Any glimmer of amusement that had attempted to surface in the automatic response to quell his fears was quickly snuffed as the beast abruptly leaned toward him. The stench of his thick breath was thankfully blocked by his mask as it rolled through the jagged crevices of the dark, flesh-less skull. Even still, the monarch stag held his. The chuckles made him shiver, but his tense muscles barely allowed even that knee-jerk movement to quiver through them. Elongated ears flattered against his head as his lips once again pressed into a sneer. He didn't like these games. He didn't like the way his body betrayed him, and how it gave the beast such obvious pleasure.

The stag's amber eyes hardened, though they were forced to avoid the eyeless sockets that bore into him. He stared coldly off to the side, and appeared to grow more rigid with every word spoken. When the giant finally pulled back, he did not relax this time, yet returned his reproachful gaze.
“I think nothing of the sort. She is a dear friend to me and nothing more...
You may belittle me all you like, beast, but do not speak so ill of my honor...especially not with Herla.”

Graveyard:
[Uuuuggh shutup Darcy XDD Wait. NO. SHUT UP NIGHTMARE GAWD]

The monarch stag was sure if he grit his teeth any harder the little bones would shatter. Nightmare's laughter ripped through him, right down his spine to pulse irritability in his brain. The darkness that lurked there stiffened, then drew forward in morbid curiosity. Darcy's chest felt suddenly hollow as his heart seemed to beat harder in his chest in response. Blood pulsed more quickly through his veins and his flesh began to tingle. The orange and brown fur along his neck and back ruffled in response. Those amber eyes began to burn with something more than agitation as they stared at the grotesque, toothy spectacle of a face that snarled down at him.
“Well, I am sorry for your unfortunate luck, but it has nothing to do with me. I do not know what relationship you have with your friends but I would lay down my life for mine. Even against the likes of you.”
With that, the stag stood abruptly and backed off. He knew he'd said too much, and he knew he'd stayed too long. It could not be allowed to go on. He could feel his grasp on his own mind slipping again. The rage and the madness clawed at him, hissing and jeering from behind his hardened gaze.
“I think we're done here. I have no stomach for such games.”

He stepped back as the behemoth rose and gained on him – yet he kept on coming. Unwilling as he was, he finally planted his hooves and stood his ground against the impossible foe. He body trembled – though whether it was from fear, pent up aggression or anticipation, he couldn't decide. He felt it all, strobing through his brain, filling his head with disorienting thoughts. His lips pulled up over his chipped teeth, which were hardly as menacing, but he didn't care. A snarl rose in his throat, but he silenced it, jamming back his tongue and cutting off his air.

The beast was challenging him. Darcy's eyes widened through the holes of his mask as Nightmare laughed in his face, then growled and taunted him. The giant hovered over him. It would take such minimal effort to cause the monarch stag any injury at all...and yet he stood his ground. He closed his eyes and jerked his head from side to side before opening them to glare up in fiery contempt.
'Yes...rip him. If you move fast, you might be able to get in one hit!'
“Sometimes protecting the ones you love means not taking action...no matter what you want.”
'Coward! You don't believe that bulls**t! What do you have to lose!?'
Darcy stepped back, gave his head another firm shake, then took off down the hill at a rigid trot.

WHATEVER! -sob- Why you so mean? IT'S TOO LATE FOR THIS MENTAL AGONY.

Darcy: "Welp...off to get high now!"

...-sobsob-

Graveyard:
Yeah, yeah woman! You better love me! Poor Darcy got a double assault on his pride today and now he's gonna be all hung over. For SHAME.
As for MSN, just a heads up, I don't usually IM people first ><' So don't take it personally...but you can chat me up :3''

KUMIKO!: [After that...interesting intermission LOL. I'm sorry there isn't a whole lot to this post ><" I started it a couple hours ago and it's now...6:30 and I'm barely literate but I wanted to post something so...bleh]

As the doe gazed into his eyes, her own slick and shining with tears... Darcy apprehensively closed his. It felt cowardly, but he couldn't face her like this. What...what had he thought would happen? How was she supposed to react? A wry smile betrayed him, but Kumiko's face was buried in his chest again. She seemed to nuzzle deeper and deeper into his fur every time. As she spoke softly, his ears strained to catch her muffled words. He could feel her moist breath on his skin... It sent a tremor up his shoulders and down his spine. This felt more than casual. The stag's heart beat slightly faster in response. She said his name.

