[Mkguild] MK: Savage

[Hallan Mirayas]

(Author's note: Warning for violence and disturbing
imagery.  Reader discretion advised.)

 

Savage

by Hallan Mirayas

 

Date unknown

 

    Mus...

 

    Carcarak laired in
the open-roofed, pillared throne room of Lord Revonos, a zealous and fanatical
guard to his master's seat of power.  His
chain, half-phantom though it was, rasped across the red sandstone floor like
whispered doom.  He prowled like a viper
seeking prey.  Where he stalked, damned
souls and hellcreatures alike fled, in terror of the living cataclysm.  The lucky ones felt only his icy breath.  The unlucky, or the foolish, were enveloped
in a wrathful whirlwind of shredding fangs and rending claws second only in
destructiveness to the fury of Lord Revonos himself. True, they would
eventually regenerate- the oblivion of unconsciousness was far too easy an
escape to be allowed in the Sixth Hell- but the Lord of Rage often found
himself amused by how many and how widely scattered were the pieces from which
Carcarak's victims had to renew themselves.

 

    Not that the Beast of Revonos was doing much
stalking or rending at the moment.  His
master's latest experiments in magical enhancement had not only ripped the war
wolf open while holding him fully conscious, but the rat's-nest tangle of
prototype magics had literally twisted him inside out in a curtain of blood and
splintering bone.  Regeneration had only
repeated the experience.  Lord Revonos
had finally had to skin the beast completely out of his pelt to remove the
malfunctioning enchantments and start over from scratch.  This involved shaving and re-tattooing nearly
every square inch of the beast's hide, and not a single one of those
enchantments included a resistance to pain. 
Endurance was to be earned, never
gifted.

 

    At least he had
gotten a brand new, gleaming white pelt out of the bargain once it
regenerated.  Given his well-earned
reputation among the denizens of the Sixth Hell, and his known penchant for a
volcanic ill temper after his master's "treatment sessions", the
horse-sized dire wolf stood a fair chance of keeping it white for a whole hour
before some denizen of hell worked up the nerve to test the Beast's newest
"gifts".

 

    Mus...

 

    That chance died a
quick death when Suspira, daedra goddess of lust, arrived with a hellhound bitch
in tow.  "Oh, cousin!" she
called.  Carcarak's keen ears locked onto
the intruders' location in an instant, nose twitching, but he kept his eyes
shut.  They hurt, too, and he didn't need
them to track her.  The scent of leather
and cinnamon was more than enough. 
Mmmmm...

 

    Suspira smiled,
admiring the lustrous coat she'd first set her covetous eyes on back at the
Celestial Court.  "Oh, that
definitely wants breeding," she purred, then called again, quieter and
with a devious twinkle in her eye. 
"Oh, cousin!  Lover!"  Quieter still, "Are you here?"  She listened, her smile twisting into a
smirking grin as she eyed the war wolf. 
"Looks like it's just you and me and this lovely bitch here,"
she crooned, her voice sliding like satin into Carcarak's ears and brain.  "Such a poor, poor beast, all chained up
and deprived.  Don't you think he looks
deprived, dear Jazelle?"  She
stroked the hellhound by her side, caressing its head between the ears, and the
creature shivered as a short, eager whine jerked from its throat.  "I knew you'd agree," Suspira
purred.  "Sure, he's a little big,
but I'm positive you'll manage."  She
reached out slowly, savoring the moment, taunting the mortal beast with the
inevitability of her plans.  "Revonos
isn't here at the moment, toy, so that makes you mine.  Do what I want, and it might even be
pleasurable."  Her fingertip brushed
an ear.

 

    In the time it
took Suspira to blink, her hellhound bitch exploded in a spray of blood and
gore.  Its severed head bounced away into
the shadows, ripped out at the spine, pieces of shattered rib still attached to
a few of the vertebrae.  As Suspira
recoiled in shock, a heavy weight slammed down on her back from behind.  Massive, white-furred forepaws latched around
her waist, pulling backward, and bloodied jaws closed hard on her neck.

 

    That was as far as
Carcarak got.  Suspira teleported and rematerialized
halfway across the room, her flame red hair disheveled and her eyes sparking
with fury.  Far more angry about being
balked than either the attempted rape or the beheading of her prize hellhoud,
she snarled, "You insolent whelp!  You dare defy me?"  Her whip leaped from her belt to her hand as
if of its own will, and the goddess lashed at the beast with its bladed tip,
aiming squarely for those glowing golden eyes.  "Know your place!"

 

    Carcarak
sidestepped, open jaws tracking and then snapping shut on the whip-blade.  With an audible crackle, rime ice coated the
blade, and Suspira had a moment for an incredulous gape- he bit and held the blade of
the weapon of a god and didn't lose his face?!- before the beast planted
his feet and heaved.

 

    Even in her
surprise, Suspira was too experienced to fall for such a trick.  Using the beast's own strength against him,
she flipped over his head and landed on his other side with a clack of her
sharp-heeled leather boots.  "You're
in need of some discipline!"  With a
flick of her wrist, the whip coiled, snakelike, an anaconda trying to wrap itself
around Carcarak's neck and throttle him. 
"I'll teach you to behave!" 


