[ She's truly a wretched thing — the extent and nuance of which he's still grasping, absorbing what understanding he can of this lost little soul — but this is no demeaning assessment; if he calls her gruesome it's with an almost twisted affection, a sort of pride. The state of her is a shock, or would be to the average man. To Mordrake, monsters are beloved, and the more monstrous, all the more especial.
But she does throw the spirit unexpectedly; he has never once encountered something like her before. He knows human beings malformed and warped, aberrants, outcasts. She is... something different. Something more. He cannot pinpoint what, exactly. It's what he seeks to find out, but— she'll not make it easy, with her cryptic words and reedy tongue. His eyes widen, not in fright but in some dark wonder, as she mocks him with a snake's hiss. He finds his mouth pursing in faint amusement for a moment, almost against his will. How charming she is, this little devil.
(He's soft for children, whose laughter can claim warmth from the last vestiges of his long-dead human's heart. He has never taken one before; even the demon has never compelled him to take a child. But that is because children, even and perhaps especially the twisted and grotesque creatures he's found in sideshows, sold by their parents like broken animals, are innocents. When they grow up, when they have lived a long and lonely life and know that they wish to be freed of it, then he will take them.)
But what of her? This being that is clearly not human, cannot possibly be categorised in the same way? Yes, he needs to learn more about her. He must find out.
She abruptly takes him into her little predator's grasp, forceful, invasive, and Mordrake stiffens with rare alarm. His mouth does part, but a hand in the same moment snaps up to take the girl's wrist, gloved fingers curled tautly around, compelling her back. A warning, though even now, more for her sake than his own. ]
It is because we were meant to find you, [ he answers sporadically in plural, eyes roaming the child with intensity. This is the best answer he can give, the reason why his spirit makes contact with others from across or through the veil, so often beyond his control. ] You wonder what I am, inside? I am a cursed and damned thing, a man no longer. That is why we are..... wired. Because you and I are alike. Because your soul calls to us.
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But she does throw the spirit unexpectedly; he has never once encountered something like her before. He knows human beings malformed and warped, aberrants, outcasts. She is... something different. Something more. He cannot pinpoint what, exactly. It's what he seeks to find out, but— she'll not make it easy, with her cryptic words and reedy tongue. His eyes widen, not in fright but in some dark wonder, as she mocks him with a snake's hiss. He finds his mouth pursing in faint amusement for a moment, almost against his will. How charming she is, this little devil.
(He's soft for children, whose laughter can claim warmth from the last vestiges of his long-dead human's heart. He has never taken one before; even the demon has never compelled him to take a child. But that is because children, even and perhaps especially the twisted and grotesque creatures he's found in sideshows, sold by their parents like broken animals, are innocents. When they grow up, when they have lived a long and lonely life and know that they wish to be freed of it, then he will take them.)
But what of her? This being that is clearly not human, cannot possibly be categorised in the same way? Yes, he needs to learn more about her. He must find out.
She abruptly takes him into her little predator's grasp, forceful, invasive, and Mordrake stiffens with rare alarm. His mouth does part, but a hand in the same moment snaps up to take the girl's wrist, gloved fingers curled tautly around, compelling her back. A warning, though even now, more for her sake than his own. ]
It is because we were meant to find you, [ he answers sporadically in plural, eyes roaming the child with intensity. This is the best answer he can give, the reason why his spirit makes contact with others from across or through the veil, so often beyond his control. ] You wonder what I am, inside? I am a cursed and damned thing, a man no longer. That is why we are..... wired. Because you and I are alike. Because your soul calls to us.