Xaviers!

"What do you know!" she shouts, voice sore. "You're a little chick playing at being a flock. I am nightmare incarnate! The Lurker below! The Flesh that crawls! The Shadow in every man, woman and child's heart! The Shepard of the damned, the keeper of souls, the thing that gives texture to the endless night..." she starts rattling of titles, many or possibly all self-imposed, growing quieter the longer she goes on.

"I am a monster!" she tries in vain to drown out Sam. "It was a monster that ate them and not a scared girl!"

Something in Sam's mind is faltering, and in the realm of the mind like this she can't hide the fragmentation of her thoughts.

You... you... how could you...

...you poor thing...

"Don't pity me!" she screams as her wings fold against her back and she dives, wind whipping at her hair and the over-sized coat.

"You'll see. We're all monsters in the end..." she whispers to herself, although Sam doesn't really need to hear it through the wind. In some way it's her tongue forming the words. Cailleach's grip is looser than it was before, but right now it mostly means that more of her is reaching Sam. She's reaching out with her mind, but Cailleach's senses or interpretations of the same reality are... off. Perhaps tinged by the same 'madness' Sam has felt. The school looms large somehow, uninviting and judging. The lighthouse like it glimmers with a strange light but cracked and broken above a sea of dead stars. And beyond that the ocean and it's welcoming darkness. A familiarity that everything else is lacking, a safe blanket and comforting embrace.

But her attention soon narrows on the two minds that seem partially hidden behind a veil, nestled between the waves of the sea and the lighthouse on the cliff above. Skin turns cold, fingernails into black claws, the air that fills their lungs is suddenly choking, oppressive, dry and as Cailleach plummets from the sky and into the ocean it almost feels like a relief. At least until Sam catches a glimpse of her intentions as she sinks into the darkness beneath the waves. She's lurking, refining her anger into cold determination, here where she feels comfortable and in control...

Tereza walks out of the sea cave arm-in-arm with Vivienne, “We can go back to the buffet restaurant if you like.”

"You're right, I don't. So do not fret, I shall not lay a finger on them..." Somehow the thought isn't very reassuring.

As the two step out of the cave the world outside seems darker. At first it seems natural, the sun has set after all, but something still feels off. The shadows in the cracks of the cliffside too deep, the waves lapping at the rocks too slow as if it was just a little too thick to just be water. The wind blowing in from the sea carries the stench of dead fish and along with it a whisper.

Tereza Rozanov wrote:Tereza walks out of the sea cave arm-in-arm with Vivienne, “We can go back to the buffet restaurant if you like.”

"Yes." She paused for a moment and gave a slight shiver as she looked around.

"Perhaps, I have been cloistered for too long. The outside night is far darker and colder then I had expected."

"It's winter," Tereza says with a shrug, "Gets dark early here I guess when it's the middle of winter." Her nose wrinkles at the scent of the dead fish and she glances out at the water.

The waves splash over rocks and gurgle in small tide-pools when a sudden larger waves rushes high enough to sweep across the path in front of them, leaving a couple of crabs scrambling over the slick stone and a couple of fishes twitching and gulping at the air.

"Tereza!" the fish suddenly exclaims with Vivienne's voice, blank eye staring at her. "Don't turn to lay eyes on the thing they send through the veil in my place. Run!" The last word, barked out as a desperate plea, cuts deep and bristles against the beast inside of her.

The beast, injured and angry as she is, responds immediately to the plea. Tereza's eyes go yellow as she turns on Vivienne, yanking her arm out of Vivienne's arm.

Vivienne stops short, standing dumbfounded and staring at the talking fish. Tereza's sudden movement jarred her brain back somewhat.

"Wha..?" It wasn't the most elegant of responses as she turned to Tereza, about to ask her if she too had heard the fish or if she had spent too much time too close to the ley line.

The Changers from beyond the stars replaced you and none took notice until the Goddess of Death herself lay bleeding on the ground... Cailleach feeds into Tereza's mind. Less a communication and more tugging at existing thoughts, adding to it. Memories taken from Sam - muddled thoughts and pain, bleeding out in the dark - to stoke that primal fear and rage. The cost of falling for a Changeling...

