demigold au. cw for blood, injury, suggestive tension.
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100 years before the Chaining of Death.
"You should not be here."
The great owl stopped, their hand a mere breath from the soft flesh of their chest. Sharp talons gleamed in the soft light of the torches as they turned to face the owner of the voice. The maw of the shrine behind them pulsed with hunger.
"So thou say."
A mahogany muzzle emerged from the darkness, startlingly white and clean fangs curled into an expression of displeasure. Dark eyes from beneath a dark hood affixed them with a depth so ancient and deep, they could barely repress a shudder.
"You should not be here, Haro," the Fox said again.
"Thou wouldst preach to me of being in the wrong place?" Haro responded, the talons of their hand still poised at their chest. "Thou knoweth not what I seek."
"I know what you seek," the Fox replied, stepping out of the darkness and into the dim torchlight of the shrine, and this alone gave the great owl pause. "I also know that your search will return nothing."
Haro said nothing, staring at the Fox for a long moment. The Fox looked beyond them, gazing at the shrine.
"Thou knoweth not what I seek," the owl finally spoke. "Else thou wouldst not attempt to impede me. I seek the cure to madness."
Surprise flashed across the Fox's muzzle, quickly masked. "The counsel of a dead god is useless to you."
"Thou cannot be certain they are dead." Haro turned halfway, gazing at the shrine as well.
"The Fanatic is dead," the Fox repeated, the barest inflection of frustration in his voice. "Parted from their crown by the Old Faith. As you are. As I am."
"It matters not." Haro's talons glinted in the torchlight. "Their shrines still dispense knowledge, if thou knowst how to use them."
The Fox let out a noise, a deep huff of air accented by narrowed eyes. "Then by all means, go ahead. Rip divinity from yourself by your own talons, again and again. Waste your precious flesh to feed a dead god in hopes they will answer you. But let it be known that I warned you."
Haro paused again. The shrine's hunger thrummed in their chest.
"T'was the crown that led me here," the great owl spoke, but could not bring themself to look at the Fox. The weight of their dead crown felt heavy upon their head. "The statue which contained its visage led me here, to the answers I-"
"The crowns are dead," the Fox all but snarled, and drew Haro's surprised gaze with his vicious tone. "Mine is. Yours is. Theirs is. But only you were lucky enough to keep the corpse of your power."
"The answers I seek are here," the owl responded. "The crowns may be dead, but I live. Thou live. The crownsmith lives. That is enough."
The shrine pulsed hungrily. Wispy tendrils of devotion took the offering, and the shrine consumed it. Haro faced the shrine and kneeled to pray, clasping their bloodied hands together.
Haro's talons pierced flesh, a gush of blood splattering the feathers of their arm and the ground upon which they stood. The Fox's nose twitched, and his long, pointed ears perked up at the stifled gasp of pain. Haro dug their hand into their own chest, pulling free a heart.
"They were driven to madness to lose their crown," the Fox whispered, as devotion and knowledge flowed from the shrine into the great owl. "A disgrace upon the domain of knowledge to see a false god take what was divinely theirs."
Haro stood, their faded golden robes falling closed. They pressed their bloodied hand against their bloodied chest.
"By surrender or by death, the Old Faith taketh our power." Darkened talons clenched into a fist, nearly tearing bloodstained feathers from their roots. "Though I am weakened, I still walk with the blessing of the First, divinely inherited. Though I am weakened, I am more godly than the heresy of the Old Faith."
A touch to their shoulder, a hand reaching to part their robes, silenced the great owl. Darkness draped itself against their back, the hot breath of the Fox at their neck.
"This makes you no different than I," the Fox muttered softly, his long fingers curling around Haro's wrist. The great owl stood as though made of stone, only the barest twitch of feathers atop their head when the Fox leaned over their shoulder to whisper. "But the corpse of your crown... that is different indeed."
Their bloody hand was pulled free of their robes, snared by the Fox's grip around their wrist. Still they did not move, even as the Fox lifted their arm and dragged his tongue over their bloody talons.
"Thou sayeth the Fanatic was driven to madness," Haro spoke, staring straight at the shrine in front of them. It had dimmed, its hunger satiated, but the hunger of another remained. They wondered whether or not to satiate it as well. "Is that true, or dost thou speak from the knowledge of thine own state?"
"The only one who drives me mad is you, Haro," the Fox murmured, the barest brush of a growl beneath his voice. His tongue pressed down against their wrist, lapping the blood from their soaked feathers. "I am not as... pathetic, as the Fanatic."
"Then thou play a dangerous game," Haro replied, flexing their talons. Tendons and veins beneath the flesh of their wrist trembled under the Fox's wet, hot mouth. "Putting thy sanity in my claws."
"I was not giving it to you."
Fingers slipped from their wrist, and the weight against the owl's back disappeared.
Haro turned, a blooming hollow in their chest and a sudden cold against their feathers. From the darkness and the shadows, the Fox spoke again, staying out of sight, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
"But it will be yours, o great god of the hunt," the Fox taunted. "If you can hunt it down."
He offered them distraction. Haro flexed their talons, their faded golden robes falling shut as they allowed their arm to fall back to their side. A challenge and a distraction. A hunt. For what purpose?
"Very well. But thou shouldst be warned. I do not allow my prey to escape."
The Fox laughed. "And thou shouldst be warned," he replied with glee, almost mockingly, "nothing of mine is prey."
The oppressive darkness lifted, and the Fox was gone.
Haro turned to look at the shrine, now bathed in a sliver of light from the crescent moon above. Every instinct of their body was screaming to begin the hunt of their newest mark, despite the fact that their crown was dead, its corpse perched heavy on their head.
They sighed, reaching out to touch the shrine of the Fanatic. There had to be an answer to fixing the crownsmith's madness within the Fanatic's writings. If not that, there had to be a way to bring what was dead back to life.
For now, they had a fox's sanity to hunt.