Pallor Cordis

[Maí Lé Rosà]

{ooc}: Dear reader. You may join this thread only if you make a decent effort in posting. This thread is not a joke, and I don't want one paragraph posts, thank you. xx

{bic}:

Fading heart...

Open your eyes to a world full of magic
Breathe in the essence of mortality you possess
Touch raindrops and clouds, feel flight, endure pain
Show Hell you will ne'er come back again
Cry forth existence and swallow a mere death
Strike a fist through power and glide high once more
Shed your tainted melody and pull hard on their strings
Break away your plain perfection and now release your wings.

Damned to live all eternity in the hands of a monster
Grief-stricken in tendrils of burning flames
Leaking with acidic grace from the very arch of her soul
Black caresses her veins, hereafter choking coal...

Grazed elegance cut across the knee
Slashed throat pouring ecstasy
Clawed spine, impeccable time
Bleeding out reasons to unleash her mind.

Tip-toeing through forests all clad in gore and lace
Pretty dove princess, think naught of her frightened face
Dearest brother, playing a game of hide and go seek
Terrified, she'll strangle herself, just so she wont weep.

Maí Lé Rosà stands, roped in cold chains
Sick of the rape of an innocent child's games
Shrieking a chilled horror story she heals every wound and cut
Never again will she accept the title of a dirty, f***ing slut.

Screaming out the pain and guilt shredding her throat's layers
Who ever heard of a fallen angel, a demoness with prayers
Ivory serpents slink over her body, making her feel ill
Complete with shaking limbs and emotions, she'll fall and lay so still.

In her shadowed lullaby she sleeps to her own cries,
Alas, my doves you love her not for hold your own tears,

She dies.

The silhouette of pain stumbled through the forest, lacking the will to scale anything in her way. Smoke smoldered in a symbolic way at her fingertips; the evidence of the trees that now buckled under their own weight and fell in piles of black behind her. As she stepped from the shadows and took a moment to sway in moonlight, the slashes adorning her cheeks and arms glowed with hasty elegance, proud against the naturally unbeatable demoness.

Parting her clammy lips to suck in a gasp of air, Mai closed her bleeding eyes and enveloped the forest in a horribly frightening scream. Her wings hung lifelessly at her back, shot through with holes, and leaking blood everywhere. The feathers were matted together with sweat and blood, making two sheets of gorgeous injustice.

As her scream thickened, she collapsed in a clearing of silver moonlight, her bare feet were nailed through the insides with stab wounds, as were her once beautiful legs, now trailing rivers of blood to pool at the tips of her toes. Her dress was torn, revealing her entire stomach, the arch and small of her back, low by the bridge of her right breast, and high to the skirts by her hip.

Acidic anger and repulsion pulsed through her insides, and she curled up on the ground, digging her smoking, claw-like fingers into the dirt and grasping whatever grass or foliage she could as her body convulsed in excruciating pain. Hushing her scream, she let out a moan of unbearable agony, clenching her eyes shut as a wave of violent shivering attacked her form.

Clinging to the ground of the forest as if the world threatened to turn itself upside down, the demoness cried tears of blood and salt, her normally flawless beauty now resembling that of a shot raven having landed midway through a barbed wire fence.

Maí Lé Rosà had never been in such a state.
She was dying.

[Laharl]

The music of the night carried through the forest, transcending its usual and common theme which played every night. The chirping of crickets, the rustling of leaves, and the occasional mauling of prey which wondered too frivolously into wrong territory. Also adding to theat etheral rhythm was the occasional droplets of water that seeped through the canopy after a drenching and reviving storm above. And like one of those droplets, one came down and shook the forest, the school, the entire earth, and the heavens.

It was the sound of anguish. One far more terrible than any felled prey, more disheartening than the weak and brief scream of a babe being robbed of his life in the night.

Spreading through the forest like an unnatural fire, a dauntingly huge flock of crows burst from the leaves and branches of the trees. And sitting at the base of this, an unknown creature. The monster has lurked in the shadows of the deepest crevices of the student's worst nightmares, robbing the form of their fears of its identity with the single swipe of his hand, his eyes the color of dried blood, spilled by thousands of creatures, both human and not.

