Scene #6103: Wings of Ill Omen

Owner	Pose
Morgan Berselius	Othrys is not a pleasant place. The land is barren and blasted, as if the very vitality of the world had been sapped away. The sun hangs perpetually in the same spot in the sky, making time itself seem to stand still. Strange storms, monstrous geography and otherworldly skies dance at the very edge of the horizon, always off somewhere in the distance, always looming with the threat of their approach. But even in this world, humanity struggles on, scratching out a meagre existence from the parched earth. In one such town, with ruined walls and ramshackle gothic architecture, the people have turned to growing the few crops that, inexplicably, still manage to hold on in spite of the tortured landscape. For this reason, the town formerly known as Redmouth, now more colloquially called Turnipvale, is something of a target for travelling raiders and supernatural threats alike. But it has its protectors, too. One of whom rests his weariness away in a shrouded churchsteeple, staring thoughtfully into the distant, setting sun.
Count Kord	A shadow falls over the town, then a buffeting of wind cracks through the air. A creature, akin to a dragon, floats down for a landing atop section of the ruined lands. The creature's eerie blue eyes move in black sockets, scanning its surroundings, while its form billows and ripples like angry smoke. Shadows curl and thicken around it. Then, quite unceremoniously, a single villager gets plucked out of the streets by their ankle by a tendril of living shadow, and lifted up, up and up into the air, to be held up before the horned creature's face. "Feeble little town. I wonder what protects you in this damned place." He idly shakes the villager to watch them panic, like a cat playing with its food. No harm has been done to the villager beyond the psychological flavor. "Do you have a guardian, then?" he asks the resident, who is probably not coherent by this point. "Are you ever going to stop screaming and answer my questions, you filthy creature?" Thankfully, the benefactor of this village can plainly see this crass behavior from where they've settled on the church.
Morgan Berselius	The disturbance does not go unnoticed. It's hard /not/ to notice the arrival of such a creature, such a monster. In the church steeple, the dark man watches with heavy, tired eyes. The villager screams as he's held aloft, shaken like a porcelein doll in the hands of a cruel and merciless child. His jaw moves soundlessly, voice stolen by fear. This one will say nothing. The others in the streets scream in terror down below, and for a time, it seems like none will come forward to their fellow's aid. And then, from far, far down below, a little rock sails up and clatters against the dragon's head. There, in the town square, there is... a child. A boy, no more than twelve, with a sling and a handful of pebbles. He stares daggers at the creature and sets another stone into his little weapon. Up in the tower, the dark man stares and breathes a long, tired sigh. He rises, and before the dragon can move to assault the child... Darkness falls. A veritable cascade of night swallows the square and the buildings surrounding it. Of course, for a creature like Kord, such darkness is likely of little hindrance to his gaze-- but there is a certain quality to it. A certain... divinity to that power. Over on an adjacent rooftop, an unassuming young man appears, illuminated by a strange, ghostly lantern. "Hey," he says, "You the type to cause trouble just for the sake of it, or are you here for a reason, monster?"
Count Kord	Thwack. Kord's eye closes when he's hit in the face by a rock. He looks down at the boy, craning his head to leer down at the foolish child. He holds the villager aloft even then, staring at the kid with silence and unblinking thought. He contemplates murder, if one were to judge by the horrible silence from him. When the landscape changes, and darkness billows, Kord lifts his head. His eyes fixate directly on Morgan. There's no verbal response to Morgan's words, however. The wording that Morgan chose makes the creature's ethereal form bristle, its mane going wild, and a frown stain its muzzle. Sneering for a second. He lifts the villager with the dark tendril, and flicks them like a doll at Morgan to try and knock him off the rooftop he's standing on. It'd be trivial to catch the villager if Morgan is on the ball.
Morgan Berselius	Catch the civilian, Morgan does. The strange, dark man snatches the hapless and terrified man out of the air and promptly disappears in a plume of inky blackness. There's a brief pause, before suddenly a second surge of shadow erupts from nearby. Cold fire flares in the dark, chain rattles and hisses and then-- Morgan is right there, swinging what appears to be a lamp-on-a-chain right at Kord's chin. A moment before impact, the whole thing would seem to burn with a terrible un-light. In most worlds, that would typically mean that its wielder was some agent of a dark and vile power of some kind or another, but in this one... That strange anti-light seems the exact opposite. Sacred, rather than profane-- and eager to burn away its counterpart. It seems that Kord just had to pick on a place protected by some kind of paladin, didn't he?
Count Kord	Kord snorts derisively as the civilian is caught. That answers his question, and gets him what he was after: A fight. However, the absence of the dark entity that he had just assaulted with a flung innocent had vanished. He flicks his eyes, and prepares for a sneak attack-- When Morgan appears, the shadows erupt like the flash of ocean spray, and a solid wall of black tries to impede him! But the weapon goes through it like tissue paper, and Kord's wide eye can be seen just before the lamp strikes him right across the jaw. There's an impressive spray of sizzling blood that evaporates in the air, and Kord is knocked decisively off of his perch! He slams into the ground, at a standing position that slides backward, digging furrows in the baned soil, and a clawed wing-tip goes up to touch the brand of glowing white and blue embers that show the damage to his face. He is obviously profane, and that did work! But not as much as Morgan might like. This isn't a weak creature by any measure. His exuberance shows as much! His baritone voice rumbling through the air. "Hahaha, that explains it! These peons could never hold together a village on their own. Show me your mettle!" And then his maw opens, and a beam of purple energy cleaves through the air from deep in his throat, kicking up dust and shining ghostly light! It doesn't damage anything physical, however, and instead aims directly for Morgan in a loud, eerie WHUMPF!
