Author's Notes:
Trigger Warnings:
Blood/Gore
Body Horror
Torture
Chapter 116:
Gajeel woke to the sound of commotion. He could hear the deep baritone of Rhuntak's voice carrying through the walls. He blinked awake and got to his feet, gently shaking Serrill to rouse him. With a bit of a groan, he sat up and stretched his arms experimentally.
"Your guild's healer really is something," he mumbled, rubbing sleep from his eye, "Thought for sure this thing would hurt this morning, what with the cold water and hot weather."
"That bad?" Gajeel cocked a brow at him.
"Usually… but this almost feels real," he said, opening and closing his fist, "Aside from the numbness, that is."
Gajeel pulled back the curtain to reveal the garden, far more beautiful now than it had been the night prior. He hadn't realized there were so many flowers and fruiting trees in the darkness, and the rain had made them now open all the more brilliantly towards the sun now. Even Serrill sucked in a gasp behind him at the sight. What was unsettling, though, was the group of chameleons all circled around Rhuntak who listened idly to them as they spoke. Gajeel could sense concern, anger, and fear. When they approached, Rhuntak's gaze listed towards him. One by one, the talking fell into silence.
Ah. They were talking about him.
"Well now, little wizards," his voice rang as abyssal as a sea, "Are you ready to travel the path to the temple?"
"You lead him to his death." One of them spoke, drawing Gajeel's attention. The chameleon's eyes were wide, "You should stay far away from there, marked one."
Serrill immediately took the lead, a tired but friendly smile pulling across his face, "Ah, we won't be staying long. We just need to make sure one of our friends is alright."
"The Favorite Son has returned to the temple," another one voiced, "and today is a solar eclipse."
"Nothing of import is set to happen aside from the Favorite Son realigning himself to Father's will." Rhuntak said, though his eyes never strayed from Gajeel as he spoke, "A full moon. That is all."
"The veil is thin." another insisted, "It will come for the mage."
"It could try. The Shadow cannot cross into this world, even in an eclipse." Rhuntak replied, standing now and turning, looking at each of the chameleons in turn. They shrank back from him, some bowing at the waist as they did, "If you fear for your own safety, then stay. I shall guard the congregation alone. I will pray to your ancestors to forgive you, lowly Yaoyo of War, for shrinking back when your duty spurs you onward."
There was a tense silence, and glances were passed around the lot of them. One of the more vocal spoke at last, "We follow the Master of the House."
Rhuntak's lips pulled back, revealing his sharp teeth, "Good. We move to the Temple then. We will return at nightfall."
The rest of them scattered and some of them occasionally shot Gajeel a wary glance. He was confused. Were they... worried about him?
"What's this congregation you keep mentioning?" Serrill asked, accepting a fruit handed to him, "Are they human?"
Rhuntak's eyes were keen, "They are. Some of them are wizards."
Something like concern flashed across Serrill's face, "I'm sorry... I thought... well..."
"Wizards and chameleons don't get along," Gajeel finished for him.
"Perhaps. Perhaps that no longer matters," Rhuntak replied cryptically, "The Hungry One was given the task to grow the congregation. He was given no constraints as to how."
"Isn't that... treacherous?" Serrill asked, trying to be tactful despite how obvious it was that Rhuntak didn't care to mince words. Gajeel cocked a brow at him, determining to let him know later, "Or... perhaps I mean harrowing?"
"Ah," Rhuntak's deep voice made the air shake, "That is why the Yaoyo are there. We do not feel the call as severely as those gifted in the sacred arts. We can resist where others may faulter."
"You keep them safe?" Gajeel asked, stunned, "Why?"
The chameleon's eyes reflected the light back at him as he reached to pull more fruit from higher branches of the tree. Stretching up to his full height, arms above his head, Gajeel wondered if he was ten feet tall.
"As I told you before, dragon slayer, I have no quarrel with you. I have no quarrel with the wizards. Wars that happened generations ago mean little to us now. Even now, the younger generations feel so removed that what once was reality now feels like legend. The wizards are in more danger than I, and I am the Master of the House. I keep all in the forest," he said, taking a bite, "They think us boorish animals, but it matters not. I will not have my reputation tarnished by blood, chameleon or otherwise."
"Why the change in tradition?" Serrill asked, vexed.
"The Shadow needs prayer, worship, and sacrifice. It can only feed from us for so long before it snuffs us out. This day was going to come, one way or another."
"I see." Serrill said, and Gajeel could see his wheels turning.
"What about the eclipse? Why were they worried about it?" Gajeel asked.
"That, little wizard, is treacherous." Rhuntak replied, squatting down to their level, "It is when the Other World is near. The Shadow, though It cannot touch you, It can manifest if the Other World is brought onto this plane. It will when the Favorite Son reaffirms his birthright."
"What does that mean?" Gajeel said, clenching his fists.
"It means, whatever happens today will end with the spilling of blood."
"Whose? Why?" Gajeel stepped up, turning frantic.
Again, eyes that saw too much gazed steadily into him and Gajeel wondered if he could see straight into his chest to his rapidly beating heart, "Affirming the Rites requires a heavy cost. Father will eat the heart of one of those gifted, and the Favorite Son will be made one with It again."
Ice spread down Gajeel's spine and his own heart seized. Davian had given him a miserable look when he'd brought Erandi to the saltbox house, had insisted he not stay. He'd yelled at him you have no idea what he is. Rut had smelled him and said he, too, was marked. He won't be staying long... and it's out of my hands. Quite frankly, it's out of yours as well. You just don't know it.
"The kid? Erandi?" Gajeel gasped, "Why he's... he's a kid."
"He is the age of consent." Rhuntak stated.
"Why is Davian reaffirming the Rite? He doesn't want to!" he said in a voice that could have etched glass.
"He didn't have a choice." he replied, still calm, still steady, never blinking even as Gajeel became more and more distressed by his words, "A life for a life."
"No..." Gajeel whispered, "Laxus wouldn't... he'd never let that happen!"
"Davian didn't tell him." Serrill said, dredging up the words as though from the bottom of a well; heavy, deep, and colder than they should have been, "He... told me that he knew Laxus was sick. He said that he'd have to take Erandi to the temple, to give him to Or... The Hungry One. He said that was the trade."
"Perhaps the Favorite Son made his choice knowing the truth would not be well received," Rhuntak said.
"This... is this my fault?" Gajeel stared at his hands, "I'm... I'm the one that's marked, ain't I? I dragged Laxus into this? If it wasn't for me this wouldn't be happening!"
Rhuntak huffed, "There is no use fretting over such things. The boy offered his life to the gods. This was the chosen use."
Gajeel's eyes snapped to him and rage bubbled up into his throat, "Why are you ok with this? Isn't he one of your kind? You're going to let him die for someone you don't know?!"
"My father was killed by The Shadow. My uncle. My daughter has been called as well and I am here to keep her safe. If there was a way to put an end to it, do you think I would idly allow such things? I am the Master of the House. I am charged to keep safe the children of Oros... but I cannot save them from the Aurincarae." Rhuntak bared his teeth and stood, towering over him in an instant, "Its hunger knows no boundary, and just as the moon will engulf the sun, so too will it eat until the world is doused in darkness. There is nothing I nor you can do to stop it."
