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“I can't. ” Fiona snaps, slamming her hands on the table top. Her face is flushed in outrage, and embarrassment, yet the man who uttered those words — “the whore procreated” drawled in a lazy, disinterested tone, his cheek leaned on a fist, the very picture of narcissism and boredom and sheer asssholery — merely nods, satisfied for some reas-
“Ah. Maybe it’s deserved then,” He hums, and Fiona’s blood runs cold and then fire-hot. “For all the sins you’ve committed in this life.” The others freeze; Victor glances between them, while Martha, Aesop and Freddy pause their conversation, having hardly caught a word of what happened prior to Fiona’s outburst.
Tears of rage prick at Fiona’s eyes, which is probably why she doesn’t see the towering figure step into the room — standing at a solid 9 foot and annoyed from whatever he’d been doing prior, the Ithaqua doesn’t notice her tears. His eyes land on the man, eyeing him from his dark red curls, all the way down to his freshly polished shoes before they narrow into thin slits. The contempt is clear in his voice — his words spat at the other man as though they were poison on his tongue. “He’s still eager to show his face here?” The ithaqua sneers, his ears angling forward as a low growl fills the room. “How disgusting.”
Andre — such a pathetic man, lashing out with a profound sense of cold and annoyance all because he felt “abandoned” — sneers right back, but says nothing, his eyes focused elsewhere.
Ithaqua cocks his head.
Strange, Andre always had something to say in return, so this was - “ Sad, sad, he made her cry”
The wind is hissing and sobbing and screaming in rage, pushing at his ears, and nipping at his cheeks until he follows their cryptic whines, abyssal eyes falling on Fiona. Folding his ears back, and hyper aware of the wary stares around the room, Ithaqua approaches her, gently extending a clawed hand.
“…Fiona?”
Her grip turns white knuckled, her head drooped low and Ithaqua leans closer. A whine builds in his chest, but he refuses to let it slip free, instead gently bunting his mask against her horn.
“… Fiona, are you…”
She inhales, and on her exhale, the Ithaqua can just barely hear the whispers of screaming words, loud words that all end in expletives, and he relaxes minutely.
Another petty argument, that’s surely all this was.
The wind hisses in his ears.
Turning to him, she ignores the way Ithaqua startles at the sight of tears, even more so when her voice comes out wobbly and wet. “…Am I what, Ithaqua?”
Staring down at her, he glances at Andre, then back at her. After another second of staring — of listening to the wind hiss, and balther, and wail because really, surely Judas hadn’t… — he drops his voice to a stage whisper, “I can deal with him if you’d like. You’d be surprised how quickly a human can die from collapsed lungs.”
A small, watery smile touched her lips, and she let out a wet laugh, shaking her head. “…I’ll… I’ll be fine.”
A cough catches both of their attention, drawing them over to Victor, who eagerly signs, ‘ I think something less… murder-y would do? ’ Ithaqua openly rolls his eyes, his ears flicking forward, and Victor makes a frantic motion, signing faster as a tight smile curls across his face. ‘ Really! He just… seems misguided, that’s all!’
Ithaqua’s mouth opens, a smart retort building on his tongue just as Fiona whirls on the postman, her voice riding the edge of hysterical as she hisses between clenched teeth, “He called my infertility a punishment, Mr. Grantz!”
The silence was deafening.
Martha’s hands flew to her mouth, cutting off whatever she’d been talking to Freddy about, and Aesop freezes right beside him, wide eyes darting between Andre, who still sat at the head of the table, bored and unamused, and a heaving Fiona, red faced and teary eyed. Victor’s hands twitched, several half signs started, before he simply signed, ‘Oh’ .
From over Fiona’s shoulder, she could hear the wind that followed the Ithaqua stop; it was dead silent.
After a moment, she heard him shift; she could hear his staff tap the floor, his stilts screeching across the marbled flooring, a faint crick crick crack as he twitched and jittered with energy of something other; the same sort of energy that flooded a room when Yidhra slithered in, the same feelings that were impressed upon those within range of Hastur’s tendrils — fear in it’s basest, most raw form.
After a moment, the Ithaqua breathes, “ Oh? ”
And Andre — like the fucking fool that he was — simply digs his own grave.
“So you can comprehend basic English? Congratulations, I thought that wild man-child of yours would have made you unintelligent as well.”
That feeling — of dread, of fear, of something other staring directly into ones soul, claws eager to pry you open, and suck out everything good about you — becomes oppressive, and several of them let out strangled sounds. Freddy buckles completely, Martha catching his upper arm before he can collapse to the ground even as she herself sways and gags. Aesop’s legs shiver with the strain of holding himself upright, grabbing at the edge of the table.
Standing right in front of the Ithaqua, Fiona merely blinks.
The pressure is barely there — felt, for sure, but faint. Like soft silks brushing around her body, she finds herself in the center of the maelstrom, listening to the eerie creaks and groans of Ithaqua’s body as he slowly turns to stare down Andre.
Andre, who’s barely standing, partially curled over and gagging with the weight of his rage.
