#cloven spire

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Fjord was in the service of a demigod recognized by three eyes, one of a set of three imprisoned demigods in Wildemount, each with three eyes.

Uk'otoa has three Chosen at a time, according to the mural at Urukayxl, at least. He is bound by three seals unlocked by three Cloven Crystals at three temples. He sends his servants to take the third and last crystal from Fjord three times.

On that note, hilariously, Fjord outlasts three sunken ships: the Tide's Breath, the Balleater, the Nein Heroez.

Arguably, Fjord has three surnames: one he does not know as he was born to, Stone as he was given, Tusktooth as he formerly used at sea. Generally, across the narrative, Fjord divides his life into three sections: the orphanage, the Tide's Breath, the Nein and beyond.

The Star Razor was forged three times: created, strengthened, made whole. Fjord received it upon the third.

Three visions from Melora: one at the Arbor Exemplar, one as he became a paladin, one as he swore his oath. (Nine dreams from Uk'otoa, a multiple of three.)

In that third temple, Fjord forged an agreement with and was marked by Zehir at the foot of a statue with three heads, an unusual depiction of Zehir.

Fjord was bound to three patrons, given three swords representing his three pacts: the Sword of Fathoms for Uk'otoa (destroyed), the Star Razor for Melora (kept), the Fang of the Spire King for Zehir (given away).

Something mythic about all that repetition of three.

[azure-wolf-227]

Pony Tribes: Three Main Tribes

In this post, I will explain how the Three Main Pony Tribes (Unicorns, Pegasi. and Earth Ponies) are in my G4 reboot. Go to here for Alicorns.

Unicorns

Unicorns are usually slim and delicate with little physical strength as most usually solely rely on their magic. They can develop their physical strength with training, though.

All Unicorns have long, leonine tails and cloven hooves like those of a mountain goat. Unicorn ancestors lived in mountains and other rough environment so they developed cloven hooves to move about. This means that Unicorns are the best climbers out of all the tribes.

Both Purebred and Mixed-Tribe unicorns have leonine tails and cloven hooves as those are their defining race traits besides the horn. The tails of Mixed-tribe Unicorns tend to be shorter than those of Purebred Unicorns but that’s not always the case.

Ponies with Unicorn ancestry sometimes have leonine tails despite not being Unicorns.

Only Unicorns, Natural Born Alicorns, and Ascended Alicorns who where Unicorns have cloven hooves.

Unicorns vary in height with some being very tall while others are small. Most of Canterlot’s Unicorns are larger and taller compared to Unicorns from other places.

Unicorn horns are composed of an outer keratin capsule that covers a core from where the horn spire grows from. The keratin capsule grows past the inner core and contributes to the majority of the horn’s length. 

The keratin capsule is often filed to kept it looking neat but it must be done carefully to avoid damage that can affect spellcasting.

Longer horns are a sign of a strong spellcaster since they channel magic better.

A hard hit on the tip of their horn can disorient an Unicorn and make them dizzy.

Damage to the horn, either the keratin capsule or the core, disrupts the flow of magic and makes spells difficult to control.

While damage keratin capsules can heal in time, damage to the inner core is nearly impossible to heal unless someone has powerful healing magic.

Crossing/touching horns is primarily a sign of affection but it can also be used as a sign of confrontation and animosity depending on the context.

Unicorns can flare their magical aura as an intimidation display though it it considered to be rude in modern times unless the Unicorn is in danger.

Another form of intimidation is lowering their heads and ponting their horns at their target, as if they intend to run them through.

Unicorns gift beautiful things to the pony they are courting or their significant other, especially things that relate to their Special Talents or interests. 

Pegasi

Most Pegasi have slender yet strong bodies with an aerodynamic shape, especially skilled flyers. Physically, they are stronger than most Unicorns but not as strong as Earth Ponies, though they can increase their physical strength through training.

Their average height is similar to that of the average Unicorn, maybe a bit shorter. Those that are very tall or very short/small usually have mixed-heritage.

Pegasi’s fur is thicker than that of other Tribes as most of them live in high altitudes where the air is colder.

Pegasi have a coat of downy feathers on their shoulders, near the base of their wings. They also have fur-like feathers on their fetlocks and the back of their ears.

They have bird-like tail feathers directly above their equine tails. These tail feathers match the colors and patterns of their wings.

Pegasi have an innate resistance to lightning as they can channel the electric energy through their bodies. It can still harm them but it’s not fatal.

Pegasi fly by channeling their magic through their wings - specifically their feathers - to essentially self-levitate themselves. This means that wing-size has nothing to do with flight ability, thought larger wings in relation to their bodies channel magic better.

With training, Pegasi can use their innate weather magic in a more precise way like building up a static charge and shooting lightning without the need of a cloud. This is mostly used by the military like the Royal Guard or the Wonderbolts.

Most Pegasi have a taste for fish as their ancestors supplemented their diet by fishing before relying on Earth Ponies to grow food.

Pegasi usually have sharper eyesight than most ponies. Eye conditions are extremely rare.

Ponies with Pegasi ancestry can inherit their thicker coat; downy feathers on their shoulders; fur-like feathers on their fetlocks and behind the ears; and lightning resistance, as well as their eyesight and the taste for fish. Some also inherit the urge to fly through the sky despite not having wings.

Unicorns with Pegasi ancestry can inherit an affinity for weather magic.

Covering the wings in gunk or anything that sticks their feathers together can ground a Pegasus at it makes channeling flight magic difficult. Even freezing their wings works.

Pegasi have a habit of ‘nesting’; some do it to deal with stress but it’s most often seen when taking care of a sick or pregnant partner or foals. Pegasi that dwell on cloud-homes mostly use clouds as nesting material while ground-living Pegasi make use of blankets and pillows.

Pegasi spread their wings as far as they can to appear bigger as an intimidation display.

Pegasi gift their significant others their most beautiful feathers, with the primaries being considered the most significant.

Earth Ponies

Most Earth Ponies are larger and stronger than any other Tribe, as they usually work physically demanding jobs like farming. Even those that don’t have those jobs are still strong thanks to their inherent magic.

The average Earth Pony height is taller than any Unicorn or Pegasi, though there are exceptions, mostly due to non-Earth Pony ancestry.

With training, Earth Ponies can use their natural connection to the earth in more precise ways like manipulating plants or earth. This is mainly done by the military like the Royal Guard.

Ponies with Earth Pony ancestry can inherit their large bodies and physical strength with some also inheriting their nature-related talents.

Damages to their legs and hooves can interfere with their magic.

Earth Ponies rear up and stomp their front hooves as an intimidation display.

Earth Ponies tend to give the pony they fancy/their significant others hoof-made gifts. Farmers often go with saplings while rock farmers/miners go with pretty jewels.

[winterwolvesandstarbucks]

Steeling himself against a rush of alarm in his veins, Bucky held his breath as he listened to the heavy footfalls thumping across the ornate marble floors. Tucked in a dark alcove in what looked to be an assembly room, the former soldier and ex-assassin kept a gloved hand locked the hilt of his Geber tactical knife, the weight of the military-issued weapon providing him a calm sense of reassurance in the face of the beastly shadow moving across the floor. The grunting and growling of an actual beast from Greek Mythology stomped past his hiding spot, the towering shape muscular and decked out in polished armor with a war-axe clutched in his hands. Circe's minions were on the look-out for possible intruders. No doubt his arrival must've set off whatever magical alarms she had blanketing her island and this palace. Despite the magically enhanced weapon, Bucky clutched in his closed fist, he wasn't here for a fight.

He just had to find his kitten and get back home. Once the minotaur-like guard had lumbered past, Bucky counted to ten and then glanced outside of his hiding spot. The assembly room was empty. Not for the first time, he was captivated by the lush Greek decor that looked polished and new but was no doubt as ancient as the ruined temple of Artemis on the mainland. If it wasn't for the magical tether Strange had given him to call for his escape, Bucky would've thought he stepped into another world or backwards in time. It both awed and frustrated him at the size and enormity of this place. He could get easily lost or snuck up on by something as unexpected as a centaur. He had to find Selina.

The muddier sludginess that revoltingly entrenched within the crammed horde grossly slathered over the droopier-plumpish rotundity of her curvaceous underbelly as Selina tensely evaded the nauseous-putrid reek stinkily wafting off blubbery-girthed sows who maddeningly obstructed the iron-spire gates of the lockdown pen.

Gripping onto vestiges of heart-notching resistance, feverishly, Selina registered the bone-vising heaviness of a clunkier iron shackled throbbing clamped over her stubbier fore-hoof as she exhaustively yanked the chain that fastened to her a massively blimpish sow who gruntingly rested on the droopier globbiness of her swell-out mass. "Hey...Don't even think about it..." she warned, grittily, bracing herself for a gustier barrage as the amplifying clamour gurglingly resonated within her blobbier pen-mate's barrel-sized girth. She wouldn't become damningly pegged into the odorous crossfire of another gas-assult-the vaporous stench was disgustingly rancid.

Despite that, she was a delectably bustier-voluptuous newbie of the hoggish hovel, Selina brandished a measure of poise -cool indifference against the suffusive -porcine instincts of catatonically being an obese-dormant slug that fatteningly indulged on gluttonous -filthier abandon within the odious muck. Hinging up a modicum of revulsion, edgily, she wobbled onto her pudgier cloven-hooves, only to inadvertently bonk her puffier jowelly snout into a lumpish backside of a heftier sow. "Urgh...Can't you let a girl breathe in here..."

The stench of filth and waste was about as pungent as the scent of despair coming off a number of these sows who were still dimly aware of their former human existence. A harrowing realization of how bleak things could get in this place if she didn't find a way out of this. She'd been dragged down before, far to the pit where rock-bottom waited cruelly for her to land. Her steeled focus was razor-sharp despite her predicament. Opportunity would find its way in and she would capitalize on it. But dire tolls had a way of extracting more than expected when another factor came into play. That factor was by way of a familiar waft of musk she came to identify with one person-probably the only most important person to her in her life.

Above the den was a walkway that led to a sectioned off entry-way. The guardsman only had a moment to react before the whooshing of a knife heralded his demise before the blade pierced his neck. The beast fell with a dying roar as a man entered, dressed in tactical gear with an assault rifle held in his hands. Blue eyes scanned the room in search of his objective, but Bucky grimaced at the nauseating stink of animal waste. "Damn it, where the hell is she?"

Angling up her furrier elonged snout, gruntingly, against ramped-up alarm, Selina registered the headier smokiness of cinnamony sandalwood-the addictive fragrancy of masculine decadence that assailed over the odorous fumes of her pen-mates. Suppressing down an oinkish breath, rampantly, she fixed her beadier autumn-brandy irises onto the marble walkway bridged above her.

"B-Bucky..." she murmured out, snortily, catching a heart-stopping glimpse of a menace-bounded intruder stealthily garbed into a navy-blue jacket of tactical kevlar as the mechanized servo of his vibrainium bionic arm robotically flexed in defensive tenor-it was definitely her beast-machine. Swaggeringly, he prowled over the walkway, harnessing up callbacks of his sniper-honed -deadlier momentum with every sashaying advance, intimidatingly brandishing his Geber knife with close-fisted readiness, while his SIG-Sauer P226 SCT pistol was combatively holstered onto the corded bulkiness of his fatigue-sheathed thigh."S-Stay up there, handsome..."

"Selina?" Bucky had felt his heart skip a beat when he registered that familiar voice. It was velvety and smooth capable of inciting the most powerful of emotions inside of them that threatened to overwhelm his discipline. As his eyes scanned the pen full of distressed pigs, he frowned when he detected no sign of her. "Selina, where are you?" His gaze continued to shift, eyeing every area of the pen that he could but it was difficult to get a good view when so many of the pigs were rushing around in distress. His arrival must've upset them. His instinct was to keep moving before more guards were drawn to the commotion and decided to come in but he knew he wasn't hearing things. "I'm coming, darlin," holstering his weapons, he braced himself before dropping down from his high perch into the pen. He was immediately swarmed by a few sows while others scampered off in fear. Bucky tried to ignore them as well as the reeking stench of the filthy pen. "Back up, come on, shoo," he gently chided the sows in his way.

One of them stood out among the others. A sow of a rich and clean mahogany colored fur with a lither shape to her hide than the others that allowed her to come towards him with a graceful cadence. It felt familiar.

Hearing the raspier gravelliness of his whiskey-roughened drawl murmurously arrest her warring heartbeat, unmovingly, Selina watched him impassively crouch down onto his kevlar-clad haunches with sniper-honed grace, against the contrasting sconces of torchlight, the scruffier ruggedness of his knife-edged features hawkishly razored with the broader angularity of his cheekbones roguishly emphasized the hunkish fierceness. Roving the voltaic intensity of his stormier aquamarine irises, Bucky raptly scrunched up his Romaniansque nose against the fetid potency that assailed over the congested pen. A lumbering bulgy sow frantically nudged her muddier snout pudgily against his bionic hand, as Bucky pursed his shapely-bow lips into a taut grimace, crestfallenly feigning his pent-up revulsion on defensive accord. "Urgh..." A snottier glop drippily oozed out of the fattish sow's mud-caked nostrils, dropping onto his GX combat boot. "Yeah...That's kinda gross.."

He tried to shut out the pungent distraction of his surroundings and the oinking sows that circled him inside of the pen. His blue eyes searched and scanned, his dry voice calling out to her. "Selina, darlin', are you here?!" He walked forward, taking care not to bump into the sows or step on anything filthy other than the dirt beneath his feet. He noticed that peculiar sow who didn't behave like the others. She was...quiet. More than that she was calm as a kite while staring at him with an unnerving look that felt too distinct. "You wouldn't happen to know where I can find a dame named Selina would you?" He blurted out candidly, not even taking himself seriously as he reached the edge of the pen and could see another closed gate that led to a neighbouring pen. With a tug of the handle, the gate groaned and he felt impatience gnaw at him. "She's gotta be here somewhere!"

Against feverous onrushes that implosively coupled with vomitous grogginess, moaningly, Selina eased her daintier hand against the bone-vising pressure of the shackle throbbing clamped over the fine-bone delicateness of her forearm; the bustier suppleness of her voluptuous breasts was distractingly snugged against the ripped material of her ebony satin camisole, as her dishevelled mahogany whorls sweatily draped over her lithe-toned shoulders. Distressingly, another buxom sow gruntingly nudged her pudgier-tusked snout against the bulkier rigidity of his garbed leg on heart-stopping fruition-warning him not to advance. "B-Bucky..." she murmured, raspily, bracing her svelter back against a white-marble column, while snakily flashing malevolent intensity at the delectable curvaceous sow-thievish vixen who remained composedly poised on her cloven-hooves at the gate."S-Stay away from that grunter, handsome...She's playing with you..."

