04-02-2017, 01:04 PM
AN INNER WHINE LIKE A MAD MACHINE
“Oh. Definitely,” he mutters, blandly. Matter-of-factly. As if he has had the distinct pleasure of seeing a vulture excrete a gigantic egg and come out the other end a strange, eviscerate, gleaming mess. “The force of that thing coming out of a vulture? Right inside out. I’m telling you.” He consider, for a second, finding her to examine the aftermath like Pangea’s own coroner.
But he is too sick.
Death does not offer opportunity for adventure or exploration – it takes, takes, takes.
No. He’ll never get the chance to see anything like that in his short, cruel lifetime, poor Famine.
If he’s lucky, he’ll get the chance to see at least one hundred small, bald vultures blinking out from within this cracking, shaking tomb. And, indeed, if need be, they may have him as a feast – meager and bony, it would be. But at least it would be something. It matters little to him – father would probably have him dragged out to the ritual grounds to fall apart in a slow, more deliberate way.
Would that it could be a dragon contained in the egg! – scaly and black, perhaps with a slit-pupil eye bright as hellfire, probably with horns and big leathery wings – so that perhaps he could be spared the unholy scent of whatever wakes up in his bowels.
He’d throw up, but he can’t, so he only shifts uncomfortably as the evil marches onward.
And outward.
Famine watches, half-fascinated, mostly-moribund, as Feast creeps possessively towards his treasure, foot poised. That vessel is so delicate; it cracks with fine lines and larger, prime clefts, like nothing. He is patient, Famine, because each moment is a precious final grain of sand slipping down glass. But whatever lingers within in is taking its sweet time – it is teasing and flirting with the dank, smelly world around it. Don’t be scared. His sickly, rotty heart picks up pace, his mopey head pressing forward through the darkness to get a better look before Burnt’s authoritative ‘No!’sends him back, staggering against her hip, pressing his cold muzzle there.
He swallows hard, running his tongue over his dry lips, catching on a loosening flap of grey muzzle-skin.
Anticipation builds, the quiet filled by the soft splitting of shell and the whoosy sound of Burnt’s wings in the stale, still air – and the entirely inappropriate, muffled expulsion of gas from Famine’s face.
Everything leans towards it – A hundred. Baby. Vultures.
He gapes as she finally breaches her crust, head tilting as the dark nose – nostrils a-flare for air and scent of mother – peeks out at them. “Oh.” Burnt’s laughter echos devilishly off the crooked walls of the grotto, not joined by Famine, who simply stares at the filly with equal measures of apathy and nausea. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” he mutters quietly to himself as Feast rides the tide of his indignation to the opening and calls for mother. “Bloody, all the same, I imagine.”
He feels sorry for Feast, as mother takes the girl carefully from her odious nest, and into the waste.
He wonder, for a moment, if she will take her to father – he wonders what father will make of her: goopy puddle or horror-struck basket case for life. “Sorry,” he say, finally, “I think you would have been a fine mother, Feast.” He tries a smile, shaky and toothy, before letting it droop again.
The ribbon of skin behind his ear pulls away, peeling back down his neck towards his shoulder. “Hmm?’ he cranes his neck, trying to get a look at it, his nostrils flare, catching she sharp scent of decay from the frayed edges. All over his body, more skin begins to curdle, loosening from his muscles, which are now slimy and greening modestly out of sight. For now. “That’s weird.” He glances from Feast to Burnt, puzzled.
But, of course, it’s not.
They are just too young to remember, really.
Plus, he had been much fresher as a newborn.