05-28-2021, 09:21 AM
He can feel the beast’s disease coil through his blood in burning ribbons, clawing at his mind as it attempts to bend him to it’s will as it had her. The desire to find it grows as his sanity fades, shredded by the will of the Other. She reaches out to touch him, and his ears flatten against his crest, teeth baring in a macabre mirror of her from only minutes earlier.
In the end however, Ten’s heart and soul are not his to surrender to this parasitic thing. They belong to the cosmos, and the universe keeps what it has claimed. The beast would find no true purchase within him. Even as it shrouds his mind and tries to claim him for its own, his own body fights back. Every cell of him had been replaced the day he died deep beneath the earth, and these cells burst with the energy of all existence.
Ten groans as a war rages in him, unable to hear what Shipka says over the fire now racing through his veins. As the healing light of suns and stars race through him, burning away the creature’s black touch, it is all Ten can do to keep from dropping to his knees. Outwardly, he appears to have given in to madness. Only the sun-bright glow of his amber eyes reveal the truth of the silent war being waged.
When finally the beast is purged, his blood and organs rebuilt anew beneath a skin that still looks the same, Ten is left spent and trembling, black blood drying where it had dripped from his eyes and nostrils. Blinking to clear the film from his eyes, Ten draws a shaky breath as his gaze falls to Shipka with surprise.
It takes him a moment to recall why she is there. Why they are here together. He offers her a tremulous smile then, as though he could feign wellness after everything she had just witnessed. “Did you say something?”
In the end however, Ten’s heart and soul are not his to surrender to this parasitic thing. They belong to the cosmos, and the universe keeps what it has claimed. The beast would find no true purchase within him. Even as it shrouds his mind and tries to claim him for its own, his own body fights back. Every cell of him had been replaced the day he died deep beneath the earth, and these cells burst with the energy of all existence.
Ten groans as a war rages in him, unable to hear what Shipka says over the fire now racing through his veins. As the healing light of suns and stars race through him, burning away the creature’s black touch, it is all Ten can do to keep from dropping to his knees. Outwardly, he appears to have given in to madness. Only the sun-bright glow of his amber eyes reveal the truth of the silent war being waged.
When finally the beast is purged, his blood and organs rebuilt anew beneath a skin that still looks the same, Ten is left spent and trembling, black blood drying where it had dripped from his eyes and nostrils. Blinking to clear the film from his eyes, Ten draws a shaky breath as his gaze falls to Shipka with surprise.
It takes him a moment to recall why she is there. Why they are here together. He offers her a tremulous smile then, as though he could feign wellness after everything she had just witnessed. “Did you say something?”
TEN
@[Shipka]