His meditation broke, the Demon Prince Laharl burst through the foliage with the fleeting birds, his form different somehow, but still accompanied by the absurdly long mop of indigo hair that blended with the night sky.

Indeed, the shadows clung perfectly to the demon. His exact form was almost impossible to interpret, but he was much different again, oh yes, he was. A startling contrast to whence he was last seen in the dueling hall.

As his shadow encroached on the figure of his ragged sister, Laharl's gliding feet pivoted to a stop, three feet in front of her. There, his shadow loomed tall and menacingly over her, connected to the feet of a demon prince......a mere three feet tall.

Laharl's mop top of hair was easily taller than him as it hung over the ground, and his eyes were like intuitive plates as he leered down at Mai. His purple shirt was the only article of clothing that still stayed on his body. What had happened to Mai? He knew that she had not incurted these injuries in their duel.

"Splitting of the breast...." trailed from his mouth an a single breath, the source of the words unknown, whether they even came from his lips or mind, for that matter.

[Maí Lé Rosà]

Ding, dong...
The toll of the death bell.

Every sound was unbearable. Every slip of movement in her own body, every drop of blood, every usher of breath, every gasp of toxic gases and every dip and turn of her mind. A pellet of water fell from the canopy and landed in a blossoming display on her cheek, kick-starting an enormous flinch.

The inside of her throat bled, red raw. Her own scream having ruptured the gloomy, moist and fleshy insides of an opening which once echoed lovely songs, an enchanted voice, snide threats and cunning words of wisdom and mystery. A hoarse groan now croaked it's way from her larynx and she clenched her teeth together, letting blood seep through their tiny, sharp gaps.

The pounding of feet on dirt munched up the sense of sound in the demoness and she twisted in pain again, still shivering violently. Frowning until her face was numb with both pain and pressure, she felt the layers of sand and soil beneath her fingers thrust themselves up between her flesh and nails. The insertion of the earth at her fingertips made her elbows retract and push backward, stretching her arms out completely.

The toddler-like figure standing beside Mai was thrown into the unconscious of her mind; she didn't notice him at all. Her throat burned with raspy moans, before she swung her head to the side and spewed up blood. Grabbing her gut with one of her hands she cried out again, sounding more sickly than a wounded beast.

Letting the sanguine liquid drizzle down her chin she lodged her nails into the dirt again and pulled herself toward it. Slamming her cheek to the earth she breathed heavily, her bloody eyes still closed tight. Pictures of snake fangs and spider legs danced around her fallen form in her mind; she dared not take a peek.

A voice uttered but four words at the demoness, and she surrendered to the dizziness in her mind and folded her body up into a ball, still clinging to the ground as though it would flip her hellwards any moment. Her toes curled under to sit clenched against her feet, and blood continued to pool around the demoness.

The voice was booming. It raced around her, blackening all visions from her minds and entrusting darkness to take over. She swept herself in and out of consciousness, crying with unlocked passion all the while.

[Nefastus Eurus Caelestise]

Eurus had calmed himself down into a dossile state of mind, lying on his stomach in the coarse gray dirt while examining a strange flower. He had seen the ugly weed before, it's leaves adorned with thorns, the petals a withered black, it's center a light gray. He had nothing better to do with his time, except maybe torment sleeping students in their common rooms - which didn't seem like the best idea at the moment for him.

The scream had hit him like a stone wall crushing him into the earth he lay upon, a wide-eyed look of shock following. He rose to his feet, pulling himself back into the world, his leather duster settling into a smooth position on his shoulders.

Mai...

In a flash Eurus took off on a dead run, his hands ripping at brush in his way, his feet seeming to catch on every root in his path. His breathing became laboured as he hit the ground, his heeled boot snagged a large root as he tried clammering over it.

The cold night air seemed to crack and vibrate as Eurus picked himself up, stumbling once, but hardly noticing at all. His heart raced, a feeling of fear and confusion tightened his chest, threatening to crush him entirely. He saw the demoness curled in a pool of her own blood in agony and froze a few feet away.

