Sad Monster

@dyre.bsky.social

1262 Followers 483 Following

Sad monster and resident coffee gremlin what writes about uncomfortable subjects and fantastical things that lurk in dark places. Is normal about trees. || store: https://payhip.com/AReinke || || Fuel me: https://www.paypal.me/authoramberreinke ||

Loraine saw many oddities in her position as overnight manager of the Park and Forget, being such places tended to come with pre-planned spaces rented out and hers allowed drive ins... she was used to weird. To last minute stops, exhausted truckers pulling in just to get a safe nap in their truck without worrying of highway patrol or thieves. What Loraine was not used to was whatever walked at her just then. It was four in the morning. Loraine had not put a pot on. She was not prepared to deal with a devilish looking man in the world's saddest drag costume leading a bear in a harness to the box she called an office. She just wasn't. But it's what was happening so she took a deep breath, opened her little window and made sure to keep well within it. There were words prepared. The devil in drag beat her to it, gesturing to the bear, "Oh, this? The collar is for ownership, the harness control and trust me...you want him gagged." "O...kay," Loraine drawled, clicking her tongue before asking, "Can I help you?" He sighed, snuggled up close to the bear, who Loraine thought was wearing paradoxically too much and too little leather, and poured sugar into his voice, "I sure hope so, dear. See my pet here has a big scary truck just over there--" his pointing led her eyes to the outline of something resembling a truck-- "and we need somewhere to park it for...two months? Is that long enough, pet?" The bear nodded, showcasing the glistening drool dripping around the red ball in his mouth before the devil turned eyes back on Loraine. "Two months, if you could." "Yeah," She said slow, steady, eyes on the drool. "W-we can...can do that. What kind of truck is it?"
After Ignatius was guided into the booth and the vampire sat across from him, where he removed his leather cap—revealing how red his eyes burned as well as a distinct lack of hair on a very tan head—words decided to find tongue. "What are you?" "A vampire, like you said." The words came with a sigh as Bo relaxed, stretching arms along the back of the seat. Ignatius scoffed and nodded towards the nearly full diner, "Do they know that?" "This is around when I were made, so no, they don’t." Leaning sudden enough to knock Ignatius back, Bo smiled in a terribly unfriendly manner, showing the pointed tips of fangs desperate to burst from his jaws. “And they won’t.” Rolling his eyes, Ignatius waved the scary face off. "Right, and I suppose they don't mind a few people missing every now and then?" "I don't kill.” Bo relaxed into his seat again, eyes on the window, fingernails clawing through the mess of black and gray curls on his face. “Not since...not since I were made into this thing.” A laugh and it was Ignatius' turn to lean on the table, catching eyes and naught but a faint image of the vampire reflected in the window—enough to seem normal to anyone else. "So, what, are you munching on raccoons out back or something?" Looking back at a face too pleased, he sighed. “Animals don’t hit the spot, so I take sips here and there and spend a night or two with someone every so often. They just remember we had a good time. No need to make a fuss." Ignatius ached to ask why the big idiot was reliving life in this time, this place, flagrantly leaving marks where he shouldn’t. Or why the place had an odd air to it, why the conversations he could hear were gibberish and why the woman he'd spoken to lost her bubbly attitude the moment he wasn't looking. But, having never met a vampire in person, he was entirely uninterested in the bigger mysteries of the diner. "But bitemarks. You can't erase a wound."
His truck's changed a bit over the years—bigger sleeper, more fuel-efficient engine, darker windows for the weariness the sun brings—and his name's gone round and back again more than once to keep down suspicion, but Bo never stopped driving. Never stopped being fifty either, or hungry for things a man should not eat. Luckily he found young men still enjoyed his company, more so with all he could see in them—all he could tease—and it was much easier to control himself when he sipped on one or two every few hours. So he picked up hitchhikers, drove them where they were going and stole a bite when they insisted on paying for their ride by riding him. Once in a while he'd keep them longer for more of a meal, getting a room and bringing them to the brink of death with how much he took...but never beyond. He'd not killed another—of his own accord—since he woke as this other thing: vampire, obviously, but he didn't care for the word. He was no movie monster. The careful meals were not for any altruistic reasons, if he were honest with himself, and it was terribly difficult to keep so careful. To not devour all he tasted. But Bo led a simple life before he died and despite having trouble seeing himself as living still, or even human, he quite wished to keep things simple. Killing people up and down the highway was not simple. So he didn't kill. As a bonus, switching to contract sometime in the 80s, he rarely had to deal with anyone directly if he didn't want to. Which meant fewer sources of temptation. Not only did he keep his job, he found a new highway that was all highways, making it a might quicker to do it...and easier to feed without drawing suspicion. Simple. Comfortable. Bo would call himself comfortable. His unlife easy, predictable even for all he could sense and do. Boring to some but he was content. At peace with himself. Then he stepped out of the room he'd rented for a nice, predictable evening and walked right into something insane.
