Chapter Text
It’d been three days since the incident.
The Abomination sat alone in the penance hall, sometime late into the night, his only company the rhythmic sound of a bladed whip cracking across his back. He swung it over each shoulder repeatedly in a sequence, feeling the spikes dig into him. Pain scorched his spine, but it silenced the snarling.
He’d been here for a little while now. Not too long, not long enough. The frail man had never had much of a stomach for the practice, or at least a tolerance for the pain of piety, but now it didn’t seem that bad. Nothing like that moment when he’d wrestled back control, awake enough to feel his bones melt into marrow and his veins collapse and reform.
A creaking sound came from the door of the hall, letting an eerie moonlight into the darkness of the place.
It was, who else, Damian. He propped the door open with his off hand, wearing a slightly knowing expression even through his shadowed, hooded eyes. His gauntlet and flail were nowhere to be seen; presumably they’d been left somewhere in this very hall.
“Figured I’d find you here, my friend.” The Flagellant said, smirking slightly.
The Abomination scoffed, turning away. “As if you were searching.”
Damian shrugged and stepped inside the hall, shutting the door. The penitent picked up one of the lit candles nearby and used it to light a torch. After a brief moment to place his hand in the flame, and shaking off the resulting soot, he walked over to the beast.
“You’ve not been the type to utilize the whip so often before.” Damian noted, sitting down by his side, legs crossed. “How has the Light treated you thus far?”
The Abomination snorted. “It keeps the beast at bay. That’s all it’s for.” He muttered. “If there is a guiding light, she has abandoned me long ago.”
Damian chuckled quietly. “That is what we all think, indeed.”
“Does that imply you even know what it’s like to struggle with faith?”
Damian smiled. “I was not always the holy man you see before you. Whatever the case, I respect your piety, even if it is for the wrong reasons.”
“And what reasons are those?” The beast questioned.
“Hatred of the flesh. Internal strife against the self.” He answered. “Piety is an act of love, to oneself and the Light. At least, to my faction. My respect is drawn from how few can undertake the burden; even I may falter some day.”
The frail man almost chuckled. It came out as a scoff. “What is that I hear, a hint of religious tolerance?”
Damian laughed. “Oh, heavens, no. Junia is a weakling and Reynauld a fool, I believe so firmly. But nonetheless, the Light gives them strength. I have no place to judge.”
The Abomination nodded absentmindedly. After a pause, he finally paused the rhythm of the lash, holding the cruel weapon in his lap as blood ran down his back.
“… As you’ve guessed, I am not here on personal affairs.” Damian eventually said. “The Heir has barred me from the whip for a moment. He believes I’ll bleed too greatly.” The Flagellant laughed aloud at the idea.
The monster did not so much as chuckle. “So what are you here for, then?”
“You’ve been skulking around and corroding my tools for two days now, Bigby.” He replied. “Why do you think?”
He licked his lips, then nodded. “… Don’t know what I expected.”
Again, Damian chuckled.
“… Why do you whip the beast, my friend?” He questioned.
“You wanna ask him yourself?” The monster replied.
“I just did so.” The penitent stated. “In fact, I’ve been speaking to him for a few minutes now.”
For an instant, he felt his fingernails curl into claws, his teeth begin to loosen.
“… I will tear you to pieces.” He muttered.
“You know I would only welcome that.” Damian replied simply, letting his grin fall away for once. “You see my point, do you not?”
“I thought the point of my misery was self-evident. That’s why you’re insufferable, right?” The Abomination snarled.
“I mean the point of my phrase.” The penitent replied. “What I mean to say is that you and the creature-”
“One and the same. Ha!” The monster interrupted, cackling maddeningly. “HA! You know nothing of me, wretch.”
Damian nodded slowly.
“… It learns from you, yes?” He prompted. “Takes in your feelings, your sorrows and hates, your mind.”
The Abomination’s glare said it all.
“Then perhaps it is time you must learn from it.”
With that, Damian stood up, walked away, and left the penance hall without another word.
The next morning, Bigby awoke to cannon fire.
Wait, what?
No, that didn’t make sense. Probably fireworks. Or some botched experiment somewhere across the hamlet. Or a malevolent force of eldritch terror slamming against the walls of it’s cage. Something normal.
Nonetheless, he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes, searching for flashes around the windows of the inn. He still had the locked collar around his neck, no matter how uncomfortable it made him.
Again, the boom sounded. No burst of color seemed to illuminate the sky.