 

    Only the thick
coating of ice spreading up the whip baffled the attempt, and Carcarak hastily dropped
the blade as Suspira sent hellfire slashing down the weapon's length.  The ice exploded in a spray of razor-edged
fragments, a shrapnel bomb that scored deep, bloody wounds into Carcarak's face
and limbs.  The war wolf ignored the cuts
and charged, blitzing past Suspira in a blur of magically augmented speed.  Teeth flashed.

 

    Though she dodged,
Suspira still felt a tug on her right thigh at the hamstring, and immediately
teleported away.  Reappearing out of
reach atop one of the roofless pillars, her mouth opened in an 'o' of
astonishment as her hand felt a chunk missing from her prized leather boots.  She watched as, below, Carcarak chewed with
brazen relish, licking his chops for more. 
"You hit me," she breathed in disbelief, transposing in an
instant into delight as battle fire lit in her eyes.  "You actually
hit me!"  Where could he possibly have gotten the speed and strength to-
Suspira broke out in a laugh of admiration as realization finally dawned.  "Revonos, you sneaky devil...  You're not a toy- you're a weapon!"

 

    Carcarak wagged
his tail.  Once.  His golden eyes scanned over her and the
pillar she stood on, his body tense for action.

 

    Mu...

 

    "Oh, you
really think you're that good, to take on a god?  You still want to play, do you?" Suspira
purred, finally deigning to take a measure of this surprising little upstart.  Her smile deepened into a malicious grin as
her whip uncoiled, hellfire coursing down its length like water.  There would be no more whip-grabbing
tricks.  "I'll be happy to oblige.  What shall I cut first?"

 

    Carcarak dodged
between the two pillars at the far end of the line from the one on which
Suspira stood, just outracing a slash of the whip and a sheet of fire.  Immediately, he started blasting the base of
the closer column with his icy breath, and the two elemental extremes warred
with each other with the steaming fury of raging dragons.  Another sheet of flame boxed him in, trapping
him between the two pillars, but he ignored it. 
The fires were not his target, and he continued to pour ice as cold as
the frozen halls of Oblineth against the blood-red stone.

 

    "Hiding won't
help you!" Suspira taunted over the war of fire and ice.  Her whip curved around the pillar like a
living being and laid open Carcarak's ribcage to the bone.  Though he wasn't sure his idea would work, the
beast knew he was out of time.  He leaped
against the pillar, adamantite-coated claws digging deep into the stone.  Then, with a twist and a lunge, he leaped
across to the pillar behind him, hooking tight in a shower of pulverized rock, then
rebounded back to the first higher than he'd been before.  In this manner, he climbed upwards, each
bound putting more and more pressure on the frozen base of the column.  The whip cracked below him, where Suspira
assumed he still cowered.  A much louder
crack echoed back as Carcarak slammed against the top of the pillar and, heated
by fire and frozen by ice, snapped it off at the base.  It started to fall, smashing into the next
pillar in line with a thunderous BOOM!  Like
gigantic dominos, the pillars toppled one after the other, shaking the palace
like the tread of a wrathful Titan. 
BOOM!  BOOM!  BOOM!

 

    Suspira gaped as
the far columns began to rock, then crack, then topple toward her.  "What are you-  How did you- 
Aagh!"  She leaped just ahead
of the final collision, backflipping away from the collapsing catastrophe.  Pulverized red sandstone rose in a choking cloud
around her.  Amidst the chaos, she
spotted Carcarak falling, legs flailing as the column he'd been riding down
cracked apart unexpectedly beneath him.  No more underestimating this beast, she
swore.  Playtime is over.  Her whip
cracked twice, and two blooms of crimson stained the fur of Carcarak's chest
just below the shoulders.  He hit the
ground in a crashing sprawl, floundering as severed muscle refused to support
him.

 

    Suspira landed
neatly on her feet, whip coiling again for a strike, but she saw it wouldn't be
needed.  Stalking over to the downed
beast, she pinned its neck under her foot, her heel grinding into its
spine.  "Those were my favorite
boots, you wretch," she snarled, her hand shaping into hooked dragon's
talons.  "I'll have your eyes for ruining
them."  The beast shut its eyes and
whimpered, ears and tail pinning down in submission, but she allowed it no
mercy.

 

    Mi....

 

    An iron grip
seized her wrist from behind, wrapped in an ornately wrought black steel
gauntlet.  "That's enough,"
Lord Revonos commanded, his dark hair falling across his eyes in the disarray
of a hasty arrival.  "I've put too
much work into that beast for you to go ripping him up... unpaid-for."

 

    Suspira spun within
his grip with the easy suppleness of a dancer, her mood reversing with equal facility.  "Why, hello, lover.  I was just looking for you!"

 

    Revonos
snorted.  "Sure you were," he
scowled.  "Here's a hint: I'm not inside the dog."

