11-03-2015, 11:36 PM
WARNING: I just want to give whomever is about to read this post that there is gore and blood, so be warned... If you're not mature enough to handle gore and violence, I'd suggest scrolling past this post. However, read at your own digression.
He must (in some way or another) put the practices of his lessons to use. At first it starts in subtle, minimalistic behaviors (a sudden urge for blood only to be swept away, an overwhelming desire to crush bones and rip apart flesh, a midnight trip to unearth a burrow of rabbits and tear into their easily-expendable bodies). It grows quickly, however, until he prowls the night killing any unfortunate woodland creature that crosses his path in a multitude of different ways (the fox is left with a bloody smile to stretch its orange lips until it decomposes, the baby rabbit is left with its innards spread across the floor like a science fair display, the surprised bird knocked from the sky has its body parts meticulously picked apart and surgically removed).
It is a consuming, raging, dark addiction.
He yearns for bigger things – things so big he must use his tricks to put them in a slumber. He starts by spreading open the stomach of a wolf (all while its heart beats and its lungs sift and its blood pulses and splashes against the ground and it sleeps on, unaware of its body’s pitiful, unheard cries), then moves on to a buck (breaking off his might horns only to stab the creature straight through its neck and snicker while the wound leaked blood between skin and bone), until finally his addition is craving something even bigger.
The darkness wants a horse – a creature of his own blood and bone and genetics – and the trickster is all too willing to answer to that frighteningly loud call.
He doesn’t go looking. But his eyes still wander, during his days in the meadow (picking out the weak ones, the strong ones, the sick ones, the healthy ones, the ones who looked sad or happy, the ones who might have fight left in them or no fight at all), and he precariously begins the process of deciding his first kill. His possibility is a dark bay mare. She is petite and scarred around her shoulders, with hard muscle that has faded over decades of misuse and time. The light in her eyes and the energy in her bones suggest the youthfulness of her looks is not from age but magic, rather, and he takes delight in the challenge.
The lessons of the monster whisper in his ears, a constant melody to the swaying song of his addiction. It stirs in his mind (a background chorus for his thoughts, a whisper in the dark, a beckoning caw of a raven to a fellow before sunset) and he takes heed to such words until he eats, drinks, and sleeps them. The arrangement only further swells as he approaches her that fateful time. He’s already decided his tactic for murdering her – it will be gory and shameless and splattering.
And it is. He is slow and practical and bloody. He relishes in the sounds of her pain (and then the gurgling, squelching sobs she makes when his teeth carve a trail to her vocal chords and they fall to the ground with a thud) and laughs shamelessly when his tricks force her legs to crumble. “Oh babe, do be quiet… It will be all over soon.” It is only until she is drowning in blood that he recognizes her from the Valley war. The lightning bolt had struck this mare’s dear heart straight on the head and the gore of life went splattering across the trickster.
He laughs, suddenly. And then he continues carving trails through her skin (trails that rise to color themselves bright red with blood and shredded skin), intricate designs and sloppy circles and sharp angles, until she is a piece of gory art. He dives deeper, once she is covered in designs and her legs have been broken so she can’t run and her throat has been ripped out so she can’t yell. He begins to write art on her insides (to carve designs against the lines of her stomach and the masses of her muscles and the spurting fountains of her blood vessels), slowly making his way toward her heart.
When he reaches the center of a body’s true life (that thumping, beating, thriving muscle), the monster appears. The trickster knew he’d been watching the whole time, but his appearance causes him to pull his mouth away from the ribcage of the body. She is still alive, perhaps kept conscious by his tricks interceding, and he can see her eyes flash with indescribable agony. The monster’s voice is a sharp piece of ice to the fire of addiction in his mind, but he hears it nonetheless. “Because you have done well enough, you may take one bite of the heart.”
And so he does. He feels the addiction sigh as if having eaten a heavy Thanksgiving dinner at the squelch and gush. He feels his mind already crave more, more, more. He feels the sudden flare of renewed strength in his bones. He feels the last of the mare’s life leave her torn-apart body.
He cannot help it. He takes one more bite and then steps away, knowing he will have to pay for the damage later. But for now, he is satisfied. The addiction curls up within the darkest crevasses of his mind to sleep away the sedation. The trickster licks his lips in content and braces himself for the monster’s retaliation. But he is content. So, so content.