In the silence, his ears awoke with the rest of his senses. Shouting. Cries, certainly of laughter, right? The inn and tavern were almost directly connected, certainly…
He heard a soaring sound, like wind churning, growing louder.
The foundations of the building exploded upon impact, the force knocking him to the ground as the building immediately began to collapse. Splintering wood, shattered metal and explosions no longer muffled by walls filled his ears as he tumbled across the ground, the world seeming to collapse around him.
For upwards of thirty seconds, he had no clue where he was, or what was going on. Screams, explosions, broken buildings, bloodied cobblestones. Then another impact struck the destroyed inn, and the floor beneath him shattered. The Abomination felt himself be tossed backwards, through a broken window and onto a pile of ruined carpentry and indescribable debris.
He tumbled downward until he hit bloody stone paths, clashing swords and pistol shots only worsening the ringing in his ears. He’d definitely broken his arm; and that was being optimistic. He laid in the rubble for several seconds, disoriented, until he found the stillness and strength to look up.
Nothing made sense. Fallen buildings, felled trees, overturned carts and collapsed alleyways. He couldn’t get a view of the main square yet.
Urgently, with the arm that still worked, he threw off the clutter pinning him down and stumbled to his feet. Bigby limped out of the wreckage and into the town square.
The hamlet was in complete chaos. The remnants of buildings fell around the square in walls of twisted rubble, bodies strewn throughout the shattered cobblestone streets and piles of splintered planks. The fountain in the center had been blown to smithereens. On the hillside, towards the dungeons which he’d seen so much of, great illuminating explosions rocketed iron comets into the town.
Next in line to be mentally processed, the people. He caught glimpses of unfamiliar warriors, armed with all sorts of armors, cloaks, guns and knives, stampeding through the streets and ducking out of rubble with satchels full. He caught a familiar face or two. Dismas, slitting a man’s throat. Baldwin defending a collection of injured warriors alongside Barristan, shielding them from blade and bullet alike.
The wolves were at the door. The brigands had come to take what they were owed.
The Abomination dared not freeze. He had to get to safety.
Hobbling out into the open, cannon fire and gunshots distorted any idea of where a threat might come from. He stumbled, half aimlessly, through the rubble and chaos, unsure really where he was going. His broken arm hung limp by his side. At some point he glanced down and found a worryingly sharp piece of wood jabbed directly into his side. Adrenaline was quite the magic.
He saw heroes in the catastrophe. The heroes he knew, not from stories but from his own eyes. Boudica fought off four cutthroats at once. Reynauld stood in a pile of at least eight brigand corpses, holding his sword in one hand and a rallying banner in the other. Alhazred stood back, arms raised, as malignant tendrils erupted from the ground and flung the attackers around like toys.
He did not follow their lead.
You could say it was because of his wounds. His surprise at the ordeal. His lack of town-saving skills. But he knew it wasn’t that.
He was not a hero.
“BIGBY!”
His head snapped to the sound of her voice. Then he tripped on a strewn plank, or perhaps a corpse, and he hit the dirt with a painful thud.
When his vision refocused, Paracelsus was there.
“Bigby! Thank chemistry, you’re safe!” She yelled, crouching to pick him up. “I- Junia’s nearby, she can-!”
“Stop!” He snapped, struggling to his feet with her help. “I’m fine! Just- what- what the fuck is going on!?!”
“The- the brigands!” The doctor stammered. “The Vvulf must’ve ordered an attack, and-!!”
Before she could finish her sentence, another impact crashed into the square like a meteor. Rubble flung around like buckshot. The sound of collapsing wood overtook his senses.
When the dust cleared, he was on the ground. Paracelsus was half buried underneath the pile of rubble, her mask strewn aside in the dirt.
“God- dammit!” Bigby shouted, if only to show fate how much he loathed it. He moved to her side and started trying to throw the mountain of splintered carpentry aside.
“Bigby, there’s- behind-!”
Paracelsus’ strangled voice was again interrupted, this time by a gunshot. A piercing pain erupted like a volcano in his shoulder. He felt the bullet hit bone, ricochet and lodge in his rib. He turned, snarling, to the attackers at his back.
Before he even processed how many there were, he stumbled forward, flinging his chains like a whip. The metal links crashed across a man’s unarmored face and sent him stumbling backwards, then tripping over some debris. He followed up instantly, striking another of the brigands in the ribs with his iron shackles.
More closed in almost immediately. He ducked a slice from one, wrapping his chains around his hand as he did so, and socked them in the nose, ignoring the pain shooting through his arm. Another of the thieves tried to tackle him, and he vomited acid directly in their face.