"I have to do something. This... it has to stop." Gajeel clenched his fists, "There has to be a way!"
"Perhaps you will find it, little wizard, but not today." Rhuntak said coldly, "The Favorite Son made a pact with The Shadow long ago to give his life to the Aurincarae. The more he runs, the more it will spread until everything the Favorite Son touches is stained red. It will tear the world apart to fulfill its pact."
"What is the pact? What is it after?" Gajeel demanded.
"If I knew, little wizard, I would have done something long ago." the chameleon said, his voice returning to its usual callous depth as his ire dissipated into something much calmer but still quite hopeless. "As I told you last night, only the Sons know… and if what you say is true and even the Favorite Son has been kept in darkness, then only the Hungry One knows."
"Then I'll get it out of him." Gajeel snarled.
"Wizards... always so hasty to face things they don't understand." Rhuntak let out a heavy sigh, "I pray your folly doesn't kill you."
"I will." Gajeel swore, "Mark me."
Rhuntak let loose one of his deep hums that made the air teem. Something sympathetic and defeated in his eyes made Gajeel all the more determined. He wasn't a man of empty promises. He would find a way, not just for him, but for all of them that seemed trapped beneath the heavy price Father called for.
Gajeel and Serrill stood under the laden branches of a fruit tree, munching on red fruits they didn't know the names of as the chameleons gathered. There were a lot of them. Far more than either of them had expected there to be. Some of them seemed younger, not because of their stature (they were all quite big, making Elfman seem quite ordinary by comparison) but because of their tendency to wrestle around when given even a moment's time to be idle. A few gawked at the two wizards openly, whispering things Gajeel couldn't quite catch.
"Davian said wizards weren't supposed to be at the temple." Serrill said at long last. "It was a holy place, meant just for their kind to worship. One of the last places they had left."
"Does the Major know?" Gajeel asked, throwing the pit of the fruit to the ground.
"He hasn't been near his... his family in a while."
They lapsed into silence again. It made Gajeel's stomach turn with iron. Serril was always talking, always seemed to have something to think aloud on, an anecdote, a piece of knowledge, or just something he found interesting. He kept the quiet at bay the way a bonfire keeps away the night. Now, they both said nothing so loudly that the silence rang. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge the darkness that seemed on the edge of everything.
Serrill took a deep, trembling breath, "What if... what if Its a spirit..."
"I'm tired of this guessing game, Serrill." Gajeel said, weariness in his tone.
"...A spirit that wants to be a god on this plane?" Serril finished. "It doesn't need to be mortal. It needs to exist."
"There are no gods here," Gajeel said, "And I barely believe they exist anywhere else."
"Explain what Davian can do, then." Serrill said, earnest, "Explain Madame Guéneva. Clearly you've been intimate with a witch before. How do you explain that?"
"It was a fertility ritual." Gajeel said, his stomach twisting as he did, "It rained that night, after we did it. The drought ended. The harvest turned around. That doesn't mean what we did caused it. Who knows if the rain was coming anyway? Maybe it was just chance things worked out the way they did? Nothing spoke to me out there. Not a god, anyway."
"Why would you do it if you didn't believe in it?" Serrill accused.
"Because she was dressed in all black and was ballsy enough to come out and ask me if I'd fuck her in a field in the middle of nowhere?" Gajeel bit back at him, "I was twenty-one and only thought with my dick? The most mysterious woman I'd ever seen laid me down in the middle of a circle and told me to just lay back and enjoy myself."
"The Madame implied it wasn't a one-night stand in the middle of a dried out wheat field." Serrill replied, not looking at him as he stood with arms crossed, though nonetheless assiduous in studying his reply.
"It was... it was an experience."
Gajeel hesitated, remembering when a woman with fiery red hair and eyes that could fetter you in place like the long pin stuck through the heart of a Hercules Moth on display, had appeared before him in a bar one night like destiny striding in to tap him on his shoulder and usher him on some profane adventure. She was there for a few months, appearing at random and beckoning him with some siren-like pull as an opium den out into random places to have sex that left him nearly psychotic; sometimes there were others there, ecstatic and wild and writhing in that same trancelike rapture nearby, sometimes it was just the two of them, and always the ending left him with his skin feeling too tight and his flesh trembling with static perilously close to the feeling he got when he was in heat. He'd eaten up every delirious second of it.
She'd explained what Ritual Magic was, told him what they'd been doing was just that: Sex Magic. It was her expertise, and she worshipped the moon. When they were in the middle of things, after she had laid him down in a circle painted with charcoal blacker than the night surrounding them, her eyes would turn milky white. Black dust would cover her fingertips and smudge his skin where she touched him. He would look at her and feel like he was going insane, like there was a different woman entirely riding on top of him, and if he let her lean too close she'd rip out his throat with her teeth. She looked like she could.
It became another drug he was addicted to, the rush that attached itself to what they did in burnt-out circles in the middle of dead, impoverished fields was just as good as the thrill of evading Custody Enforcement. She'd place her hand on his chest and draw out some latent warmth trapped beneath his ribcage as she straddled him, telling him nonsensical things about the moon and her goddess and how he had a willpower strong enough to bend the universe to his whim if he just knew how to focus it, if allied to greater vision, her vision. It had made him feel powerful, and as heady as if he'd just downed a fifth of whiskey in one go. And then one day, she left. Casual sex was all he'd ever expected from the experience, so he hadn't been heartbroken. Actually, he'd been more than a little relieved. The nights when she'd met him would drain him and leave him nearly a shuffling zombie on his feet. He'd been exhausted for weeks at that point.
"All I was there for was the sex." Gajeel said, "I didn't do it because I believed in it."
"Then what do you think it is?" Serrill pressed, "What gives the priestesses their power? And Davian? If it were Magic we would sense it."
Gajeel huffed, not relenting but also unable to offer any explanation, "Why would a god want to come to this plane?"
"The god that possessed the Madame said it wanted to see our cities run red with blood. Maybe that's what the shadow wants. Maybe that's why they didn't stop it." Serrill said, his grey eyes distant and calculating.
"That's it then? Just another asshole that wants revenge? To destroy the world?"
"We destroyed their world first... to be fair." Serrill said, his voice distant as he continued to follow whatever train of thought he was on.
"I think the Major thinks he's supposed to kill and eat me." Gajeel muttered.
"He doesn't think that anymore," Serrill said, "He said it doesn't make sense. Something about consent."
"People consent to being eaten?" Gajeel scoffed.
"Erandi consented to having his heart ripped out."
Gajeel clicked his teeth at the coldness of his tone, "We don't know that. The kid is scared of everything. He could have been forced inta it."
"Or... he believes in his god." Serrill said, his words pointed. Rhuntak motioned with his head at the wizards and began walking with a few others that were dressed in similar style to himself, their clothes finer than the others and pinned with silver instead of gold. "It looks like we're leaving."
It was at that point that the gathered crowd of chameleons began moving. The entire group, roughhousing youths and all, began filtering through the garden and towards a path that turned into another one of the stone roads. The walk was easy, their path well-worn and clear. Statues stared out over their heads and into the jungle beyond, their limestone worn from sun and rain, washing them clean of their paint and striking features. Too soon, the trees parted and revealed the massive pyramids that Gajeel had spotted the night prior.