A snarl rumbles through the air, rattling furniture and making their teeth clatter in their mouths. “What a joke, “straying from the path of divinity.” You pathetic little worm,” he hissed, his voice underlaid by screaming, by a howling wind that almost seems to be manifesting as he speaks, whipping at his cloak and furs and rustling the edges of Fiona’s dress as he goes. “How dare you say another “strayed” when you yourself have sinned from the moment you stepped foot in this manor, from the moment your father named you, from the moment you were conceived of a lying murderer and a whore. To stand before a god, a true god, and claim yourself to be a messiah, to claim to be something other than a spineless worm, writhing in the dirt, nothing more than food for something stronger, something with more importance.”
Andre chokes, wheezes something, a plea, a beg for forgiveness, or a prayer, and Fiona idly realizes that Ithaqua seems to be subconsciously vacuuming out the air around him, slowly suffocating him. The being — not a man, no longer even able to be called a human — slinks past Fiona, his movements smooth, and slow like a predator, his snarling building in volume. “The nerve of you, to think you ever had the right, will ever have the right to speak on my mother’s condition. Does your “ god” find joy in watching you taunt others, in watching you mock those already down, already out of the race? Do you feel good, kissing the blood soaked feet of a god who doesn’t care about you?”
Shaking his head, Ithaqua laughs; it’s not his mad cackle from when he strikes a survivor, nor is it his graceful chuckle when he’s amused.
This is dark — an ugly thing that seems like it physically hurts to utter, and Andre breaks. He scrambles back, crashing out of his chair, onto his back and Ithaqua lunges the distance like a starved beast. His claws curl in the smaller man’s lapels, wrenching him clear off the ground, only to slam him into the table.
Andre twists, kicking like a trapped animal as prayers spill from his mouth in a waterfall of fearful nonsense and delusions; Ithaqua simply lets out that ugly laugh once again — he laughs like Andre’s fear fuels him, like it motivates him.
No one can move, a strangled scream being the only thing heard, though no one is sure who uttered such a sound.
With his mouth open, mid-prayer as a matter of fact, Ithaqua slips his thumb and two fingers past his teeth, pinching the bed of Andre’s mouth with the pads of his fingers. “I’ll kill you.” Andre sobs, his hands curled in the furs at Ithaqua’s shoulders; cold, sadistic rage flashes behind that mask and Judas may finally eb realizing just how badly he fucked up. “And I won’t be nice, I’ll bring you to the bring of damnation, of death over and over; I’ll let you think you’ve been given the chance to die, to move on from this suffering, this hell. I’ll let the light drain from your eyes, just as I’ve let the blood drain from your veins, the life from your body, the air from your lungs; I’ll let it all go, just so I can bring you back. And I will bring you back, I’ll drag you back kicking, screaming, and begging.”
His thumb presses down, a sharp sting radiates from the back of Andre’s tongue, followed by the taste of iron. “I’ll force you to relive that pain over, and over and over . And I’ll even be nice. ” Andre whines, forcing himself not to swallow the mix of saliva and blood that is pooling in his mouth — Ithaqua’s claws were still, very much a threat. Using his free hand, Ithatqua pulls his mask down — it reveals a face twisted in rage, lips peeled back like something less than human, fangs and needle-like teeth exposed to the open air like an animal baring its fangs at a threat.
“I’ll even let your god watch ; I'll let him watch me rip his perfect little messiah apart, and I’ll even let him save his little messiah…” He watches Andre jolt, sees his eyes fill with determination and stubbornness, and feels a sick shot of satisfaction when that look melts into one of pure terror as Ithaqua starts to apply pressure on his claws, slowly sinking them in around the base of his tongue. “Let’s start with tha filthy little tongue of yours, I’m sure your faith will pay off, right?”
“Stop…”
He freezes immediately, one of his ears swiveling back.
Behind him, Fiona takes a deep breath, exhales — “kill him kill him I’m better than this stop stop stop” — and repeats herself.
Growling low in his throat, Ithaqua’s face twists in outrage, then something cold and amused.
Pulling his fingers out of the bastards mouth — making a point to wipe the blood and saliva off in his hair and against his cheek — he wraps his fist in the other man’s red hair, dragging him to his feet. He cries out, choking on his wail of agony when the Ithaqua forces him prostrate, kneeling behind him to force him to stare up at Fiona.
She takes a step back, startled by the pose, curling her lip when Andre sneers at her. The expression is quick to drop when Ithaqua leans over Judas’ shoulder, curling his claws in Judas’ curls, hissing coldly, “Remember when I said I'd let your god save you? Well, would you look at that?” His giggle is sinister, the winds — once screaming and wailing for blood, for death, for sacrifice — are deathly quiet as he leans as close as he can, his voice the hiss of Death, her cold, cruel claw drawn over the other man’s ear, but mercifully far away. “I want you to look at her, oh faithful one. I want you to look at your god, and remember that her name is Fiona fucking Gilman.”
And then Andre is released, freed to drop to his hands and knees, and Ithaqua rises back to his full height.
The presence — the fear, the rage, the terror — is lifted across the room; Freddy and Victor begin to gag, the anxiety making them both ill while Martha drops into a dead faint, Aesop collapsing onto the ground as his legs finally give out.
Ithaqua turns, flicks his cape, ruffling the furs, and Ithaqua leaves.
The rage is still bubbling underneath his skin, still boiling in his claws, but when Fiona catches his arm, when she pulls him down to gently wrap her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into his hair to whisper a weak, watery, “Thank you.” against the furs of his ear…
Well, his rage isn’t quite quelled, but he’s too busy blushing and purring in delight to bother with it now.