 

    Suspira laughed, a
trilling, musical chortle.  "So
clever!"  But her smile slid slowly
down into a hurt little moue when she saw her charm bouncing ineffectively off of
Revonos' stony frown.  "Oh, don't be
like that," she pouted.  "Of
course I was looking for you!  I just...
saw a chance for a little fun while I waited. 
Don't hold that against me!" 
Closing the distance between them and tickling her fingers under his
stubble-laden chin, Suspira flashed a suggestive smirk.  "Not when there are so many other more
interesting things to hold instead..."

 

    "I'm not lowering the stud fee."

 

    "Forget the
stud fee," Suspira retorted, twisting her hand free of his grip so she
could grab him by the armor with both and pull him down for a hard, hungry
kiss.  "That was one of the best
challenges I've had in a century.  I feel
fantastic.  You, me, bedroom, now."

 

    Carcarak stayed
exactly where he lay, knowing what was coming eventually.  He didn't have to wait long.  A steel boot slammed into his injured side,
smashing two ribs, and he took it without complaint as his due.

 

    "What was
that for?" Suspira protested, more in surprise than in any faint glimmer
of compassion.

 

   
"Whimpering.  You beg to me, dog. 
No one else."

 

    Mi-

 

    Carcarak's eyes
snapped open as Suspira sat down in his master's throne.  In spite of crippled forelegs and broken ribs,
he lurched upright with an outraged roar. 
Hackles rose all the way down his spine, teeth bared to their roots, and
claws dug into the floor in perfect wrath. 
How dare she!  How dare she!!

 

    Revonos reacted
just as quickly and just as furiously. 
"Hey!  Get out of my
chair!"

 

    "Oh,
relax.  I'll only be a moment."  Suspira leaned down, not-so-accidentally
flashing both males with a deep view of her cleavage, and started peeling off
her damaged boot.  Flaunting perfectly
sculpted legs, she slipped off her left boot as well and tossed the pair to
Carcarak.  To Revonos' and Carcarak's
astonished stares, she replied, "They're ruined, and he's earned them, if he can keep them.  I certainly can't regenerate them."

 

   "Why
not?" Revonos asked as his war wolf warily drew the boots close,
investigating them with his nose as one might probe a nest of hornets.

 

    Suspira rose and
offered Revonos her arm.  She
smirked.  "They're deva
leather."

 

   Multitudes of
hungry eyes opened in the shadows, coveting the boon, while Revonos broke out
in raucous laughter.  "You skinned
an aedra servant and made her into boots?  Ha! 
What'd you do with the wings?" he asked as he led Suspira off.

 

    The sound of
stampede heralded their exit from the throne room.

 

-----

 

    Sometime later, rumpled
and disheveled but satiated, Suspira and Revonos returned... to find the throne
room nearly buried in frozen, shattered, mangled, disemboweled, dismembered,
and decapitated bodies.  On top of it
all, still crippled and dripping blood and gore from every hair, reposed the
Beast of Revonos triumphant.  Very little
of that blood was his own.  The war wolf
bowed his head to his lord, tipping it slightly to display the blackened Mark
of Akkala, before returning his attention to savoring another bite from the
unmolested boots between his forepaws.

 

    Revonos laughed
and clapped his hands with unmistakable pride. 
"That's my boy."

 

    Suspira gaped in
disbelief, first at Revonos, then at the Beast. 
What was going on here?  No mortal
had that kind of strength, speed, and endurance!  Then a memory sprang to mind, ancient even
for her, and she whirled on the Lord of Rage with wide, astonished eyes.  In her shock, her usual guile deserted her
for a moment, and the realization slipped past her lips before she could
contain it.  "I don't believe
it!  He's not a weapon, he's a-"  

 

    Revonos' hand
clamped over her mouth, hand tightening in warning when she started to
teleport.  All mirth vanished from his
face as he glared into her eyes. 
"Not one word.  Not even one.  You do not
want to cross me on this."  Suspira
shook her head slightly, all the movement that Revonos allowed, and he let her
go.  "Good."

 

    Suspira rubbed her
cheek, feeling a bruise trying to form, and she magicked it away before it
could mar her perfect face.  "I
wouldn't dream of it," she finally purred once she'd gotten her control
back, "but I want something in exchange."

 

    Revonos fingered
the dagger at his side, black eyes narrowed. 
"What?"

 

    "If you
win-"

 

    "When I win."

 

    "Of
course.  When you win, I want that beast chained up in the kennels for a
whole year of studding.  I expect to be
buried in white-furred hellhounds."

 

    "You know that still won't work."

 

    Suspira
scoffed.  "Do you think I came here
with my prize hellhound bitch if I didn't know how to make it work?  The enchantments were in place the moment I
touched him, and if you're doing what I think you are, they've already sunken
in permanently.  He'll be a viable stud
all right.  I guarantee it.  So... deal?"

 

    "Deal."

 

    Carcarak's jaws
worked slowly, savoring the taste of aedra flesh, while inside his mind a
fading light dimmed just a little bit further.

 

    M-Mi...
sha...

 

    Hurry...

 

Fin.

 		 	   		  
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