The compound was large and sprawling, and surprisingly busy. Gajeel wasn't sure what he'd expected, but it wasn't that there would be a small market cloaked in the shadows of the larger temples. There were stone buildings similar in style to so many ruins they had seen, beaded curtains drawn back to reveal vendors inside. They sold food, textiles, and live animals, the likes of which were strange and varied. They passed one with caged birds of brilliant colors, lizards, snakes, monkeys, ocelots, and even butterflies. At Gajeel's furrowed brow, Serrill leaned in close to him.
"They're for offerings," he murmered.
Gajeel wrinkled his nose in response.
Children played games at corners. There were tents shading camels and horses. First Nations peoples mingled with chameleons, talking warmly too each other. When they arrived, people stopped and stared at their approach. But it wasn't the large lizard-men that their eyes lingered on the most, but he and Serrill.
"There's a lotta people here..." Gajeel said.
"Well, there's a lot of people that live out here," Serrill replied.
"There are?" Gajeel muttered, pretending he didn't notice a woman making a sign with her hands as he walked by, toughing her straightened hand to her forehead and whispering something he had no interest in hearing, "I thought all the First Nations people lived near the desert."
"Well, of course, the king doesn't care much for areas he doesn't think are of high value. Given that logging was banned in these areas, it's of little use to him commercially. But the rain forest is full of resources. It's certainly not unlivable." Serrill said, "There's several different nations out past the mountains. The Ocioso, Hiann, l'Uchutir, Ushya. I think, maybe the Wahir but they might be more north..."
Gajeel was scanning the people around them as Serrill prattled on. He had mentioned he'd been studying old gods. It shouldn't be a surprise that Serril had also looked into the area. It was clear the Lieutenant got his place for a reason. Gajeel was starting to wonder if he had an eidetic memory, or maybe he just found it all interesting enough that it was easy to remember.
"You've probably heard of the New Sun Coalition."
"I have."
"Most of them fall under that title, legally speaking. The crown recognizes them as their own entity." Serrill continued, "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a great many places they frequent that we have no idea about. If you start looking into trade, though, that's a completely different story..."
Gajeel looked past a group of men standing together, eyeing them with trepidation clear on their faces, and saw a flash of blue, a hue that he recognized intimately. He snapped his eyes over to it, to black hair the fell down the back of a man dressed in deep colored robes trimmed in shimmering gold. Long feathers fanned out around his head and Gajeel could see the gold color of tattoos and how they started to shimmer. He stood at the edge of a stone building, hands clasped behind his back as if he were simply taking in the beaded tapestries for sale. Gajeel watched as his head turned and glowing eyes pinned him with their stare.
Serrill was walking away from him, following the group of chameleons as he droned on about food exports, "...everyone thinks it's a modern invention, but the people around here have been making it for the gods know how long. They just drank it instead of eating it in bars. And there's so many spices from this area you can't get anywhere else. The lemon balm Irena uses for her teas actually come from this valley..."
Orotrushit watched him, a slow smile pulling across his face. As he stood there, Gajeel thought the air around him looked thick and tremulous, as if he stood behind some great fire and the heat of it was shivering the atmosphere. Gajeel clenched his teeth. Didn't he need to do something? Everyone around him walked by as if he wasn't even there, like they couldn't see him. He was sizing up Gajeel in a predatory way, like the jaguar before it pounced, his teeth were bared and sharp and insidious. He took a step from him and Gajeel felt compelled to follow.
People fled from him as he approached, nearly scrambling from his way. Orotrushit turned and rounded the building, out of his sight, and Gajeel followed suit, catching glimpses of him as he disappeared between yet another set of tents. Gajeel stifled a growl as he followed, nervousness and red-hot anger making his chest feel warm. They were walking around the pyramid, through stone pathways teeming with people talking in languages he didn't understand. Alarmed faces pulled back from him, letting him through, like the Auré on the night when he'd walked to the catacombs. His steps were long and measured and he caught the flash of a tail disappearing behind a wall that ran along the outside of the temple grounds.
He surged for it and came to a sudden halt. He was staring into a stream, the likes of which trickled away and into the carved stone mouth of a feathered beast. The maws of it were open, nearly the height of a man, and where the daylight couldn't reach, pitch darkness filled the void. Gajeel stood and sniffed the air, catching the unmistakable scent of desert sand, the musk of reptiles, of stale incense. His heart squeezed tightly. The echoes of footsteps receded down into the depths, and for the briefest of seconds, a single gold eye glittered at him and disappeared.
This was a trap. He knew it. He knew it and yet he was standing there, mentally preparing himself for what he was about to do. He gritted his teeth and stepped down into the water, listening intently to the sound of the stream as it vanished into the bowls of the earth. He moved slowly and with purpose, his hands out on either side of him as he glided them down the close walls. The smell of a cave, of bats, of water, of earth helped to keep him grounded as he ducked down beneath supporting bricks that arched against the roof. He gently eased into knee-deep, frigid water. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, they had adjusted to the thinning light.
A cistern, he thought as he stared about him, or a modified cave. A shelf ran the length of it, disappearing into a turn deeper into the place. There were pots lining it, broken and with glittering objects inside. Something shimmered inside one of them, and he waded towards it to find one of the feathers that always seemed to be in these strange places. He pulled it out gently and it shimmered like mother of pearl up at him, the opalescent color running up and down its length whenever he twisted it in his fingers. He pocketed it.
The water rippled back at him. He heard the pattering of it falling onto stone as someone stepped out of the stream and onto stone floors. It echoed and bounced around him, growing louder before it faded into silence. Gajeel followed, his eyes trained to the bend as he proceeded. Trepidation made him cautious and he strained his ears to pick up even the smallest sinister noise. He peered around the bend and found himself staring into three tunnels, each held up with carved arches. The one in the center had each brick adorned with the relief of a skull. With a huff, Gajeel assumed that this was where he was being led to, trail of water disappearing into the depths notwithstanding. He pulled himself from the water and stalked swiftly after. All too soon, he was doused in lightless darkness, the complete kind that even he couldn't see into. He relied on his hearing, trailed the tips of his fingers against the wall as he moved to keep his bearings. Nothing else moved in the darkness, only him.
Abruptly, the wall stopped. He stood at the threshold and listened to the emptiness around him. After a while of waiting for some sort of movement, he fished into his other pocket and pulled free his lighter. Taking a breath to steady his growing unease, he flicked up the metal cap. The sound of it ricocheted off hard surfaces and taunted back at him, screaming I'm here, come find me. He ignited it and narrowed his eyes at the chamber before him. It was empty as far as he could see, but his light was weak. It fluttered and danced, sending his own stark shadows to tremble and shake around him, the unrealness of it making him feel as if in a lucid dream. He stepped down, walking into the place slowly, cautiously, running his gaze over every shadow, every pit, every flicker of movement.
He slowly spun around, taking in the space. The entrance he had come from was the open jaws of a viper. The teeth hung down like stalactites, dripping water from some place he couldn't see. There was a pattern on the walls. His eyes travelled it but he couldn't quite make it out. He remembered another time when he was in a pitch-black place with a pattern he couldn't quite understand. He pulled the feather from his pocket and held it between his finger and thumb. He remembered the tightness, the warmth in his chest, how it skittered his flesh. He took a steadying breath.
"Give me your fire." he whispered, and the feather lit up in his hand.