colored sketch of a semi truck with two men standing close and intimately laughing in front of it
In the shadowed mirror of the Wake, forgotten beasts keened in silent agony, slithering through waters without weight for ages without meaning. Directionless, feckless, lost and empty, their existence was one of eternal dark and eternal sorrow for lives half-remembered and never mourned. Until, breaking a surface none could hope to breach, came flashes of light. Of eyes and teeth... carrying the impossible. Burning within writhing tendrils of an emptiness even their most colossal could not claim it shone. Bright as the Heart itself. Bright and hot and singing. Too delectable the melody, too sweet the beacon and one after the next the forgotten beasts swam for it. Slithered for it. For them. Clawed and gnawed and bit into their wisping flesh with long-dead teeth for a lick. A taste. A single gasp of the Breath bursting so loud and full falling from a nascent sky. The shadows gnashed back. They gnawed deep and starving, refusing to loose their captive, to share their treasure. Still the beasts bit and clawed and rammed with every slip of forms so fleeting. Eager to taste, to know and remember—if but a beat, a single beat—the spark and thrill of life. Life kept safe and warm as those tangled in her own shadow kept her unaware of the horrors seeking her Breath... When at last all calmed, keening silenced and beasts outrun, every shadow cradling her split wide and Faerai gasped for a cyan sky. For six familiar eyes near the size of the Heart itself. Six eyes blinking at her from sockets on either side of a bony beak too grand to see more than an outline of.
Mountainous eyes a steady glimmer on the horizon, Delgrij stood firm at the window, branches clutching bag to chest and sill to stomach. Quiet, he begged, a single breath of quiet... True, his woods never were, but they were a known chaos. A soothing din through his leaves and tendrils. The cheln offered no such comforts. It was alien, it and those teeming within, their fear and panic twitching through knotholes and reminding him evermore of all he lost. Fawns keened with piercing fresh agony while doe and stag alike wept along. Some muttered and paced, others pounded soft fur into hard inner shell, anger cracking old wounds. Orders were barked and heeded above it all while the squelch, slap and sizzle of residual Swell dissolving from gargantuan flippers sang in competition with raucous birdsong outside. Even the cheln whimpered loud and low for the sting of Wake and captain. Worse played beneath, a dirge groaning deep and starving, their shimmering scales a flicker along choppy waves promising to wrench more ichor from his insides. No. There would be no quiet in that beast. No comfortable silence to absorb the horror of the past turns at a reasonable pace. Instead they raked. Every one. As vicious thorns they tore through bark and flesh and smooth heartwood to ravage his senses and drop him to a floor too warm and breathing. Clutching bag and pebble tighter, curling into himself, Delgrij stained its yellows red as all those horrors leaked thick and aching from his eyes.
Nodding, obediently silent, Delgrij at last was allowed to stand; one branched hand at a time. Once up on his roots he bowed well past the Captain's middle, remaining submissively bent until she was midway up the spiral of carved shell leading to the outer deck—pace, the harried dinmael of does and stags told one another as they chased the Captain upward. Sighing, once safely alone, Delgrij opened the letter and groaned for symbols he'd never quite learned. A few made sense, nascent memory begging purchase, but overall it was gibberish. Wiping all memory of reading from him every turn she caught him learning, whether on his own, with Namei's help, or in the lap of some bite she loaned him to—so eager to mentor—his Broodmother assured it never stuck. No matter the tongue Delgrij tried to learn it in, he was forbidden even to know his own brand in writing. Why you chose to steal something so beautiful and ultimately harmless to you I will never know, he told someone long gone. Dead, he imagined—refusing to consider the darkness which stole the sprout. "Written words are not a Nectar's domain, sweet Namael, you are to read only what is etched in their desires," he mimicked his Broodmother well enough to shudder for the echo along tighter walls and scoffed for fresh prickles in his bark. "Pointless cruelty," he muttered, in his own voice, to the confused jumble of almost-coherent symbols before tucking the note into his slingbag and shuffling through familiar curtains. 
