anyone;

[Infection]

I'm rotting inside
My flesh turns to dust

Another revolution.
Another death.
Another birth.

It considers briefly if it had been her - Aletheia - that quickened the cycle or if it was merely time. During the autumn months its shuddered away from flesh and muscle. It became barely more than a skeleton. Its sickly green eyes were retreating until one day in the sunlight they melted away. Blood turned to dust and it felt the ground coil around its bones.

Another death.

It never knows how long it is collapsed in a heat. It remembers watching a thunderstorm pass by and cleanse its stained skeleton followed by more sunlight to bleach it anew. It could feel the fungus and bugs crawl across its corpse until there was a loud crack. Then the sound of something dragging through the leaves. Its bones are drawn to each other, its own gravitational pull. Piece by piece it comes together like a puzzle. The bare bones stand together in a most unnatural way as blood, flesh, and muscle thread along the skeleton. Slowly, it's coming to life. Its naked skull is last to be reincarnated with true skin. Then its eyes with a stare so familiar and hollow.

Another birth.

A breath is pulled into its rejuvenated lungs when it takes a step forward. Then another and another.

In... Out... In... Out...

It's breathing after having been rotted for so long. It doesn't feel the wind tousle its shredded flesh or taste the bitterness of a crawling maggot in its mouth. For the first time in years, it's whole.

The Chamber calls to it as it had so very long ago. They thrived with one another once, but that was decades ago. There is a hope for reunion, even if it may be temporary, which Infection cannot turn away. It moves with muted footsteps as any hunter. It has no hooves to clatter against rock. The pads underneath its talons grip what ground is underneath as it reaches the edges of its former home. The scent - so familiar and yet so new - pulls a jagged grin across its lips before it eases past the border with no regard to manners. It never had them. With a sense of familiarity the deathcrawler absorbs the image of the kingdom is has always missed. The memories flash back in a tidal wave, relentlessly hitting its consciousness in wanting to be remembered.

Starlace, their children, Morbid Reason, and so much death.
It remembers them all too well.

infection

infection by aeris | html by insane | picture c darkcloud013.deviantart.com

[Straia]

She knows he’s here long before the stench of death finds her. Though truthfully, it is not all that bad. Like an afterthought, like the remnants of a cigarette. But that would make sense, because it wasn’t dead. Not now, anyway. The ravens had been watching as it died, as it lay there with maggots crawling (they do appreciate the maggots) waiting like the ashes of a phoenix. Though the ravens are certain to tell her that it is not so pretty as a phoenix.

They tell her that it is coming, when it has crossed the bored. There are so many ravens in the Chamber now, some natural, some of her own creation. Those that roam Beqanna are made of feather, though when they return to the kingdom they often become merely shadow. The one on her back is simply shadow, swirling in the general shape of a raven, but nothing distinct. She understands the caws that come from the place where the beak ought to be. But the shadow beak does not part, and the shadow does not disappear as she moves through the pine forest to find it.

It isn’t that hard. Though it is silent, the flashes of white talon are clear enough in the darkness of the forest. And though he may know this kingdom well, so does she, and it is not hard for her to cut him off. “Infection,” she says, her voice smoky, and the raven on her shoulder caws. “Welcome home.” Because she knows this is his home. She knows that like so many of them, the walls have been opened to the mythical that once thrived here.

straia

the raven queen of the chamber

image © Squirt