#pollution lore

currently 3222/17600 ounces of the way to a horse

Frogs (20)

Link

Cloud

Wright

Indiana

Simon (Riley)

Mont Blanc

Zero

Rouxls

Mario

Isabelle

Stanley

James and Jessie

Solid

Komaeda

Skarlet

Greninja

Undyne

African Spur-Winged Goose (1)

Konig

Mini Pig (1)

Lucy

Moths (2)

Lonomia electra - Venomoth

Automeris io - Polyphemus

Chernobyl dogs (1)

The first clear noise they’d heard in weeks cut through the brain fog like a knife through amorphous sludge. Their eyes opened, seeping enough radiation to make a Geiger counter beep out the next dubstep hit. Gurgles and wheezed emerged from their maybe-mouth, but, as hard as they tried, they could not force words. They, instead, put all their energy into raising one truly horrendous arm. From that arm dripped their own body mass - with intention, however.

First a short drip. Then a longer one.

Next came short, long, short short twice.

Finally was long, short, long long.

- @theangel-aziraphale

Just as the concept itself was omnipresent, so, too, was Pollution's knowledge of who acknowledged them. They seeped through the floorboards of the bookshop, squelching out the mass of their body through the cracks till they stood, hunched and fluid and wretched, nuclear yellow eyes glowing through the muck that was flowing over their face and melding with their torso, before Aziraphale. The hiss of the floorboards corroding was painful.

Almost immediately, the vaguely humanoid mass fell forward, flattening into a puddle with a cartoonish splat. Slowly, painfully, their ooze clawed on top of itself, rebuilding the horseman who was now sitting, possibly criss cross applesauce, on the floor. From seemingly nowhere materialized a dog who seemed one metaphorical high school credit from being a hellhound, bounding over to the suffering boy and laying his head upon their probably lap, somehow without melting into a puddle of bone marrow and tissue.

Following the dog was a very, very angry goose, a little itty bitty pink pig, two moths of different species, and twenty poison dart frogs, all rushing to make their way to the Boy. His eyes, now locked on the Angel, still glowed through the goop covering his face, and he was sucking the smoke out of a cigarette like their life depended on it. One could almost smell the rapidly flowing tears of climatologists everywhere.

Once people actually realized that climate change and such was having an effect on the planet around the mid 1900s, Pollution got a taste of mortality for the first time. They were terrified. They hid in the Appalachian region of Virginia in the U.S., a region known for its coal industry, in an abandoned house for most of that century. It confused the other four very much.

Pollution still worries that someday they will die.

The event with the Antichrist and 'his gang of twerps' was quite possibly the scariest thing to happen to them outside of their current illness.

They looked on from their corner, watching their… friend(?) be saved from the consequences of being near them for less than an hour. They knew this feeling very well. It always came back for them, reminding them that they were a Horseman and they’d never be anything but. It had happened first when they’d been about seven, wrestling with a Byzantine boy just like he’d seen all the other children do.

They watched the boy begin to cough, and wheeze, and cry. They saw the light fade from his eyes as he cried for help. No one could do anything. Mr. P started keeping them a tad further from people. Over the next centuries, they had incidents again and again, where they’d kept trying to be near humans. The numerous deaths they’d caused made them quit trying with mortal creatures altogether. They never touched another plant, petted another dog, shook hands with another man again.

They figured immortal beings were safe, and began reaching out for communication and conversation there.

They were sorely mistaken.

The uppers ran from them, cowering in the corners of Heaven and whispering about how a demon had gotten up into heaven. Alright, they’d thought. I’ve seen the lowers a bunch of times. Surely, they must want to speak with me.

Wrong again. Demons, despite their crowded hallways, always yelled down them to create a path for ‘the cursed boy of Pestilence’. They’d tried to see if they could at least be in the vicinity of either.

That was a horrific mistake. Worse than all the rest. It’s not very often you see immortal, unfettered forms writhing and screaming and bubbling and exploding with the force of a dying star before reforming.

They learned to stay away. Stay away from people, stay away from the uppers, stay away from the lowers, all of them. The one class of thing they could be around were the others.

And then they stopped meeting up. After the incident with the Boy, he hadn’t heard a peep from neither Miss Scarlett nor Doctor Sable. Hell, even before then, the contact had been dwindling. Sable stopped sending them contracts to eat or classified scientific discoveries. Scarlett stopped popping by to talk gossip and to fiddle with their hair.

They hadn’t seen Mr. P since the use of anthrax in letters. He hadn’t… hadn’t even written.

So, they sat. Sat in their cubbies, wandered the mortal world keeping their hands to themselves and unintentionally scaring away everything, investing their time in doing their job and acquiring all their little doodads and toys and merchandise to fill time. So, so much time.

They sat in that corner, barely hearing words. They needed to leave. Trying to make friends would never work. Too dangerous. Too many hurt. They’d unconsciously ruined this clean flat in less than an hour.

It wasn’t meant to be. It was never meant to be.

They quietly oozed through the cracks in the floor, reforming themselves, handheld console in hand, somewhere away from there. Somewhere far, far away. They chose Los Angeles, ironically. They needed to sit in the ash, in someplace they wouldn’t kill everything around them.

They found the nearest dump, making their way to one of their little cubbies on autopilot. They were playing Animal Crossing, console parallel to the ground with their neck and face positioned to see. Their posture was horrid. They cut through the trash with ease despite wearing blades. It was their domain, full of things they couldn’t tarnish.

They eventually found the place - one of their roomier cubbies, with more furniture than usual. It had a couch, a table, a fridge, a television, and several of their trinkets and collectibles that Sable always called foolish. They flopped down on the old, worn, withered, soft brown couch, sinking into the cushion. Their rollerblades undid themselves and plopped down next to the decrepit old thing.

They curled up into the cruxt between the back cushion and the arm of the sofa, in the same ball they’d been in before. They tapped away at the little screen with their stylus, lonelier than they’d ever been. As the soft music pinged in their old headphones, they curled up tighter into the couch, the only thing that would hold them.

Pollution met the sins slowly over time in order of when Pestilence had to go down to talk to them. Pollution was very aggressively curious and very hyperactive, and very much spooked most of the demons. There had to be new legislation and procedures every time they came down.

The one exemption they had from meeting the sins with Pestilence was Beelzebub, who came storming in after Pollution threw the whole place into chaos. Beelzebub unleashed all their fury on them. It didn’t do anything.

As Pollution gets older, they will get goopier. They will ooze, and they will flow. Their speech will slow. It will drip. It will hiss. They will slouch back in chairs, slumped and draped and using it to keep shape. They will communicate with their hands when their face is hidden by their hair.

it will take physical effort to keep themselves up straight. They will latch onto surfaces to pull themselves up.

They will grow into their role. They will command all the importance that they take with such little effort. There will be many a talking to from Famine about sitting up straight at meetings only to get acid slung at his face.