The fresh tone afforded looser limbs for Lyrt to wriggle in, which he did. Stomping hard and fast on a tail swishing absent and close, he tore its piercing free with a twist and grind, shouting, "I will take what I please!" Rushing from his then growling attacker, he did glance back, did note the face suckling a bleeding tail... with a far larger build than his own. In all directions the stag outclassed his size; a massive beast of an Auru. If an old one. Grayed from ear to hoof, all of it too easily seen as the stag wore no shirt while the soft fabric wrapping his waist, hips and thighs covered little else. And, as any who dealt in gossip knew, he was terribly close to death. Not from age but sickness. He was weak. Frail—despite recent action suggesting otherwise. Lyrt found it all too amusing. "The chronicler?" He scoffed. "The chronicler thinks to keep me from my meal!" Laughing so high it scratched the air and wrinkled along its edges, he backed further. "A rotation or three from meat yourself and you try to command me? Me?" Lyrt threw his arms up, grinning for how the bruising light spilling in behind him cast so deep a shadow on the old stag. How it made of his own billowy sleeves a larger figure. The sight burned, vibrating his words as he declared, "Do you know who I--" Cut off as fresh arms too strong snatched him around legs and chest, folded him neatly in half...and chucked him out the window which had been framing him so well.
Flying through dreary shadows once bright and bubbling with heat and life, zipping past hot fur and angry claws and even dodging the snapping beaks of hungry lyphora did not slow the ocular. Did not deter it from its goal. Yet it whirred lower and clicked higher at the sounds its sensors felt in the air of its master's tower. Always it jittered at such agonized bliss singing strained and warbling along the walls, with the walls—how they moaned in delight for shared sensations it did not. Few considered the orbs of matte black metal to hold emotions but those few would be mistaken. Oculars were emotion. They sensed it, tracked it, recorded it, played it and bled it whenever cracked. Were their clicks and whirs not laughter, the blinking of their pin red light not communication? A monster what fed on emotion would ask for nothing less than shared sensations from its creations. And in its emotion it held fear as it floated up mountainous steps, through tight passageways for its master...if they yawned for it. Hope floated with it. That of a sibling alive, one fleeing darkness hungrier than even its master could claim... if said sibling were lost as it chased her to the Rim. Down the Spine, even, spinning wild and cracking itself on the clay for its sharp and ragged winds.
Parnamyr bust, he is smiling
Parnamyr bust wherein he is too pleased with himself
"Should we get a room?" He spoke too soft, suddenly curious if the building nearby had them—a bathroom even, something a little bigger to shove all that sunset into. Nibbling a neck too close, Bo breathed ever harder for a swifter rhythm. "Mm, no." "You don't want more?" Pouted and punctuated by another grind, he held those lips tight to his neck. Where they mumbled, muffled, "Not yet." "Then bite me," Ignatius begged, stretching for it. Gripping harder, Bo knit brows and limbs at once, tensing under him. A soft kiss to an ear and a deeper grind relaxed his hands as Ignatius explained, "I don't need to read that sunset to know you want a taste." More knitting, pulling away enough to see eyes. "And—and you?" "Mm, you're delicious," Ignatius purred, nibbling his lip before answering, "And you'd be a feast if you fucked me. But I'll settle for those fangs." If Bo could blush, he might have, instead he giggled. "So filthy." "You like it—" Interrupted by the teeth he begged for, Ignatius moaned soft and sweet. "And I like that." Releasing him, Bo kept close to the marks he'd left, kissing and licking up what bubbled to spill so hot and swooned. "You taste too—too good I'm afraid I'll--" "I'm endless, Bo," Ignatius cooed, nudging his neck closer. "Keep going." "So long as you do the same, Iggy." "Mm, you haven't earned that name ye--" The return of teeth shivered through him. "Okay, okay it's yours." The stuttered confession came with fingers tight on a bare scalp, holding Bo's lips to his neck, swooning for the icy fangs digging so deep. Teeth. So many teeth. Cool and sumptuous. Even the stray droplets of his own blood running down his skin were cooled in that bite. The sweetness of fangs, the desire so bright and sparking through their owner, and the sensation of every grinding thrust against him had Ignatius panting into a slightly pointed ear.
