red dead redemption — andal v. elvena, day 7
Dec 4, 2022 2:32:14 GMT -5
Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Dec 4, 2022 2:32:14 GMT -5
After the first and last Science test Andal cheated on when he was six, he thought hey, that felt bad.
It was guilt.
He hadn’t learnt the word, but it was thick in his bloodstream, hot as poison, brackish as tar. Now imagine that tenfold, hundredfold, intensified to proportions beyond proportions. He didn’t feel guilty—he was guilt. He was the boy, the monster, and the guilt, all reflecting the same person like shards of a broken glass. Whatever innocence he had left was shattered and, with the rise of the blood moon, his humanness, too.
That means patching the pieces together, arranging them to resemble cohesion again, but it’s hard to remember how to be a boy in love with history again. The memory’s like the fog underneath: there if he looks, but gone again if he reaches out for it. The thinking makes his temple painful, and the pain makes his stomach hungrier, and the hunger makes him … A wild mess. A panting, huffing, wild mess with teeth and claws. There’s so blood under his nails now, even as he transforms back, the cuticles rimmed with scarlet. He tries to rinse it off; it doesn’t happen. He stops holding the holy symbol.
He stops praying.
Instead, he walks, endlessly it seems. Where am I? Where’s Jack, Katrina, and Sliver?
He tastes blood in his mouth, smells it fresh upon the air. And then he hears the faint roaring. That answers the first question. But if the others are not here …
No. I didn’t kill them.
What? No!
Stop. Stop. Stop-
That’s it. Officially lost it.
That’s not true.
That’s not true.
YOUR DREAMS, YOUR PRIDE, YOUR SUPPOSED KINDNESS, AND YOUR INFLATED EGO, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE. AND I WILL NOT BE KEPT WAITING. YOU ARE NOT THE HERO. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HERO-
He tosses his head back and scrapes his throat raw with another howl, the dark note piercing through his tainted soul. Then he clutches his head. His skin bulges, here and there, the wolf begging to come out, but he grunts and wrestles back for his own damned self. He is in control, the beast is in control, he is- he screams. Claws rake skin, blood pours out delightedly, he can feel the tear across his face, and it feels like fire, like pleasure, like both mingled together. And then the skin is patching itself up again, as if cauterized, hissing as cells regrow.
It’s an ugly healing. All of this is ugly.
It has always there. Perhaps whatever they injected him with had lent to shape, given it form, but the darkness has always been simmering under his skin. There is no good. There is no evil. There is only humans, and their monstrous selves they try so hard to masquerade. Even the purest soul can be defiled. Even the darkest being can be exorcised. In the twilight state of good and evil, of monster and boy, Andal welcomes both his guilt and his thrill.
The blood falls roar louder. Wind combs through lapis flowers and ruddy rocks, bringing with it the scent of a fresh carnage. He growls softly at it, takes a few, wet steps in the red mud below, and …
His ears twitch. His body freezes.
He doesn’t turn but he knows who is there behind him, putting her together by smell alone. Has she been on his trail, hunting him? Has she wandered here alone? Does she grieve? Does she feel guilty? Did she see her fall and wish to do the same to him?
These questions of grief and vengeance, ring so utterly human that it keeps him from wondering about how her flesh will taste.
“Did you kill Katrina?” he asks her, his voice considerably deeper now, the muscles making it happen pronounced in each word. Andal supposes it would be fair play, an eye for an eye, a pack mate for another. He sniffs the air, though, and doesn’t smell Katrina.
“Have you come to kill me?” he asks again, almost with a laugh. It rings like a question for penance. Something twists in Andal, a barbed hope, but the beast steps on it with its paw. Slowly, very slowly, his disked eyes turn to look at her. And she is as ferocious as him, as bloodthirsty. Her face may be composed, but it’s the eyes, it’s the mouth, it’s always those two. And he is somehow glad it’s her. He has always been fond of good full cycle moments. “Woulda’ let you do it quickly before but everyday I wake up wantin’ to live a bit more,” he exhales the word out, smirking even a little, a crescent mouth guarded by fangs as he hunkers down, like a runner readying for the gun-smoke. “So let’s give ‘em a rootin’ tootin’ show, yeah? In honor of Chiara.”
A cloud passes over the blood moon, casting them in dark for a moment, and his shadow has a shadow when he charges.
It was guilt.
