The nightmares had been few and far between, often happening when Richard wasn’t home. They always followed the same route. Always ended with blood. Always woke up with that taste lingering in her mouth. Pebble would often stay up and wait for Richard to come home after those nightmares, unable to go back to sleep without him there. It all led back to that cursed night it started. The night he left. She had been home with Richard, he seemed…distressed. Distant. His mind elsewhere. Pebble did as she could, offering him comfort. Trying to ease the pain that plagued his mind. With each and every wince her worry only grew. Being unable to help him… she could only offer comfort with her arms wrapped around him. She should have known. If she’d fought harder for him to remain there with her then perhaps…. He stood, pulling away from her. Flashing that soft smile she knew all too well. Uttering those words that shattered her heart. “You will always be my one… my one true love, I love you, my sweet Lily.” That beautiful name he had given her. One that filled her stomach with butterflies each chance he used it. Now a goodbye as he vanished from her eyes with a simple snap of his fingers and the flash of light. In that moment her stomach dropped to the very depths of the void as she stared at the now empty space he once filled. He was gone. Just like that. Just like the fears she constantly battled had always insisted would happen. Just like the others had left, this one too… now gone. No goodbye, no see you soon. Just an… I love you. With panic suddenly surging forth she ran to the one person who could help. Perhaps her closest friend, the one who knew her the best. The one who had been with her the longest. Ada. She had run to her home, banging on her door as she cried out for her friend. Yet no response followed. Sparing little time she fled to the library, the next place she knew to look for Ada. These words grow blurry in her mind, the only thing Pebble truly recalled is running to Ada and begging her to find Richard. Her feathers steadily emerging along her body as her stress levels began to climb, her control loosening. And the moment she found out he was in the void? A place she thought he couldn’t go, one she had feared to even mention out of concern of bringing up unfortunate memories. Finding out that this was where he had run off to filled her with utter fear and dread. But those around wasted no time in preparing as Ada found his location at that cursed church of Whispers. A place she’d come to know more than she’d like. When they arrived, the fight had already been taking place. As the group rushed in, she saw him there on the ground, beaten. He had lost. Her knight she once thought invincible, had lost this fight to the man of the void. A new fear began to overtake her mind, not of just being abandoned, but seeing her beloved die before her eyes. The next part all happened so fast, she couldn’t even begin to tell you what all had happened. His name slipped from her lips, a light flashed, and something slammed into her head. Hard enough to send her flying across the room. A burning sensation, one that caused feathers to sprout from the wound as blood dripped down her face. Yet none of that mattered more than the status of the man on the floor as she pulled herself to her feet, moving to his side. Seeing the rise and fall of his chest and simply knowing they still had him was enough to begin to quell the fear in her chest. That was… until they had overstayed their welcome. Just as the group was preparing to leave, Richard safely within their care, it struck. Cold and harsh, pure fire in their bodies as the void rebuked them from the holy grounds. The group escaped, but recovery was needed. As wounds were tended, she found the feathers released from the attack had taken to her head with the skin that once covered them now gone. Yet that problem was one for a different time as she rested beside her beloved. Believing that so long as he was there, they would come out of this alright. With a few days passed and time to recover, discussions were held, hurt was being mended. And yet….that was only the beginning. The day she set out to the void, seeking transport and finding herself in a graveyard for blades. A place she had not yet ventured. To hearing him behind her. The voiden one who had caused such harm to her beloved. Who he had actively asked her to stay away from. Simply hearing his voice left her nervous, eager to return home. Yet Hush had a way with words, and she had an endless curiosity. Especially when he pulled out the watch that had gone missing from her stores ages ago, one filled with her own feathers. One that seemed to bend and warp time. Simply speaking to the man filled her with anxieties as Richard’s request played time and time again in her mind. After his venture he had requested she refrain from the church and the man who inhabited it. Yet here she stood, still speaking with the same man. He spoke of a way to control her feathers. A control she had been desperately seeking. Everyone yearns for control of their own body, don’t they? Why was it so wrong for her to want this? Yet he continued to speak with her, letting her believe this was all her own choice. How he wouldn’t force her into this if she didn’t want to. And all she had to do was give him pieces of herself, all of which he claimed he would return. In exchange, he just wanted information. Information of her, how she exists. How she even lives as a creature of the void and Ateon. With enough convincing… she offered a feather out to him. A silent contract made with such a gesture. Hush took her to his laboratory, one that faced the void. Welcomed it, even. The tank filled with fish was the first to catch her eye, only later realizing that those weren’t just any kind of fish in that tank. Whilst she poked and prodded around, she kept watch on what he did. His process unknown to her, chimeras had never been something she studied into. At one point a rather wretched smell filled the air, but it all came together when he offered her a vial. Hush spoke of potential, bringing out a piece of her that was buried deep below whatever her father did to conceal her true form. Offering control, something too enticing when you have none. And he warned it would hurt. In the back of her mind, she couldn’t help but find the irony, Richard faced his weakness here and now she was to do the same. Pebble took the vial, tilted her head back and downed it. She had gone too far once before and was expecting a similar phenomenon to occur. But when her body began to shake, when it began to give out, only then did it dawn upon her how foolish she had been. The bottle shattered as she fell to her knees, a black liquid falling from her mouth as she began to cough and sputter. Hush’s hand reached out, but her eyes couldn’t focus. Pain began to blossom throughout her entire form, something new was happening. Changing. She recalled the way Hush stood and watched, claiming how natural it was to fear in this moment. How he had warned her. Something new began to burn within, shame? For being played so easily? Fear, for what this would bring? ….Anger, for the way he used her. These moments grow hazy, coming to her mostly in dreams now. The change. The feathers that consumed her. The wings that sprouted from her back. The body of the lion that overtook her own, the heightening of her own voiden energies, even… the dragon’s tail that swept out behind her. All of this birthed through pain. Through anger. Pebble remembers the feel of his shirt as she grasped him, turning into rage as she threw him over his table. To suddenly being home, but it didn’t seem like home at the time. Everything had been so…. Confusing. It was as though her mind had been muddled, hardly able to focus, only able to feel. And then she began to attack. Fighting, biting, slashing. Her only guide was the screaming of instincts. Hunger. Anger. Pain. Sadness. The flashes come and go, dreams filled with a prison, a cell far too small for her form. Of Hush, taunting her, toying with her fragile mind. Of Richard, holding her. His hand brushing through her hair. His face pained….or simply blank as his emotions are buried away. At one point, even Lockridge, glancing at her nervously. The one she hates the most, the ones with Ada. Ada bleeding. Her hurting Ada. Biting into her arm, blood filling her mouth. The hurt look in Ada’s eyes. Ada restraining her. Locking her away. And the ones…with meat. Food. A hunger that never quite seemed to fade completely, even to this day. The smell of meat still leaves her queasy, thinking on it too long turns her stomach out, but a small part of her is still hungry. After Ada saved her, pulling the extra souls from her body and reverting her back to the form those around her are most familiar with, she found the control she was promised. Despite the damage done, Hush fulfilled his word. She had what she wanted in the end of it all, yet between the yearning… the nights that left her shaken, the cost to those around her, she couldn’t help but wonder if control was truly worth all of this...?