'Kumiko...'
No!
'Not good.'

He swallowed again, his eyes fluttering open. The muscles in his forelegs tensed as he thought he may have to pull away from her. Luckily, the doe moved before he did, pulling away to crane her neck to try and meet his eye. His mouth was dry as he reluctantly allowed it. Thankfully, her sudden seriousness was startling and he immediately forgot whatever awkward thoughts were coursing through his mind. Hm...maybe the little doe wasn't going to fall apart on him completely. Her little stirring of confidence brought a smile back to his face. The stag shook his head, hiding a slight blush, feeling completely foolish.
“All right, all right... I trust you,” he reassured her quietly before summoning the will power to stand a little straighter.
“Just...if it's not too much to ask...try not to be too sad for me, okay? I'm fine. Really.”
Darcy laughed a little, however dryly, in attempts to emphasize his point. He couldn't say what he really wanted to say... He needed her to stay level-headed for this. The stag had no idea how his mind would react to the slow reveal of dormant memories. He only hoped he would realize if anything was going wrong before it actually did.

*reads the novel of Darcy and Nightmare's interaction*

Holy geez, Herla snoozed through all that? Dang she's a hard sleeper!

[Haha it's ok. It's always interesting to watch other interactions.]

Her ears twitched above her head as the stag gave a wary chuckle. Her heart sank slightly as she quietly questioned his true condition. She could only guess how he felt. Behind his dry laugh and his cocked smile, she could sense some of his agony, but she refused to let him know that she knew. Her soft lips formed a faint smile as her brows tangled above her sympathetic eyes, "Yes, alright."

Kumiko swallowed her voice away as her emotions swelled within her. For a stag with such a warm, welcoming appearance and such a charming personality, it was hard to believed - let alone accept - that he hid such dark secrets. She wanted nothing more in the world than to take his pain away. To take it upon herself in order to grant him a chance at a life without hardships, but she knew that even if she had the power to do so, he would decline her offer.

The sight of his slumping shoulders and plagued face tore at her heartstrings. She had always known his amber eyes to sparkle with happiness. His face always bright with laughter; even after a rough fight he still seemed to tender, but to see him crushing on his own weight was almost too much to bear... but she had promised to be strong, hadn't she? And if that is what Darcy asked of her than she would do her best to give it to him, for that is what mattered to her. What he wanted because even in the past, that had always been what mattered to her... Her smile softened at her own silent thoughts as she still seemed to find the sagging stag to be admirable. He may have looked beaten, but he still held his glory in her eyes.

"I will do what I can," Her watery tears lightened as she began to pull herself together. She stepped to his side, "Would you like to stay here and talk? Or would you feel better else where?"

Laruna: <3 Hey there! Thanks for following us over :3 Oh don't mind the RP we can do that in between other things, lol! No interruption at all!

Kumiko:
The stag lifted a brow at her hardly-convincing response...but he couldn't blame her for her tears. Kumiko had always been this way. Far too compassionate for her own good, maybe... Certainly too compassionate for him. Again, he hesitated. No...he would have to allow himself to trust her.

Darcy bowed his head and gave it another little shake as she questioned the spot they stood.
“You misunderstand... I didn't bring you here to grieve. That's not why I come. It's peaceful... Beautiful and warm. I think it should be appreciated for that, don't you? Not a place for sadness. It would be a shame to sully such a spot with thoughts like that.”
His voice was light and tender as he spoke, and the tilting smile on his lips was sincere. Despite the air of discomfort surrounding them, he seemed relaxed. The stag motioned downward with his head, pawing lightly at the sunlit dirt beneath his hooves as an invitation to sit. Would it be too uncomfortable for her, even still? He decided to wait the whole thing out and see. This was the first time they would talk while both were perfectly lucid. It seemed fair to give it a proper go.