He zeroed in on the familiar voice in a hidden alcove within the pen. His heart nearly stopped in his chest to see her shackled against the column. Her coffee brown eyes were dim with fatigue, her complexion vacant as she gazed back at him with deep longing. "Selina!" He tried to make his way towards her when he felt a tugging on his pants. He looked to see that sow that had been staring at him intently now fully determined to stop him from advancing. "Let go!" He pulled himself free, his mind lost to the warning signs now that he was this close to his kitten. He rushed towards her and gently picked her up, tearing the shackle free of the pillar with one harsh yank. "I got you, darlin'. Its gonna be okay," he said while holding her close. After a month of constant worry and hard searching, he'd finally found her. She found her footing while leaning against him. "Are you hurt?" He asked, now finally realizing that she was dressed pretty weird in a fancy looking gown that looked too much for her sense of style. Not that it didn't look good on her, he thought, his allure for her strong as ever as he brushed away her curly loose mahogany locks. She smelled different too.

Revamped urgency betrayingly teemed within her bulbously roundish form, gnashingly, Selina curbed down the rampageous heartache that was consumingly denotative in tenfold as she mistily fixed her beadier gaze onto the viperous cheat who sneerily winked at her. A possessive-aphrodisiacal decadence-potency hypnotically grappled Bucky into seductive dregs. Without a deterrence of resistance, his bionic palm reverently splayed featherlight over her voluptuous curves on the evocative accord. Evicting the murderous impulse to deliver a point-blank headshot at the serpentine- maniacal enchantress, rampantly, she wobbled on desperate-uncompromising momentum at Bucky's flank, utilizing her barrel-sized girth like an obstructive roadblock. With a brazen attempt, she bitingly nipped on his pistol's hostler strap at a breakneck tempo. "Not playing it smooth, handsome..."

"Hey!" Bucky instinctively reached for his weapon once he felt the pull against his holster but it was too late. The insistent sow had somehow pulled his weapon out and threw it across the pen with great force. "Damn it! Don't move, Selina." Bucky set her back to lean against the wall as he moved to retrieve his weapon. The number of pigs moving about made it difficult to see where it landed in the heaps of mud and filth. "Where the hell did it go?" He felt mild irritation with the sow that had been fixated on him since he jumped into the pen, wondering why he was having such a string of bad luck. He had to get his gun and get Selina out of this place. Through the corner of his eye he saw Selina moving about before dashing away as if to avoid something. "What?" Bucky looked over in befuddlement to see the same sow that somehow disarmed him was now trying to ram Selina. "Selina, get clear!"

Huffing out gustier-rubbery snorts, fumingly, Selina propelled her stampeding momentum on defensive tempo, aggressively rearing up her tusked-snout a hairbreadth into the sorceress's tauten calve with bone-impaling ferocity. A kittenish pout saucily quirked over the burgundy lushness of the witchy imposter's plushier full-bow lips as she whirlingly sidestepped with vampiric evades from Selina's explosive assault. "Y-You're not taking him..."

In that heart-knifing moment, gaspingly, Selina registered the unremitting pressure of cool-bionic vibrainium mechanically braced over the pudginess of her jowelly throat on immobilizing-deadlier sync. Emitting out choked-off breaths, Selina thrashed against the robotized chokehold, vertiginously, feeling Bucky unmovingly straddle his muscled thighs over the plumpish rotundity of her curvier girth. The sludginess of the pen was disturbingly akin to gloppy molasses against her stubbier hooves-deadening her warred mobility. "S-Stop doing this, handsome..." she grunted, breathlessly, thrusting her porcine head forcibly against the washboard rigidity of his Kevlar-clad midriff. "Ooh..."

"Stop, just stop," Bucky murmured with a rough voice. He didn't want to hurt the pig who was probably instinctively defending what she perceived as her territory in this pen, but he wasn't about to let the animal hurt Selina. The sow was stubborn and strong, nearly slipping free of his sleeper-hold which prompted him to put more pressure. The other sows in the pen were oinking wildly, the sight of him subduing one of their own perhaps serving to only agitate them as the ran about in wild circles. The sow's struggling was getting slower, he steadily relaxed his grip, hoping it was enough to keep the pig winded in an effort to collect her breath. "Selina, are you hurt?" He called to her over his shoulder. The sow was whining as he released her. Bucky felt guilt and remorse in his heart as he released the sow who laid on her plumper side breathing in deeply. He turned to find Selina watching the scene with a cruel smile before she met his gaze and looked at him coolly. That was weird. He thought nothing more of it as he moved towards her, "we've got to get out of here. I got someone on the outside who's gonna give us a quick ticket out."

"B-Bucky..." A throat-vising squeal anguishedly railed out her on a panicked tempo as brazen sow tearily flashed her beadier autumn-rich irises onto the vixenish imposter's lithe hand possessively splaying her lithe fingers with kitten-soft pressure over the golden skeins kinetically melded within his vibrainium servos with carnal reverence-a deceptive variance of sirenic allure to damningly chasten her beast machine into headier throes. Witchily, Selina played off an impish smirk, gazing down at the graven-edged ridges that athletically delineated underneath his tactical jacket-a true Spartan warrior incarnate. "What's the hurry Barnes, can't we have some fun..." she coaxed in a huskier undertone, friskily, as the pricky underside of his broader jaw scratchily rasped against the supple delicateness of her bruised cheek. Arrestingly, she flexed her daintier palm over his tauten mid-drift-hijacking every surge of his reluctance. "Besides you owe me..."

Bucky was confused if not a little bewildered by her behavior. Selina was known for being coy in the face of imminent danger. It was one of the things he'd loved about her how she could be so playfully seductive and teasing like a woman who just won the lottery but wanted to gamble it all by teasing the big bad wolf. But she'd been gone for months, held captive on this mythical hellhole of an island against her will. He would've thought she'd be in more of a hurry to leave than this. "You must be really glad to see me, darlin', if you really want to have fun in a place like this," he deadpanned, nearly out of breath after his struggle against the aggressive sow, not to mention the number of beastly minions he had to put down on his way in. There was no telling what else waited for them beyond this room, but the wizard had told him not to get too cozy here otherwise the mystery witch who ran this place would make it impossible for him to want to leave. 'Had the same thing happened to Selina?' He thought worriedly. Was she under some kind of mind-control spell?

Detecting a pulse of hesitation that implosively notched through his veins, hungrily, Selina gripped onto his jacket's collar with a head-jerking yank-leaving him dumbstruck breathless against the possessive-evocative tenor of her sensuous demand. Groaningly, Bucky emitted out a throatier 'mphff' as the surging heat of her pillowy cherry-glossed lips devouringly stretched his with kiss-bruising pressure that crushingly disarmed vestiges of his resistance.

Keeping Bucky captive into her seductive thrall, she rhythmically dragged her lacquered fingernails against the heavier underside of his bristled jaw with fevered precision, driving his arousal onto the riotous-untamed edge of headier decadence. "I guess you missed this, huh, Barnes..." she rasped, breathily against his poutier velvety-soft lips, only to hear the distressing assonance pandemonium of her blubbery-girthed drudges gruntingly became a pandemonium of heart-razing anguish. Vextiously, she was aware that he was resisting her aphrodisiac command of virile surrender-he wasn't kissing back. "Block out that damn noise..." she hissed, waspishly, as her dark irises grew lividly alight with rapine malice. "Just focus on me, James..."

He wanted to kiss her back, to simply give in and release the months of repressed desires he carried for his missing lover, but knew this felt wrong. SHE felt wrong. Mustering his will, he fought to wrestle his lips back from hers, it felt almost like reciprocating her rough onslaught, until the separated with a gasp for breath. Bucky gazed at her with focused eyes full of distrust. "Stop." He grunted, not liking the viperish smile on her lips.

As the scratchier gravelliness of his throat-gritted drawl feverously struck a defensive cord of restraint, Selina mirrored the voltaic intensity the smolderingly gleamed in his grayish-aquamarine irises as he staggeringly reined back on his mud-sodden GX boots with aggressive traction while a nidorous mantra-incantation vitriolically amplified in the possessive frequency of morphic-damnable witchery that effusively deadened him.

Predatorily, she whirled around him with cobra-honed graces, flitting her dark irises callously onto the Geber blade readily sheathed onto his leathered holster. Saucily, her full-bow lips quirked up as she registered a hostile callback of his tactical-deadlier calibre. "Always full of surprises, aren't we, Barnes..." she chided, thornily, as her lithe fingers deceptively brandished the hilt of an xiphos dagger that alarmingly retracted from her golden-cuffed bracket. On heavier strain, gnashingly Bucky jutted out his dimpled-chin- traces of bestial menace cuttingly razored over the hard-edged contours of his boyishly rugged features as his bionic fingers tactfully clutched onto his blade on mechanized tenor. With a malevolent glare, the fieriness of her doe-like brandy depths bewitchingly melded into purplish-aster, evident to Grecian skeins that electrifyingly veined over the cool pearlescent of her gauntleted forearms. "I guess the mask needs to come off, handsome..."

His instinct was to reach for his custom spring steel combat knife. It was a polished and freshly forged blade that gleamed like a shiny strip of platinum as he clutched the handle in his right palm. "I don't know who you are...But you're definitely not my kitten." His voice carried a level of angry conviction. He was being toyed with, mentally and emotionally. He was used to people screwing with his head, but this felt too personal. His jaw tightened as he assumed a combat ready stance just in time to parry a knife thrust aimed for his chest. The spring steel scraped against the ancient dagger, the metals scraping loudly, sending chilling vibrations up their arms. Bucky looked at her with surprise at her strength. That would've pierced his lung if he hadn't countered it. Selina wasn't a knife-fighter-if she was, she was seriously holding out on him. Rather than question the grinning viper, he retaliated with his own side-ways thrust, sweeping the blade in a crisscross motion and wasn't surprised that she managed to dodge the attack with unnatural grace. His movements were slow due to the mud but hers were swift and undisturbed.

"What have you done with Selina Kyle?!" He yelled, unsettled as the woman wearing her face laughed evilly and and feinted a stab-thrust only to swiftly pivot on her right leg, spinning to bring her left foot down on his shoulder in a twirl-kick. He staggered but managed to block the brunt of the attack. She didn't relent as she thrust her blade for his chin. He edged back but felt the hissing brush of air over his face as the blade came a breath from piercing his skin. He caught her wrist, attempting to wrestle the weapon from her clutches. She used the proximity to lunge and wrap around his torso, her ankles locking. She grunted as she brought the blade down, the tip piercing his shoulder. "GRAAH!" Bucky cried out in pain. Seething with frustration, he threw his weight back, towards the wall. She grunted as his weight smashed into hers giving him the opportunity to grab her hair and fling him over his shoulder. She pulled the knife out as she went, causing even more pain to blind him.

Bleeding and fuming he stepped forward and thrust his boot hitting her midriff in a Spartan-kick sending her backwards. "Answer me!" He roared.

Rearing her bloodied chin up with viperous traction, sneeringly, the deceitful imposer glided her daintier palm over the delicate-bone curvatures of her elfish features as whitish psionic energy creepily sloughed the masquerading visage of the gorgeously thievish kitten, revealing a vampiress- siren. The glossier sleekness of her dishevelled raven-purplish whorls alluringly cascaded over the supple curvatures of her olive-bronze shoulders portentously akin to cobra-deshret. The voluptuous exquisiteness of her statuesque form was lavishly adorned in a whitish Grecian chiton-tunic embroidered with rhinestone sapphire that fringed over her golden-plated brocade. "I find your gladiator resilence amusing..." she rasped under her breath, mockingly, flitting her basilisk silvery-virescent irises maliciously onto a heap of shredded neoprene that was evidently discarded into a soggy mud-pit. "Though, I must confess, your beautiful Selina no longer exists in mortal reflection..."

Bucky's skin went ice-cold as the world seemed to collapse all around him. Choked with disbelief, he bared his teeth at the mystery witch while clutching his knife even tighter. "What the hell does that mean?! D-Did you kill her?" He was afraid to ask, the dread seeping into him was more grievous than the pain weeping from his shoulder. The strange woman had shed her magical disguise and revealed her true visage. Bucky trembled and glared fiercely as she laughed at his turmoil. She wouldn't give him a straight answer, he knew. His frustration boiled over until he lunged at her again, his knife aiming for a killing thrust towards her neck. She parried with her own blade with venomous skill causing sparks to fly out as the metals clashed. Bucky didn't relent, despite his slow footing as he spun and masked a swipe towards her waist. She dodged and retaliated with her own strike. Bucky ducked and caught her arm with one hand, exposing her side as he thrust. She dodged only barely, the blade cutting through her dress and scratching her skin, much to her ire.

The knifepoint clash of his untrammelled ferocity was symphonically explosive; with cobra-strike reaction, she viciously gripped onto his vein-threaded wrist, lashingly dragging her fingernails over tauten flesh that was stabbingly like a paralytic-waspish sting inexorably lancing bone-deep. "I must admit that you harbour an impressive vibrancy of combative tenacity...A true warrior of Sparta." A pitch sardonic razed up her throat, malignly, as Bucky angled his garbed chest against a marble-quartz column with tenser strain-resistance increasingly thrummed within him. "Instead you've been carousing in the shadows of an underworld that is befouled with the iniquities of lost souls...Perhaps the drive of your valour has become redemption to save these mortal drudges, but even the noble warriors of Sparta tasted defeat under my power..."

Raptorially she glanced down at the graven-corded rigidity of bulkier-athletic-honed muscle that hunkily bracketed into v-cut obliques of his kevlar-garbed abdomen-every virile curvature was menacingly edged with gladiator solidity as he forcily wrenched his arm back. Feigning her warring revulsion, she blatantly kneaded her palm over the bloodied gash in his muscled shoulder-relishing the infective onslaught of her telestic dregs that would morphically amputate his masculine beauty into a boarish-obesified drudge. "Now you will join my wretched captives who fatteningly prevail under my reign, for denying a place at my side, James Barnes..."

Raggedly, Bucky emitted a choked-off gasp on mortified tenor as purplish trigon glyphs mephitically striated over the heavier thews of his deadened forearm-branding him with her sorcerous incantation. A morphic heaviness of rubberized-blubbery pudge doughily fused over his tauten flesh on chunkier fruition as he gaspingly wavered on vertiginous traction, and braced his cybertronic arm over his bulgier mid-drift that swollenly glozed underneath his tactical jacket. "Urgh..." Gaspingly, Bucky slumped against a marble pillar, registering every vestige of his athletic-honed resilence disturbingly sloughing into globbier rotundity as his jutting navel furrily dwarfed against overlapping pudginess-a blobbish girth.

"N-N-No…" He felt like his blood was on fire. A sickly burning sensation pouring through his veins and reaching out for his heart and soul. Bucky fought with every shred of strength and ounce of willpower to stave off the waves of change crashing against every cell inside of him. The witch's magic manifested as purple veins bled across his skin. The pain he felt, the horror of anticipation didn't compare to the ache in his heart that he had failed. He'd failed Selina. Crashing to his knees, he couldn't control the twitching spasms of his transforming muscles, nor the bulging mass of his expanding fat. He gazed up at the evil witch who laughed at his suffering. If it was the last thing he did he promised himself he'd stop her by whatever means necessary. The soldier inside of him is defiant till the very end.

