these violent delights
Every waking moment was agony. Each thought that crossed his mind did so by dragging itself clawed hand over bloody fist through his skull. The weight pressing down on the fragile plates of bone that made up his cranium had conjured the kind of headache that would render a wolf blind. Were they not entirely blind to begin with. At some point, the crystals that had rooted themselves to the smooth keratin sheathes of his horns had begun to swell in size and number. Multiplying like a parasite on his skull, growing heavier with each passing day. He woke up those first few mornings to a sky that was rife with glittering auroras, and a few more cerulean gems adorning his crown. Ignoring them had been relatively easy, the behemoth simply went about his day. Having taken up residence in a small alcove at the base of the mountain, prey in the surrounding woods was still plentiful, and he loved to hunt. It took his mind off of the potential death sentence that was tied to the gradual increase in the gems' numbers. Until one day he hadn't been able to open his eyes. Hadn't been able to blink, even. The bone deep terror that had stirred somewhere in the most primal parts of his psyche, rearing its ugly and terrible head as he lurched unsteadily to his paws, scrambling for the entrance to the cavern he called home. There should have been the gentle glow of the stars overhead, the brilliant shine of the pale moon above. Nothing. Emptiness. Black. The more he fought to open his eyes, to realize they were perhaps merely crusted shut with the onset of some freakish new symptoms, the greater his panic became. Ash gloved paw lifted from the ground, trembling all the while, to smooth over the delicate skin around his ruby rimmed optics. Instead, the back of his paw was sliced open by the sharp point of a crystal protruding from the socket. Pain lanced his skull like a dagger, betraying the deep root of the crystal somewhere in his eye socket. It was much the same in the other eye- amber orbs replaced with tiny clusters of crystals sprouting from inside of his head. This was also around the time he'd tasted the bitter tang of a viscous fluid dripping down his muzzle and onto the fur of his chest. Oozing from his nostrils, always finding a way to linger on his tongue. Luckily, he'd already committed to staying far from his family, especially the little ones. He wouldn't dare infect them with whatever had begun to stake its claim on his body. In these moments, he had unknowingly set himself up for the long game. Waiting for the plague to pass through his body or kill him outright. It took only a few days for walking to become difficult, and holding his already heavy skull up for long periods of time was unthinkable. After a day or two, the cut across the back of his left forepaw had sprouted a few tiny crystals that brought a sharp, piercing pain along with each step he took. From the wound itself came a thick fluid, glowing the same pale azure as the gems that protruded from his swollen flesh. Thankfully, he couldn't see how horrific it looked. Small mercies. Flash forward to a brand new day. The tiny clusters emerging from the oozing, tender flesh of his orbits had grown too large for their nests. As it turned out, they had forced his eyelids apart while he slept, bursting through the fragile tissues of the eye with agonizing slowness that he hadn't felt in the deepest pits of slumber, to finally poke out from between closed lids and shred the tender skin with the razor edges of each crystalline facet. The blood that had oozed down his face mingled with the viscous goop that seemed to bleed from the crystals themselves, and it all shared the same glow in the end. The crystals had spread up his brows and joined with the glittering gems that had completely swallowed the obsidian horns atop his head. Like some macabre crown, each facet caught the light at a different angle and glittered faintly with the refracted glow of its neighbour. Poe's head pounded in tandem with the steady beat of his heart, the empty sockets of his eyes ringed with blood and sapphire ooze, fresh fluid creeping out and over the building crust that had formed around the crystals. He laid his heavy, aching head on his right forelimb, letting it loll whatever direction it wanted. By now, the largest gems had grown large enough that they had nearly bridged the gap between the tips of his horns. Entwined in a grotesquely beautiful display that was driving him ever more insane with each passing moment. As the crystalline ooze tightened its grip on the monster, the translucent points were beginning to shift their hue. Those that poked out of his sightless orbits had taken on an amaranthine shade, which spread up his brow and forehead, became lavender at the thick spires that clustered over the base of his horns. Under any other circumstances it would be enchanting, but stained with the vile ichor of this mysterious blight and the giant's own tainted blood, it was nothing short of sickening to behold. Cerulean fluid pooled beneath his chin, dripped down his wrist from slack lips. Were it not for the slow rise and fall of his flanks, he could be mistaken for a corpse left to rot in this dank cavern days ago. "Ara?" he called, low baritones hoarse from disuse and the buildup of that vile ooze constantly dripping from his sinuses and down his esophagus. His little sister was far from him- and rightly so- but he couldn't help wanting the comfort of the familiar. "Man.. ea?" the miserable beast tried next, mournful vocals meeting the open air in a puff of fevered mist. No one was going to answer his call. Somewhere, beneath the pain and the thudding of his own heartbeat in his ears, he knew that. Poe was hardly recognizable beneath the terrible mass that had laid claim to half of his head, but at least he couldn't bear witness to the horror of it all. (FINAL WC: 1056) speech |
NONE OF THIS REFLECTS HOW VIRGIL FEELS ABOUT YOU OR YOUR CHARACTER, PROMISE!