s h r y k o s
and there's a madness that's just coursing right through me
He still remembers the day of the eclipse when the monsters had come for him and his companion in the Playground, the one place in Beqanna where children are supposed to be untouchable. The monsters didn’t know that - didn’t care - though, and the memory of the claws ripping through his scales and stealing pieces away from him still echo in the depths of his mind. He had felt something grip his heart in those moments and turn it cold, freezing it over and leaving him shuddering in the darkness.
Since a newborn he has been a trickster, quite the playful thing, but something had changed in that moment. Outwardly he was unharmed, but a new sort of darkness lingered on the outside, and he had only given a bored glance to his new companion before turning away, his stomach suddenly rumbling. The hunt he had taken himself on then had lasted for several hours, and by the time he had feasted until full, he had taken down more prey than he once would have thought possible. Not once had he cast his thoughts towards his family back in Loess, and since that day he has not been back there to Meleys and Meraxes.
Several years have passed and still that hunger gnaws in the pit of his stomach, that no amount of prey seems to take the edge off of. That struggle with the monsters had stripped away his color changing, but he finds that his mood these days doesn’t vary much from brooding and angry. He has kept to himself these three or four years since the change, and though the monsters are long since banished, the change in him remains. He doesn’t wonder how his fractured family has been doing since his disappearance, because he simply doesn’t care.
Autumn finds the stallion stalking through the forest, wings pulled tight to his sides as he follows the scent of the deer that he’s been toying with for the past hour or so. The doe is hurt, nearing death, and yet she still flees from him, blood spattering the forest floor as he tracks her deeper into the trees. It is cold and dark here, but his eyes cut easily through the darkness and he can see her just ahead, scrambling to keep away.
With a cry the beast lunges forward, his talons wrapping around her chest as he moves for the killing blow. Her blood is sweet as he rips into her neck, tearing her head clean from her body. Lost in the thrill of his kill, he doesn’t notice someone approaching until he is about to feast, and he releases the corpse as he spins around, reptilian eyes scanning the dark forest. “Who’s there?” he demands, a challenge flashing in his eyes as his talons dig into the soft forest floor.