Testing the substance of identity, the child mouthed, and formed a sound, and shaped it into something it could call its own.
Mary, she named herself. But Lord Dhracia didn't care what name or who she thought she was, only that she wasn't mentally deficient.
Or maybe she did care. Admittedly,
Mary was not the name she expected.
Lord Dhracia hummed over it, but before she could humor that this turn of events was unusual, before she could even let herself be swayed by the child's eager smile, another unexpected disparity had caused this routine to veer off track. A clatter of hooves on the stone, and movement among the bodies she'd been scrutinizing; Lord Dhracia was immediately aware of a break in the line, but didn't part the veil of gravity her attention was honed in on until her attention itself was summoned. Which seemed inevitable--the intuition of it imparted a ghost of amusement on her lips, even before Lord Dhracia straightened up and turned around.
HEY! ASSHOLES!!
My, this coil was rife with surprises. But she chose to see it as a good omen.
Before them was a spitfire, bolder than all the rest. Perhaps, no,
definitely stupider. A small animal that possessed no crude weapons of war except the daggers on its head. Unlike the rest of these beasts holding their breath in comprehension that their existence hinged on obedience,
this one didn't care so much for self-preservation as it did self-satisfaction. This one operated in direct confluence of impulse and chaos--and if that wasn't the utter embodiment of the tenets Lord Dhracia served, she had to admit, she didn't know what a greater definition of it could be. Each expletive that spat from the antelope drew Lord Dhracia's smile wider, until she realized that she was no longer pretending.
Hah. Hahah!
A fool to smile at insult and injury, perhaps; Lord Dhracia almost wished that her skin was thin enough for this pest to pierce, just to feel that earnest and undisciplined rage. A lack of restraint could prove another point to the Leviathan and his creations, but she only smiled! And now, woe, she
laughed! Are you seeing this, Hive? Are you seeing this, Creator? Lord Dhracia has found a creature more powerful than both of you--impossible to exceed in its damning tenacity.
A God could smite those that threaten it, but only a mortal had the staying power to stare death in the face and
goad it!
The chilling symphony of Lord Dhracia's laughter bounced between the walls. This indiscretion might have bent her authority some, and for that, she had to bolster it again. But, until the tiny antelope had finished its tirade, she only laughed. Whatever qualm the creature was bitching about went unregistered--it was microscopic in the scope of Lord Dhracia's concerns--even the nature of its verbiage, offensive to the infantile ears of her bomb, rolled off Lord Dhracia's back ineffective. However! Lord Dhracia was never one to shirk an opportunity! And when the antelope had exhausted its vocabulary and Lord Dhracia's laughter wheedled into wiping a tear from her eye, she ignored the vulture, looked at Vargas (as though to charm,
are you seeing this?), looked at Mary, and flourished with revelation.
Never one to shirk an opportunity. Oh, but how she wished she could entertain this little beast a while longer, and have it, in turn, entertain her. Unfortunate that Lord Dhracia was too ambulatory these days to establish a court for jesters.
“Have you ever questioned what it is you monsters serve?” Her voice cracked sudden like lightning through the room, electrically charged with treacherous mirth. The smile remained, only it was poison now, bleeding toxic vapors that sought to choke and kill everyone it touched.
“You see it now. This--” Lord Dhracia gestured to the antelope and lifted her eyes to her audience,
“--this reckless abandon is the helix of your constitution. This ferocity. This destruction of self! This is what you're made of!” She laughed again!
“One day, you all will shed this disgusting facsimile of life you think you possess. One day, you will serve me exactly as this mote does. You are carnage that is MINE to wield! I AM CHAOS, AND YOU ARE MY INSTRUMENTS OF EXECUTION!” She erupted, and laughed, and beckoned the shadows that scrawled the walls that had been lying in wait this entire time.
The darkness throbbed and bled from recesses in the stone. It gushed out onto the floor, splashed like a roaring waterfall, whipped the air and turned it hot and cold all at once. Darkness from all corners. It stretched, it yawned, it rippled toward the antelope and ensconced it within tendrils of biting void. Eyes peeled open, rolling and gaping over their newest meal. Yes, it would
devour. Yes, this was its purpose! This was its purpose, and their purpose, and the antelope's purpose--chaos that ate itself over and over, the infinite ouroboros of destruction and recombination and destruction again!
Lord Dhracia willed them all to look and keep looking, for this was their Fate to be turned into weapons for Lord Dhracia and her Hands and her House of Chaos.
Her
Mother Valkhound, the first of the Gembound to have ever heard the voice of Creator and accept His influence, would once more pursue its natural purpose--to rend, to eat, to rip apart. Such was the ultimate Fate of all creatures born in this nest, under the Masters' schematics, and to the reservoirs that had parasitized the aftermath.
The antelope was enveloped, eaten from the inside out; and after the shadows were done and retracted up Lord Dhracia's leg to live in the darkness of the stole on her shoulders, all that would be left was a crumpled, bleeding skin, smears of viscera, crimson bones, and a stone.