Canis: Inhumanity
Monster.
I fly, straight and true, above the city shrouded in ice. The world below moves sluggishly at this height, distance warping time like a hand pushing upon a net. Ice collects on my flesh, bringing shine to some planes and dulling others. Ice is beautiful - cold and unflinching. It forms in the second it takes for my wings to beat, shattering quietly with each silent sweep of stone. Stone is what they made me - what I am. Designed and crafted by a master, carved from the Earth for their design. I can feel them from here, feel the pull of their desire so far below. Theirs wants, their needs... they are flames. They are flames, and I... a moth.
Slowly I angle myself towards the Earth once more, my reverie broken. The entire world begins to move faster as I approach it. The sounds of screaming children and the smell of pollution assail me as I rejoin them. Here, this close to their existence, I am not myself. Here, this close to the world of man and beast, I am Canis. Canis the Devourer. Canis the Destroyer. Canis the Undying. Here I am not man or God, but stone. Here I have not destiny, but task.
Slave.
I swoop to the ground and feel the cement crack underneath my weight. My wings draw back, folding behind me but never disappearing. Beautiful to me, and functional to others. What I feel as my body... they see as their tool. Slowly I move my legs, walking forward haltingly. They will never understand the will it takes to move a body such as my own. How does one force rock to shift? I am called slow, but I am sure. I am called slothful, but I am dedicated. I am called unmoving, but I am unmovable.
I see it in the deepest part of the alley. The flames flicker and dance in front of them, casting shadows on their skin. Two, both men, dirty and miserable. They thirst for the flame to sate the cold which gnaws their bellies. They lament their lives, hating their lot in life and their inability to change it. Were I another creature, I would laugh at the irony. They do not know slavery, they do not know what it is to have your will chained. Were I another creature, I would laugh... but I am not.
Gargoyle.
They can not see, but they can hear. Stone against concrete makes a noise that is many things, but soft is not amongst them. They look - stare - in my direction, but they see nothing. The one hardly reacts as I reach out and grab the throat of the other, snapping bone and tearing muscle in one motion. I look in to his eyes as he dies, and there I see it. Life. Life is most brilliant as it fades. This man had life, and he squandered it. His life can never be mine, but I may begrudge him his time all the same. I was not born to such a life. I was not born.
The other one has drawn a blade and stabbed it in my side. I feel the metal crumple against the stone of my chest, and I hear the scream of the would-be attacker. I drop the first to the ground, and turn to face the other. So slow... the agony of stone grinding against stone... the hated necessity of movement. Taking him in my arms, I feel bones snap here and there along his body as he attempts to resist me. His struggles slow as terror overtakes him. Terror overtakes all of them.
"You..." I speak, forcing my tongue to accommodate the language of this sort. My hands touch his face, and too slowly I realize my mistake. From my finger spreads the darkness, coursing along his skin even as the edges of his face begin to rim with frost. He gasps, pained by it, the agony of my ancient corruption harming his soul even as it destroys his body. I twist slowly and his neck snaps... not my intent, but merciful, perhaps. Can one such as I be merciful?
A question I contemplate as I take to the sky once more, a body underneath each arm.