07-23-2016, 12:50 PM
It - she - wanders because she likes to escape from sister, sometimes, from the terrible aching weight of sister in his mind, controlling her like a puppet. She knows it’s the rules, the ways things are (she couldn’t exactly tell you why – it’s all clear, when Violence is there, but when she is on her own things are muddied). She is young, but she is not nervous to be alone, for the way her skin is thick and terrible, the way she hisses her breaths, she knows others will cringe back.
(And for good reason, she supposes, because sometimes she relates to them but sometimes they just look like meat and she finds herself salivating.)
The mare responds and Charnel cocks her head, listening carefully. This is not her language, not yet – perhaps not ever – but she knows no one else speaks the trilling, clicking language that comes natural from her beaked jaw, so she practices. She says their words over and over again and listens, begs Violence to talk.
(She understands everything better when Violence is in her mind, a walking translator, but Violence always takes that knowledge with her when she leaves Charnel.)
Her own faint greeting is echoed back, and Charnel is pleased, though she doesn’t know what else to say – she mostly just talks with Violence, who does not converse with her so much as talk at her.
She shifts.
“My name is Charnel,” she says, but it’s mushy, rushed from her mutated mouth, comes out like mah name ish tharnal and she inhales, sharp, frustrated at the ways her tongue betrays her.