He hadn’t learnt the word, but it was thick in his bloodstream, hot as poison, brackish as tar. Now imagine that tenfold, hundredfold, intensified to proportions beyond proportions. He didn’t feel guilty—he was guilt. He was the boy, the monster, and the guilt, all reflecting the same person like shards of a broken glass. Whatever innocence he had left was shattered and, with the rise of the blood moon, his humanness, too.
That means patching the pieces together, arranging them to resemble cohesion again, but it’s hard to remember how to be a boy in love with history again. The memory’s like the fog underneath: there if he looks, but gone again if he reaches out for it. The thinking makes his temple painful, and the pain makes his stomach hungrier, and the hunger makes him … A wild mess. A panting, huffing, wild mess with teeth and claws. There’s so blood under his nails now, even as he transforms back, the cuticles rimmed with scarlet. He tries to rinse it off; it doesn’t happen. He stops holding the holy symbol.
He stops praying.
Instead, he walks, endlessly it seems. Where am I? Where’s Jack, Katrina, and Sliver?
He tastes blood in his mouth, smells it fresh upon the air. And then he hears the faint roaring. That answers the first question. But if the others are not here …
No. I didn’t kill them.
I should have killed them.
What? No!
I should have torn them apart, limb by limb.
Stop. Stop. Stop-
I should have been reborn under the red moon, bathed in their blood.
That’s it. Officially lost it.
No, you don’t understand, Searley.
I’ve always been here.
I’ve always been here.
That’s not true.
Your selfishness, your ambition.
I’ve always been here.
I’ve always been here.
That’s not true.
YOUR DREAMS, YOUR PRIDE, YOUR SUPPOSED KINDNESS, AND YOUR INFLATED EGO, I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE. AND I WILL NOT BE KEPT WAITING. YOU ARE NOT THE HERO. THERE HAS NEVER BEEN A HERO-
He tosses his head back and scrapes his throat raw with another howl, the dark note piercing through his tainted soul. Then he clutches his head. His skin bulges, here and there, the wolf begging to come out, but he grunts and wrestles back for his own damned self. He is in control, the beast is in control, he is- he screams. Claws rake skin, blood pours out delightedly, he can feel the tear across his face, and it feels like fire, like pleasure, like both mingled together. And then the skin is patching itself up again, as if cauterized, hissing as cells regrow.
It’s an ugly healing. All of this is ugly.
It has always there. Perhaps whatever they injected him with had lent to shape, given it form, but the darkness has always been simmering under his skin. There is no good. There is no evil. There is only humans, and their monstrous selves they try so hard to masquerade. Even the purest soul can be defiled. Even the darkest being can be exorcised. In the twilight state of good and evil, of monster and boy, Andal welcomes both his guilt and his thrill.
The blood falls roar louder. Wind combs through lapis flowers and ruddy rocks, bringing with it the scent of a fresh carnage. He growls softly at it, takes a few, wet steps in the red mud below, and …
His ears twitch. His body freezes.
He doesn’t turn but he knows who is there behind him, putting her together by smell alone. Has she been on his trail, hunting him? Has she wandered here alone? Does she grieve? Does she feel guilty? Did she see her fall and wish to do the same to him?
These questions of grief and vengeance, ring so utterly human that it keeps him from wondering about how her flesh will taste.
“Did you kill Katrina?” he asks her, his voice considerably deeper now, the muscles making it happen pronounced in each word. Andal supposes it would be fair play, an eye for an eye, a pack mate for another. He sniffs the air, though, and doesn’t smell Katrina.
“Have you come to kill me?” he asks again, almost with a laugh. It rings like a question for penance. Something twists in Andal, a barbed hope, but the beast steps on it with its paw. Slowly, very slowly, his disked eyes turn to look at her. And she is as ferocious as him, as bloodthirsty. Her face may be composed, but it’s the eyes, it’s the mouth, it’s always those two. And he is somehow glad it’s her. He has always been fond of good full cycle moments. “Woulda’ let you do it quickly before but everyday I wake up wantin’ to live a bit more,” he exhales the word out, smirking even a little, a crescent mouth guarded by fangs as he hunkers down, like a runner readying for the gun-smoke. “So let’s give ‘em a rootin’ tootin’ show, yeah? In honor of Chiara.”
A cloud passes over the blood moon, casting them in dark for a moment, and his shadow has a shadow when he charges.
- Andal slashes at Elvena | Glaive -
N4U6pspH1Dglaive
13162 -- 8.5 damage (Glaive) + 1.0 damage (Strength)
glaive
