@legendcrownâ sent:Â Â the creak of an old door, a quick turn of the head, ralsei stands at his altar with ritual knife in hand, a little bird sprawled out, belly-up, it's chest peeled open. Â there's a bit of shadowy spatter on his cheek, and his gaze is rather intense while the two princes simply stare at each other for a few, silent moments.Â
 then, suddenly, a little bowl is offered up, containing the animal's freshly plucked heart, and all at once, ralsei's usual bright smile blooms, all that darkness gone.Â
 " perfect timing, my dear! this is for you, actually. get it? because it's a heart? hehe... do you like it? " he bats his eyes, oh-so-innocently. Â
Silence. Silence that seemed to gnaw at the very air itself as Asriel walked into the room. Staring at the scene before him. He had not expected this, of course, having walked into the usually so bright and chipper Princeâs abode. He had felt compelled, on some level, to come check on him. As gaze found the properly prepared offering, then to the bowl being presented to him.Â
An offering.Â
He did not lose the intensity of his gaze, no, staring at the still warm heart for a beat. Then another. Was that heart beating? It should have stilled by now, surely. It had been stilled, until Asrielâs gaze became fixated on it. At least, thatâs the name that whatever this entity was using, currently. Though that wasnât what was standing there.Â
An offering, to something dead.
Smile finally came, stretching.. cracking, at the edges. Growing wider still, as features tightened. As if skin and fur were becoming afterthoughts. Features sharper, more angular. Horns lengthened, curving. Already hollow eyes more pronounced, pinpricks of light receding.. until something sprouted in either socket. Golden flowers, akin to gazing at the setting sun, filling the holes made for them in long forgotten head comfortably. Petals furling and unfurling, as if mimicking an attempt to blink. Sitting comfortably in a skull, cracked and broken, arrow and part of spear protruding into it. Something that didnât belong on this plane anymore.Â
Yet, it clung still.
Vines seemed to sprout, fur sloughing away. Muscles and tendons, dried as if from the sunâs rays, giving way to vine. Bone wrapped again and again until nothing remained but thick, tree-trunk like vines, sharp alien red thorns as large as the goat had once been. The only reason they looked like hands is because it wanted them to be. It curled vines just so, letting them twist just right as further thorn became sharp claw. Sounded against floor with metallic tang, as the rest of the form shifted to adjust.Â
This wasnât a monster.
Chest grew tight, the cracking like bones amidst a great fire as torso stretched. Cavity gaped. All leathery flesh, vines dancing along the great maw of ribs. Flowers, oh so many, danced along those vines. Blossomed from life lost to life anew. Made a bed of sorts, in the body of this not-alive thing. This thing that seemed to stretch tall, accommodated only by the castleâs own. Neck lengthened, in that lying soft of way. Just more vine, tinged, allowing skull to lull this way and that as if muscles still existed.
It hadnât truly been anything in a long while.
Legs were the final thing to, at last, give purchase. Spindly, long, just mere elongated cracked bone. Yet still they seemed so grand, for no, it was not bone. It didnât have the right make. Bark. Trees, with roots scraping gently to the floor beneath in a place they did not belong. Trees that had absorbed the bones of some long-forgotten thing and decided to grace it with following along like some plan. Allowing something lost to live on in its essence.Â
Towersome, this beast that had been mistaken for a dead prince was. It could peer over many abodes, tens of feet over the goat beneath. No, this was not a prince. This was not a monster, either. There was not even a soul, to illuminate that dark cavity that could so comfortably house the dead. Like a pre-dug grave just awaiting the next that needed to lie amongst the flowers to rest.
It was a thing of death, of endless endings and countless beginnings. Was it a god? Such things were hard to say, but it certainly acted as such now.Â
A god that was given an offering to its tastes.
An exhale, like the final rattle of breath leaving lungs, as immense appendages reached; plucking heart from bowl oh-so-delicately for how grand and monstrous those claws appeared to be. Up it was raised, over marred skull. How jaw grew slack, supported by long-atrophied muscle, before suddenly vine allowed it to snap shut as comparatively miniscule thing is turned into what all things must one day become.
Nourishment for some other life.
Ichor, like liquid shadow, gushed down, bathing bed of flowers in its essence as it sank. Fed the life as stem and vine turned into inky darkness. Gaining nourishment from this fresh spill. How petals alit, shifting from their once dull to truly shining like the stars had remembered it was time to awaken. Gold shifting to blues and whites. Voices, whispers, cries, of long forgotten things. Long forgotten ones. Those that would not be remembered, save the echoes that were heard now. Countless years, countless lifetimes, all there and not there. Remembered and forgotten. Final goodbyes; final cries of agony; hushed whimpers of dying thing all alone.
It would be forgotten, but it would remember.Â
It was not quite a growl, no, but not quite a laugh. As if a forest shook, branches connected, bristles swayed in a gust of wind. Just as abrupt, as the change occurred did it start to recede. Like watching life and death come in reverse all at once. Flowers sunk, flesh spilled. Bark sang as it returned to roots and the bone those roots had came from returned.
Voice still too heavy, like countless forgotten whispers were speaking all at once,
âCareful now, little moon.â
A forgotten prince, smiling warmly as if new life had been breathed into him. A smattering of blackness down his chin that was removed with pawâs thumb. Just that little reminder that whatever had been seen moments prior was, indeed, that same little dreamer standing before Ralsei now.
âIt is unwise to offer life up to something you donât know.â