What had happened? Eurus collapsed down beside Mai, his jaw hung slack, unable to form a coherent thought. The other demon standing there didn't even register in his mind.

"...M-Mai...?" Mai was a wreck. Eurus couldn't even begin to count the numerous orfices the demoness was bleeding from. He lifted Mai's head, pulling a glove from his free hand off with his teeth, and gently wiped the blood from her face. "Can you hear me? Please, Mai, say something, anything."

[Isaac]

Snikt

Snikt


Isaac lay idly upon a tree branch, one leg stretched out before him, the other dangling beneath him, his booted foot making idle circles in the air as he focused on his newest.... hobby.

In one hand, he held a short, but sharp, carving knife. In the other, he carefully held a piece of bark, roughly a half inch thick, five inches wide, and nearly a foot long. Having remembered Mai once making a beautiful work of art upon such a simple canvas, he had been tempted to try it himself, so he did.

So far he had carved a series of simple, swirling patterns into the face of the wood, possessing no artistic visual perception to make anything more complex. He was just ending one of his long, curling strokes when a scream that seemed to compel his body to curl up in fear resounded about him. His knife slipped off the bark and Isaac stabbed himself in the thigh. With a silent curse of pain, he removed the knife and placed it in its sheath in the small of his back.

Mai...

He recognized that scream now, and with a quick twist of his body, he slipped off the high branch. Batting branches aside expertly with hands and feet, he landed upon the ground with a soft thud! of impact and raced towards where the scream had emanated, even as another scream split the air to give him further bearing.

When he arrived, he pulled up to a halt, just inside the edge of the clearing. In its midst, he saw Mai, in possibly the worst state he could ever imagine the demoness seeing. Crouching over her was Eurus, who Isaac could faintly remember had a romantic interest of sorts in Mai, unless memory betrayed him. slightly further away loomed a being shrouded in shadow.... except his hair was a dead giveaway. Laharl.

"What happened?" He asked softly, approaching the demonic trio.

[Fáylinn]

Loud screams broke the silence, the lycaness shot straight up from the branch she slept on. Her senses were now wide-awake from the agonizing cry. Her lycan hearing would have allowed her to hear it if she was in the castle, but in the forest; at the close range, her ears were left ringing with the intensity.

She slipped down the tree she was upon, to seek out where the scream had came from. She didn’t rush, but walk quietly, wondering what had caused such a cry. Curiosity quickened her steps, until she was jogging towards the commotion.

She found herself facing a clearing with 4 demons. One of them seeming very ill, Faylinn briefly looked her over; assuming this was where the screams had come from. She jumped as another ear splitting scream erupted from the suffering demoness. Faylinn hid herself behind a tree, not sure if she wanted to be discovered, or go closer. She felt bad; she wanted to help… But what could she do? The demoness was clearly suffering through something much worse then Faylinn had ever dealt with, perhaps death?

Mai? Did Faylinn hear correct? She thought her hearing had betrayed her, but no, the demon had unmistakably said Mai. She had to blink for realization to occur, Faylinn had heard about the demoness. But from what she heard she was strong, threatening… But what had happened? Did someone do this to Mai?

Faylinn frowned, trying to figure the situation out. She couldn’t wait until someone answered Isaac’s question; for the lone lycaness had no idea.

A tear or two leaked from her eyes as she watched the scene unfold, it was heartbreaking… None of them could help though, could they? She was dying; blood was everywhere. She bit her lip; waiting… She wasn’t about to step out of hiding yet… Even if they already knew she was there.

[Maí Lé Rosà]

Uh-oh
Uh-oh
Here they come...

Thump thump thump thump
Shallow boots resounding...

Thump thump thump thump
A bloodied heart a’pounding...

Shhhhhhhhh.

The beautifully curved corners of Mai’s sensitive mind plunged through deadly depths of deception and misery, breaking her focus and coordination on anything that surrounded her. Whimpering like a wounded hell hound, the demoness raked her nails through the dirt over and over again, staining the chest of her torn and frayed corsét as it’s whale-bone side dug deeper between her snapped ribs.

