Alteron was dying, with heaving, shuddering gasps. With the announcement and crowning of triumvirate, came the slow and steady bleed of last week's regime, gutted and splayed for the new leaders to feast on, blood pooling for them all to drink with mirth.

Dirt could feel its last heady breaths, in his bones and innards and his skin, the insects taking refuge in his fur whispering it into his ears. His blood surged with it, revelling in it. Death was nigh, and then would begin the decay, consuming and hot and slow, skin and flesh dissolving, shedding from bone and being devoured.

He took his time, slinking to the nearest body of water, a murky pond. One of the few nearby that wasn't poisioned with decaying bodies. Not that the presence of bodies would deter him, of course. A skull rested on the shore, bright white and small, fragile. After drinking his fill from the dark water, he took the skull into his jaws, cradling it at first, gentle as a mother with her young, before closing his jaws and c r u n c h i n g solid teeth down into the fragile bone. He would chomp on it again a few times, breaking it up and swallowing it, almost ravenous for the taste of marrow on his tongue.

Dirt dipped his head down to drink once more from the swampy depths, flicking the flies away from his ears.

Hail Alteron, land of the Glorious Dead.

ooc: 

"Well well, what do we have here?"

Dirt paid her no mind, drinking deep from the stagnant water, barely a flick of the ear in her direction, until he stopped for a breathe. Only then, did he acknowledge her, turning to look at her, muck dripping from his chin as he ran his tongue over his lips, tasting flesh and marrow and crushed bone. He didn't speak, only offered her a very toothy grin and a wave of the tail.

"What is it you're doing, anyway?"

His head cocked curiously, suddenly. Nearly unnaturally, the bones snapping his skull to the side, the filth twisted in his fur slopping around. A few bugs crawled out of his ear, tangling into his fur, a matted, horrid refuge. He was filth, he was muck, he was mire, sacrilege and sin. He was god and jury and serf, he was what hides in the dark, he was the monster in the closet, he was in the gutters and in the attic and in the silence of night, he was antithesis and aching, trembling absolution, he was blood and gore and decomposition, he was how gods died, how kings fell, a tyrant in all but title, Alteron's rotting, dying jungle his kingdom.

His eyes widened and his blood turned hot and sweet and molten in his veins, and he approached her, breathing in her rosy scent, of fresh flowers, of beauty and soft, silky petals, of something entirely too soft and weak. He panted, drooling all the while, her sweet, sickly smell causing hims to salivate even more copiously. He wondered if her flesh tasted the same, if she was as easily crushed as a flower beneath his paws, if she withered and died in the cold, if her fruit was as beautifully red as her eyes were.

And he imagined popping them between his teeth, tangy and bitter juices exploding in his mouth, her beautiful voice shrill in horror, blood flowing down her pretty, soft white fur.

And how he wanted to corrupt, to reach out with open jaws and touch her with teeth that only knew to tear and break. Jaws ached to shut over her throat, to squeeze and feel her fade, to let go and watch her struggle to get her bearings, he wanted to break what was untouchable and beautiful.

“Surviving.”

ooc: IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK FOREVER