But it was a futile effort. There were too many, and he barely had the strength to focus his eyes to count. Daggers cut his flesh. Fists met his jaw. Before long he hit the ground.
He heard Paracelsus struggling behind him. Snarling, he tried to swipe his chains at one of the men’s foot, and was met with a dagger stabbing through his palm and into the dirt. When he stopped roaring in pain, a rifle was pointed between his eyes.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the fucking freak!” The brigand gloated, gesturing with his gun as his friends regained their bearings. “You’re the one who tried to bite the Vvulf’s leg off!”
He glared into the barrel as the bandit laughed, the memory replaying in his mind. A sudden attack. A desperate transformation. A bullet in his sternum. A friend’s life saved.
“We got a target here, boys!” The brigand declared. “The Vvulf wants him alive!”
“I’ll… rip you all to- pieces.” Bigby managed, the taste of spit, acid and blood plaguing his mouth and slurring his speech.
“Oh, really? Is that so?” The bandit sneered. “We thought you swore that off after you fucked up that poor, defenseless treasure hunter.”
For a few seconds, the world was silent. The words repeated in his mind as he processed.
They’d been watching. They’d been planning. Planning around fear, fear of the beast within the man.
They’d torn the hamlet to pieces, the place he would almost call a home. They’d nearly crushed his friends under rubble and gunfire. Their cannons had broken his body and spilled his blood. Innocents, adventurers, and glory seekers, slaughtered in the wake of naught but roadside greed.
He heard the voice, deep inside him.
Not a mangled snarl, nor a furious roar. Words.
Don’t let them do this.
Don’t let them hurt anyone else.
Turn your rage on those deserving.
Rip them apart.
Bigby’s hand found his pendant, still dangling around his neck, as if by miracle. He felt the shape of the steel key, his windpipe choked by the collar.
Wordlessly, slowly, as the brigands called their brethren and helped up their wounded, the Abomination placed the key in the lock and turned it.
The iron loosened around his neck, then fell to the ground.
He felt the sense of freedom course through him, throbbing in his muscles, writhing in his blood. The roars flooded his ears, drained out with his blood. An undying, unleashed hatred solidifying in his soul.
“… Fresh hearts. Raw livers. Clotted blood.” He began to mutter, voice rasping. “Sinew and marrow and organ tissue.”
The brigands seemed to notice his chanting. Fingers tensed on triggers.
“Teeth. Intestines. Keratin.” He continued like a mantra. “Rampage. Carnage. Feast on their corpses.”
“The hell’ you-?”
Bigby grabbed at the barrel of the gun and ducked low, keen senses feeling the pull of the trigger before he got clear. The buckshot meant for his brain scattered into his shoulder. Shouting in pain, he ripped the gun from the fusilier’s grip and pounced at the man with inhuman, rabid strength.
Gunshots and shouts. He rolled over the man and launched to his feet.
A bullet whizzed past him as he instinctively threw his arms around the first attacker he could see. Monstrous rage flooding his veins, he lifted the brigand over his head like a child before slamming them down into the rubble. Bones crunched. He snarled and spun on a dime, sensing another attacker. A knife met his torso. He slammed his fist onto their extended arm, breaking it effortlessly.
The transformation was effortless, nearly unnoticeable, the pain of his warping sinew and malformed bone obscured by his injuries. He roared in rage, his voice an incomprehensible mixture of a demon’s fury and a grieving man’s shriek. He tore through the bandits as his strength doubled, tripled.
Ducked a slice, punched hard enough to break a neck. Sunk his developing maw into flesh and metal. Bullets whizzed through his flesh, then fell out as the new skin grew. He was growing taller than them now, his hands mangled and thick with aberrant muscle. He ripped off an arm, crushed a spine, crunched into a torso. A blur of blood and adrenaline. Horns burst from his skull.
Finally, the last bandit fell backwards, tumbling through the rubble as he swatted them like a fly. Bigby stood back and roared, his mouth fully formed into a slavering, dripping maw.
His broken bones had healed. Bullets fell from flesh. Blood poured down his back and chest. He’d never felt more alive.
Three stood from the wreckage, sporting destroyed limbs and gushing wounds. A scavenged rifle and dulled blades.
Bigby launched at them like a force of nature, stillness converted to screeching speed in an instant. The first man, with the rifle, pulled the trigger. The buckshot felt like a handful of marbles. He crushed the bandit in his maw.
