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Urizen’s process is normal, undisturbed. No single change has interrupted him while he lounges upon his throne where he feeds languorously; viscous, coppery blood flowing through the sinuous veins of the Qliphoth. At a sluggish pace, he gains power, and he endeavors to sate his bottomless thirst for more. For two weeks now it has remained this way, untouched peace. He revels in it.
A squeal pierces the air, Urizen’s eyes drag open. Somewhere in his throne room, something is shrilling ubiquitously, and it is disrupting his absent mind and quietude. Eyes. He has many of them. Green and monstrous and hideous, twitching and flicking as they sweep his surroundings to find the source of the new noise. It doesn’t sound like any of the empusa he’s seen hobbling around nor any hatchling belonging to that parasitic nidhogg. He starts when the noise sounds again. There, his eyes gaze, at the very back, a puff of pink flesh and white fur.
What. Is. That.
Urizen shifts just slightly, head readjusts against the rough bark of his fist. His eyelids glide down and up in a lazy blink as he tries to decipher the incomprehensible garbling of the critter that crawls around in only a cream tunic to cover its body. There’s no reason to start for it, as far as all his many eyes and all his many senses can tell, it’s powerless.
And human. So very human.
And somehow, it’s still alive. It has tottered it’s tiny, pudgy legs up and down the roots and limbs of the Qliphoth, traveled through countless chambers swarmed to the precipice with the demons that have crawled from the deepest pits and corners of the Underworld, and it has wobbled its way here, into his throne room. The way it moves suggests it couldn’t even outrun the newest born of Empusa, so it is fair to say that Urizen, who has been undisturbed for so long, is wrought with intense curiosity.
Then like a flame being snuffed out, that curiosity vanishes. The little thing falls, tripping over its own feet, collapsing in an undignified heap with a solid ‘oof.’ With no one to pay attention to its pathetic feat, it weeps, loud and keening. Urizen closes his eyes, ignoring the wretch that has shattered his peace. It’ll have to curl up and die on the ground eventually.
Except it doesn’t. It continues to cry and it grates against Urizen’s ears. He feeds, content to try ignoring it.
Ten minutes go by. Nothing to respond to it’s howling cry.
Thirty minutes pass. It wails, its lungs are healthy, in excellent condition. Urizen feels something inside spasm, he thinks he’s surprised that whoever owns it hasn’t showed up yet.
An hour slogs on. By now, Urizen is this strange, assembling combination of rippling with rage and subtly impressed that this has gone on for so long with no sign of stopping. His ears or what passes for them cannot withstand the screeching noise for another second. His joints creak and groan like the body of an ancient god resurrecting as he pulls himself from his throne. Each step rattles the ground and spreads his power out in dizzying waves that no solitary creature can resist. Except for, quite possibly, this thing. It isn’t threatened by his presence, instead it stops crying and simply stares with bright blue eyes.
“What dares trespass in a king’s chambers?” The rumble of his voice carries over each crease and bump and ridge of the Qliphoth’s surface yet this weak, useless thing just tilts its head and babbles for a moment. It reaches its red, puffy arms for him and gurgles and Urizen can’t help the twinge of disgust that blooms across his lips.
“Up!”
Finally, it makes sense. Urizen spares an eye or two toward the ceiling but there’s nothing up there, not even a pyrobat hangs from there in a cocoon.
“Up!” The little wretch says again, this time more serious. It puffs up its chubby cheeks and reaches for Urizen more insistently. Fascinating, it not only is speaking but for some reason it remains unafraid. Foolishly so, it seems to want to approach him.
Urizen is less inclined to fulfill its desires but the last thing he wants is for it to follow him back to the throne and graciously drown in the pool of blood that swishes at his feet. Instead, against his better judgement, he holds his finger out and waits for the wretch to grasp on with its tiny, sticky hands. It squeals again, something primal and joyous and grinding painfully into Urizen’s head. He sprouts a tree from the ground, a piece of the Qliphoth morphed into something that can keep it away from him. He drops it into the branches, which cradle it with thin limbs and sprout a big, sweet flower with charcoal petals for it to suckle on. The child takes the bloom, not eagerly but it doesn’t fight it, and before long it sleeps in the arms of the tree.
Urizen, if it’s at all possible, thinks he’s relieved that it has fallen quiet. He thunders back to his throne, reclines in it as he had before, drinking up his share of power and ichor, eyes slipping shut as he works to mend the peace the cursed infant ripped away from him.