✧ - rule the world

[zara3447]

┏━━━━━━━━━┓
𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚕𝚒𝚊
┖━━━━━━━━━┚

timeskip...

There were a thousand warehouses in the dead city of Paris, most of them long abandoned. Nyx was a clever bastard, disappearing into the maze of dusty streets and gutted buildings like the vermin they were. They had, however, underestimated the kelpies' noses.

"Good girl, Snug," Tali murmured, fingers clenching around the scrap of Nyx's old bandage. Stooping, she ran a hand through her pup's fine coat. She cooed a few words of well-deserved praise for the other two as well, meeting her sister's gaze with a fierce, smug look. Satisfaction mixed in with the simmering anger in her chest. They'd been delayed in tracking Nyx down, preoccupied with salvaging what they could from their compromised base after the Spiders and Ravens cleared out. Even with the head start, the now-former Spider hadn't been able to evade them.

They'd had to leave Asher's body behind. Wrapped in a spare sheet of cloth, locked in the cellar. She was glad to be rid of it along with the mess of tangled history in their former sanctuary, even as the memories made those words feel like a lie. Sentimentality was not how one survived the end of the world. She would sort out the ache of missing her brother in the quiet spaces of silence over long nights, when things slowed down. If they ever would.

The warehouse Nyx had picked as their new hiding place wasn't nearly as large as the last Belrose base. Its green paint was peeling, but the front doors, when she tested them, held fast. A few minutes of circling turned up a suitably dilapidated side door. Prying the hinges free with the edge of her hunting knife, she slipped into the interior of the building. Empty shelving racks stretched towards the ceiling, rows lining up along the walls to leave an open space in the center.

Nyx was nowhere in sight. She'd have to remedy that.

Motioning for her sister and the dogs to hang back, she strode into the open middle. A reckless, giddy electricity crackled through her veins. "Hey, honey," she called out with a dangerous glint in her eye, "I'm home!"

┏━━━━━━━━━┓
𝚔𝚊𝚒𝚜𝚒𝚎
┖━━━━━━━━━┚

Harlow's face was a bloody, feral mask. Kay, who had stared down death with an iron spine every day she ventured out onto the infested streets, couldn't help but cringe. The difference, she supposed, was that those sightless, hungry eyes were a mere threat of danger. Something avoidable, with enough wits and stealth and cunning. Harlow's was a promise of pain. Inescapable.

Handcuffs locked her wrists behind her back, uncomfortably tight. A pair of Spiders stood guard by the door, their expressions caught between disdain of her bound form and fear of the naked bloodlust emanating from the monster before her. The terrible truth of her situation settled over her shoulders like a pall. They would not straighten under the weight of it, for all that Kay berated herself for being a coward. Then the knife was in Harlow's hand, and she was flinching away before her mind caught up. The auburn lock in Harlow's fist mocked her for her carelessness. What happened to 'once bitten, twice shy?' She let you go, and you crawled right back into her web again. Not so careful now, little mouse?

Swallowing hard, she shifted her gaze to the space behind Harlow, finding her tongue again. It was easier to address her question to the her pistols, carelessly flung on the ground when they'd disarmed her. "I understand the strategic value of my capture, but what exactly did the Belroses ever do to you?" She asked, feigning ignorance. In the corner of her vision, Harlow's responding sneer was all teeth and no amusement.

Over the long, bloody hours that followed, she got the full tale of it. Betrayal, vengeance, and spite, hazed over with a red film of pain. She wasn't sure when she stopped listening, but at some point the words simply faded away into white noise beneath the fire of Harlow's blade.

She didn't talk. It probably wouldn't have helped, anyways. The Spider Queen was in a rage, out for blood, and petty words would not placate her. Courage, she told herself, chanting it like a mantra during the worst parts. Courage. She visualized a pair of slate eyes, narrowed in contempt. Channeled that look, directing it at Harlow. It was all she could do, holding on.

Alan would be here soon. The thought brought alternating waves of relief and dread.

