CREATURE
What are you?
It is a monster, made to hunt and kill. Bred by dark gods unto an alien thing, and thus was it, tearing at the membrane of its egg, tearing into tender flesh offered. It is venomous and terrible and uncomplex, made of baser things.
But perhaps -
Perhaps there is more to it, perhaps complexities lurk underneath that armored skin, behind those flat, shark-like eyes. Perhaps it will overcome its nature and find, in time, desires that go beyond the base.
What are you?
It is an alien, vaguely equid in form, but distinctly not. It can barely imitate their sounds, its words are labored and rough, because its mouth is not shaped like theirs, it is made for hunting trills and triumphant shrieks, not casual conversations. Yet it is here, driven by something, and it turns its strange, foreign head to the thing that has approached. It trills, once, a strange noise, a language few understand.
And does the monster, does the alien, perceive the question? Barely. It watches the other, and smells blood. She is young, like it is, and it thinks of hot, spurting blood, of torn flesh, and it salivates.
But it mustn’t. This had been a rule. Hunting is limited to specific prey. The wrong prey has consequences. The wrong prey can hurt back, even if it seems so weak, so soft.
What are you? she asks – she speaks so fast! – and it breathes heavy at her nearness.
It parses the question, word by painstaking word. What. Are. You.
It thinks of what the pack calls it, sometimes. It gives her this.
“Cree…cher…” it says, laboring in the words, trying to say its name. Creature.
As good an explanation as any.
and what rough beast, its hour come ‘round at last
slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
@[Indatha]