#// brom: hm. today i will Seclude myself and shove my suffering into the Forget Corner.

[of-forossa]

A slip of paper is unceremoniously nudged under his door, upon its tinged surface the inked letters stood out in stark contrast, bold and every single letter presented as if the writer themselves wanted to convey that they were yelling at him from afar; "For all that is wretched and holy and as graceless as I may be; I do believe you still deserve a solace, holy man " The sound of a settling bottle and shifting foot steps was heard hardly a moment after. Whoever it had been had come and gone.

"Blessed be the Church, blessed be their Holy Blades on bone sharpened..." he mutters, heady with the stench of blood and beastly musk. Teeth bared into fangs that have no proper fit for a mouth still human, the prayers dribbling from his lips are slurred and stuttered. "Blessed be Her Holiness, tempered and tested but not tempted by the Father's trial..." Here was a paragon of the Healing Church, here was their shining sword turned desperate drunkard on a communion ill-suited for men of all shapes...

Drip, drip, drop, goes the sweat falling from his burning forehead, pressed against the cold stone floor of his quarters in desperate prostration before the gods. His malformed pupils peer up reverently, up to the moonlight beaming in from the lonely window high above, and the flood of garbled prayers slows to a trickle. A once-hand claws weakly at the floor, digging trenches into stone with an unpleasant grinding, followed by the other as he slowly crawls and drags himself towards that brilliant shaft of light. Collapsing within its glare, he curls inward upon himself, clutching the radiant badge of his station in prayer renewed.

"Father Oedon, Mother Kosm, Orphaned Mergo, Benevolent Flora, have mercy... have mercy on your son..." Engulfed in moonlight, supposedly safe from the shadows within and beyond the mind, Brom traces the runes carved into his inner thoughts with a fervor that goes beyond desperation to teeter on the edge of mania. Warmth, Communion, Oedon's Embrace... and that gift from his brother now long departed, that shining Radiance that calls to him even in the depths of this growing ignorance by god-gifted but not desired. To the same light that once guided those fervent executioners of the faith into battle he clings to, wrapping himself around the torch of that brilliance as though the harsh glare burning within the mind’s eye will cleanse the curse roiling within the blood  pumping through his heart and staining his hands and teeth and tongue...

How long Brom remains there, rigid with a pain of body and mind and soul beneath the watchful gaze of the moon, he couldn’t say. Only the stirring of someone at the door rouses him from the fog of stupor, pounding head narrowing the eyes that saw but a shadow beneath the door and roaring ears catching the slightest clicking of heels against stone. For a time there is no attempt to rise or rouse himself further, no intent to pursue whatever his midnight caller had left in their wake in favor of embracing that numbing abyss rather than greeting the wakening terrors once more even weaker than before. It takes the scent of them, so faint and fleeting as it drifts over the sharp tang of blood old and new, to draw him back to himself enough to consider another crawl back from whence he’d came.

Propping himself against the thick door, chest heaving with heavy breaths from the fresh exertion and face pulled into a grimace that’s more a snarl with the depth of his beastliness, Brom scans the letter and doesn’t fight the slow slumping of his shoulders in weary relief at the familiar penmanship and the kindness suffused into them. When he plies and pries away at the door, opens it just a hair to find a brown bottle of something too harsh and too coarse to be the blood his peers indulged in, there’s something that could’ve been a laugh bubbling from his chest were his throat not so raw nor his heart so heavy.

Sequestered once more in the darkness of his chambers, the door bolted and shut tightly for the man’s peace of mind within and the people’s safety beyond in equal measure, Brom settles back down and dwells. On the bottle, cool within the grasp of his cruel claws and cool against his hideous teeth. On the letter, wounding words spun into a desire for his sake that he knows he doesn’t deserve  On the runes, etched into a mind too dulled by instinct and hunger and blood for eyes to line inside.

Brom doubts, and drinks, and dwells till long after the day has begun anew.