11-22-2020, 11:27 PM
WILT
Spring is, of course, his favorite season of the entire year. He is infinitely fascinated by the strange children who are born unto them all. There are never any quite like him, much to his dismay, but he likes the little newborns just the same. This is how he comes to find himself wandering the riverside on his spindly legs. Wilt has seen strange and unusual babies already, and he just knows there is something exciting around this curve of the river ahead.
He pauses when he sees the vultures coming to land near something very small in the mud. The flytraps all crane their stems to see better. They don’t have eyes, naturally, but they mimic his tilting head as he tries to see her better. Then the bird takes a bite and the air is filled with the screech of pain from the girl’s throat. Wilt skitters closer and roots rise up from the river mud to anchor the birds by their talons. Their wings send feathers flying in their frantic efforts to free themselves but he pays them little mind.
That is, until one snaps its beak at the vine encircling his slender ankle.
A sneer of disgust overcomes his lips, revealing the pointed black teeth in his jaws. Those awful teeth part and a thick black tongue snakes from his mouth to coil tightly around the bird’s neck. Slowly, at the rate glaciers are formed, he pulls the thrashing thing to his mouth. The other birds croak and continue their flailing anew when his teeth close around the vulture’s head. With a twist of his neck, the bird’s head comes free, and the blood pools across his tongue.
He crunches it for a while between his fangs before the roots begin ripping the buzzards to pieces. Wilts ink-black eyes settle on the girl and he coos softly as he lowers his head.
“They’re gone now,” he explains gently, and the roots begin stuffing little pink bits of them into the pitcher plants and flytraps of his thick mane. One curls to his mouth and he gratefully accepts the bite. “Herbs will help the pain.”
But he does not force the medicinal plants on her. He waits, patient and grinning with blood drooling down his dark chin.
He pauses when he sees the vultures coming to land near something very small in the mud. The flytraps all crane their stems to see better. They don’t have eyes, naturally, but they mimic his tilting head as he tries to see her better. Then the bird takes a bite and the air is filled with the screech of pain from the girl’s throat. Wilt skitters closer and roots rise up from the river mud to anchor the birds by their talons. Their wings send feathers flying in their frantic efforts to free themselves but he pays them little mind.
That is, until one snaps its beak at the vine encircling his slender ankle.
A sneer of disgust overcomes his lips, revealing the pointed black teeth in his jaws. Those awful teeth part and a thick black tongue snakes from his mouth to coil tightly around the bird’s neck. Slowly, at the rate glaciers are formed, he pulls the thrashing thing to his mouth. The other birds croak and continue their flailing anew when his teeth close around the vulture’s head. With a twist of his neck, the bird’s head comes free, and the blood pools across his tongue.
He crunches it for a while between his fangs before the roots begin ripping the buzzards to pieces. Wilts ink-black eyes settle on the girl and he coos softly as he lowers his head.
“They’re gone now,” he explains gently, and the roots begin stuffing little pink bits of them into the pitcher plants and flytraps of his thick mane. One curls to his mouth and he gratefully accepts the bite. “Herbs will help the pain.”
But he does not force the medicinal plants on her. He waits, patient and grinning with blood drooling down his dark chin.