The Beast

On the other side of the mortal realm, Metus was searching in vain. His quest to find Sol had led him nowhere, and to his shock and dismay, there had been almost no hint of joy in the air for him to track. The Star Stream was destabilizing with every fit of rage, but it remained intact enough for him to believe that Sol was still alive. Any god death would send the Stream into utter ruin at this point.

As the great terror drifted along the red-stoned wastes of the far west, he pressed his tongue to the soil, searching for a taste that would give him hints that his prey had gone this path. Once more, his efforts were rewarded with nothing but the taste of contaminated soil and still souls. Frustration bristled along his jagged shoulders as he looked at his surroundings. He was still alone. That was part of why the search had gone so slowly and so poorly. After all of it, he had no faithful. No friends. No followers. No one beyond himself and his fearful malice. A hateful growl built in his throat and he spun to face the hidden sky.

“I bet someone helped him! I bet some worshippers saved him and took him away to a safe place where they can live out their days in peace! I bet he is happy!!” Metus roared as he slammed his fists into the soil.

Just as he struck the ground, the sky flashed white far away to the east. It was faint to him at that distance, but it lingered in the skies with a complete, steady glow that told him it was not a great storm or eruption of some ancient, angered mountain. He turned silently and watched and listened as his jaw loosened open to breathe in the taste.

Subtle. Beyond subtle. Nothing more than a hint of a fragment.

But he knew the taste and the feeling and the color of the light. He had seen it on that day when he’d almost been destroyed.

“Sol…” he grinned.

“S-Sol!!” he laughed.

“SOL!!!” he roared.

Winds howled as his form disintegrated into a sheet of black smoke. Within a single second, he was exploding towards the light that was still shining from across the world.

That light was tearing everything away.

Grief was clinging to a large stone column for safety as the funnels of irradiated light spiraled across the room, carrying beams of crackling, cackling spite. Opening her eyes felt like welcoming blades into her lids, and the brightness was so intense, she feared it would blind her. Muscles forced themselves to clamp down as she focused on nothing but the sound of Sol’s maniacal laugh that was now booming across the room.

It was almost loud enough to drown out the wails of the acolytes and servants that were being devoured by the mouths.

Mouths. Hundreds of mouths.

He was covered in laughing, screeching, panting mouths.

When the light erupted, his flesh ripped, just as it had the times before. Sinew and skin tore apart, revealing thousands of glowing teeth and flicking tongues. Strings of life force strung across the laughing chasms, dripping white and black. The shards all but disappeared into his body as it expanded into an even larger mass that had turned him into nothing more than a hulking boulder of haunting grins.

Walls were tearing away. Locks and secret passages gave out, revealing the hallways and inner workings of the tower. The beast leapt across the room, pulling the entirety of the audience to his form with a single spiral. Helpless servants lifted from the ground with a shout and were inside of mouths before they could process what was happening. The beast landed on top of the god of desire, and the smoky figure cried out in panic as the titanic monster’s hands seized his skull.

His green eyes could only see the limbs of his faithful clawing for salvation as they were consumed by the darkness on his attacker’s body. Then he beheld the two orange eyes. Fire could not hold such danger within its blaze. Whatever was peering down at him was something beyond the indifferent brutality of flame. This was joyous cruelty. This was sadism.

“I warned you. I begged you. I told you that you would die. And you… wouldn’t… listen!!” the beast taunted as each of his hands grabbed opposite sides of Ysmerath’s mouth.

He fought the invasion, but with the beast pinning his shoulders down, he was hopeless against the massive fingers that were grabbing onto the top and bottom of his mouth.

The beast smiled and his teeth bent into fangs. Grief pressed her ear to her shoulder to hide them from the sound that the god was releasing as his face was ripped apart.

“SMILE!”

Bones snapped.

“SMILE!!”

Ligaments severed and the screaming turned delirious.

“SMILE!!!”

Everything snapped, and the face fell backwards over itself, dead.

Sol let out a laugh that was not his own, yet was. Deep within his psyche, he told the beast it had to save the girls. That was the purpose of all of this. The beast wanted to devour the carcass, but they had to flee.

It slammed the corpse down onto the stone floor with a sloppy, heavy thud. Then again for good measure.

“Sol!!” Grief cried out from the storm.

Her voice. He knew that voice. He regretted not knowing it more. The beast scoffed at the weakness that was distracting it. Her back was desirable, and he had stared at the contours of her hips that night. She was his.

The fist struck his head before the beast could challenge.

“No!!” Sol screamed from within the collapsing mind.

It was one thing to find joy in destroying the wicked. But he did not want to find joy in defiling the innocent. Even if so many others had, and even if they’d stitched that into his being when he was carved from the stars. It would not be what he did.

The beast bit the hand and cried out at its own suffering.

“Sol?” Grief asked, still holding her eyes closed.

There was a gust, then a thud, and something colossal landed beside her with a chuckle.

“Ruuuuuuuun. R-Runnnnnn,” it muttered.

Grief opened her eyes in confusion, and gasped when she finally saw the monstrosity before her.

Before she could process the change in Sol’s appearance, his massive hands were grabbing her arms and pinning them above her head.

“Ow, Sol, you’re hurting me,” she cried.

“Goooooood,” the dark voice growled.

Another punch struck the beast’s skull, and it shouted. For a moment, its eyes flickered back to the yellowish white that was the known version. The swirling storm calmed and stalled.

“Run! Grief, run!”

“You’re pinning me down?!” Grief shouted.

Orange flickered and the beast laughed along with the multitude of mouths.

“I am, aren’t I?” they all said in unison.

The raging winds returned. Sol’s hands shook, then released her arms. Then they grabbed the front of her long dress, between her legs, just below her most sacred realms. They heaved and began to rip away the fabric.

Her hands moved to stop him, and she felt a rush of terror. This was not what she wanted.

Then, to her surprise, the hands continued ripping, pulling the fabric away in an uneven circle, until her pale legs were exposed from her ankles to slightly above her knees.

“Y-You willllll ruuuuuuuuun faster w-without the looooooong dress!” Sol gurgled as the beast roared and he threw himself backwards.

“Save the little ones!!” he shouted as he slammed his skull into a stone column.

Grief took off from the room, sprinting as fast as she could.

“You could have just told me to take the dress off!” she shouted.

“I WILL TAKE IT OFF WITH MY TEETH!” the beast roared after her.

A ravenous hand reached for her, but Sol forced the mouths to all bite their own tongues, and every inch of him screamed.

Down the hall she went, moving in the direction of the dark pull in her chest. Something was wrong with her acolyte.

Something was wrong with Burden.