07-31-2020, 06:35 PM
I watch on in mixed curiosity and apprehension as the tree spirit draws water from the tributary. It rains and falls to her command, and I can't look away. The threads of water tangle overhead, weaving images I can almost define. Spatters of feral moisture with worlds at their cores.
Then they're falling, and with a mighty splash they land back where they came from. My gaze is cold as it turns back to the bark skinned creature. She's playing with the water as if it were a friend, but I know it will turn on her one day. Friends always do. My broken-glass smile fractures my face and I shake my head in reply. "You'd know all about that, would you?"
It's a scathing question. There are monsters in this world. Demons and devils of all shapes and sizes, and they don't often try to hide themselves. If she's known a few, I wouldn't be surprised. That doesn't change my impulse to dig at her bark, to dig talons into the cracks and break them open. For a long moment I stare at her, and don't realize that looking out of my eyes is a devil of my own.
Hushed whispers pull at my skin, needle sharp and cruel. They ask me why I'm standing here. What have you forgotten, wretched thing? What sits inside your rotted brain and waits for you to remember it? I snap at the antagonizing voice as if it were flies bothering me and not unseen specters. Always I hope my teeth will sink into flesh, just once. Once will be all it takes to my revenge on the whispering things. They will not whisper then. They will scream.
Imaginary blood on my teeth, I grin again at the growing girl, seeing others in her place. Faces long gone, and only half recalled. "You'd be better off without him, you know," I chide a girl I knew when I was young. Oh yes, she would be whole, if only she could let him go while she still had the chance.
@[Noori]
Then they're falling, and with a mighty splash they land back where they came from. My gaze is cold as it turns back to the bark skinned creature. She's playing with the water as if it were a friend, but I know it will turn on her one day. Friends always do. My broken-glass smile fractures my face and I shake my head in reply. "You'd know all about that, would you?"
It's a scathing question. There are monsters in this world. Demons and devils of all shapes and sizes, and they don't often try to hide themselves. If she's known a few, I wouldn't be surprised. That doesn't change my impulse to dig at her bark, to dig talons into the cracks and break them open. For a long moment I stare at her, and don't realize that looking out of my eyes is a devil of my own.
Hushed whispers pull at my skin, needle sharp and cruel. They ask me why I'm standing here. What have you forgotten, wretched thing? What sits inside your rotted brain and waits for you to remember it? I snap at the antagonizing voice as if it were flies bothering me and not unseen specters. Always I hope my teeth will sink into flesh, just once. Once will be all it takes to my revenge on the whispering things. They will not whisper then. They will scream.
Imaginary blood on my teeth, I grin again at the growing girl, seeing others in her place. Faces long gone, and only half recalled. "You'd be better off without him, you know," I chide a girl I knew when I was young. Oh yes, she would be whole, if only she could let him go while she still had the chance.
@[Noori]