Delphi Kendan

The boy stumbled to his feet, wiping tears from his weary eyes. A weak smile touched the edges of his lips, and he stumbled forward. His body glowed, heat radiating off his rippling muscles, a source of light in the suffocating darkness of the forest. 

"Boy…"

A voice called out from behind him, and he turned, retaliative fury burning in his eyes and his fists shot instinctively infront of his face..

"Calm yourself, boy." The woman's lavish tail-coat trailed lazily across the forest floor, its dark-red lining drawing the boy's eyes. As she stepped closer out of the darkness, he noticed the exterior of her coat, decorated with golden patterns, reminiscent of symbols of some ancient, by-gone civilisation, rendered in a gold and crimson hue that sparkled like captured stars. Under this, she wore a velvet, obsidian-black suit, accented with sparkling gemstones and chains. Strands of glistening, long black hair hung off of her flawless brown skin.

She walked out from behind the bushes with an effortless grace, and faced him, clasping her gloved hands behind her back. "If I had wanted to harm you, I would have done so while you writhed on the floor."

A frown darkened the boy's face. The woman was the picture of beauty, dressed in the regal wear belonging to a King's court, and had shown up in the moment of his worst weakness.

They'd have to try harder than that to trick him.

His legs shook in defiance of his will to attack, his body still smouldering from the transformation. The curse had given him so much power, and his body was too torn up to use it. Furious at the irony of it all, he could do nothing but pant to catch his breath. 

"Stay...back.." He growled, fighting to stay standing despite the growing protests of his body.

The woman tilted her head. "You need my help, boy. You've hardly the strength to stand." Her lips unfurled in a smile, as the boy collapsed to the dirt, chest heaving as he struggled to breathe. "Do you know where you are?"

The boy's body shook with a hacking cough as he struggled in vain to get back to his feet.

She crouched down slowly, gently removing her gloves and placing them to the side. With her slender hand, she grabbed the boy's hair, tilting his head to face hers.

Her sunken, crimson eyes bore into him, and gripped his gaze.

"You're alone here. She's not here to save you." Her eyes glinted as rubies as she regarded him. "You won't survive. Unless you follow me-"

She recoiled in disgust as the boy spat in her face.

"Keep running your mouth, whore. I know where the fuck I am." The boy bared his teeth in a bloody grin. " She's not here, huh? I don't fucking need her."

The woman flinched, as the boy grasped her shoulders, and pulled himself up to his knees, his bloodshot eyes staring down at her, through her. She struggled against his grip, eyes widening in a panicked betrayal of the sophisticated image she'd attempted to paint.

"And I sure as hell don't need you."

In one fluid movement, he yanked her shoulders in towards him and rammed his knee into her face. A wet crunch sounded through the forest. Followed by another, and another, and the sound of muffled screaming. The Forest remained quiet, watching.

The boy was no longer naked, clothed in thick scarlet streaks. She laid beneath him in a pool of blood and he kneeled over her, breathing shallow and soft. In exchange for an offering of flesh, the Curse would heal him. He stretched his arms out, sighing contentedly

A gurgling noise came from below him, and he studied her face. It was mangled beyond recognition, the cold beauty from before replaced by a morbid mixture of torn flesh, displaced, crooked teeth, and the tattered remnants of her skin. Clumps of her ragged hair clung to her in wet masses of red and black. Her bloodied hands clutched in desperation at what remained of her jaw, held on by fragile strands of meat, her smooth, tender lips pierced and ruined by bone, dyed a deep red in the hue of her blood. Her eyes were scrunched in ugly fury, blasting him with icy rage as they stared and stared.

The boy revelled in the destruction of beauty.

"…B-oy.. You.." Her hands grasped at him, her body convulsing as she struggled to speak.

There was a final gurgle from her mouth, and the woman went limp. Her body deflated a little with a hiss, as if something was escaping the fleshy prison, and the body relaxed, laying still on the forest floor.

From where he was kneeling, he glanced up. Sunken, crimson eyes stared into him, gripping his attention once more. A shadowy silhouette loomed over him. 

Her voice resounded in his head.

 Without your woman, without that god, you are a useless boy. You wrestle with forces and powers beyond your strength, beyond your knowledge, beyond what your puny little soul can bear to even see.

Your entire life, your sufferings, your hardships, your failures, your love, your successes and every other pitiful thing has led you here, to your noble fate, to serve your mutilated fucking corpse to the worms and the pigs. You will die here, alone, crying, like the child, like the dog, you are.

The boy gazed up at the hazy silhouette for some time, before replying.

"When I was young, I was safe. I was content. I had money, food, security, love and friendship. I lived a picture perfect life."

The boy paused, getting to his feet, casually swishing his hands back and forth through the silhouette.

"I ran away, because I was cursed. I was cursed with this…urge…towards power. It wasn't anything powerful. Just a small, persisting urge. I had to get stronger, I thought. I wouldn't get stronger here, I thought. The Curse kept me going while I wanted to cry and scream. When I wanted to die, it wouldn't let me. I hated it, at first. I fed it. I needed it."

The silhouette bristled as the boy roughly stripped the corpse of its outfit, leaving it naked in her ragged, broken form on the Forest floor.

"I ran away from the safety of my home because of it. I gained scars over every part of my body, and horror etched on every inch of my mind. And I found her, the Starry Eyed, and every step towards her was a struggle against despair and a struggle for life."

He donned the regal wear over his bloodied, animalistic muscles, the black suit sticking tightly to the blood on his chest, the tailcoat hanging off his shoulders carelessly. A perfect fit. He picked the gloves up, contemplated them, and tossed them on the corpse's face. His calloused fists were better served bare.

"And I ran from her too. I ran from her protection, from her care." He spat. "You think I don't know where I am? You think I don't know what I'm doing? That I'm not used to fighting the monstrous, the demonic, the satanic filth that lurks here, where it thinks it can hide? That I've never met people like you?"

He stretched his arms out, gesturing towards the entirety of the forest, keeping the rapt attention of everything else that surrounded them.

"This is the Abyss, and this is my Kingdom." He bellowed, his furious voice reaching the very edges of the Forest. "My name is Delphi Kendan, and I have come as conquerer!"