The second stabbed him in the side. The mere motion of facing the threat threw his swollen arm their way, sending the brigand careening away into a wall headfirst.
The third tried to run. The Abomination crushed his skull, then tore his spine from his back.
Bigby, the beast, a terror of alchemy and eldritch magic, stood in the pile of gore and wreckage. His senses ignored the clutter, the burning buildings, the crashes of cannon fire. Instead his gaze snapped in various directions, nose twitching as he searched for a familiar scent. A taste.
Seventy-two meters away, on the hillside of the outskirts of town, drenched in blood and toppling lesser adventurers like trees, a man holding a towering shield and a thousand pockets of tools for plunder and pillage. Bellowing orders, tossing bombs, scowling and slaughtering.
The Vvulf.
He could be there in twelve seconds.
The terror launched himself through the rubble, racing with the might of a bull and the speed of a devil. Brigands were trampled underfoot. Mounds of rubble charged through like sandcastles, his horns like the spear of a chariot. Past the outskirts. Up the hills.
His nose sensed him first. Then his eyes.
The Vvulf’s attention drew to the horror careening towards him. His eyes widened. Brigands screamed. Pistols misfired. A shield was raised.
“IT’S THE BEAST-!”
Bigby crashed into the Vvulf with a harder impact than the very cannons he was commanding, the bandit king’s sheer size and weight causing the beast to tumble as it knocked him off his feet. Bigby went sprawling to the ground whilst the Vvulf fully flew a ways backward, bracing his shield to prevent shattering his body on impact.
The leader crashed into one of several large cannons mounted on the hillside, momentum tearing one of the wooden wheels from it’s axle and dismantling the lot of the war machine as Vvulf collapsed into the rubble. Bigby, stumbling, scrambling at the dirt as chaos and disorder flooded the brigand ranks, was already charging.
By the time the Vvulf had sat up, the monster was already upon him. The man raised his tower shield and braced, being forced further into the collapsing weapon by Bigby’s momentum but maintaining his defenses. With a growl and a thunderous war cry, the brigand pushed back against the beast’s unrefined weight and threw it off of him.
Before Bigby could continue his assault, the Vvulf had drawn his pistol. A prick skimmed past his left bicep. He swung his claw and once again met the cold steel, pushing straight through the Vvulf’s defenses and sending him tumbling down the hillside. His strength was inhuman. But the beast’s was eldritch.
This time the bandit king braced differently, holding his shield vertically. Bigby’s charge skewered him directly into the jagged bracing spikes mounted on it’s bottom, drawing a roar as pain coursed through his torso. But the blades weren’t even long enough to breach his ribs. He barely fell short of slashing the Vvulf’s head off before the man grabbed a handful of dirt and tossed it in the beast’s eyes before shoving it backwards with the shield.
Bigby again roared, stumbling backwards as his acidic blood dripped down his chest. The Vvulf got to his feet and pointed a finger at the snarling terror.
“KILL IT, YOU MONGRELS!!” He roared, his terrible cry nearly matching the beast’s in volume. He rolled sideways as Bigby tried to crush him.
His assault was not halted for several seconds. The Vvulf barely avoided and blocked several more strikes before Bigby got him pinned to the ground.
Finally, a knife slashed at his ankle. The beast roared as his leg gave out, turning to face the attack. The brigand ranks had recuperated under the Vvulf’s shout, and now raised rifles and blades.
He slashed at the closest bandit, tearing a fatal rend across their chest. Two bullets pierced his thickened flesh at the hand and shoulder. Then the Vvulf’s shield collided with his head, knocking the monster down.
The horror wasted no time throwing the Vvulf off itself and stumbling to a charge. Another bandit was gored under his weight. A skull crushed, a blade in his side. He slashed and flung the fodder aside, ripping flesh apart as the brigands closed in. Each death drew a reinforcement, a reinforcement drawing another death.
Bigby tossed a fusilier aside and crushed a raider under his claw. A bullet skimmed past him as he bit down on the fallen body of a larger bandit, the bloodletter swinging a whip desperately at his back whilst the maw of death disemboweled him. Buckshot from the Vvulf knocked him back, he used the momentum to chase down another of the fodder and bite them in half. He turned and blocked a strike from the Vvulf, then spewed acid across the bandit king’s cuirass, causing him to shout and retreat, flesh sizzling.
A great creaking interrupted the slaughter, piercing through the cacophony of spilt blood, crushed bone and agonized cries. Bigby felt eyes on his back.
