Unnamed

Depravity.


Echoing stone chambers clamber with mad tones of laughter and broken words that clash against one another in the air, the churning turmoil a perfect representation of the mind of the cackling prisoner who licks his chains with affection and roars at the dying voices in his ears that he forgets at times and remembers at others are his own. Self-loathing does no breed compassion in others when the nature is congenitally bellicose and brims with caustic jealousy.

He batters the memory of his mother, just as his father had once battered her against the walls of their home, and forever continues to batter her against the walls of his skull. Both had worn crowns, but only one had reigned.

"Kings! Kings and queens!" he howled, laughter ringing like whistling and clanging machinery, varying in their pitch but not in their violence. "Kings stand on their feet! Queens have no better place than the ragheap! Aye, such a heap they do make!" And he shook his bulk in the nest of cloths that served as his bed, as if indulging in a merry joke. He was in a mood that might be deemed merry, for such as him. "Aye, clout them good! Clout them strong! Right in the skull - no leniency, no leniency, friend! She did kill him in the end! A funny wench, she! Killed him in the end, in his own bed." And the laughter continued, as against these remembrances the creature coughed haggardly, "Mind what your father tells you. He will scold me, he will scold me. Mind him- mind him, I say! Oh, won't you ever listen to your poor mother?"

"Shut up, old woman!"

Silence hung for a deafening moment.

And then the creature smiled, his head tilting until the pain came, and his many eyes blazed like a row of ethereal purple candles. "Father, where were you? The old woman's been nagging all day."

"Because you let her, fool-!" And with the word he spat across the cell. The many glimmering eyes slanted with humor.

"Aye, because I let her. And you let her slit your throat."

A huge, bearish laughter built against the stone confines, and the rows of dilated pupils seemed to shake. "Aye. I did - that, I did."