Wan, gold light, came to life beneath his feet and rapidly unfurled around him, fighting back the darkness weakly. Symbols appeared, a ritual circle, and it climbed up the walls around him. The pattern of a feathered serpent spiraled up around him, and the great open maw seemed to grow wider. Up, up it went until it hit the ceiling where it stopped, giving way to something new. Pinpricks of light blinked into existence, covering the ceiling with starlight... and truly, they seemed to be stars. Gajeel shuffled back a step as he began to recognize constellations, the autumn night carved into the stone above him and only revealed because he spoke the words.
Even though it had only been a moment, Gajeel already felt the fatigue pulling at him. The room around him seemed stifling, surreal. There was weakness already spreading through his limbs. He was expending energy, even if it wasn't magic, and it was physically taxing in a way his magic wasn't. He wouldn't be able to hold this for long.
"Gods alive..." he breathed.
"You'll find none here, I'm afraid," the voice echoed around him cruelly and Gajeel spun to find its source. Orotrushit was standing in a doorway high above him. There was no stairway. Gajeel had no idea how he would have gotten up there. "I am so curious as to how you learned how to do that. Although, your form is lacking, dragon slayer. With such a powerful object at your disposal, surely you could do better than a little light trick?"
"Orotrushit," Gajeel snarled, releasing the feather. As soon as he did, whatever little power he held over it vanished and the light went with it. He clicked shut his lighter and allowed them both to be doused in darkness. He heard the chameleon chuckle.
"Oh, how fun."
He dropped down from his perch and Gajeel heard him land hard on the ground. He took a slow step back, listening to the way the sound of footsteps bounced against the walls and floor. Slowly, silently, Gajeel bent down and pulled the knife from his boot. He took a step back, dancing quietly away from the creature that now stalked around him in the dark.
Orotrushit let out a heartfelt sigh and began humming to himself as he walked the opaque cavern, "There once was a princess locked in a tower. In her drawer there was a key to unlock the door that kept her. Every day she stared out the window and dreamed of being free. Why didn't she simply leave, you wonder? Why, because of the dragons, of course..."
"I saw you fall off the cliff in Oragathol'i," Gajeel said, and he heard Orotrushit turn towards his voice.
"You will find I have a way of walking out of impossible situations." it came from somewhere behind him. Gajeel froze. "Ahhh... this makes me hungry."
Gajeel held his breath and took a step away, circling back around from where his voice had come from. There was a step, a shuffle, and Gajeel heard something drag against the ground. The air began to feel thick. A warm, dry breeze kicked up from nowhere. Gajeel choked on a feeling of emptiness that sprung from the pit of his stomach. This time, when he heard Orotrushit's voice it was from farther away.
"Patience is... difficult but it is necessary. I am not here to eat."
"Then why are you here?" Gajeel dared to speak, brandishing the knife before him and waiting for the reply.
"To make a deal."
He was off to his right, now, so much closer than before. Gajeel hadn't heard him move this time. He retreated back to the direction he thought the exit was.
"Oh dear, where was I? Hmm... There once was a princess that lived in a tower. She held a key, but the door was unlocked. She never left. She remained in that tower with her dragon. Why wouldn't she leave, I wonder? Well... would you run from someone you love?"
"A deal...?" Gajeel breathed, "I don't want any more of yer fuckin' deals."
He laughed, a sound that bounced around him and disappeared somewhere in the ceiling. He had no idea where it had come from. Gajeel tensed, readied himself to spring.
"Your pact is not with me, dragon slayer... I come with much lower stakes."
Gold light shattered the darkness. Gajeel lunged. Before he could pluge his knife into his body, Orotrushit spun and slammed him in the stomach with his tail, sending Gajeel tumbling backwards. Without losing his grip on his knife, he jumped back to his feet. He sensed the movement, the inhuman speed, and struck with precision. In a flash of silver, the knife sank mercilessly into flesh and Orotrushit gasped. He'd brought up an arm to defend himself, and the knife was stabbed deep, through to the bone. Gajeel struggled to hold the knife still, gritting his teeth at the strength the chameleon put behind his arm.
"You are... predictable." Orotrushit hissed.
He yanked back his arm, spraying blood onto Gajeel's hands, his face. He flinched back and Orotrushit snapped his hand forward, grabbing him by his shirt. Gajeel couldn't get his feet beneath him. His heart slammed into a sprint as he came to the startling realization that the ground was no longer there. The tips of his boots caught on an edge and Gajeel scrambled to grip the hand that held him over a ledge. Beneath him a complete blackness yawned open and he had no idea how far down it went.
"You know, the five senses are an interesting thing. If one is lessened, another is heightened... and yet, we do have this proclivity to feel something that doesn't fit quite right into our five categories. A sixth sense. When you feel the hair on the back of your neck raise because you somehow know something is watching you. You can tell, can't you, when a predator is stalking nearby? However, it's not really that special. The eyes take in more information than we can process. Your brain naturally filters out the background noise that would drive us insane. Once homeostasis is breached, everything seems wrong. A defense mechanism programmed in to tell us there is danger..."
Orotrushit narrowed his eye, tilted his head to the side a bit as he examined the bleeding wound. He curled his fingers into a tight fist, and Gajeel watched how his jaw clenched at the pain from severed muscle being forced to constrict. The shock of it made his fingers tremble when he released his grip. A smile curled up the edges of his mouth. Blood fell in rivulets to the ground, shining brilliantly like ichor, leaving a puddle of molten lava on the floor. It reminded him of when he'd stabbed Zahir, devoid of the heat.
"You're a crazy bastard," Gajeel glared at him.
"Tsk, tsk... and here I wanted to be civil." Orotrushit grinned wickedly, "I need something from you. It seems I've forgotten something and you're the one that lived through it... so my deal is this: you hold still for me for a moment, and I help you learn something terribly, terribly important."
"Fuck you," Gajeel spat.
"Oh... no, thank you. A bit arrogant to assume just because Aeleora was obsessed with you that anyone else would be," he chuckled, his eye widening with something manic that made Gajeel's heart claw its way into his throat, "Perhaps I should explain, hm? It is to save the life of that man you so enjoy. The man that Father has taken such a shining too. But I suppose, if you don't want him to be saved I can simply... guess?"
"Laxus..." Gajeel was beginning to slip. He dug his nails into Orotrushit's hand, trying desperately not to fall.
"Laxussss..." the name rolled off of his tongue like a curse. His lips curled, "Yes... him. The man that hit me in the eye with lightning. An impressive shot. That was my mistake for not being cautious enough. Pain had him at a disadvantage. I should have kept him that way."
Gajeel gritted his teeth, "He has nothing to do with anything... any of this!"
"See... that's where you're wrong, aren't you? Like you, there is a scent to him that is enticing, and I do so enjoy a good contingency plan..." Orotrushit said derisively, "But I will have what I need as soon as the eclipse is over. Our teeth are deep in him and I wonder how it could possibly be. They're almost as deep as with you... and yet I hardly remember the taste of him. The choice is yours, dragon slayer. Am I releasing him, or not?"
Gajeel hesitated, terror for the words on his tongue making his mind hazy, "Goddamn it..."
"I just need one more good look..." he grinned and gold pulsed behind his covered eye, "Do try to hold still."