"S-Selina…" His voice croaked as words failed him. His hearing was deafened by the sounds of his own body being twisted and reshaped from a human being into a mere animal.

Hearing the oinkish cadence gurglingly erupt over his globbing throat, with viperous fluidity, Circe eased onto her shapelier haunches, kneading her lithe fingers through his sweat-drenched tresses that grungily clung over the lumpish deformity of pudgier fleshiness that uglily fused with his masculine sculpt of his outstretched- elongating nose into a wedged-out snout. Heaving out snortier breaths on a panicked tempo, gapingly, Bucky stretched his poutier lips as his lower incisors piercingly jutted into boar-like tusks. "N-NO..." The bone-vising onslaught spasmodically amplified into convulsive mania; stuntedly, Bucky pinched his eyelids against the bubbling puffiness fleshily melding over the stubbier bones of his reshaping fingers-hooves. "Grugh.." The burgeoning -mutative strain of his girthier-pot-bellied roundness burstingly 'shrappp' against the ripped kevlar of his tactical jacket-he was alarmingly morphing into a blimpish hog.

The odorous-pukish acidity of bile droolingly trekked over the bulbous sagginess jowelly chin- every razor-edged contour of his scruffier features meltingly glozed into a blobbing -furrier visage of a hideous boar. "Such a waste..." she rasped, mockingly, tracing her lacquered fingernail over the puckered swollenness of his tusked-lips. "I desired to keep you as my champion among the victorious ranks, now, you will lament into the dregs of gluttonous misery and listlessly sire wretched broods that will replenish my paradise..."

It was all a scream-both inside and out. He couldn't believe this had happened to him. A flick of his gaze towards the dangling hoof of what used to be his right arm saw the stubby limb shift by his command. His misery only continued to grow as she taunted him. The evil witch's cold touch was about as pleasant as a needle being dragged across his skin. He wanted to recoil, he wanted to lunge and maw on her hand like the animal she had just turned him into. But he couldn't. The suffocating stench of her magic permeated his body turning him into a weak creature whose ultimate purpose was to be devoured or discarded. Bucky didn't care which one-it was all for nothing! Selina...Selina was gone...wasn't she? He couldn't bring himself to hope, to torture himself any further than the grim reality he now faced. He wasn't a human being anymore-this evil witch had stolen that from him as sure as Hydra had stolen his free-will. Bucky latched onto the anger inside of him, the drive to remain defiant as he grunted and huffed in his struggle to stand.

"You uurrrgh you won't-urrrgggh-g-get away with this!" His voice was heavy and broken amidst the oinkish pitch of its new form, but his message still rang clear as he saw her curl her lips with distaste. He watched as she snapped her fingers and as if by magic, a towering behemoth of an creature stalked forward into the pen. It looked more like a beast than a man with the face of a goat and the body of a bull. Bucky braced himself for the feeling of imminent death. Instead, the jailer grabbed his leg and started dragging him through the muck. He struggled at first, desperately trying to find some way of breaking free from the grip of inhumanely strength. It was no use. As he was dragged, his fading gaze landed on the sow, who was alert and looking at him, squealing as if out to him.

He was back at their studio apartment. Midtown, NYC. The moon shone bright in the sky behind a veil of clouds, latent and foreboding. All the ivory towers glittering like diamonds on black velvet. But nothing shone brighter than her pearly soft smile as she patted his cheek and pressed a kiss against his lips. His heart-ached, his hands weren't able to let her go as she whispered in her sweet silky voice. "I'll be back before you know it, handsome." He felt her leave, not watched, but felt. It was like a part of him was being taken with her.

"Selina..." He called out to her as their world faded into dim obscurity.

He awoke to the feeling of ice-cold water splashing all over him, rendering him into an alarmed panicked state. A cold cruel voice laughed at him.

A guttural squeal breathlessly erupted out of the paunchy sniper-hog's flabbier throat as he dizzyingly wobbled on the clumsier traction of his stubbier-cloven hooves on shell-shocked panic, unaware of the hulkish rhino-like warden imposingly grounded his block-sized hooves near the iron-spired bars, malignly gazing down at the newest addition of the pathetic-fattening ranks."Awww... Did the little piggy, not like his morning bath..." he bellowed in snortier cadence, abrasively, glaring down at the remnants of bluish kevlar tatteredly clinging onto bulbous rotundity of his droopier girth as Bucky stumblingly thunked the bulginess of his plumpish backside against the eroded bars."Get up you pudgy runt...Or I will enjoy dragging you into that mud heap again...Bucko!"

Thrashing up the jowelly pudginess of his tusked snout on defensive accord, gruntingly, Bucky caught the putrid rancidity of hoggish-sweat vomitously entrenching him-the stink of anesthetized dormancy that pervaded within the sludgier pens. Blurringly, against the puffier sagginess of his furred cheeks, Bucky roved the feverous intensity of his beadier aquamarine irises onto the spired bars as his floppier ears twitchily rapted against his wedge-sized head. "Mphm..." he emitted out in a gruntier pitch, nasally, registering the paunchier bloatedness of his rotund mass chubbily shifting as he exhaustingly attempted to pivot onto his stubbier hooves, only to feel a bone-vising pressure of the shackled-chain grippingly clamped over his stockier fore-leg arresting his warred mobility, as his wiggly corkscrew tail spiralled out of his furrier rump. "Argh..."

Confused didn't begin to describe what he was feeling. The pungent reek of filth and stagnant water was suffocating he felt his eyes water with revulsion adding to the biting chill of his wet misery. "W-Where am I? W-What the hell is this?!" He squealed at the hideous thing that stood outside of the confines of his cage. He was big, roughly over six feet tall and about as wide as a jeep ready to run over everything in his way. His head throbbed with the chorus of wailing cries coming from all around him. It was a blur at first, the dim dark of the pen looked about as hospitable as a dungeon. All the other cages reeked with the stench of fear as animals of various breed beat against the bars of their cages. The ugly one laughed at his confusion, a sadistic and annoying sound that was too awful, rang over the noises as an electric rod was brandished. "Get the hell away from me," Bucky grunted.

"The stink of defiance stills clings to you, piglet..." The beastlier rhino-dreadnought grunted, mockingly, his leathery fingers hefting up a taser-baton on malignant tenor against the eroded bars, as his blackish-onyx depths rabidly glared onto the paunchy chestnut-grayish furred boar, ploddingly waddling over a discarded heap of Kevlar. "You will be scoured from it, once you become a pathetic oinkin' slug in my ranks..." he bellowed, snortily, gesturing his baton at the blubbery -chunkier droopiness of his porcine captive's barrel-sized girth. "First you're gonna enjoy stuffing your piggy snout with sludge..."

"Like hell I will!" Filled with unspent rage, Bucky threw his weight against the cage. The bars held against his mass, the cold metal digging into his sides sending mind-numbing pain throughout his body. But he didn't relent. The pig imagined the witch that put him hear laughing at his misery and he continued thrashing against the bars. The force of his growing defiance caused a restlessness among the other imprisoned animals, their cries growing louder in pitch serving to agitate the guards. The rhino-like brute known simply as Dimios, grinned sadistically as he envisioned breaking the newly transformed hog into a whimpering pathetic mess. "AARRGGH!" Bucky squealed with frustration, the bars either were magically reinforced or the steel was simply too much for him to do anything but slightly bend the bars. "Once I get my hands on that evil witch, I'll-"

"ENOUGH...!" A thunderous cadence fumingly vented out of Dimio's horned snout, as voltaic surges of white-hot energy pulsed off his baton and searingly lanced through Bucky's globbier mass on tasering succession. Bolstering onto his stubbier hooves with callbacks of his untrammelled ferocity as the electrified barrages were intensifying over the shagginess of his fur, gnashingly, Bucky dragged the warped deformity of his vibrainum fore-hoof against the muddier ground, while Dimios stomped his brutish advances into the cell. "You just don't quit..." He yanked the chain with forceful viciousness, listening to Bucky oinkishly grunt out choke-off heaves. "Yeah, the big boys are gonna eat you alive, piglet..."

The strength was sapped from his body as if he were cut opened and drained. Every nerve in his body ached, the lancing pain of electricity bringing forth harrowing memories of his Hydra reconditioning. Electro-shocks had bombarded him with mind-numbing agony and all he could do was scream. His new body wasn't up the endurance he'd built in his superhuman physique. He could only glare up at the rhino-guard with a heated glare that promised retribution should he ever get free. Being angry helped him to cope, to distract him from the grim reminder of how he had ended up here. Her name echoed in his thoughts, his heart breaking in his chest to envision what form of torment she endured in this place. He felt his body being dragged out of the cage by Dimios, the guard throwing him towards a trough filled with nauseating muck that might've been expired fruit. "You eat it first, tough guy!" Using the strength of his hooves he kicked the trough, and splattered the food all over the rhino's body, staining his mouth and torso.

"You'll pay for that...!" Dimios huffed out in vehement pitch, gustily, splaying the veiny puffiness of his leathery hand over the bulbous massiness of his armoured girth as the putrid gooeyness of bilious slop drippily smudged his bronze-forged manica gauntlets. With sledgehammering pressure, he yanked onto the blubbery furriness of the sniper boar's humped shoulder, manically, dragging Bucky's pudgier-tusked snout into the lumpish gunk of rancid sludge. "EAT UP...!" he snorted, fumingly, aware of his porkier captive's rampageous aggression, he brutishly delivered a chokehold over the blobbier sagginess that flabbily overlapped around Bucky's thickened neck and punishingly waterboarded him into the mushier trough with snout-plowing force. "You got a little fight in you, I'll give you that, but soon you won't even remember your name, piglet..."

"No! Ngh! G-Get off me!" Bucky struggled like a man being dragged off to the gallows, feeling nothing but the dread of impending doom in his belly. The deafening squeals and growls of the other wild-life surrounding him only increased his sense of agitation. Dimios' strength was brutal and unyielding, Bucky felt his head might be ripped from his shoulders in his attempt to resist it. The rancid stench of slop was as nauseating as filth. His eyes watered and he gagged amidst his squealing, but it was no use as his face was shoved into the trough. "N-No! I won't-gargh! Ack!" Slushing muck mixed with expired fruit was smeared against his face. The squealing and roaring grew louder, Bucky's temperance was waning. He thought he could hear a voice-her voice-somewhere in the recesses of his surroundings calling out to him.

"B-Bucky..." A choked-off grunt raspily emitted from her blubbery throat, angling her pinkish snout against the eroded bars, feverously, Selina gazed at the dreadnought-beastlier warden thuggishly clutching onto the sniper-boar's flabbier neck. Bracingly, the vixenish sow grounded her stubbier-cloven hooves with defensive traction-she needed to distract the massive brute. Fixing her beadier dark irises collectively, onto a wooden bucket, she wobbled against the hoof-vising strain of her shackle, harnessing up the kickback momentum of her chubbier hind-legs and drove every surge of her rampant ferocity against the bucket. "Hey..." she railed out, snortily, as the bucket smashingly careened into the bars. "Pick on someone your own size, big boy..."

The brutish guardsman whipped his gaze towards the impudent sow who dared to taunt him and growled threateningly. "Shut your mouth you mewling sow or you're next!" His distraction and intense focus distracted him from his task, only too late realizing that the newly turned pig in his grip had gone slack as if weightless and dead. "You still alive you pathetic worm?" He stuffed Bucky's face further into the slop and felt no resistance. "Ah damn it," Realizing his error, Dimios pulled Bucky back and threw his to the ground where he laid as lifeless and still. If it weren't for the ever slight rise and fall of his abdomen he was certain the hog had perished. His mistress would have him ripped to pieces if he had ended her newly turned prize prematurely.

"Weak. Pathetic. You won't last long in this hell, mainlander." The clumps of slop matted to the hog's head and mouth satisfied the brute enough with the thought the pig had been forced to eat it. It wouldn't be long now until his mind was gone. "I'm gonna enjoy stripping the bacon off your hide when Circe no longer needs you."

"No...You bastard!" A heart-stopping onslaught of crescendoing panic betrayingly whipsawed through the bulgy suppleness of her voluptuous mass, unblinkingly, Selina gazed at her motionless sniper-boar as the girthy rotundity of his blobbier underbelly alarmingly strained against his throatier oinks. She wouldn't accept that he was potbellied chubb-ball into a sorcerous-deadbolted reality with her-not her beast machine. "G-Get up handsome..." she murmured, shakily, watching the fuzzier length of his puckered-jowelly snout twitchily rapt, evident to his floppier ears underneath the unkempt shagginess of chestnut tresses -he was definitely playing down the possum card. Against the feverous bleariness that robbed her vision, Selina gnashed her tusked-teeth, and thunked her pudgier snout against the bars with resurge of her pent-up fury. "You didn't even him a chance..." she oinked-off, jarring the rhino-brute away from Bucky with her deceptive play. "You're not walking away from this..."

Dimios sneered with sadistic amusement as he turned his back. "Tough luck, Piggy. Did this lump of ham mean something to you? Was he your brother?!" Bucky's eye peeled open, disorientation fading as his focus was burned into the guardsman's back. Slowly he shifted and brought one hoof out from under him, and then a second. Dimios towered in front of the sow's cage, his mountainous size casting an ominous shadow over her. "Oh I think I get it, you were hoping to mate with him? HA! Don't you worry now, your time will come and when it does I'm gonna gut-" Massive weight crashed into Dimios' back, sending the minotaur sentry careening forward to smash into the spiked arch of a column. The spike pierced his arm and the ogre roared with pain. "AAARGGH!"

"That's no way to talk to a lady," Bucky grunted on unsteady hooves.

Venting out a full-throated grunt that implosively revved within the blimpish paunchiness of his rotund form, aggressively, Bucky thrusted his jowelly-tusked snout as he rushingly barrelled his clunkier momentum towards Dimios with line-breaker charge; the heftier traction of his cloven-hooves draggingly scraped against the marble flooring on defensive-breakneck succession. The warped deformity of his vibrainium fore-hoof robotically whirred on mechanized tenor as he gnashingly rammed his wedge-sized head into the heavier bulkiness of Dimios's armoured legs. "Argh..." Onrushes of his enhanced resiliency exceedingly stoked as he bouncily torqued on his stubbier legs, and fiercely gored his curved tusks into the rhino warden's leathery flesh with no retraction of hesitance. "S-Stay down..."

