Astaroth
// so sip the gossip, drink 'til you choke. sip the gossip, burn down your throat //
He imagines it isn’t a common thing to be able to taste the divine, and here the butcher is – indulging in wine and ash, in the fire that had made him and the wine that had bolstered him, sweet and akin to a new kind of honey he knows he’ll never be able to find again. So he drinks from her, feeling the way everything in him changes and is stripped away, leaving bits and pieces behind for him to figure out on his own. It’s replenishing and it’s far different from how he had felt when he’d become Ancient.
Because this wasn’t a saving, this was a rebirth. And while he’d gotten them confused in the past, to assume he’d been reborn as Astaroth and left Ferrox in the shadows, the butcher withdraws as something more, something divine. His chest rises and falls when he withdraws once he feels nothing else within him shift, like the deal has been completed just enough that he can focus on her agreement and stand still perfectly long enough to feel the kiss pressed to his cheek, the kind that’s reminiscent of a burning brand that he hasn’t felt in centuries. He does not shy away from it, just sucks in his breath, for the pale scar of a kiss that will linger on his cheek and blot out the portions of his beard that would grow there.
But that isn’t all – dazed as he is from drinking her blood and the change in his body, there’s something else, and he wonders just how much of this he can attribute to being her version of a birthday gift for him when he spots it. This dragon scraping across the cavern, pockets where its eyes would be focusing in on him. He feels something strange snap into place the second their eyes meet. He can’t help the brighter grin that spreads, stained with divine blood, his chin jutting slightly as if inviting the creature down to join him, because deep within him he can sense that this being will come home with him. And as she skitters across the cavern walls with hands and claws of bones, an entire body of bone contorting to reach the ground and his side, he feels the name stick out like something perfectly macabre in how she’s reached his side. “Thank you.” He murmurs, looking up to Dygra once more with that same bright grin, made whole and new again, and gods if he doesn’t feel the exhaustion start to creep back in. “I shall call her Sicarius.” He hums, pulling his gaze away from Dygra to allow him to focus on picking up the dragonling, who scurries up his shoulders and winds around them protectively.
Because this wasn’t a saving, this was a rebirth. And while he’d gotten them confused in the past, to assume he’d been reborn as Astaroth and left Ferrox in the shadows, the butcher withdraws as something more, something divine. His chest rises and falls when he withdraws once he feels nothing else within him shift, like the deal has been completed just enough that he can focus on her agreement and stand still perfectly long enough to feel the kiss pressed to his cheek, the kind that’s reminiscent of a burning brand that he hasn’t felt in centuries. He does not shy away from it, just sucks in his breath, for the pale scar of a kiss that will linger on his cheek and blot out the portions of his beard that would grow there.
But that isn’t all – dazed as he is from drinking her blood and the change in his body, there’s something else, and he wonders just how much of this he can attribute to being her version of a birthday gift for him when he spots it. This dragon scraping across the cavern, pockets where its eyes would be focusing in on him. He feels something strange snap into place the second their eyes meet. He can’t help the brighter grin that spreads, stained with divine blood, his chin jutting slightly as if inviting the creature down to join him, because deep within him he can sense that this being will come home with him. And as she skitters across the cavern walls with hands and claws of bones, an entire body of bone contorting to reach the ground and his side, he feels the name stick out like something perfectly macabre in how she’s reached his side. “Thank you.” He murmurs, looking up to Dygra once more with that same bright grin, made whole and new again, and gods if he doesn’t feel the exhaustion start to creep back in. “I shall call her Sicarius.” He hums, pulling his gaze away from Dygra to allow him to focus on picking up the dragonling, who scurries up his shoulders and winds around them protectively.
// you're not iconic, you are just like them all. don't act like you don't know //
