The first records of our young world were those of tears and blood;
its last records will be those of tears and blood also.
its last records will be those of tears and blood also.
The witch doctor swayed as though to the rhythm a drum she alone could hear, her scowl only transcribed through the pull of her lower lip around her jutting tusks. Who was he to deny her portents, to doubt her connection to Vespera?
The answer to that, perhaps, was obvious. He was no one to the Ilati, as she was no one to him, and if she could not help but surge with a sense of ruffled condescension at his presumptive relaxation she could certainly guess the source of his ignorance. He was an interloper, one of the soft creatures cushioned within castles of wood and stone, who retired to silk sheets and read books and forgot the feeling of night's watchful eye upon him or the taste of mud-gritted grass in his mouth. Of course he could not see the shadows falling, so absorbed was he in his queer hobbies.
With a guttural hiss the dust-spotted mare lurched toward him, rattling with each uneven step as the many bones round her hair and neck clicked against one another. "No blood? One eye see half de worl, miss much." She peered into his eyes - the good and the bad - eyes narrowing in the impenetrable shadows beneath the mask, and licked her lips. The tip of her tongue dragged along the serrated edges of the skull's still-sharp teeth and drew a thin oozing of blood, filling her mouth with copper and the full-bodied awareness of Life in its most sacred, concentrated state.
"Blood dere," the witch doctor said, prodding at the stallion's breast with her snout. "Blood here." She touched her own chest, the eagle skull clacking as though affronted by the intrusion. A flash of reddish saliva coated her teeth; her tongue bled freely, if slowly.
"Mad you make um Vespel. Soon you see." Her words rasped aggressively through an accusatory glare.
Soon they would see indeed. The very bones of the earth groaned for release, stirred like ancient dragon thighs beneath the surface - aching, stiff, ready to burst forth once more.
And he was reading books.
The Witch Doctor
there are no grotesques in nature
there are no grotesques in nature
@Relic