The muscles in his body snapped taut as something threaded hungrily down his spine. He desperately tried to wrangle his body into submission, but panic was already beginning to claw its way through his chest.
"Why do you bastards always want in my head?" Gajeel gritted through clenched teeth. He didn't like the way he chuckled, the sadistic edge, the way his lips curled in a vicious mockery of Bianca's when she'd been over him.
"It is such a lovely place to be..." he sighed. "...so much blood..."
Gajeel plunged his bladed arm into the chest of a Phantom Riser. Red edged his vision with madness as he hunted the next one down, and the next, one after another. Screams erupted and ended suddenly. He'd dragged Caetus through the oozing, bulging, bleeding pieces of a man. He wanted more. Craved more.
The gold light pulsed stronger. Gajeel could see it intensifying, breaking out around the patch that covered his eye. He held his breath, tried not to resist, to allow long claws to pick apart his spine like vulture's beaks to fresh carrion. Orotrushit's eye rolled back, consumed with the color of gold and glowing like a captured flame.
He'd drawn a knife across her throat, listened to the way the rest of her oxygen gurgled from her wound. He felt guilty but the bloodlust held him fast. He'd promised he'd wait there with her as she died. It was nearly as intimate as what she had done to him...
"Ahhh..." Orotrushit's voice tearing through his nervous system made him want to scream though he kept his mouth firmly clamped shut, "There he is..."
Laxus was slumped against the wall, fighting to breathe as blood ran livid, hot, and unfettered down his chest, pooling around him. So much of it. There was so much blood.
The tearing down into him suddenly ceased and Gajeel gasped, shivering from the relief. Orotrushit's eye rolled upwards, staring off at a point above them.
"That is why I don't remember... it wasn't you who did the bloodletting..." he breathed.
"What?" Gajeel's voice shook.
"Aeleora is dead, but at least now I know where to look." his voice was as distant as his gaze, "It'll do."
The chameleon released him. Gajeel flailed his arms as he fell back into the void below. He had the prescience of mind to summon his scales, and they covered him just as his shoulder cracked against a hard corner. He tumbled backwards, the world tilting and spinning in a nauseating blur of darkness and pinpoints of gold. Something hit his arm, his hip, slammed into his shoulder blade, as he cartwheeled down and landed in a heap on a pile of something sharp. The sound of it cushioning his body was like glass shattering. He cried out from pain and surprise when he hit the ground finally and laid there with the world spiraling out around him. He could barely draw in enough breath and everything on him ached despite how he'd covered himself in his shield.
"There once was a woman who lived in a tower trapped by dragons. But who was really the one trapped, here? When you love someone, do you not let them cage you? Do you not cage them as well? She did so love her dragons. Perhaps this wasn't her prison. Perhaps it was theirs."
Gajeel swore and rolled over onto his side. He forced a hand to the ground, struggled to find the strength to stand. Was it a staircase he had tumbled down? It was strange, his iron scales should have protected him from this. Blunt injuries didn't usually bother him so much...
Gajeel pulled himself up onto something... something large and smooth. It didn't smell like stone, and there was a dip beneath his hand that didn't feel like the silky, near-slimy sensation of a stalagmite. He didn't have time to ponder it, though, he merely took to climbing it. Like a rat escaping the flood, Gajeel felt the need to get to higher ground, to look around him, to find his bearings. But it was pitch black down here, he couldn't even see his hands moving in the darkness.
"There once was a dragon trapped in a cave..."
Orotrushit's voice was approaching and again he was swathed in the color black.
"...oh how it screamed from the pain of being tied down, of being trapped. Trapped in the darkness, separated from the light and the life of the world, severed from nature and spirit, helpless on the verge of the Otherworld where magic can't flourish, where it goes to die. It screamed until the very foundations of the city rattled. It screamed until the forest echoed with it. It screamed until its voice was heard beyond the mountains, until it filled the skies with its agony. It screamed until something screamed back..."
Gajeel slipped down the other side of the thing he had climbed, tiptoed on the ground. Everywhere he stepped there was the sound of glass shifting underfoot, skittering away. What was he walking on? He crouched down and ran his fingers over it, gripping the edge of it, cradling it in his hands. Something... something precious. It smelled... it smelled familiar. It was smooth to the touch, somehow holding warmth still, and velvety and... familiar...
"Shall I demonstrate what you can truly do with the remnants of the divine?" Orotrushit's voice broke the silence before him.
His tattoos appeared first, the glimmer of them warming and brightening into striking clarity. It climbed up his legs, his hips, his chest, crawling down his arms and turning the blood that still dripped from his gaping wound incandescent, sliding up his throat, striking across his covered eye. At long last, his iris ignited. The one uncovered glared at him as he gingerly snapped one of his brilliant feathers from his hair. It shivered and shook and caught fire, lurid and dazzling, sending stark and quivering shadows dancing around them in manic delight and frenzy. At their feet, symbols began to blaze into existence, scattering around him as if in some mad flight.
Gajeel stumbled back and realized that when the light touched his hands there was a darkness that shouldn't be there. There should be gold light glinting off of his metal scales, his nails should flash with talons but there was nothing. He stared in horror at simple, scarred skin. He activated his magic, called on the power he knew so utterly, so entirely, so wholly, and found it wasn't there. It wasn't like in the prison, it wasn't like being empty and aching and weak. It was as if he'd never had magic to begin with. He summoned iron lances, pillars, hell, he even shook as he attempted sacred arts and found no response.
"There once was a dragon trapped in a cave. It screamed for help and one of its kind heard it. Oh, did it fly to try and save its friend. It tore apart the city to get to him. It killed everyone in its path, laid waste to the forest, but it couldn't find him. It didn't know where the screams were coming from. In the forest? In the temple? Wherever he looked, he couldn't find him. And then, after long last, the screams stopped... and the iron dragon despaired for his failure, his loss. He cried almost as much as we did when he tore our Father from the skies."
Orotrushit grinned as the light filled the chamber. Something large and white curled up overhead, several of them. A massive ribcage surrounded them, opened and wide with a spine still holding them together. Vertebrae the height of a man lay in a line, contorted back. The gigantic bones of a gigantic creature, a creature with claws and sharp teeth and a carnivorous skull with horns that spiraled back, sharp and striking edges that made corkscrews look like lightning bolts in the stark light. Gajeel looked at what he held in his hands and saw it for what it was, a large yellow scale. The sounds of glass was hundreds of them littering the ground around him, each one plucked painfully from the flesh that held them and left to rot on the ground. A dragon... he was standing in the bones of a dragon...!
"Have you figured out the right question to ask?" Orotrushit asked, his sharp teeth flashing at him, "The offering you need to give?"
Something moved in the darkness outside the ritual circle. It moved in tandem with Orotrushit as he stepped to the side, his head tilting as he stared with his one wild eye. When it moved, an aching nothingness swallowed the place whole. Gajeel could hear water and something moving in it. He pulled up his fists, his last defense, and watched Orotrushit circle him as something in the depths around them came closer.
"I don't need to know what happened here..." he snarled but it lacked conviction.
He remembered seeing the dragon graveyard beneath the Domus Flau. A dead dragon while Orotrushit stood before him should be a trivial matter. But... but the only reason why the dragons were annihilated was because of the dragon's civil war, because of the dragon slayers, because of Acnologia. It wasn't until after humans had been able to harness the power of the dragons that they could commit such an incredible feat as killing a dragon. And yet, this corpse was ancient, laying beneath the ruins of an ancient city... how...?
