TRP: Anwyll and Pride (Toys)

[SETTING: Pride's dream. Day 407, after Anwyll ate Goro.]

In the marble dream palace, there was a locked door. Behind that locked door, the white marble was streaked with thick black blood, sticky and tarry, still dripping -- because this was a dream, and time did not exist here, and the poppets of the other Sins could be kept freshly dead for as long as Pride desired to look at them.

Gluttony had been the easiest, fed poison, and his corpse was caked with the bile and foam he'd choked on, dead eyes staring ahead. Envy, killed by her own hand, with her ruby dagger still in it, and still lodged in her throat. Sloth had merely ceased to be, and so had Greed, but in Pride's palace, their representations were staked to the walls with golden spikes driven through their eyes, and through their hearts, and through their hands.

Facsimiles of the children of Lust were here, as well -- Diva with her head split down the center by an axe, sprawled boneless on the floor, and little Lizzie Carter with her body desiccated by Sakincha's magic, the both of them laid out before Pride's sharp golden throne at his feet.

He waited calmly for his final living sibling.

COYOTE

Anwyll appeared in the room slowly, piece by piece, parts of him fading into existence. He looked sick and haggard, black, crusted blood at the corners of his eyes and mouth and nose.

He recoiled in horror once he saw his two dead children, staggering backwards to rest against the door of the room like he wanted to flee.

He stared at them, fingers digging into the wall, face white with rage.

Then he looked up at Pride, clearly barely containing himself.

IZZY

"Hello, brother," Pride said serenely.

COYOTE

Anwyll spat a gob of black saliva at Pride's feet.

IZZY

"Eloquent as always." He tapped his long claws against the arm of his throne, then straightened and stood up lazily, taller than he ever was in dreams with mortals. "Have you come to grovel, then, and beg at my feet for help?"

COYOTE

Anwyll didn't recoil. He gave Pride a look of pure loathing, then sat heavily on the ground, because it was the only place available to sit.

"I need help," he said through his teeth. "I made... a mistake, I think."

IZZY

"Oh, imagine that," Pride purred.

COYOTE

Anwyll had to stop speaking. He loathed Pride too much to continue. He let it wash over him, then continued once he'd regained control of himself. "Gluttony... Diva... is much stronger than-- I realized, or intended. She shouldn't have been... made, maybe."

IZZY

"If only someone had tried to stop you."

COYOTE

"Are you done?"

IZZY

He held up his claws as if to snap his fingers. "Oh, certainly. I can dismiss you at any time."

COYOTE

Anwyll ground his teeth. He was well and truly in a corner.

He wanted to kill Pride. He really fucking did. He was sick right now, though, and he knew that meant he couldn't. He was fairly certain he could devour Pride if they were both in the real world, but they weren't.

Under normal circumstances, Anwyll would simply attack Pride, and try to rip his throat out, and be done with it. If Pride dismissed him and Anwyll died, so be it. Anwyll would die rather than ask for Pride's help.

But things had become... complicated.

Things with Raef had gotten complicated. Anywll loved him, and he feared that if he died, Diva would kill Raef. It all felt unfair.

"No," Anwyll said. "Please. Don't."

IZZY

Pride smiled, lifting his chin and tilting his head to one side. He kept his talons raised. "Try harder, brother."

COYOTE

Anwyll swallowed back bile. "Please," he said, a little louder, "Don't send me away or end the dream. I need your help. To get rid of her." His loathing threatened to choke him.

He hesitated, his body instinctively rebelling against the motion of what he wanted, what he was telling it to do-- then he forced himself down, kneeling and then bowing with his entire body, pressing his forehead to the ground, flattening his palms against the floor.

He thought, explicitly, about gutting Pride and tearing out his entrails.

"I'm scared," Anwyll said. "And I'm not... strong enough... to get rid of her on my own. But you are, and I need your help, please. Please."

IZZY

Pride gave a deep, throaty, Mmm, sounding deeply self-satisfied.

He snapped his fingers.

The floor underneath Anwyll writhed and raised him up, fluid, shifting him into a sitting position on his own seat -- this one black lacquered wicker, and not comfortable, and not ornate at all. Pride had rested back down on his throne, one elbow propped on an arm and his head tilted over to lean on it lazily, his eyes golden slits.

"Tell me how afraid you are," he said lowly.

COYOTE

Anwyll gnashed his teeth. "I hate you."

IZZY

"Mmhm," Pride said, still smiling.

