heavily in her chest that she cannot breathe around the finality of what could have happened.

Could it have been done so? Had she not been dragged here or taken, would she have lost the war against herself and been reborn as what she feared most? 

Beneath her cheek, she feels the bristled fur of an animal with her fingers purchased through the rough pelt of a blackened hide; she smells smoke tinged with something else, an herb perhaps, that billows in her direction as she slowly becomes aware of her surroundings and lifts glassy eyes from her clenched fingers and beholds the roaring flame of a hearth. She rears back almost instantly, the flickering light too familiar, and too soon, she feels worn rock and stone beneath her. She kicks aside the mass of pelts thrown over her and drags herself back on the heels of her palms. Old training and habit have her immediately surveying the space, a small structure of smoothed stone, quaint and ancient, with an entire wall gouged and blackened by flame, creating a warmth that beads sweat on her brow. Amma glances down, her legs askew and bare and tangled in various furs of black and brown, but what she notices then distracts her entirely from her surroundings. She immediately sits up and studies the dressing knotted carefully over her thigh, gone were the makeshift wrappings of her tattered dress to conceal the wound, even her hands and bloodied feet were bare, though still smudged in black muck and dried remains. Pieces flake away from her skin as she twists her body, studying the curious patches of fabric wrapped and fixed to her injuries, her ballroom gown presumably discarded, leaving her nude.

But where was the flower?

Amma’s eyes round out, widened as she struggles to stand and fails, her body weakened and slight as she searches, had they taken it too? Thrown it away? Perhaps into the fire, unaware of its importance? She doesn’t understand the haste in her movements as she searches every inch of her body, even peers through the blanket of pelts tangled around her until a spark of red in the shadows of the fire draws her attention. There’s a small shelf set aside next to various clay pots that she inspects and finds warmed water inside each of them, but what she reaches for on quivering hands and knees is the replicated flower that remains, a soft, hazy shimmer surrounding it with the faintest touches of amber and red melded through every delicate petal. A faint energy pulsated around it, a quieted hum as if hastily beating wings to answer her caressing fingers as she touched it and felt the subtle vibrations. Amma cradles it to her chest, a soft flutter along the ridge of her scar.

	[color=ffffff]“You’re awake.”[/color]

She slants her glare over her shoulder; her back turned to an assumed door as he stands there, with tanned skin, and golden eyes, dark brown hair turned umber in the glow of the fire. 

	[color=#978184]“Where am I?”[/color]

He ignored her question with a flickering pass over her figure, a slow perusal she could feel flitting down her body and scars, lingering over the intense tattoos on her skin. Amma does not hide, for it's not in her nature, but she does her best to conceal her modesty. She reaches for a discarded hide and pulls it over her shoulders; the flower still clutched against her heart. A sigh answers her finally before he steps away from the entrance, a massive basin suddenly carried in, constructed of wood and stone. A woman accompanies it, aged and silent, her impression a curious strength with ebony hair braided over her shoulder and streaked with silver. Blue eyes pause and look at Amma curiously before she turns to the man and says,

	[color=ffffff]“Thank you, Dain.”[/color] 

Dain, now appropriately named, merely nods and takes guard against the wall, arms crossed, and the intensity of his eyes flashes yellow as he continues to stare Amma down. She meets such a gaze with her own, brow furrowed and plummeted low over her eyes. Before she can even challenge him, the woman approaches Amma carefully and studies her intently. Familiarity is found there, along with hesitation, before she reaches past and takes hold of one of the clay pots, the basin brought close to the fire now. She notices the others that carry it, eyes of gold and yellow and blue before they depart on a softened growl from Dain still leaned against the wall, his eyes still refuse to leave her and Amma scoffs with the brazen action. 

