The Monster Within
Author: archaeologist_d
Title: The Monster Within
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Gaius/Alice
Character/s: Alice, Manticore, Gaius, Merlin
Summary: ^*#&$@($@ plotted the utter destruction of Uther Pendragon, using skin-sacks and magic to try and save their own world.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 412
Camelot_drabble prompt 549: Hunt
Author’s notes: From Season 3, Love in the Time of Dragons
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC version of Merlin; They and Shine do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No money has changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/
^*#&$@($@, their name incomprehensible to those frail skin-sacks, sensed the woman, struggling against its magic. Manticore, she had called them, evil monster, but though she had some of the gift, she was helpless against their power.
Sinking deeper into her mind, the chaos within was nothing to their focus, and it was pleasant - a human word- to feel her surrender to their supremacy. It wasn’t hard, not with humans, those fragile skin-sacks, especially those giving in to pity or avarice or a need to reconnect with others of her kind. Easy to exploit, easy to manipulate, easy to destroy once ^*#&$@($@ was done.
Alice, her name was, and precious to someone she once loved but ^*#&$@($@ didn’t care. They had their own agenda, stopping the drain of magic in ^*#&$@($@’s realm, the spirit world the skin-sacks called it although human words were so limited in describing the ecstasy of their life there.
The spirit world was being thinned out of existence, and ^*#&$@($@’ with it. Uther, king of the skin-sacks, may his bowels dissolve under acid and fire, was responsible.
It took some time-another skin-sack construct, but as ^*#&$@($@ slipped into the human’s flat reality, hunting a way to fight it, Alice was there, her magic soft and pliant.
It was no time at all before they were inside that disarray of a mind, following the neurons and power hidden there, and exploiting it, crushing it until she begged for mercy.
^*#&$@($@ had none. It was another human construct and one they didn’t understand even if they wanted to try.
But luck was on ^*#&$@($@’s side.
Even though Pendragon was protected by a skin-sack blazing with magic, Alice loved someone close to the king. Gaius, her mind supplied, although she fought with everything in her to keep it from them. If ^*#&$@($@ could feel pleasure in her struggle, they might have prolonged it, but they had other pursuits.
Water leaking from her eye sockets, still she did as they commanded. Lying to her skin-sack lover, poisoning the Pendragon king.
Among the humans, magic flaming from one they called Merlin and a slower, banked power from Gaius was not enough to stop ^*#&$@($@. Alice kept them at each other’s throats, ^*#&$@($@’s manipulation of her words a delicious endpoint as Uther’s own existence was on a claw-point, tipping into oblivion.
All ^*#&$@($@ had to do was wait and watch and bathe in the spectacle of Uther’s destruction.
It would be a glorious end.
And a new beginning. A thousand thousand ecstasies with magic’s rebirth in the dazzling infinity of the spirit world.
^*#&$@($@ couldn’t wait.
Title: The Monster Within
Rating: PG
Pairing/s: Gaius/Alice
Character/s: Alice, Manticore, Gaius, Merlin
Summary: ^*#&$@($@ plotted the utter destruction of Uther Pendragon, using skin-sacks and magic to try and save their own world.
Warnings: none
Word Count: 412
Camelot_drabble prompt 549: Hunt
Author’s notes: From Season 3, Love in the Time of Dragons
Disclaimer: I do not own the BBC version of Merlin; They and Shine do. I am very respectfully borrowing them with no intent to profit. No money has changed hands. No copyright infringement is intended.
o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/o/
^*#&$@($@, their name incomprehensible to those frail skin-sacks, sensed the woman, struggling against its magic. Manticore, she had called them, evil monster, but though she had some of the gift, she was helpless against their power.
Sinking deeper into her mind, the chaos within was nothing to their focus, and it was pleasant - a human word- to feel her surrender to their supremacy. It wasn’t hard, not with humans, those fragile skin-sacks, especially those giving in to pity or avarice or a need to reconnect with others of her kind. Easy to exploit, easy to manipulate, easy to destroy once ^*#&$@($@ was done.
Alice, her name was, and precious to someone she once loved but ^*#&$@($@ didn’t care. They had their own agenda, stopping the drain of magic in ^*#&$@($@’s realm, the spirit world the skin-sacks called it although human words were so limited in describing the ecstasy of their life there.
The spirit world was being thinned out of existence, and ^*#&$@($@’ with it. Uther, king of the skin-sacks, may his bowels dissolve under acid and fire, was responsible.
It took some time-another skin-sack construct, but as ^*#&$@($@ slipped into the human’s flat reality, hunting a way to fight it, Alice was there, her magic soft and pliant.
It was no time at all before they were inside that disarray of a mind, following the neurons and power hidden there, and exploiting it, crushing it until she begged for mercy.
^*#&$@($@ had none. It was another human construct and one they didn’t understand even if they wanted to try.
But luck was on ^*#&$@($@’s side.
Even though Pendragon was protected by a skin-sack blazing with magic, Alice loved someone close to the king. Gaius, her mind supplied, although she fought with everything in her to keep it from them. If ^*#&$@($@ could feel pleasure in her struggle, they might have prolonged it, but they had other pursuits.
Water leaking from her eye sockets, still she did as they commanded. Lying to her skin-sack lover, poisoning the Pendragon king.
Among the humans, magic flaming from one they called Merlin and a slower, banked power from Gaius was not enough to stop ^*#&$@($@. Alice kept them at each other’s throats, ^*#&$@($@’s manipulation of her words a delicious endpoint as Uther’s own existence was on a claw-point, tipping into oblivion.
All ^*#&$@($@ had to do was wait and watch and bathe in the spectacle of Uther’s destruction.
It would be a glorious end.
And a new beginning. A thousand thousand ecstasies with magic’s rebirth in the dazzling infinity of the spirit world.
^*#&$@($@ couldn’t wait.