ᚨ Nessmuk

Did You Know? ᛮ Nessmuk is ...
ᛜ undead and unkillable. ᛜ referred to by title. ᛜ surrounded by birds. ᛜ both vicious murderer and loving father. ᛜ a compulsive groomer. ᛜ an oddity hoarder. ᛜ curious.

Identifiers
scent: fresh-turned soil, sweet decay
voice claim: Nago (Princess Mononoke, English language version)
theme song: CODE MISTAKE

Excerpts from the Lich and His Bird-Killer ...

Oh, Death. In the end they had embraced like old friends. When cracks had etched themselves into his very bones and his body failed him - the end did not taste of Fear. For how many souls had he ferried to those same dark waters (like sending love letters out to sea)? When he closed his eyes for that final time and found himself Elsewhere - he did not succumb to those same waters. The Lich had merely laid himself to rest. He drifted just beneath the surface, suspended. Out of body, yes, but not quite out of mind. He'd watched through one open eye what had followed his timely demise. The rise ... and the fall. The desecration of his very bloodline. And He walked right out of Hell.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

The Lich wondered now if it was the fury that had pulled him back to the land of the living. If that was the why - why the salt of his bones had been returned to him - no. No. He had stolen these bones. He had stolen them like a common thief and reshaped them to his liking, to his new visage - reborn as he so desired. Oh, the cost had been great. Yes, great. Carried out by his own teeth through the red of that rage - his own bloodline ... erased. Spilled red, red until it painted the spire. Until it dripped to down unto the earth ... Those that beheld him had cowered and cowed and bowed and flattened themselves in reverence - in the face of his unholy anger - or they had attempted to run, to escape. It mattered naught. Their stillness, their flight, their fight. His own blood seeped black with the corruption of his Self and he did as he always had. He killed. Until only He remained. And now ... now he sat upon His throne of scrimshaw and bone and looked out toward the lashing seas, thinking. Considering. Planning. For Meaksaw had not succumb to ruin in isolation ... no. Her name was beginning to fade along with all the rest of his First Life. They faded, as though it was by their theft, too, he remained so now. Nessmuk. Nessmuk knew not the name of She who slew B'dlam and brought this ruin. Not yet. But he would hold it between his jaws and would feel it snap, yield, and run red.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

He took great pains to enact the rituals that had once given his life meaning. He painted the bones upon his skin, pierced his flesh, sang the old songs to the moon and brought Death its due. He maintained appearances, as he always had - paced the territory, killed those that dared to make themselves known. He bloodied himself with the thrill of the chase and tested his new teeth aplenty. These were the things that brought him something like comfort in this strange newness in an old world. This was savored, as the sweet meat close to the bone.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

He often found himself staring at the carvings on the stones on the spire; the written history of that which had come before. His name, his visage, his deeds; weathered with moss and cracked. Sitting upon the throne that had been worn to a silken finish, he held his own skull between his paws. He stared into his own empty sockets and considered the weight that he carried in his chest.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

The fury had cooled into an iron ball ever-present in his gut, in his heart - carrying with him. His thoughts often turned to She. She. The killer of B'dlam. Nessmuk had harbored no warm feeling for the vulgar creature and yet he invested much in the obligation of blood. B'dlam had been bound to Meaksaw, had been bound to him by blood. And it had been the spilling of that blood that had formed that chain of events that lead to ... now. He'd find Her.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

Nessmuk listened to the word the corvids spread; their tales hailing from distant lands. He asked questions of She that they gave only vague reply. He sent his scouts to chase these illusions and they left him wanting. Apparently, Eldersblood had vanished. Embla told that it was because of She. She had not ended with B'dlam, but had brought forth a reckoning upon most of the pack. Nigh 60 wolves gone in an instant. This only drove his curiosity more. Embla knew more still than she was telling ... He longed to break her neck and yet, and yet ... she could still be made into a useful pawn. Her purpose had yet to be fully served. The killer of B'dlam would not evade the Lich. In the end, none ever did.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

The birds flocked to Him. They brought him news; they were fast becoming an network of seeing Eyes. They spread the word of what he whispered to them in the dark. He Will Find You. He Will Find You - they whispered to the ends of the earth. Embla no doubt felt the burning of these eyes no matter how far form the Spire she fled. She had proven useful in one thing only; a name. Essala. He breathed it like smoke into the cold of the night and felt warm with the knowledge that she would feel his teeth upon her neck. Embla shivered when she met his eyes, shivered when he spoke. As she failed to find anything in the desert. As she failed to find anything after going out - again, again ... Nessmuk's patience was wearing dangerously thin. He showed his teeth to her, there, upon the Spire, before she left again for regions unknown. Unfamiliar scents clang to the hairs of her pelt; wolves that she had spoken with, she said and yet ... he smelled something /else/ upon her. A deeper scent, like ... wet earth after the rains; like a windless day where the hair hangs heavy; like deep caverns far from the sun. The scent hung in his nostrils and haunted him for days until ... ah. Until the realization felt like blood splattered upon the snow. Nessmuk smiled. In the dead of the night, he left Spire, left Home. Fuhǭ watched him go with a lowered head, half-bowed as he followed Embla's trail with quiet steps and veiled teeth. He is Coming, the birds soon whispered. He is Coming.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

And Embla led him right to ... Essala. Essala. Concealed within the shadows, still amongst the brush, wings half-roused in unconscious expression of anticipation, he saw ... Her. She. The slayer of B'dlam. The bird-killer. Nessmuk grinned in terrible delight. She, black as the shadow upon the moon - eyes captured reflections of that same moon (light) - wings folded so carefully upon her back. Small. Smelling of damp earth. Danger flashing beneath the surface of her features so carefully restrained as Embla threw herself before her, stinking of Fear.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

He watched as Essala sank her teeth in the fine flesh of Embla's throat. Nessmuk saw, felt, witnessed, as Embla drew her last breath. He stepped from the darkness that had embraced him so wholly, his wings folded neatly against his back and his teeth stretched wide in a horrible grin. Nessmuk laughed, laughed like rattling bones and bits of scrimshaw dashed against the shores.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

"We meet at last, slayer of B'dlam, bird-killer ..." Nessmuk raised his chin and snarled, pleased. "Essala." "You came all this way - just for little old me?" Her words were soft between them, wicked in a way that threatened to attract all the more of his Interest. "You shouldn't have."

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

"And ... what do I find?" Nessmuk asked, quiet. Quiet. "A creature; not quite Here. Not quite Wolf." Curiosity. Interest. Questions, oh questions; how? How? How? Burned into his cold, dead heart.

ᛜ ᛜ ᛜ

"Should I suppose," she began with a leg lifted as if she might step closer yet, "that you seek... my blood next then?" The thought was closed as own ivory daggers sought the flesh of her leg, watching, watching as the blood let freely into the earth. Mixing, mixing, with Embla's life-fluid. It didn't hold much power alone but - Together it might just be enough. "So sorry to have to keep you waiting, yet again." As if summoned from the black-watered lagoon, a spectral silhouette kissed the sun from the depths of Nessmuk's own grand shadow. An alligator with hide of onyx, a shadow as corporeal as He and She sunk tooth into Nessmuk's hide.

Run, bird-killer, run! He will come again.