Her lashes were glued together: fixed with a cement of blood and tears; sodium and charcoal binded in a melted beauty of material perfection. With an artificial smile she let her hoarse throat puke a giddy laugh; a fearfully out-of-place sound from such a brutally wrecked figure.

Keeping her eyes jammed shut, Mai twisted her top half to face Eurus, retaining a disgustingly odd angle with her legs turned at an impossibly opposite angle to her outstretched hand. Embracing the humor as her fingers trembled toward him, Mai echoed a childish giggle, and smiled a crimson smile. Hello, Death. Came a sudden, unnerving, telepathic voice; Mai’s.

”...M-Mai...?”

The demoness’ fingers froze and her face contorted into perhaps the most tormented expression possible. She felt her insides oxidizing as horror pulsed through each muscle in her wretched face, mangling her features until she fell back against the earth and screamed again, shuddering viciously against the red-hot touch on her face.

The vaporized water leaking from her fingertips as smoke encircled her neck as she brought her trembling fingers to her throat and stabbed them there, securely. A hollow cry of agony burst from her chest as her fingers seared the flesh off her tender breathing apparatus, engulfing her senses in another wave of burning skin and rotten smoke.

Uh-oh
Uh-oh
Here they come again...

Another aura circled Mai’s senses, billowing imaginary flames right through her and out the other side, sending her body into another paroxysm of fear. Little did the suffering demoness know, it was Isaac. Anamnesis of some kind suddenly took over the mind of the demoness and she stopped squirming against everything and sunk back down to listen carefully to the earth, as though it was singing her a lullaby from underneath it’s surface.

Oh, what she would have given to masticate the very point of her spine, paralyze the pain and dance with apostponementt of happiness in a tango of ignorant bliss. Unlatching her nails from her neck, Mai clutched the ground beneath her again and pushed herself away from it, rolling onto her back and crushing her broken wings.

“Ohhhh!” She yelled into the night, wincing at the splintering of her wings and latching back onto the earth either side of her like a leach on warm blood.

Lacerate her soul
Pray, tell her to breathe...

Mai’s body stopped shivering, and she clenched her teeth together until the pressure in her cheekbones showed, deriving from what seemed to be the world, an enormous gasp of air.

[Nefastus Eurus Caelestise]

Eurus held a hand to his mouth and let out a muffled, high-pitched cry of horror. The very scene made him feel like vomiting. He trembled visibly, releasing his mouth slowly. 'Hello, Death.' echoed through his head as he felt his eyes sting. No, this couldn't be happening. It wasn't true.

"Mai, listen to me," Eurus lifted the wounded demoness from the ground, whispering softly. Mai's wings had made a disgusting crunch sound when she rested upon them, one that made his teeth grind. He gently stroked the mass of bones and feathers, working with his magic to slowly make them fade. He was surprised Mai was still alive with such wounds.

Alive for now, but not for long in this condition, Eurus winced. Once her wings had faded, he gently cradled Mai with his arms. "You're going to be alright..." Eurus finally said, his voice cracking and barely audible. He didn't even know if Mai was listening, or if she could even hear him.

Blood soaked his attire, visible even against the black shirt he wore, staining the fabric. Eurus clasped Mai's hands with his only free one, keeping them away from her own body. His eyes fell to the burns left on her neck from her own fingertips, blood gliding down her slender neck. Smoke curled from his bare flesh as Mai's fingertips began to slowly desecrate his hand. A sting silenced by the horrific screaming of everything else inside of him.

"Mai... Don't... hurt yourself..." Eurus choked out, swallowing past the lump in his throat. He couldn't force anymore words out. His eyes closed tightly, trying to block out the painful scene, trying to convince him that it wasn't real.

[†Amelia†]

({*gives a hint* you need to get Mai to survive...otherwise we'll lose her from the site...completely....so come on you guys posting...make her better!

*waits, watching thread hopefully*})

[K~Bear]

The nurse was taking care of patients, tending to their every need, a warm smile on her face not matter how gruff the response. Bright blue eyes twinkled in the bright lights of the Hospital Wing, a golden glow seemed to cling to her creamy skin, the give away to the fact that the nurse was an expectant mother.

