There is a comfort in normalcy, felt by humans in their daily lives. Where if anything were to change, to disturb that blind perfection, humans will crumble and resort to their most ignoble response: To fight, flight, or more likely, to freeze.

Change is not justified even when their Courtly systems rule in favor of growth. They will revoke themselves from ever seeing beyond their narrow minds. To bear witness to their reflection in the eyes of us so-called “monsters”, and to stand before what they have wrought.

Your kind, humans, refuse to change. You are insects beneath the feet of us otherworldly because of it. One day the sun will rise as black as void, and you will refuse to look upon it, saying it as golden as you remember it, denying the truth. Then, when existence is wrenched into the Outer Chaos, and only then while in your deepest madness will you turn your cries to us, your salvation.

And we will laugh.

The carriage ride is mundane as ever. The humid summer months continued to make Oliver St. Roche’s handsome features muggy, his handkerchief used to pat away the sweat with hasty attempts to be dry. It still gathered at his collar, changing the pristine white fabric into a dreary stain that the sensitivity of his vanity would be appalled over were he to see it. His arrival is expected, a gala event to carry the artwork of a famous few. It is only out of formality that he shows his face, the St. Roche's name had its own branding, which let him have the power to grant any piece of artwork a possible boost in popularity, were he to be so generous.

Arriving at the front of the three story brick building, tepid in it’s aged brown color with white framed windows that are quite large to allow for reasonable lighting indoors. Oliver’s carriage door is opened by a servant, giving himself a grace period to button up his tailcoat and adjust himself, another pass of the handkerchief before exiting. Surprised, once he enters the building, to find so many more faces than he expected. Perhaps he is not wasting his precious time then, greeting his fellow tailcoats and art enthusiasts with proper etiquette. Oliver, the eldest of three, had the world set on his shoulders by an elitist father and mother, wealth stolen from the backs of their hard working slaves.

Once he had satisfied his announced arrival, Oliver would begin to walk the edges of the exhibit, to view the paintings and sculptures alike. None of this had his interest, he found art to be a useless form to make oneself be noticed. Too many commoners attempted to find their way to fame and wealth through art, rather than working hard as they should. Oliver did not see the poor as people, in his eyes they were faceless beings eating and shitting in the streets, useless, harmful to people like himself.

A pause in his step, having bumped into a passing lady who expresses a breathtaken awe of a particular art piece. Doubt heavy in his mind, Oliver weeds his way through the little gathering to find a single life sized marble white sculpture. His dark brown eyes skeptically begin to move along the piece, and he feels himself growing somewhat aroused by what he sees. It took the shape of a female figure, the sculpture hooded, face panned down with long curly hair draped from its cowl. It stands with only a minor slouch, and from what he can see of the face is a little smile upon full, elegant lips. At its feet around the bottom of the sculpture, are hands rising up, reaching towards the figure, in beckoning? He wondered.

“You seem concerned, Lord St. Roche.” A voice calls his attention, it is barely heard under a layer of muddling in his thoughts. Is the heat getting to him? His mind felt hazy for a brief moment, recovering himself with a clearing of his throat.

“Excuse me?” He manages with a turn, finding himself in the company of a rather lovely young lady.

“The sculpture, is there something wrong with it?” She inquires to him modestly, perhaps it is hers?

Oliver looks back to the piece, then down and up, from base to head, “I find it appalling.” His first words of review and those around them tilted their ears towards it, “It is like a Witch calling on the Demons of hell.” He furrows his brow at it, gestating at the figure, “I would not be surprised if this thing were cursed.” Even if it called to him, he had value to his name he needed to save. Giving praise to something like this? It would be a scandal. A mark on his family name.

“Truly?” The woman observes it as well, shifting the glass of champagne in her fingers, twirling it by the stem. “I find it enchanting.”

“As do I!” A large man, Lord Birggan, sounded off in exchange to the conversation. “Those could be the hands of beggars, reaching for a savior.” Lord Birggan had no volume control, the party around them listening with either agreeing whispers, or disapproving head shakes.

Oliver grimaces at such words to a sculpture so shameful. The smile on the statue's face, the vagueness of its features, the lack of even a placard detailing its meaning, “Then we will have to agree to disagree.” Staunch in his reply, the small gathering watched St. Roche veer off to go look elsewhere. And yet, he did not leave immediately.

The duration of the gala is uneventful, with frustration his mind kept going back to that statue. He stayed the entire day, he must be out of his mind. He dared not say he is obsessed, he just wanted to see it again without the hovering gazes of others to weigh upon him. When the hour of day spilled into night, the mostly drunk patrons began to leave, giving Oliver his chance. Once more he approached the statue, giving it all of his attention now. No placard still. He frowns at its existence, skulking around it to examine the amazing amount of detail that went into it. The item did not even have a price? Confused, irritated, he felt himself becoming unreasonably agitated, and he turned to look for the event holder to question them with heavy rebuke.

In this particular section of the exhibit however, he would find himself mostly alone. Of course, it is late, and people had gone home already. One soul remained, an old woman wearing a fine gray dress, accented with a vibrant blue hemming. Her white hair up in smooth twists and curled at its ends. When she meets his gaze, her eyes are as vivid as the accents of her gown. Not the faded tones one finds in those old and shriveled beyond their days. The blue is a hue he had never seen in the eyes of another person. Taken aback, he has to right himself mentally, but before he can speak the woman is crossing toward him to as well observe the statue.