Morgan Berselius	The sizzle of scourged corruption is a sound that Morgan is all too familiar with. The dark man's eyes tighten and his lips draw back into a scowl at the sight of those flickering embers. "I thought so. What kind of foul pit did /you/ crawl out of, monster? There's no place for you in this world. These people have hard enough lives without your kind fucking it up for everyone." There's no smugness, no sense of superiority to his tone. Just hatred, rage and scorn, vengeful and unforgiving, without a hint of sanctimoniousness. This isn't a matter of principle for this man. It's all personal, every last bit. But maybe that brief outburst of rage is what gives Kord the opportunity to counterattack. The dark man's eyes go wide suddenly with surprise as that strange, otherworldly light washes over him. He screams as the psychic pressure tears into his mind, clawing desperately at his skull as if to try and shut out the forces clawing at the floodgates of his soul. His eyes creak open, his lips pulled back in a fierce snarl. The dark man falls to his hands and knees-- could it really have been that easy? No. The shadows underneath Kord thicken, though with his attention focused on the man on the rooftop and the light flooding out from his gaping maw, it'd probably be difficult for the beast to notice. Suddenly the shadows lance upwards, leaping from two dimensions to three in the most violent way possible. It's as if the ground beneath his feet had suddenly given way to jet black stakes and pikes of sacred darkness, all driven upward to impale him from below...!
Count Kord	Those words are different than Kord expected. It's a vile kind of hatred, the anger he knows well. The great dragon finds himself experiencing no sympathy, however, and simply stares at the man's form as he collapses to his knees, motes of violet energy dissipating into the air, the atmosphere warping around the alien force until it all settles. In that brief second, the shadows turn hostile against Kord, an effect he is actually quite familiar with... he enjoys the power of manipulating darkness himself. The dragon dips his head, and there's another spray of blood that hisses in the air, glowing gouges in the figure's form, a pained cry. Then the dragon simply... pulls himself off the spikes, phasing through them like a ghost, beating his wings in one good push as if he were made of smoke itself, and floats up into the air. He leers down at Morgan, eyes widened from the ache of his wounds. "I was born from the belly of a god, child," he tells Morgan, haughty the way only his kind can be, "The same fetid pit you draw your godly blessings from." He finds a building to land on, and checks the glowing scars in his figure, one of his eyes closing. He seems disinterested in attacking again, having had his fill of prodding the paladin. "I am Kord. Who are you?"
Morgan Berselius	Hatred burns deep in those who live long enough for it to take root. Years of hardship, decades of dashed dreams, have all etched their tolls deep. A flare of that bizarre un-light surges around the dark man, surrounding him in an aura reminiscent of the night sky itself. He staggers to his feet like a limply strung marionette before finding his footing and dispelling the last of that lingering mental malaise. His resilience is impressive, if nothing else. When Kord speaks, the paladin regards him with renewed fury, his vitriol burning through the weariness of time and memory. "Morgan Berselius," he answers, the darkness surrounding him seeming to boil and seethe with the same spite that fills his gaze. "I'm the one who hunts things like you. I know your kind too well, monster. A deity, maybe. But to me, you just look like another foreign Titan, spreading nothing but suffering, terror and despair." "We may both be of gods," the dark man finishes, "But not all gods are good."
Count Kord	Kord doesn't seem too affected by the response he gets... well, no, there's a look of animated boredom and a great big sigh at his words. He reaches up to trace his claws over the shape of the lantern that struck him upside the head, his half-lidded eyes focused on Morgan in calm thought. "Morgan Berselius." Repeated to commit the unique burn of the weapon to memory. "I am kin to the destroyer, Yveltal. A beast of destruction and death, the seething force of war and decay. It's my very nature to be anathema. You are right to despise me. But... I am not tainted, or a monster, but a beast -meant- to fight and kill and destroy. I admit, I simply wanted to fight you to see how these people survived in such a desolate land. Now that I know, my curiosity is sated. You are a strong hunter." He hisses when he prods one of his wounds, which seeps with that ethereal blood. "I think I will hunt in your lands, Morgan. It seems there are monsters here that need to be destroyed, and I do enjoy a good fight." He griiins toothily. Then, he beats his strange wing-arms, and launches far up into the air. "We'll meet again," he promises, and flies off into the distance.
Morgan Berselius	"You're mistaken," Morgan says as the dark dragon-thing takes flight, rising out of range of all but the most obvious of attacks. "I don't protect these people to help them survive." As the darkness recedes, his eyes turn slowly toward the child in the square, tending to a very unconscious man. "I protect them /because/ they survive," he finishes, the shadows seeming to flood back into his own, the stagnant sun returning to its place on the horizon. The godling is silent as Kord continues to rise, instead silently staring and watching the dark dragon's flight away from the little turnip township. It's only when Kord vanishes that Morgan allows himself another sigh, reaching a hand up to massage the lingering ache out of his skull. "Ugh. And now I've got a headache. Multiverse can be kind of a pain sometimes, sheesh..."