Darcy waited for her to take the cue and begin to settle before he too folded his legs beneath him. His eyes remained on the mossy patch of earth in front of them, brow creased in thought. A momentary silence settled before he spoke again.
“She named her Mariposa. I...never got to see her but I guess she had my markings. A little butterfly,” he began softly, his expression unchanging.
“I cannot regret her, no... Even now when I know I never should have tried to bring her into this world. She probably would have had it too, the darkness; the sickness – whatever you want to call it. She would have grown up and gone mad like the rest of us. My mother. My brother. Me. I can't help but believe that where she is now...must be better than where she would have ended up, had she lived.”
Suddenly, the stag winced, closing his eyes before sneaking a wary peak over at the doe resting beside him.
“I guess that must sound...pretty awful, heh”

((I SAW YOU SITTING ON QUAD!! Although he would make a pretty good bed/pillow considering how fat he is...anyway hi! XD))

He caught his breath when he felt the doe shift before the weight of her head settled against his shoulder. His eyes followed her, the look he held within them mixed and barely cypher-able. Finally his lungs yielded to the gentle, warm pressure, and the soft reassuring words she let slip from her lips. The stag had been trying to sit tall to project his confidence in the situation, but his muscles could not help but relax against her embrace.

Yet, despite his big talk, a flicker of sadness now tainted his smile at her final string of words.
“Maybe...I guess you would know better than I,” he sighed, somewhat weary of the thought. “I wasn't there for her, so...I hope that isn't the case. I hope she left this world and never looked back – not at her grieved, broken mother...and not at the absentee father that had left her to deal with it alone.”
Turning his head away from her, he closed his eyes and tilted it upward, letting the sunlight splash against his eyelids. He tried to breath it in to settle the ill emotions that threatened to churn within his gut.
“I have done a lot of things I'm not proud of... but that...that was the most unforgivable. I just...left her...both of them. I left you. Everyone.”
Darcy's forced smile had faded. His head lowered back down and his amber eyes stared blankly at the grave now. He couldn't help but get lost in that memory. He had been gone for months...and they were the worst of his life.

Darcy could feel Kumiko react against him. The way her muscles tensed and her body went rigid beside his. He couldn't bring himself to acknowledge it. He had to trust her. Of course, he also assumed her response was for an entirely different reason than what it was. Surely she must think poorly of him now. Had she really never known the basics of what happened during those long, terrible months?

'No...you never bothered to ask her, let alone tell her, did you?' he sneered inwardly at himself. He let it escape in a snort of air and a twitch of his upper lip, his eyes narrowing momentarily on a butterfly that flitted from flower to little blue flower.

He was more than aware of the tense silence that wavered between them. The stag opened his mouth to say something again, but a brief glance in her direction silenced him again. She seemed to be thinking, mulling over what he just said – and most likely her response. He waited for her disappointment.
He didn't get it.
She sighed, and it was a defeated sound, before speaking again. His ears were forced to lift away from his skull in order to catch the whisper of her voice. He squinted his eyes at her, her struggles more than obvious. What was she holding back? Silly doe...
“I just...lost it. My own head waged war on me. All my control just slipped away... I barely remember why. Reetno, Rowan's past, my own histories repeating... It all seems so stupid now. As for where...I was barely myself, and when I was, I was too focused on just getting far away. Other forests, beyond this one...less peaceful places. I revisited ghosts of the past. Old landmarks... I don't know why. I was willing to try anything to snap myself out of it. I got into fights, heh. Senseless and brutal – the madness wanted me to. It thrived off of it...I thought if I fed it enough, its hunger would stop... “
The stag stared past her now, his eyes seeming to fix on something in the distance as his brow creased in thought. He swallowed some lump of truth in his throat. He was hesitating.

Kumiko's sorrowful eyes gazed out across the bright field as she awaited Darcy's reply to her stinging question. The blades of grass swayed peaceful in the warm, afternoon breeze as the sun continued to shine heavily upon them. Toasting their backs but it could not fight off the icy feeling the crippled the doe. The orange monarch soaked in the light with a welcoming glow as the deep blues and purple's of Kumiko's shimmered. From a distance, the scene must have looked lovely. Just two friends enjoying the scenery, but in reality, it was quite the opposite.

The stag finally. His pacing of his speech had slowed as his sentences began to break into small phrases. Dragging on with each heavy breath he exhaled. The silent doe's eyes narrowed as the tension fell upon her once again. There was much she still did not fully understand, but perhaps she never would. This madness that Darcy kept speaking of was a concept she could not fully comprehend, mainly because she had never seen him in such a negative light. Even when he had came to her battered and bruised in the past, she still saw the same fun loving, stag she had always known.

