0 APC

North of the Pillars

Warm sunlight bristled through the evergreens. A lone blue figure, solid yet ghostly in appearance, trekked through the dense forest, gleaming white eyes scanning the wood in wonder. Two large flaps of skin dangled from his back like a cape, the remains of wings. He wore a stained cowl to disguise his disfigured face. Sticks and underbrush crunched beneath his rusted bronze boots as he walked. Was this Nosgoth?

Raziel's cadaverous figure cast strange shadows on the forest floor. He felt like such a contrast in this land. Whereas Nosgoth's present time period seemed like an open grave, here in the past Raziel truly felt like the walking dead, particularly as he was now; covered in the blood of Moebius's vampire hunters, his blue muscles filthy with Nosgoth's rich, dark soil; his black, tangled hair smelling strongly of gunpowder.

Attracted by the sound of running water, Raziel came to a small cliff where a stream trickled into a shallow pool. Tiny fish swam in the clear water, scales gleaming like precious gems.

Shifting the boneless ruins of his wings to one side so that he would not sit on them, he sat down on a large stone near the edge of the pool and started to take off his boots. Their buckles were rusted shut, but with some tender loving care (read: brute force) he managed to free his right foot. As he removed the armor he flinched at what he saw. There was still some skin attached to his ankle. He touched the white patch and sighed softly. At least it did not hurt. For reasons he could not express, seeing the last vestige of his flesh made him wary of getting into the water.

Shaking his head, he unbuckled his other boot and dipped his feet in the pool. The water seeped into his muscles, a curious sensation. As he peered into the water, he hooked his claws over the rim of his cowl and slowly pulled it down. Teeth showed themselves first, white fangs that once tasted blood. With no lips he seemed to be grinning. Nothing could be further from the truth. The back of his throat revealed itself where his bottom jaw should have been. There was no tongue and no uvula, simply a hole of muscle filled by his spine. He laid his cowl across his lap and stared at himself in the water. The dark burn marks under his glowing eyes extended down to the sides of his jaw like black tear streaks. He tried to rub them away with his claws. Apparently, they would not come off. His brow furrowed deeply.

He tilted his head at his reflection self-critically. Lately the fact of the matter, which was that no amount of vengeance could fix what he had become, had started to sink in. His attitude toward his appearance was now in transition from disgust to bitter apathy tinged with morbid curiosity. It wasn't as if he was trying to impress anyone with his good looks. At least, not anymore.

Honestly, what was the point? He investigated his exposed pallet with his thumb claw. It felt dry and smooth, like bone.

He tried to take off his gauntlets and winced. He started to examine them more closely in an attempt to discern why it hurt when he tried to remove them, but after a moment decided he would rather not know. They were probably cauterized into what could laughingly be called his flesh. He shook his dismembered head and gave a hollow chuckle. His voice seemed to come from within.

"At least you still have... well..." He glanced at the waterfall and scratched at his grimy hair. "Your hair, apparently. I suppose I should at least wash the dirt out."

Having thus convinced himself that there was some merit in this silly idea, he left his cowl on the rocks and waded into the water.

The pool became shallow near the falls. He tensed slightly as he stepped under the frigid water. It was not the temperature that made him uncomfortable; heat and cold barely registered anymore. He rubbed his bony claws through his hair gently, afraid that it would fall out if he applied too much pressure. To his surprise he found that his hair was almost as healthy as it had been when he was alive (or rather, when he was a vampire) if a bit coarse and dried out. How his hair endured what most of his organs could not did not matter in the least to him. Getting rid of all of the dirt and grime actually felt good. He used to spend a lot of time preening, before his execution. It was almost enough to make him forget about his ghoulish appearance, if only for a moment.

Red water trickled through his ribs. It splashed onto his hollowed out pelvis and drained where white bone and blue muscle parted ways. He was not aware of how much blood he had picked up during his last confrontation with Moebius's vampire hunters. Most of it had soaked into his gauntlets and absorbed already dark hair. Suddenly something caught his attention. He paused and looked down at himself, placing a clawed hand to his ribcage.

The sensation of water moving through his rib cage was by now quite familiar to him, but something felt off. There was definitely something inside of him. He suspected it earlier, but now he was certain.

Abandoning his physical body for the Spectral Realm always solved the problem in the past. Once there he would need to feed and seek a conduit to return to the Material Realm, where ever one might be. It was a whole lot of trouble to go through to escape a minor annoyance. With water rushing through him, he was able to pinpoint the exact location of the offending object. Curious, he decided to try a different approach.

Turning to face the rocks, he braced himself against them and plunged his right hand into his ribcage from below. He grunted, finding the sensation unusual but not painful.

Well, this solved one mystery: he was not entirely hollow after all. Was this his heart he was feeling? Or part of a lung? Or both? Whatever they were, they had been burned to a state that left them lumpy and hard as stone. They felt ugly and deformed. He almost wanted to rip them out. What harm could it do anyway? It would only make gliding easier.

