Angel Tongue

novem

He was a shadow, a fleeting mirage in the sea of beings that now found themselves traversing the the city's many cobblestone streets. There one second, gone the next, virtually nothing.

The stones beneath him were dirty, coated with centuries' worth of dirt and grime, tainted a graying brown under the annoyingly familiar overcast sky. Ignizia was supposed to be fiery, he thought. Why is it so overcast then? The only fire he felt right now was the one which radiated from inside him, warming his body from the tips of his hairs to the pad of his toes. He looked around at the buildings, all of them built of some kind of stone or brick, all of them either a blushing scarlet or a milky beige. They had been built of varying heights, he noticed, each new building striving to be taller, grander, more beautiful than the last.

Beauty in futility, his mind sung lightheartedly.

From behind his shadows, he let out a smile, starting out small, then growing to show more and more of his teeth. Shown, but not seen of course. After all, he was a shadow.

The master had not been pleased to discover that the Behemoth had, after eighteen years of searching, found the boy, only to let him slip from his fingers thanks to those Manus Dei animals. The shadow had glued his gaze to the floor, just as he was doing now, remarking on the exquisite flooring broken up multiple times by almost invisible cracks, smiling at the beauty of the decorations placed upon something as trivial as the ground, as the screams of the charcoal skinned bastard rang through the halls of the master's estate. He held his gaze downward when the master, in a fit of frustrated anger, questioned-no, interrogated him if he had known about the Behemoth's dastardly failure.

He kept his eyes low, ever so stoic, despite the fact that he did not like doing that, did not like bowing down, waiting for just the right moment, the right turn of emotion to make his move.

And so he waited. And waited. When finally, the master's anger had begun to simmer down to a more acceptable level, he took the chance. His voice did not shake as he recounted what he had done, nor did it raise in hopefulness as the master smiled at the news. He revealed his exposition like a statue, or something pretending to be a statue, his body still, his voice carefully tempered into obedient tones. There he laid out all the pieces in his plan, all the wayward dots and dashes, before connecting them to one another to the delight of the master. With every line he drew between the pieces, a new victory was being formed for him, with every connection a new opportunity.

The master had been very satisfied of course; the contours of a smile deepening and two eyes emitting a solitary twinkle were things only the shadow saw. Yes, the master had said, do that and you will be in my graces for as long as you don't give me reason for the opposite. Do that and you shall be great, and everyone will know your name as my hallowed warrior.

He looked down at his leather sandals as he walked along the street. The material was pristine, glossed, well-brushed, untouched as of yet, revealing and reveling in its newness. When the master gave him the blessing to continue with his plan, he had gone to the best leather worker he knew right away to commission them, made specially for him out of a grand minotaur's hide, freshly skinned just for this pair. Good craftsmanship, high-quality material. New slippers for a new day, for a new mission, for a new kill.

His hand gripped the dagger he had kept hidden under his cloak, tracing its curves. This one was not brand new. Instead, it was something he had had for a long time now, so long that he did not even remember when he first got it. As far as he knew, it could have been with him since he was born. Almost a foot long, extremely sharp, it smelled of the iron of blood, of sweet, sweet death, all of these things that he had acquired a taste for over the years.

In his mind, images began to take over the vast darkness, replacing the black with differing shades. Brown. Grey. Red. Fiery orange. There were masses huddled beneath him, their heads craning upwards, upwards at him. Their arms reached out to him, their lips spelled out his name. Hero, came their clamor, you are our hero. He looked up then, to the dark clouds that festered above him, and there, the master. Even the master was smiling, a foreign emotion placed in between raised eyebrows.

Pride. The master will be proud of him if-no, when-he succeeds.

He smiled to himself once more, his heartbeat unable to stay calm, accelerating at the prospect of the future. A future that he was guaranteed, as long as he kept to the plan he had oh so inadvertently put into motion, as long as he kept the gears turning, turning, turning. As long as he crushed anything, anyone that stood in the way of his machinations.

The people around him kept moving, going about they lives as if something important was not about to start. A woman, dressed in plain garb, stepped briskly past him, carrying a basket of dirty clothes. A man, part of the city state's military force, it seemed by the way he dressed, walked leisurely by, looking down on the others, the peasants that crowded the paths before him. A handful of children, their faces, their hands, their entire bodies grimy and their clothes disheveled, ran around the people crowding the street, making swerves, pushing people away as they played a game known only to them.

The shadow almost laughed, a loud, candid bellow of mirth. These people saw nothing, nothing of what was to come afterward, when the circle that had started will complete itself. He, however, could almost smell it in the air, in the pungent odor of sweat that arose from the writhing bodies all around him. He could almost feel it, that rush of air, of something so precious, of life itself, that would come. He was filled with two emotions, eagerness of what was to come once all the pieces had been set and place, and desperation. Desperation to succeed, to accomplish something, to make the master proud of him.

With a determined sigh, he kept on walking, slinking by the corners just like a shadow, hidden from the wandering eyes of anyone else.