"You came back..." her whispers were almost impossible to hear over the natural sound of the wind blowing against his ears and the birds singing in the distance. Kumiko's muscles tightened again as the urge to spring to her hooves ran through her veins. A light tremble began to embrace her body as she locked her jaws, speaking through her teeth. "You came back though... You... You had to... You had to do what you needed to do to protect them... It's what you thought was right... Didn't, you"

The doe's ears twitched at the sound of the stag's voice growing weaker with each word. Immediately her glossy eyes snapped to his face. Her brows tangled as she tenderly gazed at him. Beyond his soft smile laid the defeated face of a war-torn warrior. His amber eyes dulled and his body drooped from exhaustion. Her lips drew to a thin line. Naturally she still wanted to know more. Her curiosity nibbled away at her mind, longing to fully understand the torment Darcy had locked away deep within himself, but it tore her heart to see him a beaten shape.

"I... I suppose so..." Kumiko's voice shook with her body. Her gaze turned outward as she began to wonder what to do now. Should she leave the stag be? To let him rebuild himself in privacy? Or stay at his side to comfort him silently?

She shifted her weight closer to him, breathing in slightly as she began to close her eyes and pull herself together. A short laugh escaped from her lips as she realized the condition she had fallen into. Over the passing hours, she had been so focused on Darcy's needs that she completely forgot to look over herself. The trembles of her tense muscles surprised her, for she could not remember when she had begun to shiver. As she felt the warmth of his body and focused on the relaxing sounds of nature that surrounded them... and Darcy's soft breath and pounding heart.... Kumiko began to loosen. Her body fell slightly as the tension began to sweep away.

"I'm... I'm glad you came back, Darcy..." her voice lowered below the tone of a whisper, "I'm sorry she wasn't here to return to..."

Sorog:
The injured stag drug his battered body forward, fueled by nothing but bitterness and willpower. His amber eyes were wide and staring through the holes in his mask and flickered with a deadly mixture of blind rage and deliriousness. They were fixed on the doe at Sorog's side, and even as the larger male stumbled towards him, his gaze did not waver from her. His name? Did Sorog call his name? He didn't care. Nothing the stag had to say interested him now.
“I'll deal with...you later...But your little bitch over there, though? I think....I think I'll deal with her now.”
His voice was a low rasp as it escaped from clenched teeth. He didn't sound like himself, not at all. Shoving past him, Darcy's face contorted in pain, but he didn't stop. He wouldn't!

The stag was forced to stop as Sorog angled his bulk between him and the offending doe, finally severing his fixated line of sight. A snarl rose up in his throat as he lifted his head, eyes flashing as his sinister gaze abruptly changed course and met the larger male's as he spoke. He was pleading....pleading! Had there been any humor left in him, Darcy would have laughed in his face.
“She's got her barbs in you good, Sorog,” he hissed, his long ears plastered against his head. His breathing came in long, shallow gasps and his muscles trembled weakly beneath his bloodied, matted fur, but he spoke with nonsensical confidence as he leaned in and smirked a little.
“Let me...remove them for you. Get...get out of my way!”
Lowering his antlers, he shoved into the stag's side with a grunt of effort, throwing his weight into him.

He stumbled back in an enraged snarl, the awkward twisting of his limbs beneath him sending a blinding pain up his torn shoulder. Even injured, Sorog could overpower him, and the thought just made him all the more irritated. By some miracle he kept his balance, stepping back and giving his head a vigorous shake. His eyes seemed to roll in his head as he did, the world spinning. Three Sorogs now stood before him, but...he could take them! Every one of them, and the little bitch too!
"Traitor... Compassion? If you want to help someone help the one SHE tried to kill!"
With a surge of anger and adrenaline, he veered to the side and charged at Sianna, swinging at her with his antlers.

