But now I'm a monster, my blood all runs cold

[carnagecarnival]

Who| The Grand Highblood and his unfortunate victims.
What| The Capitol has brought the Initiate's future in at last for this limited time opportunity.
Where| Dreaming worlds.
When| During the dream event.
Notes| I'm posting this with Initiate's account, but it will be GHB (comicalamity) that tags come from. Icons will be in the comments so if that's a pet peeve then steer clear.
Warnings| HUGE MASSIVE WARNINGS FOR THIS GUY, which is a reason he's getting a post of his own instead of going in the official log. Warning for possible genocide references, torture references, desecration of corpses, violences, language... the worst of things. Just be weary. (Also casual spacism.)

Day 2

It doesn't matter where you came from, it matters that you're here. It matters that you really don't want to be here...

The throne room is massive. It reaches upwards like it can compete with that of the sky. Its color and glimmer grasping at star's glory. Bones line the chambers, make up the walls, the ceiling, some still featuring their death hues. Some skulls with sharpened maws still agape, like they can cry out their respective agonies, even lacking tongues in their maws. The bones hang from the ceiling, interspersed with pleasant little lanterns and swaths of cloth and cloak.

Behind it all is a wall so smooth as to be glass. But for the sticky bits of color clinging to it, a brilliant collage. A motherfucking kingdom of dead behind him, and the living set before his beholding. Stained glass high, depicting various amusing executions and tortures, as well as shows of the holy scriptures, all cast light beautiful on the dark indigo room.

His throne sits, tall and imposing, the same hue as the blood of the last Highblood and made up from all them old bones long decayed and every Highblood come before. None of this is what makes the room terrifying. The source of choking, terror sits within, on that throne, lounging and smiling any way but kindly. He looms over, painted face a picture of fear, expression one of murder, and his claws the beauty what follows. He is something ancient, beholding something new with the same regard-- amusement.

"HIS BRETHREN DON'T OFTEN BRING NEW MOTHERFUCKING GIFTS," His voice booms. "Not ones such as this. NO, NO." He leans forward. "...You must be something... real goddamned special."

Day 4

He resides in the shadows of the conciousness, and as the world of dreams shifts into something of his grasp, he makes himself home in it. So many paths lead his way, once the world opens up to his will. A merry motherfucking guide is he, the ticket taker and ring master all in fucking one. He is a wraith in these dreams.

Where the little Initiate was not but speck of time and failures, a blotted mark in the swath of a thousand pages, a discomfort in his own motherfucking form... the Grand Highblood owns every gesture, every breath, every bit of his all too-tall body.

He sits, just as before, this time before the wall behind his throne. He paints with grace unearthly. He paints every horror in the mind of his new guest. And then he smiles wide. The Grand Highblood's fangs stick into every word. If it were more conscious, it would seem to be done deliberate. It's quite possible it is still, considering the way his slow calm hand gestures put his wicked, rainbow stained claws on display.

"It's so beautiful... ALL UP FULL OF FUCKING BEAUTY TO BE KICKED BY PLACE DARK AND RAPPED THE HOLY UNDOING BY IT BEING UP AND MOTHERFUCKING DONE. The rowdy raucous got to be stopped upon, cause a calm calamitous by the wicked revelations to be had. A REVELATION OF HIGHEST FUCKING ORDER WOULD MAKE APT AS ALL TO BE. He does think... OH BY HIS PAN HAS COME OCCURRENCE NOW! He thinks it missing only one thing singular." The Grand Highblood turns his head. "AIN'T YOU DOWN FOR THE RIGHTEOUS MOTHERFUCKING AGREEMENTS WITH HE?"

Day 7

His height is not easily processed. He is not particularly wide set, not big by the correct proportional measures. Fuck that, he says wordless by every step. No, his form simply fails to make sense to the functioning mind. He doesn't look like a person, he looks like something that happens to people.

And happen he does.

He moves along lax and idle, no apparent place better to be. The battlefield is a well-tended park. His club-- a great wicked thing sharp spikes and a heavy swing and rainbow all over it-- is twirled like a toy. He wears his an armor, bone of bone, the last efforts of someone's attempt to end him then warped and crafted into his protection. Or really, just to inspire.

But it's the smug grin as he walks on through, like he's an immortal. It's the way his eyes go wide with childish delight, his grin matching, before he darts forward with a lightening fast acrobatic motion and gleefully swings his club at the first living thing he sees, making a great show of watching it fly into the distance if the body is not stuck to his club-- then he quickly shifts back once more to being something old. It sets him off against the world around. It makes it seem as though he's waiting for something bigger.

And then his eyes fall upon his next game.