"I need to know what Father is after..." Gajeel's voice shook as he watched the chameleon that stalked him like a tiger gearing up to pounce.
Orotrushit threw back his head and laughed as he circled, his tail slashing to the side and sending yellow scales skittering about. Yellow, bright, vivid yellow... Yellow like magic that Gajeel knew by sight, by smell, by touch.
"You already have that answer, Dragon Slayer." he said, his tone dark and insidious.
"The end of the world?" Gajeel stuttered.
Metalicana had been here. His father had destroyed their city. Papà Ohmara has said he'd come from the mountains and fought an old god. Was this why? Was this why his father was-
"Our god is one of creation out of destruction. To create we must first destroy. When has this ever been a mystery? The wizards destroyed our county, stole our land, murdered our children, and started their beginnings on the bones of our cities. Why should we not restart the cycle in kind?" Orotrushit mocked him, "Dragon Slayer, you have only one shot at this. Shall I spell it out for you?"
"If I'm going to stop It then I need to know why It wants me so badly," he said again, trying to hold to his conviction, trying not to look around him, to ignore the movement where he couldn't see, "What is it after? Why does It keep killing everything, everyone? Even Its own kind...?"
"They never ask the right questions..." Orotrushit's voice devolved into a growl. A shadow shivered outside of him, there and gone, a flicker faster that Gajeel's eyes could track it. The air around him pulsed, writhed, "They always think they know what they need, but they don't really. They never ask and then they marvel at how they fail, even when I've been so open. So apparent. I even told her not to meddle, that to continue would mean death. But she just kept pushing. If it had continued, the Favorite Son would have ended up dead, and then decades of planning would be damaged beyond repair. As if your body could ever contain the divine."
The shadow appeared again, a massive and open, aching void. Gajeel felt dizzy, his stomach was empty. He tried to call his magic and it didn't respond. He couldn't even feel it react to him. The thing in the water was gone and Gajeel knew it was standing in front of him and he just couldn't see it. His mouth watered and a pang so strong it was painful lanced through his stomach. He doubled over, feeling as if he'd just been punched in the gut.
"Never the right questions to ask. Never the right offering. An imperfect body for an imperfect ritual. A lecherous, unreservedly pathetic, bleating fool of a woman and a man who refused to consent. Success, even if it were possible, would have left you a burned-out husk, the pain of being eaten alive drawn out until she'd finished. She didn't heed warning, tradition, the Rites. How do I perform the ritual? How do I summon Father? Tell me the components, Orotrushit. How do I sedate him? What constitutes consent?" as he raged, the shadow swelled. The scales on the ground scattered away from him as if pushed by an invisible force. His tattoos glowed brighter and another pulse emitted from his eye, the concussive drum of it compressed the air around him and drove Gajeel to his knees. "It's all so dull. So typical. Predictable. I looked at her and I felt nothing. Watched her die as she performed a task she never should have in the first place. I am not angry for her death, for she deserved it. Oh, and it brought us you. You who couldn't contain your bloodlust enough to stop it. Such a great warrior, trained from such a young age for success in the fight, to not flinch, to not faulter. Take revenge and take it fully. Blood doesn't bother you, and neither does the bloodletting. Such a strong will. We couldn't do it without you..."
"Me?" Gajeel gasped. He couldn't pull himself to his feet. The presence was so heavy he thought he might buckle from it. He was on his hands and knees, struggling to breathe. The shadow kept growing larger. It wasn't like the thing Rhuntak had turned into. It wasn't a great monitor lizard. It was long and growing longer, twisting off into forever. A silhouette that both existed and didn't, that both stood over him and paced alongside Orotrushit, as enraged as he was. Its mouth was open and It craved him like It had never eaten before. Gajeel shut his eyes and trembled. "You don't need me, you need my body... it could have been Laxus, or Natsu, or any of the dragon slayers..."
Orotrushit rounded on him, stopped short in his demented diatribes. His eye was impossibly wide, his pupil dilated until only a sliver of gold remained ringing it. Large and carnivorous and taking him in all his capacity, not as a man or a person, but as a thing that could be devoured. He was excited. The shadow thrummed with anticipation. Gajeel drew his gaze up to him. He couldn't stand the weight. He felt impossibly small and helpless, a mouse in the claws of a massive tomcat.
"Why..." Gajeel whispered, his eyes running over the bones, over scales, scales that were beautiful and yellow, scales that had a scent that clung to them that he knew so well, that he'd memorized, that he'd traced so dearly in someone else, "Why do you need a dragon?"
"Oh..." he was breathless. A smile broke across his face. It was a relief because the oppressive anger, the frothing hatred, lost its wicked edge, "That's a bit better."
He lunged and Gajeel scrambled back from him. He threw a punch but his hand was caught and forced back to the ground. He twisted his shoulders, writhed to be free, and Orotrushit grabbed his biceps and forced him to the ground. He slammed him so hard stars burst into his sight. He dragged him like nothing and threw him into the center of the circle, into the middle of the coiled carcass of a dragon.
"Do you know how to make a dragon slayer lacrima?" he asked, his voice dropping to nothing, no longer raging, no longer frantic. It has completely different, now holding a stillness that made the pit of Gajeel's stomach roll. He couldn't taste any iron. When Gajeel didn't respond, his head listed to the side and he bared his teeth, "Do you want to?"
"H-how...?" Gajeel gritted his teeth, for the briefest of seconds his eyes flashed to the bones surrounding them, the ribcage that punctured up into the blackened cavern.
"You need a dragon, and of course, a lacrima... and as much pain as you can possibly inflict." he whispered, "Tell me, dragon slayer, how do you think it would feel to have your scales ripped out one by one? It would be the slowest way to be flayed alive, don't you think?"
Gajeel felt pain pierce into his stomach, quickly chasing up his navel, his chest, his throat. A line of fire that could only have come from the edge of a sharp knife sliced him in half. He thrashed to be free of the thing that stared down at him as it held him. He cursed as the feeling deepened and spread down his spine, down his arms and legs. White hot panic made his vision blur because he knew these cuts. He practiced hunting and preparing his own meat. He knew what came next.
"Did you know, you can live for days without your skin? Your largest organ?" Orotrushit was saying when Gajeel threw his head back. He was dizzy from it, clenching his teeth in an attempt not to scream, "Be careful, now. Don't bite off your tongue. What a shame it would be to survive all you have just to die from drowning in your own blood."
The pain eased slightly, as if a blade had stopped moving against his skin. With the lessening of the pain, Gajeel was able to concentrate enough to try and get free but the chameleon was horrifyingly strong. He twisted his hips, trying to use any leverage he could to get him off of him, but Orotrushit hardly moved. He just perched atop him, head tilted to the side, and grinned.
"Humans are incredible in their destructive creativity. Your ability to cause pain is staggering. I didn't realize you had to tenderize the flesh first, not until I started researching. I boiled him alive and I'm ashamed to say in my haste I made him go blind. I would have preferred you to be able to see your skin peel back but pain was the goal so it matters little..."