His curved tines slammed into Sorog when the beast leapt in front of him, once again blocking his path to Sianna. He wasn't thinking as he roared again and continued to try and push the male aside. He had not come with the intention of wounding his...his...
'Friend?' Was that the word that came to mind?...
No!
'Oof!'
Suddenly, Darcy was thrown to the side as Sorog spun and knocked him with his antlers. It was too much. His trembling legs gave way beneath him and he stumbled back a step before tripping over them and falling to the ground. The stag gasped and choked, blood painting the dirt in front of him. His eyes were wide and gaping as pain assaulted him from all sides, scabbed wounds reopening where he'd slid across the ground. Darcy's chest heaved in attempts to catch his breath before he clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes up at the male.
“You're protecting her...you...YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAVE DONE IT YOURSELF!” he roared before lurching up and struggling to his knees.
As soon as he rose to his feet again, his mind went blank. Everything went dark and calm, for the briefest moment... And then his eyes fluttered open again and he was back on the ground.

Darcy lay still this time, staring blankly into the weeds and rocks of the ruins. He wasn't seeing anything, really... The world was a blur. A red haze. The black out – not to mention the whack of his head against the ground in his fall – had startled him out of his frenzy. For a moment, he lay there confused, and the Sorog's voice reminded him of what he was doing. Darcy's anger returned...but not like before. His amber eyes filled with moisture he could barely comprehend. His eyelids closed over them tightly at the feel of the male's breathe on him, and he mustered a weak scowl and a shake of his head.
“Get away...” he half snarled, half gasped, “I...couldn't protect her. I...couldn't...protect you...Just go away.”
The stag buried his face in the dirt hard enough to snap the tethers of his mask and unsettle it upon his face. He deeply breathed in the smell of the damp graveyard soil and shuddered.

Kumiko:
He was a little surprised when she easily relented. After how determined she had been before to hear what he had to say...she seemed to agree with him, this time around. 'For once', he thought dryly. Yet the torment didn't end with her agreement. Her voice shook and her muscles still spasmed against him as she held something back within herself. Emotion? Was it sadness? Rage? No, not rage...never rage. Not even blame! Darcy didn't know if he was going to be able to stand it much longer.

Yet...the doe leaned into him then. Her neck hugged his back and her body pressed close...and she laughed? Elongated ears twitched alertly at the out-of-place sound, and he tried to turn his head to face her's, but did not for fear of his antlers. Instead the stag tensed and sat up a little straighter, focusing his eyes on the stones of Mariposa's grave, even as the doe melted onto him.
“I'm...I'm glad you came back, Darcy.”
Gods...silly doe. She wasn't listening. She didn't...didn't understand. The stag shuddered to think what Kumiko thought of him. How could he be so innocent in her eyes? Then there was something else, a muffled whisper...he couldn't hear it. He briefly considered asking her to repeat it, but the thought vanished with the breath of air sighed from his lips.
“Well...I'm glad I came back too,” he laughed softly, though there was little in the way of genuine humor in his voice. After that, his mind went blank. What...what more was there to say? That was enough for now, and now... What? Silence? Darcy deflated beneath the steady pressure of her embrace and gazed off into space thoughtfully.

[ick.]

Nightmare:
Darcy could feel them pecking...feel their little sharp beaks poking and prodding at his torn and swollen flesh. He had attempted to fight them off at first, but eventually the sensation became common-place and he lay still, instinctively flinching and shuddering every once in a while, but otherwise indifferent. Let them come...them make a meal out of him! Staring blankly at the blurred formations of distance gravestones, he barely had the presence of mind to blink away the flies that came to feast on the goo of his eyes nevermind any sense of self-preservation.

Someone approached. He could feel the vibrations of their thundering feet before he heard the commotion. The crows and vultures cried out in alarm and the sound of furiously flapping wings filled his ears, and then a deep, growling voice. It was familiar... Suddenly remembering to breathe, Darcy's chest expanded in a shuddering sigh as a shadow gradually came to loom over him. He winced as the abrupt cease in numbing torment the birds had been causing him made him aware of his pain again. Blinking slowly, his glazed eyes rolled to the side and he grimaced at the sight of the distinct purple talons resting beside him.
“You,” was all he could manage to croak from under his breath.

The stag closed his eyes – one could say in defeat, but that ship sailed a while ago. No...he was just accepting the blows as they came now, wasn't he? His humiliating defeat over a stupid idea, his inability to protect Herla – not once, but twice, failing to exact revenge on Sianna... Now he faced the indignity of the antagonizing Nightmare as the giant circled and then eventually settled beside him.