COYOTE

"I would kill you slowly-- and painfully-- if I could. I would let you into the real world just so you can feel pain when I do it. I would stake you to the ground and let you wither in the sun like you withered my daughter, Lizzie. And while you were dying, I would make your precious warlock watch."

IZZY

"You have such an interesting manner of asking for help, my very dear and favorite remaining brother." He didn't stop smiling, lip curled into almost a smirk, but acid leaked into his voice.

COYOTE

Anwyll took a moment to compose himself.

IZZY

"And you shouldn't have eaten my toy," he went on, his tone darkening.

COYOTE

"I didn't. I mean, I didn't mean to," Anwyll said quickly. He put his head in his hands. "Diva is stronger than I thought she was. I thought-- I assumed-- that all my children would be weaker than me, because they were my children, but-- they're not. Diva is bigger. She expands." He swallowed. "She's put a sickness inside me. I'm not... I'm not in control of myself anymore. I have no control over my body any longer. I'm like a puppet, sitting fully awake inside my own body. Please. Please."

IZZY

"How terrible for you," Pride said flatly, his smile slipping away. He kicked at the nearest corpse -- Lizzie -- idly with a hoof. "Are you here to beg me to put you out of your misery, then? Trust, I would do you that favor regardless."

COYOTE

"I know a way to kill her," Anwyll said. "All the way. For good. And I can tell you, if-- if you'll get her out of me, and leave Raef and I alone."

IZZY

"Oh, darling." He was all condescension and pity. "Why in all the planes would I do that instead of just killing you?"

COYOTE

"It's inside your toy," Anwyll said. "Don't you want it out?"

IZZY

The smile disappeared entirely.

"Fucking excuse me?"

COYOTE

"Goro," Anwyll said. A shudder wracked him. "The little cleric friend of Raef's. I don't like him. She left a piece of herself inside him to grow bigger. He's throwing it off, so far, it looks like." He knew because Diva had told him. "He's doing better than I am, but it's still there. Festering in him. It'll grow, and then it'll wipe him clean, and then he will become her, a blank slate for her disease to grow on. The dirt for her roots."

IZZY

Pride's lip curled into a delicate snarl. "You're a vile creature." Then he straightened, and stood again, and took two purposeful, thudding steps closer to Anwyll, and knotted his talons into Anwyll's hair. His voice was low. "I will burn all of your little abominations to ash. You can make as many as you like. Really." He twisted Anwyll's neck, forcing him to look up. "I quite enjoy the sport. But you may not -- play -- with my toys."

The last words came through gritted, bared fangs. Smoke seeped out between them.

"Tell me that you understand." His talons dug into Anwyll's scalp.

COYOTE

Anywll's lip curled. "I won't touch your toys." He cast his eyes down, silently seething.

IZZY

"Good." He let go with a parting shove, and flicked his hand as if he'd come into contact with something foul. "Say that you promise," he added, though, taunting. "Swear it on your daughters' lives."

COYOTE

"I have no daughters left except Diva. What good are their lives?"

IZZY

"Oh, but don't you love them terribly?"

COYOTE

"Well, one of them is trying to eat me, so no." Anwyll swallowed again. "I swear on... on Raef's life."

IZZY

"Hm." Pride didn't seem as pleased with this. He studied Anwyll for a long moment, a disgusted look on his face, then turned back to his throne to sit with a haughty air. "Very well, then." He sounded bored. "Tell me how to kill your pustulent child."

COYOTE

"Deep in the Underdark," Anwyll said. "In a place I once lived. There is a pool of water that can cure any disease. Anyone cursed with her infection will be wiped clean of her. I can help lead the way in dreams."

IZZY

"Or, you may tell me where it is, and I will relay the information," Pride said, still seeming bored.

COYOTE

"It's an elaborate cave system at least two week's travel beneath the surface of the earth. Many trails are likely collapsed or closed since I left. I cannot just give you directions, my dear and favorite elder brother."

IZZY

"Hm." He clicked his claws against the arm of the throne. "I've heard there's been some ... difficulty in dreaming with you. Are you certain you'll be able to speak again, or does the little cretin have you firmly gagged?"

COYOTE

"I don't know," Anwyll admitted. "We'll see, next time."

IZZY

He clicked his claws again, eyes narrow. "I despise you," he reminded Anwyll.

COYOTE

Anwyll ground his teeth one more time, then, finally, lowered his eyes in deference, and said, "Thank you, brother. For helping me."

IZZY

"Mm. We'll see," he said, and snapped his fingers.

[END]