Elysha;

[Infection]

I'm rotting inside
My flesh turns to dust

Did father care about her enough to suspend her in a void? Was he protecting her from something? Is there something about Elysha that reminds father of his rendezvous with an angel?

Infection had spent years brewing on the absence of its sibling, but it had since moved on with life. Darkness seeped into the crevices of its mind; magic burned into its soul, painfully, relentlessly. There are days when it reflects back to when Core laughed and turned Infection into a monster.

Once, long ago, the deathcrawler was a normal horse.

Blood spilled as hooves were ripped away and talons tore through its flesh. Blood curdling screams tore through the air as jagged teeth pushed out its blunt jaws. There was nothing luxurious about the transformation, but the aftereffects reaped the benefits. With a magician and the world at its back, Infection became something much more extravagant. Its name was singed into the pages of history.

The taste of blood, thick and metallic, coated its tongue as it created a bloodbath. There was a massacre as Kings fell to its feet. Their howls of pain painting the skies red before silence sealed their lips forever. That was a great time, a fear-driven time for Beqanna, but everything comes to an end. Infection’s reign concluded and, still, where was its family? Eight and Elysha were always gone, missing the triumph their son and brother bathed in. They could have been a part of it; they could’ve created a dynasty, but Infection’s lines waned and watered down with time.

Now none of his kin control the kingdoms.
Shameful.

It assumes its family to be nearly extinct or so far down the family tree that they would recognize its foul appearance and disgusting ways. The heart in its chest is black as tar with maggots squirming in its walls; it cares not that it’s alone, but it can’t deny the curiosity churning in its gut when she enters its vision. She is the beauty to its grotesque, and she is the kindness to its cruelty. Despite the time apart Infection will never forget its own twin. They shared a womb together and did have few fleeting moments embracing each other on those cold nights when Moose and Eight were absent. They share blood and they share DNA, something far more important to the nightcrawler.

And so it draws nearer with footsteps silenced by the padding on its claws. A moment of hesitation subsides as it forgets about the norms of social interaction. A ragged breath escapes its withered lungs as it reaches for her, touching the curve of her shoulder. Much of its flesh has sloughed off to expose the stained skeleton and cartilage underneath. ”Elysha,” it murmurs into her warmth while its canines trace down her back, "fancy seeing you again.”

infection

infection by aeris | html by insane | picture c darkcloud013.deviantart.com

@[hanna]


Because who doesn't love a family reunion? xP

[Elysha]

i tried to be your picture perfect girl,
but you were in your own fantasy world.

Did their father care about anything? Who was he, even? It seemed the magician king had come and gone as he pleased- phased through moments of miraculous humanity (was that one of the times he had suspended Elysha so carefully?), and then tethered back down into the murky depths of the being he was. Perhaps it was a fit of folly, weaving Elysha into a web of time simply because he could. Perhaps it was because she had been the only truly beautiful thing he had made – everything else seemed to have fallen away into monsters and magic (yes, Infection, that’s where you settle). Perhaps it was because the closest thing to human that their father had become was when he had found Moose (however disastrous and unstable it had been). Maybe suspending Elysha was his last attempt to hold on to that hope that he too, was something with a heart.
What if Infection had known? What if the monster knew that his entwined heart had been held limp in the tangles of time – would he have saved her? Would it have made him, too, more human- knowing that the delicate half of his soul was at his side, knowing that he was the reason for her rescue? By now, it seems far too late (or had it always been far too late?).
Once, long ago, the golden girl had been the tether to the black monster. Even as children, it was she who called to him Infy, Infy – please don’t leave me. - and the monster (though not yet fully a monster) would break away from the sirens call of shadows to come to the little angel’s side. It was the monster who sneered and gnashed at predators that followed their tracks, as the two wandered without their parents. It was always he who did the dark and daring deeds, and she who followed him blindly- trusting that he would know the way, that he would get them out.
It seemed that they were so much alike in their parents – how had that happened? How had Elysha mimicked their mother’s DNA, and Infection their father’s? If it weren’t for the DNA aching in their bones, no one would think that the angel and demon once curled together like commas. How had they strayed so far apart? Or perhaps, Elysha too, would have turned into a monster – perhaps Eight knew. Perhaps that is why she was flung so far from the world.
It is dark and quiet in the woods, and the golden girl has finally stilled her breathing, finally gotten her legs underneath her, finally accepting that she is in a strange world once again.
And then, he is there. Her heart leaps to her throat, her primal instincts firing. The latter is telling her to flee from this fanged and foul monster before her. But the former is her heart recognizing, realizing, that this thing before her is her other half – her protector (or what is left of him), her lighthouse in the dark (who is now the dark), her Infy (who is now infectious with death).
Her name smells like death as it rolls out of his mouth, and her skin tenses with chills as she runs himself down her. He has held his same movements, slick and oily, serpentine like in it’s way.
“Infy…” She pauses, the word feeling foreign in her mouth – how could the kindled nickname of Infy still hold to this… creature before her. “..Infection.. Where have you been?”
She knew not where she was, how she had gotten here – but she knew this man before her (right?).

ELYSHA

e i g h t x m o o s e

@[Aeris]

[Infection]

I'm rotting inside
My flesh turns to dust

Elysha.

The name is sweet on its lips, honeying its tongue for the first time since they were children. At one point in time, it had a heart with compassion, but only for her. They shared a womb and cradled close to one another for months and months. It remembers that now as its eyes find hers, but its soul is too far gone to remember that meager adoration for her. Although it doesn’t hate her – it couldn’t hate its own womb-mate – it finds itself strung in an odd purgatory between familiarity and strangers. For once, it doesn’t entirely know how to react, how to drink in the long-lost sight of her. ”Where—“ it begins but stops and purses its lips into a thin line. Would it change anything if it knew where she had gone? What if it knew who did it to her, what then?

Their relationship with father is so meager, almost entirely extinct. It remembers the magician faintly. Did he see his son as the monster it is now, or when it was whole and still relatively normal? It has looked like this for so, so long that often it forgets how life was before the blood pooled at its feet and before the hearts were pulled from their cages. Would their father punish his son for its acts, or would he praise it? Would he make it even more a monster like Core had?

It remembers so vividly.

The hooves that fell away and the talons that ripped through flesh. Its screams and groans permeated the air and it crumbled to the ground in its own blood and pain. Bones were shifted and tendons realigned. Its legs broke and cracked then healed together as magic wove through its body and created something much more dangerous and feral. It still remembers the sound of crunching ligaments and bones like it was being destroyed, punished. When its teeth clamped shut to face the pain it tasted a new metallic sensation that became the fuel of its new lifestyle.

Everything changed in those few moments. Infection was no longer Elysha’s ‘Infy.’

It stares at her and hesitates when she calls it by its childhood name (a name shared only between siblings). It hesitates because it doesn’t know how fleeting of a chance this is or how their time apart should affect them. ”I’ve been here,” it finally murmurs, ”I haven’t really left.” It comes and goes, but never truly leaves. Beqanna always finds use for the hellhound. ”And you, where have you been all this time?” She wasn’t there to watch him flourish or to ground him. She simply wasn’t there and often it forgot that a twin existed.

infection

infection by aeris | html by insane | picture c darkcloud013.deviantart.com

@[hanna]