His Dream, Her Dilemma [Nazomi]

            Sand flowered into the sky.

            Light bit the senses, cloyed the air with the acrid scent of ruined flesh.

            A scream cut short removing the only sound that had sounded beneath the display.

            Prey lay scattered. Not dead, not yet; not enough of them at least. Still filled with hot blood that beat through their veins with an infuriating loudness. How didn't it drive them mad to be near one another as they had been with such insufferable existences impeding their own? But he had seen to that; culling the weak ones away with a sweep of his hand and finally, finally, having cause to indulge. There had been too many not to. Scavengers mostly, but that had been the point. That was their existence. That was the heart of what each of them had always been and for Nazomi it was an excuse to reveal to them just how well he understood them. They came following the will of another who deigned challenged, to seek power, to kill and eat and become. They had come following in hopes of picking at the scraps.

            They were significantly less courageous once he'd teleported a rock into the would be challenger's brain.

            And that had been when the real fun had started.

            It had begun a blur of light, color, and agony that twisted into pleasure. It had left the remnants of clothing, of his disguise, in tatters until they fell scattered from his form when it knitted itself back together from the injuries sustained. Unhindered. Free. Weightless in atavistic ecstasy. Bleached bone colored flesh taut against muscle that made his nerves scream much wilder exposed to the reishi filled air. His thoughts consumed one another, bleeding from Hunger to Killing intent and every cruel desire that could have linked them until they were just another wave of impulse to be acted upon.

            By the time the euphoria of what he had done lessened enough to rationalize again there weren't enough whole pieces to remember how many there had been.

            But at least two more would be joining them.

            The nearest of them, some lesser sibling with red flesh. Had it always been red or had it simply been stained that way in the exchange? Poor miserable looking thing. It crawled, whined in the effort to slip the Espada's notice. It wouldn't creep away fast enough with it's legs mangled as they were. Why didn't it heal? Why didn't it stand? Could it not even summon up some dignity to defy even the inevitable? Even broken it could have done anything but whimpered so pitifully.

            Where was the fire?

            Where was the lion's roar?

            Nothing should die so quietly, so meekly.

            "Trash." Disappointment turned venomous quickly. This thing, this pitiful garbage he placed his heel on the skull of was not a sibling. It was not a brother or a sister. It wasn't even a worthy distraction.

            It wasn't worth the memory.

            A small hop and bone crunched under his foot.

            The other, who Nazomi had not turned his sight from in the disposal of the worthless, had been healing, all but frantic as it hobbled towards a crest of gore soaked sand. It flung back a hand glowing with black and gold light shining between newly restored fingers, letting loose a cero that split the air with a deafening roar. For the effort, Nazomi smiled towards his kin and gave a gentle nod of acceptance before his body blurred from the searing impact with booming static and a silver flash. Reappearing beside it in a crouch, a smile flashing, he whipped a scythe of energy along it's windpipe that spilled enough heart's blood to stir the fading bestial need in the Espada again.

            "I thought I told you..." He spoke gently, stroking the back of his siblings bone mask.

            "There would be consequences." Razor-wire stretched in his grin as he lunged, spittle flicking from his lips as ravenous teeth cracked the mask and the meat underneath it. Again and again his mouth snapped with rapid and precise bites that tore great chunks of his sibling, gulping back the muscle, flesh, bone, and ichors until finally it was just a bit too headless to keep writhing underneath him with any sort of resistance. It devolved into a frenzy of movement, marrow and being soaked through skin and drawn in through the hunger of his will. From beginning to end it couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes but there was no keeping track of such things once Nazomi began. There was only sating the hunger, returning the essence he had spent in the slaughter, and the stain of what had been once he'd finished.

            He hadn't realized that an audience had joined him sometime during the meal.

            The discoloration brought on by his indulgence faded by the time he turned a glance back to catch a familiar figure. His smile, perhaps too telling of the sort of need that he wanted to tend to next, stretched that much more suggestively before he spoke, a slow plodding cadence of slight intoxication in his tone .

            "Our Dear Lady of Bedlam, how wonderful to see you again." Ah but it is not her. The weapon is different, the small subtle things have changed. A frown catches him if only for an instance before realizing it is just another chance to know her again, to see what delightful sort of madness she might inspire in him this time. Is it the one from the throne? Or another? But this one is slightly more curious still for the thing she drags along with her. So small that if he hadn't known better he wouldn't have thought her capable of that sort of strength.

            A struggling thing, working weakly against its bindings. A flash of contempt touched Nazomi's features for both it and the chain restraining it. Empathy for the imprisonment it suffered but anger for it's impotency to do more than thrash against it. Oddly, the feeling does not direct itself at her. Just uncertainty. What this one plots or plans, what she means to do with her prey, what she intends of his company; he can't know without prying. His eyes flash but never piercing deep enough; the idea of sinking that deep into her would be a violation that served no purpose worth knowing. It would steal from him the enjoyment he had found in her before. There is only confusion, a shared sense of...dread for something that had not yet passed.

            Whatever the feeling is he doesn't enjoy it, nor the one it evokes.

            Suddenly seated against the red remains the Espada shamelessly turned towards her, letting the smile on ease it's way onto his face. In spite of the feeling fleetingly gnawing at his guts he is finds himself still pleased to see her. For that he finds it worth the attempt to slip humor into his tone, his gaze flicking from the Handmaiden to her captive and back.

            "Flowers would have worked just as well, you know."

            A bark of laughter and Nazomi leaned forward, resting his arm against his knee.

            "But I feel a little bad now. I don't have a gift for you."

            Not yet, at least.

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Word Count: 1209

GP Gained:  24        

Written to: Marina and the Diamonds - Savages