i’ve been both a saint & a viper
The creature wallows in the lake, chest-deep in the stagnant, algae-filled water. He is all bones and stretched-thin black skin made rusted by the dried blood that clings to each terrible dip in his body. He drags his mouth over the surface of the near-black water, tasting it on his tongue but finding it bitter and unsatisfying, unable to swallow.
The bite of winter does nothing except create a fog from his paper-thin nostril with each shuddering exhale, curling around his sunken face like smoke. It kisses the underside of his throat, where the bright red ‘V’ grips him, as he lifts his large head upwards. His bloody antlers are like twisted spires from his forehead, thin and needle-sharp.
He sighs and it is low and rattling, pulling himself from the waters in the way a too-thin being would do - slowly and carefully, as if his skin would rupture from the pressure of his bones at any moment. There is no call for him on the low whistling of the wind or in the rustling of the ever-fire trees, but he is summoned anyway - he can feel her.
Scents draw him closer, a predator in the way he keeps the shadows, nearly skittish as he trapezes through boulders and branches. He has already eaten but even still, their smell is delectable and intoxicating, bringing him from the shadows of the trees with blood still clinging to his obsidian coat. He positions himself closer to Sabra, already finding his mouth moistening at the thought of her, and grinds his teeth together in an effort to keep the fangs beneath the darkness of his lips.
He says nothing (he has never said much and now, since his transformation, it is much less so), but there is a curious way that his feral eyes turn to the other creature that had also joined them.
Balto
@Sabra
Maugrim is also here but he is just haunting the place, maybe drowning a few, depends on his mood.