He didn't know what he was doing, reacting solely on pure aggressive instinct against an oppressive jailer who wanted to torture him, he merely fought back. He should've high-tailed it and ran for the hills, maybe Strange could get a bead on him and pull him out of this mess before he wound up on a spit. But he knew he wasn't imagining things when he'd heard that voice-her voice. He recognized the sow who he had tussled with back in the pen where he believed he'd found his Selina only to be deceived by a venomous snake. But...he actually had found his Selina, only she wasn't in the shape he had expected, he realized. "Selina?" He oinked at the sow with a broken tone.

"Always the showoff, Barnes..." Selina quipped in a snarkier undertone, gruntingly as she waddled on cloven-hooves against the clamping deadweight of the iron shackled chain bruisingly hinged over her stubbier foreleg. Sconces of torchlight ethereally contrasted over the glossier sleekness of her burgundy-mahogany fur, inadvertently she grounded her bustier- curvaceous form against the spikier bars. They have bloatedly leashed down within the Oydesse's witchy enchantress porcine ranks of being chastened to breeding stocks.

Warding off vestiges of untrammelled heartache, riskily, Selina gazed into the cool steeliness of the dumbstruck sniper-hog's beadier aquamarine irises-a dishevelled thatch of chestnut roguishly fringed over the puffier sagginess of his jowelly cheeks as the puckered deformity of his shapely-bow lips menacingly fused with curvier tusks-he was a beasty hog. Stockily, Bucky wobbled closer on a lumberish pace towards her barred cell with tempoed desperation. "Guess we both got extra packaging, huh?"

The hog was speechless, having his theory confirmed without question was a shock. Selina was alive. She was a sow. The very same sow who had been fixated on him when he showed up…The same sow he'd attacked in defense of an imposter. Shame and guilt didn't begin to describe what he was feeling. How could he have not seen it? "I'm sorry, Lina. I…I didn't know." He released a remorseful grunt as he waddled towards the bars of her cage. He was oblivious to the commotion building as Dimios attempted to regain his footing and the other caged wildlife were raving like mad spectators. He thought he heard one of them scream 'kill him', egging him on to finish Dimios' while he was down. Bucky ignored the hysteria and focused only on her.

"If I had known, I'd-"

"Not the best time for this, handsome..." she grunted out, bluntly, staving down an onslaught of bone-deep tension racking over her flabbier neck-the deadlier pressure of his bionic hand that breathlessly immobilized her into a chokehold. Fervently, she yanked her delicate forehoof against the heftier weight of the chain, while Bucky shamefacedly drooped onto his chunkier haunches-doing his utmost not to release his dammed-up anguish that irrevocably raided through his plumpish form. A saltier rush dampishly trekked down the furred pudginess of his tusk-snout as he mistily gazed at her blubbery throat-knowing that his robotized grip would have unforgivingly suffocated her."You don't owe me that, Barnes..." She frisked her pinkish snout against the bars with a devious twitch. "Besides I went a little easy on you..."

He would have chuckled if had enough resilience to come back from this harrowing revelation. Instead Bucky grimaced in a pained smile, his joy at knowing Selina was alive was enough to curb the anguish over what had become of her. "I'm getting us out of here, darlin'," he vowed, not realizing the presence of two looming shadows entering the room until they towered over him. "All I need is to-aargh!" A pair of monstrous hands wrapped around his furry hide yanked him off his feet. The room spun on its axis and the hog released a comical squeal of surprise before he was lobbed across the room. He smashed into a wall of iron bars sending pain flaring throughout his body. The rumbling growl shook the room and a tremor of panic entered his gut. His blurring vision made out the form of a gargantuan...thing standing outside of his cage, sneering at him. A jackal-sentry of some kind with eyes yellow like burning hot coals.

"Foolish hog," the beast chided him before slamming the door to the cage down, imprisoning the hog within.

"No-no-damn it!" Bucky squealed out with frustration as he threw his weight against the bars. "Let me out!"

A scything clamour of dagger-like claws lashingly grazed over the bars on deadlier accord, viciously, a whitish-furred canine muzzle jutted out, catching a hoggish reek that stinkily wafted off the newest prisoner-a rotund -shaggier boar who feistily stowed bone-deep tenacity. Oinkishly, Bucky thrusted up his puckering snout as viscid blood drippily smeared over his matted grayish-chestnut fur. "You know I find pigs so boring to kill..." A raspier timbre that fringed with Arabic growlingly resonated within the ghoulish-wraithlike jackal hybrid as the metallic gleam of a khopesh crescent-sickle blindingly flashed against Bucky's stormier depths. "Just fattening in your dormant misery until I reap out your butchered souls..."

An immensely frustrated Bucky wasn't close to intimidated as he beat his weight against the bars. "You think I'm on the ropes, you ugly mutt, wait till I get out of this cage and i'll-" The guard kicked the bars with enough force to dent the bars, the collision sending Bucky to smack against the back of the cage. Pain mewled from his snout, the vestiges of his stubborn pride shattering like glass as his hearing rang like a siren. That one had hurt. The pain felt it all the way to the tips of his hooves. A painful oink emanated from his snout, the guard watching him with silent satisfaction as he laid on his side. The other wildlife had yet to cease their wild raving, prompting the jackal guard to roar at them. His volume shook the room causing the other animals to go quiet.

"On your feet, Dimios! The mistress will have your head if she learns of dissent among the cattle!" The guard chided the rhino who shook off his pain with a sneer at Bucky's cage.

Hearing the riotous pandemonium of voice-crippling squeals berserkly amplifying within the murkier barracks in distressed mania, snarlingly, the jackal sentry whipsawed his crescent-sickle with vicious- homicidal precision, cuttingly the blade ratcheted off the bars on dead-straight fruition. The odorous miasma of sweatier fur biliously wafted out of the cells as blimpish obesified hogs anguishedly thrashed against their shackles in the horrified wake."SILENCE!" A full-throated growl erupted out of him, roaringly as the maniacal intensity of his lucent-golden irises rabidly flashed down at the headstrong-potbellied boar resting droopily on the globbier bulginess of his roundish girth as Bucky chestily oinked against strained pants. "Enjoy your stay, pig, for once you become worthless in the fattening ranks I will enjoy tearing you apart...Piece by Piece."

"When I come back, I'm gonna rip out your other arm and have it for a snack," Dimios threatened a disoriented Bucky who was laid out on his side. The rhino-guardsman had the hog marked as his personal torture-toy after daring to attack him. Worse, Agron had seen the spectacle and would no doubt let the Mistress know of his folly. "What are you looking at?" He sneered at the sow in the cage beside the newcomer. Her gaze was cool and unflinching if not unnerving. He stayed his hand, knowing the sows were prizes not to be harmed. Left with no one else to bully, Dimios shuffled out of the dungeon-like pen with a limp, Agron, the jackal guardsman, soon to follow.

In Bucky's cell, the soft groaning of pain was the only indicator the hog was still conscious after the jackal's assault. Pain burned in his body like he'd been hit by a car. He wondered if he could barely move because he was hurt or because he was simply too fat in his new body to make the task easy. "Hng! Ummf!" He struggled to turn over, fighting through the pain in his side that screamed at him in protest. "Next time I'll take a horn off that mug," Bucky grumbled with soured defiance.

The boggier muddiness of the lockdown pen sludgily clung to her fleshier-cloven hooves, oinkily, Selina angled up her pinkish-furred snout against the bars as he gnashingly hefted up the droopier paunchiness of his barrel-size girth on the strenuous accord-a comical feat that dredged up a callback of blissful memories when she impishly enticed him out of the clumpier encompassing sheets of their mattress with a naughtier play of her kittenish brazenness. Despite that, he was torturously barraged with onslaughts of parasomnia-cerebral trauma that left their blankets drenched, she anchored him out of those anguished throes until he rode out the apparitional-grief-razed chimeras. "Having fun in there, Barnes..." she quipped under a gruntier breath, jocularly, watching him moodily puckered his jowelly snout into a staunchier grimace. "Do you need some help..."

"I'm-ngh! Peachy," he managed to haul himself up onto unsteady hooves. It felt like trying to balance a truck on a beam. His flabby weight jiggled repulsively and he resisted the urge to yell out his frustration. As the adrenaline of his violent encounter began to wear off, the reality of his predicament began to set in and he felt ill-prepared for its overwhelming effect. How the hell did this happen to him? To both of them? Selina was alive, he reminded himself. His search hadn't been in vain and she was now incidentally, imprisoned in the cell beside his own. Stowing his own bitter feelings of his new form, he slowly trotted towards the bars and peered at her closely. "What about you? Are you alright?" He still hated himself for attacking her and defending an imposter, but more than that he worried what had been done to her since she'd been brought here.

Hearing a crestfallen pitch underlying fringe against the murmurous gravelliness of his whiskey-roughened timbre, vehemently, Selina hammered down her chubbier fore-hoof with untampered force in reactive succession as she drove the point-blank intensity of her beadier dark irises fervidly onto the sniper-boar who bolstered the fubsier rotundity of his globous mass exhaustingly against the iron-spired bars. Gustily, Bucky emitted out snortier pants against a heart-stabbing upheaval of revamped defeat -it wasn't his fault, she was dragged into the obese menagerie of porcine ranks because she was downplayed after utilizing her thievish-virtuosic prowess of stealthier infiltration to retrieve a high-priced asset from a cheap-faced investor who bankrolled syndicate extensions for HYDRA. "Let's say it's hard to adapt to this porky makeover, handsome..." she grunted out, techily, feigning a petulant—edgier grimace over the fuzzier length of her pinkish wedge-out snout. "Every meal needs to be a hard pass, unless you want to break the scale, Barnes..."

"You sure picked a helluva person to steal from, darlin', if it landed you in this place dancin' on two sets of hooves." Bucky snarked as he wedged his snout between the bars. There was a five foot gap between their cages, the distance might as well have been the Grand Canyon for how far he felt from her. He peered at her closely, the ghoulish shadows of the cell-bars streaking across their forms. "Who's the mystery witch that wore your face? Something tells me she's not from around here?" He was in a cage, trapped in a prison that was unlock any other that wasn't made up entirely of cell-bars, but his own transformed body. The logical thing to do was panic, instead, he fell back onto his training that gave him some level of focus. Plan, assess, know your enemy and surroundings.

Hearing the derisive gravelliness of his oinkish timbre, imperturbably, Selina glared at the podgier rotundity of his stumpy form, every porcine drudge that Circe trickily leashed down into her fattening barracks was abdominous obesefied into repulsive heaps of piggish flab. Undeviatingly, her cloven-hooves glided over metallic remnants of drachma coin—archaic spoils that were discarded from bygone phalanxes of Athenian merchants-poor suckers- who got ensnared onto the dystopian island of hoggish misery.

"Didn't you Brooklyn boys ever read the Odyssey..." she deadpanned under terser breath, pointedly, as the chagrined sniper-boar gruntingly thrusted his jowelly snout against the bars."Yeah...I'm guessing those boring history classes weren't your style, huh...?" Broodingly, he razored his beadier silvery-aqueous irises onto the drachma scattered over the muddier ground of his cell. "Yeah...I'm guessing those boring history classes weren't your hardcore style, huh...?"Wonkily, Bucky scooched his girthier rotundity on vertiginous tenor, as curvier jutting of his tusks menacingly gleamed against sconces of torchlight burnishing his cindery-chestnut fur-despite being a potbellied chubb-ball, he was the smallest of the boar ranks. "Lucky for you, I know that our witchy keeper gets her century kicks by turning people into hefty porkers with don't play her rules..."

"...You're…not kidding. Of course you're not," Bucky was at a loss as he listened to this. When Strange had told him they might be dealing with a mythical threat, Bucky only took him half-seriously believing that this could have just been a delusional witch or a cultist in the wrong part of the world. But he should've known better. If the Norse gods turned out to be real, who's to say the Greeks myths weren't any different? How the hell did the world get so damned insane so fast in this day and age? "I used to love fairy-tales and legends growing up. I don't think I'll ever be able to pick up a Lord of the Rings book again after this." He oinked and paced in his cage, feeling the gravity of the situation begin to bear down on him. This was bad. If the witch was actually Circe, the sadistic man-hating sorceress of legend who made a habit of roasting sailor turned pigs on a spit, he couldn't expect to last long in this place unless he figured something out.

"What does the witch want?" He finally asked, mildly aware that there was a building tension in the pen as the other captive animals reared and groaned in anticipation of another cell opening-a bigger one. The reeking stench of sloth and sweat permeated the area nearly making Bucky choke. "Ugh, what the heck is that?"

Curbing down a tempoed onrush of her defensive repulsion, involuntarily, Selina angled up her pinkish snout against the vomitous potency of greasier- mucus-glazed flab that suffocatingly forced out a choke-off grunt. Scruching her largish nostrils, she wobbled back in earshot she bristlingly detected an intrusive-obese proximity of the voracious -lard-ass boar who lustily encroached near her cell. Roving her tigerish-brandy depths, fixedly, over the breeding pens, she caught a glimpse of a hulkishly abdominous mass squatting on his fleshier stubbed legs as the jowelly puffiness of his roundish-tusked snout hungrily plowed over chewed-off scraps of pomegranate. "Urgh..." she oinked, tersely, as the putrid raunchiness of his lecherous-carnal arousal smellily wafted off the glozing layers of squishier blubbery pudge that flaccidity overlapped his bulbously rotund form. She wouldn't become plumpishly straddled into beddable-prego compliance for a grossly jumbo-sized hog."Now that's some really bad stink for a girl to get used to..."

When Bucky first saw the shape of the behemoth waddling through the pen like a slimy turd, he thought it was some horrific thing out of Greek Mythology like the 3-headed hellhound bred to prey on tortured souls. It alarmed him to the point he nearly shirked back against the bars of his cage to make himself invisible. But then came the oinking heaving and grunting that he'd become too familiar with. The mass of furry flab shifted until a head was revealed, a face hidden by thick layers of chubbiness it almost made the beady dark eyes seem non-existent. "Is that…a boar?" The creature oinked as it swivelled its neck till it was peering in his direction. A deep sinister, all too human laughter filled the pen.

"Oi, what have we here? A new little piggy comin' into my humble abode?" The accent sounded Australian and posh, very much belonging to a man or creature who was all too used to getting what he wanted in life. The beast was big, over five and a half-feet in height and almost the same in width. He didn't so much as walk as nearly drag himself across the floor like a slug in search of something delicate to munch on. The bits of consumed fruit sticking to his furry maw flew with his spitting speech, Bucky wrinkled his snout with disgust. "Already made yerself a punching bag among the help, did ya? Ha! That was fun watching you get your teeth kicked in. Tell, me on a scale of 1-10, how much did it hurt?" He loomed in front of Bucky's cage, the size of his mass easily blotting out the light of the pen.

"I've had worse, Jabba." Bucky quipped fearlessly.