As she slid a chart back into its holder at the end of a patients bed, she heard it, an agonising scream, one of sheer pain and anguish. Running to the window she looked out in the direction of the Forest. Black crows flew from the trees like a cloud of smoke, something was wrong, very wrong. Peeling off her white jacket the nurse grabbed a first aid kit and raced out of the Wing.

Students were forced to jump out of the nurses way as she bolted to-wards the doors that would take her out into the grounds. As she shoved the door open, another terrifying scream rang in her ears, quickening her pace Kasey ran to-wards the screams. Her feet pounded hard against the ground, her breath quick and heavy.

Finally reaching the edge of the forest, she pushed her way through the prickle bushes, that scratched her arms and legs leaving a stinging sensation, but she ignored the pain and continued to run. Golden tendrils flew behind her as she ran, her bright blue eyes full of fear. Jumping over roots and logs she made her way to-wards the painful moans and groans that tortured her thoughts. She had no idea what awaited her, but it was sure to be gruesome.

Another bone chilling scream sounded, it was a lot closer now. Kasey ran harder with one last burst of energy, darting in between some trees, she saw it.
M...Mai?....no.. her frantic voice was a faint whisper in her head as she came closer and closer to the scene. There she was, ivory hair matted with dirt and blood, cuts covering her slender legs, her beautiful corset top and skirt in tattered shreds. Slowing her pace, tears formed in her eyes slipping down her cheeks, one falling oner her soft pale lips leaving a salty taste. The blonde girl stood still, not to far from Eurus who cradled the Demoness, trying to take in everything.

[Laharl]

"Enough."

Laharl's arm swept out to his side, and an aura of his own swept out in a single flash of dark light. The whole time he had been silent, as one aqquaintance after another stepped forth, offering their support. But he stood back and watched, his expression bleak but mostly unreadable. Something about this just didn't seem....right. He recalled their heated duel in the school, and they had both offered one sickening bludeoning to one another, each to this magnitude or worse. Even if a demon lord of great power broke her like this, her state of mind offered.....a slightly different story.

As the aria of his field expanded, twisting the air around them and turning their surroundings into a void, he brought an escape the current reaility itself. This was all in Laharl's mind, of course. He merely opened a telepathic link between him and Mai, one that could not be traced by anyone else.

Sis, tell me who did this to you. I'll find who did this, tear his head off, and force him to castrate himself with his own teeth. Laharl continued to stand there, his eyes dialated and unfocused, and glowing a dull red in the pitch black under his curtain of hair.

(OOC) BTW Issac, if you're blind, then how is it that you can see Laharl's moptop?

[Kalista(Retired)]

A running march, one to live by

Life without meaning, meaning without life

One would think, that one could be immortal

Never paying the piper for their deeds

Then one would suffer, grate pains for all their taking

The Piper demands payment

Are you prepared to pay?

These words echoed in the mind of the great Fire demoness, as she listened to the repeated screams of the fallen. Her ears hearing the music of payment the beautiful rose had given, the payment that would certainly take her demon life from existence.

Kalista stretched her great, dragon-like wings out as she fell slowly to the earthen ground, her bare feet touching down only scant inches from the pale, bleeding and broken form of her once beautiful seductress.

The great Demoness of the hellish fires now bent, her beautiful expanse of leathery black wings reaching out and around the fallen form of her beloved mistress of the night. She neither spoke, nor did she touch the fallen, at first. She merely cloaked her in the darkness of a separated embrace that sealed the sight of Mai from the prying eyes of the unworthy gatherers.

After the air had settled from her arrival, and the winds of darkness hushed in the heat of Kalista’s presence and the soft, clawed earth beneath her bending knees had charred and now smoldered its disapproval in her fiery touch, Kalista laid her soft, hand on the anguished ruined cheek of the fallen.

“Such beauty it is, lying here, alive, yet dead all the same.” Her words came form somewhere, perhaps in the warm air that now surrounded the two figures.

