#madmarge

[xaallo]

He’d known something was off about that buck at the very start.

Seraph he’d called himself. Supposedly, he was just as lost as the rest of them, ejected from his reality and set to wander after what his compatriots were calling “the Great Shattering”. Something had happened, something catastrophic, in the space between realities, and it had rippled across the universes like an earthquake. Xaallo would’ve called it the ravings of a madmarg, had he not been one of the displaced.

Perhaps it was the shock of being scattered that had taken away the keen eye of his human companions. For Xaallo, they had only heightened, ever sense keyed up to thwart danger to himself and to the accumulator he’d been saddled with. Some nights he could hear it pulsing, shifting, crooning even, as if it were alive, which did nothing to alleviate his possessiveness over the object.

The humans had wisely decided not to poke that bear, at least not if they didn’t have to. But Seraph...

His interest was subtle, but not as subtle as he thought. Not so subtle to go unnoticed by the roving eye of a margaven with it parental instincts inflamed. Charm, kindness, guile-- it was enough to lower to guard of the Crossrunners, but not Xaallo. Seraph had an angle, he was sure of it, and it involved this accumulator. This object that something within him had stubbornly labelled as an ‘egg’.

In retrospect, the calamity that his split him off from the Crossers had probably been planned. A palm that could not be greased could have it’s fingers broken, and it’s prize stolen anyway after all. Unfortunately for Seraph, this too Xaallo had predicted. And burgling a traverser off of one of his companions, he’d weaseled from the man’s grasp, through a portal.

Though after seeing what he’d seen, he wasn’t sure man was the right word anymore. Men did not have slits for pupils, or writhing fangs lining their mouths. A man’s eyes did not come in such a caustic shade of green, and he did not have claws like a wildcat. Seraph had revealed what Xaallo had suspected all along, and now that he knew, there was no need to play nice any longer. The next time they met, it would be bloody.

Presuming of course, the world he found himself wasn’t the end of him first.  This place, ‘Yharnam’ he had heard one of the locals call it, was just as keen for his blood as the creature called Seraph must be. The men just as fearsome as the beasts...

Xaallo sank onto his flank, the sum of his injuries and exhaustion finally taking a toll. He could only hope the trail of blood he’d left was too incoherent to follow. He could only hope that the building he’d holed himself inside of was labyrinthine enough to hide him. At least, long enough for him to heal. The egg clutched to his mane had grown lively and in any other situation, that would’ve filled him with an eager, paternal joy.

But he couldn’t imagine a worst place to raise a hatchling.

The Traverser would need time before it could be used again, but the technology was foreign to him. He could escape this place to somewhere better. Or worse. They were both equally as likely...