"Not really playing it smooth, Barnes..." Aware of a revamp of aggressive testosterone headstrongly glissading within her paunchy sniper-boar, Selina levelled dead-straight intensity of her beadier darkish onto the gelatinously obese slug that droopingly lumbered a breadth at her cage as viscid snot gloopily trekked out of his dampish snout. With the imperious poise of a debauched gargantuan emperor-the boorish hog- Warg, grounded his blobbier forelegs saggily against the spired iron of Bucky's cell. The grotesque slug was a two-faced business tycoon named Wallace, a backstabbing cheater who shadily gambled with the high-rigged investments-a cancerous parasite- who hungrily leeched onto syndicated assets until he was pegged into a crossfire with the Greek mafia- blood debts. Lucky for her arsenal to fire back on him, Selina had a 'name' card to play down.

"Hey, don't you have big girls to chase, Wallace ..." she grunted, jauntily, listening to Bucky huffily emitting a defensive snort as he gnashingly puckered his jowelly snout into a 'tough pig' scowl. Dragging out gruntier heaves, intimidatingly, Bucky chafed his tusks against the bars, conveying a rivalrous stalemate of hoggish-breakneck dominance. "Cool it down, handsome, I got this..."

A rumbling growl came from the hog's throat that felt more appropriate for an actual wolf than an over-sized swine, but the sound was enough to register his anger at his real name being used. "Shut your hole, you nosy wench!" He set his focus on the caged sow, though his gaze could not be seen the deliberate way he sized her up and how he licked his chops was a sure enough indicator of his lecherous appetite. "That mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble one of these days. Unless you're lookin' to take me up on me offer to uh…roll in the hay," the hog chuckled darkly, "I can pull some strings, let you out, maybe feel the sun on that pretty fur of yours again. Huh? Whaddya say?"

Bucky beat his hooves against the cage, his fury spiking with each word the hog spewed from his mouth.

"Sorry to disappoint, big boy ..." Selina murmured in a sultrier undertone, coquettishly, as she friskily quirked up her tusked-snout into a poutier smirk, aware of the corruptive-vulgar rancidity of his salacious arousal that stinkily wafted off his bristly pinkish-gray fur. Every deceptive tactic of his free-hand charity was to sleazily back a desperate sow into the corner of his pen-leashing her into feminine compliance with his ruttish-grubby delectation. He was a maniacal-insatiable tyrant who had a 'death-grip' on each filthier broodmare that protrusively swelled-out with his litters of squirmy-milk-guzzling piglets. It was a soul-crippling reality to become catatonically shackled into breeding pens-to join the blimpishly dormant-preggy sows who exhaustingly grunted out their voiceless anguish-heartbreak. Dismissively, she pivoted on her stubbier hooves, blocking out his wanton grunts. "Look, if you're expecting me to roll over like all your other girls...It's not happening."

The boar only chuckled with sadistic amusement as he took in her blatant refusal as some form of challenge. "That's what they all say at first, sweetheart. All the pretty ones play hard to get. It's a tune I've been dancing to in this place for a while. It can be fun…but also boring the longer it plays. Don't think you can keep me dancing it for too long." He grunted threateningly as he leered at her with hungry anticipation. That was until the newcomer stole his attention by beating against the bars aggressively.

"You heard the lady. She already has me as a dance-partner. So how about you beat it, punk?" Bucky felt an irrational sense of male dominance rise up within him. A primal feeling to exert his claim and protect what he perceived to be his "mate". The boar wasn't too pleased with his butting in and proceeded to headbutt the cage and force Bucky backwards a few steps.

"The name is Warg, you impudent little s***. You better wise up. Around here in these pens, I am god and you're a little gnat i'll have squashed beneath my hoof. So you better wise-up and stay out of my business, or I'll make sure Dimios has you roasting over a spit for supper."

"Yeah, M' gonna enjoy puttin' ya on the ropes..." Bucky grunted in a snarkier pitch against the oinkish chuffiness of his gravelly drawl, he was vexatiously smart-mouthin' back at the fattish slug, tamping down the aggressive urge to deliver a thrashingly head-bashing assault into Warg's lumpish- jowelly snout. He wouldn't be taking cheap-shots for a porky Jabba the Hutt, who lustily desired to claim the fervent heat of Selina's voluptuously curvier form. Unlike the other droopy-girthed sows, the decadent- Italianesque exquisiteness of her vixenish-forbidden beauty wasn't sloughed into layers of blubbery pudge: his kotenok was too damn gorgeous. The vulnerability of her feminine- compliance was nakedly exposed on her shapelier underbelly-a torturous- smack-dab revelation that she would bloatedly exist like an expandable breeding instrument, carrying disposable litters-piglets.

He couldn't defend her with the lethal calibre of his combative tack-the fleshy stubbiness of his cloven-forehooves were moulded to wobbily lumber into muddier trenches-not clutching the hilt of a Geber tactical blade: he wasn't the Siberian beast-machine anymore. In depth-charge fruition, snortingly, Bucky wobbled against the bars with head-ramming ferocity, at that moment the hippo-sized hog, disgustingly, glazed the iron latch of Selina's cell with gloppy snot. "Argh...Get away from her!"

"Somethin' to remind you of me, love," Warg rubbed the pudgy expanse of his side against the bars of her cage, prickles of pungent sweat matted to the cold bars covering it with his stink. "When your cold dingy cell begins to feel so lonely at night, just remember all you gotta do is sing my name. I'll warm ya up," listening to Bucky's angered struggling from his cage filled with oversized boar with both satisfaction and irritation, wondering what the connection was between the two of them before they came to Circe's Island. His curiosity only lasted a moment before he shrugged with indifference. One way or another, he would make sure the runt would be dealt with and the shapely-delectable sow would find herself where she belonged: beneath him inside of his cell.

"I'd save your energy if I were you, runt!" Warg snorted as he slowly began to drag his way across the pen towards his own accommodations. "Today was only a small taste of what they have in store for you. Haha sleep tight!"

Hearing Warg's pompous grunting maniacally caromed against her floppier ears, unnervingly, Selina gnashed her tusked-teeth as the vaporous rankness of greasier pudge stinkily wafted off the iron bars; a fetid-sulphurous reek nauseously enwreathed around her. Quashing the denotive urge the rampant nosedive into a trough to evade the sicko pungency of the blimpish-covetous slug. Vehemently, Selina thunked her pinkish snout against the bars, aware of the intensified disgust that implosively rode through her voluptuous- chubbier form. "Don't worry, handsome, Jumbo, will never own me..." she murmured, ruefully, hinging onto tampered restraint against the dynamite-like fury explosively stoking through her veins on incendiary tenor. "I won't be playing nice..."

Angling the supple pudginess of her snout, feverously, Selina registered the smokier balminess of mintier—cinnamony sandalwood headily became a decadent anesthetic off the dishevelled shagginess of his grayish-chestnut fur; not the muddier grunginess of sweaty hog. "Not a bad smell on you, Barnes..." she quipped in a sassier pitch, huskily, easing down onto the squishier rotundity of her girth—reaching for him with ardent precision. Gutturally, Bucky chuffed out snortier pants, fiercely, nudging his tusked-snout against the bars until their porcine heads blindly mirrored passion-driven urgency.

"As long as you like it, darlin', it works for me," he quipped with a dry snort. His nerves were still flaring with unspent aggression towards the oversized ugly hog who thought he could have his woman-kitten. Hearing Selina's voice of reassurance helped to soothe his ire in a way he'd sorely missed. Their gazes locked between their cells and Bucky looked at her intently. "If you've had to put up with this kind of attention since you got here, darlin', that's all about to change. I know you're a girl who more often than not prefers to take care of herself. But in here...I'm gonna make it clear to anyone who tries to mess with you just who it is they're dealing with."

In those heart-stunting moments of deadlocked vulnerability that raided through their paunchier forms, mistily Selina flitted her autumn-brandy depths over remnants of his tactical kevlar tatteredly clinging on his droopier underbelly as sconces of torchlight contrastingly shimmered over the robotic servos that fleshily melded with his vibrainium fore-hoof. Staving down the kiss-starved impulse that ratcheted against her riotous heartbeat, fervidly, Selina nuzzled her plushier snout against the bristly pudginess of his tusked-snout. The grounded-intensifying closeness of their dampish snouts, breathtakingly surged into a gloried-untamed demand. "B-Bucky..."

They were caught on the savorous edge of a kiss-driven by the instinctive tempo headily gusting out of their aligned snouts as Bucky nuzzled her furrier cheek with whisper-soft pressure with reverent steadiness. Against his unkempt tresses that shaggily draped against his floppy-spaded ears, the cool steeliness of his grayish-aquamarine depths smolderingly electrified with voltaic intensity as he groaningly angled his wedge-out snout on the heavier accord, only to feel the eroded bars achingly scrape against his puffier jowls.

Against the insuppressible-forbidden need that hungrily duelled within them, moaningly, Selina braced against the rampant thrust of his puckered snout against a breathless-heated rush as the lush swollenness of her porcine mouth avidly fused with rampant pressure of a heart-liquefying kiss. Regardless of the unbearable chubbiness of their potbellied girths that heftily deterred their mobility, Selina pressed against the bars, gripping onto warred vestiges of sensuous fervour-holding onto his soul-driven promise. Every flabbier layer of her voluptuously plumpish form thrummed with evocative rhythm as Bucky gutturally snorted on hungered abandon-not letting her go. "Just stay close, handsome..." she rasped, breathily, aware that every fraction of their intimate moment was seized by the panic-razed grunting that distressingly echoed around them-a pandemonium of utter hopelessness.

"I'll get you out of this, darlin'. I promise," Bucky oinked in what he thought was a reassuring whisper. The adrenaline in his body was fading as exhaustion settled in to take its place. The aches in his joints dealt by the hard-hitting blows he endured were an extra layer of sedation luring him towards imminent slumber. He didn't want to sleep again, he was afraid of what he'd see. Another heavenly memory of bliss from their shared past, or a nightmare of their harrowing present. He fought the personal anguish in his body that was filled with self-pity and disappointment. He felt like he'd failed, that he was kidding both himself and her with his tenacious bravado. But he had to hope. He'd do whatever it took to get her out of here.

He could see Selina mimicking his actions, settling down to lay on her sides. Their snouts brushed with the barest of touches. The warmth that seeped from that brief contact gave him comfort. Together, the couple fell soundly asleep, separated but reunited.

Vy podchinyayetes', soldat?

The grunginess of his sweat-drenched tresses was featherily askew over his broader temples as fevered bleariness robbed his peripheral vision. Suppressing his jack-up aggression, consciously he registered the bone-vising pressure of titanium clamped bruisingly over his tensing wrist as the whirring electromagnetic pulse of mechanized hydraulics alarmingly surged through his veins in panicked tenor. Blurringly, he caught fleeting glimpses of HYDRA lab coats tentatively encroaching closer to him-the sterile potency of disinfectant assailed within the lockdown bank vault that was a snake pit of HYDRA. "N-No..." he murmured in gruntier pitch, croakily, shifting the bulkier resiliency of his corded thighs against the modified dentist chair he was being forcibly strapped for an electroshock purge of his cerebral recesses-he was being immobilized into heavier deadweight. Raggedly, he emitted an oinkish breath against the constricting Kevlar of his tactical vest that was tatteredly sheathed over the blobbier doughiness- obese rotundity of his protrusive-bulgy mid-section. "W-What..."

The bulging mass of his own restrained body was surreal and horrifying. Leathery flesh was covered with waves of dark fur. The shackled strength of his appendages were nothing but twisted sticks with fur all over them topped off by chapped hooves. The numbing ache in his body didn't so much as come from the pain he endured by the feeling of total inhumanity in his being. So he grunted, he struggled like a man being dragged to the gallows waiting to face the hangman's noose. He caught a glimmering shape at the corner of his eye. Something looking at him? A reflection...a broken one of a helpless animal. "Net! Net! Chto eto?! Chto ty delayesh' so mnoy? (No! No! What is this? What are you doing to me?)" What had they done to him? Why had they done this to him? He was supposed to be a soldier-a weapon. Not thing...this thing!

Everything seemed twisted and distorted. The murmuring voices surrounding him were accompanied by blurred faces. None paid him mind. None except for one. A tall well-dressed man speaking to a lab-coat. He shifted his cold blue eyes towards him, smirking as if proud but there was nothing but cruelty in his voice.

"I gave the directive for Captain America to be eliminated before Project Insight goes online..." A malicious cadence sternly resonated out of Alexander Pierce as he scrapingly dragged out a metallic stool in front of the dentist's chair, the callous gleam of his silvery-cobalt irises angrily roved over the discarded graphite bevor-muzzle-that was on the medical trolley. A semblance of revulsion etched over his worn-down features as he gazed at the freakish -porcine deformity of the Asset's tusked-snout. "Your lethal efficiency has been compromised..." Easing down his wrinkled hand, tauntingly Piece reached within his white-coat, gripping a packaged Twinkie. "Now you'll be a pig for HYDRA...Something for Melina Vostokoff to experiment on for obedience commands ..."

"I'm not finished!" He squealed out, defiant and terrified to his bones; feelings he shouldn't be experiencing. He should be complying with their wishes, he should be empty, he shouldn't think. But he was. A voice rose up from the depths of his psyche and roared out in a bid for freedom. "LET ME GO! STOP!" The well-dressed man, his superior officer, had merely thrown the pasty treat at him as if he were a pitiful stray that deserved only to be spat on. "I will-I-ngh!" He felt cruel hands grab ahold of his neck, forcing him into a straight posture. A familiar sadistic voice hissed into his ear. The voice of a man who wanted nothing but to see him suffer.

"Hold still, piggy. This is gonna hurt, and I'm gonna enjoy it." Brock Rumlow grinned savagely as he secured a strap around the pig's throat, locked him back against the headrest. The whirring sound of electrodes being prepared pierced through his haze of torment. "I will not comply! NO!"

The bone-jerking pressure of Rumlow's brutish hand forced him against the chair, snortier heaves jackhammered breathlessly through the paunchier globbiness of his Kevlar-garbed chest as the circular machinery pulsingly haloed over his furrier-jowelly cheeks that Rumlow nastily squeezed. "Open up, porky..." Tamping down whimpery oinks as he vomitously choked against the rubbered mouthguard gliding over the swelled puffiness of his deformed lips, thrashingly, he gnashed tusked-teeth at the second his wedged-out snout to bleedingly grazed the HYDRA enforcer's gloved hand.

"Grgh..." A seething hiss erupted out of Rumlow as he malignantly yanked the Soldier's dishevelled-shaggier tresses with breakneck viciousness, mirroring the razored steeliness that piercingly gleamed into his bleared aquamarine depths. "Oh, you got a little fight left in you, huh...Oinkin' freak..." he taunted out, raspily, gazing at the blimpish -girthier swollenness burstingly straining underneath the Kevlar vest as glozing blubbery pudge fleshily overlapped the hoggish Asset's jutting navel. "Woah...I guess my boys are gonna have fried bacon tonight..."

