Malefic
- Northern Woods. Somewhere. Night.
(CW: Mental Anguish)
“WhErE aRe ThEy?!”
Low wafting fog swirls in turbulence as a hulking mass dashes through at breakneck speed. Low hanging limbs and saplings snapping underfoot and overshoulder. What stars break through the forest canopy are sullied in reflection by tarnished bronze scales.
Twin vivid crimson disrupts the reflective brown plating, cutting through the night as they raucously dart around. A mere shadow of a Warrior they were, emboldened and deranged from their obvious condition as an ink stained halberd serves as nothing more than a glorified machete.
A Forgotten stalks the woods.
From the distance, a crunch of fallen leaves causes the walking, broiling abomination to whip around and drop to all fours. Nasty ichor whips from their maw and paints the ground, withering the plants underneath. “KiN! iT iS tImE!” it bellows from betwixt its twin fanged maw.
Weapons and armor clank and clatter as they stoop low to break into a hell-fueled sprint. The misused weapon being passed off to their gaping maw like a dog with a stick as they power forth. Brush and overgrowth and reeds pass by in a blur. Something was here, something was alive, something to eat!
They approach the treeline, leaping up. “MiNe!”
>Thunk<
“AcK!”
Just at the treeline, a frenzied abomination flails in the air, held aloft by a polearm jammed between two trees. They manage to dislodge themselves as they fall to the ground in a heap of rage, metal, and starvation. Just as they’re about to get to their feet, the weapon falls.
And the blade tip strikes the center of their dirt stained breastplate with a loud >ding!<
Such sensation stymies the beast’s unbridled hunger, a lost look on their gaze as they look up at night sky. The weapon clatters to the ground beside them. Their head turns.
A reflection of silver glints back at them across the ichor stained and ink dripping metal.
“Just __what__ are you doing?” a growling, rumbling voice hisses.
Simple of mind, the Forgotten gleefully pounces the reflection and bites down with victory.
Fangs clang and grind against magick’d steel. They spit it out, dripping crimson and black from lacerations within. “NoT… nOt KiN!” they snarl, grabbing the weapon with sharp talons, them bending and twisting the half to snap it. Tear. Rend!
It doesn’t seem to wish to yield.
The reflection shifts some, tessellated striations of silver drawing close. “Look at you,” the rumbling bass huffs. “You are. Remember your promise?”
The beast ceases their attempt to crunch it in half like a twig on their leg. “SiLeNcE! i WiLl D-”
“You’ll what?”
“DiE! KiLl!”
“No. Look at this one.”
A breeze wafts through the clearing, rustling tall reeds and grass in a lazy wave. Eluna above glimmers for a brief moment in a glint from the halberd shifting about before it is replaced with a stern reptilian silver eye glaring at a fuming crimson one.
“No MoRe wOrDs!” the Forgotten bellows, raising the weapon over their head to try and-
A razor taloned hand grabs their throat. The weapon sags from lack of support. The hand squeezes tight, uncaring of the firm scales that usually ward. “Look. At. This. One,” the voice snarls from someplace near.
“nO!”
“LOOK!”
Snick.
Crimson meets silver.
Silver sees crimson.
Fury comes to an abrupt halt. “... wHaT… wHy iS… CoLd?” The hand loosens, and falls away. Falling like the crimson that stares at the reflection, now clattered upon the grass.
They fall to their knees, overlapping tarnished scales crunching into the wet ground and displacing the fog. Over the weapon they hang, dripping lifeblood and miasmic ink all over the already stained polearm. “...wHy Is… HuRt?” they whine, gripping at their skull.
“The promise.” The reflection’s eye moves away and tessellated silver glides by cloth over a window.
What promise? The only promise that mattered was to fill the belly! To eat! To rend! To… kill. To… remember? Remember? The figure groans as they clutch their skull.
A promise. That’s what the delicious looking one said. What promise? The only promise that mattered- No! We’ve thought that thought before, new thoughts, remembered thoughts! Hungry. Angry. Rage. Red. Red?
Red. Red red red. Fire. Hot. Orange. Bright. Sun? Remember. Red. Bright. Shiny? Silver. Delicious. No. Silver. Sun. Remember. Fire. Warm? Cold. Dead. Now? No. Thoughts. Promise.
From between tarnished scales leaks a familiar black ichor.
Promise of? Promise whom? Purpose. Place. People. The People. Delici- no. Protect. Purpose. Place. Honor. Monster. Not. Monster. NoT. MoNsTeR.
The Forgotton drags its claws over their face, a mournful bay echoing through the clearing that builds to a painful wail. Wafting miasma spills off them in droves, causing reeds and grass to wither and wilt, the soil to turn an unsustaining grey. The weapon below, bathed in the unlife.
WiLl not. ShAlL nOt. FaThEr. DrAgOn. SuN. pRoMiSe.
“I! aM nOt! A mOnStEr!” they horsley scream in crescendo, claws digging into the earth as they sink further into the pool of brackish energy. “I’m NoT….! i’M nOt…! I’m… not…”
The Forgotten slides closed their dead silver eyes, losing grip of their consciousness. And over in a tumble to the ground. Surrounded by a wreath of withered life.
-End Scene-