An image of a white peice of crinkled paper with black text and decorative symbols over it. It is titled “A Writer Ask Game” with the words “One like, One answer” at thebottom. There are a couple decirative symbols of pen flourishes, a book, and a keyboard. It has text reading “by Theodore Snapdragon” and 75 questions. The questions are as follow (truncated for BSky character limits): What’s your favorite part of writing? What’s the scariest thing you’ve ever written? Do you usually write happy, sad, or other kinds of endings? Who is your favorite author? What’s your favorite type of scene to write? What’s your favorite type of symbolism? What’s your least favorite part of writing? Where do your ideas come from? What’re your favorite themes? What’s the most wholesome thing you’ve written? Have you ever had writer’s block? Do you have a favorite character? What drives you to write? What’s your favorite part of your current WIP? Do you have a favorite of your writing projects? Do you enjoy editing? What’s the saddest thing you’ve ever written? Do you like long or short form writing better? What’s the hardest thing to write? What song(s) inspire you to write? Do you have a specific type of reader in mind when you write? Is your prose more purple or beige? Do you have any monsterous characters, metaphorically or literally? What’re your favorite books? Do you usually write with specific themes in mind, or find them during writing? Does being a writer impact how you see the world? What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever written? The shortest? Would you say you love writing? Is there a specific author you want to be like? What’s the most annoying task in writing? What’s your biggest grammar pet peeve? Which of your characters do you find yourself thinking of the most? Do you have other passions besides writing? What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever written? How do you establish setting in your writing? Do you enjoy writing dialogue?
screenshot from Warframe showcasing Follie in an orbiter
black hellebore flowers
Parnamyr is too close to the screen, his face taking up near all of it
One typically expects these things to be arranged in alphabetical order, with proper appendices and footnotes. One should lower their expectations. I am a creature of fantasy, of delights and terrors and I will tell my tales however I please. You are privileged to share them with me, to share this space, my air... and if you are exceptionally lucky, and I terribly hungry, my touch. In fact, I believe we should begin with me and my ilk. Crafted by the Lady Herself, we are what all else took its blood, bone, breath and body from after all. We should come first. I should. For I was first born to Myr, a world of jagged splendor...and broken promises, as it were, but we are not here to discuss interpersonal affairs. The Discs, as many would refer to them, were our first world. Our world. Those of the Lady’s Children, hand-crafted and gifted a taste of Her Breath, Bone, Body and Blood. Fickle materials those, supplemented with whatever cosmic debris was in the area I imagine. Not around for our making, after all, only the after.
bust of Parnamyr with a paradoxical expression of rage, sadness and fear
Roan nodded, watching the doe more than a few ages his junior in a breath of vulnerability she showed no others and considered the orders bringing them both where they were. "I was rushed too," he offered. When she looked up at him he nodded. "Not Nona's orders direct but the yearling claimed them from her tongue. I was to be on the cheln with her guests, to take note of all they did...especially her friend." "Mifyr," Morin sneered. He laughed. "I'm sure to most, but Nona named it a friend and given my studies and successful trips through the twin woods to learn more...she knew I'd be the best fit to learn all it had to teach." "If it remembers her, you mean," Morin almost spat as she stood up and turned to the window, to the storm. "She spoke of him often over our ages together. 'Looming beauty of pale bark and ichor-wet leaves' she said." Touching the tempered glass, its Wen water yet sparked along the pads of her paws and she sighed. "She said as well he had a soft touch and a voice like a song. A voice I heard him use to subdue my crew and half my passengers on the pace not a light after he boarded." Turning sharp, she slammed paws on the desk and glared at Roan. "And not a breath passed some fawns told me he tossed a stag overboard. So you'll forgive me if I'm not as accommodating of monsters as my missus."
Delgrij bust of him looking annoyed and confused and asking, "By the Lady's glare, why!?"
