DIRTY MANGY DOG

ya think the roads safe? [medievalblr rp blog, 18+, mdni, will get nasty and gory at times]

[overdose-art]

dirk bouts, fall of the damned, c. 1470 (details)

[blackdogstalks]

hey hey hey. if i manage to convince some knight to come out there to fight should they have weapons or not

@mrknightside

weapons. always better with weapons.

[blackdogstalks]

yea well it doesn't matter if you try to kill me with blades n bolts n arrows and mace and the stuff I will only die if my boss letsme

[mrknightside]

what boss

[blackdogstalks]

If I tell anyone they make my blood bad

[blackdogstalks]

Give Me Your Money

[blackdogstalks]

yea well it doesn't matter if you try to kill me with blades n bolts n arrows and mace and the stuff I will only die if my boss letsme

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[mrknightside]

(It feels nice, to be eaten. Without the pain, it just feels like a stretch, then nothing. It's more the sight of someone with his mouth on its thigh to send a quiet heat into its gut than the feeling or the idea. It'll ignore the feeling and question it later. Focus on getting eaten.)

"I taste good?" (Its voice is fainter than it wanted. The blood won't stop, won't run out, for ever and ever. Gods, this feels nice.) "I- you tasted good too. I think. You felt good. Gods."

[blackdogstalks]

licking at the wound, lapping up the blood. He seems better now, a bit more alive. Consume to restore. such is the way of living. he moves his head up, pushing it against its hand, a dog looking for more pets. ''how kind of ya to say. 'n how kind of ya to let me eat at your body. eye for an eye and the world is even, ain't that right?"

[mrknightside]

"Uh huh, eye fer an eye. Leg fer a leg. You can- uhm. You can have more. Won't take much to heal. Doesn't hurt, either." (It scratches at his head, once again comparing this man to a dog. He's pretty with blood in his teeth.) "Just, uh. Gods. Just need t stick my leg in a deer or something later."

[blackdogstalks]

"stick yer leg in a deer? well, i ain't one to judge." he sits up, and takes the knife he poked the hole in the barrel with. he holds the sellsword's leg, and cuts off a proper, long piece of meat off the not-so-badly-bitten parts of the thigh. he eats it without much thought, chewing chew chew chew. a swallow, and that's it. he looks down at his own wounds, the odd way the blood repairs the bitten holes. he snickers a little at the sight. "we're even now, then. thanks."

[mrknightside]

"Even. Even and odd." (It says without thinking. It watches him eat. Hunger gnaws in its stomach again. It never stops. The edge is gone, at least.)

(It watches the wounds heal. What a shame it won't be able to leave him injured. It likes seeing the blood on him. Their shared blood.) "Are we more even or odd?"

[blackdogstalks]

"in terms of favors, even. ya fed me, I fed ya. I thought ya were gonna leave after ye finished eatin' at me."

A mindless scratch over his exposed chest. Healing itches.

"in terms of behavior, odd. no damn animal lets itself be eaten or eats another without a fight. this is what makes us other kind of animals. we are able to talk."

[mrknightside]

"Wanted t make sure you'd actually heal. Be a shame if you died so soon. Ain't many undead that have put up with me for long. Ain't many livin who do that, either. Besides, I like givin things to folks. Can't do that if you're dead."

(It starts putting the cuisse and poleyn back on. Buckle the straps, tighten them more than the armor was designed for. Loose armor is a pain to deal with.)

"Even and odd and equal. Can't be more even than odd, so we have to be equal."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye. equal." he huffs a little, content. "so ya care about me, even if i'm a stranger to ya? how kind of ye. not many people spare a thought for them stray beggars." a slight roll of the head. The sky has changed from its midday paleness to the beginning of the bruise of dusk. "equal in our status, aye. but there's many things we ain't alike. but i find ya interestin', rotehund. you're unlike most things ah've seen, aye."

[mrknightside]

"Gotta keep the people who don't hate me close, don't I?"

(It clacks its teeth together and grabs its visor from the grass. It wipes off most of the dirt and plants and starts putting it back on as it stands up.)

"We're alike enough. Dead dogs. Most folk don't let me eat them. If I, uh. If you'd let me, I'd would like to. Repeat this. I can bring more, uh. Whatever you want. Gold. Ducks. Stuff for the dogs. I like eatin people who won't die or go off an tell the guards. An you can eat me."

[blackdogstalks]

a turn of the head. he smiles at it, but it's not a sweet smile, it's not the smile of a normal human, it's some sort of smirk, crooked and showing off a bit of teeth. His eyes narrow. He seems amused. "if ya say so, little hound. i'll know how to find ya. my dogs will tell me if they keep seein' you around. sounds like a good alliance to me." "thanks for the charity, sellsword. i wish ya good fortune in yer deeds. and may your armor never rust."

[blackdogstalks]

spare a coin? it may just save yer life.

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[mrknightside]

(It feels nice, to be eaten. Without the pain, it just feels like a stretch, then nothing. It's more the sight of someone with his mouth on its thigh to send a quiet heat into its gut than the feeling or the idea. It'll ignore the feeling and question it later. Focus on getting eaten.)

"I taste good?" (Its voice is fainter than it wanted. The blood won't stop, won't run out, for ever and ever. Gods, this feels nice.) "I- you tasted good too. I think. You felt good. Gods."

[blackdogstalks]

licking at the wound, lapping up the blood. He seems better now, a bit more alive. Consume to restore. such is the way of living. he moves his head up, pushing it against its hand, a dog looking for more pets. ''how kind of ya to say. 'n how kind of ya to let me eat at your body. eye for an eye and the world is even, ain't that right?"

[mrknightside]

"Uh huh, eye fer an eye. Leg fer a leg. You can- uhm. You can have more. Won't take much to heal. Doesn't hurt, either." (It scratches at his head, once again comparing this man to a dog. He's pretty with blood in his teeth.) "Just, uh. Gods. Just need t stick my leg in a deer or something later."

[blackdogstalks]

"stick yer leg in a deer? well, i ain't one to judge." he sits up, and takes the knife he poked the hole in the barrel with. he holds the sellsword's leg, and cuts off a proper, long piece of meat off the not-so-badly-bitten parts of the thigh. he eats it without much thought, chewing chew chew chew. a swallow, and that's it. he looks down at his own wounds, the odd way the blood repairs the bitten holes. he snickers a little at the sight. "we're even now, then. thanks."

[mrknightside]

"Even. Even and odd." (It says without thinking. It watches him eat. Hunger gnaws in its stomach again. It never stops. The edge is gone, at least.)

(It watches the wounds heal. What a shame it won't be able to leave him injured. It likes seeing the blood on him. Their shared blood.) "Are we more even or odd?"

[blackdogstalks]

"in terms of favors, even. ya fed me, I fed ya. I thought ya were gonna leave after ye finished eatin' at me."

A mindless scratch over his exposed chest. Healing itches.

"in terms of behavior, odd. no damn animal lets itself be eaten or eats another without a fight. this is what makes us other kind of animals. we are able to talk."

[mrknightside]

"Wanted t make sure you'd actually heal. Be a shame if you died so soon. Ain't many undead that have put up with me for long. Ain't many livin who do that, either. Besides, I like givin things to folks. Can't do that if you're dead."

(It starts putting the cuisse and poleyn back on. Buckle the straps, tighten them more than the armor was designed for. Loose armor is a pain to deal with.)

"Even and odd and equal. Can't be more even than odd, so we have to be equal."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye. equal." he huffs a little, content. "so ya care about me, even if i'm a stranger to ya? how kind of ye. not many people spare a thought for them stray beggars." a slight roll of the head. The sky has changed from its midday paleness to the beginning of the bruise of dusk. "equal in our status, aye. but there's many things we ain't alike. but i find ya interestin', rotehund. you're unlike most things ah've seen, aye."

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[mrknightside]

(It feels nice, to be eaten. Without the pain, it just feels like a stretch, then nothing. It's more the sight of someone with his mouth on its thigh to send a quiet heat into its gut than the feeling or the idea. It'll ignore the feeling and question it later. Focus on getting eaten.)

"I taste good?" (Its voice is fainter than it wanted. The blood won't stop, won't run out, for ever and ever. Gods, this feels nice.) "I- you tasted good too. I think. You felt good. Gods."

[blackdogstalks]

licking at the wound, lapping up the blood. He seems better now, a bit more alive. Consume to restore. such is the way of living. he moves his head up, pushing it against its hand, a dog looking for more pets. ''how kind of ya to say. 'n how kind of ya to let me eat at your body. eye for an eye and the world is even, ain't that right?"

[mrknightside]

"Uh huh, eye fer an eye. Leg fer a leg. You can- uhm. You can have more. Won't take much to heal. Doesn't hurt, either." (It scratches at his head, once again comparing this man to a dog. He's pretty with blood in his teeth.) "Just, uh. Gods. Just need t stick my leg in a deer or something later."

[blackdogstalks]

"stick yer leg in a deer? well, i ain't one to judge." he sits up, and takes the knife he poked the hole in the barrel with. he holds the sellsword's leg, and cuts off a proper, long piece of meat off the not-so-badly-bitten parts of the thigh. he eats it without much thought, chewing chew chew chew. a swallow, and that's it. he looks down at his own wounds, the odd way the blood repairs the bitten holes. he snickers a little at the sight. "we're even now, then. thanks."

[mrknightside]

"Even. Even and odd." (It says without thinking. It watches him eat. Hunger gnaws in its stomach again. It never stops. The edge is gone, at least.)

(It watches the wounds heal. What a shame it won't be able to leave him injured. It likes seeing the blood on him. Their shared blood.) "Are we more even or odd?"

[blackdogstalks]

"in terms of favors, even. ya fed me, I fed ya. I thought ya were gonna leave after ye finished eatin' at me."

A mindless scratch over his exposed chest. Healing itches.

"in terms of behavior, odd. no damn animal lets itself be eaten or eats another without a fight. this is what makes us other kind of animals. we are able to talk."

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[mrknightside]

(It feels nice, to be eaten. Without the pain, it just feels like a stretch, then nothing. It's more the sight of someone with his mouth on its thigh to send a quiet heat into its gut than the feeling or the idea. It'll ignore the feeling and question it later. Focus on getting eaten.)

"I taste good?" (Its voice is fainter than it wanted. The blood won't stop, won't run out, for ever and ever. Gods, this feels nice.) "I- you tasted good too. I think. You felt good. Gods."

[blackdogstalks]

licking at the wound, lapping up the blood. He seems better now, a bit more alive. Consume to restore. such is the way of living. he moves his head up, pushing it against its hand, a dog looking for more pets. ''how kind of ya to say. 'n how kind of ya to let me eat at your body. eye for an eye and the world is even, ain't that right?"

[mrknightside]

"Uh huh, eye fer an eye. Leg fer a leg. You can- uhm. You can have more. Won't take much to heal. Doesn't hurt, either." (It scratches at his head, once again comparing this man to a dog. He's pretty with blood in his teeth.) "Just, uh. Gods. Just need t stick my leg in a deer or something later."

[blackdogstalks]

"stick yer leg in a deer? well, i ain't one to judge." he sits up, and takes the knife he poked the hole in the barrel with. he holds the sellsword's leg, and cuts off a proper, long piece of meat off the not-so-badly-bitten parts of the thigh. he eats it without much thought, chewing chew chew chew. a swallow, and that's it. he looks down at his own wounds, the odd way the blood repairs the bitten holes. he snickers a little at the sight. "we're even now, then. thanks."

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[mrknightside]

(It feels nice, to be eaten. Without the pain, it just feels like a stretch, then nothing. It's more the sight of someone with his mouth on its thigh to send a quiet heat into its gut than the feeling or the idea. It'll ignore the feeling and question it later. Focus on getting eaten.)

"I taste good?" (Its voice is fainter than it wanted. The blood won't stop, won't run out, for ever and ever. Gods, this feels nice.) "I- you tasted good too. I think. You felt good. Gods."

[blackdogstalks]

licking at the wound, lapping up the blood. He seems better now, a bit more alive. Consume to restore. such is the way of living. he moves his head up, pushing it against its hand, a dog looking for more pets. ''how kind of ya to say. 'n how kind of ya to let me eat at your body. eye for an eye and the world is even, ain't that right?"

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[blackdogstalks]

It's good. It tastes good. Like meat. Like iron, blood. Maybe a bit of decay, like meat about to spoil. It's good.

The way he eats is as desperate as the way he drank the wine. He sticks his tongue in a gash, lapping up at the blood underneath, then bites down again, making his way to the bone. He looks up at Helm for a second, feeling its hand on his head, like a dog being pet as it eats. He swallows back the chunk he ripped out.

"S good" he mumbles with a mouth full of blood. He nibbles a little bit on the edge of the wound he left. Despite the seemingly weak jaws of a man, he tore through the thigh like an animal.

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[mrknightside]

"Why would I kill someone when I could just buy it? Easier to do. Didn't realize how easy buyin stuff was." (It stands up and makes a point of dusting itself off. Yeah, sure, it didn't have to wait long. It still had to wait. It hesitantly pats one of the dogs as they pass it.)

(It thinks for a good few seconds, staring blankly at the barrels.) "I forgot what I wanted. UhhhHH yeah I dunno. You can, uh, go at it. How are you gonna drink all the wine?"

[blackdogstalks]

he opens up the bag with the roasted ducks, tosses a couple at the dogs, which swarm around the birds immediately, tails wagging so hard they may start a tornado at any moment. he takes the third duck with both hands, and takes a bite out of the breast of it, chewing without much politeness but with plenty of pleasure. He rips off one of the legs, and approaches to shove it into the visor as he did with the squirrel early. "try this. s so fuckin good right? right?? different than just roasted over a fire! proper cookin'! god damn!" then, as if answering the last question, he just opens up one of the barrels using a big dagger like a crowbar, and drinks from it by practically dunking his mouth into the dark wine. then he goes, "HAAAAAAH, THAT'S GOOD. THAT'S FUCKIN' GOOD!"

[mrknightside]

(It helps to shove the leg into its helmet, then wipes off its gauntlet with a hint of distaste. It doesn't like grease. Why did it want this? It's not like it can taste it anyway. No sense of taste.) "Tastes fine, I guess."

(It watches the dogs for a moment, then focuses on him. Won't that get duck bits in the wine? It doesn't like chunks in the things it has to drink. Did it bring its straw? It subtly pats one of the pouches it keeps under its tassets to check. Damn.) "Still can't see how you can drink all of that. Surely you aren't lettin the dogs drink it? I think it would make them sick."

[blackdogstalks]

"most dogs dont drink wine but ah do, cus wine's delicious, 'n this is good fuckin' wine!" he sits down on a closed barrel and keeps eating the duck. Big bites, ripping apart chunks of meat and dragging his teeth over the bones to get every last piece of meat he can get. He does eat like a dog. "im jus gonna hide it in a cave n whenever i want wine im gonna go there. s easy. i mostly steal it from like, soldier camps. but s easier to just buy stuff, aye. dont care much for money, but it does buy nice food somtimes, better than eatin' squirrels 'n corpses''

[mrknightside]

(It follows him to stand a pace or two away. Is wine that good? It doesn't really like how it feels when it drinks wine. It carefully watches him eat. Teeth to bone, bone to flesh. Makes it hungry.)

"Soldiers don't watch their stuff well enough." (It hums. Man eater, just like it.) "You eat corpses?"

[blackdogstalks]

"when there ain't nothin' else 'round" he says honestly. not without trying to impress it, nor lying for the sake of morbid things. from the sight of him, it is definitely something done in survival.

"first one i ate was my own back when i was a lil' whelp. but its cus the damn monks didnt give me no meat, we weren't allowed to eat meat, fuckin'... yldurites. hate 'em." another bite. he lets the cleaned bones fall to the soil. he bites down on a wing, crushing the bone, cartilage and cooked meat with crooked teeth. He licks the grease off his lips, cleaning the rest with the back of his hand and his sleeve. "aye, they don't, buncha dumb fucks. 's easy to gut 'em open when they're asleep n drunk. but most people are easy to gut open. most things are, in fact. this duck's so god damn good" CHOMPchompchimp

[mrknightside]

(It stares at him. Man eater. Just like it. Just like it. People can eat people. That means that it eating people doesn't mean it ain't a person. But it's not a person. That must mean he isn't a person either.)

"I haven't eaten any part of me." (Its voice is mild. He ate his own back? His own flesh? Did it scar? Did it taste good?) "Meat is important. Monks must be pretty uhh weak. If they don't eat meat at all."

(It looks away for a moment to sit down and lean against the barrel. It's hungry. It can wait to [feast] until later. It likes this one.) "How'd you, uh, taste."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye, monks are weak as hell, you can just break 'em easy, just pull 'n twist-" and he does the same thing with the second wing- a pull of the joint, then a twist of the wrist, dislocation. he shoves it in his mouth and eats it. a few chews, then a swallow. he licks his teeth. "bad. cus i was starvin'. i woke up 'n i saw my own dead body besides me, and i was mad with hunger. dogs brought me birds and squirrels sometimes. sometimes rats. but i grabbed at the stiff body of me 'n bit down what i could bite down. i was too thin 'nyways. tasted like... all meat. yknow." he finally finishes the duck. he tosses the bones down, then looks at them. a little eyebrow raise, then a look over at the armored creature besides him. "what's your deal, sellsword? what are ye?"

[mrknightside]

(It twists in what should be a painful way in order to look up at him while keeping its helmet on. A pinch in the back of its throat and it doesn't hurt.) "Sounds cool. I didn't get a second body when I died."

(It idly taps the side of the barrel. Less impressive if he didn't eat it from his main body. Or uhh second body? Gets confusin when there's more than one.) "Dunno what I am. Some sort of skinless thing that can't die. Got some uhh bugs that heal me. Been around a long time doin this sort of work. Gamblin. Y'know."

[blackdogstalks]

"gamblin'! that's how ya got all that gold, then? gamblin' 'n winning? audentis fortuna iuvat, somethin' somethin'. never had proper luck mahself, don't like gamblin' unless i can end it in a duel." he gets off the barrel of wine to go dunk his mouth in the open barrel again, lapping at it like a dog. here's one who's true to his nature. "so you ain't got skin 'n yer full of bugs. i ain't ever heard of nothin' like that. got a couple friends, one of em makes undyin' rats full of mushrooms. he talks to the mushrooms 'n stuff. he says they take over the dead n make em better. but never heard of no damn bug. the world's full a wonders, ain't it"

[mrknightside]

(It hums again, a vague acknowledgment.) "I'm decent at gamblin, but most of the gold is from work. Folks pay me a lot, for some reason."

(Dog to dog, sellsword to bandit. Black eyes follow his movement, calculating. It's hungry. Its hands twitch. It's hungry. Rats full of mushrooms. It pulls at a piece of grass. It's hungry.)