A mere ten feet away from him, the mouth of an entire twelve-pounder cannon returned his slavering gaze like an abyss. Three wounded thieves were at it’s back, desperately trying to steady, aim and light the match.
Fueled by memory of those thunderous crashes, the timber-splitting force preceded by a destructive blast that could turn a man to a myth, he launched forward, his inhuman roar echoing across the metal. The beast ducked under and gripped the mouth’s rim before slamming it downward, bending the whole of the barrel. Then he crouched and lifted up, tearing the weapon from it’s steel mount and hefting it like a mountainous bludgeon. Bigby swung the steel at the remains of the torn structure and shattered it like a house under a tidal wave.
As he stumbled from the momentum, leaning on the cannon with his monstrous dominant arm, another sizzling of a match flickered through the carnage.
A second cannon, the singular sixteen-pounder amongst the array of war machines, had just misfired. The shot exploded across the battlefield in shrapnel, peppering and stabbing those too close and falling short like pebbles at Bigby’s feet.
The Vvulf himself shoved the match man out of the way, throwing a bomb in the barrel and manually adjusting the cannon with his own inhuman strength.
For an instant, Bigby felt himself again. Just himself enough to strategize, bolstered by rage and power. There were too many, and they’d tire him out before the last fell dead. Blood already decorated his lacerated, aberrant body. The Vvulf relied on his men; if he were isolated, he would fall like a rotted oak.
The Abomination came to a simple solution.
Bigby threw the smaller cannon aside, crushing a brigand as he did and launched towards the sixteen-pounder. He charged around it and grabbed the Vvulf’s shield with his weak arm, pulling it aside before clasping his dominant around the bandit king’s torso. Then he leapt atop the cannon, and still holding the thrashing Vvulf like a weapon, leapt down the hill towards the town.
Sprinting with his three available limbs and smashing the Vvulf into rubble and debris along the way, Bigby bolted back into the hamlet’s center. His carnage in the back lines had already been turning the tides; the heroes had mounted defenses, began pushing the brigands back. The Heir themself had arrived on the battlefield, ethereal energy twisting from the arms of their cloak and assembling fallen buildings into blockades and trenches. The war-torn town watched in awe as the Abomination stampeded into the square, the Vvulf himself clutched in it’s grasp.
Finally, he halted, slamming the Vvulf into the remains of the statue at the center of the square and releasing his grip. Bigby stood back and roared as the Vvulf tumbled through the debris and stone before finally steadying, forced to bury his shield in the dirt to stop the momentum. Rasping, snarling, the beast watched as the man stumbled to a stand, clutching his mangled shield close and returning his hateful gaze.
“COME ON, THEN!!” The Vvulf bellowed, his voice cascading through the town. Anyone who wasn’t already defending themself paused in awe, eyes drawn to the climax of the raid. The leader coughed, hacking up a small amount of blood, before planting his feet and scowling in challenge.
The terror’s roar repeated again, cataclysm made manifest.
Bigby launched himself at the Vvulf and met the cold steel with his teeth. He ripped off the top half of the towering shield before slashing at the brigand’s arm, forcing him to drop the remainder. A pistol shot entered at his sternum just before Bigby could bite the bandit king’s head off. He ignored the slash of a dagger and swiped again, sending the Vvulf careening to the side. The man tried to raise an arm in defense as he pounced to follow up; it only succeeded in giving flesh for the maw. Bigby pulled back and tore his arm from it’s socket, leaving a stump at the shoulder. He spit out the limb, bellows of pain ringing in his ears, and dug his claws into the Vvulf’s chest, tearing out flesh, organ and bone. Then he clamped his maw around the destroyed torso, raised the man high above his head, and…
CRUNCH.
Blood spilled down his sides. His teeth were chipped and cracked against bone before meeting the innards. He devoured the whole of the Vvulf in what couldn’t have been more than fifteen seconds.
Finally, his thirst satiated, anger quelled, the Abomination released a primal roar unlike that of any other. Echoing across the hamlet like a malformed imitation of the Vvulf’s own war cry, his rage seeped into the minds of the brigand warrior with a single, terrible message. The wolf has been gutted, skinned, and left to rot.
When the sound subsided, he could feel the power reverberating. Brigands screamed to retreat and run. The strongest fell and the weakest fled. He watched his fellows push back the last of their ranks, the cannons on the hillsides roll back into the woods, the wounded surrender and the proud die as his vision began to darken.