His claws touched something smooth near where his left lung should have been. With tender loving care (read: brute force) he managed to tear it free from his insides and extract it through the bottom of his ribcage. He held up his trophy and let the water wash over it. It was the steel point of a spear.

Raziel felt himself smile in amusement and satisfaction. Of course, he could not actually smile. He did not have much in the way of a face with which to smile. It was a phantom feeling. Unbeknownst to him, his pleasure showed a little in his glowing eyes.

He flicked the spearhead over his shoulder and bent forward to wash the rest of the grime out of his hair. The water felt quite good on the remains of his wings, which still retained some of their former sensitivity to touch. He would much rather be back in his city with some pretty slave girl massaging warm oil into his wings. Oh, he could almost smell the sweet lavender. Those were the days. Saddened, he shook the thought away.

Wading back to the shore, he noticed something amiss. His boots were there where he left them but his cowl was not. Perhaps the wind had blown it somewhere. He searched the area to no avail. The thought that he might have lost the last remnant of his clan made him feel as though he still had a heart to break. Examining the area a second time, he discovered some animal tracks leading away from the water's edge which appeared to belong to a canine - domestic, judging by their size. Raziel narrowed his eyes at the tracks. He strapped on his boots and followed their lead.

The dog tracks were soon joined by those of an adult human - clearly the dog's master. A line of grey smoke drifted across the sky; chimney smoke carrying a strange, savory scent. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. During the time of Kain's empire there were no human settlements that he knew of and the only smoke came from the colossal smokestacks built to block out the sun with ash. By comparison, the chimney smoke fading against the blue sky was quite innocuous.

Nearing the source of the smoke, Raziel flipped his ruined wings over his shoulder, so that they would not drag through the leaves on the ground, and skulked through the silent autumn shadows. He crouched beneath a tree on the edge of the clearing and peered through the bushes. Two adult humans, a human child, and a dog stood in front of some large human abode with a smoking chimney - an inn? The woman examined Raziel's cowl with curious expression. She touched the white markings which symbolized his clan. Blue fox-fire spouted from Raziel's glare.

"It's a piece of trash," said the woman. The child tugged on her apron.

The man, presumably her husband, pointed to the cloth. "What about these strange symbols?"

She shrugged dismissively. "It won't bring in more customers, I know that."

"But it's clearly foreign! Travelers love these sorts of oddities."

"Honestly, John," the woman sighed, pausing to scold her child. "Maybe if it was... I don't know, a sword or something interesting. It's just a filthy rag."

"We could hang it above the mantle."

"No, John." She shook her head and passed Raziel's cowl to her excessively inquisitive son, as if eager for the opportunity to be rid of it. The child held it aloft like a flag and smiled in awe of it. He began running around the clearing, flying Raziel's cowl behind him like a cape. Raziel watched the scene unfold in contempt. He lowered his eyes, hunched over his knees in the shadows.

These humans appeared to be unarmed, apart from John and his hatchet, which hardly counted as a weapon in Raziel's opinion. He did not find the thought of killing innocent humans for a piece of cloth appealing, no matter how much that so called filthy rag meant to him personally. Still, if not for the small child, he might have drained their souls for sustenance and taken back his cowl as collateral. He was considering simply running up and grabbing it while the adults were arguing when he heard a crunch. He lifted his head. A pair of enormous, forest green eyes stared back at him.

It was the human child. He clutched the Razielim banner to his chest, his tiny hands digging into the fabric. Raziel slowly blinked his gleaming white eyes, all light and no substance, and sat very still as he studied the small pink thing in front of him, his face mangled beyond expression. The child hardly seemed to breathe.

Why did the child not flee from him? Was it too young to know better? Even newborn fawns knew better than to approach a wolf. Pitiful, these humans.

Raziel gently extended his clawed hand as if to coax a small bird with seeds. The boy gaped at his two large, skeletal fingers and thumb, each digit tethered by tendons and tipped with shining black razors. Raziel flexed the tips of his claws imploringly.

The boy glanced at the cowl. He inched forward hesitantly, bright eyes flickering like emeralds. Raziel held his gaze, still as stone. Now that the boy was within his reach he could easily lunge and take the cowl back before the child could even scream - but something deep within him refused to budge, transfixed by the contrariness of the moment. The child stretched out his hand and placed the cowl in Raziel's palm. Raziel's claws closed around the cloth as he took it back. The boy watched, captivated as Raziel shrugged the flaps of his wings over his shoulder and covered the gaping hole in his throat with the cowl. He adjusted it so that the symbol of his clan faced forward and raised an eyebrow at the boy looking back at him. Well...

"Thanks," he said with a sense of finality. With that, he rose and walked away from the human child and its parents.

That was an enlightening experience, he thought sarcastically.

At least he was clean.

AN: This story used to be part of my drabbles. I'm moving a few of the longer ones to stand alone stories.