"Lotsa wonders. You uhh work with people much?"

[blackdogstalks]

"pays well to be a mercenary, then. how nice." he gets lost in thought for a moment. he's thinking about someone. it doesn't last long. he takes another gulp of wine, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand again. "friends. dogs need packs. i have mine. but 's different than mercenary work. roots... made out of blood. hunger's better shared." his eyes are odd. he himself is odd. aside from the first smile, which was more of a practiced imitation of what he had seen before, he doesn't really emote much, and his voice is flat, completely even, as if he was a corpse that had recently re-learned to speak. indeed, not a human. indeed, maybe more alike to each other. he looks at the way the gauntlet pulls at the grass. "do you not drink, brother?"

[mrknightside]

"Hunger's better shared." (It repeats. It's hungry. Two corpses, companions in hunger. It'll eat later, no matter how badly it wishes to lunge and bite and chew and kill.)

"I don't drink with company." (Its own voice is odd, a carefully maintained androgyny it's held so long that it's forgotten it still does so. It knows how to speak. It doesn't know how to control the tones it worked so hard to teach itself. This tone is mildly disappointed.) "I don't like drinking alone, either. I get paranoid when my mild is altered, and I'd rather not have to deal with that with people I don't trust fully. Besides, I don't have a straw on me."

[blackdogstalks]

"ah see. so you ain't taken a liking to sedation." he sits down on the grass, now. his dogs come over, sniffing his hands and his clothes. he reaches up to take the fourth duck, ripping a leg off and giving the rest to the dogs. as he eats, duck leg in one hand, the other one mindlessly pets the head of whatever dog's closer. they seem content. "see, stranger, why don't ya buy yerself a house or somethin'? you've got enough gold to buy yourself a title 'n a tiny plot ah land, don't ya? you don't seem like the type to enjoy wanderin'. you look exhausted, ya move tired. but i can't blame ya. dyin' is tiresome, indeed.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't like bein scared around people that'll scare me more." (It slowly leans back until gravity pulls it to lay down in the grass. It rolls onto its side so it can still see him.) "Don't like waterboarding myself in general, anyway."

"I've thought about buyin land an a title and shit. Unfortunately, I think I'm the sort of mutt who needs a leash. You don't, hmm? Wild dog?" (It pauses.) "Be nice to settle down, though. You don't want to?"

[blackdogstalks]

he pulls at some tall stalk, cutting it with his nail and this thumb, and bites off the little undeveloped head of chaff, spitting it away. he passes the straw over to Helm, twirling it between his fingers. "wild dog. aye. stray dog. free dog. don't need a house nor a title nor nothin'. i'm free as free can be. not a slave to no one, not even the gods up above. i do as i want whenever i please. i eat, i drink, i fuck, i kill. 's a good life. gold buys you roasted duck, but not freedom, aye?"

[mrknightside]

"Wild dog. Wish I could be a stray. I like being fed from a master's hand too much, though." (It takes the the straw and sticks it into its eye slit. Ow. It crooks its knees and folds its legs. After a moment of consideration, it sticks its hands behind its helmet.) "I tried takin over the castle a short while ago. Didn't work. If it did, I would've had a title and land, I guess. D'you still want that three gold?"

[blackdogstalks]

''nature can't be helped. dogs like ya will seek the master's hand, dogs like me will rather sleep in the cold that have anyone whip us. 's just the way it is, ain't it?''

flop down on the grass. he tucks his hands behind his head, just like it, and a couple of dogs also lay down besides him. he crosses his legs. "Failing at takin' over a castle is still tryin' to take over a castle. not many men can say that they've done that. but if ya had succeeded, ya woulda been a new lord, huh? ...nah. i jus' wanted roasted duck 'n wine. i can get gold from any other poor bastard crossin' them roads. yer entertainin', good talker. i like talkin' to the ones like ye. interestin' stuff ya say.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't get whipped much anymore. They're treatin me like a person. Sucks. I don't think I'm a person."

(It chews on the straw sticking out of its eye socket. Tastes like nothing. Mainly for the enjoyment of having something in its mouth.)

"Want me to, uh, send some folks your way? To jump? Plenty of folks that'll follow what they think is a knight into the woods."

[blackdogstalks]

"you ain't a person if you don't wanna be a person. bein' a person is too much work. 's all actin' pretend 'n takin' the joke of sapience too far. we are the gods' most annoyin' mistakes." a scoff. he closes his eyes, feeling the soft fur of Cat Gutter's head and back. He sighs through his nose like an old dog, and another dog follows suit. "if ya stop followin' those rules, then ya go back to not-person. children, madmen, cripples, foreigners. if ya upset the theatre of humanity, ya get kicked out of the play. don't play along with them rules, brother, unless yer gonna get some sorta benefit from it." "yeah, would be nice. make sure ya send good fighters. i like duelin'. feels good to steal shit from someone tryin' to kill ya."

[mrknightside]

"Plenty of guards and knights around. I'll bring a few out."

(It twitches again. It's hungry. It shouldn't eat him. It's hungry.)

"I don't like being a person. I like the benefits, but people aren't dead. I can be a person until I take off my [exoskeleton]. I- I don't know. The idea of being human is nice, but not the actuality. I don't think I liked being human when I was alive. Easier to be a dog."

[blackdogstalks]

he lifts up a finger. "people are dead. they respect the dead a lot more than they respect the livin' at times. that's why there's... songs 'n poems about cocksuckers 'n their lineages n whatever the hell they did while alive... then they die 'n they make 'em saints. but yeah, the looks affect a lot of it, huh?" he takes a blade of grass, plucking it between his fingers, watching it come undone as he toys with it. "you don't remember bein' alive?"

[mrknightside]

"Easier to be a person when you're pretty." (It mutters.) "They don't make saint or honored bloodlines outta normal folk, do they? And if they do, any paintin's or shit of em always change how they look so they're pretty. Besides, I'm a cocksucker and I ain't heard any songs about me."

(It watches the plant fall apart in his hand. If its visor weren't on, it probably would've lunged. Chewed and ate and killed again and again.) "My first memory is drowning. I figured I was probably a knight, but I dunno. Came with the armor and the, uh, plume and cloak. Look shit nowadays, but they used t'be nicer."

[blackdogstalks]

a laugh. it's weird. more of a snort and an animalistic sound of amusement than a proper laugh. it's honest, at least. a bit like a hyena, if either of these dudes knew what hyenas sound like. "right." he moves his head to look over at the dead thing besides him, and he hums while looking over it. "definitely's old. you stuck in there?"

[mrknightside]

"Stuck in the armor? No. Just hurts to take it off." (As if to prove the point, it adjusts itself so its hands are in the air, and it starts peeling off the left gauntlet. Blood drips down its vambraces. Nice laugh.) "Since I am, uh, fused. Sort of. I guess you don't have that problem?"

[blackdogstalks]

oh, huh. sniff sniff. that's a nice smell. blood under armor. but there's that pungency of rot to it, huh. guess they're different in that way. "nah. i just get hungry. i guess the body runs out of blood while healin', so i gotta make more. 'n i get hungry. 'n there's the convulsions, too. i ain't fond of them. but guess i gotta be thankful i can keep my skin. it just scars bad." "so yer stuck in there, like a mollusk. guess that's just how it is, huh? at least yer always protected with that armor, then. like... a beetle... a hard-shelled animal."

[mrknightside]

"I don't run outta blood ever." (It tosses the gauntlet into the air, then mutters curses when the thing lands on its visor and knocks the partly chewed straw fully into its helmet. It sits up and sticks the skinned hand into the metal to try and retrieve the plant.) "An I get hungry but I don't haveta eat ever. Can you regrow limbs? That might be a bug thing. That's, uh, heh. Two bug things I guess I have. With the shell."

[blackdogstalks]

he laughs again, with his odd animal laugh, at the gauntlet incident and the following rummaging in its own visor. ''you dont gotta eat? lucky, then you don't gotta spend so much time lookin' for food, huh? but bein' hungry sucks. you got any way to satisfy the hunger?" ...he thinks about it. "aye, i can regrow limbs. takes me a while, though. 's better if i can just reattach it. gotta hold it a while, though. ya must be some sorta crab. or a metal lobster. man-sized metal lobster. would be a nice beast to draw on the margins of a prayer book."

[mrknightside]

"I can still eat, mutt." (It mutters, embarrassed.) "You fed me that squirrel and duck leg earlier. An I am capable of removin my visor. I eat people an animals sometimes. I just spent most of a century not eatin. You gotta nice laugh. Do you think it's from your larynx? If I took it would you regrow it?"

[blackdogstalks]

"yeah but ya don't die from not eatin', right? starvation sucks. it eats your brain 'n your body 'n leaves you rottin' before you die for real. consider yerself lucky, if hunger won't kill you. then it ain't no different from an itch to scratch nstead of a need." scratch, scratch. he scratches at his own chin, then hums while pressing two fingers to his larynx. "yeah. i've had my head cut off. took me a bit to speak, but ah can do it. why? you wanna open up my throat?"

[mrknightside]

"Yeah." (It twists around to stare at him, pulling its hand out of its helmet. It's hungry.) "How much can you regrow? I'm hungry. Think it would be interesting if we swapped throats."

[blackdogstalks]

a weird smile crawls up on his face. there's a sickening curiosity brewing now; he's the kind of man that likes taking things as far as possible. and when you can't die, then, everything's a ''why the hell not". this is new. "i 'unno. but i won't die. guess i gotta repay yer kindness somehow, eh? go right ahead. i'm dyin' to know too."

[mrknightside]

"Yeah yeah yeah give me a minute." (It starts pulling on its visor. Undo the latches, pull off the leather, unscrew the bolts. Peel the metal away from the skull, drip blood onto its cuirass. Ow ow ow. Set the plate aside, check his face for a reaction.)

[blackdogstalks]

his face remains neutral, almost bored. when the peeling of the visor is done, however, he does raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. he sits up, sniffing at it. sniff sniff. a couple of dogs join, too, but he growls at them, and they back off. "no wonder ya smelled so good. reminds me of skinned venison." he licks at the blood seeping through the muscle tissue of its cheek, underneath the pale lines of where the cheekbone is. a tongue click, as if tasting wine. "interestin'. i've never met nothin' like ye. i've seen undead a bit like this, keepin' their wounds, more skinned or burnt flesh than man, but not as lucid."

[mrknightside]

"How do I taste?" (Its voice is slightly slurred from the pain of skinning itself and the sudden face up close to it.) "Like, uhh. Deer?"

(Chew bite gnaw eat consume feast. Instead of doing what it really really wants to, it reaches up to press its own fingers into its throat.)

[blackdogstalks]

''like all meat does. like a dead thing.'' a tilt of the head. like a confused dog. he turns his head to look at his dogs, and does a few chittering, bark-like noises. ears perk up, and each dog leaves their own way, some leaving together, some leaving for the forest on their own. they probably get mad when they see him get hurt. safer without 'em around. "what'cha doin'?"

[mrknightside]

"Gotta remove the larynx to switch them, don't-" (Its voice gets garbled as the muscle parts for its fingers. Its eyes stay fixed on him. Blood drips down down down, mixing into the grass. Red and green makes such a pretty brown, doesn't it?)

[blackdogstalks]

A LAUGH. "oh, ya were serious about it! right, right. i didn't expect ya to do that. yers comes off easy, huh?" he sits down, kneeling. He unsheathes the big knife by his side. He looks at the larynx between the dead knight's fingers. Blood has such a good smell. It makes him hungry again. but it doesn't matter. his eyes fix back on theirs, and he puts three fingers over his own throat-apple, feeling the larynx. As if calculating. He pulls at the skin a little, then, plunges the knife into his own throat. Blood. The sharp pain shooting up into the back of his eyes, the urge to stop. But his eyes remain fixed on it, as if dueling, while he twists the knife and drags it down. He does his best to contain it, but blood begins to force its way out of his mouth. He does that noise men do when stabbed- that choked, skittery sound of pain. His other hand pulls while the other works the blade stuck in his own throat. A dare.

[mrknightside]

(Its jaw goes slack as it watches, its own fingers wrapping around its larynx and pulling. Muscle and flesh and tendons tears. Hunger slams into it, and it jolts forward. Fingers still in its own throat, its still-gauntleted hand joins the mess on his throat. It tugs at the flesh, tugging it out of the way so it can see better. Easier for him to cut, too. Gods, it's hungry.)

[blackdogstalks]

Blood! It comes out of him in neat bursts, out of the wound and out of his mouth, out of his nose, aspiration of the liquid filling his throat to blame. It burns and it hurts, but he cannot help but laugh in a deranged gurgling sound as it lunges for the wound in his throat. he lets go of the knife, feeling the sudden sedation of blood loss make him dizzy. caro enim mea vere est cibus. he doesn't fight back against the urge to die, feeling the ever familiar sensation of limbs going cold and limp. the blood from his mouth smells a bit like wine. his eyes glaze over and become half-lidded, body threatening to fall back.

[mrknightside]

(It fumbles for a moment. It can wait to eat, it can finish what it wanted to do first. It shoves its hand into his throat, wraps the hand around his larynx, and pulls. It pulls its own larynx out at the same time, a slow trickle of blood following it. No blood pressure, it seems. Dead thing. It shoves its larynx into his throat, and shoves his larynx into its throat. It'll take a few hours to heal if the bugs don't decide to prioritize it. Job done well enough, it shoves his body to the ground and presses its teeth to his throat. Not the larynx, the flesh around it. Muscle and tendon. Pull and chew and consume.)

[blackdogstalks]

tastes like meat. like all meat does. like formerly living thing. he does a few choking noises for a couple of seconds, before all noise dies with a little rattle from his throat. his eyes do follow it, though, even if the body feels dead. he's smiling even while trapped in the paralysis of temporary death. tastes like iron, like curses, like all meat does. take yer fill, i don't mind.

[mrknightside]

(It pants and chews and eats. It doesn't want to have to redo the pain of tearing out its throat. Move away from the throat, dig into the shoulders and the chest and ribs and dig and dig and dig and feast and it's so hungry always it hurts it's so hungry the gods may damn it but it's in heaven kneeling here for ever and ever and)

[blackdogstalks]

here i am, stranger, opened up like a gutted animal before ya. tendons, muscle, fatty layer protectin' the viscera within. the covering of the ribs, the pale connections of fat atween organs. stomach, intestines, the reek of 'em, the heart, the liver, the lungs underneath, a whole feast laid out for ya. don't say i'm not generous. it feels weird. all i do is feel the tug of yer teeth 'n claws as you eat away. ain't it good? just another fucked up carcass for ya to get rid of an urge with. an unnatural jolt, a sudden convulsion of the hands. a weak kick. senseless movements. almost as if still laughing.

[mrknightside]

(It twitches as if considering backing off. It doesn't move away. Its blood mixes with his. Teeth knock against ribs. When's the last time it was able to feast well? It doesn't remember the last person it ate. Gods, it's so hungry. Break the ribs, get them out of the way. It's running hot. Does it hurt to have its hands inside? Does it hurt to be eaten?)

[blackdogstalks]

it hurts in sudden flashes. but it feels good. it's nice. 's the only way i can rest. it feels funny to have its fingers diggin' in, pulling, breaking precious things. it feels odd to feel the wind over things normally kept hidden. like the whole world's rushin' in to dry up the blood. There's so much damn blood. it gets everywhere! 's fun. there's that little pang of pain from the moments the body tries wakin' up. like stabs into his soul. his diaphragm sinks in and he lets out a bellow from its weight forcing the air out of his lungs. it's nice to be eaten. almost makes me feel wanted.

[mrknightside]

(It pauses to shove a hand into his mouth and down his throat. Shut up shut up shut up. It doesn't want any wanderers coming by, or the dogs running back. It stares for a moment, then it can't resist the urge to return to his throat. Cover the larynx, eat everything else. Chew and pull and feast. Gods, everybody looks good covered in shared blood.)

[blackdogstalks]

his hand has a weird twitch to it. His head jerks to the side for a moment, then nothing again. The odd push of the larynx that doesn't belong to him. He's a bit colder now, and his eyes have gone from tracking the movements to being hidden under the eyelids, proper of a corpse. The fingers in his mouth feel funny. He wonders if it fucks like it eats. Maybe he'll know one day. Another new thing to try.

heh.

[mrknightside]

(Cold meat isn't as fun to eat. It'll still feast, of course, but it prefers warm meat. Mindless consumption slows down as the body under it moves, and it pulls back again. Stare down at the body, shove its fingers into the throat, can it get its fingers into the diaphragm? Blood covers its teeth, and its maw hangs open. Chunks of meat are stuck between the fangs.)

[blackdogstalks]

A slight twitch of the body. But that's it. Can't do much when I'm dead, ah guess. Not my fault I go cold so dang fast.

[mrknightside]

(It's still hungry. It's always hungry. For ever and ever and ever and ever. It's not mindless. It forces itself away from the body, no matter how inviting he looks, and it grabs the last duck. Teeth dig into incredibly less inviting cooked meat. He said he could heal. It'll wait until he can talk. It can control itself. It'll wait until it can talk.)

[blackdogstalks]

it takes hours.

at first he's just there, dead. then, wounds begin to close. A hurried process. Tissue rebuilt, spilled blood crawling back up. The larynx is rejected- a second one begins to build itself, pushing it out of the way. Like if some sort of invisible spider or army was rebuilding every piece of tissue lost. Around the third hour, despite most of his torso still being exposed and torn open, the heart underneath the half-healed ribs beats, and in turn, the corpse convulses before Joachim screams, taking a big and painful gasp after. He rolls to his side, shaking, curling up. His face screams pain, and he kicks away at nothing, clutching his own torso and whisper-screaming, lungs becoming full of air again. "FUCK" is his first word this time.

[mrknightside]

(The corpse watches. It does seem to do a lot of that. It watches him struggle and regrow and mend and scream. Its own bugs have long since finished their own work attaching the new larynx to its throat. It'll rot, most likely, and it'll have to remove it in a few days anyway.)

(It watches the larynx it gave get rejected, and it feels something heavy settle in its chest. Damn. It was hoping that was going to work. He has to keep the flesh. It can exchange it. What a shame.)

"Alive?" (It croaks, its voice a horrible mix between his and its own. Two voices speaking as one. It wanted his laugh. It can test that later.)

[blackdogstalks]

a wheeze. he nods. he unfurls himself, crawling over to the opened barrel of wine, forcing himself to push up and dunk his entire head into the barrel. He drinks with desperation, trying to drown out the pain, but then the alcohol reaches the wounds still open on his torso, and he screams again. he lets go of the barrel, looking over at the exposed wounds and the wine confusing itself with his blood. He pant-laughs, clenching his fists in pain. "alive" he croaks back. hoarse and strange. trying to re-learn to breathe.

