Augury & Omens

Jules Theroux

He could spit.

Perhaps in another life he could've been one. And wouldn't he love to see the look on their face when they are faced with the reflection of themselves in him. A twisted creature nurtured by parents who turned from him, abandoned by the twin who loved him. Left behind by the one who turned him.

A grin, wide and wider split his face from ear to sharp ear. White teeth, jagged and serrated, a maw like a weasel to match the malicious envy which coursed through his veins. Wicked, green eyes of the sort of shade which one might readily, nay, instinctively know to be poisonous from their shade and hue. Vibrant and glowing in the dark with their vertically slitted pupil. A snake in the grass. A viper coiled upon a branch. But could a man be both a weasel and the snake it hunted? And if it were possible, what then sort of man would he be?

Well-worn, soft leather black boots crunched over the rock strewn ground he walked over. A self made path and direction he’d chosen to take. For what did it matter? He knew not where he was, or when he was. Fabric whipped in the wind which blew across the ashen lands which could only be described as a hellscape. The length of his dustbeater coat already worn and torn in places having been ripped further and frayed now at what used to be the hemline. Gloved hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers, worn at the knee, split across the joint to expose his olive complexion, baked darker by the omnipresent red moon and blistering suns. Odd that, this dead world still had sun and moon to beat down upon it. Wheat-gold hair blew about his face and neck, tugged this way and that and left as an untamed mess, the tie which had held it long since ripped free.

But those eyes and the smile which curved his lips glowed in the ever-present void and pervasive darkness. Those things which might have once terrified him here. They were gone, weren’t they? Slain by that handy little warrior of light. And what was left? Ah but it was only those things which he could kill and feast upon himself. What may have been strange once upon a time, frightening and something to run or hide from. Ah but didn't he laugh with glee and dance in the rain of red which fell as silver claws tore through flesh as easily as his scythes once had. His teeth sliced through vein and artery. His venomous barb and fangs, that poisonous maw, laid into flesh and blood. He tasted and he feasted. He hunted and he retreated.

There was no mercy to be had for that which he came across. Little things at first, as he tested his wings and stretched his legs. Learned his strengths and his weaknesses, Jules stuck to the shadows as he ever did. Melding into them, part of them, one with them in a way he'd never been before. That which he had learned as a hunter of the void, as a reaper of souls served him here. He knew their tricks and their needs. He knew their wants and desires. He was Envy. He was Lust. He was every Sin and he was none at all, wasn't he? He was not beholden to their rules, born as he was.

He lived and he breathed and he had to be careful for he could die. And for now, he had to live, didn't he? For that one was expected him to be waiting. To be yearning and patient and sitting at home like a Good Boy. Domaroux knew nothing. Jules had given him his trust. Something more precious than love or affection. And the voidsent had spat upon it, he’d left Jules abandoned to go and play port with a spoiled little lordling to make silly little novels.

It wasn't Dom’s fault. Not really. What could Jules hope to expect from a creature that knew nothing except desire and lust? A creature ruled by the impulses of its body and sin. The voidsent was a slave to its cock and couldn't feel an emotion no matter how it tried.

Ah, but it could love that knight. Couldn't it?

The shard of himself. The piece of Dom's past he could never let go of. The man Jules was so oft compared to and reminded again and again that he was not. Jules could not be loved. For Jules was not him.

A scythe whistled through the air, seemingly formed from nothing, appearing from nothing. Yet it flew from one shadow to the next and across its path was a hapless imp. A morsel, a crumb. When he’d first arrived through Diabolos’ Gate, Jules had hugged the shadows. Darting out and in, careful and cautious as he’d hunted and feasted. Avoiding the stronger things. The bigger things. As he would've avoided that boxer.

Now?

Oh but no longer. Now he would taste that man's blood from the arm he would take in turn. He wouldn't be needing it when Jules was through with him. What did he care if the Baron was Ana’s pet? What did he care if Ana killed him? When he returned it would be to finish a task, and then . . .well. Then it would be time to make his own Gate wouldn't it?

Pride goeth before the fall, after all. And those prideful kings never looked at what they considered ants and scum. Why would Damian even consider that Jules might look at what he passed through? Idiot, demon. Jules touched it. He tasted it. Picked at its threads and pulled it apart. Watched as it unraveled and faded away. And then he began to practice. Weaving his aether and his own little portals he was so used to making. He made them bigger, he made them smaller. He made them longer and wider and thinner and thicker.

And when he was through, he knew. He would make it back to his Star. He simply had to find a castle with a mongrel and a statue. And how convenient was it that he was led by a thread? One which linked him to his Shard. And this to a sleeping King. One he had planned to bring back once upon a time, to give breath and life to.

Now, as he stood upon a hill which overlooked a decrepit castle and the Hound which emerged, mindless with time and the void that pulled at it. Jules felt nothing but mad and spiteful delight. How eager he was to see Domaroux’s face when he returned. The hope at first. The eagerness and even the lust. How it would fall to wart recognition and realization. Mayhap anger and denial before the demon succumbed to despair and resignation. Hopelessness.

The Hound looked up.

Laughter echoed over the valley as scythes emerged, pale green crescent moons to hang about the black-green scaled voidsents shoulders. Wings expanded and a barbed tail lashed the air, cracking the air for the whip it was.

“Come, Beast. Let us see who is the stronger. Defeat me and see your King once more. And fail and be nothing more than the meat you are.”

My memories of you are faint now. For time has taken your face. I close my eyes, darling as I stand in a pond where the cool water laps at my ankles and I can no longer feel the sun on my skin for it has been taken from me too. Do you remember how we used to sit beneath the trees? And you would laugh at how my nose would burn? The freckles which would form and how you would trace them across my shoulders?

I close my eyes, my heart. And I hear the sound of your laughter. The splash of water as our feet splash through it, how cold those droplets were when they hit our skin. Time has taken the words from our lips. But I remember the feeling of your lips on mine. That first kiss beneath our tree. When you took me in your arms and drew my book down from how I hid my face. You laughed then too, for how red I was when you told me how you loved me.

Time gave you back to me. In another place. Another Star. Time changed you too. Time made me Greedy. And then it tempered me. Glass roses and apricot liquors. Love and briar vines. Would you hate the thing I've become? Or would you be proud of me?

I wish I could see you one more time.