11-10-2018, 08:11 PM
and lord, I fashion dark gods too;
He revels, in the chaos.
Beqanna has gone into an uproar, scattering to the few safe places it could muster, plenty of them fleeting the kingdom, seeking solace and isolation.
Not all, though.
He’d seen her first amongst the flock that had descended on Rhonen. Not particularly notable – there had been many eager to slake some bloodlust, to obey without second thought. But she had stayed, this one, had even laid claim to his drowned kingdom.
He’d thought of taking it himself, ruling again – but ah, kingship bores him so. He’d had enough of that Pangea’s first go-round. Better to let someone else take the reins.
But just because he has no wont to rule doesn’t mean he’s not particular about who claims this particular throne. Especially after Pollock, who’d been Pangea’s second and last king, and who had – the fool – let Pangea crumble.
He knows why, now. Pangea is his creation, his child as much as anything, borne of his own sick magic. Of course Pollock, whose blood was so diluted, couldn’t have ruled! He should have seen it sooner.
Pangea is for him, for his children. For a particular kind of blood.
This girl and her faint notoriety are from nothing, nowhere. She’ll never rule, like that. Too impure.
Lucky (if that’s the word for it) for her, he’s a god.
She finds him, or, he lets himself be found, a crawling mess of tentacles and Lovecraftian words, and he only smiles, a wicked curve of the lips. She speaks eloquently, as if she could impress him with her metaphors, and he fixes her with an unblinking, bored gaze.
“I find amusement where I can,” he says, “and, stripped of the metaphors, all this is rather gratifying.”
He steps closer, considering her – the monstrous curves, the feverish eyes – and he does not disqualify her. Not yet.
“You want to rule,” he says. It’s not a question.
“She’s mine,” he tells her, “she was borne of me, and reborn of me.”
(Him, and the blood of a dozen others, the ones who had swam the murky depths and sacrificed more of themselves than they knew. But he takes the credit.)
“However…I have no interest in ruling. You do. Yet, to lead my kingdom…you must be of my blood. And you, Yidhra, are from nothing.”
He breathes, deep. She smells of the sea, just like his drowned kingdom.
“We could change that,” he says, “if you’re willing.”
c a r n a g e