Topic: Blood Enough To Drown The Moon (MA)

OceanSpawn

Date: 2010-02-19 17:32 EST
((May possibly contain imagery unsavoury to some.))

Darkness. Full darkness. The sky is black, illuminated by the pinpricks of tiny starlight. The moon is dark, new as some would say, but she knows better. The moon is hidden beneath the dark residue of blood.

Out in the bay, something stirs. The water ripples, boils, bubbles ....something is rising from the depths.

A horned head lifts from the silent blackness, green eyes alight with inhuman fury and hunger scan the waiting ships. She hungers. For too long she has waited upon her island with her sisters, alone, with no passing ships to lure to their deaths. No food for too long.

She moves across the surface of the water, every sense alert, stretching out to listen for the heartbeats of the unwary. The Dockland is alive with life, men and women laughing, living, unaware of the silent death that stalks them from the waters.

Here, at the foot of the steps that lead down into the water, she stops, she waits, listening as she locates the ones who will feed her and her kin this night. The horned head rises, a scaled body follows. Arms that reach to venomous taloned hands pull her from the water. A tail, fearsome in its aspect, coils and uncoils to lift her up the dark steps towards the sounds of revelry.

They are unwary, this prey. They believe themselves safe on land, in groups. She could almost laugh at their naivety. She lives and feeds at sea ....she hunts on land. Coiling and uncoiling, that ferocious tail lifts her higher, onto cobbles slick with human excretions, slinking through the shadows cast by the ships that sway gently against the piers and mooring lands.

There ....she hisses in anticipation. Four stumble away from their party toward the shadows where she waits. Her tail flicks eagerly, saliva drips from the protruding fangs at her muzzle. Closer ....closer ....they are unaware of her, too buoyed up with drink and merriment to listen for the rasp of scales on stone as she draws further into the shadows.

They see her, finally, they look into the face of their personal Death. She strikes fast, the venom of her claws and tail flooding their terrified bodies, paralysing them, killing the screams that rise but do not take flight. Blood drips over the cobbles as she hisses in triumph. She and her sisters will dine well tonight.

There are a few distance splashes to entertain the other revellers, but they do not investigate. And in the morning, all there will be is blood, washed away by the salt sea and snow.

OceanSpawn

Date: 2010-03-01 03:49 EST
Moonlight. Full moonlight. The moon, goddess of the night sky, hangs pregnant in the star-spangled darkness above, casting her silvery light across everything she surveys. Tonight, she is not hiding beneath the blood of the ages.

Along the beach, something moves. Half submerged still, but crawling, ever higher, to escape the deathly clutch of the sea's watery embrace. This one night, of all nights in a given month, this being must leave the ocean's embrace and seek refuge on land.

Look at her, this bedraggled, vulnerable figure. There are no scales, no horns, no venomous barbs or dripping fangs. Even a distinct look reveals nothing unusual ....nothing at all. For under the light of the full moon, this matriarch, this vengeful beast of the oceans, becomes nothing more or less than human.

Bare skin, naked under the moonlight, gleams wetly as she drags herself up over sand and stones, away from the water that would drown her. Her legs tremble, unused to the sensation of parting from one another to allow her to move.

There is nothing, truly, so pathetic as a predator made prey. She who stalks humankind for her sport, for her food, is one of them for this one night, vulnerable and alone. She pulls herself into the lee of a cliff, huddling in on herself, glaring up at the inconstant moon whose pull commits this dreadful punishment each time she reaches fulfillment.

It is only for one night. When the moon sets, the trembling legs will merge once more into the magnificent tail that hides those venomous barbs for catching her prey, and she will be once more bestial. She will return to the sea ....watch and wait, and bide her time for the return of the dark of the moon, the night that brings her strength and power beyond imaginings. The night in which she will hunt.

But for now she huddles and waits, a terrified, pathetic example of humanity, cursing the moon for the curse laid upon her. And in the morning, there will be nothing to say she was ever there. Only the flash of fins as she seeks once more her oceanic home.