What did he come to do...laugh? Rub salt in his wounds? Pick at them himself, perhaps?
Oh shit...oh shit, he was!
The sudden breath on his open flesh made his body go rigid and his eyes shot open in alarm...Yet it was not the sensation of teeth sinking into him that he felt, but a hot, wet caress of a tongue.

“Yes...me.”

Darcy relaxed a little, but his face twisted into a look of mild discomfort that wanted to be full-blown disgust but...never quite made it.
“Oh...” he breathed, his skin shuddering beneath the monster's grooming. It hurt, of course, but it was also kind of... 'Ugh, no, don't finish that thought.'
“That's...mildly disgusting.” His body shook a little in a painful attempt at dry humor. It was really the only thing he had to rely on in awkward times like these.

'Odd' was one helluva way to put it... but Darcy didn't think too deeply about the why's of the situation. He assumed nothing of the monster's charity – not a token of friendship or any darker ulterior motives. Was that foolish of him? Probably...what had he done recently that hadn't been foolish, after all? Yet as Nightmare paused in his task to explain his action... Darcy began wishing he hadn't.

'For Herla...? It was was for Herla...'

The knowledge settled like a weight on his chest...or was that just Nightmare's head draped across his sore back? The stag winced and sucked in a breath as the pressure momentarily intensified the pain, but after a moment or two it served to numb it. The warmth was...nice. After losing so much blood and being so exposed his body felt cold and empty. It should have been humiliating, being cradled and tended over like some lost fawn...maybe it still was, somewhere deep down. He couldn't think about that now...not with images of Herla now dancing through his mind. How was she...he...he hadn't even been able to see her! He has mustered up all his strength to come find Sianna...but could not find it in himself to face the little black doe. Not after what he'd been planning to do.
“Sometimes...death...is the better loss.”
His lids fluttered over his eyes, giving him only a sliver of sight. Another deep ragged breath was drawn in attempts to overcome the pressure that was building on his lungs. It suffocated him. Perhaps it always would.

The monarch stag wanted nothing more but to groan at the beasts far too wordy story of woe. Perhaps if he were in a clearer state of mind – and at all interested in getting to know Nightmare better – he might have been intrigued by the tale. Right now though, it sounded like a lecture, and he was being coddled a little too much for his liking already. Yet Darcy refrained from making a sound, letting the rough voice drawl on until the larger male was satisfied with his presentation and trailed off. Silence settled between them, awkward and heavy with the tone of the speech.

“Your pep talks...leave much to be...desired,” Darcy scoffed, his voice a bit softer now, but low and tired. “No...I haven't died. Was pretty close, once or twice...surely meant to. Guess I...failed at that, too. You and I...we have... different phi-...philosophies. Can't argue with you...wouldn't...be a point. There are many fates worse than death. I b-believe that.”
He huffed away a fly that landed on his nose and carefully shifted against the shaggy fur that enveloped him.
“Now...kn-know any...good jokes, maybe?”

“I think I was already there once...you're right. Hell.” Darcy chuckled weakly in response to Nightmare's furthered attempt to...what, impress him? The little stag might not have died once let alone four times, but he hadn't exactly lived the a charmed life either.

'Something left to fight for...' Gods, this prick really knew how to dig up old grave dirt didn't he? Wasn't he supposed to be here to make him feel better? Darcy huffed and made to weakly set his teeth...but it wasn't worth the effort. His head was getting lighter and lighter as the second passed. Nightmare's grudgingly soft embrace was no doubt helping to lull him into some false sense of comfort. Pathetic. The only lingering discomfort was the beasts' breath on his ear and the continuous snarl of his drawling voice. The conical lobe flicked in annoyance as though to rid itself of a fly, yet...he smiled despite himself. The stag closed his eyes, a little sound like a laugh catching in his throat.
“That's...a real shame,” he murmured, his voice growing even quieter “Maybe someday...I'll...Dhh...” 'Do that' he thought wistfully, but the words never made it to his lips. As he sleepily let the possibilities dance through his head, they became jumbled, and then...then he wasn't thinking at all and sweet darkness settled over him once more.

"Keep moving, you slimy bitch," the stag snarled through clenched teeth as she backed away, "Go hide behind your boy toys. Yes, be a dove and tell your beloved to come over for a visit next time you see him? We'll see if you get your way..."