the evidence is on my body
but I never complain
but I never complain
It’s the one space he hasn’t come back to, despite having come close each time he’d visited the Crust. It was a space even he hadn’t mentioned to Danta much, either. He knew what happened, he didn’t need to know the exact place.
At least until now.
His steps had been so assured, proud and quick and easy as they passed through the portal to the Climb. But as they approach, even though the idle chatter is smooth and easy, the butcher’s steps slow more and more. He’s putting on a brave face, of course, but it isn’t without its flaws. “So, perhaps once it gets under way.. We will need to sleep in shifts?” Comes the suggestion after he’s filled Danta in about the quest and what it was for, and how the Maverick had insisted on coming with, in spite of his denials with the lovely thought to bring a tent. Not that it would do much, he assumes, given his memories here.
But Danta at his core was a gore crow, so perhaps it was something inherent that he didn’t know about.
His steps slow a touch more as they reach a relatively flat space, one with a Y cut through it for the river of lava that bisects the jut of the lava ridge. And despite the centuries of how the lava has cut through it, the butcher knows this place anywhere. He sees it almost every night in his nightmares.
It’s a surprisingly stoic, quiet butcher that guides Danta up the smooth slope of the side of the jut, to be surrounded by larger broken pieces of volcanic rock, complete with all the hidey holes that the gore crows preferred. And much to his surprise, he finds a half melted and bent post poking out of the ground, the only remnant of the time long before. Long past any point of usefulness, the butcher steps up by it, kneeling with a frown before he reaches out to brush a finger along the crumbling, rusted spike.
“Well…” He trails off quietly, frowning and glaring at the spike left behind, before he lifts his horned head, immediately toward the silent rocks, not trusting it in the slightest. “We are here.” He trails off, sighing as his tail curls around the knee pressed against the hot rock, baked by the fading sun over the horizon.
At least until now.
His steps had been so assured, proud and quick and easy as they passed through the portal to the Climb. But as they approach, even though the idle chatter is smooth and easy, the butcher’s steps slow more and more. He’s putting on a brave face, of course, but it isn’t without its flaws. “So, perhaps once it gets under way.. We will need to sleep in shifts?” Comes the suggestion after he’s filled Danta in about the quest and what it was for, and how the Maverick had insisted on coming with, in spite of his denials with the lovely thought to bring a tent. Not that it would do much, he assumes, given his memories here.
But Danta at his core was a gore crow, so perhaps it was something inherent that he didn’t know about.
His steps slow a touch more as they reach a relatively flat space, one with a Y cut through it for the river of lava that bisects the jut of the lava ridge. And despite the centuries of how the lava has cut through it, the butcher knows this place anywhere. He sees it almost every night in his nightmares.
It’s a surprisingly stoic, quiet butcher that guides Danta up the smooth slope of the side of the jut, to be surrounded by larger broken pieces of volcanic rock, complete with all the hidey holes that the gore crows preferred. And much to his surprise, he finds a half melted and bent post poking out of the ground, the only remnant of the time long before. Long past any point of usefulness, the butcher steps up by it, kneeling with a frown before he reaches out to brush a finger along the crumbling, rusted spike.
“Well…” He trails off quietly, frowning and glaring at the spike left behind, before he lifts his horned head, immediately toward the silent rocks, not trusting it in the slightest. “We are here.” He trails off, sighing as his tail curls around the knee pressed against the hot rock, baked by the fading sun over the horizon.
Astaroth
i wear it as a lesson, a curse, and a blessing