Such promises he longed to whisper as he carried her to the center of the nest, to the ichor that throbbed in tune with the one frothing with his brood. (a red-marker note reads "Jesus, the imagery. A+")
Parnamyr bust sketch of him losing his mind with laughter
Torches didn’t capture Ansul on the way up, nor did the slender pathway separate him from the arm he held—twisting and shimmying as he did to keep it. Yet the words, and the quiet enveloping them, held him in a vice until he breathed fresher air. Hidden door scraped into place, Ansul rushed to pick at the food on the table—ignoring how his King remained by the door. “What is the more you find in a pulse?” He asked when he noticed, noticing as well how the gray eyes he sought were not on him. Goblet drained, its contents refused to still the suckling in his veins and Enric licked his lips again and bit before looking up. To slide lidded eyes along who stood too far. All of Ansul pulsed loud enough to thrum in his ears and tap along his skin. “Memories,” he breathed, beside him in a blink to touch and hold, “and sensation.” With a tongue teasing under his collar, rough and hungry, Ansul dropped the meat he’d picked from a too warm spread and set his hands on his icy King. Firm, but gentle, he pushed him away. Or tried. That tongue refused to budge, joined by teasing teeth. “Enric,” he tried with words, “you’ve a feast downstairs.” Pressing in too close, knocking a platter of fruit from the table, Enric snatched hands trying again to push him away. Too loud the pulse, too sweet what he knew flowed within, and himself far too empty. There would be no stopping the fangs from stretching behind his teeth, the hands to gnarled claws. All of him paled as white scales sprouted and a thicker frame tore silks... “I’ve a feast here,” he rasped, voice echoed through widening jaws and splitting, elongating tongue.
sketch of mechanical hand pointing at you, with a speech bubble stating, "you."
Parnamyr bust sketch wherein he's looking off in the distance with heart-shaped eyes
Parnamyr bust of him looking off to the side, needled fingers teasing his face and shoulder with more clicking in contemplation.
Grand the Nothing’s feast and grand their distraction as the Watcher placed Its freshly minted vessel onto another without interruption. Barring the terrified cries. None could see It but the dead, dying or those tied so closely it mattered little which...yet a beast of the wrong color appearing suddenly from shadows too like those they fled was cause enough. MAKE MOTHER WHOLE, It reminded as the wisping cyan of its touch left the young Weaver on the cheln’s crowded carapace. A cheln close enough to Its lands to witness every shade of sweet fuchsia sky burn cyan as the sea swallowed a sky-sized horror of bone and shadow. A cheln which did not take well to this sight and fought even the sparkbulbs of its collar to howl and shake. While Faerai lay in a mess of limbs, her Ozma guarding from any claws or hooves or teeth, a cacophony of words too close to her own sang in rasped terror. She heard none of it, fast asleep for her own fearful journey, short and swift as it had been. But wildflowers and syrup woke her from it. Through the harried voices and wailing cheln, through the reek of sour waters and sweat-soaked fur a scent known burst sweet in her nostrils. Followed by a hum, lilting and familiar, one overwhelming every other sound. It sang high and warm and all quieted in its melody.
Irritated Parnamyr sketch
Patting a still sleeping little beastie, Mitra flitted to the tree, zipping about to check all of him she could. She hadn't heard what drove him so quickly from the bed, the room, but he was a monster in his own right. Surely no furry menaces could give him trouble. When no injuries were found to account for the short breaths and hidden eyes, she creaked, "Delgrij holds no scuffs, why leaves is shaky?" "I--" He swallowed, uncomfortable with the word, uncomfortable more with how it made him uncomfortable. Napyr were predators, killers all, in his ages he took more lives than any could tally and yet as the words sang in an unbroken melody from his throat, they dripped discomfort, "The Hunter who threatened the sprout, who stole you away...he planned worse, stood in the hall all but declaring his intent and I—I killed him. Without a thought to stay my branches, I rushed and I grabbed and I--" Mitra hovered too close, soft pink glow staining the whites of his bark, heat cutting his words. When he lifted wet eyes up at her she poked his faceplate, hard and hot, shoving his head to the door. As he rubbed the burnt hole left behind, keeping silent for the sake of the sprout, Mitra shook her head at him and sighed her creaky sigh. "Harden yous fibers. Nones break us fors shatters so dulls a fleck, yous...you saved us. Nots firsts saves neithers. Buffs up ans shine bright, yous is shiniest treasure." While he could not be certain if he saved anyone, ever, the sentiment warmed, calmed...though worry shouted still of bringing all the cheln down on their heads.
Parnamyr bust wherein he appears dismissive.
