B A D W O L F || Chamber Gang, have at it.

[weed]

she is the lamb; he is the slaughter

Weed loathes this. He loathes following the red-eyed stallion amongst the group, loathes the idea of working with others. The whole notion of it makes his skin crawl and if it wasn’t for his smoldering hatred of the Gates and the once smug-smiled Queen, he would have turned down the offer at once. But, and this was a big but, he did hate them. He hated that tree that had undermined what would have otherwise been a seamless performance. He hated the little brat who had sidled up to Kaelie in defense and he hated him even more now that he was now King of this rotten place. It all deserved to burn.

So he lifts his lip into a barely concealed snarl and joins the group of them, distancing himself by a few paces as they enter the kingdom, his coal-eyes flashing with dark pleasure as the red of the sky. Not that he particularly liked to watch plants shrivel and die in flames, but he certainly wasn’t a bleeding heart about it. The plants were nothing but a tool to be wielded—a means to an end. And, in this case, there were simply some that just needed to meet their end. He was happy to help facilitate that.

Slinking toward the once grand mother tree, he cannot help but laugh—the sound elegant and chilling as it floated across the kingdom’s too still air. “Not so powerful now, are you?” Then, without waiting to see what the others were doing, he closed his eyes and felt his magic dig deep into the earth, pushing greedily for the end of it. He shivered with enjoyment, sweat beginning to sicken his neck in concentration as he felt the tendrils of magic wrapped around the roots. “C’mon, bitch.” Sighing, he felt himself wrap around the base of it and then sinking into it—acquainting himself with the entirety of the tree.

For a moment, he thought it was a pity that something this strong had to die.
But it was quickly lost in the pleasure of being the one to kill it.

He, however, did not simply pull the tree from its roots. Instead, he manipulated an early death into its veins, the poison of it crawling up the roots and through its massive trunk and shooting out to its branches so that the leaves of it began to wither and then fall. The once strong bark began to darken and crack, the symptoms of death clearly marked in the drooping of its mass. Finally, when he was pleased with the death that he had wrought on the tree, the beauty sapped from it, he looked to the fire warmongers and he just nodded at them. “Now burn it to the ground.” They would not leave even the grave for the Gates to mourn.

WEED

© oscar keys