[sataraxias]

──( NYX )──
Contrary to popular evidence, Nyx was usually not a fool. They’d known there were definitely multiple hunters following after them. One had been bound to catch up to them eventually, and it seemed Tali had decided to win first place. Problem was that she came at a terrible time. They struggled with a creeper that had, in their most esteemed opinion, much too enthusiastic an approach to attempting to knock them out of the realm of the living. Clanging rang through the warehouse as their back hit metal.

“Oh my God, Margaret, I’m so sorry, I had no idea the missus would get home so early. I’ll distract her, don’t you worry!” A grin that was halfway a scowl slashed across their face as they tussled with the creeper, pushing it back out and luring it towards the open area. Thalia’s voice had been enough of a distraction for them to get the upper hand that they needed. They sent the decayed woman flying backwards into the open space, landing on her back in the dust. Their gun pointed and fired, the sound echoing through the warehouse, and the living corpse twitched no more. Their ears rang faintly, but it stopped soon enough.

Nyx adjusted Harlow’s hat on their head. They tipped it towards Tali and grinned, making no attempt to step back into the shadows. They probably could’ve tried, but running wasn’t their style. “Hello, pretty girl. I will admit I was hopeful you’d kicked the bucket, but it seems it isn’t so. Congratulations on still being alive. Hopefully your sister’s not too jealous of that feat?”

They glanced around quickly, but didn’t see Amalia. Didn’t matter, they didn’t care. Nyx spun the pistol back into its leather holster and stepped further out. They rose their hands as if to surrender, but their quirked lips and raised eyebrows showed sardonic amusement rather than any fear.

Either she shot, or she didn’t. They were bargaining on the latter. Had she really wanted to kill them, she’d have moved in silently and tried to get the jump on them. As it were, she’d practically begged for them to come out. She was far cleverer than that. There was also the fact that, while Thalia Belrose was many things, she didn't seem to be an executioner. She preferred a clean fight to an underhanded one, they were pretty sure, considering how she hadn't killed them when they were down.

Sunlight filtering through a filthy high up window caught them, slabs of light shadowing on their face. Here stood the general of the Spiders, fallen from grace and utterly unaffected by their change in circumstance. They looked terrible, it was true. Worn, tired, their body strained but still working. She didn’t look much better. “Getting enough sleep, sweetheart? You know experts recommend eight hours.”

──( Amalia)──
She wanted to follow. A part of her was tempted to simply ignore her sister's raised hand, but she trusted Thalia's instincts enough to force the urge to run after her to subside. Ames hung back with the kelpies, a hand digging lightly in Spartan's fur, desperate for the small comfort it gave her. The younger Belrose sister's jaw was clenched, her face flat and emotionless. A marble mask, disguising an agitation she'd yet to shake in the days following the battle. From who? She didn't even know, considering there was nobody around her to even see. The hand not in her dog's soft fur was clenched around the handle of her gun, not yet clearing it from leather holster as she tensed, only half listening to the scene unfold. Her mind was elsewhere, on a girl she'd left behind her.

Because she had no other choice. Because Kay wasn't family... Because Belroses stuck together, and Belroses survived together. They didn't survive by going back for strangers... If guilt had been a luxury for another time back on the day of that fierce clash, now she had nothing but time and nothing but guilt.

A gunshot rang out. She flinched. One of the dogs growled lowly, and she silenced him with a click of her tongue. Amalia crept forward, peeking out the shelves, but she couldn't see what was happening here. Only quietly hear it -- and from the sounds of it, thank whoever lived in the sky, if there was anybody, her sister still seemed to be breathing.

This sucked. Trying to gauge the line between too early and too late. They'd done it with Asher -- and they'd failed. Now it felt like she was doing it with Tali. She had to distract herself somehow else, while still maintaining enough situational awareness to be aware of when to act. Being in the otkaz of action was so, so frustrating. She swept her gaze around quickly, searching the shadows around her for undead that might be lurking, might come through the open door. No shadows moved.


──( Alan Graves)──
soon <3

──( Harlow)──
soon <3