The world grew a little taller around him. His body felt weaker, his throat choked by it’s own structure and bile. The intoxicating warmth of blood grew cold, sickening, dry like a casket sealing around his flesh.
He mused that if this were to be his grave, he would die as a hero, not a monster.
“But I didn’t. So… melodramatic, I guess.” Bigby said with a shrug. “Not sure if I get that from the beast or the man.”
Paracelsus chuckled. “I’ll note that down.”
The tavern’s jubilant revelry cascaded around the two misfits as Paracelsus scribbled in her notebook, Bigby watching the proceedings with a relaxed poise on the barstool. Boudica and Damian were in a fistfight, Dismas was cheering drunkenly at a gambling table whilst Tardif sat motionless on it’s other side, drinks were raised and spirits lifted. Outside, the carpenter’s hammer thudded repetitively against the roof, and the Heir could be seen through the window commanding the construction.
The Abomination’s arm was in a cast, his new scars swathed in bandages, and a trophy hung from his belt as a badge of honor. The Vvulf’s tassel, miraculously dropped before being devoured with the brigand himself. He used it just that, a tassel. His rags and trouser pockets weren’t the best for storage anyway.
He’d had to spend a day or two in the infirmary. He couldn’t exactly tell how long it was, since he was unconscious or in rather significant pain for the lot of it. Bottom line, when he was able to get up and walk into town square, they were still rebuilding the old statue at the center of town. Scaffolds covered the terrain, and those without things to do were busy moving materials and nailing the hamlet back together.
Bigby was not hailed as a hero. No inspired rookies came to ask him for advice, no one saluted or whispered in awe as he passed. He didn’t really mind. While they did not treat him like a king, they also didn’t treat him like a monster. A smile, a wave, a gesture of solidarity; that was all he really needed.
Okay, fine, a little hailing would’ve been nice, and yes, he was still jealous of those who shone bright with their heroics. But he really had better things to worry about.
“I think that covers the story…” Paracelsus mumbled, her eyes scanning the notebook pages. “Most of the folks around here figured it out by now, but Sarmenti offered to write some dramatization of it.”
Bigby snorted. “Sarmenti is a journalist now?”
She chuckled. “Absolutely not. He is a performer, though. Maybe he’ll work with the crier, I’m uncertain.”
The Abomination shrugged. “I’ll think on it. Not a fan of only circulating through rumors, but solidifying it might be worse…”
The doctor hummed in acknowledgement. “Fair. Granted, I don’t think any falsehoods will get far, with Alhazred listening in.”
Bigby nodded. “That creep is always listening.”
Across the room, where the aforementioned Occultist was reading a book in the corner, he chuckled quietly.
Paracelsus ordered a drink in the meantime while Bigby watched Boudica headbutt Damian like her skull was a battering ram. The doctor took a sip and glanced at her notes again.
“So… what now?” Bigby asked.
“How do you mean?” She replied, scratching something out with her pencil.
“I mean… we know I’ve got more of a handle on it. Your experiments worked.” He observed. “It feels weird to just… have that and move on.”
“That’s probably shock from the attack.” She said with a shrug. “Unless this storybook-esque event really has given you a full change of heart on the beast?”
Bigby paused a moment, then remembered the sound of the roar echoing across the hillsides.
“No, no, you’re right.”
Paracelsus chuckled. “Only real concern is… the Heir, I suppose. But I don’t think they’ll try anything again after the other day.”
The Abomination tilted his head. “What, the attack?”
Paracelsus did that thing she did sometimes, where she looked up and paused. As if she’d only just realized not everyone knows everything she does.
“Oh… yeah.” She murmured. “Day two in the infirmary was… rough. The Heir wanted to do some immediate studies, and… erm…”
Bigby’s eyes widened.
“… You notice their new cloak sleeve?” She suggested meekly.
He glanced over to the Heir, through the still-broken tavern window and scaffold around the east side. Their robe’s right sleeve had a different pattern on it, as well as clearly fresh stitches at it’s shoulder. Tiny, dry, dark red splotches dotted the right side of the robe.
“… Please tell me you’re kidding.”
“It was surprisingly helpful for knowledge gathering.” Paracelsus admitted, turning back to her notebook. “Controlled environment, exact statistics…”
“Please tell me I did not bite the Heir’s goddamn arm off.” Bigby pleaded.
“Oh, it wasn’t really an arm…”
“What?!”
“Don’t ask me, we all know they’re- fucked up under that cloak!”
“THAT DOESN’T HELP!!!”