Comments

[comicalamity]

An odd expression crosses over his features, like how someone with a conscience might respond to a sight of torture, like a bad smell, or a stubbed toe. All and none of these things, but unpleasant nevertheless. "...You dare.YOU MOTHERFUCKING DARE USE THAT NAME!" His eyes light. The color is blown out, leaving no room for anything but the quick alternating flash of pink and purple, the only real mercy being that it hides the flood of deep red. He takes a step but it's faltering, not near so sure as it was moments before. There's an uncertainty now and with it comes fury. That drives him forward, allowing him to reach down to this sack of bones and haul her up high, grip upon both the cloth of her front and her throat. Let her feet kick and dangle so familiar.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi cringes at the sharpness of his voice. There's a hand at her throat before she can do anything to defend herself. Up into the air, she's lifted. Her feet dangle as she grabs onto his wrist out of instinct. Pain lances through her chest, her bones shifting in ways that she's sure they weren't meant to shift. It hurts to move; it hurts to breathe.

She's so small compared to him. Small and scared, tears beading at the corners of her eyes. She closes them tight, trying to block them from view, but it only makes them spill over and down her cheeks.

"Gave... it to me..." she manages to eke out, nothing more than a coarse whisper with the grip around her throat. It was the truth, as far as she knew. She hadn't asked for it. It had been a gift given to her, a surprise at the time. A pleasant one. One that she had treasured. From that moment forward, there hadn't been a time that she had thought of him with any other name. "...special."

[comicalamity]

"Doesn't exist. WON'T NEVER EXIST NO MOTHERFUCKING LONGER!" He shrieks. All control is gone. He hangs on to her and it's in his face, in his posture, in the his voice most all. He's unhinged even beyond his own working. Even the Grand Highblood loses himself though he'd be damned to recognize it now or later. "What all do you got knowing for? AIN'T NOTHING MORE THAN REBEL SPAWN FILTH," He rambles. "Ain't nothing but a speck under his lookspheres! HAD HIS LADY BY FOR SWEEPS, YOU THINK HE AIN'T KNOW? You with your mere blink of time. THINK HE AIN'T SUSPECT NO TREACHERY!? No. NO! You can't have it! IT'S NOT YOURS! It ain't motherfucking anyones. IT AIN'T NO ONE'S, YOU HEAR?" He shakes her mid air like a rattle doll, then pins her wallside just like that. He reaches back for a club that appears out of the air. "No one pities the motherfucking Highblood. HE IS NO ONE'S BUT MESSIAHS KIN AND KITH. He is of their blood and he'll not be steered wrong. THEY HAVE POURED REVELATION INTO HIS DUCTS AND YOU SINNERS WILL NOT STEAL IT FROM HIM!"

[pythianjudgment]

He shrieks and she cowers, as she knows anyone else would. He shakes her and slams her to the wall, eliciting a cry of pain from her lips. Her breath leaves her for a moment, and her head spins. Somewhere, she realizes that he's pulled a weapon from somewhere. She doesn't know why. He doesn't need it to end her. She tries to focus on his words, but they slip through her fingers... Something about her ancestor. Something about treachery. Something about pity... She remembers a question demanded of her before the shaking started. She clings to that like a lifeline.

What does she know?

"Know... the paint..." She gasps the words out, trying to snatch at the words before they can leave her thoughts. Each syllable is squeezed through his grip, pushed out with a gasp of pain. She lifts a finger, a weak miming of tracing the mask that she's burned into memory. "Teeth like... d-daggers, like fear. Eyes...in darkness, b-but clear..."

"Know the... s-script... E-everything in halves... Two parts, good and...bad. Light a-and dark..." She tries to remember more, uncertain of what she's trying to prove, but only knowing that she has no other choice. She snatches at the things that had delighted Kurloz...that had made him find worth in her.

"Know... the end. The... m-meteors. Homeworld...burning. Was...there. And l-left."

[comicalamity]

The cowering doesn't sate him. It's a tease and a taunt. A promise of some small mercy where there ain't none yet. But it's enough to pretend. The snarl twists into a horrible grin, still hosting all the same rage and instability, but trying to be something its not. His breath is ragged like he's the one what's being attacked. His eyes go wide at first, then narrow as she gasps her words. "Shut the motherfuck up," he growls as she tries to carry on. But she don't stop. They never stop, why don't they ever get ceasing the motherfucking haunt? She's spilling scripture like she knows it, like that means fuck all, it don't mean anything, it just means the traitorous bitch got more of him to use! Light and dark, like she even fathoms. Like that's meant to be reaching him through or some hoofbeastshit. Speaking like she was a chosen and he ain't got right to touch her. "SHUT UP!" He screams again and he throws her back like she's nothing but rags. She lands and one of his hands is up to scrape on his scalp. He shrieks again, wordless this time.