Gajeel felt the red agony of his flesh being stripped back, baring exposed nerves to air. It was like his body was on fire. Every nerve ending was being severed. He could feel it deep into his skin, his muscle, torn rather than cut. Where the pain extended, numbness followed, but it wasn't a relief. His body throbbed and convulsed, his muscles were tight and he couldn't even struggle. Gajeel felt like he was going to vomit. The pain... he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe.
"The amount of blood was a surprise. So much of it... close to half, I would guess. I didn't measure. I can't stand the blood, you see. It makes me quite unbearable..." he snarled, "You can't survive being flayed, of course. Something will kill you eventually. Infection, hypothermia, blood loss... He didn't last long, not nearly as long as I would have hoped. He went into shock quite quickly, and then he lost consciousness. Even when I brought him back, he didn't last much longer. I thought he'd at least last a few hours... It was quite a disappointment."
"What...?" Gajeel realized through the haze of agony that he was talking about someone, that he had done this to someone. He'd flayed someone alive.
"What else was I to do with the wizard?" Orotrushit hummed, "I had him, so I might as well use him as an example."
Gajeel's eyes snapped wide in horror, "Krew...?! You fucking-ahh!"
His hand was splayed against his chest. Gajeel felt something coalescing, a pinpoint of heat that pulled from every fiber of his being.
"There once was a dragon trapped in a lacrima... It was taken by a wizard when they ransacked our homes. He didn't know what was in it, and so he set it on a shelf and it was forgotten, lost to time. It passed from generation to generation, until one day a great-grandchild decided to be rid of it. They sold it to a man who had been looking for it for quite a long time, a man who knew what it was... and he placed it in a child."
He was being forced open, his ribcage was being torn apart. It was pain and it was pressure, and it was intense to the point his vision turned murky and red. He thought something was going to burst from his chest.
"I bet you can't even see it, can you? Shall I show you what it is that Father hungers for so ardently, dragon slayer?" he hissed, threading his fingers into his hair and meeting his eyes. It burst around them, green light Gajeel had never seen before but looked so much like his magic. It was so, so similar but not, just barely different, just slightly not the same. It burned bright and unfurled around them as Orotrushit carded his fingers through it. It hurt... It hurt when he touched it... "It responds to you, even if you don't know it. Your emotion, your pleasure, your pain. When you're in pain, dragon slayer, it becomes potent, concentrated enough to touch... to consume. In a weak soul, it will fizzle; the reason why your friend died so quickly. He was already weary, aged beyond his years on this plane of existence. And ultimately, having this unlocked made it vanish like mist. But yours... Yours grows all the more rich."
It filtered through Orotrushit's fingers like water and trickled into the air, spiraling farther around them, arching up and around. Gajeel felt like he was being torn open. He tried to stop the hands that carded through him carelessly, touching things that made his borders shiver and writhe and burn. He screamed.
"This power was the dragon's as well... the power to not only utilize magic, but to also use Virale. To transform energy, dragon slayer, from one form to another, in the same way your magic turns your element into an extension of yourself. This is a power harnessed only by the dragons... and by gods." his eye pulsed and the massive creature Gajeel couldn't see was over them both. A maw was above him, opening wide, "Ahhh... It makes me hungry..."
He withdrew his hand and the light coalesced back down inside of him as if his body was the shell it desperately needed to hide in. It snapped back into place and Gajeel let out a sob at being whole when he hadn't even been aware he'd been made empty. His body ached, throbbed from the pain he still felt from when Orotrushit had his hold on him. There was a moment of despicable silence where neither of them moved, startled into stillness by the weight and presence that now lorded over them both with power and need. Now the chameleon's hands were off of him, held aloft and shaking, frightened by what loomed above them both.
"I've made a mistake..." he whispered and spread his hands out onto the cold ground on either side of Gajeel's shoulders. Something oppressive and ferocious alighted around them in the dark. Orotrushit's tattoos burned brighter, illuminating the space and shedding light on a formless shape that was surrounding them, enveloping them, starving and desperate, blotting out the ribcage that Gajeel knew he should see overhead. Orotrushit's chest heaved. Gajeel could hear something scraping against the ground, the sound of something with massive claws. It was like smoke was drifting in around them, growing thick and hazy and barely keeping a shape.
"Let it pass..." Orotrushit whispered, "Let. It. Pass."
The scent of rot fell atop them both. It was hot and sweltering, the airless breath of something large that Gajeel couldn't see. He saw motion and heard the tap, tap-tap of something dripping. Slowly, he turned to see deep, maroon blood falling onto the stone by his head. He tried to keep his breathing steady, to trap the panic in his throat and hide it behind his teeth. He was without magic; he couldn't even summon his shield. He was borderline helpless aside from his ability to run. His breath hitched without his consent, and he began to think of the words that Rhuntak had spoken earlier that day. It cannot touch you. It cannot touch you. It cannot touch you.
Something about reality was being pressed thin, like a great weight was curling against it, fighting, clawing to break its way through. A large black hand appeared from the depths of the mist, took form and shape, and gripped Orotrushit's shoulder. His naked eye twitched. Long, uncut claws curled into his skin and Gajeel witnessed golden blood begin to slip free. It was... It was real. It was there.
Orotrushit closed his eye and when he opened it again, it wasn't glowing. It stared down at him wearily and his lip curled. He lifted his wounded arm, his hand limply hovering in the air above him. Gajeel got his heels beneath him, ready to try again to fight his way out.
"If you don't want to die, remain still." Orotrushit breathed down at him. His words were measured, calm, which only made the panic behind them more terrifying, "It will eat you, dragon slayer."
"What the fuck is it?" Gajeel said silently, his voice tight enough to snap bones.
Orotrushit's smile vanished when a new voice cut through the darkness. He physically tensed.
"Orotrushit..." it came from everywhere, the sound of something dying, of something starved and hollow, gasping or hissing or whispering. The hand grew larger, putting weight on Its son until he bowed forward. Gajeel could see his arm shaking from the effort to keep himself aloft, an arm that up until this point Gajeel had never even seen experience fatigue. An arm, Gajeel knew, that was strong enough to rend his own iron and bend it to his will. "...I smell blood."
"It is mine," he said, something tremulous and afraid turning his voice sour, "That is all."
"I am hungry..."
"Yes... it will be time soon. I will be headed for the temple in just-"
"Orotrushit," the tone was scathing, a demand that Gajeel could feel deep into his marrow. Orotrushit was breathing harder, shaking. He struggled to push himself up, to get his feet under him. Gajeel watched as he took his good hand and gripped his still bleeding wound and squeezed. Glowing ichor oozed from between his fingers. "I am hungry."
"Patience..." he hissed, staggering under some massive weight as he forced himself to straighten, to tilt his head backwards, to look up, "P-patience is difficult but necessary... soon the sun will be at its highest point in the sky..."
"My son... are you not my most obedient, my most beloved?"
The steady dripping of blood spattered on Gajeel's shoulder, large drops that were too viscous, that smelled of the inside of a wretched mouth. He clenched his teeth to keep still. Another hand appeared and gripped onto Orotrushit, pressing more weight onto him until he was falling back down again. Gajeel could smell fear, terror. It turned the air acrid, rancid until he thought he was going to choke on the smell of rot and sulfur.
