ORIGIN

Shrike had never been drunk in her life. She'd never had the opportunity, and it wasn't like alcohol flowed freely in the caves.

But when she dragged herself back down into the Hole, exhausted and bleary, she felt the closest she'd ever come to a hangover. She couldn't really... remember, most of last night. She tasted blood in her mouth and she was pretty damn sure she was very, very dehydrated, and parts of her flanks and ribs were battered.

She was alive, though; so she was here, hauling herself wearily into a sitting position and sighing as she perched before the Altar once more.

She considered, for awhile. Thought about things she might say. About how Corruption had embraced her, and she it, in turn. About how the nightmares were becoming pleasant to her, despite their contents never changing. About how the hum of power was thrilling thick and Oily through her veins.

In the end, when she spoke, it was brief and sardonic. "Think I overdid it," she told the Altar, and sighed.

She had hunted, today, before coming here. The bird she held clenched in her mandibles was limp, its tongue hanging from its beak, its beautiful blue feathers spattered with blood. Shrike didn't care that her prey was feathered the way she was. If anything, she held it tighter, mad-eyed exhilaration singing of the artistry of bloodlust and of death-

...Yeah, the Chaos was starting to get to her.

This one had no gemstone. She'd been hoping it would: hoping it'd decay into Oil that she could consume here at the Altar. Previously it'd been too disgusting a concept, but now? Now it almost appealed to her.

Alas, this one was just flesh and blood, and did not decay in that manner. Thus she made a display of violence, instead, ripping the bird limb from limb atop the smooth surface of the Altar itself before devouring it, leaving a thrashed scattering of feathers behind.

Then she sat, her eyes too bright--as though with fever--as she stared into the middle distance above the Altar. These daily visits were changing her, and changing of themselves, too: from tedious necessity to something she looked forward to. She fidgeted only slightly, wings mantled, as she lost herself in the visions: war and violence, murder and ferocity.

Her beak dripped with Oil and blood.

Shrike fluffed herself up as she wound her way down the tunnel.

She liked how she looked, down here. Jet black, with eerie white streaks running down from her eyes. She couldn't see those eyes, or those streaks, but she knew that they were there. Shrike wondered what her eyes themselves looked like. She'd seen her reflection in water. She knew her irises were white, with black pupils. That meant that, in this Voidlight, they'd be points of pale in a jet background. She wished that she could see it.

Shrike paused at the Altar, laying her prey--a large lizard, which she'd selected for the obvious Tourmaline jutting from its skull--atop it. Blood trickled down as she sat back, eyes closing.

She would 'pray.' Meditate. Lose herself in the visions of violence. And then she'd consume what was left--after the lizard had been melted into Oil. It was just one more way of drawing the corruption into her body, and embracing it.

She hadn't visited this place in a long time. It wasn't for lack of desire; if anything, the delicious singe that burned her veins had distracted her, so she'd gone about wandering, fighting, oblivious to her own condition.

It was the battle with the Unbound Champion that had... awoken her, again. Bloodlust had roared in her, triumph, victory, savagery--and then it had been over. She'd been left... empty.

She returned now as if seeking some echo of that. She felt itchy. Impatient. Yes... empty. A mug that had to be filled with blood, or something, she didn't know. She was bad at metaphors. She just knew she wanted more.

Maybe this was damning her, cursing her. Maybe it would be her salvation. But once again she was here, curled before The Dark Altar, fidgeting and hissing with blazing eyes and parted mandibles as she invited it all in.

When she arrived, today, it was limping and hissing. She'd tried to make a kill on the way in. To fly up, and slam down on a rat she'd spotted.

Her intention had been to consume the oil as it decayed, to hasten the influence of Corruption within her body.

It'd darted aside at the last minute and she'd slammed herself into the rock. Her right haunch was sore and bruised, and her ego even moreso, the inherent Chaos that twisted through her sparking her frustration into fury.

It was its own sort of lesson, seething and snarling through her, as she took her place before the altar.

She 'meditated' on her rage, and on her desire to destroy. When she was done here? She'd go out and she would kill something. She had to, now. She almost felt that... she had no choice.

Another day, another bout of slithering down the long, dark tunnel into the ancient altar's voidlight.

Shrike shook her feathers out as she came. The Oil that slid from her eyes was starting to get everywhere, and it was a little gross, the prospect of having that all over. Sure, she wanted SOME oil when she preened, but this goopy shit stank.

Oh, well. It had an intimidation factor, at least, and she'd been pristine white for far too long.

She could feel that she was... nearly there. Nearly... toppled, over some edge she couldn't see, only vaguely feel. The chaos in her veins thrummed, vibrated, sang, whispered, threatened, roared. She stood upon a precipice. If she but listened to it a little longer, climbed a little higher, crested that black ridge--she could leap from the other side.

Perhaps, on the other side, she would fly. Exultant, wild, mad with freedom. Driven by the cage of chaos, to inflict it how she saw fit.

It burned in her, and she yearned to feed that fire. Just a little longer. Just a little longer left to wait.

It didn't happen all at once. It had been gradual, if she thought about it: each visit down here had been another step toward an irrevocable, final change. And each step had brought with it alteration, in small amounts.

Snippets of chaotic visions, that left her with glimpses of war and violence and change. Dreams of the same.

A bit of oiled black, slicking eyes and feathers.

A heat that rose in her chest, the burning black of Chaos.

She hadn't noticed how far it was all building. How far she'd come. How much, all in all, it was changing her; these gradual steps had taken her on a journey that was, at last, reaching its conclusion.

She meditated here, alone in the voidlight. Her breath joined the whispers that rushed around her. Her gaze drifted, as it did, her mind lost in the violence the Altar always inflicted on her thoughts.

And she took that last step. Her magic melted away; in its place, the final drop of Chaos slid into place in her veins. Shrike shivered at the sensation, and blinked, but didn't otherwise stir. She didn't even know she had been changed. That it was over. That she was truly corrupted, now, one of His.

The diamond 'halo' between her horns had always been too pure for her. Now it darkened, gradually--brightened, in the Voidlight--slick with oiled rainbow. Her eyes shifted with it. The Oil that leaked from those eyes intensified, her formerly pristine feathers growing almost... weathered, tattered, all at once. Ragged.

She wouldn't mind.

Shrike had always been built for destruction.