Tereza's hands sprout claws, growing bigger and bulking out as she grabs Vivienne by the throat, slamming her into the side of the cliff. "What have you done with her?" She growls out through rapidly sharpening teeth.

Gasping for air Vivienne's hands closed around Tereza's wrist.

"Samantha...is hunting...you said so...yourself. Please..."

"Not Sam. Vivienne. What did you do with Vivienne?" There's a wrenching sound as the bones in her injured arm realign and knit with the impending shift, the pain making her eyes flash.

"What? I am...right here. Tereza...love...please, calm down. You are...going to...hurt yourself."

Tereza squeezes, "You lie. Vivienne wouldn't treat someone like you treated Illsa. Last chance, tell me where Vivienne is, you impostor."

"The ley line...human magic...taint for fey..." She gasped and pulled at Tereza's wrist. Talking required air and Vivienne's vision was beginning to blur.

Vivienne tosses her to the path, stretching as her body grows, shredding through her clothes. "Maybe after I've run you to ground again you'll tell me what I want to know," she slurs as her body morphs with the wolf taking over.

Vivienne coughs and tries to regain her breath.

"I am...your Vivienne. I was unkind...because I am human and flawed and weak and I hate it."

She looks up at Tereza and began to scrabble backwards on the ground, back towards the sea cave.

"Putting yourself in a corner will not help you," the wolf says, prowling after Vivienne. She darts forward, snapping her jaws just shy of Vivienne's leg.

She yelps, "Tereza! Please, stop!" and kicks out, more or less aiming for Tereza's nose.

Tereza catches the blow on the snout with a brief yelp before lashing out again in response to the pain. This time, her jaws close around Vivienne's calf, teeth sinking into flesh as she drags her closer.

Several levels of panic flashed through her eyes as her hands clamped down around Tereza's muzzle, a futile attempt to pry the wolf's jaws loose.

"No, no, no! Do not bind me against my will! Not again, please!”

Cailleach's fingers sink a little bit deeper into the muck of the ocean floor as she clenches her hands before slowly pulling herself closer to the shore beneath the waves as the water tugs her back and forth.

"You know, I would reckon she would not doubt my place once she realizes she eviscerated her girlfriend..." she gloats to Sam.

You don't get to take from me...

You don't get to take from them...

You don't get to take.

Sam's selves finally agreeing on something reverberates, focusing in on a sharp stab against Cailleach.

Something of the unspoken rebuke reverberates through their link and seems to impact on Tereza's beast even if she's not conscious of it, causing her to release Vivienne and recoil like a struck dog.

Cailleach doesn't lose control over her (their?) body, but she does lose grip of the sea-floor and she drifts to the surface. Eyes just above the water, surrounded by a cloud of red hair floating around her she watches Tereza back away. How did you do that! she snaps at Sam the same time she lifts her head fully out of the sea and gasps.

"Tereza! What did you do!?"

"Samantha! Be careful, she is hurt and not herself. Something is very wrong." She used Tereza's recoil to scramble backwards and use the cliff wall to stand.

The fresh verbal scolding causes Tereza to glance at Vivienne with horror in her eyes and causes her to shrink even further in on herself.

Wishful thinking, little raven... But she does stop partway up the rocks. With her clawed and webbed hands, the thick, pale skin and the fins and ridges on her body she looks more like a sea-monster than a person, but she does have Sam's face and hair, even if she perches on the rocks more like an animal would. She's not attacking though, even though Tereza and Vivienne would be caught more than a little off-guard.

"You're wounded..."

"Bitten, it is alright, it hurts like hell, but we talked about this." She winced as she moved.

"Last resort, remember, but she may not be able to stop at a single bite. She thinks I am one of the Star-born Changlings, I do not know how to convince her otherwise." She adds as she edges towards the cave mouth.

Tereza looks back and forth between Sam and Vivienne, lost in a confusing war inside her own head as human and wolf have some sort of mentally violent disagreement.

"Struggling with the wolf only makes it lash out, Tereza. Sate the beast by letting it take control." she says as she slowly climbs up onto the path, shedding her aquatic features in favor of black feathers, although some come out malformed and others are matted down from the water still clinging to her. "The Morrigan's wolf will listen to it's master." she goes on, slowly advancing on Tereza with one outstretched hand, palm out towards the werewolf.