Dusk Treader
Moderator
Senior Member
since 06-18-99
Posts 1229
St. Paul, MN
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0 posted 04-05-2009 02:40 AM
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I blame Shakespeare. The genesis of my fall was seeded by his pen. My fate was sealed with that of Macbeth and his lady by the wyrd sister's prattle. Yet they do not envy me the moldering walls of my manses.
I was once a creature of the open air, of sun, fire, water and earth. The elements found their apotheosis in me and through their might I became the greatest alchemist in the world. I mastered the parlor tricks of transmutation, the chemistry of altered states of matter but they held little interest. For me the greatest art was in the study of life and surcease of the same. In my laboratory I brewed the most potent of poisons: substances that ripped out the life, slowly bled it, and stopped thought. Those same flasks took up shelves with the very essence of creation, aging conquered and flesh knit.
Spurred by jealousy and the words of the bard she stole in to my demesne with the dead of night. A witch of meager talents she was seeking a component that would provide the catalyst for her cauldron's brew. The harlot couldn't resist fingering, rifling, pawing my solutions and the clinking swept the sleep from my eyes. I leapt to my feet, finger accusing and laughed at her theft. Any bottle she snatched was as likely to be poison as long life.
Her gaze was all steel. A gasp of words and skin and human features transmuted into scales and susurrations. Striking across the distance, filled the space between with broken glass and precious liquids lost. I was too slow to avoid and fangs pierced my flesh to recede and leave no mark. A thrown flask and the serpent's face blackened and eyes winked out: gold, silver then dark.
The beast thrashed and in the chaos I was a rag doll against the wall, slumped to the floor in a tingling pool. The storm receded and the empty sockets focused on my own, unmoving. Whispering forward it considered and moved decisively and the world went cold and silver in agony. My one eye watched scales melt to flesh and laughter as she withdrew an ointment from the debris and restored her eyes, emptying the jar and my home.
I was flooded, racked, devoured and restored. As the dawn crept through the broken door distant skin itched and burned. With the light came the will to move again. Fleeing the sun into the earth and fleeing farther still until the chill cradled me. Working in the dark places to recreate my health I found my art had receded beyond reach.
No longer was I pure in my elemental union. The sun and the fire had left with my stolen eye and only silver moon and the chill of night was left to me. Poisons were without effort. The toxins ooze as every work turns to death.
I hide in the dark with the chill and wet as my mates. Things of too many legs, eyeless visage and creeping nature break my fasts. I linger on, spurred by countless alchemical sources yet I am pleased that the sorceress-snake will one day know my touch and no more.
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I'm holding you to it, because I'd like to read it. 