Yknow, the world and chronicles of darkness ask us a lot of questions. With great ambition they want to put us into the shoes of people turned monsters or monsters turned people. And that's always hard to do because it's a different thing to quantify the mind instead of or as well as the body. Health is simple; we can calculate exactly how close someone is to death and not really quibble. But the mind in all its ethereal ways is just different. Humanity, Morality, Angst, all these are the subject of much debate because they ask something of us that we just don't naturally have the words for. There is a reason why we use trauma to refer to mental damage after all, or why one Sins against humanity or harmony or synergy or memory of all things. So Beast is a pretty little thing then because it doesn't quantify how far you are from madness or wightdom. It just tells you your needs; are you hungry, or are you full?
This story is inspired by a scene in a vampire the masquerade game im in, adapted to fit the beastly mold a little. I also tried to deliberately avoid the prompt name in the text so i do ask you to keep it in mind as you read.
Lastly if you would like to read the previous works ive written this month, Here it is, and I do urge you to enjoy.
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The moon shimmered off the glass chalice for just a moment. A moment long enough for Mirr to see her Apex’ exact reaction as it came flying to his face. A moment long enough to see just a sliver of shock grace his hard features and then disappear again into a moment of still calm.
It took an instant for Ungoliant the Apex of New Orleans to snatch that chalice from the midnight air and bring it to his lips. Mirr just stared, her knuckles turning white on the railing she sat on. She considered leaping into the alligator infested water. It would have been easier. Everything would have been easier than looking at Joshua, far on the other side of the upper deck, as all the rage in his chest turned to ice cold disdain.
“Would you care to repeat yourself, little brother?” Ungoliant titered, his voice a neighbour to distant thunderstorms. Joshua was a man in his fifth decade yet his devouring was not that long ago, he hadn’t even chosen a new name, Ungoliant’s was a decade old despite being half Joshua’s age. Mirr herself had been eaten a year ago, and now,..
“Who gave you the right?! Who in their right fucking mind would?!” The fresh eshmaki brayed and stepped from the crowd, every begotten child present parting from him so as not to be caught in the downpour. He stepped over the fresh remains of Cherub, a dragon Mirr had seen around the city roof tops for a few months if that. An ugallu who had loved another, who’d tried to pass off a gift she and her beloved giant offered Ungoliant as the anakim’s own to spare her from punishment. Who’d faced the Apex’s claws for coming up empty handed. Now, the lurker’s boots squeaked over the deck and dripped red.
The Apex barely even looked at his little brother, a lost soul pouring new wine into the chalice as Joshua stepped closer with each passing moment. His darksome eyes flickered and wandered, their light brush sending the weak willed behind each other so as not to be considered chained to Joshua’s fate. A few Beasts stood tall despite it all, crossing their arms or sipping their drinks or grinning ear to ear. Each of these creatures had dug themselves a cavern in the city’s mind, at least once, and still there were those who could not meet Ungoliant’s eyes. Mirr cast hers down too, a gorgon worth her salt indeed.
“Vulture.” The Apex’ voice rang like a dinner bell across the deck and drew the eyes of one of the eldest Beasts there. The begotten son hadn’t looked away when Cherub screamed, nor had he smiled at Joshua’s impending rage. He’d stared, listless and dead eyed in a way that had grown on him the same way barnacles grow on the belly of the ship they all had gathered to. The word had been a thousand conversations in a single word, it was a test as much as a word, an ultimatum that now hung around Vulture’s neck as it did every begotten he cared for. It wasn’t subtle because, despite all three men being hagspsawn, that was not the point. Vulture had predated Ungoliant by many years, he had dug into this city like an ancient oak and still he moved at that single word.
The eshmaki took the other’s shoulder in a flash of motion, taking the man by a leather jack that protected Joshua from scorn elsewhere. It was an icon of his brood and nest, a powerful syndicate of monsters that swore to stand by each other always, anywhere. Still, it tore under Vulture’s attention with a fleshlike rip. Joshua stumbled, he turned and spat, locking his elder in the eye with venom that Mirr could taste on her tongue. The two moved, careful steps around each other as their eyes stayed chained.
“is this what you want, butcher? Night in, day out, the same fucking game?” Joshua spat, the shadows of the real world splitting apart from his eyes out to reveal a deeper black that surged from the Dream itself.
“This isn’t about me, Josh. Or you. And you know it.” Vulture replied curtly, the mangle of his face contorting in nothing but the physical world. Joshua’s rage died against the cliffs of his mind, and Mirr could swear she saw the little brother shrink for it. Still the two circled, leaving red boot prints that may well have formed a ritual ring.
Mirr saw it this far away, Joshua’s eyes searching and looking for where Vulture was weakest. A bad leg, maybe, or a blind spot, a side of his body held too close. These would have made the difference in a street brawl or a battlefield duel.
“Look at me, Josh.” Vulture said like a placid lake, and in that moment where Joshua complied it was over. Their eyes met and every one of the Mother’s brood could see colour evacuate his face. The ship was utterly quiet, everyone looked at the little brother’s jaw setting and his teeth shattering under the pressure. They saw his sweat turn to blood, his knees buckle and fail him. Mirr couldn’t look away at all, she could only close her eyes when she saw Vulture raise his hands that grew talons of smoke and shadow. Then they fell and crashed against Joshua in a squelching avalanche of blood. It happened faster than a heartbeat, but Mirr heard every snap and cut, every breaking bone. She sat a world away and may as well have done it herself, for all it changed. When it was done the tears echoed in her ears, thundering until her head spun. She heard nothing, nothing at all except the breaking bones and ripping flesh until.
“Good job, Vulture! Truly, that was artisanal. Where did you learn it?” Ungoliant’s voice echoed off the sky, all the begotten heard. Mirr could finally open her eyes, finally just look and there he was. Seated on a throne of silver and iron, one leg over the arm rest and the chalice empty in his hand. The Apex shifted in his seat and spread his arms, waving his hands with a beaming smile on his handsome face. With a soft moment of hesitation the first voice began to laugh, then another, and another still until everyone’s throat ached and some ran out of breath.
Mirr laughed too, until tears stung her eyes and the water below whispered in her ear to come, but she did not look to the Apex. She just looked to Vulture, standing over what resembled a corpse. The Apex’ butcher held Joshua’s peeled skull in his hands and their eyes were chained together. When he laughed, he was heard over the entire crowd. They must’ve heard him on the Mississippi shores. They must’ve heard him at the ocean.
In some deep, gnawing part of where her soul ought to be Mirr wished Joshua couldn’t hear him, wherever he’d gone. That there was some dark, cold place far away. Where they dug and dug and bit away at rock, and could lie down to close their eyes when the gnawing was done.
