The hand grasped at his dampened collar, the buttoned fabric leaping to his exposed throat, interrupting an exhausted sigh with a shock of barbed pain. A hand clamped across Enjolras' set snout and nose, a torn scrap of cotton pushed against gasping lips, the fingers curling beneath his jaw and rubbing uncomfortably, with an element of intrusion, veiled by alarm, dragging along the soft skin. He gave a futile attempt of escape, straining against the strong arm slapped across his waist, roaring against the palm with bared teeth and a growl ripping throughout his throat. Paled lashes fluttered, the tension of drained muscles slacking, and the leader felt himself slipping to a forced sleep, dragged under by the rich scent filling mouth and mind with a gnawing numbness.
In all technicality of maps and tales, the island did not exist. Whereas others may back down from the statement, a nod to the fiction of such a paradise, Enjolras was urged on by it. The driving and fuelling, energising promise of adventure and potential glory and satiation, the vow of open, rolling crashing seas and expansive horizons, of cerulean skies, untrodden sands, the dusted shroud of mystery cast away to reveal an unknown shore of variable elysium-like stature. The simple sketch, the smudged ink of poorly written notes, called to him with a fiery surge of greatness and passion that others would never quite experience, the call, and the hunt.
The seas were not kind, the inadequate craft swaying and rocking with a sickness-inducing manner, heavy, cumbered and brimming with ruined books and stained charts, crates bursting with stock, salted waters lapping and licking against the rotting sides and beams, a blood-red, torn banner of a flag whipping against the livid and relentless open winds. The careless throw against the shores, the hot sands against sodden clothes, the lush green ridge upon the horizon of fruitful, fertile, bursting forest. Rocks erect and jagged, bursting through the ground as crumbled teeth, the tongue a stretched canvas of tufted and tall grasses, the roof a silken breadth of misted stars and raised morning fog. Notebooks glutted with the legends and myth of reality, sketches and observations, leaves of glistening green and mysterious, vibrant feathers tucked within thumbed pages of scrawling and entries, the journal growing within a log.
A sudden slip, his guard perishing in the wake of curiosity, inspecting a peculiar tri-headed fungus when his body was wrenched up and thrust beneath the intoxicating weight of induced sleep. The call, the hunt, and the capture.
An icy bolt of water jerked Enjolras back to reality, head snapping up from clavicle, dilated eyes flashing open with a sudden sense of clarity. He blinked, colours pooling into his vision, sweeping shapes of red and beetle-blue, earthen shades drawn with the plentiful clays. His hands were lashed at the wrist, uncomfortably forced at his lower back, sticking with the sheen of sweat plastering his hide. A new hand, just as alien as the last, was at his neck, fingers at the end of jowls, twisting his visage towards the sun, admiring the carved features with a touch of reverence hidden behind the missing-tooth grin of a jackal. A second hand, the velvet touch of a woman, was found to be upon his forehead, painting and smearing a rough circle between his glassy eyes, with what smelt like blood and oil, the crude mixture pressed into his skin. Another set of decoratively painted unidentifiable digits pinched at the bridge of his nose, prising lips clenched gums apart, daubing another revolting concoction across his dry tongue. He cringed at the sour taste, eyes blinking rapidly and throat tightening in natural recoil. A pointed stick struck at his back, and Enjolras stood by instinct, legs almost buckling beneath the sudden shift of gravity, eyes giving way to clear vision once more. He found himself in the heart of a moving pack on feather-adorned individuals and tribal warriors, spears raised and trudging forward, a weight against his hip thrust him forward to walk within them. Mouth dry as paper, he coughed and spluttered, before attempting a protesting prompt of 'What are you doing?', yet not authority could be found within his voice, tongue battling against the texture of the medicine.
A female voice, stirred thick with a tropical accent, rumbled from behind his shoulder, spitting words into his ears with a deliberation. 'You a' pretty,' she slurred, rubbing a dark-skinned palm against his restrained wrists, 'he will like you.'
'Who?' the explorer whined in a flurry of panic, forgetting himself as he choked upon the words. She was answered with a cruel chuckle, wide smirk audible in her words, 'You will find ou' soon enough.'
They marched a little further, vast sun scalding his shoulders, golden locks shining in comparison to the highlighting rays, the green shadows tinting his vision confirming the entrance to the forest. His spine reared and erected, shoulders sliding back, straining against his bonds, muscles taut beneath delicate skin. Clarifying scorched throat with a cough, he spoke with a ringing tone of authority.
'I came to explore.'
'At te' time of our sacrifice.'
'I did not know this island was inhabited, I meant no harm nor to bring any forth.'
'Better you than us.' she hissed, lips against ear, cruel smile audible. Upon realisation that such a line of conversation would take him nowhere, Enjolras flicked back damp curls, snapping:
'Who is 'he'?'
'A god.'
The word sent a shiver through Enjolras, fingers trembling and neck flush with pumping blood, veins growing. The myth, a forgotten, lost island reigned and dominated by an unruly god. How the creature was unjust, vain and tyrannical by nature, breaking the skulls of those who came near his hollow. The discovery of a new religion, another documented idolised worship, an entire culture built around the appeasing of a higher being. Human sacrifices, were they cannibals? Did they not abandon their own? What spider web Enjolras had entered and become ensnared by he did not comprehend.