[mrknightside]

"You did well." (It jerks forward and up to pull him away from the barrel. Fingers hook on bone and flesh and yanks. Don't want to get too hurt, do you?)

"Couldn't switch our throats proper. Though, listen to me!" (It barks out a quiet laugh, an amalgamation of its own bubbling laugh and his animal sounds. Blood mixes together, and it lets go of him in order to lick some of the ever present blood off its fingers.) "How long d'you think it'll take to rot?"

[blackdogstalks]

he yelps at the sharp pain from its fingers digging into his torso, shaking. exposed nerve endings truly are a delight. a look over at its throat, processing the sound he just listened. he laughs weakly, more of a little "hah" than a proper laugh. an exhausted, drunk nod. "ya got m'voice..." a tilt. his mouth moves a little, trying to form coherence in a brain freshly awakened from death. "i unno. seems- alive, not.. rottin'..." bleh. he takes out his knife to stab a hole in the wood of the barrel, and then pulls it out. he drinks from it, desperately, trying to quiet down both hunger and pain. ALCOHOLISM IS THE SOLUTION

[mrknightside]

"Everything rots. Especially the stuff I add onto my body without the bugs makin it. Figure it'll start after a day or two." (It taps at the barrel and continues its watching. A piece of meat falls out of its mouth. It doesn't notice.) "You still feel pain?"

[blackdogstalks]

"lots." he looks at the piece of meat, the piece of his own body falling onto the grass. without much thought, he plucks it and eats it. the hunger burns. he covers his healing wound with his cloak as much as he can, head dropping a little. "everythin' rots" he repeats to himself, like a prayer. "everythin' dies. even us, one day."

[mrknightside]

"Hopefully." (It nods.) "I don't want to live forever. Seems a miserable existence."

(He eats his own flesh. It hasn't done that yet. He tastes good. Does he realize that? Well. It can't taste him, but he feels good to eat so that means he has to taste good.) "You're hungry still. There ain't any more ducks. I could, uh, let you eat me. Since I ate you."

[blackdogstalks]

"i paid ya back for the wine." said bluntly. even a bandit has certain principles. he lays down on his side. pale, cold. shuddering like a newborn. this cyclical thing of dying is exhausting. but it feels good, the pain. it's fun enough. "i'll figure it out, ah always do." hunger is a known friend. a twin, almost. he mumbles it with conviction. drunkenness is doing its part. he runs his fingers over the edge of the wound for a moment, flinching. "sharp teeth you got."

[mrknightside]

"It was pretty cheap. I ate more than I probably should've. You can have uhhh..." (It thinks for a moment.) "A hand? You wanna hand?"

(It clears its throat. The two overlapping voices get marginally easier to understand. This dog is drunk. Could it use this? What would it use it for?) "I've always had these teeth. Grew em myself I think. Lookie, I gots six fangs."

[blackdogstalks]

''six fangs.'' he mumbles. ''men only got four. a child born with six fang's gonna be a werewolf or a changelin'...'' he's repeating information he's heard. lots of knowledge in that drunk head. ''i want... meat'' slurred, hazy. still hoarse. ''a thigh. give me your thigh. a hand ain't got enough meat.''

[mrknightside]

"Maybe I'm a changelin then. Maybe that would explain why I can't die." (Wow! This dog knows a lot. It should ask him about that later.)

"I ain't cuttin off my leg for you." (It mutters, starting to undo the latches on its left cuisse and poleyn. Peel the metal away, expose flesh to the wind.) "Come're."

[blackdogstalks]

he crawls over on his knees and hands, slightly wobbly. too much blood lost, too much alcohol drank. he looks at the exposed thigh. seems delicious.

he doesn't think about it. he grabs the thigh, hands surprisingly strong, and then bites down with all his strength. His jaws clamp around the exposed tissue, incisors cutting into the muscle fiber, and then he pulls, snapping away at the raw flesh, chewing and eating without grace. And he keeps eating. Raw flesh is quite tough to break though, but years of repeating this has given him an acquired taste and technique. Like a dog, he bites and shakes his head, ripping apart its flesh. The hunger burns, and this will sate it.

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[mrknightside]

"Why would I kill someone when I could just buy it? Easier to do. Didn't realize how easy buyin stuff was." (It stands up and makes a point of dusting itself off. Yeah, sure, it didn't have to wait long. It still had to wait. It hesitantly pats one of the dogs as they pass it.)

(It thinks for a good few seconds, staring blankly at the barrels.) "I forgot what I wanted. UhhhHH yeah I dunno. You can, uh, go at it. How are you gonna drink all the wine?"

[blackdogstalks]

he opens up the bag with the roasted ducks, tosses a couple at the dogs, which swarm around the birds immediately, tails wagging so hard they may start a tornado at any moment. he takes the third duck with both hands, and takes a bite out of the breast of it, chewing without much politeness but with plenty of pleasure. He rips off one of the legs, and approaches to shove it into the visor as he did with the squirrel early. "try this. s so fuckin good right? right?? different than just roasted over a fire! proper cookin'! god damn!" then, as if answering the last question, he just opens up one of the barrels using a big dagger like a crowbar, and drinks from it by practically dunking his mouth into the dark wine. then he goes, "HAAAAAAH, THAT'S GOOD. THAT'S FUCKIN' GOOD!"

[mrknightside]

(It helps to shove the leg into its helmet, then wipes off its gauntlet with a hint of distaste. It doesn't like grease. Why did it want this? It's not like it can taste it anyway. No sense of taste.) "Tastes fine, I guess."

(It watches the dogs for a moment, then focuses on him. Won't that get duck bits in the wine? It doesn't like chunks in the things it has to drink. Did it bring its straw? It subtly pats one of the pouches it keeps under its tassets to check. Damn.) "Still can't see how you can drink all of that. Surely you aren't lettin the dogs drink it? I think it would make them sick."

[blackdogstalks]

"most dogs dont drink wine but ah do, cus wine's delicious, 'n this is good fuckin' wine!" he sits down on a closed barrel and keeps eating the duck. Big bites, ripping apart chunks of meat and dragging his teeth over the bones to get every last piece of meat he can get. He does eat like a dog. "im jus gonna hide it in a cave n whenever i want wine im gonna go there. s easy. i mostly steal it from like, soldier camps. but s easier to just buy stuff, aye. dont care much for money, but it does buy nice food somtimes, better than eatin' squirrels 'n corpses''

[mrknightside]

(It follows him to stand a pace or two away. Is wine that good? It doesn't really like how it feels when it drinks wine. It carefully watches him eat. Teeth to bone, bone to flesh. Makes it hungry.)

"Soldiers don't watch their stuff well enough." (It hums. Man eater, just like it.) "You eat corpses?"

[blackdogstalks]

"when there ain't nothin' else 'round" he says honestly. not without trying to impress it, nor lying for the sake of morbid things. from the sight of him, it is definitely something done in survival.

"first one i ate was my own back when i was a lil' whelp. but its cus the damn monks didnt give me no meat, we weren't allowed to eat meat, fuckin'... yldurites. hate 'em." another bite. he lets the cleaned bones fall to the soil. he bites down on a wing, crushing the bone, cartilage and cooked meat with crooked teeth. He licks the grease off his lips, cleaning the rest with the back of his hand and his sleeve. "aye, they don't, buncha dumb fucks. 's easy to gut 'em open when they're asleep n drunk. but most people are easy to gut open. most things are, in fact. this duck's so god damn good" CHOMPchompchimp

[mrknightside]

(It stares at him. Man eater. Just like it. Just like it. People can eat people. That means that it eating people doesn't mean it ain't a person. But it's not a person. That must mean he isn't a person either.)

"I haven't eaten any part of me." (Its voice is mild. He ate his own back? His own flesh? Did it scar? Did it taste good?) "Meat is important. Monks must be pretty uhh weak. If they don't eat meat at all."

(It looks away for a moment to sit down and lean against the barrel. It's hungry. It can wait to [feast] until later. It likes this one.) "How'd you, uh, taste."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye, monks are weak as hell, you can just break 'em easy, just pull 'n twist-" and he does the same thing with the second wing- a pull of the joint, then a twist of the wrist, dislocation. he shoves it in his mouth and eats it. a few chews, then a swallow. he licks his teeth. "bad. cus i was starvin'. i woke up 'n i saw my own dead body besides me, and i was mad with hunger. dogs brought me birds and squirrels sometimes. sometimes rats. but i grabbed at the stiff body of me 'n bit down what i could bite down. i was too thin 'nyways. tasted like... all meat. yknow." he finally finishes the duck. he tosses the bones down, then looks at them. a little eyebrow raise, then a look over at the armored creature besides him. "what's your deal, sellsword? what are ye?"

[mrknightside]

(It twists in what should be a painful way in order to look up at him while keeping its helmet on. A pinch in the back of its throat and it doesn't hurt.) "Sounds cool. I didn't get a second body when I died."

(It idly taps the side of the barrel. Less impressive if he didn't eat it from his main body. Or uhh second body? Gets confusin when there's more than one.) "Dunno what I am. Some sort of skinless thing that can't die. Got some uhh bugs that heal me. Been around a long time doin this sort of work. Gamblin. Y'know."

[blackdogstalks]

"gamblin'! that's how ya got all that gold, then? gamblin' 'n winning? audentis fortuna iuvat, somethin' somethin'. never had proper luck mahself, don't like gamblin' unless i can end it in a duel." he gets off the barrel of wine to go dunk his mouth in the open barrel again, lapping at it like a dog. here's one who's true to his nature. "so you ain't got skin 'n yer full of bugs. i ain't ever heard of nothin' like that. got a couple friends, one of em makes undyin' rats full of mushrooms. he talks to the mushrooms 'n stuff. he says they take over the dead n make em better. but never heard of no damn bug. the world's full a wonders, ain't it"

[mrknightside]

(It hums again, a vague acknowledgment.) "I'm decent at gamblin, but most of the gold is from work. Folks pay me a lot, for some reason."

(Dog to dog, sellsword to bandit. Black eyes follow his movement, calculating. It's hungry. Its hands twitch. It's hungry. Rats full of mushrooms. It pulls at a piece of grass. It's hungry.)

"Lotsa wonders. You uhh work with people much?"

[blackdogstalks]

"pays well to be a mercenary, then. how nice." he gets lost in thought for a moment. he's thinking about someone. it doesn't last long. he takes another gulp of wine, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand again. "friends. dogs need packs. i have mine. but 's different than mercenary work. roots... made out of blood. hunger's better shared." his eyes are odd. he himself is odd. aside from the first smile, which was more of a practiced imitation of what he had seen before, he doesn't really emote much, and his voice is flat, completely even, as if he was a corpse that had recently re-learned to speak. indeed, not a human. indeed, maybe more alike to each other. he looks at the way the gauntlet pulls at the grass. "do you not drink, brother?"

[mrknightside]

"Hunger's better shared." (It repeats. It's hungry. Two corpses, companions in hunger. It'll eat later, no matter how badly it wishes to lunge and bite and chew and kill.)

"I don't drink with company." (Its own voice is odd, a carefully maintained androgyny it's held so long that it's forgotten it still does so. It knows how to speak. It doesn't know how to control the tones it worked so hard to teach itself. This tone is mildly disappointed.) "I don't like drinking alone, either. I get paranoid when my mild is altered, and I'd rather not have to deal with that with people I don't trust fully. Besides, I don't have a straw on me."

[blackdogstalks]

"ah see. so you ain't taken a liking to sedation." he sits down on the grass, now. his dogs come over, sniffing his hands and his clothes. he reaches up to take the fourth duck, ripping a leg off and giving the rest to the dogs. as he eats, duck leg in one hand, the other one mindlessly pets the head of whatever dog's closer. they seem content. "see, stranger, why don't ya buy yerself a house or somethin'? you've got enough gold to buy yourself a title 'n a tiny plot ah land, don't ya? you don't seem like the type to enjoy wanderin'. you look exhausted, ya move tired. but i can't blame ya. dyin' is tiresome, indeed.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't like bein scared around people that'll scare me more." (It slowly leans back until gravity pulls it to lay down in the grass. It rolls onto its side so it can still see him.) "Don't like waterboarding myself in general, anyway."

"I've thought about buyin land an a title and shit. Unfortunately, I think I'm the sort of mutt who needs a leash. You don't, hmm? Wild dog?" (It pauses.) "Be nice to settle down, though. You don't want to?"

[blackdogstalks]

he pulls at some tall stalk, cutting it with his nail and this thumb, and bites off the little undeveloped head of chaff, spitting it away. he passes the straw over to Helm, twirling it between his fingers. "wild dog. aye. stray dog. free dog. don't need a house nor a title nor nothin'. i'm free as free can be. not a slave to no one, not even the gods up above. i do as i want whenever i please. i eat, i drink, i fuck, i kill. 's a good life. gold buys you roasted duck, but not freedom, aye?"

[mrknightside]

"Wild dog. Wish I could be a stray. I like being fed from a master's hand too much, though." (It takes the the straw and sticks it into its eye slit. Ow. It crooks its knees and folds its legs. After a moment of consideration, it sticks its hands behind its helmet.) "I tried takin over the castle a short while ago. Didn't work. If it did, I would've had a title and land, I guess. D'you still want that three gold?"

[blackdogstalks]

''nature can't be helped. dogs like ya will seek the master's hand, dogs like me will rather sleep in the cold that have anyone whip us. 's just the way it is, ain't it?''

flop down on the grass. he tucks his hands behind his head, just like it, and a couple of dogs also lay down besides him. he crosses his legs. "Failing at takin' over a castle is still tryin' to take over a castle. not many men can say that they've done that. but if ya had succeeded, ya woulda been a new lord, huh? ...nah. i jus' wanted roasted duck 'n wine. i can get gold from any other poor bastard crossin' them roads. yer entertainin', good talker. i like talkin' to the ones like ye. interestin' stuff ya say.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't get whipped much anymore. They're treatin me like a person. Sucks. I don't think I'm a person."

(It chews on the straw sticking out of its eye socket. Tastes like nothing. Mainly for the enjoyment of having something in its mouth.)

"Want me to, uh, send some folks your way? To jump? Plenty of folks that'll follow what they think is a knight into the woods."

[blackdogstalks]

"you ain't a person if you don't wanna be a person. bein' a person is too much work. 's all actin' pretend 'n takin' the joke of sapience too far. we are the gods' most annoyin' mistakes." a scoff. he closes his eyes, feeling the soft fur of Cat Gutter's head and back. He sighs through his nose like an old dog, and another dog follows suit. "if ya stop followin' those rules, then ya go back to not-person. children, madmen, cripples, foreigners. if ya upset the theatre of humanity, ya get kicked out of the play. don't play along with them rules, brother, unless yer gonna get some sorta benefit from it." "yeah, would be nice. make sure ya send good fighters. i like duelin'. feels good to steal shit from someone tryin' to kill ya."

[mrknightside]

"Plenty of guards and knights around. I'll bring a few out."

(It twitches again. It's hungry. It shouldn't eat him. It's hungry.)

"I don't like being a person. I like the benefits, but people aren't dead. I can be a person until I take off my [exoskeleton]. I- I don't know. The idea of being human is nice, but not the actuality. I don't think I liked being human when I was alive. Easier to be a dog."

[blackdogstalks]

he lifts up a finger. "people are dead. they respect the dead a lot more than they respect the livin' at times. that's why there's... songs 'n poems about cocksuckers 'n their lineages n whatever the hell they did while alive... then they die 'n they make 'em saints. but yeah, the looks affect a lot of it, huh?" he takes a blade of grass, plucking it between his fingers, watching it come undone as he toys with it. "you don't remember bein' alive?"

[mrknightside]

"Easier to be a person when you're pretty." (It mutters.) "They don't make saint or honored bloodlines outta normal folk, do they? And if they do, any paintin's or shit of em always change how they look so they're pretty. Besides, I'm a cocksucker and I ain't heard any songs about me."

(It watches the plant fall apart in his hand. If its visor weren't on, it probably would've lunged. Chewed and ate and killed again and again.) "My first memory is drowning. I figured I was probably a knight, but I dunno. Came with the armor and the, uh, plume and cloak. Look shit nowadays, but they used t'be nicer."

[blackdogstalks]

a laugh. it's weird. more of a snort and an animalistic sound of amusement than a proper laugh. it's honest, at least. a bit like a hyena, if either of these dudes knew what hyenas sound like. "right." he moves his head to look over at the dead thing besides him, and he hums while looking over it. "definitely's old. you stuck in there?"

[mrknightside]

"Stuck in the armor? No. Just hurts to take it off." (As if to prove the point, it adjusts itself so its hands are in the air, and it starts peeling off the left gauntlet. Blood drips down its vambraces. Nice laugh.) "Since I am, uh, fused. Sort of. I guess you don't have that problem?"

[blackdogstalks]

oh, huh. sniff sniff. that's a nice smell. blood under armor. but there's that pungency of rot to it, huh. guess they're different in that way. "nah. i just get hungry. i guess the body runs out of blood while healin', so i gotta make more. 'n i get hungry. 'n there's the convulsions, too. i ain't fond of them. but guess i gotta be thankful i can keep my skin. it just scars bad." "so yer stuck in there, like a mollusk. guess that's just how it is, huh? at least yer always protected with that armor, then. like... a beetle... a hard-shelled animal."

[mrknightside]

"I don't run outta blood ever." (It tosses the gauntlet into the air, then mutters curses when the thing lands on its visor and knocks the partly chewed straw fully into its helmet. It sits up and sticks the skinned hand into the metal to try and retrieve the plant.) "An I get hungry but I don't haveta eat ever. Can you regrow limbs? That might be a bug thing. That's, uh, heh. Two bug things I guess I have. With the shell."

[blackdogstalks]

he laughs again, with his odd animal laugh, at the gauntlet incident and the following rummaging in its own visor. ''you dont gotta eat? lucky, then you don't gotta spend so much time lookin' for food, huh? but bein' hungry sucks. you got any way to satisfy the hunger?" ...he thinks about it. "aye, i can regrow limbs. takes me a while, though. 's better if i can just reattach it. gotta hold it a while, though. ya must be some sorta crab. or a metal lobster. man-sized metal lobster. would be a nice beast to draw on the margins of a prayer book."

[mrknightside]

"I can still eat, mutt." (It mutters, embarrassed.) "You fed me that squirrel and duck leg earlier. An I am capable of removin my visor. I eat people an animals sometimes. I just spent most of a century not eatin. You gotta nice laugh. Do you think it's from your larynx? If I took it would you regrow it?"

