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

[weed]

she is the lamb; he is the slaughter

There are screams in the air and, oh lord, it is delicious. The whole of the earth shakes with their fear and their fury and their disbelief; he is humming with the pleasure of it, feeding off of their confused energy, soaking in every cry and every sharp noise of battle. His focus, however, stays on the tree—even as she burns. Kushiel breathes forth the flames and here Weed begins to feel a dull ache in his belly. He was so intertwined with the plants that it was difficult to pull back; Kushiel’s fire may not burn him directly, but it did strike him and it did take his energy. Weed would need to recover from this.

But even that pain was not enough to deter the black stallion. He continued to wind himself metaphorically down the roots, sapping away whatever life he could find in the withering ends. So engrossed in his task, he almost did not notice the monsoon until it was on top of them. Laughing maniacally, wind whipping his mane around his neck, he threw his head back. “Is that the best you have?” he screamed, ripping one of the crumbling branches from the tree and throwing it into the water so that the rain caused it to dissolve. “You’ll have to hit us harder than that, magician.”

Because who else but a magician could summon a storm from thin air?

Of course, it is not long before Erebor counters the attack with one of his own and soon the air is shimmering with the heat, steam coming from the shield. It was a clash of power, those who wielded control over the elements battling against the unseen force. Frustrated, Weed dug deeper into the earth, grunting with the effort as he struck against the magical barriers Yael had put up. “How desperate,” he snarled, flinging his power faster and wider through the dirt. Griffen had demanded that they don’t forget the garden, and he didn’t intend to. Turning his attention away from the tree still shriveling from both internal poison and external heat, he began to crudely cut away at the once newborn garden.

Plants shrivel, leaves fall, what was once lush soaks up the toxins from the earth.

It is only when the Princess charges him that his attention breaks and his voice is exasperated, his body slick with the sweat of exertion. “Run away, pretty.” Grunting, he pulls some of the smoldering plants from the earth and send them her way, hoping that they catch along her legs or at least trip her up in her wild scramble to get to him. How pretty it would be to see the princess trapped in the flaming plants of his bidding; how enticing indeed. Weed was not much for physical assaults, but he did relish violence carried out by the sharp edge of the plants he commanded. He was not against flaying her open if she didn’t leave.

WEED

© oscar keys