'Wha-what does this God do with his...' the adventurer was cut off, a slovenly scrap of cloth pulled tight about his lips in a callous gag, yanked to a unyielding knot at his nape. He was forced down by the coloured individuals to his flanks, strapped with haste to what had been hidden from him before. A crumbled shrine, slabs of stone mounted about a starred crucifix crafted of driftwood, eyeless skulls of birds, peeling with flesh and feather, were strung to the six jarring arms by threads of twine, feathers gathering about the base. Enjolras attempted to struggle, to break free, to scream against the gag, and the stick came thundering against his belly, a swift strike. He cringed, doubling over in pain, face scrunching and turned to the baked floor. The anonymous female knelt in front of him, clutching his shoulders like talons upon bone, greyish skirts brushing the ground. Steadily, Enjolras met her gaze, optics glowing with rage, the snarl rising within his throat. Her eyes were round and glassy, hazed by drug, black lips still curled in the wide grin and gape of a tiger, whispering torments to her prey.
'He devours t'em.'
The cluster of alien individuals departed, dispersing amongst the shrub and bush. Enjolras craned his neck, cheek to rock, to observe the structure to his left, shading the corner of the wild. From the opposing, rounded peak of the tear-shaped isle Enjolras had observed the looming, smoke-grey and storm cloud mass of rock and mountain, yet hadn't quite come to a realisation of how near he had been drawn to it. A great face confronted him, dropping away from ridge to ground with little mercy, crumbled at one side to create a hazardous ramp, a short waterfall bubbling from an upper shelf, splashing and gushing from the lip to a stream hidden out of sight. The overhang was great, the twisted peak towering above, yet no view to what else resided upon the jutting plinth. As he tilted his vision further, littered ribs and disjointed vertebrae came into view, fallen about the base of the deathly gangway.
His head fell against the shrine, suns dancing upon his visage. Colourful birds with red and green tails of curling boughs and white down with pointed beaks waltzing about the canopy, vines draped down from tall trunks of sparring branches and leaves, torturing his trapped mind, the sonorous croons mocking his enslavement. Enjolras' heavy lids fell shut, the burnt-out optics of the strung-up craniums carved upon his conscious.
There was a scraping noise, and Enjolras' optics flashed open, blinking back to reality. A sure spark of darkening white streaked across his tired vision, a rush and rustle with the grass. He strained against the bonds, eyes wild with the need for explanation, to threaten his stalker, roaring with bared canines against the fabric.
A shadowed figure came into view from the periphery of his eye, the corners of his view. The creature appeared to be crouched, knees hovering above feet shifted forward upon toes, curled forward, strong arms placed forth as if it was about to pounce, one raised in the air as a wolf. The being disappeared, yet this only brought Enjolras to struggle, scramble further, pulling himself to a kneeling position, desperate to confront.
In a sudden, he was face-to-face with another, a grotesque visage, strong-jawed with heavy eyes and a crooked nose, mopped with tousled curls of greasy blackish brown. The face trailed to a solid neck, thick-skinned throat, robust shoulders, a strong chest exposed by tendrils of a bone-white, baggy-cuffed shirt. A hefty palm came to rest upon Enjolras' cheek, smoothing across the jutting high-bone with a calloused thumb, drawing him closer, despite the obvious flinch in his mind, despite the strength of his body. Eyes brimming with rolling seas and turquoise skies, came to meet the greyish brown of rock and anguish.
'You're handsome, a variable angel, such light, radiance.' The stranger's voice was gruff and coarse, yet the words were soft and awe-filled, gently removing the gag, slipping fingers beneath the cloth of the knot, plucking it apart with ease. When the scrap came free, Enjolras rallied a choke in his throat, spitting upon the man, panting and slumped, expression irate with distress, saliva dripping from blooded lips, words caged behind teeth and tongue to the gum. The creature wiped it from his clavicle, a lazy sweep of his wrist, hand coming to Enjolras' heaving waist, limb wrapped about the lower half on his fragile back, the ireful glance not vanishing, nor dissipating.
'That was not particularly kind, was it?' the larger man chided with a dark chuckle, deep and throat-brought. He drew Enjolras into his embrace, breaking the bonds, supporting his lesser weight, helping him to find his feet, instantly stepping away. Enjolras stood tall and erected, adjusting his crimson jacket, rubbing at his wrists.
'Who are you?' the leader demanded, facing to the prudent man, focused upon his visage, a rallied conversation if such.
'You, you don't know? A sailor, I expect?' He gestured to Enjolras' clothing. 'They caught you, did they not?' he amended, with a slight gesture to the trodden route through which Enjolras was paraded. When no answer came, he sighed, shaking his head, before turning, deliberately, sluggishly, until the falling sun illuminated his figure, spine and jutting shoulders facing Enjolras, who had remained rooted to his spot. The disheveled shirt lay ragged, draped across his shoulders, a pair of large rips down the back, placed with deliberation to allow two, spread and stretching sooty bird-like wings; grubby feathers outlined by gold, trembling as though they had remained still for long, hidden and unused. They were bent slightly, held with grace yet shame, unkempt overall. The man sighed again, lowering his weighted head, eyes shut, expression hidden from his victim.
'I am Grantaire, the winged god.'