Kalista bent and placed her soft warm lips on the corner of Mai’s twisted mouth, a passing brush of affection, her long raven locks following suit, to lightly trace through the bloodied face of the beautifully fallen, soft, silken extensions of love, the kind none other could possibly know.

A life for a life, willingly given

One’s love and affection always forgiven

The words echoed softly, floating out on warm currents, to swirl about the others standing in awe of the fallen, wrapping around their minds, touching their soulless hearts and mocking their caring minds. Kalista thought little to nothing for any of them, not a one could come close to the love she had in her blackened heart for this mighty creature of the night, laying in a heap of beautifully, poetic anguish now in her soft caressing hands.

Kalista took the form of Mai into her arms, her wings drawing about the fallen, caressing the other’s long matted tresses, her arms lifting the broken from the ground as her wings wrapped lovingly about the demoness, brining the beautifully fallen close to her , laying her head on her warm, awaiting shoulder.

“Hush my fallen princess, hush, no more tears, no more screams, let me take the burden, allow me to take your place in the depths of hell. Allow me to replace your dying form with mine, let me breath into you my life, let me give my eternity to you. You could do so much more with it then I.” Her words spoken this time, whispered as soft as any goose down, plucked from the youngest of creatures.

Kalista sat, in the middle of the others, her arms and wings, gently holding and caressing her beloved Mai. She sat, her white orbs of colorless seeing eyes running tears of blood red down her soft, red colored cheeks, her horned brow lightly nestled into the bloody tresses that belonged to Mai.

“Take me, let her live, take me.” She continued, over and over. “Mio amore, viv per me… Live for me.” she ended, the blooded tears rolling down to mingle with the blood streaming from Mai’s soft face.

[Maí Lé Rosà]

Mai's carmine eyes seemed to bulge as she clenched the earth, tearing it up in her nails as Eurus lifted her. His whisper was a scream to her ears and she bared her jagged teeth in a warning, daring him to yell at her louder. The drunken focus of her eyes was illusory, hypnotizing to any retarded or untrained eyes that looked back at her; she was a goddess and nothing less.

Hands worked their way through her wings, causing the tremble in her hands to increase and the intense glare in her eyes to shudder and break away from the demon holding her so tenderly. She slammed her head back against his chest, shrieking an ear-piercing wail as her wings faded to disappear.

The blood as her silk bed wove a gruesome poetry into the forest floor, boiling in unmagnified bubbles on the very ark of Hell as her hot insides poured out from whatever holy places in her body they could find. Her sharp eyes and frayed clothing held a cabaret air of a murdered harlot, a overly friendly lady, shredded in all private and sexual places.

So let her be haunted by incubus
every waking night of her living death.

The blood leaking over the beautiful rump that was her chin shone like grease under the scathed moon, but how now, there was no moon. Everything was black, pitch black, moonless, heartless, lifeless...

Hammering her skull back against Eurus' brave chest once more, Mai cracked each bracket in her spine as she arched it, leaving his grasp with the insertion of burning fingertips through the veins at his wrists. The duplicity of her actions was fearfully underestimated, and the phonetics in her mind took over, timing the running feet of toxic potions. The scent of disinfectant, magic and a child sent Mai's pharynx into shutdown, where she violently convulsed to one side, before throwing up another gallon of blood.

The horrific demoness looked directly at Kasey, the first eye contact she'd made all night. And that look was enough to send a blade through the nurse's heart, the terrific capsule of fear Mai's pupils evoked was like a revolver having each of it's inner chambers cocked back one at a time. It's cold, metal bullet hole at the temple of one's head, just relapsing on time to unleash it's unavoidable wrath in the bone, brain, mind and blood of it's quivering victim.

Yes, that described her eyes. Perfect.

Sis, tell me who did this to you. I'll find who did this, tear his head off, and force him to castrate himself with his own teeth. In one immediate action, Laharl's mind power was shattered, splitting the skin between his ear lobes and jaw as though a hot knife had passed through the flesh with the velocity of lightning itself. Mai's hollow eyes rounded on him and she blinked, letting her gluey lashes stick and unstick themselves in a revolting slip of blood and dried tears.

Clenching her fragile fists, she uttered not a word.