[blackdogstalks]

"yeah but ya don't die from not eatin', right? starvation sucks. it eats your brain 'n your body 'n leaves you rottin' before you die for real. consider yerself lucky, if hunger won't kill you. then it ain't no different from an itch to scratch nstead of a need." scratch, scratch. he scratches at his own chin, then hums while pressing two fingers to his larynx. "yeah. i've had my head cut off. took me a bit to speak, but ah can do it. why? you wanna open up my throat?"

[mrknightside]

"Yeah." (It twists around to stare at him, pulling its hand out of its helmet. It's hungry.) "How much can you regrow? I'm hungry. Think it would be interesting if we swapped throats."

[blackdogstalks]

a weird smile crawls up on his face. there's a sickening curiosity brewing now; he's the kind of man that likes taking things as far as possible. and when you can't die, then, everything's a ''why the hell not". this is new. "i 'unno. but i won't die. guess i gotta repay yer kindness somehow, eh? go right ahead. i'm dyin' to know too."

[mrknightside]

"Yeah yeah yeah give me a minute." (It starts pulling on its visor. Undo the latches, pull off the leather, unscrew the bolts. Peel the metal away from the skull, drip blood onto its cuirass. Ow ow ow. Set the plate aside, check his face for a reaction.)

[blackdogstalks]

his face remains neutral, almost bored. when the peeling of the visor is done, however, he does raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. he sits up, sniffing at it. sniff sniff. a couple of dogs join, too, but he growls at them, and they back off. "no wonder ya smelled so good. reminds me of skinned venison." he licks at the blood seeping through the muscle tissue of its cheek, underneath the pale lines of where the cheekbone is. a tongue click, as if tasting wine. "interestin'. i've never met nothin' like ye. i've seen undead a bit like this, keepin' their wounds, more skinned or burnt flesh than man, but not as lucid."

[mrknightside]

"How do I taste?" (Its voice is slightly slurred from the pain of skinning itself and the sudden face up close to it.) "Like, uhh. Deer?"

(Chew bite gnaw eat consume feast. Instead of doing what it really really wants to, it reaches up to press its own fingers into its throat.)

[blackdogstalks]

''like all meat does. like a dead thing.'' a tilt of the head. like a confused dog. he turns his head to look at his dogs, and does a few chittering, bark-like noises. ears perk up, and each dog leaves their own way, some leaving together, some leaving for the forest on their own. they probably get mad when they see him get hurt. safer without 'em around. "what'cha doin'?"

[mrknightside]

"Gotta remove the larynx to switch them, don't-" (Its voice gets garbled as the muscle parts for its fingers. Its eyes stay fixed on him. Blood drips down down down, mixing into the grass. Red and green makes such a pretty brown, doesn't it?)

[blackdogstalks]

A LAUGH. "oh, ya were serious about it! right, right. i didn't expect ya to do that. yers comes off easy, huh?" he sits down, kneeling. He unsheathes the big knife by his side. He looks at the larynx between the dead knight's fingers. Blood has such a good smell. It makes him hungry again. but it doesn't matter. his eyes fix back on theirs, and he puts three fingers over his own throat-apple, feeling the larynx. As if calculating. He pulls at the skin a little, then, plunges the knife into his own throat. Blood. The sharp pain shooting up into the back of his eyes, the urge to stop. But his eyes remain fixed on it, as if dueling, while he twists the knife and drags it down. He does his best to contain it, but blood begins to force its way out of his mouth. He does that noise men do when stabbed- that choked, skittery sound of pain. His other hand pulls while the other works the blade stuck in his own throat. A dare.

[mrknightside]

(Its jaw goes slack as it watches, its own fingers wrapping around its larynx and pulling. Muscle and flesh and tendons tears. Hunger slams into it, and it jolts forward. Fingers still in its own throat, its still-gauntleted hand joins the mess on his throat. It tugs at the flesh, tugging it out of the way so it can see better. Easier for him to cut, too. Gods, it's hungry.)

[blackdogstalks]

Blood! It comes out of him in neat bursts, out of the wound and out of his mouth, out of his nose, aspiration of the liquid filling his throat to blame. It burns and it hurts, but he cannot help but laugh in a deranged gurgling sound as it lunges for the wound in his throat. he lets go of the knife, feeling the sudden sedation of blood loss make him dizzy. caro enim mea vere est cibus. he doesn't fight back against the urge to die, feeling the ever familiar sensation of limbs going cold and limp. the blood from his mouth smells a bit like wine. his eyes glaze over and become half-lidded, body threatening to fall back.

[mrknightside]

(It fumbles for a moment. It can wait to eat, it can finish what it wanted to do first. It shoves its hand into his throat, wraps the hand around his larynx, and pulls. It pulls its own larynx out at the same time, a slow trickle of blood following it. No blood pressure, it seems. Dead thing. It shoves its larynx into his throat, and shoves his larynx into its throat. It'll take a few hours to heal if the bugs don't decide to prioritize it. Job done well enough, it shoves his body to the ground and presses its teeth to his throat. Not the larynx, the flesh around it. Muscle and tendon. Pull and chew and consume.)

[blackdogstalks]

tastes like meat. like all meat does. like formerly living thing. he does a few choking noises for a couple of seconds, before all noise dies with a little rattle from his throat. his eyes do follow it, though, even if the body feels dead. he's smiling even while trapped in the paralysis of temporary death. tastes like iron, like curses, like all meat does. take yer fill, i don't mind.

[mrknightside]

(It pants and chews and eats. It doesn't want to have to redo the pain of tearing out its throat. Move away from the throat, dig into the shoulders and the chest and ribs and dig and dig and dig and feast and it's so hungry always it hurts it's so hungry the gods may damn it but it's in heaven kneeling here for ever and ever and)

[blackdogstalks]

here i am, stranger, opened up like a gutted animal before ya. tendons, muscle, fatty layer protectin' the viscera within. the covering of the ribs, the pale connections of fat atween organs. stomach, intestines, the reek of 'em, the heart, the liver, the lungs underneath, a whole feast laid out for ya. don't say i'm not generous. it feels weird. all i do is feel the tug of yer teeth 'n claws as you eat away. ain't it good? just another fucked up carcass for ya to get rid of an urge with. an unnatural jolt, a sudden convulsion of the hands. a weak kick. senseless movements. almost as if still laughing.

[mrknightside]

(It twitches as if considering backing off. It doesn't move away. Its blood mixes with his. Teeth knock against ribs. When's the last time it was able to feast well? It doesn't remember the last person it ate. Gods, it's so hungry. Break the ribs, get them out of the way. It's running hot. Does it hurt to have its hands inside? Does it hurt to be eaten?)

[blackdogstalks]

it hurts in sudden flashes. but it feels good. it's nice. 's the only way i can rest. it feels funny to have its fingers diggin' in, pulling, breaking precious things. it feels odd to feel the wind over things normally kept hidden. like the whole world's rushin' in to dry up the blood. There's so much damn blood. it gets everywhere! 's fun. there's that little pang of pain from the moments the body tries wakin' up. like stabs into his soul. his diaphragm sinks in and he lets out a bellow from its weight forcing the air out of his lungs. it's nice to be eaten. almost makes me feel wanted.

[mrknightside]

(It pauses to shove a hand into his mouth and down his throat. Shut up shut up shut up. It doesn't want any wanderers coming by, or the dogs running back. It stares for a moment, then it can't resist the urge to return to his throat. Cover the larynx, eat everything else. Chew and pull and feast. Gods, everybody looks good covered in shared blood.)

[blackdogstalks]

his hand has a weird twitch to it. His head jerks to the side for a moment, then nothing again. The odd push of the larynx that doesn't belong to him. He's a bit colder now, and his eyes have gone from tracking the movements to being hidden under the eyelids, proper of a corpse. The fingers in his mouth feel funny. He wonders if it fucks like it eats. Maybe he'll know one day. Another new thing to try.

heh.

[mrknightside]

(Cold meat isn't as fun to eat. It'll still feast, of course, but it prefers warm meat. Mindless consumption slows down as the body under it moves, and it pulls back again. Stare down at the body, shove its fingers into the throat, can it get its fingers into the diaphragm? Blood covers its teeth, and its maw hangs open. Chunks of meat are stuck between the fangs.)

[blackdogstalks]

A slight twitch of the body. But that's it. Can't do much when I'm dead, ah guess. Not my fault I go cold so dang fast.

[mrknightside]

(It's still hungry. It's always hungry. For ever and ever and ever and ever. It's not mindless. It forces itself away from the body, no matter how inviting he looks, and it grabs the last duck. Teeth dig into incredibly less inviting cooked meat. He said he could heal. It'll wait until he can talk. It can control itself. It'll wait until it can talk.)

[blackdogstalks]

it takes hours.

at first he's just there, dead. then, wounds begin to close. A hurried process. Tissue rebuilt, spilled blood crawling back up. The larynx is rejected- a second one begins to build itself, pushing it out of the way. Like if some sort of invisible spider or army was rebuilding every piece of tissue lost. Around the third hour, despite most of his torso still being exposed and torn open, the heart underneath the half-healed ribs beats, and in turn, the corpse convulses before Joachim screams, taking a big and painful gasp after. He rolls to his side, shaking, curling up. His face screams pain, and he kicks away at nothing, clutching his own torso and whisper-screaming, lungs becoming full of air again. "FUCK" is his first word this time.

[mrknightside]

(The corpse watches. It does seem to do a lot of that. It watches him struggle and regrow and mend and scream. Its own bugs have long since finished their own work attaching the new larynx to its throat. It'll rot, most likely, and it'll have to remove it in a few days anyway.)

(It watches the larynx it gave get rejected, and it feels something heavy settle in its chest. Damn. It was hoping that was going to work. He has to keep the flesh. It can exchange it. What a shame.)

"Alive?" (It croaks, its voice a horrible mix between his and its own. Two voices speaking as one. It wanted his laugh. It can test that later.)

[blackdogstalks]

a wheeze. he nods. he unfurls himself, crawling over to the opened barrel of wine, forcing himself to push up and dunk his entire head into the barrel. He drinks with desperation, trying to drown out the pain, but then the alcohol reaches the wounds still open on his torso, and he screams again. he lets go of the barrel, looking over at the exposed wounds and the wine confusing itself with his blood. He pant-laughs, clenching his fists in pain. "alive" he croaks back. hoarse and strange. trying to re-learn to breathe.

[mrknightside]

"You did well." (It jerks forward and up to pull him away from the barrel. Fingers hook on bone and flesh and yanks. Don't want to get too hurt, do you?)

"Couldn't switch our throats proper. Though, listen to me!" (It barks out a quiet laugh, an amalgamation of its own bubbling laugh and his animal sounds. Blood mixes together, and it lets go of him in order to lick some of the ever present blood off its fingers.) "How long d'you think it'll take to rot?"

[blackdogstalks]

he yelps at the sharp pain from its fingers digging into his torso, shaking. exposed nerve endings truly are a delight. a look over at its throat, processing the sound he just listened. he laughs weakly, more of a little "hah" than a proper laugh. an exhausted, drunk nod. "ya got m'voice..." a tilt. his mouth moves a little, trying to form coherence in a brain freshly awakened from death. "i unno. seems- alive, not.. rottin'..." bleh. he takes out his knife to stab a hole in the wood of the barrel, and then pulls it out. he drinks from it, desperately, trying to quiet down both hunger and pain. ALCOHOLISM IS THE SOLUTION

[mrknightside]

"Everything rots. Especially the stuff I add onto my body without the bugs makin it. Figure it'll start after a day or two." (It taps at the barrel and continues its watching. A piece of meat falls out of its mouth. It doesn't notice.) "You still feel pain?"

[blackdogstalks]

"lots." he looks at the piece of meat, the piece of his own body falling onto the grass. without much thought, he plucks it and eats it. the hunger burns. he covers his healing wound with his cloak as much as he can, head dropping a little. "everythin' rots" he repeats to himself, like a prayer. "everythin' dies. even us, one day."

[mrknightside]

"Hopefully." (It nods.) "I don't want to live forever. Seems a miserable existence."

(He eats his own flesh. It hasn't done that yet. He tastes good. Does he realize that? Well. It can't taste him, but he feels good to eat so that means he has to taste good.) "You're hungry still. There ain't any more ducks. I could, uh, let you eat me. Since I ate you."

[blackdogstalks]

"i paid ya back for the wine." said bluntly. even a bandit has certain principles. he lays down on his side. pale, cold. shuddering like a newborn. this cyclical thing of dying is exhausting. but it feels good, the pain. it's fun enough. "i'll figure it out, ah always do." hunger is a known friend. a twin, almost. he mumbles it with conviction. drunkenness is doing its part. he runs his fingers over the edge of the wound for a moment, flinching. "sharp teeth you got."

[mrknightside]

"It was pretty cheap. I ate more than I probably should've. You can have uhhh..." (It thinks for a moment.) "A hand? You wanna hand?"

(It clears its throat. The two overlapping voices get marginally easier to understand. This dog is drunk. Could it use this? What would it use it for?) "I've always had these teeth. Grew em myself I think. Lookie, I gots six fangs."

[blackdogstalks]

''six fangs.'' he mumbles. ''men only got four. a child born with six fang's gonna be a werewolf or a changelin'...'' he's repeating information he's heard. lots of knowledge in that drunk head. ''i want... meat'' slurred, hazy. still hoarse. ''a thigh. give me your thigh. a hand ain't got enough meat.''

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[mrknightside]

"Why would I kill someone when I could just buy it? Easier to do. Didn't realize how easy buyin stuff was." (It stands up and makes a point of dusting itself off. Yeah, sure, it didn't have to wait long. It still had to wait. It hesitantly pats one of the dogs as they pass it.)

(It thinks for a good few seconds, staring blankly at the barrels.) "I forgot what I wanted. UhhhHH yeah I dunno. You can, uh, go at it. How are you gonna drink all the wine?"

[blackdogstalks]

he opens up the bag with the roasted ducks, tosses a couple at the dogs, which swarm around the birds immediately, tails wagging so hard they may start a tornado at any moment. he takes the third duck with both hands, and takes a bite out of the breast of it, chewing without much politeness but with plenty of pleasure. He rips off one of the legs, and approaches to shove it into the visor as he did with the squirrel early. "try this. s so fuckin good right? right?? different than just roasted over a fire! proper cookin'! god damn!" then, as if answering the last question, he just opens up one of the barrels using a big dagger like a crowbar, and drinks from it by practically dunking his mouth into the dark wine. then he goes, "HAAAAAAH, THAT'S GOOD. THAT'S FUCKIN' GOOD!"

[mrknightside]

(It helps to shove the leg into its helmet, then wipes off its gauntlet with a hint of distaste. It doesn't like grease. Why did it want this? It's not like it can taste it anyway. No sense of taste.) "Tastes fine, I guess."

(It watches the dogs for a moment, then focuses on him. Won't that get duck bits in the wine? It doesn't like chunks in the things it has to drink. Did it bring its straw? It subtly pats one of the pouches it keeps under its tassets to check. Damn.) "Still can't see how you can drink all of that. Surely you aren't lettin the dogs drink it? I think it would make them sick."

[blackdogstalks]

"most dogs dont drink wine but ah do, cus wine's delicious, 'n this is good fuckin' wine!" he sits down on a closed barrel and keeps eating the duck. Big bites, ripping apart chunks of meat and dragging his teeth over the bones to get every last piece of meat he can get. He does eat like a dog. "im jus gonna hide it in a cave n whenever i want wine im gonna go there. s easy. i mostly steal it from like, soldier camps. but s easier to just buy stuff, aye. dont care much for money, but it does buy nice food somtimes, better than eatin' squirrels 'n corpses''

[mrknightside]

(It follows him to stand a pace or two away. Is wine that good? It doesn't really like how it feels when it drinks wine. It carefully watches him eat. Teeth to bone, bone to flesh. Makes it hungry.)

"Soldiers don't watch their stuff well enough." (It hums. Man eater, just like it.) "You eat corpses?"

[blackdogstalks]

"when there ain't nothin' else 'round" he says honestly. not without trying to impress it, nor lying for the sake of morbid things. from the sight of him, it is definitely something done in survival.

"first one i ate was my own back when i was a lil' whelp. but its cus the damn monks didnt give me no meat, we weren't allowed to eat meat, fuckin'... yldurites. hate 'em." another bite. he lets the cleaned bones fall to the soil. he bites down on a wing, crushing the bone, cartilage and cooked meat with crooked teeth. He licks the grease off his lips, cleaning the rest with the back of his hand and his sleeve. "aye, they don't, buncha dumb fucks. 's easy to gut 'em open when they're asleep n drunk. but most people are easy to gut open. most things are, in fact. this duck's so god damn good" CHOMPchompchimp

[mrknightside]

(It stares at him. Man eater. Just like it. Just like it. People can eat people. That means that it eating people doesn't mean it ain't a person. But it's not a person. That must mean he isn't a person either.)

"I haven't eaten any part of me." (Its voice is mild. He ate his own back? His own flesh? Did it scar? Did it taste good?) "Meat is important. Monks must be pretty uhh weak. If they don't eat meat at all."

(It looks away for a moment to sit down and lean against the barrel. It's hungry. It can wait to [feast] until later. It likes this one.) "How'd you, uh, taste."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye, monks are weak as hell, you can just break 'em easy, just pull 'n twist-" and he does the same thing with the second wing- a pull of the joint, then a twist of the wrist, dislocation. he shoves it in his mouth and eats it. a few chews, then a swallow. he licks his teeth. "bad. cus i was starvin'. i woke up 'n i saw my own dead body besides me, and i was mad with hunger. dogs brought me birds and squirrels sometimes. sometimes rats. but i grabbed at the stiff body of me 'n bit down what i could bite down. i was too thin 'nyways. tasted like... all meat. yknow." he finally finishes the duck. he tosses the bones down, then looks at them. a little eyebrow raise, then a look over at the armored creature besides him. "what's your deal, sellsword? what are ye?"

[mrknightside]

(It twists in what should be a painful way in order to look up at him while keeping its helmet on. A pinch in the back of its throat and it doesn't hurt.) "Sounds cool. I didn't get a second body when I died."

(It idly taps the side of the barrel. Less impressive if he didn't eat it from his main body. Or uhh second body? Gets confusin when there's more than one.) "Dunno what I am. Some sort of skinless thing that can't die. Got some uhh bugs that heal me. Been around a long time doin this sort of work. Gamblin. Y'know."

[blackdogstalks]

"gamblin'! that's how ya got all that gold, then? gamblin' 'n winning? audentis fortuna iuvat, somethin' somethin'. never had proper luck mahself, don't like gamblin' unless i can end it in a duel." he gets off the barrel of wine to go dunk his mouth in the open barrel again, lapping at it like a dog. here's one who's true to his nature. "so you ain't got skin 'n yer full of bugs. i ain't ever heard of nothin' like that. got a couple friends, one of em makes undyin' rats full of mushrooms. he talks to the mushrooms 'n stuff. he says they take over the dead n make em better. but never heard of no damn bug. the world's full a wonders, ain't it"

[mrknightside]

(It hums again, a vague acknowledgment.) "I'm decent at gamblin, but most of the gold is from work. Folks pay me a lot, for some reason."