	[color=ffffff]“I apologize for him. He’s wary of you. We all are.”[/color] The woman confesses and dumps the water from the pot into what she recognizes now as a bath, an archaic method, but steam coils, and Amma cannot deny its temptation. She is accustomed to distrust and says nothing to convince them otherwise, whether in this realm or another; she is eternally destined to be suspected. The remaining pots are dumped into the basin, and a cloying perfume wafted by curious hands adorned in sapphires. [color=ffffff]“Bathe, cleanse. Then we can resume healing your wounds.”[/color]

	[color=#978184]“Who are you?”[/color] Amma says instead, pulling the furs tighter around her shoulders. [color=#978184]“And where am I?”[/color]

	[color=ffffff]“I’m Kylmie. You’re with my coven in the blackwood.”[/color]

	[color=#978184]“I told him I’m not a witch,” [/color]she snaps with gritted teeth; Dain merely growls in response with a roll of his eyes that Amma makes a face at.

	[color=ffffff]“Not entirely, but you are… something. Someone”[/color] The latter is muttered almost as an afterthought, Kylmie’s eyes unable to meet her peering gaze. She was avoiding her. Why?

	[color=ffffff]“What is your name?”[/color] Dain speaks up, glaring at her through the bath’s steam. It is her turn to look away, the inquiry finding its mark, too close in phrase, reminding her of the winged girl who asked similar things. Just as she could not answer in her nightmares, Amma could not find the truth here either: too many names, too many faces, too much to sift through in hazed-out images and epitaphs scored against the obsidian walls of her heart. She merely breathes, and the silence stretches thin in the crackling of flames before she drops the pelt from her shoulders and sets the flower carefully on the shelf where she had found it, her back given to them.

Dain immediately looks away, and Kylmie holds out her hands, palms up, to guide her into the waters, which Amma ignores. She submerges herself into the scented bath graciously. She was glad for the lack of a mirror in this instance as the taint of (what did he call it, Limbo?) began to fall away from her in rolling clouds of black. As a creature of vanity, it was instinctual to graze her scarred palms over her body, ridding her skin of dried blood and filth; her mass of hair was a different challenge as she worked through the knots with her fingers. Kylmie stood beside her, silent in a queer vigil before she spoke.

	[color=ffffff]“You’ve been asleep for about three days.”[/color] Amma stills, a quiet shock rolling through her. [color=ffffff]“We treated the Wendigo bite. Any longer, and eventually, it would’ve killed you. Dain thankfully found us when he did.”[/color] 

Did she say thank you in this instance?

	[color=ffffff]“You were in Limbo for a while, judging by the healing rate in your other wounds. I’d wager a few weeks, almost some months if I had to guess.”[/color]

	[color=#978184]“What?”[/color]
	[color=ffffff]“Time… is different here. Different there. Any longer and you would’ve aged and died. Fallen away to dust.”[/color]
	[color=#978184]“You’re telling me that I’ve been here for [/color][color=#978184][i]weeks[/i][/color][color=#978184]?” [/color]
	[color=ffffff]“Just a few, yes.”[/color]

Amma laughed at the lunacy of it all; so much time had passed that it hardly made any sense. What of (dare she think it) home? What happened after the attack? Gil was dead- her breath caught, hitched, and she shuddered in her grief and sank deep into the waters. Did the rest of Blackjack perish, too? Was her nightmare [i]really just[/i] a nightmare? Her hands begin their trembling as she completely submerges herself in the bath, her hair wreathed around her figure in a cloud of midnight black, it did seem longer now…

With a gasp, she came for air and found Kylmie leaning over her, those blue eyes peering into her own, a smattering glitter of silver in her intense stare that Amma recognized. Who was she really? 

	[color=ffffff]“I know you must be exhausted. But… I have to ask. Does the name Cahors mean anything to you?”[/color] She could deny to answer, she could deny the truth of it all entirely, she owed nothing to this woman, but there was no ignoring the immediate [i]knowing[/i] that wavered betwixt them, a clarification of self that Amma felt in the utterance of her last name.

	[color=#978184]“Yes.”[/color]

Kylmie lurches back, her pale hand rising to her throat where a sapphire jewel glimmers, capturing the flame in the hearth that swells and roars.

	[color=ffffff]“You’re her daughter. I see her in you.”[/color]
	Amma did not answer or confirm; she dared this woman to say her name, her hands clutched against the basin’s rim and her nails digging into the wood and stone. Dared her to claim what she felt was true in their shared eyes of blue. 

	[color=ffffff]“And that makes you my granddaughter.”[/color]
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