A sudden explosion of darkness enveloped Mai and she fell back against the earth again, letting loose a shriek far more fierce than banshee. As Mai scratched the heated air at her face she felt something touch her cheek, and she gasped, ducking behind her shield of bloodied hands and smacking away Kalista's hand; the hand of death.

A thundery voice penetrated the ears of the fallen demoness and she whimpered quietly, trembling as Kalista kissed her, as death kissed her. And for just a second, just a second that could have lasted forever to the will of those that truly loved the demoness, Mai's eyes opened, flashing the innocent silver of the real demoness. And Maí Lé Rosà shed a fresh pair of tears, gazing up at those white eyes through scarlet ones, pleadingly...Sorrowfully.

But as Kalista took Mai up in her arms, the demoness jammed her eyes shut and bent her head backward to reach for the ground over Kalista's supporting arm. Mai's head lolled onto deaths shoulder, and she froze, tormented to paralyze at the following words of this foreign stranger.

“Hush my fallen princess-"

And that's all Mai heard. The terror that froze her breath and mind in place threw her into unconsciousness and she relaxed, speeding through portholes of oblivion in her mindless state of being. The blood in her wounds slowed, and if one listened carefully, they could pinpoint the weak stutter forming at her cracked lips.

"I...I-C..C-an't...S-See..You." She finally got out, frowning in concentration as she took on the similarity of a little girl with a nightmare standing before her, whispering over and over again that it wasn't real. Mai's eyes flashed open, the colour of the darkest flame, and she growled viciously, writhing from Kalista's loving, painful grasp.

"You're not real!" She cried, speaking the clearest thing she'd spoken all night. And with that, the demoness lunged at Kalista, driving her nails into the woman's collarbone and lashing them through her flesh like a relentless panther. Screaming furiously as she attacked the other demoness, ripping at her neck and arms, Mai suddenly did a double take of Kalista and lurched backward, toppling over her own knees and slamming into the ground side-first.

Grasping for air with her lungs, Mai's wide eyes wreaked recognition. She shook with newfound terror as she felt her insides burning for vengeance, and closing her eyes she did something she had never done before. She smothered the blood of the other demoness on the earth as she touched it with treasured fingers, and she stopped breathing...

[Nefastus Eurus Caelestise]

Eurus grabbed Mai before she hit the ground, his eyes an ashen-white as he pulled Mai's matted, blood-soaked hair from her body. The world fell silent for the few moments he sat there, his eyes wide open, staring at the lifeless body held in his embrace. His breath caught, unblinking, the demoness's blood pooled under his feet.

A raspy breath shook from his lungs, his fingers twitching as he felt his entire body grow cold. "Mai," Eurus bit his lower lip, forcing himself to swallow back the bile that built in the back of his throat. "You're not real!" her voice echoing inside of his head, repeating itself again and again.

This can't be happening, Eurus gave her a gentle shake once more, trying to wake her. Yeah, that's right, she was only asleep. Blood dripped from his hands as he stood, quietly sobbing as he tried to wake her up. Her arm slid from resting on her waist, dropping to the side on a grotesque angle. He just stared.

At once Eurus was hit with the hard realization of what had just happened, a tiny pained sound escaping from his throat. He collapsed. A scream erupted from his throat as Mai's body rolled from his arms and to the ground in front of him. His forehead hit the dirt as he wailed, eyes squinted shut and fists tighted. His back was arched as his breath finally gave out, the long scream inflicting everyone who heard it with a chilled feeling of sorrow.

"This can't be happening!" Eurus screamed, his wings collapsed to the ground beside him, sprawled out to their full length. The ashen feathers dissipated, leaving nothing but bones and rotted flesh. He felt sick to his stomach, one hand lifting to grasp his gut as he sobbed. One glance towards Mai's mutilated corpse did him in. He turned to the side, nearly collapsing, and vomited blood.

Tell me,
Can you dance,
Just once more?
Tell me,
Can you smile,
Just once more?
Can you fly,
Just for me,
One more time?

Let me scream,
I'll sing for you.
Don't cry,
I'll protect you.
Shhh...
I can't live without you.