(Dog to dog, sellsword to bandit. Black eyes follow his movement, calculating. It's hungry. Its hands twitch. It's hungry. Rats full of mushrooms. It pulls at a piece of grass. It's hungry.)

"Lotsa wonders. You uhh work with people much?"

[blackdogstalks]

"pays well to be a mercenary, then. how nice." he gets lost in thought for a moment. he's thinking about someone. it doesn't last long. he takes another gulp of wine, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand again. "friends. dogs need packs. i have mine. but 's different than mercenary work. roots... made out of blood. hunger's better shared." his eyes are odd. he himself is odd. aside from the first smile, which was more of a practiced imitation of what he had seen before, he doesn't really emote much, and his voice is flat, completely even, as if he was a corpse that had recently re-learned to speak. indeed, not a human. indeed, maybe more alike to each other. he looks at the way the gauntlet pulls at the grass. "do you not drink, brother?"

[mrknightside]

"Hunger's better shared." (It repeats. It's hungry. Two corpses, companions in hunger. It'll eat later, no matter how badly it wishes to lunge and bite and chew and kill.)

"I don't drink with company." (Its own voice is odd, a carefully maintained androgyny it's held so long that it's forgotten it still does so. It knows how to speak. It doesn't know how to control the tones it worked so hard to teach itself. This tone is mildly disappointed.) "I don't like drinking alone, either. I get paranoid when my mild is altered, and I'd rather not have to deal with that with people I don't trust fully. Besides, I don't have a straw on me."

[blackdogstalks]

"ah see. so you ain't taken a liking to sedation." he sits down on the grass, now. his dogs come over, sniffing his hands and his clothes. he reaches up to take the fourth duck, ripping a leg off and giving the rest to the dogs. as he eats, duck leg in one hand, the other one mindlessly pets the head of whatever dog's closer. they seem content. "see, stranger, why don't ya buy yerself a house or somethin'? you've got enough gold to buy yourself a title 'n a tiny plot ah land, don't ya? you don't seem like the type to enjoy wanderin'. you look exhausted, ya move tired. but i can't blame ya. dyin' is tiresome, indeed.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't like bein scared around people that'll scare me more." (It slowly leans back until gravity pulls it to lay down in the grass. It rolls onto its side so it can still see him.) "Don't like waterboarding myself in general, anyway."

"I've thought about buyin land an a title and shit. Unfortunately, I think I'm the sort of mutt who needs a leash. You don't, hmm? Wild dog?" (It pauses.) "Be nice to settle down, though. You don't want to?"

[blackdogstalks]

he pulls at some tall stalk, cutting it with his nail and this thumb, and bites off the little undeveloped head of chaff, spitting it away. he passes the straw over to Helm, twirling it between his fingers. "wild dog. aye. stray dog. free dog. don't need a house nor a title nor nothin'. i'm free as free can be. not a slave to no one, not even the gods up above. i do as i want whenever i please. i eat, i drink, i fuck, i kill. 's a good life. gold buys you roasted duck, but not freedom, aye?"

[mrknightside]

"Wild dog. Wish I could be a stray. I like being fed from a master's hand too much, though." (It takes the the straw and sticks it into its eye slit. Ow. It crooks its knees and folds its legs. After a moment of consideration, it sticks its hands behind its helmet.) "I tried takin over the castle a short while ago. Didn't work. If it did, I would've had a title and land, I guess. D'you still want that three gold?"

[blackdogstalks]

''nature can't be helped. dogs like ya will seek the master's hand, dogs like me will rather sleep in the cold that have anyone whip us. 's just the way it is, ain't it?''

flop down on the grass. he tucks his hands behind his head, just like it, and a couple of dogs also lay down besides him. he crosses his legs. "Failing at takin' over a castle is still tryin' to take over a castle. not many men can say that they've done that. but if ya had succeeded, ya woulda been a new lord, huh? ...nah. i jus' wanted roasted duck 'n wine. i can get gold from any other poor bastard crossin' them roads. yer entertainin', good talker. i like talkin' to the ones like ye. interestin' stuff ya say.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't get whipped much anymore. They're treatin me like a person. Sucks. I don't think I'm a person."

(It chews on the straw sticking out of its eye socket. Tastes like nothing. Mainly for the enjoyment of having something in its mouth.)

"Want me to, uh, send some folks your way? To jump? Plenty of folks that'll follow what they think is a knight into the woods."

[blackdogstalks]

"you ain't a person if you don't wanna be a person. bein' a person is too much work. 's all actin' pretend 'n takin' the joke of sapience too far. we are the gods' most annoyin' mistakes." a scoff. he closes his eyes, feeling the soft fur of Cat Gutter's head and back. He sighs through his nose like an old dog, and another dog follows suit. "if ya stop followin' those rules, then ya go back to not-person. children, madmen, cripples, foreigners. if ya upset the theatre of humanity, ya get kicked out of the play. don't play along with them rules, brother, unless yer gonna get some sorta benefit from it." "yeah, would be nice. make sure ya send good fighters. i like duelin'. feels good to steal shit from someone tryin' to kill ya."

[mrknightside]

"Plenty of guards and knights around. I'll bring a few out."

(It twitches again. It's hungry. It shouldn't eat him. It's hungry.)

"I don't like being a person. I like the benefits, but people aren't dead. I can be a person until I take off my [exoskeleton]. I- I don't know. The idea of being human is nice, but not the actuality. I don't think I liked being human when I was alive. Easier to be a dog."

[blackdogstalks]

he lifts up a finger. "people are dead. they respect the dead a lot more than they respect the livin' at times. that's why there's... songs 'n poems about cocksuckers 'n their lineages n whatever the hell they did while alive... then they die 'n they make 'em saints. but yeah, the looks affect a lot of it, huh?" he takes a blade of grass, plucking it between his fingers, watching it come undone as he toys with it. "you don't remember bein' alive?"

[mrknightside]

"Easier to be a person when you're pretty." (It mutters.) "They don't make saint or honored bloodlines outta normal folk, do they? And if they do, any paintin's or shit of em always change how they look so they're pretty. Besides, I'm a cocksucker and I ain't heard any songs about me."

(It watches the plant fall apart in his hand. If its visor weren't on, it probably would've lunged. Chewed and ate and killed again and again.) "My first memory is drowning. I figured I was probably a knight, but I dunno. Came with the armor and the, uh, plume and cloak. Look shit nowadays, but they used t'be nicer."

[blackdogstalks]

a laugh. it's weird. more of a snort and an animalistic sound of amusement than a proper laugh. it's honest, at least. a bit like a hyena, if either of these dudes knew what hyenas sound like. "right." he moves his head to look over at the dead thing besides him, and he hums while looking over it. "definitely's old. you stuck in there?"

[mrknightside]

"Stuck in the armor? No. Just hurts to take it off." (As if to prove the point, it adjusts itself so its hands are in the air, and it starts peeling off the left gauntlet. Blood drips down its vambraces. Nice laugh.) "Since I am, uh, fused. Sort of. I guess you don't have that problem?"

[blackdogstalks]

oh, huh. sniff sniff. that's a nice smell. blood under armor. but there's that pungency of rot to it, huh. guess they're different in that way. "nah. i just get hungry. i guess the body runs out of blood while healin', so i gotta make more. 'n i get hungry. 'n there's the convulsions, too. i ain't fond of them. but guess i gotta be thankful i can keep my skin. it just scars bad." "so yer stuck in there, like a mollusk. guess that's just how it is, huh? at least yer always protected with that armor, then. like... a beetle... a hard-shelled animal."

[mrknightside]

"I don't run outta blood ever." (It tosses the gauntlet into the air, then mutters curses when the thing lands on its visor and knocks the partly chewed straw fully into its helmet. It sits up and sticks the skinned hand into the metal to try and retrieve the plant.) "An I get hungry but I don't haveta eat ever. Can you regrow limbs? That might be a bug thing. That's, uh, heh. Two bug things I guess I have. With the shell."

[blackdogstalks]

he laughs again, with his odd animal laugh, at the gauntlet incident and the following rummaging in its own visor. ''you dont gotta eat? lucky, then you don't gotta spend so much time lookin' for food, huh? but bein' hungry sucks. you got any way to satisfy the hunger?" ...he thinks about it. "aye, i can regrow limbs. takes me a while, though. 's better if i can just reattach it. gotta hold it a while, though. ya must be some sorta crab. or a metal lobster. man-sized metal lobster. would be a nice beast to draw on the margins of a prayer book."

[mrknightside]

"I can still eat, mutt." (It mutters, embarrassed.) "You fed me that squirrel and duck leg earlier. An I am capable of removin my visor. I eat people an animals sometimes. I just spent most of a century not eatin. You gotta nice laugh. Do you think it's from your larynx? If I took it would you regrow it?"

[blackdogstalks]

"yeah but ya don't die from not eatin', right? starvation sucks. it eats your brain 'n your body 'n leaves you rottin' before you die for real. consider yerself lucky, if hunger won't kill you. then it ain't no different from an itch to scratch nstead of a need." scratch, scratch. he scratches at his own chin, then hums while pressing two fingers to his larynx. "yeah. i've had my head cut off. took me a bit to speak, but ah can do it. why? you wanna open up my throat?"

[mrknightside]

"Yeah." (It twists around to stare at him, pulling its hand out of its helmet. It's hungry.) "How much can you regrow? I'm hungry. Think it would be interesting if we swapped throats."

[blackdogstalks]

a weird smile crawls up on his face. there's a sickening curiosity brewing now; he's the kind of man that likes taking things as far as possible. and when you can't die, then, everything's a ''why the hell not". this is new. "i 'unno. but i won't die. guess i gotta repay yer kindness somehow, eh? go right ahead. i'm dyin' to know too."

[mrknightside]

"Yeah yeah yeah give me a minute." (It starts pulling on its visor. Undo the latches, pull off the leather, unscrew the bolts. Peel the metal away from the skull, drip blood onto its cuirass. Ow ow ow. Set the plate aside, check his face for a reaction.)

[blackdogstalks]

his face remains neutral, almost bored. when the peeling of the visor is done, however, he does raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. he sits up, sniffing at it. sniff sniff. a couple of dogs join, too, but he growls at them, and they back off. "no wonder ya smelled so good. reminds me of skinned venison." he licks at the blood seeping through the muscle tissue of its cheek, underneath the pale lines of where the cheekbone is. a tongue click, as if tasting wine. "interestin'. i've never met nothin' like ye. i've seen undead a bit like this, keepin' their wounds, more skinned or burnt flesh than man, but not as lucid."

[mrknightside]

"How do I taste?" (Its voice is slightly slurred from the pain of skinning itself and the sudden face up close to it.) "Like, uhh. Deer?"

(Chew bite gnaw eat consume feast. Instead of doing what it really really wants to, it reaches up to press its own fingers into its throat.)

[blackdogstalks]

''like all meat does. like a dead thing.'' a tilt of the head. like a confused dog. he turns his head to look at his dogs, and does a few chittering, bark-like noises. ears perk up, and each dog leaves their own way, some leaving together, some leaving for the forest on their own. they probably get mad when they see him get hurt. safer without 'em around. "what'cha doin'?"

[mrknightside]

"Gotta remove the larynx to switch them, don't-" (Its voice gets garbled as the muscle parts for its fingers. Its eyes stay fixed on him. Blood drips down down down, mixing into the grass. Red and green makes such a pretty brown, doesn't it?)

[blackdogstalks]

A LAUGH. "oh, ya were serious about it! right, right. i didn't expect ya to do that. yers comes off easy, huh?" he sits down, kneeling. He unsheathes the big knife by his side. He looks at the larynx between the dead knight's fingers. Blood has such a good smell. It makes him hungry again. but it doesn't matter. his eyes fix back on theirs, and he puts three fingers over his own throat-apple, feeling the larynx. As if calculating. He pulls at the skin a little, then, plunges the knife into his own throat. Blood. The sharp pain shooting up into the back of his eyes, the urge to stop. But his eyes remain fixed on it, as if dueling, while he twists the knife and drags it down. He does his best to contain it, but blood begins to force its way out of his mouth. He does that noise men do when stabbed- that choked, skittery sound of pain. His other hand pulls while the other works the blade stuck in his own throat. A dare.

[mrknightside]

(Its jaw goes slack as it watches, its own fingers wrapping around its larynx and pulling. Muscle and flesh and tendons tears. Hunger slams into it, and it jolts forward. Fingers still in its own throat, its still-gauntleted hand joins the mess on his throat. It tugs at the flesh, tugging it out of the way so it can see better. Easier for him to cut, too. Gods, it's hungry.)

[blackdogstalks]

Blood! It comes out of him in neat bursts, out of the wound and out of his mouth, out of his nose, aspiration of the liquid filling his throat to blame. It burns and it hurts, but he cannot help but laugh in a deranged gurgling sound as it lunges for the wound in his throat. he lets go of the knife, feeling the sudden sedation of blood loss make him dizzy. caro enim mea vere est cibus. he doesn't fight back against the urge to die, feeling the ever familiar sensation of limbs going cold and limp. the blood from his mouth smells a bit like wine. his eyes glaze over and become half-lidded, body threatening to fall back.

[mrknightside]

(It fumbles for a moment. It can wait to eat, it can finish what it wanted to do first. It shoves its hand into his throat, wraps the hand around his larynx, and pulls. It pulls its own larynx out at the same time, a slow trickle of blood following it. No blood pressure, it seems. Dead thing. It shoves its larynx into his throat, and shoves his larynx into its throat. It'll take a few hours to heal if the bugs don't decide to prioritize it. Job done well enough, it shoves his body to the ground and presses its teeth to his throat. Not the larynx, the flesh around it. Muscle and tendon. Pull and chew and consume.)

[blackdogstalks]

tastes like meat. like all meat does. like formerly living thing. he does a few choking noises for a couple of seconds, before all noise dies with a little rattle from his throat. his eyes do follow it, though, even if the body feels dead. he's smiling even while trapped in the paralysis of temporary death. tastes like iron, like curses, like all meat does. take yer fill, i don't mind.

[mrknightside]

(It pants and chews and eats. It doesn't want to have to redo the pain of tearing out its throat. Move away from the throat, dig into the shoulders and the chest and ribs and dig and dig and dig and feast and it's so hungry always it hurts it's so hungry the gods may damn it but it's in heaven kneeling here for ever and ever and)

[blackdogstalks]

here i am, stranger, opened up like a gutted animal before ya. tendons, muscle, fatty layer protectin' the viscera within. the covering of the ribs, the pale connections of fat atween organs. stomach, intestines, the reek of 'em, the heart, the liver, the lungs underneath, a whole feast laid out for ya. don't say i'm not generous. it feels weird. all i do is feel the tug of yer teeth 'n claws as you eat away. ain't it good? just another fucked up carcass for ya to get rid of an urge with. an unnatural jolt, a sudden convulsion of the hands. a weak kick. senseless movements. almost as if still laughing.

[mrknightside]

(It twitches as if considering backing off. It doesn't move away. Its blood mixes with his. Teeth knock against ribs. When's the last time it was able to feast well? It doesn't remember the last person it ate. Gods, it's so hungry. Break the ribs, get them out of the way. It's running hot. Does it hurt to have its hands inside? Does it hurt to be eaten?)

[blackdogstalks]

it hurts in sudden flashes. but it feels good. it's nice. 's the only way i can rest. it feels funny to have its fingers diggin' in, pulling, breaking precious things. it feels odd to feel the wind over things normally kept hidden. like the whole world's rushin' in to dry up the blood. There's so much damn blood. it gets everywhere! 's fun. there's that little pang of pain from the moments the body tries wakin' up. like stabs into his soul. his diaphragm sinks in and he lets out a bellow from its weight forcing the air out of his lungs. it's nice to be eaten. almost makes me feel wanted.

[mrknightside]

(It pauses to shove a hand into his mouth and down his throat. Shut up shut up shut up. It doesn't want any wanderers coming by, or the dogs running back. It stares for a moment, then it can't resist the urge to return to his throat. Cover the larynx, eat everything else. Chew and pull and feast. Gods, everybody looks good covered in shared blood.)

[blackdogstalks]

his hand has a weird twitch to it. His head jerks to the side for a moment, then nothing again. The odd push of the larynx that doesn't belong to him. He's a bit colder now, and his eyes have gone from tracking the movements to being hidden under the eyelids, proper of a corpse. The fingers in his mouth feel funny. He wonders if it fucks like it eats. Maybe he'll know one day. Another new thing to try.

heh.

[mrknightside]

(Cold meat isn't as fun to eat. It'll still feast, of course, but it prefers warm meat. Mindless consumption slows down as the body under it moves, and it pulls back again. Stare down at the body, shove its fingers into the throat, can it get its fingers into the diaphragm? Blood covers its teeth, and its maw hangs open. Chunks of meat are stuck between the fangs.)

[blackdogstalks]

A slight twitch of the body. But that's it. Can't do much when I'm dead, ah guess. Not my fault I go cold so dang fast.

[mrknightside]

(It's still hungry. It's always hungry. For ever and ever and ever and ever. It's not mindless. It forces itself away from the body, no matter how inviting he looks, and it grabs the last duck. Teeth dig into incredibly less inviting cooked meat. He said he could heal. It'll wait until he can talk. It can control itself. It'll wait until it can talk.)

[blackdogstalks]

it takes hours.

at first he's just there, dead. then, wounds begin to close. A hurried process. Tissue rebuilt, spilled blood crawling back up. The larynx is rejected- a second one begins to build itself, pushing it out of the way. Like if some sort of invisible spider or army was rebuilding every piece of tissue lost. Around the third hour, despite most of his torso still being exposed and torn open, the heart underneath the half-healed ribs beats, and in turn, the corpse convulses before Joachim screams, taking a big and painful gasp after. He rolls to his side, shaking, curling up. His face screams pain, and he kicks away at nothing, clutching his own torso and whisper-screaming, lungs becoming full of air again. "FUCK" is his first word this time.

[mrknightside]

(The corpse watches. It does seem to do a lot of that. It watches him struggle and regrow and mend and scream. Its own bugs have long since finished their own work attaching the new larynx to its throat. It'll rot, most likely, and it'll have to remove it in a few days anyway.)

(It watches the larynx it gave get rejected, and it feels something heavy settle in its chest. Damn. It was hoping that was going to work. He has to keep the flesh. It can exchange it. What a shame.)