The searing pain of the electro-shocks piercing his skull brought about the feeling of being on fire from within. Any defiance he would have directed at Rumlow evaporated in a shrilling squeal of agony. "Not again! NOT AGAIN!" His world was burned away in a bright light that blinded him. The haunting echo of his own screams lingered as the whiteness dimmed into obscurity. The pain simmered with it. And then there was nothing-just a black cold emptiness where the warmth of conscience thought was no longer there. The cold was irksome, causing him to roll about restlessly. No light, no sun. Just the polished surface of metal beneath his mass to keep him grounded in a state of abandonment.

A churning in his stomach, gripping and untenable. Hunger. He was hungry. He searched the darkness finding only metal bars as his companion. But there was a waft close-by. He sniffed, his senses were alive as the aroma of fruit crossed his brain. He dragged himself towards it. He couldn't move. Too heavy, but it didn't matter. He was hungry. Chewed pieces of apple and grains were spewed out over the floor, he sniffed them, flicking fresh bits into his mouth. It wasn't enough. He was hungry. Still hungry. The scent was stronger, he dived head-first into it, mouth open. The richness of nourishment bombarded him with a gluttonous focus.

A pale streak of light coming from a flashlight moved across his cell, reflecting across the floor the mountain's mass of pig fat that was his body. It didn't matter. It was a face without a name.

He was hungry…He would always be hungry. That's all he knew.

As the fudgy decadence of cameral-drizzled brownies appetizingly wafted off the granite countertop, vexatiously, Selina braced the lithe svelteness of her garbed back against the fridge, splaying her daintier palm over the globous swollenness that ballooningly jutted underneath her lacey pink swing-dress as she registering the quickening-gut-punching vibrations of her feistier twins. Collectively, she whirled on her puffier feet with balletic graces, as her autumn-brandy irises brusquely glanced at the summer bake sale flyer pinned on the fridge.

"Okay...Let's get this over with..." she murmured out, tersely, listening to the front door infuriatingly open on routine succession. "Handsome, are you home...?" With tentative advances, she waddled out of the polished kitchen on fervent tenor, steelily gazing at her potbellied -tubbier husband who huffily grunted out his warring frustration. Underneath his loose-fitted shirt, the plumper droopiness of his roundish midriff bloatedly expanded as he piggishly munched on a greasier doughnut on slobbier accord."I'm guessing you already had your fill, Barnes..." she rebuffed, pointedly, gazing at the purplish remnants of blueberry jelly disgustingly smudged over the jowelly heaviness of his dimpled chin as his stuffier cheeks flabbily puckered his shapely-bow lips into a boarish grimace. Curbing down her fervent irateness, Selina glared at the bulbous rotundity of his paunchier abdomen that repulsively jiggled as he swaggeringly plodded -his fleshier hand possessively reaching over her curvaceous-bustier form. " Urgh...Now that's a lot of extra packing for this girl to handle, porky..."

"Nothing wrong with a little afternoon snack before the main course, darlin'," Bucky Barnes said with a lopsided smirk at his shapely-wide lips. Despite his attempt at being charming, there was an evident if not tragic decline to his charming state. His voice that was suave and cool was about as tired as a hungover sloth unwilling to get out of bed. His manly scent of musk and sandalwood was replaced by the reek of alcohol and sugar. Bucky's eyes were glued to his wife's frame, drinking her in with hungry appreciation till they fell upon the countertop. He visibly sniffed and his grayish-aquamarine ireses were suddenly wide and alight with ravishing intent. "Speaking of-" he made his way towards her and delectable tray of treats behind her. "Are those brownies I smell? Aw, babe you shouldn't have-"

"I don't think so, handsome..." With a depth-charge reaction, arrestingly Selina braced her daintier palms against the stiffened leather of his threadbare jacket, registering the blobbish doughiness of his paunchier mid-drift cushily melding over the jutted-out swollenness of her girthier-preggo-bump. "Umph..." Groaningly, she reached for the brownie platter with blinded precision as the odorous reek of Jack Daniels smellily wafted off the grunginess of his unkempt chestnut tresses; staunching down a pukish onrush, quickly she pivoted on her socked-feet with balletic ease, knowing he was indifferently grappled into throes on unstoppable-piggish hunger. Dragging his teeth waggishly over his poutier underlip, evident to his rascally nose scrunch, maddeningly Bucky emitted out a snortier chuckle as the jowelly pudginess of his scruffier jaw tensed against huffier grunts. As she grabbed the platter at the countered second he clumsily reached to swipe off a brownie. "If you want one, Bucko, you have to make dinner tonight...No exceptions."

"Sure I can order some Chinese, beats having to do any dishes after," he offered, using one of his arms to help steady his pregnant wife's body while his other hand tried to reach for one of the square chocolatey pastries. When he saw the firey displeasure in her eyes, the working part of his mind that wasn't obsessed with food and drinking took heed of the danger he could find himself in and he relaxed his hand, putting on a pouty twist of his lips. "C'mon, darlin'. Pretty please?" Entranced by her floral scent, his nose bristled near her hair, his puffy lips still specked with jelly from a donut he stuffed down his throat an hour earlier sought out the smooth creamy surface of her neck and jaw. A different type of hunger was soon to take hold of him as his eyes fell absent and were controlled by rampant urges to consume.

"Bucky..." An intrusive clamour of the doorbell echoed within the kitchen, on a defensive accord, vehemently Selina gestured for him to answer their front door. Giving her a sourish glare, huffily, Bucky plodded his wobbling advances closer to the cherry-wood door. At the moment he turned the knob clockwise, he was dumbfoundedly floored by the heart-stealing vixenish stranger curvaceously braced against the doorframe- a Grecian siren- alluringly garbed the silkiness of a black Versace mini-dress that exquisitely contrasted her lustrous chocolaty whorls glossily draped over sweetheart décolletage voluptuously fringed against the bustier suppleness her delectable breasts-she was a temptress incarnate. The olive-bronze sleekness of her elfish features stealingly entranced accentuated the full-bow lushness of her pillowy lips as she flitted her ebony-hazel irises onto Bucky with thievish intensity.

"Well hello there, beautiful!" Bucky had uttered the captivated words as if he were locked in a lustful spell. The woman was all pretty curves honed with soft muscles. She must've been a gymnast or a yoga-practitioner as she seemed to exude strength and energy. His mind was a mess of c*** thoughts as they swept over her womanly physique, he missed the wicked gleam in her violet eyes as they peered at him like a serpent with malicious-intent. "What can uh, I do for you?" He asked as he made a quick attempt to appear manly by reclining against the door which only caused the roundish pudge of his bulging belly to push out further from his shirt.

Watching the boarish slob's poutier shapely-bow lips cockily quirk into a toothier smirk, feigning repulsion, malefically her cherry-red lacquered nails dragged against the paper bag that she temptingly clutched with gluttonous enticement as the greasier scent of Boston cream doughnuts stuffed inside gripped Bucky into a hoggish stupor-she needed to fatteningly amputate out hunkier traces of his athletic-honed resiliently that bulkily corded over the hard-edged contours of his tauten bicep-leash him down into the porcine throes of obese drudgey.

"I hope you do not mind this intrusion.." she purred in a sultrier cadence, witchily flashing her dark irises onto the blubbery globbiness of his chunkier mid-drift that repugnantly drooped over his denim-clad waistband like lumpish sludge. The razored angularity of his scruffier knife-cut features chubbily fused into puffier jowls-the hideous vestige of a rotund boar. In moments of her chimeric-seductive trance would catatonically usher Bucky into the mud heap of her listless-overstuffed boars while his voluptuous---kittenish mate would plumpishly spawn insatiable litters. First, she needed to play off the charade of the good neighbour. "I just baked these decadent pleasures for you..."

His spell of hunger had shifted from one of lust to a gluttonous haze once he caught the scent of baked goodness coming from the tray. The rumbling in his belly had intensified in the wake of being denied his home-cooked dessert only to be tempted by a new offering. It was perhaps poetic and a trial that men everywhere faced. Bucky could feel Selina's gaze on him and he looked back at her with a strained but reassuring look. "Thanks, miss, but uh I'll have to pass," he said to the violet-eyed woman. "I'd be cheatin' on my diet if anything," Bucky joked but felt an inkling of dread as the woman's gaze became sharper in his polite rebuttal. It didn't matter. He feared the wrath of his pregnant wife more than a stranger that just moved in next door.

[doublegoblin]

Clocked In: A brief opening

So like it says this is a very short and brief kind of "prologue" to a new WIP I've had rolling around for a bit. Working title is Clocked In (as stated above) and this is a story that takes place in the same universe as Rituals and Red Tape, and kind of takes place at the same time. I wanted to do something that was a bit more light and comedic in tone than RART that also helps expand the world a little more, and give you a look at life that isn't just from the perspective from the dreamers who work in the spire. The chapters also won't be as long as RART chapters, so nice quick bites of life as a Warehouse worker.

Hope you like it, even a little!

The sun ever present in the center of the sky loomed over the running Dreamer. His arms pumped and his legs pounded atop the pavement. Weaving through the masses, with quick and quiet polite acknowledgements, he wheezed and heaved. 

“Sorry! Excuse me! So sorry! Please move!” 

This was Marshal, and he was running late. Now how one runs late in a world without a concrete definition of time is a head scratcher, but he was: again. His overalls were damp with sweat, and the wool on his Ovis like head was drenched and matted down. Still he sprinted on. He had too. As a junior line-worker he didn’t have the luxury of instant transportation, and he certainly wasn’t doing anything to convince management of promoting him. 

“Woah!” he dug his cloven heels deep into the dirt, a dust cloud trailing behind. His momentum was too great and he collided with the broad-shouldered figure standing just on the edge of the rapid causeway.

“Hmmm?” The broad figure hummed, turning his head; a visage of an aged rhino. The impact, while great for Marshal, barely moved his halter. ��� Ah Marshal, great to see you, running late again?” A thunderous voice chuckled while reaching down a wrinkled hand of rough gray skin.

“Cooper, sorry. Are you alright?” Marshall grasped the hand and hoisted himself up.

“Oh yes. Never you mind about me. You best get going though.” Cooper brushed the dust off of Marshal and nodded.

Marshal jogged up to the same edge and looked both ways “Aren’t you coming?” He asked.

“In due time, when it is safe to cross.” Cooper kept glancing up and down the expanse.

Marshal was about to say something when the bells chimed in the distance. His ears stood on end and he tore off at a breakneck speed. Cooper slowly waved as he sank beyond the horizon.

For Marshal the finish line was now just within sight. An imposing mass of gray concrete loomed. Perfectly uniformed. Not even seams where the walls could have met. The Warehouse. 

He was a blur of white fur and brown soil to the guards posted on duty. That was until he arrived at the gigantic metal shutters and the shift terminal. The third bell had just ceased ringing as he slipped his slip into the machine. It whirred and chewed. Fell silent. Just softly rang. He was just on time. With a hefty sigh he danced to a small victory, his coworkers still milling about chuckling and giggling.

THUD

Let’s rewind a little and look back to Cooper.

When we had just left him, he was standing at the side of what would be considered a road. Nobody is sure why or where they came into existence from. Well, that isn’t true. The Spireworkers knew, but, communications between them and the regular folk were sparse to put it kindly. That is neither here nor there though. Cooper was a wide and sturdy specimen of a Dreamer, unlike Marshal. And also unlike Marshal, he had more of a luxury when it came to his attendance. Something he made use of quite frequently. While he could instantly transport, he enjoyed the slower pace of existence. In a place without time, he saw now reason to rush. 

So he stood there on the side of that so-called road. Glancing up and down it’s stretch. With a short grumble he removed the glasses from his nose and took to them a handkerchief.

“Had he not been in such a rush, well,” he exhaled onto the lenses and brushed away the small particles “youth is no excuse for poor manners.” he looked the glass over before nodding and placing them back uselessly at the bridge of his nose. “Come game night, oh Cooper, you will have the last laugh.” he then had the first laugh.

Satisfied with his plot of competitive revenge he hoisted his shoulder straps up and placed a foot onto the pavement.  Same as his speech, his steps were slow and deliberate. His eyes were trained forward. His feet felt a rumbling.

His feet felt a rumbling?

By the time he looked to his left, the great metal beast was already bearing down upon him.

“Oh dear.” were the last words he could get out before the ground was quickly retreating from him.

Back to where we had left off.

Marshal counted to five, took three steps to the left, and covered his eyes. 

The ground shuddered and several passersby gasped and cursed as they stumbled. Once he felt the dust settle he uncovered his eyes and patted Cooper on the back. 

“I say, they should really put some signage up.” Cooper grumbled as he adjusted his overall straps.

The loud speakers crackle with life “Will Marshal Ovback and Cooper Unicarous please, get to work!” The two men winced at the piercing feedback and scuttled into the Warehouse. Once past the threshold, the metal shutters slam into place and lock. 

Not the best way to start a new work season.

[spacey-art]

new ocs! NaNo is coming up soon and I have my novel, The Cloven Spire, all planned out, so I wanted to draw references of the main characters of the story while I still have downtime.

from left to right: Nan Issti, Hawke Falen, Tiki, Sai, and Reys.

Nan’s the primary protagonist. Nan is a Patron, a religious figure with a direct connection to her god, Hai. the story follows her as her god seemingly vanishes, and she decides to take matters into her own hands; setting out for the spire that connects the gods’ plane with her own, intent on ending the blight placed upon her town in the wake of her god’s absence.

I’m so excited to write their story and do more with these characters, NaNo’s gonna be great !

[deviantart link]

[patron-saint-of-emesis]

“Fifty years,” Nan said, setting the bag down on her lap, tossed into her thoughts. “That's a long time.”

“The longest blink of an eye you'll ever live.”

how.... did i write this.... this is actually good what the fuck

[codgod-moved]

I've never written anything for mcyt but your Nether Tango has given me brainrot.

***

For a land thought to be a desolate waste, the Nether was often filled with sound. The crackle of flame, everburning on the porous wrack. The far off wail of a ghast. The strange hoots and grunts of the Piglin tongue, accompanied by the twisted gurgling of their zombified brethren.

Now, though, a chilling shriek echoed through the basalt columns and fungal woods. Three heads searching in all directions for it's quarry. Rattling of bones, it's trailing spine lashing back and forth.

A few quiet, crunching footsteps. Then the whistle of a blade through the humid air. The Wither screamed as the sword cleaved it's body in twain before erupting in smoke.

Tango, prince of these wretched demesnes, reached into the pile of ash and retrieved the glowing star. Against his gloved hands it was still warm, despite the cold bones of the beast he'd slain. Then, with a tight nod, he dropped it into his pocket. At home he had thousands more, a pool of starlight he could dip his hands into and pour out like shimmering coins. He didn't know why he hunted the Withers anymore. Tradition, perhaps.

He made the long trek across the wastes to his home, a palace of blackstone spires. He traced the veins of gold in the stone with one finger, the ring of metal on metal as his gilded claws caught in the ridges. He sighed.