OOC: because I was dragged away from my computer before I could finish this post, I'm going to finish it now. - -;

IC: Gripping his stomach once more, Eurus looked up to everyone who was standing here. His eyes passed from one person to another, swallowing hard as he looked down to Mai. There his eyes rested for a long time. Blood poured from his eyes, running down his cheek and resting under his chin, occaisonally sending a few drops to the ground underneath him.

The one reason Eurus had come back, the one reason that had kept him alive once he regained his memories lay in the dirt before him. Mai. He'd go through anything just to know she was fine. He pulled Mai closer to him, wrapping his arms around his love. He came back just to see her die.

"I don't have anything left to live for," Eurus whispered to Mai, rocking her back and forth. "Can you hear me?" Of course she could. She would listen with ready ears, ever-listening, never speaking a single word. "Don't be frightened, nothing can hurt you now. Nothing. I'm here for you, it's okay."

Eurus slung Mai's legs over his own, her head resting against his right hand, his left wrapping around the demoness's body and holding her back up. "I'll sing you a lullaby, so you're not scared," his gaze was distant, a weak smile on his face, if it was a smile at all. He rested his cheek against hers, closing his eyes as more tears of blood fell.

"Hush-a-bye,
Don't you cry,
Go to sleep little darling.
When you wake,
You shall have
All the pretty little horsies.
Black and bays,
Dapples and geys,
All the pretty little horsies.

Go to sleep,
Don't you cry,
Rest your head upon the clover.
In your dreams,
You shall ride,
While I'm always watching over.
Blacks and bays,
Dapples and greys,
All the pretty little horsies.
All the pretty little horsies...."

Eurus sang softly a lullaby he had heard from an old widow singing to the skies when he was an angel. It had hit him, for the old thing kept on living a wasted life after her husband had died, along with her two daughters. It had stayed with him ever since.

Running his fingers through Mai's hair, Eurus opened his eyes slowly, his wings still collapsed beside him in the dirt, featherless. "The sun'll rise soon," he whispered, stroking Mai's angelic hair, "we could go to the lake and watch the sun, just you and me. Would you like that?"

[Laharl]

"Graaah!!" the little boy demon cried out, his hands clasping at the upper part of his neck, parilyzed by the gut-wrenching pain. The gigantic pressure of the unknown lacuna that sent the rift between his thought connection sent blood running down his throat, and soaking into his shirt. Protruding through his fingers were a pair of horns, inset at the lower corner of his temples, rather than above them like typical demons. They appeared to look more like an extra set of ears than horns. Personally, it probably would have given him a slight edge towards avoiding past disasters while flying with the extra balance.

Laharl's teeth were clenched, baring a full set of fangs. His now sharpened irises darted all about the scene, past the onlookers and for any sign of movement in the dark. Someone was out there, and they were close. And yes, the power he felt when the contact was broken was, to say the least, daunting. There were very few people in the Netherworld that housed this kind of power, and they kept an especially low profile. Only known to the highest of royalty, monsters like this were non-existant shadows in the world of devils.

At this moment though, Laharl could care less if the fish before him was too big for him to swallow. If he had to, Laharl would just have to shred this fish to pieces and eat each section little by little. And speaking of fish, he caught a glimpse of a figure standing in the distance, camouflaged by the pitch black shadow of the foliage. And yes, this figure stood a short distance beyond the lycaness in hiding.

You won't get away! Laharl wrought up his right arm, allowing a trail of blood to run into the air with his sudden movement as he punched his arm straight, and clenched his fist. The resounding splintering of distant redwoods ensued as Laharl put all his straining mental focus into a single mind attack, composing a miniature black hole around the distant stranger.

In the next moment, some couple of hundred meters away, a circular indention lay evident in a patch of shrubery and trees, hardened with time, but evidently not unsuseptible to massive psychic brainwaves. Nothing else remained. His target had escaped.

"M.....Mai...." he uttered, quickly going blind to the glaring black spots that reverberated inside his pupils. The mental strain of his attack in turn robbed his tiny body of its energy for a good, long, while. He collapsed on the ground, blacked out.