[color=gray][CENTER][center][sup][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#928b85]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#9b948d]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#928b85]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][/sup][/center][img]https://i.imgur.com/JPPcXdp.jpg[/img][/CENTER][indent][sub][COLOR=978184][B]Location:[/B][/COLOR] [I]The Chimera's Lair[/I] - [I]Pacific Royal Campus[/I][/sub][sup][right][COLOR=#978184][b]Welcome Home #1.050:[/b][/COLOR] [I]immortal.[/I][/right][/sup][/indent][center][sup][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#928b85]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#9b948d]_____[/color][/sup][sup][color=#928b85]_____[/color][color=#89837d]_____[/color][color=#807a75]_____[/color][color=#77716d]_____[/color][color=#6e6965]_____[/color][color=#64605d]_____[/color][color=#5b5754]_____[/color][color=#524f4c]_____[/color][color=#494644]_____[/color][color=#403d3c]_____[/color][color=#373534]_____[/color][color=#2e2c2c]_____[/color][/sup][/center][INDENT][sub][color=#978184][B]Interaction(s):[/B][/COLOR] [I]&&[/I][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][COLOR=#978184][b]Previously:[/b][/COLOR] [color=gray][I]descension & malcontent.[/I][/color][/right][/SUP]
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[i]In the dark hours meant entirely for lovers, she drifts atop slick rocks and deadened braids of reeds. Delicate perches of her feet betwixt one step and the next, silver cloaking her like lamplight that defined every feature of pale skin and blue eyes aglow in direct challenge of the stars above.

Cliff faces loom ahead in the night, sighing with the waves against their rigid peaks and caverns, the sapphire depths below churning with froth. She stands as a specter until the dawn approaches, the world awash in grays and pale blues and when a certain figure dots the horizon, only then does she leave her vigil. The ground where she had been is blackened, rotted, but beneath the coating of ash a flower possessed of a fiery red core stands tall.[/i]

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	Amma didn't have a roommate, and such was a luxury as she dressed languidly and donned the fitted blazer she paid little heed to. A skirt settled over her hips, belt secured and black stockings rolled carefully up to her thighs before she balances on the balls of her feet to slide into the loafers she opted for this day. The heels beside them beckon, but she recalls being scolded more often not and combs arachnid gestures through her tumble of ebony hair before exiting the dorms. 

At the mess hall she is quiet. The night prior has her flitting to the outer edges of the team, the tense atmosphere is subtle, but later broken by a performance of antics. Amma looks on carefully and doesn't shy away from the moment Lorcán adjusts himself into something proper. Heat flushes her neck, but she simply pans her gaze south and then away with arms crossed delicately. Brazen, sure, but just a smidge tactless.

Still, a small smile forms there.

The proceedings into the stadium is met with the same silence where she finds her seat somewhere on the edges of Blackjack and it is there a coiled ball of spires shoots into her spine. Blue eyes snap to the stage, and there they stay - unwavering . 

[i]Something isn't right.[/i]

The speeches are pretty, the anthem is darling, and still her eyes never leave the dais. So, when the announcement sounds and a familiar pair is introduced, Amma's entire being stills. What follows thereafter is a haze, a film, muffled voices plucking away at her ears that she cannot hear. In the distance she looks to Winter Caspian -- what was the [i]fucking[/i] point? Why take her, why fight so hard to transfer her here. If only to allow them beyond these walls she once thought, maybe, could be something more.

Amma's rage is not personified in explosive breadths of power, nor is it explicit words coated in hate and confusion; it is not contained emotions that wallow in the pit of imprisonment or the despair of the unobtainable.

Her rage is a silent quake: a shaky breath before the storm whilst the world suddenly stills, appetence rots away at her core and with it the void arises liken to a beast slumbering away in the depths of the deepest recesses of forgotten shadow and legend. Her poise remains refined and elegant, but within the bank of her darkening eyes rimmed in crystalline hues, Amma is positively [i]incensed[/i]. Beneath the perch of her body, the ground shudders in fearful reproach and the chair is lost in hopeless bedlam as red and silver fissure through the metal and groan in protest. A pitched drone sunders the silence, hidden beneath the outrage and declarations to a future suddenly forsaken.

Amma stands with a flourish, and the world takes a breath.
Holds it.