There was a grunt from behind and the prince turned. One of his elite Piglin guards stood at attention, his black uniform and golden pauldron glittering in the dim light. Tango inclined his head.

"The portal has been lit, sire." the guard announced gruffly. His cloven hand tightened on the handle of his golden axe. "We sent through an advanced guard, but they have not returned."

"Not returned?" Tango asked, turning his attention fully on the brutish guard. He'd heard the legends about the world beyond the portal. Of the monstrous creatures that lived there, and spread the virus that had claimed swathes of his subjects. "You don't think the virus - "

"We can't be sure, sire. But I daren't send anymore Pigs through and take that chance," the guard answered.

Tango thought for a moment, then nodded.

"I'll go myself," he announced. He reached instinctively for the comfortable handle of his sword.

"Do you think that wise?" the guard asked, concern wrinkling his scarred snout. Tango shook his head, already striding towards the corridor leading to the armory.

"I'm a prince, what could possibly harm me?"

---

Some time later, Prince Tango stood before the portal. For ages it had stood, obsidian pillars broken and weeping violet tears. A thing of the past, long abandoned. But now it glowed, purple light scattering against the black and red around him.

Tango tugged on his chestplate a bit nervously, unaccustomed to the weight. He'd donned the relic armor, plated in ancient debris. His sword also glinted with an edge of black and gold. His loyal guards stood just a bit behind, watching in apprehension.

"Don't come after me," Tango admonished. "I won't subject any of you to that virus." Without waiting for a reply, Tango stepped through the portal. Swirls of violet filled his vision, and then he was falling.

For a moment he thought nothing had happened. All around him were the colors of flame - vibrant reds and oranges. It wasn't until he realized that a field of blue stretched across the horizon, brighter and more vibrant than anything from a warped forest could ever be. Entranced, he stepped from the portal, staring at the cloudless sky.

There was a clicking sound.

"Care to explain where you've just come from, partner?" a drawling voice said.

Tango froze. He'd expected many things from the mythical overworld, but an intelligent creature, capable of speech? Slowly he turned his head.

A man stood behind him. Not a pig, but like Tango. He had golden hair that stuck out from a brown leather hat. In his hands he held an object made of dark metal and polished wood. After a moment of silence, the man frowned and advanced with the object, pointing it's circular snout at Tango. "Well?" he demanded. "You'd best be answering to the Sheriff, partner. I'm the law about these parts."

"Oh." Tango shook himself, and swept a low bow. "I am Tango."

"Tango? Ain't that some fancy footwork dance?" the man asked, squinting. After a moment, though, he lowered the weapon.

Tango wasn't used to being unrecognized. All of the denizens of the Nether knew him on sight and by name.

"My apologies - " he said, inclining his head. "I am Prince Tango of the Nether -"

"Prince?" the Sheriff paused, then holstered his revolver. He knew princesses and emperors, gods and witches. What was one more wandering royal? He squinted again, then tugged gently on the brim of his hat. "Well then. Howdy, Prince Tango. I'm The Sheriff of these parts." He flicked the golden star on his vest to punctuate his statement.

Tango looked curiously at the Sheriff's badge for a moment, then brightened. Scrambling in his pockets, he retrieved the nether star and affixed it to his chestplate. He grinned.

The Sheriff blinked. A Nether star. The man had casually whipped out a Nether star and was wearing it like a boutonniere.

"Prince… of the Nether, you say?" he drawled, a slow smile sliding across his face. "Well then, Prince Tango. Welcome to Tumbletown."

oh my god I LOVE THIS

i am so bad at giving compliments on writing but hfgfhfggffhggf i like the it 👍

[cinnasscribbles]

With a resounding crack! the gem splits into tiny shards of sapphire. The sound echoes through the empty forge, and Mânarušur freezes, half expecting to sense a presence or hear footfalls. There is nothing— of course there is, he wouldn’t be doing this if there weren’t a festival going on, if he hadn’t been able to slip away when he knew the forges of Almaren would be empty.

He feels a tingle in his fingertips, that travels up through his fana as the fragments fall to his workbench. Excitement lights up golden eyes, then the work begins.

With hammer and Voice combined, the translucent crystal is cloven, and the blue woven up into the cleft. The Song of each intertwines with the other, clashes, and is pushed through by the Maia’s own will. In the hands of Mânarušur, hands which had only ever forged the purest of things, the two minerals, unalike and incompatible in every way, are woven together, the bright blue parting and cracking the quartz, but not breaking apart.

When it’s done, he falls silent, holding the crystal in open hand, still warm, still resonating. He can hear its music, discordant yet eerily harmonious. Within the crystal, spires and lacings of bright blue inclusions radiate a faint light. It’s fractured, yet bound together, unable to be parted.

Something new, something imperfect, yet… beautiful still, in its brokenness, in its discord, in its fragile yet permanent state.

His excitement only grows, running through him like pure energy, terrible and beautiful and so fresh. Now, he can understand everything that the Dark Vala had told him about. The thrill of creating something that wasn’t meant to be. The freedom to shape and form things to his own designs, no matter their original state.

I was right, Mânarušur thinks, shivering and relishing in this forbidden excitement. There is beauty in that which is marred.

He tucks the warped crystal away, hidden from sight, and turns down his fires, trying to calm the vibrations radiating off of him. He’ll have to return, or others might grow concerned. Not suspicious, not yet— but if he isn’t careful, concern may well blossom into suspicion.

And there is a thrill in the marring of things.

*

COMMISSIONS & TIP JAR

[pinkiepiebones]

hi yeah i made the aether board (hello this is my main blog) and i would LOVE to hear more about ur aether hcs. i have Very In Depth ones, like that quintessence ghouls can either be born ghouls and are like a random genetic mutation that happens, or they can be fallen angels turned ghouls which always results in a quintessence ghoul, of the two Aether is the latter.

anyways i wanna hear ur hcs

Your moodboard is very good and your headcanons are lovely! Mine are somewhat boring by comparison lol

In my head, ghouls are incredibly low-tier demons. They exist as nameless entities because things without names are easier to summon to Earth, and since the first days of the church ghouls have been summoned basically as manual labour. You don’t need to pay a ghoul or feed or clothe it or give it much more than a linen closet’s worth of space to “rest” in, so yeah, summon a bunch to build the church and tend the grounds so you can focus on growing the congregation or something. When the band project started it was decided that teaching some ghouls to play instruments was the more financially sound approach instead of hiring musicians.

All ghouls emerge from the same sulfurous pit of primordial hell ooze and can differ in height, width, and horns. They all have what are called “face plates;” we fans would think of them more like the masks from era 2 or 3. They all have solid black eyes. Their ears can differ in length and shape- anything from a dainty elf point to long and drooping rabbit-like ears. They all have eagle-like talons at their fingertips and, though their legs seem humanoid, their feet have cloven hooves. They all have wings that can appear bird-like or bat-like and, as ghouls possess no muscles or bones, the wings “attach” to their backs in a way that makes little structural sense. All ghouls have tails, and the tip of a ghoul’s tail denotes the element that tethers it to earth- Fire ghouls have that somewhat ‘stereotypical’ flat triangle tail tip, Air ghoul’s tails appear to end in a tuft of fur*, Water ghouls have tail tips that resemble the fins of a whale’s tail, Earth ghouls seem to have wide, flat garden spades ending their tails, and Aethers have a five-pointed star.

All ghouls can glamour their ghoulish attributes away from sight and, with practice and training, can even alter their skin texture to mimic the appearance of clothing. They cannot, sadly, contort themselves into anything ala The Genie or Beetlejuice- their glamour and shapeshifting work more like octopus camo, in a sense. The band ghouls have received lots of intense training via Special Ghoul in order to create rudimentary mouths and teeth so they can look like they’re singing.

Ghouls have no mouths by design and communicate telepathically. Their speech, however, frequently sets off whatever part of the human brain that connects to fear and dread. Since this is the case they don’t talk to clergy members much. Special Ghoul got his name and job because his speech hits the human brain just as audible speech does.

Ghouls regard certain things, like gravity, as suggestions, and may be seen walking up a wall or hanging from a high ceiling. And as they are not bound by bodies that feel fatigue, they can lift immense weight and do things that just shouldn’t be possible… this actually ties in to the next point

As ghouls are tethered to earth by elements, they occasionally need to immerse fully into their element to “recharge.” Fire ghouls will build nests and light them on fire and curl up inside, Water ghouls will sink to the bottom of the church’s moat, Air ghouls will climb the highest spires and sit for days on end with their wings outstretched or chase storms to dance in the lightning, Earth ghouls will dig pits and bury themselves, and Aether ghouls will either make a bed of gemstones or lay wherever they can get the best aura of the cosmos. It’s not uncommon to look out at the church grounds in the night and see several ghouls arranged in seemingly nonsense patterns on the ground, black eyes transfixed on the stars above.

Ghouls have their own body language that is sometimes hard to decipher, though it is widley known in the church that a ghoul rustling it’s wings against it’s body is laughter, and joy is expressed in an elemental “burst” (fire ghoul skin appears to crack open to expose bright embers underneath, Water ghouls ripple like sunlight in, well, water, air ghouls get that Studio Ghibli-esque puff up and float, Earth ghouls break out in small flowers, and Aether ghouls look like they rolled around in purple glitter)

I’m sorry this answer is so long I’ll stop now 😅

*(ghouls may appear to have hair/fur atop their heads, but it is actually very thin feathers)

[xaallo]

[OUTDATED AS OF 7/6/22]

“ Staring is rude, you know....”

FINALLY fucking sat down and finalized dnd!Xaallo (and DND!margavens by extension). He is SO ugly (no less vain though!), but I suppose that’s what happens when you’re half troll (specifically pathfinder trolls)! Was going for a full body, but I don’t wanna be up til 7am again so maybe another time ^^

Anyway, this lad is primarily Dragon/Minotaur/Troll. The cattle ring in his nose is inscribed with runes designed to control behavior. dnd!margavens are resistant to magic, particularly the latest generations of their very unnatural species. Xaallo is the very latest: immune to nearly all forms of magic, and even what does work is greatly diminished. However, he also can’t do anything substantial magically; cantrips, maybe.

I imagine these beasties mostly move about in a knuckle-walk, like a ground sloth and are definitely top heavy with cloven hooves, like their minotaur contribution. Capable of bipedal movement in order to manipulate items, but this isn’t comfortable. Scaley, hot dragon hands and tails to balance out that weight. Some have tiny, useless wings, and most have great spiring horns (not Xaallo though-- it’s not him if he doesn’t have small, pathetic horns~), and breath weapons. Fun! This combination of creatures is particularly terrifying, because Xaallo’s red-dragon (black scale morph) heritage means the weakness to fire he’d have as a troll is greatly mitigated (acid still works though!) if not gone completely.

Transparent version here!

[captainofthetidesbreath]

Love I never posted the "how I would break down C2 for an animated series" thing I was thinking about back when TLOVM was premiered,

Anyway, short of it is, I say start in Zadash, just move the circus into Zadash for, like, Harvest Close or long holiday or something (I'm eh about this, maybe just start directly with Requital but the vibes aren't are fun), then progress straight to Zauber Spire (which does involve Requital) and them taking the Gentleman's favor to avoid the fallout of that, set out directly for Shadycreek and cut the entire swamp (move the Cloven Crystal find to be with the Avantika letter later), combine Shakaste and Hupperdook en route, kill Molly in episode 9ish, end the season at the end of Iron Shepherds with clear progression toward pirates.

I tend toward a little more aggressive condensing than they may do it, but that's my current pitch.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Music For the Soul

by Alexander MacLaren

The Promise of Pentecost (Micah 2:7 and Acts 2:4)

What did the Pentecost declare and hold forth for the faith of the Church? I need not dwell at any length upon this thought. The facts are familiar to you, and the inferences drawn from them are commonplace and known to us all. But let me just enumerate them as briefly as may be. " Suddenly there came a sound, as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting." And there came " cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost." What lay in that? First, the promise of a Divine Spirit whose symbols express some, at all events, of the characteristics and wonderfulness of His work. The "rushing of a mighty wind " spoke of a power which varied in its manifestations from the gentlest breath that scarce moves the leaves on the summer trees to the wildest blast that casts down all which stands in its way. The natural symbolism of the wind, the least material to the popular apprehension of all material forces, and of which the connection with the immaterial part of a man’s personality has been expressed in all languages, point to a Divine, to an immaterial, to a mighty, to a life-giving power which is free to blow whither it listeth, and of which men can mark the effects, though they are all ignorant of the force itself. The twin symbol, the fiery tongues which parted and sat upon each of them, speak in like manner of the Divine influences, not as destructive, but full of quick rejoicing energy and life, the power to transform and to purify. Whither soever the fire comes, it changes all things into its own substance. Whither soever the fire comes, there the ruddy spires shoot upwards towards the heavens. Whither soever the fire comes, there all bonds and fetters are melted and consumed. And so this fire transforms, purifies, ennobles, quickens, sets free; and where the fiery spirit is, there is energy, swift life, rejoicing activity, transforming and transmuting power which changes the recipient of the flame into flame himself.

In the fact of Pentecost there is the promise of a Divine Spirit which is to influence all the moral side of humanity. This is the great and glorious distinction between the Christian doctrine of inspiration and all others which have, in heathen lands, partially reached similar conceptions, that the Gospel of Jesus Christ has laid emphasis upon the Holy Spirit, and has declared that holiness of heart is the touchstone and test of all claims of Divine inspiration. Gifts are much, graces are more; an inspiration which makes wise is to be coveted, an inspiration which makes good is transcendentally better. And there we find the safeguard against all the fanaticism’s which have sometimes invaded the Christian Church, that the Spirit which dwells in men, and makes them free from the obligations of outward law and cold morality, is a Spirit that works a deeper holiness than law dreamed, and a more spontaneous and glad conformity to all things that are fair and good than any legislation and outward commandment can ever enforce.

[therabidjackalope]

The Last Unicorn!

(So, I’ve managed to make SOME progress, but not as much as I’d like)

Corin glanced back at her and flashed a nervous smile. “This is fine, for now. But once I change I will be more... vulnerable, and visible. I don't expect we will be interrupted but...”

Lady Rissa had no concerns about anyone showing up and did not bother to look. The road was not private, but it was hardly ever used anymore and even Robert Northam had only bothered to come because he was led there by his dogs. “Please, Corin.” She pleaded. “Show me the truth.”

Whatever Rissa had been expecting, it was not what happened next.

Corin began to glow, slowly becoming engulfed in golden light until there was no part of him that was still visible. Within the cocoon of illumination, Corin's outline softened and began to melt, taking on a completely different shape.

Unlike sunlight, the golden hues did not sting Lady Rissa's eyes, and yet tears poured freely down her face. Lost in a rapturous haze, she extended her arms to touch the source. No thought could reside in her mind except an intense need to be closer to it; to embrace the light and all of it's glory.