"Alive?" (It croaks, its voice a horrible mix between his and its own. Two voices speaking as one. It wanted his laugh. It can test that later.)

[blackdogstalks]

a wheeze. he nods. he unfurls himself, crawling over to the opened barrel of wine, forcing himself to push up and dunk his entire head into the barrel. He drinks with desperation, trying to drown out the pain, but then the alcohol reaches the wounds still open on his torso, and he screams again. he lets go of the barrel, looking over at the exposed wounds and the wine confusing itself with his blood. He pant-laughs, clenching his fists in pain. "alive" he croaks back. hoarse and strange. trying to re-learn to breathe.

[mrknightside]

"You did well." (It jerks forward and up to pull him away from the barrel. Fingers hook on bone and flesh and yanks. Don't want to get too hurt, do you?)

"Couldn't switch our throats proper. Though, listen to me!" (It barks out a quiet laugh, an amalgamation of its own bubbling laugh and his animal sounds. Blood mixes together, and it lets go of him in order to lick some of the ever present blood off its fingers.) "How long d'you think it'll take to rot?"

[blackdogstalks]

he yelps at the sharp pain from its fingers digging into his torso, shaking. exposed nerve endings truly are a delight. a look over at its throat, processing the sound he just listened. he laughs weakly, more of a little "hah" than a proper laugh. an exhausted, drunk nod. "ya got m'voice..." a tilt. his mouth moves a little, trying to form coherence in a brain freshly awakened from death. "i unno. seems- alive, not.. rottin'..." bleh. he takes out his knife to stab a hole in the wood of the barrel, and then pulls it out. he drinks from it, desperately, trying to quiet down both hunger and pain. ALCOHOLISM IS THE SOLUTION

[mrknightside]

"Everything rots. Especially the stuff I add onto my body without the bugs makin it. Figure it'll start after a day or two." (It taps at the barrel and continues its watching. A piece of meat falls out of its mouth. It doesn't notice.) "You still feel pain?"

[blackdogstalks]

"lots." he looks at the piece of meat, the piece of his own body falling onto the grass. without much thought, he plucks it and eats it. the hunger burns. he covers his healing wound with his cloak as much as he can, head dropping a little. "everythin' rots" he repeats to himself, like a prayer. "everythin' dies. even us, one day."

[mrknightside]

"Hopefully." (It nods.) "I don't want to live forever. Seems a miserable existence."

(He eats his own flesh. It hasn't done that yet. He tastes good. Does he realize that? Well. It can't taste him, but he feels good to eat so that means he has to taste good.) "You're hungry still. There ain't any more ducks. I could, uh, let you eat me. Since I ate you."

[blackdogstalks]

"i paid ya back for the wine." said bluntly. even a bandit has certain principles. he lays down on his side. pale, cold. shuddering like a newborn. this cyclical thing of dying is exhausting. but it feels good, the pain. it's fun enough. "i'll figure it out, ah always do." hunger is a known friend. a twin, almost. he mumbles it with conviction. drunkenness is doing its part. he runs his fingers over the edge of the wound for a moment, flinching. "sharp teeth you got."

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[mrknightside]

"Why would I kill someone when I could just buy it? Easier to do. Didn't realize how easy buyin stuff was." (It stands up and makes a point of dusting itself off. Yeah, sure, it didn't have to wait long. It still had to wait. It hesitantly pats one of the dogs as they pass it.)

(It thinks for a good few seconds, staring blankly at the barrels.) "I forgot what I wanted. UhhhHH yeah I dunno. You can, uh, go at it. How are you gonna drink all the wine?"

[blackdogstalks]

he opens up the bag with the roasted ducks, tosses a couple at the dogs, which swarm around the birds immediately, tails wagging so hard they may start a tornado at any moment. he takes the third duck with both hands, and takes a bite out of the breast of it, chewing without much politeness but with plenty of pleasure. He rips off one of the legs, and approaches to shove it into the visor as he did with the squirrel early. "try this. s so fuckin good right? right?? different than just roasted over a fire! proper cookin'! god damn!" then, as if answering the last question, he just opens up one of the barrels using a big dagger like a crowbar, and drinks from it by practically dunking his mouth into the dark wine. then he goes, "HAAAAAAH, THAT'S GOOD. THAT'S FUCKIN' GOOD!"

[mrknightside]

(It helps to shove the leg into its helmet, then wipes off its gauntlet with a hint of distaste. It doesn't like grease. Why did it want this? It's not like it can taste it anyway. No sense of taste.) "Tastes fine, I guess."

(It watches the dogs for a moment, then focuses on him. Won't that get duck bits in the wine? It doesn't like chunks in the things it has to drink. Did it bring its straw? It subtly pats one of the pouches it keeps under its tassets to check. Damn.) "Still can't see how you can drink all of that. Surely you aren't lettin the dogs drink it? I think it would make them sick."

[blackdogstalks]

"most dogs dont drink wine but ah do, cus wine's delicious, 'n this is good fuckin' wine!" he sits down on a closed barrel and keeps eating the duck. Big bites, ripping apart chunks of meat and dragging his teeth over the bones to get every last piece of meat he can get. He does eat like a dog. "im jus gonna hide it in a cave n whenever i want wine im gonna go there. s easy. i mostly steal it from like, soldier camps. but s easier to just buy stuff, aye. dont care much for money, but it does buy nice food somtimes, better than eatin' squirrels 'n corpses''

[mrknightside]

(It follows him to stand a pace or two away. Is wine that good? It doesn't really like how it feels when it drinks wine. It carefully watches him eat. Teeth to bone, bone to flesh. Makes it hungry.)

"Soldiers don't watch their stuff well enough." (It hums. Man eater, just like it.) "You eat corpses?"

[blackdogstalks]

"when there ain't nothin' else 'round" he says honestly. not without trying to impress it, nor lying for the sake of morbid things. from the sight of him, it is definitely something done in survival.

"first one i ate was my own back when i was a lil' whelp. but its cus the damn monks didnt give me no meat, we weren't allowed to eat meat, fuckin'... yldurites. hate 'em." another bite. he lets the cleaned bones fall to the soil. he bites down on a wing, crushing the bone, cartilage and cooked meat with crooked teeth. He licks the grease off his lips, cleaning the rest with the back of his hand and his sleeve. "aye, they don't, buncha dumb fucks. 's easy to gut 'em open when they're asleep n drunk. but most people are easy to gut open. most things are, in fact. this duck's so god damn good" CHOMPchompchimp

[mrknightside]

(It stares at him. Man eater. Just like it. Just like it. People can eat people. That means that it eating people doesn't mean it ain't a person. But it's not a person. That must mean he isn't a person either.)

"I haven't eaten any part of me." (Its voice is mild. He ate his own back? His own flesh? Did it scar? Did it taste good?) "Meat is important. Monks must be pretty uhh weak. If they don't eat meat at all."

(It looks away for a moment to sit down and lean against the barrel. It's hungry. It can wait to [feast] until later. It likes this one.) "How'd you, uh, taste."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye, monks are weak as hell, you can just break 'em easy, just pull 'n twist-" and he does the same thing with the second wing- a pull of the joint, then a twist of the wrist, dislocation. he shoves it in his mouth and eats it. a few chews, then a swallow. he licks his teeth. "bad. cus i was starvin'. i woke up 'n i saw my own dead body besides me, and i was mad with hunger. dogs brought me birds and squirrels sometimes. sometimes rats. but i grabbed at the stiff body of me 'n bit down what i could bite down. i was too thin 'nyways. tasted like... all meat. yknow." he finally finishes the duck. he tosses the bones down, then looks at them. a little eyebrow raise, then a look over at the armored creature besides him. "what's your deal, sellsword? what are ye?"

[mrknightside]

(It twists in what should be a painful way in order to look up at him while keeping its helmet on. A pinch in the back of its throat and it doesn't hurt.) "Sounds cool. I didn't get a second body when I died."

(It idly taps the side of the barrel. Less impressive if he didn't eat it from his main body. Or uhh second body? Gets confusin when there's more than one.) "Dunno what I am. Some sort of skinless thing that can't die. Got some uhh bugs that heal me. Been around a long time doin this sort of work. Gamblin. Y'know."

[blackdogstalks]

"gamblin'! that's how ya got all that gold, then? gamblin' 'n winning? audentis fortuna iuvat, somethin' somethin'. never had proper luck mahself, don't like gamblin' unless i can end it in a duel." he gets off the barrel of wine to go dunk his mouth in the open barrel again, lapping at it like a dog. here's one who's true to his nature. "so you ain't got skin 'n yer full of bugs. i ain't ever heard of nothin' like that. got a couple friends, one of em makes undyin' rats full of mushrooms. he talks to the mushrooms 'n stuff. he says they take over the dead n make em better. but never heard of no damn bug. the world's full a wonders, ain't it"

[mrknightside]

(It hums again, a vague acknowledgment.) "I'm decent at gamblin, but most of the gold is from work. Folks pay me a lot, for some reason."

(Dog to dog, sellsword to bandit. Black eyes follow his movement, calculating. It's hungry. Its hands twitch. It's hungry. Rats full of mushrooms. It pulls at a piece of grass. It's hungry.)

"Lotsa wonders. You uhh work with people much?"

[blackdogstalks]

"pays well to be a mercenary, then. how nice." he gets lost in thought for a moment. he's thinking about someone. it doesn't last long. he takes another gulp of wine, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand again. "friends. dogs need packs. i have mine. but 's different than mercenary work. roots... made out of blood. hunger's better shared." his eyes are odd. he himself is odd. aside from the first smile, which was more of a practiced imitation of what he had seen before, he doesn't really emote much, and his voice is flat, completely even, as if he was a corpse that had recently re-learned to speak. indeed, not a human. indeed, maybe more alike to each other. he looks at the way the gauntlet pulls at the grass. "do you not drink, brother?"

[mrknightside]

"Hunger's better shared." (It repeats. It's hungry. Two corpses, companions in hunger. It'll eat later, no matter how badly it wishes to lunge and bite and chew and kill.)

"I don't drink with company." (Its own voice is odd, a carefully maintained androgyny it's held so long that it's forgotten it still does so. It knows how to speak. It doesn't know how to control the tones it worked so hard to teach itself. This tone is mildly disappointed.) "I don't like drinking alone, either. I get paranoid when my mild is altered, and I'd rather not have to deal with that with people I don't trust fully. Besides, I don't have a straw on me."

[blackdogstalks]

"ah see. so you ain't taken a liking to sedation." he sits down on the grass, now. his dogs come over, sniffing his hands and his clothes. he reaches up to take the fourth duck, ripping a leg off and giving the rest to the dogs. as he eats, duck leg in one hand, the other one mindlessly pets the head of whatever dog's closer. they seem content. "see, stranger, why don't ya buy yerself a house or somethin'? you've got enough gold to buy yourself a title 'n a tiny plot ah land, don't ya? you don't seem like the type to enjoy wanderin'. you look exhausted, ya move tired. but i can't blame ya. dyin' is tiresome, indeed.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't like bein scared around people that'll scare me more." (It slowly leans back until gravity pulls it to lay down in the grass. It rolls onto its side so it can still see him.) "Don't like waterboarding myself in general, anyway."

"I've thought about buyin land an a title and shit. Unfortunately, I think I'm the sort of mutt who needs a leash. You don't, hmm? Wild dog?" (It pauses.) "Be nice to settle down, though. You don't want to?"

[blackdogstalks]

he pulls at some tall stalk, cutting it with his nail and this thumb, and bites off the little undeveloped head of chaff, spitting it away. he passes the straw over to Helm, twirling it between his fingers. "wild dog. aye. stray dog. free dog. don't need a house nor a title nor nothin'. i'm free as free can be. not a slave to no one, not even the gods up above. i do as i want whenever i please. i eat, i drink, i fuck, i kill. 's a good life. gold buys you roasted duck, but not freedom, aye?"

[mrknightside]

"Wild dog. Wish I could be a stray. I like being fed from a master's hand too much, though." (It takes the the straw and sticks it into its eye slit. Ow. It crooks its knees and folds its legs. After a moment of consideration, it sticks its hands behind its helmet.) "I tried takin over the castle a short while ago. Didn't work. If it did, I would've had a title and land, I guess. D'you still want that three gold?"

[blackdogstalks]

''nature can't be helped. dogs like ya will seek the master's hand, dogs like me will rather sleep in the cold that have anyone whip us. 's just the way it is, ain't it?''

flop down on the grass. he tucks his hands behind his head, just like it, and a couple of dogs also lay down besides him. he crosses his legs. "Failing at takin' over a castle is still tryin' to take over a castle. not many men can say that they've done that. but if ya had succeeded, ya woulda been a new lord, huh? ...nah. i jus' wanted roasted duck 'n wine. i can get gold from any other poor bastard crossin' them roads. yer entertainin', good talker. i like talkin' to the ones like ye. interestin' stuff ya say.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't get whipped much anymore. They're treatin me like a person. Sucks. I don't think I'm a person."

(It chews on the straw sticking out of its eye socket. Tastes like nothing. Mainly for the enjoyment of having something in its mouth.)

"Want me to, uh, send some folks your way? To jump? Plenty of folks that'll follow what they think is a knight into the woods."

[blackdogstalks]

"you ain't a person if you don't wanna be a person. bein' a person is too much work. 's all actin' pretend 'n takin' the joke of sapience too far. we are the gods' most annoyin' mistakes." a scoff. he closes his eyes, feeling the soft fur of Cat Gutter's head and back. He sighs through his nose like an old dog, and another dog follows suit. "if ya stop followin' those rules, then ya go back to not-person. children, madmen, cripples, foreigners. if ya upset the theatre of humanity, ya get kicked out of the play. don't play along with them rules, brother, unless yer gonna get some sorta benefit from it." "yeah, would be nice. make sure ya send good fighters. i like duelin'. feels good to steal shit from someone tryin' to kill ya."

[mrknightside]

"Plenty of guards and knights around. I'll bring a few out."

(It twitches again. It's hungry. It shouldn't eat him. It's hungry.)

"I don't like being a person. I like the benefits, but people aren't dead. I can be a person until I take off my [exoskeleton]. I- I don't know. The idea of being human is nice, but not the actuality. I don't think I liked being human when I was alive. Easier to be a dog."

[blackdogstalks]

he lifts up a finger. "people are dead. they respect the dead a lot more than they respect the livin' at times. that's why there's... songs 'n poems about cocksuckers 'n their lineages n whatever the hell they did while alive... then they die 'n they make 'em saints. but yeah, the looks affect a lot of it, huh?" he takes a blade of grass, plucking it between his fingers, watching it come undone as he toys with it. "you don't remember bein' alive?"

[mrknightside]

"Easier to be a person when you're pretty." (It mutters.) "They don't make saint or honored bloodlines outta normal folk, do they? And if they do, any paintin's or shit of em always change how they look so they're pretty. Besides, I'm a cocksucker and I ain't heard any songs about me."

(It watches the plant fall apart in his hand. If its visor weren't on, it probably would've lunged. Chewed and ate and killed again and again.) "My first memory is drowning. I figured I was probably a knight, but I dunno. Came with the armor and the, uh, plume and cloak. Look shit nowadays, but they used t'be nicer."

[blackdogstalks]

a laugh. it's weird. more of a snort and an animalistic sound of amusement than a proper laugh. it's honest, at least. a bit like a hyena, if either of these dudes knew what hyenas sound like. "right." he moves his head to look over at the dead thing besides him, and he hums while looking over it. "definitely's old. you stuck in there?"

[mrknightside]

"Stuck in the armor? No. Just hurts to take it off." (As if to prove the point, it adjusts itself so its hands are in the air, and it starts peeling off the left gauntlet. Blood drips down its vambraces. Nice laugh.) "Since I am, uh, fused. Sort of. I guess you don't have that problem?"

[blackdogstalks]

oh, huh. sniff sniff. that's a nice smell. blood under armor. but there's that pungency of rot to it, huh. guess they're different in that way. "nah. i just get hungry. i guess the body runs out of blood while healin', so i gotta make more. 'n i get hungry. 'n there's the convulsions, too. i ain't fond of them. but guess i gotta be thankful i can keep my skin. it just scars bad." "so yer stuck in there, like a mollusk. guess that's just how it is, huh? at least yer always protected with that armor, then. like... a beetle... a hard-shelled animal."

[mrknightside]

"I don't run outta blood ever." (It tosses the gauntlet into the air, then mutters curses when the thing lands on its visor and knocks the partly chewed straw fully into its helmet. It sits up and sticks the skinned hand into the metal to try and retrieve the plant.) "An I get hungry but I don't haveta eat ever. Can you regrow limbs? That might be a bug thing. That's, uh, heh. Two bug things I guess I have. With the shell."

[blackdogstalks]

he laughs again, with his odd animal laugh, at the gauntlet incident and the following rummaging in its own visor. ''you dont gotta eat? lucky, then you don't gotta spend so much time lookin' for food, huh? but bein' hungry sucks. you got any way to satisfy the hunger?" ...he thinks about it. "aye, i can regrow limbs. takes me a while, though. 's better if i can just reattach it. gotta hold it a while, though. ya must be some sorta crab. or a metal lobster. man-sized metal lobster. would be a nice beast to draw on the margins of a prayer book."

[mrknightside]

"I can still eat, mutt." (It mutters, embarrassed.) "You fed me that squirrel and duck leg earlier. An I am capable of removin my visor. I eat people an animals sometimes. I just spent most of a century not eatin. You gotta nice laugh. Do you think it's from your larynx? If I took it would you regrow it?"

[blackdogstalks]

"yeah but ya don't die from not eatin', right? starvation sucks. it eats your brain 'n your body 'n leaves you rottin' before you die for real. consider yerself lucky, if hunger won't kill you. then it ain't no different from an itch to scratch nstead of a need." scratch, scratch. he scratches at his own chin, then hums while pressing two fingers to his larynx. "yeah. i've had my head cut off. took me a bit to speak, but ah can do it. why? you wanna open up my throat?"

[mrknightside]

"Yeah." (It twists around to stare at him, pulling its hand out of its helmet. It's hungry.) "How much can you regrow? I'm hungry. Think it would be interesting if we swapped throats."

[blackdogstalks]

a weird smile crawls up on his face. there's a sickening curiosity brewing now; he's the kind of man that likes taking things as far as possible. and when you can't die, then, everything's a ''why the hell not". this is new. "i 'unno. but i won't die. guess i gotta repay yer kindness somehow, eh? go right ahead. i'm dyin' to know too."

[mrknightside]

"Yeah yeah yeah give me a minute." (It starts pulling on its visor. Undo the latches, pull off the leather, unscrew the bolts. Peel the metal away from the skull, drip blood onto its cuirass. Ow ow ow. Set the plate aside, check his face for a reaction.)