Lyrt was not nothing. He was the last living son of Lornel, rightful head of his herd and no doe would tell him his worth. But the Wake would...should said doe send him into it, so he didn't say any of that. What he did was plan, plot and scheme as the blood in him bid him do. If she would not rid them of the fairi and mifyr with it, would not keep the cheln safe from clear danger—keep him safe—he would do so himself. "I will show them," he told no one, softly muttering as he walked the breezeways of the cheln, blissfully unaware of eyes following. "I will rid this beast of its blight and become a hero...then reclaim the power those—those—does have stolen." Older eyes they were, more shrewd eyes. Eyes which also had the guests in mind as he slunk after the hunched little stag, grin sharp for the thwack he'd received from the gristle playing at decadence. He would not be seen, not yet, he merely watched...quiet and close. While Lyrt continued to mutter, "Keeping that mifyr in so grand a room." Turning rounded corner after corner, he stopped, checked the marks on the walls for direction and resumed his slouched rage. "Gifted by that feckless doe what named herself my superior. My superior. As if any are." He did not head directly to the guest room, a curious thing to the one watching, as he took a detour to the room he shared with too many. There he dug in a woven basket full of discarded rags for an item all his own. Something forbidden by new laws, something his audience twitched and snarled at from the safety of thick shadows—all the hung, soft lights too low for the heartlight through the windows.
bust of Parnamyr saying 'Goodlight, delicious!', he's very excited to see you
“There were twenty with me,” Ansul stepped closer, eyes on the hanging men. “If you caught them all and so few remain, either you eat far more than suggested or I've been here—” “Longer than you remember,” Enric did not move from his place by the entrance, watching the tense back of his knight with increasing confusion, aching to pry into thoughts. To know. “But the number is for the effort to orchestrate all I have for you, requiring more and more to sustain me.” Nodding, studying, thoughts swelled to beg of greater answers, drowned as one of the bodies before him twitched and spilled another glut of blood into its vat, “Why aren’t they screaming?” “My venom numbs them,” distant his voice as Enric walked to a cupboard in the wall and retrieved a goblet. “It would be overwhelming otherwise.” Goblet in hand, he moved to a vat and a spigot, where he locked eyes with Ansul as he popped its cork. Slow, Ansul did not expect it to flow so slow but the blood dragged from spigot to goblet slower than syrup. When all the cup was filled, Enric kept his eyes focused on him alone as he corked the vat, stood and drank. Not a drop spilled despite the deep gulps taken. As he finished, he licked his lips, replaced the goblet in its cupboard and turned to Ansul. Hands behind his back he watched, and he waited. Ansul eyed the strung men, their lolling heads and milky eyes and knew by the color of what skin peeked from the blood how long they had left. How much more they would bleed for his King. A King fit with a grin when he returned his eyes to him. A King he addressed with cool casualty, “Were you expecting me to scream, to flee?” “I was expecting you to hit me,” simple the confession, if honest. Eliciting a short laugh. “The day is young…”
messy sketch of a middle-aged Italian idiot...I mean vampire laying naked, with a well-placed hand to shield us from his privates, on a bed surrounded by 'I found the flower brush' marigolds with a marigold in his teeth. His chest could very well be covered by a dead animal and no one would know.
"The chronicler?" He scoffed. "The chronicler thinks to keep me from my meal!" Laughing so high it scratched the air and wrinkled along its edges, he backed further. "A rotation or three from meat yourself and you try to command me? Me?" Lyrt threw his arms up, grinning for how the bruising light spilling in behind him cast so deep a shadow on the old stag. That light burned inside him, vibrating through his words as he declared, "Do you know who I--" One cut as fresh arms too strong snatched him around legs and chest, folded him neatly in half...and chucked him out the window which had been framing him so well.
screenshot of a novel page wherein the next chapter begins midway down the page at the end of the previous chapter instead of a fresh new page like it damn well should
Bust of Parnamyr looking annoyed
messy sketch of Bo and Ignatius from Hitch posed with whimsical intimacy in front of Garmr, their massive semi truck
As a character, a tritagonist may act as the instigator or cause of the sufferings of the protagonist. Despite being the least sympathetic character of the drama, they occasion the situations by which pity and sympathy for the protagonist are heightened.