Before her fingers could reach it, the light began to fade away, and before her stood a dream made manifest. The sight of the unicorn was even more powerful than the glow of the transformation. The creature was so beautiful and pure that It nearly caused her pain just to look upon his form. She snatched her hand away as if burned, suddenly feeling filthy and worthless next to such a wondrous creature. Rags next to royal silks.

“Corin?” She gasped, the very air of her lungs growing too shy to leave her body. “Is that.... you?”

The unicorn stood before her calmly and studied her with Corin's eyes. As tall as a horse, the monster of myth and legend more closely resembled a large deer with its long and slender legs that ended in pale cloven hooves, slim neck, and narrow, triangular head. It's coat was the pure white of virgin snow. A twisting spire of gold rose from its forehead. A thick white mane ran along the length of its neck and long, lion-like tail. It twisted an ear, then gave a soft snort in answer.

Even seeing the unicorn standing before her, Lady Rissa could barely believe it was real and not just somehow a figment of her desperate imagination.”It is you, isn't it.” Her voice trembled as she spoke, the words not a question but a declaration of truth. “I can't believe it. You really are a.... a....”

As she struggled to reach the word that had suddenly danced just out of her grasp, the glow came again, sending her back into a rapturous joy as she watched the unicorn disappear, replaced by the man she was so familiar with.

“A unicorn?” He finished for her. “Yes. And I am the last.”

[twxlightbeforedawn]

°☆.。 ——   ‘ i’ll be right here. don’t worry. ’ / @gcldbound​ / SRC.   —— °☆.。

            °☆.。 ❛  no.  please  ,  no,  no  no  ,  not  again — ❜  hushed  words.  RUSHED  words.  they  were  out  in  the  open  air  the  very  SECOND  the  cold  metal  bars  had  crashed  down  around  the  two  adventurers.  suddenly  twilight’s  blood  ran  COLD  ,  &.  magic  sparked  at  the  tip  of  her  spiraled  horn  ;  once  ,  twice  ,  &.  thrice  again  ,  unable  to  produce  more  than  a  few  wayward  sparkles  before  spluttering  out  as  soon  as  the  spires  had  lit.  USELESS.  just  like  BEFORE  ,  trapped  below  the  deck  of  a  zeppelin  ,  or  within  a  cold  dank  CAVE  with  the  shattered  remains  of  the  tree  of  harmony  at  her  hooves.  °☆.。

           °☆.。 for  the  first  time  since  they  had  met  ,  the  elder  duck  could  see  the  remains  of  a  mare  HARROWED  by  the  past.  svelte  ruler  ,  so  young  yet  so  POISED  ,  reduced  to  little  more  than  a  young  ,  frightened  mare  who  had  faced  one  too  many  THREATS  in  a  single  lifetime  &.  was  left  TREMBLING  in  the  wake  of  the  shadows  they  had  left  behind.  °☆.。

            °☆.。 ears  pressed  flat  against  twilight’s  skull.  wings  were  tucked  so  tightly  against  her  back  they  ACHED  with  the  strain.  breath  fled  from  her  in  short  gasps  that  were  soon  SWALLOWED  down  into  the  depths  of  her  chest  where  OLD  FEARS  lay  in  wait.  then  ...  a  GENTLE  TOUCH.  perhaps  a  bit  hesitant  when  met  with  such  a  violent  FLINCH.  but  when  violet  eyes  darted  towards  the  SOURCE  -  (the  duck  who  was  still  here.  who  was  with  her  in  the  present.  who  was  REAL)  -  RELIEF  sparked  within  them  despite  the  clouds  ,  despite  the  raging  storm.    °☆.。

      °☆.。 ——                   ‘ i’ll be right here. don’t worry. ’

            °☆.。 thick  swallow.  shaky  nod.  shaking  legs  &.  jittery  cloven  hooves  brought  twilight  closer  to  scrooge’s  presence  ,  searching  for  SOLACE.  for  something  SAFE  in  the  literal  confines  of  her  worst  nightmares.  ❛  r-right.  right.  ❜  TIMID  voice  ,  small  &.  frail.  leonine  tail  lashed  back  &.  forth  behind  her.  violet  eyes  darted  back  to  the  bars  of  their  cage.  ❛  please  ,  please  get  me  out  of  here.  ❜ °☆.。

[dblackthorne]

SEASONS IN HELL

y the flash of the sword of Lucifer thrust imperiously into the heavens, lightning strikes and thunder rolls, the roar of The Draegon echoes throughout the trembling earth, cloven hooves part asunder, the rivers and streams flow fresh, rendered aflame by the Lustful Hellfire of Satan! Verdant life bursts forth upon hill and dale, mountains and forest, planes, to greet The Hellements, of flora and fauna, Fleurs Du Mal, Sorath's triumvirate eminence and Luna's enchanted light dance in lush gardens of wondrous nature, tapestries for each creature to paint according to countenance! Birthing the demonseeds to grow from mind and earth, upon root and branch and tree and bush, whose fruition is partaken of in earthen communion by the creatures of the land, sea, and air, who give even their own flesh for mutual gratification! Draegon Ouroboros takes another turn, one season confounds another! Disrobed, the nymph and maiden, Succubus Lilith incarnate in Witches sublime. Flames ascend the tower spire, lights the path to deep desire! ∞ In Nomine Satanas! Warlock Draconis Blackthorne The Infernal Empire, The Black Earth Vernal Equinox, LIV Anno Satanas

This year's Equinox is accompanied by The Super Full Moon, ideal for Apotheosis and overall Magical workings. ∞

[enambris]

Story Night - The Little Princess and the Old Crone

The transcript of Enambris’ uplifting tale to end a crowded story night, a reminder that we will all Triumph against the Faceless. @the-faceless-ffxiv

“For tonight's final tale, I will be telling another old story from long ago. One I grew up with, that can be traced back to Old Coerthas and the hundred clans." As she speaks, the lights in the room once more dim, flickering lights borne from her sternum bursting into falling starstuff and settling around the room, the image flickering to that of a deep forest filled with faerie-lights flickering between distant trees, the lounge transformed into a meadow clearing deep in the dark woods.

As she speaks, a musical humming under-currents her tone, motes of aether used to paint the room as a backdrop to the fantastical tale. In the clearing, like a pop-up storybook, a little cottage blooms covered in thick ivy, little honeycombs clinging to its flora-flush walls, and a waterwheel pulled to rotate by a lovely, crystal brook that weaves through the forest.

"Once, a very long time ago, there was a dark forest that bordered the edge of a little kingdom. In that forest, there was a cottage, and in that cottage lived an old crone, who all knew to be very wise, and very powerful. The people of the little kingdom knew her to be true, when her words told tale of prophecy, and so those strong and brave enough to venture into the dark woods would seek her wisdom and council."

The forest, around the little cottage, flickers with little red lights, eyes that peer into the clearing through the gloom. Time appears to shift, summer hues giving way to painted autumn leaves, which fall to make way for blankets of pure white snow.

"The little kingdom had enemies, and so they built their walls high. The king and his wife were getting on in years, and he had no heir. The king knew that if no heir came to claim the throne, the witch who made her home in the deadlands to the south would try to ruin the little kingdom."

Walls spring up around the distant kingdom as the scene slowly shifts, the sun high above the tallest tower.

"One day, the king decided to seek out the witch. He beseeched the old crone help he and his wife have a child. The witch agreed - on the condition that once the child saw their first winter, they would be raised instead by the Witch until the child came of age. The king was heart-broken, but seeing no alternative, conceded."

Imagery shifts, the streets and buildings inside the little kingdom coming into view. High walls and spires decorated in beautiful colors, trumpets sounding and criers on every street corner, proclaiming the birth of an heir.

"Within one year, the queen gave birth to a beautiful little girl, as radiant as the sun and as gentle as the moon. 'An heir! An heir has been born!' shouted the criers. The bells rang! The kingdom celebrated! Singing and joy ruled the land. But the joyous occasion would not be joyous long, as two days later, the Queen succumbed to her labor, and for her the kingdom mourned."

The wind shifts, catching the flags and banners, and as they turn over upon themselves their colors fade into black. Angry black clouds cover the sky, and rains wash over the kingdom.

"When the child saw her first nameday, the king once more mourned, as the old crone came to take her away. 'Your word, good king, will save your kingdom,' she told him. With no other choice, the king conceded, and the little princess was taken to live with the old crone in the woods."

The scenery shifts in a prismatic whirl of color, the kingdom shrinking and expanding into the little cottage as though ink had bled from page to page. The seasons play out in vibrant light, spring blooms replaced by warm summer sunshine, which gives way to crisp autumn leaves and snow. The cycle repeats once, twice, thrice, ever changing. When it finally settles, crisp autumn reigns.

"The old crone cared for the little princess as if she was her own, but she was strict, and her lessons to the girl were long and difficult. She taught her much about the world, she taught her to be unafraid of the animals, and how to live in harmony with the land. She guided her to make her body strong as iron, and said to her every day, 'If your heart is always true, you will weather any storm'. And so, in secret, the little princess grew up."

"The years passed, and before long, the king became lonely. He searched long and hard to find a companion to share his time and love with, and finally, he found her. The king remarried, the fairest woman in the land, but she was vain, cruel to his servants, and cold to his people. But the king was blinded by his love, and so was blinded to her wickedness. His people protested, but the king could not hear them, deafened by her sweet voice."The visage of a woman shimmers into view beside a forlorn king, her beauty illuminating the room with lovely silks and gemtones. The clouds leer closer to the little kingdom, and the rain falls ever harder.

"And so, under the council of the new Queen, the little kingdom slowly declined, for she was greedy and unkind, and with it, so too did the poor king's health. He became old, and sickly. His shoulders hunched, and his hands shook. He began to forget, and a mist settled over his eyes. They called the king Mad, for he raved of seeing butterflies where there were none, and sang lyrics to songs that he could not recall how he came to know them."

The king's form slowly shrivels. His hair grays, the colors drain from his eyes and his skin. He hobbles to his throne, as if a puppet on a marionette. "Finally, the new queen, lovely and wicked as she was, declared that the king was too unwell to lead his people."

The Queen slides the poor king from focus, and he becomes but dust and motes of light that flutter to reshape the room. It fills slowly with people, the common folk of the little kingdom, butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. They watch the queen with terrified rapture.

"She proclaimed that, should no heir come within three days, the throne would then fall to her. On the first day, no one came forward. Nor the second day. Finally, on the third day, as the queen sat within her throne room, the old crone came, and with her, the king's daughter who had been whisked away so long ago. Appalled, the Queen denied the old crone. 'This cannot be the king's daughter', she said. 'What proof have you that she may rule this land?'"

"The old crone smiled. 'She will prove herself to the people,' she said. 'Assign her three labors, and if they are completed, the crown is hers.' The queen knew of the old crone, and knew to refuse her would be unwise, for the old crone was powerful, and so the queen agreed. 'She must dwell seven days within the dark forest without food nor water,' she commanded."

Before the audience, the little princess stands, her visage as radiant as the sun, and gentle as the moon. She stands tall, proud, undaunted.

"At that, the old crone smiled. 'It will be done,' she said, and so the little princess turned and left. She was escorted deep into the forest, and blindfolded so she could not remember which way was home, for the Queen did not want her to return. The queen's men traveled to the deepest and darkest place they could find, and left the little princess alone in the dark woods, among the monsters and beasts."

Images of the forest overtake the room in a whirl of shadow, thick, pale mist blanketing the floor.

"Each day passed, and the people of the small kingdom lost a little more hope each day, but the old crone only smiled, telling any who asked, 'Wait and see'. Then, on the seventh day, the little princess returned amidst a flock of songbirds, alive and unharmed. The queen was outraged, but she could say naught, and so instead she issued the next labor. 'She must face the Great Wolf, and end its bloody campaign in the farmlands within seven days,' she commanded."

"Again, the old crone smiled. 'It will be done,' she said, and so the little princess turned and left. She was escorted to the mouth of the Great Wolf's cave, and left there with only a knife to defend herself, for the Queen wished the Wolf to devour her."

"Each day passed, and again the people of the small kingdom lost a little more hope each day, but the old crone only smiled, telling any who asked, 'Wait and see'. Then, on the seventh day, the little princess returned astride the tamed Wolf's back, alive and unharmed. The queen was incensed, but still she could say naught, and so instead she issued the final labor. 'She must pull forth the blessed sword from the tomb of the Fell Drake within seven days,' she commanded."

"For the third and final time, the old crone smiled. 'It will be done,' she said, and so the little princess turned and left. This time, the Queen was sure she had won. The Fell Drake was a wicked creature, corrupted by the hate of men and the shadows between the bones of the earth. She was escorted to the Fell Drake's lair without a weapon, and left her alone to face the Drake."

"Each day passed, and once more the people of the small kingdom lost a little more hope each day, but the old crone only smiled, telling any who asked, 'Wait and see'. This time, the Queen knew she had won, for on the dawn of the seventh day, the little princess had not returned. She stood from her throne, and pointed in glee at the old crone. 'Your princess has failed!' she declared, and before all she revealed her true self."

Before their eyes, the queen transforms. She grows taller, her muscles expand, her eyes gleam. Gnashing teeth form a pale white crescent cheshire smile through clouds of thick black smoke.

"Her hair become snowy, and her eyes great and yellow. Her skin like the night sky, her feet cloven and her crown horned: the witch of the deadlands, with black veils and fingers of writhing snakes. 'This kingdom is mine!' she declared. As the people began to wail in protest and in fear, the doors of the throne room threw open and a voice rose above the chorus. 'Hold! For no errand was failed!' said the old crone, and all turned to see the little princess, standing in the doorway."

The door flies open, and in spills brilliant sunlight, and from it the witch shies away. "In her left hand, a blade, as fierce and hot as the sun, as luminous and swift as the moon. In her right, the Fell Drake's head, and she threw it at the witch's feet. 'Leave my kingdom,' the little princess said, her voice carrying the power of the sun, the grace of the moon. 'Or it shall be your head upon the floor.' The witch laughed."

"Without another word, the little princess charged at the witch, her blessed sword in-hand. The people cried out in fear as they watched on, unable to move for the power of every blow. 'Help her!' they cried out. But still, the old crone only smiled, telling them only, 'Wait and see.'"

Bursts of brilliant light flash and crackle, reds and blues and golds flickering and fading, the throne room filling with black smoke and white light.

"Then, with a final mighty swing, the little princess struck down the witch, sundering her in the middle of the throne room. The witch wailed, her screams pierced the skies, and she was gone. The little princess turned to face her people, and for her they cheered." Bursts of color flare into the air, fireworks and sparklers and streamers.

The image fades to pale silver, the little princess standing before the people and taking her throne. "The next day she was crowned Queen, and she became the wisest, and the noblest queen ever to bless the kingdom."

"The end."