sometimes throw caution away - open; joining + tangler

[rhosmari]

FIRE AND "BRYMSTONE"

Aimlessly he had wandered and for a time he knew nothing but the instinct to live. The instinct to become dominant in the small ecosystem that had always shunned him. He had lost much. His home gone. The Ironfolk decimated in the sudden way of an attack. One could survive the attack of one dragon if they were lucky but not a hoard. And who would have thought that the dragons they had made peace with for so long would turn against them for more and more territory. Taking everything and burning whatever would try to stand against them. And stand against them he had not tried to do. For what reason would he do that? To sacrifice himself for people who saw him as nothing but an abomination? No, no, he did not. He stood on his own and he watched hellfire be rained down upon his own. His skeletal face just a mask, hiding away the feeling of pleasure at their destruction. He was tired perhaps of the ill gotten looks and the whispers of beast behind his back. Why kill himself for those that would not die for him?

Now he stood alone. And he had lost vem. The pain that had caused before their fall had been immeasurable, pushed him over the edge. That ever changing beauty, the constant and yet also chaotic presence like a soothing storm. Something he had done something to push vem away. So selfish. He cared little for anything and lifting a paw to help was the last thing he wanted to do. So alone he traveled, not thinking, only killing and eating. Jaw bones cracking and rubbing, teeth scrapping and chattering as he twisted his scorpion tail. There had been a hunt, the feeling of a stinger driving and digging into a warm body. A screamof pain and paralysis, the look of fear stabbing into his monstrous appearance. Food, he has dug his teeth into her side with the intent of killing,  to gorge himself on blood and flesh. But something paused him.

The black oriental, almost darkened still by her own blood, her fear had transformed into rage and he tilted his head. The skeletal tail twisting and rattling. "I remember when I had rage, any emotion. I enjoy the look on your face...." And so he took her, smelling of swamplands he traveled till his thick paws hit desert sands. Dusting his body he carelessly dropped the wounded oriental upon the ground, licking her blood from exposed teeth. She had a name, he didn't care to ask. His unblinking orbs bounced in their sockets, shaking and telling as a tongue slide over bleached bone of cheek and what as left of a nose. Where was he?

AND I'M BACK TO MY WAYS, CAUSE I'M HEARTLESS
SEVEN YEARS I BEEN SWIMMING WITH THE SHARKS NOW

Reggan