He stands himself tall, a hand gripping stoic to his coat seam as the old woman takes in the piece, “And you,” He begins to the old mare in a firm confident tone, “What do you think of this piece?” He nods to it.

Silence fills the air between them, she sips from her glass with a slow calm, as if time were not a factor to her. Eventually she answers him, turning her head to the side to look at it from a new angle, while her voice harmonizes a strange dialect he is not familiar with, “Underwhelming.”

Oliver feels a spike of triumph, on the edge of his seat and ready to minister his distaste of the sculpture, but she continues, “It is all wrong. Nothing should be reaching to her, if anything she should be pulling them up by their roots.” Meaning the hands reaching upward from the base.

That perplexed him. He looks at the statue again, “How is it wrong? This is just some random piece of work, is it not?”

“Not at all,” She smiles pleasantly, “This is a very old legend. Of a being that held the key to life and death.”

Oliver scoffs, looking at the statue, “No wonder I dislike it.”

“Do you?” She out right questioned him, such audacity brings a disgusted curl to his lips, “Yes. I do not believe in such stories of mysticism or false creations. These types of work put thoughts into the minds of our young that poison them. The other pieces of art are of villages, people, things that we can see and are real.” Oliver continues on his rant, sure he would sway this old woman's understanding to why the statue is so harmful to be in existence, “This should be crushed in the streets.”

“Then you do not believe in the Old Gods? Those Elder that were mentioned in our own religious texts.” She questions him once more, to Oliver's growing fury.

“No. Our Gods are the true Gods, and those Gods mentioned in the Biblical Testimony are only a test to see if we truly have faith for those in the scripture, and only them.” He proudly raises his chin, but he can clearly see she is not entirely impressed with him.

The old woman takes another slow sip from her glass, and in the dim lighting of candles assorted around the room, accompanied by the waning lamp light outside the windows, he wondered if the shadows were playing tricks with him. Her eyes seemed wrong for an instant, his vision must be fatigued, it had been an awfully long day and the pupils of her eyes naturally would not be elongated like a feline. Unless she is one of those bastard races?

“I will see that this thing,” He motions to it, “Is destroyed. How dare they even have it in this proper community!” Oliver bows curtly to the old woman, not even waiting for her farewell as he takes his leave.

He refused to look back at either her or that statue. Heading straight out, he climbs into his carriage and undoes the buttons of his coat and collar, exhaling a grunt of frustration. He would write the lengthiest letter to the King and Church, publish it, forcing the statue to be destroyed. People like him had that power, and he would use it accordingly.

The ride home is long and hot, yet he does not notice the sweat beading down his face. Over and over his thoughts are plagued with the statue. Then of the memory of that old hag standing beside it, they both mocked him! That is how his mind interpreted it, the growing obsession, the need to be rid of it. Arriving at his mansion, he steps out with determination, heading straight in to write his letter. Greeted by his servants, offered the evening meal to which he dismisses until he is ready. Taking a seat at his desk, he inks his quill and prepares to scribble away his anger.

The ink well is dry.

Stabbing at it, picking up the well to tilt, the ink suddenly pours out all over his desk, an absurd amount he did not think that little bottle could contain. It had been dry. Oliver stands befuddled, papers soaked, the ink thick and ever so slowly absorbing into all of his other papers. He calls out for a servant to bring a damn towel! At his wits end, thinking he would go mad with rage. Movement draws his sight back down to the ink, where he finds it increasing in volume and spreading out along his desk to begin dripping along his floor. Alarm fills him and he takes a step back, bumping and sitting roughly back into his chair. Unable to look away, he calls again for his servants with a quiver in his voice.

In the ink forms a bubble, then another, slowly more arrived simmering to the surface and begins to burst. A stench of something foul comes with it, Oliver covering his nose as the aroma of death. It fills the spacious study quickly. He manages to stand up, the ink crawling up onto his shoes. Panic begins to set in, it is not long until something large begins to emerge from the ink on his desk. First, it is a mass of a head, then shoulders, arms clawing upward with long talons digging into the wood of his desk. It wrenches up from the ink fast, he barely has a second to think of running when a pair of glowing eyes forms into the face of the creature.

Blue. Such a beautiful, brilliant inescapable blue.

The humanoid shape takes a crouching stance with two legs and two arms, staring at him. A mouth forms and it grins with stretched inky flesh, its teeth sharp with upper and lower canine sets far larger than wolves.

“Get back, monster!” Oliver manages out as he looks for his sword, hung up on the wall at the far end of the room by his study door. He flanks, running for it, gripping the hilt to unsheathe he turns and the thing is already in front of him. It had not made a sound, standing just a few inches shorter than himself. In a panic he stabs straight forward into its chest, and the blade enters its form with the ease of cream. No resistance. He tries again and again, stabbing, cutting, slicing, but nothing came of it other than the ink spattering his floor and walls. Fear, tasted in his mouth, felt under his skin, his heart painful in his chest, beating at such a fierce pace that he cannot find the ability to breathe properly. Dropping the weapon, the whole time he can see its grin, never changing.

“Are you done?” Its voice ripples through him with a perplexing feminine duality, a warmth like a mothers nurturing, and an edge of seduction that tightens his loins, to his shame.

“What are you?” Oliver pants out to it, watching it reach out to grasp him by the face, its talons prickling into his skin.

"God." It answers him. Pressure mounted in his skull from its grip, he struggles, trying to pry himself free to no success.

Oliver would live his last moments no longer angry and fueled by the thought of the statue. Instead, he could only gaze into those torrential eyes as the thing began to eat him alive.