[i]And she laughs.[/i]

It punches through her throat in a sudden gasp of air and it's all Amma can do to contain the mania abound through her blood and bones, crackling whips of red and black snaked down her thighs and imbedded deep through the sphere of destructive power that answers to her roar.

She had been traded from one prison to another, only this one was gilded in bars of tarnished gold. 

Her laughter suddenly ceases, abruptly shortened by the puncture of breath whistling through her lungs as the world trembled at her feet. [i]Control, she commanded. Control.[/i] It was a singular mantra betwixt both heart and mind, forming a construct of stability as vicious lines of scarlet snapped away from her palms and corded themselves tight around her throat whilst she whispered a sullen lullaby. Amma regains her composure swiftly and much like a queen is to her court, she primly folded her fingers at her front and regarded Torres from afar with a cool detachment that betrayed the symphony of nihilism that still sang through her body.

It is no surprise then that she approaches her, assistant at her flank as they descend from the stage, eyes of both wariness and superiority. Amma ascends to the baited challenge there, meets them halfway by closing that distance with an empowering swagger.

	[color=#ffffff]"We don't have long, seems ten minutes is all we can spare."[/color] Almassian informs, halting just before her, whilst Torres performs a show of taking one more step forward.

	[color=#978184]"I won't go back."[/color] It is not a denial or a plea; it is Truth, it is her Will and it is Conviction. 

	[color=#ffffff]"It seems your world really did get smaller if you think this is all about you, Tiamat."[/color] She does not bother to correct her, for this was a game: a chess board of muddied ebony and ivory pieces, only she knows not what side she stands upon or what pieces she is to play. It is with a restrained laugh that Amma says:

	[color=#978184]"A whole year goes by, and not a word. Why now?"[/color]

	[color=#ffffff]"That is not your concern, interesting uniform, by the way. I recall you much better suited to chains and void-black. The yellow does nothing for your complexion my dear."[/color] Amma clutches at the wolverine crested over her breast, the muted ochre against her inked and embellished skin suddenly stark in contrast. She doesn't realize she opted for the tailored alteration that advertised her assorted house and team, the spade woven there on her sleeve suddenly weighing akin to a stone. 

	[color=#ffffff]"You really thought you could do it, didn't you? Think you could be a normal girl, in this school, attend classes, graduate. The Foundation Force is still cross, you know. Such potential - wasted. And for what? All purpose of individuality lost, traded for a limitation on your very nature."[/color] A harsh whisper, almost in sheer disbelief. 

	[color=#978184]"My nature -"[/color]

	[color=#ffffff]"Is what we made it. Do not forget, Tiamat, that you are who you are, because we made it so."[/color] Torres beckons yonder, to where a warped chair is left in display. Almassian silently then procures a colorless box with her name scrawled atop in penmanship eerily familiar. The name branded to her throat suddenly flares alive in memoriam. [color=#ffffff]"Consider this a reminder, or a present rather. Welcome home, Ammar-"[/color]

	[color=#978184]"Don't."[/color] It is the closest she has ever come to supplication, a crack in her usual cadence. Fists clenched at her sides where ruby smiles bloomed into her palms, she hardly notices the pain. All she can see is the void where a child weeps to the shadows - [i]maman where did you go?[/i]

	[color=#ffffff]"Take it. Remember, for chaos is not done with the likes of you, and neither are we."[/color]

Her nails prick against the ivory in her hands, she knows what lays within, her name emblazoned there, her name --

Amma Cahors can feel their eyes on her, the rest of Blackjack, awaiting her next move, wary for the coils of her manifest to spiral to and fro. She wants to lay waste to the land.

She knows she can't.
But fuck, did she want to.

Instead she lifts her chin, glare defiant and framed by lashes spiked by unshed emotions she is too proud to spare. She is the solitary creature suspended between friend and foe. Between the known and the unknown. Amma pirouettes on her heel, exciting the stadium with all the command of a goddess compounded by the wealth power oozing off of her in tangible waves.

It continues all the way to her dorm; she passes her teammates unseeing and unhearing, passing by them all from those still seated to those that had ran away to escape outdoors. 

There, a beast suddenly becomes a little girl, her scars emblazoned all anew.
She had been right all along.
For once, she wishes that she wasn't.

[i]Checkmate.[/i]

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