[blackdogstalks]

his face remains neutral, almost bored. when the peeling of the visor is done, however, he does raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. he sits up, sniffing at it. sniff sniff. a couple of dogs join, too, but he growls at them, and they back off. "no wonder ya smelled so good. reminds me of skinned venison." he licks at the blood seeping through the muscle tissue of its cheek, underneath the pale lines of where the cheekbone is. a tongue click, as if tasting wine. "interestin'. i've never met nothin' like ye. i've seen undead a bit like this, keepin' their wounds, more skinned or burnt flesh than man, but not as lucid."

[mrknightside]

"How do I taste?" (Its voice is slightly slurred from the pain of skinning itself and the sudden face up close to it.) "Like, uhh. Deer?"

(Chew bite gnaw eat consume feast. Instead of doing what it really really wants to, it reaches up to press its own fingers into its throat.)

[blackdogstalks]

''like all meat does. like a dead thing.'' a tilt of the head. like a confused dog. he turns his head to look at his dogs, and does a few chittering, bark-like noises. ears perk up, and each dog leaves their own way, some leaving together, some leaving for the forest on their own. they probably get mad when they see him get hurt. safer without 'em around. "what'cha doin'?"

[mrknightside]

"Gotta remove the larynx to switch them, don't-" (Its voice gets garbled as the muscle parts for its fingers. Its eyes stay fixed on him. Blood drips down down down, mixing into the grass. Red and green makes such a pretty brown, doesn't it?)

[blackdogstalks]

A LAUGH. "oh, ya were serious about it! right, right. i didn't expect ya to do that. yers comes off easy, huh?" he sits down, kneeling. He unsheathes the big knife by his side. He looks at the larynx between the dead knight's fingers. Blood has such a good smell. It makes him hungry again. but it doesn't matter. his eyes fix back on theirs, and he puts three fingers over his own throat-apple, feeling the larynx. As if calculating. He pulls at the skin a little, then, plunges the knife into his own throat. Blood. The sharp pain shooting up into the back of his eyes, the urge to stop. But his eyes remain fixed on it, as if dueling, while he twists the knife and drags it down. He does his best to contain it, but blood begins to force its way out of his mouth. He does that noise men do when stabbed- that choked, skittery sound of pain. His other hand pulls while the other works the blade stuck in his own throat. A dare.

[mrknightside]

(Its jaw goes slack as it watches, its own fingers wrapping around its larynx and pulling. Muscle and flesh and tendons tears. Hunger slams into it, and it jolts forward. Fingers still in its own throat, its still-gauntleted hand joins the mess on his throat. It tugs at the flesh, tugging it out of the way so it can see better. Easier for him to cut, too. Gods, it's hungry.)

[blackdogstalks]

Blood! It comes out of him in neat bursts, out of the wound and out of his mouth, out of his nose, aspiration of the liquid filling his throat to blame. It burns and it hurts, but he cannot help but laugh in a deranged gurgling sound as it lunges for the wound in his throat. he lets go of the knife, feeling the sudden sedation of blood loss make him dizzy. caro enim mea vere est cibus. he doesn't fight back against the urge to die, feeling the ever familiar sensation of limbs going cold and limp. the blood from his mouth smells a bit like wine. his eyes glaze over and become half-lidded, body threatening to fall back.

[mrknightside]

(It fumbles for a moment. It can wait to eat, it can finish what it wanted to do first. It shoves its hand into his throat, wraps the hand around his larynx, and pulls. It pulls its own larynx out at the same time, a slow trickle of blood following it. No blood pressure, it seems. Dead thing. It shoves its larynx into his throat, and shoves his larynx into its throat. It'll take a few hours to heal if the bugs don't decide to prioritize it. Job done well enough, it shoves his body to the ground and presses its teeth to his throat. Not the larynx, the flesh around it. Muscle and tendon. Pull and chew and consume.)

[blackdogstalks]

tastes like meat. like all meat does. like formerly living thing. he does a few choking noises for a couple of seconds, before all noise dies with a little rattle from his throat. his eyes do follow it, though, even if the body feels dead. he's smiling even while trapped in the paralysis of temporary death. tastes like iron, like curses, like all meat does. take yer fill, i don't mind.

[mrknightside]

(It pants and chews and eats. It doesn't want to have to redo the pain of tearing out its throat. Move away from the throat, dig into the shoulders and the chest and ribs and dig and dig and dig and feast and it's so hungry always it hurts it's so hungry the gods may damn it but it's in heaven kneeling here for ever and ever and)

[blackdogstalks]

here i am, stranger, opened up like a gutted animal before ya. tendons, muscle, fatty layer protectin' the viscera within. the covering of the ribs, the pale connections of fat atween organs. stomach, intestines, the reek of 'em, the heart, the liver, the lungs underneath, a whole feast laid out for ya. don't say i'm not generous. it feels weird. all i do is feel the tug of yer teeth 'n claws as you eat away. ain't it good? just another fucked up carcass for ya to get rid of an urge with. an unnatural jolt, a sudden convulsion of the hands. a weak kick. senseless movements. almost as if still laughing.

[mrknightside]

(It twitches as if considering backing off. It doesn't move away. Its blood mixes with his. Teeth knock against ribs. When's the last time it was able to feast well? It doesn't remember the last person it ate. Gods, it's so hungry. Break the ribs, get them out of the way. It's running hot. Does it hurt to have its hands inside? Does it hurt to be eaten?)

[blackdogstalks]

it hurts in sudden flashes. but it feels good. it's nice. 's the only way i can rest. it feels funny to have its fingers diggin' in, pulling, breaking precious things. it feels odd to feel the wind over things normally kept hidden. like the whole world's rushin' in to dry up the blood. There's so much damn blood. it gets everywhere! 's fun. there's that little pang of pain from the moments the body tries wakin' up. like stabs into his soul. his diaphragm sinks in and he lets out a bellow from its weight forcing the air out of his lungs. it's nice to be eaten. almost makes me feel wanted.

[mrknightside]

(It pauses to shove a hand into his mouth and down his throat. Shut up shut up shut up. It doesn't want any wanderers coming by, or the dogs running back. It stares for a moment, then it can't resist the urge to return to his throat. Cover the larynx, eat everything else. Chew and pull and feast. Gods, everybody looks good covered in shared blood.)

[blackdogstalks]

his hand has a weird twitch to it. His head jerks to the side for a moment, then nothing again. The odd push of the larynx that doesn't belong to him. He's a bit colder now, and his eyes have gone from tracking the movements to being hidden under the eyelids, proper of a corpse. The fingers in his mouth feel funny. He wonders if it fucks like it eats. Maybe he'll know one day. Another new thing to try.

heh.

[mrknightside]

(Cold meat isn't as fun to eat. It'll still feast, of course, but it prefers warm meat. Mindless consumption slows down as the body under it moves, and it pulls back again. Stare down at the body, shove its fingers into the throat, can it get its fingers into the diaphragm? Blood covers its teeth, and its maw hangs open. Chunks of meat are stuck between the fangs.)

[blackdogstalks]

A slight twitch of the body. But that's it. Can't do much when I'm dead, ah guess. Not my fault I go cold so dang fast.

[mrknightside]

(It's still hungry. It's always hungry. For ever and ever and ever and ever. It's not mindless. It forces itself away from the body, no matter how inviting he looks, and it grabs the last duck. Teeth dig into incredibly less inviting cooked meat. He said he could heal. It'll wait until he can talk. It can control itself. It'll wait until it can talk.)

[blackdogstalks]

it takes hours.

at first he's just there, dead. then, wounds begin to close. A hurried process. Tissue rebuilt, spilled blood crawling back up. The larynx is rejected- a second one begins to build itself, pushing it out of the way. Like if some sort of invisible spider or army was rebuilding every piece of tissue lost. Around the third hour, despite most of his torso still being exposed and torn open, the heart underneath the half-healed ribs beats, and in turn, the corpse convulses before Joachim screams, taking a big and painful gasp after. He rolls to his side, shaking, curling up. His face screams pain, and he kicks away at nothing, clutching his own torso and whisper-screaming, lungs becoming full of air again. "FUCK" is his first word this time.

[mrknightside]

(The corpse watches. It does seem to do a lot of that. It watches him struggle and regrow and mend and scream. Its own bugs have long since finished their own work attaching the new larynx to its throat. It'll rot, most likely, and it'll have to remove it in a few days anyway.)

(It watches the larynx it gave get rejected, and it feels something heavy settle in its chest. Damn. It was hoping that was going to work. He has to keep the flesh. It can exchange it. What a shame.)

"Alive?" (It croaks, its voice a horrible mix between his and its own. Two voices speaking as one. It wanted his laugh. It can test that later.)

[blackdogstalks]

a wheeze. he nods. he unfurls himself, crawling over to the opened barrel of wine, forcing himself to push up and dunk his entire head into the barrel. He drinks with desperation, trying to drown out the pain, but then the alcohol reaches the wounds still open on his torso, and he screams again. he lets go of the barrel, looking over at the exposed wounds and the wine confusing itself with his blood. He pant-laughs, clenching his fists in pain. "alive" he croaks back. hoarse and strange. trying to re-learn to breathe.

[mrknightside]

"You did well." (It jerks forward and up to pull him away from the barrel. Fingers hook on bone and flesh and yanks. Don't want to get too hurt, do you?)

"Couldn't switch our throats proper. Though, listen to me!" (It barks out a quiet laugh, an amalgamation of its own bubbling laugh and his animal sounds. Blood mixes together, and it lets go of him in order to lick some of the ever present blood off its fingers.) "How long d'you think it'll take to rot?"

[blackdogstalks]

he yelps at the sharp pain from its fingers digging into his torso, shaking. exposed nerve endings truly are a delight. a look over at its throat, processing the sound he just listened. he laughs weakly, more of a little "hah" than a proper laugh. an exhausted, drunk nod. "ya got m'voice..." a tilt. his mouth moves a little, trying to form coherence in a brain freshly awakened from death. "i unno. seems- alive, not.. rottin'..." bleh. he takes out his knife to stab a hole in the wood of the barrel, and then pulls it out. he drinks from it, desperately, trying to quiet down both hunger and pain. ALCOHOLISM IS THE SOLUTION

[mrknightside]

"Everything rots. Especially the stuff I add onto my body without the bugs makin it. Figure it'll start after a day or two." (It taps at the barrel and continues its watching. A piece of meat falls out of its mouth. It doesn't notice.) "You still feel pain?"

[blackdogstalks]

"lots." he looks at the piece of meat, the piece of his own body falling onto the grass. without much thought, he plucks it and eats it. the hunger burns. he covers his healing wound with his cloak as much as he can, head dropping a little. "everythin' rots" he repeats to himself, like a prayer. "everythin' dies. even us, one day."

[blackdogstalks]

[The Corpse carries a barrel of wine into the woods and leaves it in a clearing. It returns soon enough with a second before leaving again. It returns a third time with four roasted ducks in a bag, which it sets on top of one of the barrels and leaves again. It finishes its back and forth by returning and tossing a last bag with two roasted ducks on the other barrel. It takes a seat near the barrels, and it waits.]

hum. he smiles. satisfied. usually, whenever he has to play insane and beggar, nothing comes out of it! he sees why the twins are so fond of the truly undead now! hands shoved in the fitchets of his outer tunic, he looks over the bounty. ''didnt even have to kill anyone, huh. clean job" the dogs are all sniffing around the barrels and the bags. SNIFFSNFIFNSINFFNFIFNSINFIS BORf bark bark. one of them, Spear, has a noticeable trail of drool dropping off his jowls. "what dya want from me? or was this all jus' charity, huh"

[mrknightside]

"Why would I kill someone when I could just buy it? Easier to do. Didn't realize how easy buyin stuff was." (It stands up and makes a point of dusting itself off. Yeah, sure, it didn't have to wait long. It still had to wait. It hesitantly pats one of the dogs as they pass it.)

(It thinks for a good few seconds, staring blankly at the barrels.) "I forgot what I wanted. UhhhHH yeah I dunno. You can, uh, go at it. How are you gonna drink all the wine?"

[blackdogstalks]

he opens up the bag with the roasted ducks, tosses a couple at the dogs, which swarm around the birds immediately, tails wagging so hard they may start a tornado at any moment. he takes the third duck with both hands, and takes a bite out of the breast of it, chewing without much politeness but with plenty of pleasure. He rips off one of the legs, and approaches to shove it into the visor as he did with the squirrel early. "try this. s so fuckin good right? right?? different than just roasted over a fire! proper cookin'! god damn!" then, as if answering the last question, he just opens up one of the barrels using a big dagger like a crowbar, and drinks from it by practically dunking his mouth into the dark wine. then he goes, "HAAAAAAH, THAT'S GOOD. THAT'S FUCKIN' GOOD!"

[mrknightside]

(It helps to shove the leg into its helmet, then wipes off its gauntlet with a hint of distaste. It doesn't like grease. Why did it want this? It's not like it can taste it anyway. No sense of taste.) "Tastes fine, I guess."

(It watches the dogs for a moment, then focuses on him. Won't that get duck bits in the wine? It doesn't like chunks in the things it has to drink. Did it bring its straw? It subtly pats one of the pouches it keeps under its tassets to check. Damn.) "Still can't see how you can drink all of that. Surely you aren't lettin the dogs drink it? I think it would make them sick."

[blackdogstalks]

"most dogs dont drink wine but ah do, cus wine's delicious, 'n this is good fuckin' wine!" he sits down on a closed barrel and keeps eating the duck. Big bites, ripping apart chunks of meat and dragging his teeth over the bones to get every last piece of meat he can get. He does eat like a dog. "im jus gonna hide it in a cave n whenever i want wine im gonna go there. s easy. i mostly steal it from like, soldier camps. but s easier to just buy stuff, aye. dont care much for money, but it does buy nice food somtimes, better than eatin' squirrels 'n corpses''

[mrknightside]

(It follows him to stand a pace or two away. Is wine that good? It doesn't really like how it feels when it drinks wine. It carefully watches him eat. Teeth to bone, bone to flesh. Makes it hungry.)

"Soldiers don't watch their stuff well enough." (It hums. Man eater, just like it.) "You eat corpses?"

[blackdogstalks]

"when there ain't nothin' else 'round" he says honestly. not without trying to impress it, nor lying for the sake of morbid things. from the sight of him, it is definitely something done in survival.

"first one i ate was my own back when i was a lil' whelp. but its cus the damn monks didnt give me no meat, we weren't allowed to eat meat, fuckin'... yldurites. hate 'em." another bite. he lets the cleaned bones fall to the soil. he bites down on a wing, crushing the bone, cartilage and cooked meat with crooked teeth. He licks the grease off his lips, cleaning the rest with the back of his hand and his sleeve. "aye, they don't, buncha dumb fucks. 's easy to gut 'em open when they're asleep n drunk. but most people are easy to gut open. most things are, in fact. this duck's so god damn good" CHOMPchompchimp

[mrknightside]

(It stares at him. Man eater. Just like it. Just like it. People can eat people. That means that it eating people doesn't mean it ain't a person. But it's not a person. That must mean he isn't a person either.)

"I haven't eaten any part of me." (Its voice is mild. He ate his own back? His own flesh? Did it scar? Did it taste good?) "Meat is important. Monks must be pretty uhh weak. If they don't eat meat at all."

(It looks away for a moment to sit down and lean against the barrel. It's hungry. It can wait to [feast] until later. It likes this one.) "How'd you, uh, taste."

[blackdogstalks]

"aye, monks are weak as hell, you can just break 'em easy, just pull 'n twist-" and he does the same thing with the second wing- a pull of the joint, then a twist of the wrist, dislocation. he shoves it in his mouth and eats it. a few chews, then a swallow. he licks his teeth. "bad. cus i was starvin'. i woke up 'n i saw my own dead body besides me, and i was mad with hunger. dogs brought me birds and squirrels sometimes. sometimes rats. but i grabbed at the stiff body of me 'n bit down what i could bite down. i was too thin 'nyways. tasted like... all meat. yknow." he finally finishes the duck. he tosses the bones down, then looks at them. a little eyebrow raise, then a look over at the armored creature besides him. "what's your deal, sellsword? what are ye?"

[mrknightside]

(It twists in what should be a painful way in order to look up at him while keeping its helmet on. A pinch in the back of its throat and it doesn't hurt.) "Sounds cool. I didn't get a second body when I died."

(It idly taps the side of the barrel. Less impressive if he didn't eat it from his main body. Or uhh second body? Gets confusin when there's more than one.) "Dunno what I am. Some sort of skinless thing that can't die. Got some uhh bugs that heal me. Been around a long time doin this sort of work. Gamblin. Y'know."

[blackdogstalks]

"gamblin'! that's how ya got all that gold, then? gamblin' 'n winning? audentis fortuna iuvat, somethin' somethin'. never had proper luck mahself, don't like gamblin' unless i can end it in a duel." he gets off the barrel of wine to go dunk his mouth in the open barrel again, lapping at it like a dog. here's one who's true to his nature. "so you ain't got skin 'n yer full of bugs. i ain't ever heard of nothin' like that. got a couple friends, one of em makes undyin' rats full of mushrooms. he talks to the mushrooms 'n stuff. he says they take over the dead n make em better. but never heard of no damn bug. the world's full a wonders, ain't it"

[mrknightside]

(It hums again, a vague acknowledgment.) "I'm decent at gamblin, but most of the gold is from work. Folks pay me a lot, for some reason."

(Dog to dog, sellsword to bandit. Black eyes follow his movement, calculating. It's hungry. Its hands twitch. It's hungry. Rats full of mushrooms. It pulls at a piece of grass. It's hungry.)

"Lotsa wonders. You uhh work with people much?"

[blackdogstalks]

"pays well to be a mercenary, then. how nice." he gets lost in thought for a moment. he's thinking about someone. it doesn't last long. he takes another gulp of wine, cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand again. "friends. dogs need packs. i have mine. but 's different than mercenary work. roots... made out of blood. hunger's better shared." his eyes are odd. he himself is odd. aside from the first smile, which was more of a practiced imitation of what he had seen before, he doesn't really emote much, and his voice is flat, completely even, as if he was a corpse that had recently re-learned to speak. indeed, not a human. indeed, maybe more alike to each other. he looks at the way the gauntlet pulls at the grass. "do you not drink, brother?"

[mrknightside]

"Hunger's better shared." (It repeats. It's hungry. Two corpses, companions in hunger. It'll eat later, no matter how badly it wishes to lunge and bite and chew and kill.)

"I don't drink with company." (Its own voice is odd, a carefully maintained androgyny it's held so long that it's forgotten it still does so. It knows how to speak. It doesn't know how to control the tones it worked so hard to teach itself. This tone is mildly disappointed.) "I don't like drinking alone, either. I get paranoid when my mild is altered, and I'd rather not have to deal with that with people I don't trust fully. Besides, I don't have a straw on me."