Bust of Parnamyr laughing hysterically
Sinking into Infae’s fur the sprout huffed and released the cube of strange food she bit. With her gentle weight against him, Infae sank as well, eyes fluttering closed—rumbling purrs and soft snoring adding to the pops of the cave. Smiling for them, Delgrij dusted off Faerai’s odd foodstuff, placing it gently into her bag but their collective shiver stalled his leaving. The cavern bore an icy chill, despite the warmer walls and geysers, and his eyes soon found the source; ichor yet clung to each of them. While zipping about, eyes on the frozen columns of it, the bright flashing pebble gave him an idea. “Can your glow create a fire?” he asked and her grin, as she flit to hover before him, begged more, “For how long?” “Nots alls light, ifs I’s burn too bright, too long I’s—” Mitra closed and opened both hands, in dramatic fashion, a hand from his face “—poof!” “Poof?” he asked, tapping rocks from rootcaps as he studied geysers and walls. “Go out, go cold,” she answered, flitting into his face to mime again, “poof!” Shooing, and wincing as she tittered, he nodded, “Well, my plan should save you from... poofing.” Gesturing at a collection of thin roots branching from the crystal-stabbed clay, he added, “Grab those.” With uncomfortable quickness, and silence, Mitra obeyed. Worrying more as she tore at the roots, slapping away
“Stop!” She wailed, voice rasped and aching at the squelch of their release. Though her eyes shook too hard to see it, the monster’s grin sang sweetly along its voice, “Stop? Oh, delicious…we have yet to begin.” Lyera tried to speak, to howl and curse, but the hooks dug again and her words were torn; drowned in a ragged groan. “Safe,” The monster commanded aloud, its voice a gentle breeze. And Lyera coughed with the intent of it, as it forced her lips to repeat, “S…safe.” Her straps bit, hard and tight, jerking her wrists and ankles as needles pried the hooks from her fur and flesh. And, as the chill of them faded, she sighed with the peace of their absence, the comfort…before the needles returned. Not as hard and metallic, but soft as flesh and they gripped and groped, pressing into her paling fur—teasing, probing. All along her they explored, devouring her softness as her eyes burned. Her wails deepened with their touch, growling to moans as they found her antlers. Sobs bubbled and choked from her raw throat as more fingers latched to the sweat-drenched fur of her neck, their clawed tips prickling her skin. Blood streaked down her limbs, pooling on the bricks beneath her as those claws broke through and Lyera howled again. “Safe,” The monster moaned above her, closer, too close, “safe... with... me...” “Safe,” Lyera gasped, head lolling, vision swimming, held up by straps alone as more fingers swam through her. Tender, gentle, they lapped up her blood, soothed her wounds and relaxed her muscles. She sighed with the intimacy of them, the kindness, until needles came to tease again at her antlers, tender and soft. More danced down her quivering chest, pressing closer as she shrunk away, and there they petted. They tickled and groped her thighs but another presence grew to tease, to torture. Near her face it begged. And it was warm, that presence, warm and welcoming and familiar and she yearned for it, ached for it. A broad, furred paw touched.
Delgrij smiled again at the sprout, watching the gleam of her shadow’s eyes, and drew the fur cloth from his bag. Rubbing its soft memories between his branchtips he continued, “Then one light, while gazing at the colony center from the balcony of my nest—wondering which of our brood’s guests I’d be called to entertain—I saw an Auru too beautiful to be real. His eyes glimmered, shining in the shadows hugging him... and turned up at me.” “Did papa speak to Delgrij first?” Faerai asked, tearing another bite from her hyla and grimacing. Ozma glowered from her lap but she soothed his rippling shadows with an absent paw. “Yes... and no,” Delgrij answered. “We did not speak that light, or the one after it. Turns passed before either of us found words.” His gaze held on the fur cloth, whispering through a warm smile, “But find them we did.” The sprout gagged and Delgrij looked up to find her blue cheeks bruised and his own heated. “I—I mean I was the first to speak, sprout. Naunni humored me until we found shared interest. He had a knowledge and adoration of the Spine’s flora that none of my brood would entertain from me.” Paws shifting with another ripple of her shadow, Faerai narrowed her eyes as Ozma’s burned hotter. Again she patted its head and again it smoothed, blinking as it nuzzled her cheek. “Was our da with Delgrij too?” she asked. Bitter the laugh, but he answered, “No, but he certainly made an entrance when Naunni introduced us.” Wetting his lips, Delgrij summoned growled words not heard for unknown ages, “We are Ozmanei Mitkai, and this must be the tree come to rend our bond and steal our heart.” Delgrij lost his borrowed voice to chuckles as Faerai’s eyes bulged too wide.