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi might not be nothing but rags, but she crumples like them when he throws her back. She doesn't try to get up this time, simply lying on the ground and trying to breathe without lapsing into painful gasps. The shrieking doesn't help matters, when every nerve of her body is lit up in either panic or pain.

Wake up, please wake up, she thinks to herself, more desperately than before. This has to be a dream... but even so, she's starting to wonder. Dreams have never been this real or this painful before. It terrifies her even more that this might be real... that she might really die here.

This time when he shrieks at her to shut up, she does. She lies quiet, save for the shallow breaths going in and out.

[comicalamity]

"You won't," He rasps, "Interfere with what shit gets kicked. YOU THINK HE AIN'T KNOW OF ENDS. You think you can use his pasts to turn his pusher from the only path what be. HE'LL NOT HAVE YOU GETTING UP IN HIS NUG! He'll not allow your blasphemous lot to impede upon the holy work..." She wanted to dig him out. The Initiate. She wanted to use him to stop a Highblood. It wouldn't be. He wouldn't allow it. Fuck that noise unholy. He approaches her again, ranting. "HE IS THE CHOSEN! He is their striking hand and speakpipe. HE IS TIED TO THE MIRTHFUL MESSIAHS TWO! In vision they revealed unto he the truth. SCION AND DESCENDANT ALIKE SHALL MAKE SCION OF THE ANGELS AND IN MOST RIGHTEOUS SACRIFICE HE AND THEY WILL BECOME, AS ALL OF ALTERNIA IS SACRIFICED ALSO. In holiest duality shall it make to motherfucking be. AS SO TO BE OF THE BLOOD OF THE ANGELS...He will see that you are removed." No Pyrope, not interference. Things would go all to plan. Better than, surely. The Messiahs would be pleased. They'd have to be. They knew he only sought their approve. He only desired their triumph. Surely... "A sweep's time, girl," He reminds. His club lifts up, the blunt end of it hanging over her head like a hammer to drop. "YOU'LL NOT DIG HIS CORPSE FROM A HIGHBLOODS BONES IN THIS LIFETIME!"

[pythianjudgment]

Terezi curls in on herself tighter, her arms wrapping around herself. She's nothing more than a child at the feet of the Grand Highblood, towering like a monster over her broken body. A sweep's time... That's all she was. Maybe that sweep is all that she would have.

Her eyes close tight against the tears.

If that sweep was all she got... it was still the best sweep of her life. She was going to cherish it, and he couldn't take that from her. Even if he killed her right here and now, she would go to her death remembering what she had. There's a small noise from her throat, weak and stuttering, but growing a little stronger as she focuses. A quiet melody takes form, though she doesn't know the words to it. It's enough to remember the tune, to remember how much those unspoken notes meant to the two of them... like a promise that they would meet again.

[comicalamity]

The swift swing of his club halts in the air over her head. The piercing tips of the spikes could brush her pretty black locks. Her acursed noise carries on, floating up above him and all about. It tugs at old memories, sitting on stones and changing the words and pretending he had better so he could sing to anyone at all. The memories are grey. They are outlines all faded out from too long. They can hardly count as memories anymore, but vague ghosts, senses of things what ain't truly perceived. The memory of where this song motherfucking mattered is no clearer. No easier to grasp. And yet the words... Breathless and tuneless, the words come out as a whisper of revelation."... O' somber sea..." He stares at her with wide eyes like he's witness something truly horrifying. And from what ghosts he's witnessed, from what horrors he's crafted himself in the mind and out of it, there couldn't be a name for that fear. "NO! Silence!"

[pythianjudgment]

Even with her focus on the song, her ears pick up the rush of wind over her head. She expects to hear nothing more--but it stops, and her world keeps going. It's not until he screams at her to be silent that she falters, flinching out of fear.

"He t-taught it to me... Wh-when we danced. Just... Just the melody." It was once of her best memories. She wished it could have lasted forever, spinning around and around with him. In that world, there was only the two of them and nothing could touch them. If this was a dream, she wanted to go back to that, but she's not so sure what this is anymore.

[comicalamity]

Her fear is an open book. Her fear reads itself to him, allowing for him to know all he might need and so then act upon it. There are things that people never say that he knows the answers to. "THIS IS THE END." His voice quavers. The club falls, dropped behind him. It thuds down upon the floor, spikes clicking. "He stays the club for none. NOT FOR THE SUFFERER, NOT FOR THE SUMMONER. Not for the Neophyte and not... for you. A HIGHBLOOD SHALT NOT STRAY FROM PATH. His levity shall heed Messiahs call alone. AS IT IS MOTHERFUCKING WRIT! So shall you be seen to the Dark Carnival." He leans down low and reaches. Gentle as such a monster could be, his hand curves under her necks and her broken head. He cradles her like a child. And a snap resounds. The humming stops, if only outside his head.