[right][h2][color=999999]Lost in Translation[/color][/h2][@Tlazolteotl][@Auragreedia][/right]

[color=lavender]The father, Teresa quickly realised, wasn’t real.

There was no response, no cry of indignation at being grabbed. He didn’t even look at her. He strained against her grip and did nothing else. Somewhere by the side, Morgan had wrapped his arms around the child. The music pulsed. Teresa paused.

‘[b]Ah[/b],’ she said, and let go of the father. With a turn of her heel, Teresa unsheathed her sword.

Amongst the clutter of equipment on the stage was a haphazard string of cables that ran along the stage like an unruly group of snakes, coming to a head at an extension socket tucked behind a turntable like an afterthought. Slicing through the cables with her pristine blade was easy. Teresa stepped back, apprehensive. 

Would the music stop?[/color]

[hr][hr]
[right][h2][color=#7ece73]Vicis’ Catharsis[/color][/h2][@silver21][/right]

[color=7ece73]A baphomet? Not Baphomet in the singular – one of the many caricatures of the afterlife that the humans so loved to bow down to – but [i]a[/i] baphomet? Questions abound rose within Vicis; namely, the matter of [i]Hell[/i] being a real place! Why, he’d thought it mere conjecture on the humans’ part in their incessant efforts to impose ethics upon their unwilling neighbours. And perhaps it was conjecture still, for why would a creature of Hell depict itself a delectable snack and carry the scent of lavender?

‘[b]“Kaiju”? I am not familiar with the term.[/b]’ The baphomet’s tone and crass language suggested it to be mockery of a kind, but Vicis was not so petty as to take offence from something that meant nothing to him. ‘[b]I am an elder wyrm. A species thought to have been derived from snakes and dragons by fool human anthropologists but what I [i]am[/i]...[/b]’ Vicis flicked his tongue. ‘[b]...is all monstrosity.[/b]’

He did not usually partake in conversation with his dinner, but seeing as he had already requested nourishment from the light being, Vicis supposed he could make an exception this time. (It had nothing to do with the [i]many[/i] other exceptions he had found himself making as of late. Those were for... research purposes, of course. Much like his entire endeavour into this strange place with its talking lights and candled goats.) Good company was a rare find for creatures like him. It would be a shame to eat this ignorant, little baphomet so soon.

Besides, it was poor manners to interrupt what, so far, was turning into an amicable exchange. Vicis pulled back, far enough that he wasn’t leering too closely over the critter and close enough to maintain comfortable conversation.

‘[b]Ah, but where are my manners?[/b]’ He nodded his head in a pale imitation of a bow. ‘[b]I am Vicis, a humble creature of the Wild Lands. You have come a long way to grace us mere mortals with your infernal presence, o demonic one.[/b]’

It was said genuinely enough, but there was a trace amount of scepticism lingering beneath the elder wyrm’s words. There was little reason to doubt the goat, but when there was hardly anything demonic about the self-proclaimed baphomet to espy in the first place, could Vicis [i]really[/i] be faulted for not taking his word?

[i]No, not at all.[/i][/color]