Each strand of feather, every cloth filament that rest upon his vigorous wingspan, they had seen more action, more adventure than any of those inhabiting the mires of Tanglewood; prior to his brother’s desertion of his former tribe, that is. Once the ghost showed up to the party, who was even older than his 500-year old kinsperson, Marco assumed that he’d be sharing centuries’ worth of trickery and mischief amidst the bog-based civilization. Thus, the two relatives were currently the oldest around, though that number would reduce itself very shortly, for the lynx had to leave, soon.

Both the islandfolk and the swampfolk fathomed Beck’s appearance as a signal of relief - the islanders happy to have an obstacle in the shape of a poltergeist off their hands, and the Tanglers convivial to have an old face back among their ranks, as it seemed. Ante to his alignment with the Typhoon, the angel would often ponder around the situations his long lost sibling had gotten himself into, while he soared overhead the corrupted lands below. Never in the most irrational state of mind would he theorize that his older brother ran with a crew of sorts. Marco remembered his brother as the exceptional sort, preferring to stay secluded in a cluster of one, instead of falling into a much larger group. Then again, the last time he had interacted with his brother was circa five-hundred years ago, so perhaps his memory was playing tricks on him.

Such information had the muscular male yearned for all these years, decades, centuries. Any level of interaction between the two, the lynx would savour with the tribute of a thousand suns. He had passed up his barefaced chance that he had for interplay when the deuce resided alongside one another in the Typhoon for a short amount of time, an opportunity which he had acted upon, but foolishly did not. Having spent nearly two-fifths a millennia in the kingdom above the clouds ruled by Him, and another half-century as a champion of the holy light, it was easy to say that he was ready to reconnect. And, now was his best bet for any communication whatsoever.

In the past, Beck had been a crafty one to draw out. For the entire 20th century, not a single trace of him could be detected by Marco’s enhanced senses. Until recently, the phantom was considered completely gone, yet a hope for his survival still lingered. And even when his location was espied from the Earth’s dustiest nooks and crannies, it wasn’t exactly easy in drawing him out. However, Marco was a good observer, and presumed to have found the key ingredient in luring a wild Beck; dead stuff. It made perfect sense, as he was a ghost and whatnot, so he needed not to feel the worry of being judged. On the other hand, it was a weak point, and assuming that his hypothesis had been correct, the weak point was just about to be abused.

It was an animal on the smaller side of things, a bullfrog. Its poor figure found itself hideously mutated by the glades’ heavily irradiated environment, with a third leg sprouting out from the spinal column, and only a fraction of a present face. For such a creature, the angel felt no pain in slaughtering. Only a stomp on the contorted noggin would end the monstrosity. As he did this, he made special efforts to not draw any blood from the cadaver; the ooze would be necessary for later.

Locating himself to where he had last spotted the jaw-displaying ghoul, he’d slit a trench into the amphibian’s belly, before nabbing the corpse back-side-up and scurrying off elsewhere, hoping that the ruby trail of viscous glop would attract the attention of his sibling. Whatever animal this is, Marco thought playfully, it will make a nice addition to the taxidermy collection.