Title Title Title | You & Me
TIMING: dude & dude LOCATION: X SUMMARY: Eilidh celebrates Lughnasadh and gains a new companion. WARNINGS: Gore
The full moon had yet to touch the sky. But she knew it lurked below the horizon. Waiting for its turn. It was time for the harvest. This cycle would be a bit unorthodox—snow resting on the ground, with rocks hovering above the trees. And the sky was off. But the sun and the moon still awoke and slept as they have done for millennia. And the differences did not hinder her harvesting.
The first was a middle-aged man. Nothing made him unique amongst the population of the town. Except he found himself alone. And that solitude might’ve been safe. If Eilidh hadn’t interrupted, like she had interrupted his life. Knife met his throat. Quickly found an artery. Questions and pleads—why me, why me—choked against the surging blood. Gurgles and spirts were his last words as he fell to the ground. A departing blessing filled the following silence. Before the blade pressed deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Passing bones, passing tendons. Until it escaped the other end. Head met the ground, and it took everything in her not to follow. But that was for someone else. The body would do. She tore into the flesh—shed more blood on the grass and her skin. Anything connecting it to humanity was lost. Only muscle and bone. And then, just bone. Red soaked ground and the bones and the smell the only remainder of the man who was alive and well minutes prior. Well, except for the head, left untouched. Frozen in that moment of terror.
The second was an even older woman. She too found herself straying far from society. Right into Eilidh’s awaiting maw. Knife found its mark again. The artery cleaved, and the blood poured, and the realization striped the color from her face more than the blood loss ever could. Mirror of the first’s final moments. But this was a cycle of change, and the harvest would be no exception. As life quickly drained from the rest of her, the woman’s hands came alive in heat. Palms ignited in white luminescence—as if the eagerly awaited moon was held in both. These moons crashed onto Eilidh; turned to comets in the woman’s desperate and final fury. But craters did not form on impact. Nothing did. The onslaught fizzled and died on her apathetic skin—released the energy back into the world in harmless twinkling lights. The woman followed her creations: breathed her last strangled breath before collapsing. Once more, that blessing left Eilidh’s tongue. And once more, the head was severed.
Eilidh saved the best for last. Bastard had been left to ripen, growing sweeter and sweeter. The sight of him sent hunger pains cascading down her core. She shook under the might of the cravings, under the excitement of instincts finally fulfilled. Inevitable prolonged only by his role in something greater. Not just for sustenance. No, this was her prized bull. And the sun was setting on his last day. Trusty knife readied again. Followed the needed motions. Blood met the blade, welcomed its presence. His skin peeled away so easily from the metal, as if it always wanted to. A satisfaction lacking in the first two blossomed in her chest, while watching the light leave his eyes. And yet, when that blessing met her lips for the third time that day, it was still equally sincere. His head toppled to the ground with a wet thud.