A/N: Please note that I'm posting these scenes in the order I wrote them and that order is not chronological by any means. Anyway, this particular scene was an experiment with imagery and a more poetic structure. Most of these scenes were studies or experimental in one way or other.


animal instinct

Warm sunlight was baking skin the color of rich soil and setting off fire within the dark red jewels strewn through tresses of a green so dark it appeared mundane Calishite black. The halo of greenish black, studded with fiery stars, surrounded his face which was comprised of youthful softness and elven sharpness. Beyond the dark nimbus of hair was an aureole of glittering crimson that was turning black around the edges. It was a scene of beautiful carnage.

Shadash lay in a pool of blood.

The white of his linen pants and matching sarong shone sharply against his dark skin and soaked up spilled life with an eagerness unbecoming the innocent garment. His emerald and ruby eyes stared up at the mirrored chandelier over his head while the blood soaked into his hair, into his skin, into his sense of self. He was mesmerized by a thousand tiny crystal facets of himself tumbled on his back in a field of red. In Shadash's listless imaginings, he likened what he saw unto a womb that had exploded outside the body.

The blood was not his.

Joining him within the growing pool of spilled life was a young man with twenty-six years behind him and none ahead of him. His body was clothed in fine dark blue linens and embroidered silk gauze that grew purple and heavy with blood. The young man was pale, handsome; his dark gold hair cemented to the floor thanks to the release of life from the large open wound spanning from underneath his left ear to the right.

Blood had erupted from the young man's white throat.

Time was meaningless, yet Shadash knew that sooner or later the ebony door with ivory inlays wound be pulled open and he would be found locked to the floor by the blood of the chamberlain's grandson. It would be a fatal discovery and yet could not move. How could something as typical as blood entrap him? He had lain in blood innumerable times before; the followers of Loviatar knew much of that. He had soaked in his own blood and that of others. There was only one quality of this blood was different from all the others.

The blood on the floor was spilled by his hand.

Shadash had not meant for it to happen. The young wizard had bought him for the day; an exotic youth to play the role of his servant, to carry packages, to sing to him, to mewl in feigned pleasure as he raked manicured nails down the fascinating blemish on the boy's back. But then, after the young man had bent the dancer over his writing desk in order to satiate his more carnal pleasures, one of a darker nature had surfaced. As the entertainer straightened his clothes, strong white hands had closed around a dark throat.

The boy did not think, nor did he panic; he knew only that his throat was being constricted and breath would not come. All he could see through a growing haze of red was a jewel-encrusted ritual knife that had no business on the Turmish writing desk. He did not question the presence of the implement. Instinctually, he felt the muscles in his arm slide together, felt the warm metal against his skin, felt tendons tighten and conform to metal and precious stones. Then he was twisting harshly within the cruel hands, blade in the lead.

Blood had sprayed across the room and stippled Shadash in the life of his first kill.

When the young mage finished his struggles and lay limp within the growing field of blood, adrenaline fled Shadash's body in parody of the life fleeing his victim. The dagger tumbled from his fingers and clattered brightly on the floor; the young boy soon followed, knees hitting first and followed by the rest of his body. His lips moved, but only he knew what he was saying.

"Let it be my blood. I am dead. Sky above, this pain, this is the despair of killing yourself with another's death. This is yarosh."

The blood was not the first he'd shed in his scant fifteen years, but it was the first lifeblood he had released into the world. He would later learn it was not be the last.


Next scene: no friends.