Parnamyr bust of him looking dismissive.
clip from The Critic wherein a cutout of Jay Sherman says "Buy my book"
Granted, she did not know where that was, precisely. Worse she did not know where the monster kept her fawns, if they wailed seemingly from all directions in terrified dinmael while she sat in comfort—if not for the nudity. A bed fit for the monster's size, not her own, yet it held her weight well...cradling her in softness. Wrists unbound, snout unwrapped, she remained helplessly still and silent. Its words alone her cage. One it returned to with glee too bright in the reds of its eyes, the click and whir of its gears, ducking into a room clearly made for it the thing made an entrance worth remembering. An entrance she could not look away from. Eyes locked even as it fluttered to sit beside her, to caress her wet cheek and grin ever wide for the growl she managed. Its voice, its terrible voice, cavernous yet soft, wretched yet tender sang next, "Such a feast you brought me, little bite with delusions of being a predator." Laying down, all that mass too great to make her chest a pillow it snuggled beside her, bark-white forehead nuzzling as a fawn might. "For cycles your young will feed me." Sitting up it traced her lips with the very tip of a massive needled finger and pouted, "But you...I doubt you will last the light." Sound, in her chest, in her throat begged release and the monster gave it to her. With a whisper she could not hear it gave her voice, and she used it to beg, "I can last hundreds for you, thousands if you need. But please-" "Let the fawns go?" It laughed too quiet for the thickness of its chest, the size of its neck, and set the blue-black horror of its tongue along the bare fur of her stomach. Up and up it licked, tip alone enough to cover her, to soak her in milky drool. "Mm-mm, little bite," it cooed after tasting all of her.
Parnamyr bust of him looking contemplative and a tad nervous
silhouettes of various monstrous characters from Children of Mar
Parnamyr bust sketch wherein he's looking curious
sketch of Parnamyr in close up with too much of his tongue out and moist with drool
sketch of Parnamyr looking dismissive
sketch of a robotic hand pointing at the viewer, a word balloon beside it says 'you.'
"Fool doe," He snapped, pacing and flailing while disregarding her question. "Do you know what the fairi is? What it brings?" Slamming fists for another soft puff, he screeched, "It called shadows! I heard it eat my party, heard them scream." Again to pacing, he spoke to the ceiling, "Then it brought that hungry dark to our rimlet, into our shells." Turning to narrow eyes at the Captain, his voice dropped to growl, "And you let it walk free." Leaning back, Morin crossed her hooves on the desktop, scratched at the scars on her jaw and checked her claws as she asked, "What were their names?" "W-what?" Came the fear across from her, a fear puffed and angry but ultimately powerless. One she poked at further, even offering the respect of her eyes, "Your party, Lyrt, the does and stag who guarded you during your meatless hunt for light." In a single move she stood up, set paws on the desk and glared down at him, emphasizing a size difference he despised. "What. Were. Their. Names?" "I...I don't—" Lyrt tried, withering in the shadow of the large doe, too large he'd argue. A stag's size, he'd complain. But not to her. To her he huffed and looked away. Avoiding. "I don't see the point in this question." "Of course you don't," Morin said smooth and sharp, stepping around the desk to cross arms over a chest broader than any stag. To loom closer, bright eyes shining in the dim of the room. "Not your blood, not your problem." An arm went out to indicate the auru outside as she continued as smooth, voice never wavering from its deep and resonant tone, "But, Lyrt, there are none of your blood on this cheln...and if you can't be bothered to care about us, why should we care about you?"
He wouldn't be allowed to touch her back. That wasn't the game. He was a toy, specifically a doll, one who would coo and whimper and moan when she wanted. It wasn't a matter of age either, nor would a girl elicit the same lusts. All within her demanded a game of pretend, a game of possession and control and wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than complete. Which she hadn't had. Close, certainly, her soul sang of 'almosts' stoking desire to lustful rage... but her dolls had been too frail or sharp or disobedient.  Ignatius would be perfection. Fulfilling her ultimate desire if only for a few hours. To give her all she ached for before taking any chance of chasing more away. It's what made him a tool of vengeance. It wasn't needed to mark the target for collection. All that required was some of his molten heat inside them. He could do that by force if he chose, none would fault him. Plenty lust demons did exactly that, in fact—or the reverse for succubi—and got through their lists quickly for it. Not Ignatius, he enjoyed punishment. Enjoyed the game leading to it, most of the time. Adored picking apart the desires of men, studying their souls after a fashion. If only he were still roaming and able to study more interesting ones. But the corrupter was fascinating. He'd never known a woman with her specific desires. So he played longer than he should have. Enjoyed too much how gentle she was to her good little pet. 
Parnamyr bust of him looking curious
clip from The Critic of a Jay Sherman cutout saying 'Buy my book'
Parnamyr bust wherein he looks contemplative
clip from 'The Critic' of a Jay Sherman cutout saying 'Buy my book'
Bust of Parnamyr looking dismissive
Parnamyr far too excited, smiling wide and drooling