[blackdogstalks]

"ah see. so you ain't taken a liking to sedation." he sits down on the grass, now. his dogs come over, sniffing his hands and his clothes. he reaches up to take the fourth duck, ripping a leg off and giving the rest to the dogs. as he eats, duck leg in one hand, the other one mindlessly pets the head of whatever dog's closer. they seem content. "see, stranger, why don't ya buy yerself a house or somethin'? you've got enough gold to buy yourself a title 'n a tiny plot ah land, don't ya? you don't seem like the type to enjoy wanderin'. you look exhausted, ya move tired. but i can't blame ya. dyin' is tiresome, indeed.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't like bein scared around people that'll scare me more." (It slowly leans back until gravity pulls it to lay down in the grass. It rolls onto its side so it can still see him.) "Don't like waterboarding myself in general, anyway."

"I've thought about buyin land an a title and shit. Unfortunately, I think I'm the sort of mutt who needs a leash. You don't, hmm? Wild dog?" (It pauses.) "Be nice to settle down, though. You don't want to?"

[blackdogstalks]

he pulls at some tall stalk, cutting it with his nail and this thumb, and bites off the little undeveloped head of chaff, spitting it away. he passes the straw over to Helm, twirling it between his fingers. "wild dog. aye. stray dog. free dog. don't need a house nor a title nor nothin'. i'm free as free can be. not a slave to no one, not even the gods up above. i do as i want whenever i please. i eat, i drink, i fuck, i kill. 's a good life. gold buys you roasted duck, but not freedom, aye?"

[mrknightside]

"Wild dog. Wish I could be a stray. I like being fed from a master's hand too much, though." (It takes the the straw and sticks it into its eye slit. Ow. It crooks its knees and folds its legs. After a moment of consideration, it sticks its hands behind its helmet.) "I tried takin over the castle a short while ago. Didn't work. If it did, I would've had a title and land, I guess. D'you still want that three gold?"

[blackdogstalks]

''nature can't be helped. dogs like ya will seek the master's hand, dogs like me will rather sleep in the cold that have anyone whip us. 's just the way it is, ain't it?''

flop down on the grass. he tucks his hands behind his head, just like it, and a couple of dogs also lay down besides him. he crosses his legs. "Failing at takin' over a castle is still tryin' to take over a castle. not many men can say that they've done that. but if ya had succeeded, ya woulda been a new lord, huh? ...nah. i jus' wanted roasted duck 'n wine. i can get gold from any other poor bastard crossin' them roads. yer entertainin', good talker. i like talkin' to the ones like ye. interestin' stuff ya say.''

[mrknightside]

"I don't get whipped much anymore. They're treatin me like a person. Sucks. I don't think I'm a person."

(It chews on the straw sticking out of its eye socket. Tastes like nothing. Mainly for the enjoyment of having something in its mouth.)

"Want me to, uh, send some folks your way? To jump? Plenty of folks that'll follow what they think is a knight into the woods."

[blackdogstalks]

"you ain't a person if you don't wanna be a person. bein' a person is too much work. 's all actin' pretend 'n takin' the joke of sapience too far. we are the gods' most annoyin' mistakes." a scoff. he closes his eyes, feeling the soft fur of Cat Gutter's head and back. He sighs through his nose like an old dog, and another dog follows suit. "if ya stop followin' those rules, then ya go back to not-person. children, madmen, cripples, foreigners. if ya upset the theatre of humanity, ya get kicked out of the play. don't play along with them rules, brother, unless yer gonna get some sorta benefit from it." "yeah, would be nice. make sure ya send good fighters. i like duelin'. feels good to steal shit from someone tryin' to kill ya."

[mrknightside]

"Plenty of guards and knights around. I'll bring a few out."

(It twitches again. It's hungry. It shouldn't eat him. It's hungry.)

"I don't like being a person. I like the benefits, but people aren't dead. I can be a person until I take off my [exoskeleton]. I- I don't know. The idea of being human is nice, but not the actuality. I don't think I liked being human when I was alive. Easier to be a dog."

[blackdogstalks]

he lifts up a finger. "people are dead. they respect the dead a lot more than they respect the livin' at times. that's why there's... songs 'n poems about cocksuckers 'n their lineages n whatever the hell they did while alive... then they die 'n they make 'em saints. but yeah, the looks affect a lot of it, huh?" he takes a blade of grass, plucking it between his fingers, watching it come undone as he toys with it. "you don't remember bein' alive?"

[mrknightside]

"Easier to be a person when you're pretty." (It mutters.) "They don't make saint or honored bloodlines outta normal folk, do they? And if they do, any paintin's or shit of em always change how they look so they're pretty. Besides, I'm a cocksucker and I ain't heard any songs about me."

(It watches the plant fall apart in his hand. If its visor weren't on, it probably would've lunged. Chewed and ate and killed again and again.) "My first memory is drowning. I figured I was probably a knight, but I dunno. Came with the armor and the, uh, plume and cloak. Look shit nowadays, but they used t'be nicer."

[blackdogstalks]

a laugh. it's weird. more of a snort and an animalistic sound of amusement than a proper laugh. it's honest, at least. a bit like a hyena, if either of these dudes knew what hyenas sound like. "right." he moves his head to look over at the dead thing besides him, and he hums while looking over it. "definitely's old. you stuck in there?"

[mrknightside]

"Stuck in the armor? No. Just hurts to take it off." (As if to prove the point, it adjusts itself so its hands are in the air, and it starts peeling off the left gauntlet. Blood drips down its vambraces. Nice laugh.) "Since I am, uh, fused. Sort of. I guess you don't have that problem?"

[blackdogstalks]

oh, huh. sniff sniff. that's a nice smell. blood under armor. but there's that pungency of rot to it, huh. guess they're different in that way. "nah. i just get hungry. i guess the body runs out of blood while healin', so i gotta make more. 'n i get hungry. 'n there's the convulsions, too. i ain't fond of them. but guess i gotta be thankful i can keep my skin. it just scars bad." "so yer stuck in there, like a mollusk. guess that's just how it is, huh? at least yer always protected with that armor, then. like... a beetle... a hard-shelled animal."

[mrknightside]

"I don't run outta blood ever." (It tosses the gauntlet into the air, then mutters curses when the thing lands on its visor and knocks the partly chewed straw fully into its helmet. It sits up and sticks the skinned hand into the metal to try and retrieve the plant.) "An I get hungry but I don't haveta eat ever. Can you regrow limbs? That might be a bug thing. That's, uh, heh. Two bug things I guess I have. With the shell."

[blackdogstalks]

he laughs again, with his odd animal laugh, at the gauntlet incident and the following rummaging in its own visor. ''you dont gotta eat? lucky, then you don't gotta spend so much time lookin' for food, huh? but bein' hungry sucks. you got any way to satisfy the hunger?" ...he thinks about it. "aye, i can regrow limbs. takes me a while, though. 's better if i can just reattach it. gotta hold it a while, though. ya must be some sorta crab. or a metal lobster. man-sized metal lobster. would be a nice beast to draw on the margins of a prayer book."

[mrknightside]

"I can still eat, mutt." (It mutters, embarrassed.) "You fed me that squirrel and duck leg earlier. An I am capable of removin my visor. I eat people an animals sometimes. I just spent most of a century not eatin. You gotta nice laugh. Do you think it's from your larynx? If I took it would you regrow it?"

[blackdogstalks]

"yeah but ya don't die from not eatin', right? starvation sucks. it eats your brain 'n your body 'n leaves you rottin' before you die for real. consider yerself lucky, if hunger won't kill you. then it ain't no different from an itch to scratch nstead of a need." scratch, scratch. he scratches at his own chin, then hums while pressing two fingers to his larynx. "yeah. i've had my head cut off. took me a bit to speak, but ah can do it. why? you wanna open up my throat?"

[mrknightside]

"Yeah." (It twists around to stare at him, pulling its hand out of its helmet. It's hungry.) "How much can you regrow? I'm hungry. Think it would be interesting if we swapped throats."

[blackdogstalks]

a weird smile crawls up on his face. there's a sickening curiosity brewing now; he's the kind of man that likes taking things as far as possible. and when you can't die, then, everything's a ''why the hell not". this is new. "i 'unno. but i won't die. guess i gotta repay yer kindness somehow, eh? go right ahead. i'm dyin' to know too."

[mrknightside]

"Yeah yeah yeah give me a minute." (It starts pulling on its visor. Undo the latches, pull off the leather, unscrew the bolts. Peel the metal away from the skull, drip blood onto its cuirass. Ow ow ow. Set the plate aside, check his face for a reaction.)

[blackdogstalks]

his face remains neutral, almost bored. when the peeling of the visor is done, however, he does raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. he sits up, sniffing at it. sniff sniff. a couple of dogs join, too, but he growls at them, and they back off. "no wonder ya smelled so good. reminds me of skinned venison." he licks at the blood seeping through the muscle tissue of its cheek, underneath the pale lines of where the cheekbone is. a tongue click, as if tasting wine. "interestin'. i've never met nothin' like ye. i've seen undead a bit like this, keepin' their wounds, more skinned or burnt flesh than man, but not as lucid."

[mrknightside]

"How do I taste?" (Its voice is slightly slurred from the pain of skinning itself and the sudden face up close to it.) "Like, uhh. Deer?"

(Chew bite gnaw eat consume feast. Instead of doing what it really really wants to, it reaches up to press its own fingers into its throat.)

[blackdogstalks]

''like all meat does. like a dead thing.'' a tilt of the head. like a confused dog. he turns his head to look at his dogs, and does a few chittering, bark-like noises. ears perk up, and each dog leaves their own way, some leaving together, some leaving for the forest on their own. they probably get mad when they see him get hurt. safer without 'em around. "what'cha doin'?"

[mrknightside]

"Gotta remove the larynx to switch them, don't-" (Its voice gets garbled as the muscle parts for its fingers. Its eyes stay fixed on him. Blood drips down down down, mixing into the grass. Red and green makes such a pretty brown, doesn't it?)

[blackdogstalks]

A LAUGH. "oh, ya were serious about it! right, right. i didn't expect ya to do that. yers comes off easy, huh?" he sits down, kneeling. He unsheathes the big knife by his side. He looks at the larynx between the dead knight's fingers. Blood has such a good smell. It makes him hungry again. but it doesn't matter. his eyes fix back on theirs, and he puts three fingers over his own throat-apple, feeling the larynx. As if calculating. He pulls at the skin a little, then, plunges the knife into his own throat. Blood. The sharp pain shooting up into the back of his eyes, the urge to stop. But his eyes remain fixed on it, as if dueling, while he twists the knife and drags it down. He does his best to contain it, but blood begins to force its way out of his mouth. He does that noise men do when stabbed- that choked, skittery sound of pain. His other hand pulls while the other works the blade stuck in his own throat. A dare.

[mrknightside]

(Its jaw goes slack as it watches, its own fingers wrapping around its larynx and pulling. Muscle and flesh and tendons tears. Hunger slams into it, and it jolts forward. Fingers still in its own throat, its still-gauntleted hand joins the mess on his throat. It tugs at the flesh, tugging it out of the way so it can see better. Easier for him to cut, too. Gods, it's hungry.)

[blackdogstalks]

Blood! It comes out of him in neat bursts, out of the wound and out of his mouth, out of his nose, aspiration of the liquid filling his throat to blame. It burns and it hurts, but he cannot help but laugh in a deranged gurgling sound as it lunges for the wound in his throat. he lets go of the knife, feeling the sudden sedation of blood loss make him dizzy. caro enim mea vere est cibus. he doesn't fight back against the urge to die, feeling the ever familiar sensation of limbs going cold and limp. the blood from his mouth smells a bit like wine. his eyes glaze over and become half-lidded, body threatening to fall back.

[mrknightside]

(It fumbles for a moment. It can wait to eat, it can finish what it wanted to do first. It shoves its hand into his throat, wraps the hand around his larynx, and pulls. It pulls its own larynx out at the same time, a slow trickle of blood following it. No blood pressure, it seems. Dead thing. It shoves its larynx into his throat, and shoves his larynx into its throat. It'll take a few hours to heal if the bugs don't decide to prioritize it. Job done well enough, it shoves his body to the ground and presses its teeth to his throat. Not the larynx, the flesh around it. Muscle and tendon. Pull and chew and consume.)

[blackdogstalks]

tastes like meat. like all meat does. like formerly living thing. he does a few choking noises for a couple of seconds, before all noise dies with a little rattle from his throat. his eyes do follow it, though, even if the body feels dead. he's smiling even while trapped in the paralysis of temporary death. tastes like iron, like curses, like all meat does. take yer fill, i don't mind.

[mrknightside]

(It pants and chews and eats. It doesn't want to have to redo the pain of tearing out its throat. Move away from the throat, dig into the shoulders and the chest and ribs and dig and dig and dig and feast and it's so hungry always it hurts it's so hungry the gods may damn it but it's in heaven kneeling here for ever and ever and)

[blackdogstalks]

here i am, stranger, opened up like a gutted animal before ya. tendons, muscle, fatty layer protectin' the viscera within. the covering of the ribs, the pale connections of fat atween organs. stomach, intestines, the reek of 'em, the heart, the liver, the lungs underneath, a whole feast laid out for ya. don't say i'm not generous. it feels weird. all i do is feel the tug of yer teeth 'n claws as you eat away. ain't it good? just another fucked up carcass for ya to get rid of an urge with. an unnatural jolt, a sudden convulsion of the hands. a weak kick. senseless movements. almost as if still laughing.

[mrknightside]

(It twitches as if considering backing off. It doesn't move away. Its blood mixes with his. Teeth knock against ribs. When's the last time it was able to feast well? It doesn't remember the last person it ate. Gods, it's so hungry. Break the ribs, get them out of the way. It's running hot. Does it hurt to have its hands inside? Does it hurt to be eaten?)

[blackdogstalks]

it hurts in sudden flashes. but it feels good. it's nice. 's the only way i can rest. it feels funny to have its fingers diggin' in, pulling, breaking precious things. it feels odd to feel the wind over things normally kept hidden. like the whole world's rushin' in to dry up the blood. There's so much damn blood. it gets everywhere! 's fun. there's that little pang of pain from the moments the body tries wakin' up. like stabs into his soul. his diaphragm sinks in and he lets out a bellow from its weight forcing the air out of his lungs. it's nice to be eaten. almost makes me feel wanted.

[mrknightside]

(It pauses to shove a hand into his mouth and down his throat. Shut up shut up shut up. It doesn't want any wanderers coming by, or the dogs running back. It stares for a moment, then it can't resist the urge to return to his throat. Cover the larynx, eat everything else. Chew and pull and feast. Gods, everybody looks good covered in shared blood.)

[blackdogstalks]

his hand has a weird twitch to it. His head jerks to the side for a moment, then nothing again. The odd push of the larynx that doesn't belong to him. He's a bit colder now, and his eyes have gone from tracking the movements to being hidden under the eyelids, proper of a corpse. The fingers in his mouth feel funny. He wonders if it fucks like it eats. Maybe he'll know one day. Another new thing to try.

heh.

[mrknightside]

(Cold meat isn't as fun to eat. It'll still feast, of course, but it prefers warm meat. Mindless consumption slows down as the body under it moves, and it pulls back again. Stare down at the body, shove its fingers into the throat, can it get its fingers into the diaphragm? Blood covers its teeth, and its maw hangs open. Chunks of meat are stuck between the fangs.)

[blackdogstalks]

A slight twitch of the body. But that's it. Can't do much when I'm dead, ah guess. Not my fault I go cold so dang fast.

[mrknightside]

(It's still hungry. It's always hungry. For ever and ever and ever and ever. It's not mindless. It forces itself away from the body, no matter how inviting he looks, and it grabs the last duck. Teeth dig into incredibly less inviting cooked meat. He said he could heal. It'll wait until he can talk. It can control itself. It'll wait until it can talk.)

[blackdogstalks]

it takes hours.

at first he's just there, dead. then, wounds begin to close. A hurried process. Tissue rebuilt, spilled blood crawling back up. The larynx is rejected- a second one begins to build itself, pushing it out of the way. Like if some sort of invisible spider or army was rebuilding every piece of tissue lost. Around the third hour, despite most of his torso still being exposed and torn open, the heart underneath the half-healed ribs beats, and in turn, the corpse convulses before Joachim screams, taking a big and painful gasp after. He rolls to his side, shaking, curling up. His face screams pain, and he kicks away at nothing, clutching his own torso and whisper-screaming, lungs becoming full of air again. "FUCK" is his first word this time.

[mrknightside]

(The corpse watches. It does seem to do a lot of that. It watches him struggle and regrow and mend and scream. Its own bugs have long since finished their own work attaching the new larynx to its throat. It'll rot, most likely, and it'll have to remove it in a few days anyway.)

(It watches the larynx it gave get rejected, and it feels something heavy settle in its chest. Damn. It was hoping that was going to work. He has to keep the flesh. It can exchange it. What a shame.)

"Alive?" (It croaks, its voice a horrible mix between his and its own. Two voices speaking as one. It wanted his laugh. It can test that later.)

[blackdogstalks]

a wheeze. he nods. he unfurls himself, crawling over to the opened barrel of wine, forcing himself to push up and dunk his entire head into the barrel. He drinks with desperation, trying to drown out the pain, but then the alcohol reaches the wounds still open on his torso, and he screams again. he lets go of the barrel, looking over at the exposed wounds and the wine confusing itself with his blood. He pant-laughs, clenching his fists in pain. "alive" he croaks back. hoarse and strange. trying to re-learn to breathe.

[mrknightside]

"You did well." (It jerks forward and up to pull him away from the barrel. Fingers hook on bone and flesh and yanks. Don't want to get too hurt, do you?)

"Couldn't switch our throats proper. Though, listen to me!" (It barks out a quiet laugh, an amalgamation of its own bubbling laugh and his animal sounds. Blood mixes together, and it lets go of him in order to lick some of the ever present blood off its fingers.) "How long d'you think it'll take to rot?"

[blackdogstalks]

he yelps at the sharp pain from its fingers digging into his torso, shaking. exposed nerve endings truly are a delight. a look over at its throat, processing the sound he just listened. he laughs weakly, more of a little "hah" than a proper laugh. an exhausted, drunk nod. "ya got m'voice..." a tilt. his mouth moves a little, trying to form coherence in a brain freshly awakened from death. "i unno. seems- alive, not.. rottin'..." bleh. he takes out his knife to stab a hole in the wood of the barrel, and then pulls it out. he drinks from it, desperately, trying to quiet down both hunger and pain. ALCOHOLISM IS THE SOLUTION