#threads:kitchenhymns

Starter for @kitchenhymns

The sun was descending slowly below the parapets as he paved his way back from the bridge that linked the worlds of the grand and the poor.

His time in the Upper City, though relatively frequent for a man of his stature, were often short-lived -- soiled, just as the nature of vices that the nobles had indulged in. Amongst their jewels and elaborate repertoire of entertainment, the company of a gladiator had fit amongst them as just one page in their play, to be watched, sung, and discarded as soon as they had fulfilled their purpose.

In these moments, he felt the filth of their sweat cling under his belt, and had determined a route that might take him swiftly by the harbour where he would wade in for a brisk wash. Which brought him, then, onto the spiralling tracks into the lower rungs of the borough. A place he could call closer to home, where the cacophony of footfall and the stench of minor desperations had greeted him in kind.

Crime was a but a common sight, folded into the crevices where the councils had turned a blind eye. An irony that couldn't be brought into sharper relief; moments ago, betwixt in the thighs of a noble that had proclaimed the city as the untarnished splendour of the Coast, to return now to where the blood gleamed, and teeth of the wicked honed, always sharp, to those who strayed too far from the roads.

A muffled scream rippled from somewhere in the shadow's grasp. Another victim, another day. His mind wandered to the poor soul who had been caught up in another routine misfortune.

He had considered the effort it would take to follow the sound. Civil services wasn't where his spear laid; the businesses of the metropolis was left to those who wished to maintain the delicate illusion of peace.

But the screams, he had surmised, were coming from a young girl.

It was a familiar trail, leading to the markets, but the shops at this time would be closing, which left open the doorways to opportunities as the good folk of the city retreated to their homes.

He walked faster to the sound. Several men, it would appear. Careless in the act. Their scuffling had crossed out the possibility of an assassination.

When he rounded the corner, the loose chain about his wrists were ready - blazing in infernal red as the eyes that pierced the path, calculating its trajectory.

[Starter for @kitchenhymns]

In life, he was a man bowed by the forces of fate, born in mutilation upon the ashes of a village where the sun doth not touch, and the arms of a benevolent priest had been his becoming;

In war, he was an agent of Heaven who reigned into the lands of the wicked, condemned by the spear that pierced into the hearts where the sins of man had plagued;

In death, he was brought upon the burning stake, tortured by his own kin. The angels had wept no tears for him. The Gods had left him silent upon the pyre where his bones whispered back into the earth where he'd begun.

In Hell, his eyes turned black, a wreath of fire blazing upon his crown,

and demons upon demons,

their cackles shattered the night, and the beatings of great leather wings descended upon him,

welcoming him,

as their own.

A distant chime had rung out between its stone walls. Whispers of the last prayers had wavered still where the candles burned, tended by the faith of the living, guiding them back to their rooms before the night swallowed them.

The full moon pried itself into the sky through the veil of clouds. But the winds aloft had stirred them into relentless motion, and soon, in the quelling of the light, the halls of the monastery was consumed by a growing darkness.

A girl had been left alone at the altar.

In the rafters high above the chapel, where the residue of smoke had lifted to and lingered, the shadows breathed. The shadows shifted.