"Have I not given you the gift of sight? Have I not blessed you with abilities that far exceed all others? Was it Oros that taught you to heal all wounds? Was it Oros that taught you how to fill the grimoire? Who stayed with you when all else abandoned you? Who walked with you in the places no one could? Am I not your longsuffering father?"
"You did..." he gritted out through his teeth, "Yes."
"Have I given you everything you've ever asked for, my son? Have I followed you until the ends of the earth? Have I not been patient with you? Have I never asked of you more than you can give?"
He was shaking, "Y-yes, F-Father."
The weight was swelling, crushing them to the point Gajeel couldn't breathe. Still, Orotrushit clutched his arm and shook, still attempting to push back. Gajeel wanted to run, he wanted to get anywhere, anywhere, somewhere that he could use his magic. He tried summoning his iron scales but he couldn't. Why didn't his magic work?!
"Then why do you defy me, my son?"
The emptiness that opened up around them made Gajeel gasp. He felt it, a ravening to the point of madness. He needed to eat, to rend and tear flesh apart. He gripped at his own chest, desperately trying to keep the sudden need trapped in his body. He wanted to break skin, he wanted to coax forth blood, to snap bones between his teeth, to tear out a beating heart, he wanted to eat it bloodied and raw-
"To kill the mage now would ruin everything I have worked for." Orotrushit's voice was shaking, the words bubbling out in between frantic gasps. His voice was pitched higher in his distress, "You trusted me... with bringing about your will. If I am truly your most beloved son, your most trusted, then trust me when I say I cannot do what you ask. I work only to serve you. I want only to commune with you. I do not want to wait another year, another one hundred years, to bring about your plan. Patience, Father, please, I beg of you. It will be worth it."
Bloodlust effervesced up into Gajeel's throat, blotted out his vision. He couldn't stand it. He clenched his fists shaking, swallowing down dread and uncontrollable horror and rapacious savagery. It swelled and swelled until he thought he'd go insane from it, until he could barely hold himself still from lashing out. He wanted to tear open Orotrushit's chest and eat what was inside-
The ravenous need eased from a boil to a simmer and then to a distant teem at the edge of his consciousness. Gajeel collapsed into the ground as the weight that had so suffocated them drew back. The formless shadow, the shivering creature, dissipated back into the darkness around them. Slowly, slowly, it vanished into the air as if it had never been there in the first place. Like mist, when It retreated, It left a bleeding chill in Its place.
Orotrushit straightened, eyes distant and disorientated. Gajeel knew to take a chance when it presented itself. He swung his fist with as much strength as he could muster, and the dull thud from the impact was one of the most satisfying sounds Gajeel had ever heard. The chameleon hissed as he was thrown off of him, and Gajeel lunged away. At this point, he didn't care where. He just needed to get the hell out. A hand gripped his ankle and dragged him back. Orotrushit climbed back atop him, and Gajeel had just enough time to see a flash of silver, instinctively throwing himself to the side, shoulder first. Sparks shattered from the stone as his knife struck into the ground and Gajeel grabbed hold of the chameleon's hand to keep him from drawing it back again with finality.
"You have one chance, dragon slayer," he snarled and Gajeel stilled. His eyes were glowing again, much more reserved than before. Gajeel realized he was trying not to catch Father's attention again. Even he was scared. "One chance. Your life is balanced on the edge of a blade, dragon slayer, and I will do everything in my power to drive it into your chest."
"You crazy fucking bastard." Gajeel growled lowly back at him, bared his teeth like an animal that was threatening to bite, and perhaps he did still crave blood on his teeth. "You'll die trying,"
The rage melted and his unsettling smile curled back onto his features. He chuckled, "You still have so much fight left in you... good."
To Gajeel's surprise, he stood and stepped away from him.
"Yer just gonna fuckin' leave?"
"I have work to do. I made a deal with my brother. I am duty bound to keep it." The light from his eyes, his tattoos, went out. "There once was a dragon trapped in a lacrima, a lacrima that was given to a priest who was killed by a wizard. The wizard took the lacrima, and not understanding what lay inside, kept it in a box and passed it to his children. The dragon, reduced to a simple nameless heirloom, was handed down until a grandchild of many generations fell onto hard times and finally relinquished it to a wizard who desperately wanted it. The wizard who had been searching for it, who knew what lay inside... placed it in a child... a burgeoning lightning mage..."
Gajeel lay there in the darkness and listened to him hum wistfully as he walked away, his voice fading until it was finally gone. Confident he was alone, Gajeel pressed his palms to his eyes and tried to stop the hopelessness that swelled in him like the water in a deep sea, dark without warmth or sunlight. His mind began spinning as the completeness of night fell over him. He thought of the dragon; he thought of Krew. He'd done it. He'd finally found Father, the elusive creature that was causing so much harm. He'd bared witness to its terrible form against the fabric of reality and was so scared he couldn't do a thing against It. Too scared to even think. Now, hewas laying in a dragon's tomb, a dragon killed before magic existed to kill it, trapped in a lacrima that Laxus had in his body. His father had been here... to save a friend.
He remembered being a child and asking his father if he'd had any friends, and Metalicana had always responded with a bit of bitterness to his tone. But such was the way of those memories. So many of his comrades had died to civil war or dragon slayer or Acnologia. He had never mentioned one being tortured and killed... killed in a horrible and painful way...
A way somehow more painful than Krew had been killed. Davian had told him, hadn't he? That he prayed his death was swift? And it hadn't been. It had taken hours. It had been excruciating. He hadn't deserved this. He'd been trying to get his life straight, to finally do good. And now his remains were probably in the belly of something with sharp teeth. And it was his fault. His. If Krew hadn't decided to help him, to help Laxus, he never would have been caught. He wouldn't have been boiled and flayed alive by a psychopathic killer. It was his fault...
Gajeel pressed his palms into his eyes until he saw stars and then released them.
No... no. Don't internalize it. Don't turn it to guilt, to more dabilitating self-hate. This wasn't his fault. He wasn't the one that killed Krew, that killed Ezal. It wasn't his fault. Krew was told to quit. He and Laxus both had asked him to stop, but he'd continued on despite their warnings, despite Davian's warning. He'd done it because he'd wanted to. It wasn't Gajeel's fault. It was Orotrushit's, the bastard that killed him. The bastard that watched just so he could inflict the same pain on Gajeel later. The bastard who smiled when he remembered how he'd died, who'd spoken of it clinically, like Davian recalling what Bianca had done to him that day. Cold, calculated, purposeful.
Gajeel clicked his teeth. He wasn't going to wallow in self-pity. Not this time. He couldn't save Krew, he couldn't bring him back. Krew was dead. But it wasn't his fault Krew. He couldn't change what happened, but he could damn well make sure he didn't die in vain.
Drawing up his resolve and ignoring the hurt that still echoed in his bones, Gajeel pushed himself to his feet. He pulled his knife from the ground and held it like a comfort in his hand as he stalked back through the cavern, feeling his way blindly, following the wan light of his lighter. He came back to the first chamber where the entrance stood, the stone carved into a gaping snake's mouth. He paused before he left, turned and glanced up to the doorway above where Orotrushit had once stood. He narrowed his eyes and decided to figure out where it went.
Author's Notes:
I am dark matter
Your road to ruin
I am dark matter
I'm your undoing
Bring me your soul, bring me your hate
In my name you will create
Bring me your fear, bring me your pain
You will destroy in my name