14 . winter catch-all

[necrolord]

Who: John Gaius and company.
What: As the cold sets in, the God of Necromancers gets restless.
When: Late November through December
Where: Gaze and the Sleeper Farm.

Content Warnings: Tagged in headers as needed. Note all the usual warnings of this character.

Comments

2, cw: zombies, gore, There Will Be Vore

[unsheathedfromreality]

The Emperor Undying runs, and something--something small, and feathered in funereal black-and-white--takes note of his retreat. There's a maybe-familiar glimpse of retreating wings around the next corner he turns, a brief flash of faceted red eyes, before a chimeric silhouette vanishes through a wall.

And around the next corner, or two or three--hard to tell distance and orientation in the awful press of the Farm--a wall of dead flesh awaits him. A half-dozen obvious revenants, fleshy and gross remains of animated Sleepers, clog the corridor. A much greater dead thing, black-feathered and starred in golden eyes, looms behind them.

The mob turns as one to regard the fleeing man with a sightless, impassive benevolence that might be worse than active hostility. Then the monster at the back politely shuts his eyes.

"Even you, ö̸̧͍̣̜̭͔̬̼̼͉̯͕̰͂̈̃͑̚͝ ̶̡̻̯͙̱̳͎̑͐͆̀̽͐̀͠L̶̤̤̯͈͕̫̖̦̹͚͑̉̔̊̑͌͌͝͝ơ̷̧̦̬͔̺̟̙͊̍̏̒̔̌͊̎͊̔́̃̽͋͂̐ŗ̶̥̯̻̰̯̬̩͇̘̲̮̻͙̱̗͐̾͋̎̉̓̐̉̃̚ͅd̴̨̛̥͗̀̄̊͑̆̐̇͒͘͘͝͠?̴̡̡̠̺̳͓̲̹̙̾͗ ̴͚͖̟̤̪̞̺̲̭̙̖̹̞̳̞̱͊̉̋̀̄̍̑̀̑̍̽ I am surprised."

And, he will not say, strangely delighted.

[necrolord]

It says something about John Gaius, that he reaches this sudden impasse of gore and relaxes like he's just come home. There is a sudden release of tension in his shoulders, in that first blind moment he realizes he stands before the dead.

It's only the thing behind them— the realization that the greater shape of the monster is here, fully instantiated— that quiets him into something else, worry and something like reverence scrunching his brow. He reaches up to wipe a speckle of stinging Vileblood from his cheek with the back of a wrist.

"Even me," he agrees, and while it's meant to sound rueful, it's not meant to sound so nakedly exhausted. "It's a real party, apparently."

He steps forward, the whole of his attention upon the feathered horror behind the corpses.

"You too, huh."

[unsheathedfromreality]

The monster laughs, low and many-voiced. He gestures with a primary arm in a great rustle of feather and chitin. The mob of the dead jerkily parts, offering John an avenue to approach their necromancer.

"And not my first time. Imagine my d̸̫̏ę̶̇l̶͕̕ȋ̸̹g̸̜̏ḧ̴̡́t̸̞͗, that they remember their oaths year-to-year."

Iskierka shoves her way through a wall near his shoulder, a sparkling mote of white and ordinary black against a backdrop of space-dark fuligin. Illarion tilts his head toward her; she looks at him, then down the corridor at their back, then at John.

"Come. Join us. You may not be wholly s̴a̵f̶e̷ beneath my wings but it is better together than alone."

[necrolord]

"What's better than one dead guy," says John, reasonably, as he approaches the grand and distorted shape of Big Bird, "is way too many dead guys. That is practically a Nine Houses motto."

Iskierka is a bolt of normalcy against the warped bulk of her necromancer, somehow steadying. The tidy inverse of the monster John doesn't currently have at his side. He steps closer, not quite steady on his feet, the furrow of wariness in his brow dropping to tired acceptance.

"It's your lead."