when the stars threw down their spears and water'd heaven with their tears:
Longclaw knew what special was. If not by sight, by smell alone; the boy was a third generation shifter, gifted with a curse that had been passed on throughout the years to anyone unlucky enough to want it. He could pick a special one from a crowd of useless others, Wyrm had made sure of that from the beginning. “You don’t play with lessers, you don’t befriend them.” Wyrm had pounded, over and over again until the notion had stuck. “They get you nowhere. Power, it comes to those who take it, you understand?”
And Longclaw had taken. And taken some more.
Where the blame lay after that encounter, in truth no one could say. Had it been Wyrm who pushed him? Or was it Longclaw’s desire to meet his father’s golden expectations that had led them here? Either way, neither speak when Ajatar cuts through the muck of this gathering in search of answers. Instead, they only glance at one another - father to son, creator to creation - and hold their tongues.
“His name is Deimos.” Longclaw finally spits out, still prostrate on the earth. Pushed away from the source of his sickness, he can gather enough will to answer the scaled mare. His father, Wyrm, is left to stumble away in a racking fit of wet coughs.
“This... incarnate of evil over here,” He growls, throwing a nod in the direction of his sire, who’s coughed himself into an oddity of creatures (is that a doe tail sprouting from between his hind cheeks? The flash of odd patterns over his skin is distracting enough.) “Led me to believe that taking my grandsire’s power by force would give me greatness.”
Heaving, the red spittle of his own blood still slick over his lips and chin, Longclaw tips his head and attention to where Ajatar waits. “It cursed me. Deimos the magician -” He wheezes, “ - thought of taking me under his wing, but …” And here he pauses, both forelegs trembling violently with the effort expended to rise from his fallen position. He falters; the going is not so easy even with the distance between himself and the smokey mare. “But I was unimpressed with his methods, or his other followers.” He finishes at last, blinking softly as his vision spins. The entire underhalf of his skin has begun to fester and slough away, rolling as if alive from the constant assault of Ajatar’s power.
Wyrm, shriveled and changed to a writhing, black snake, can do nothing but fight the power he cannot stop. Looking upon him, Longclaw feels something akin to satisfaction. “You should kill him. Kill us both, Ajatar.” He whispers, struck by the truth of it.
Wyrm did not deserve a full life. Longclaw would never see one anyways.
did he smile his work to see? did he who made the Lamb make thee?
@[Ajatar]