Bereft: Demise

32 | Of Monsters Hungry and Desperate

I had seen the Sin Tehgrair once before in Peroth's memory.

In my recollection, he was a fair-haired man of advanced height, broad through the shoulders with a heavy brow lowered over juniper eyes. His voice had been resonant, his posture staunch and threatening. From his mannerisms, I could tell he had been the de-facto leader of the Sins, though how that hierarchy had come about with people like Darius and Balthier in the group was questionable. 

I didn't know how he had died, but I knew the Sin was gone. I hadn't expected this to be his fate. 

I wondered how Darius could recognize him. 

The revelation was so jarring, Darius and I stared without a word shared between us. The Sin hoisted me upright with his arms cinched about my middle, his torso curved in an attempt to bodily shield me from the rangy monstrosity hunched upon Sloth's shoulders. The action was subliminal, done as if he weren't conscious of the movement. 

Balthier recovered his equilibrium first.

"What have you done?!" Envy raged as the smoke dispersed and he stumbled to the ward once more. I sucked in a breath when I laid eyes upon the remnants of his arm. The energy had ripped it off, leaving behind the loose, bloody tatters of his sleeve that Balthier held tightly just below his shoulder. "What is that abomination?!"

The thing that was Tehgrair pried its claws from the ward and laid them upon Peroth's chest, cutting the linen fabric of his jacket. The bare, drawn form of its skull tilted and wavered as it judged Balthier. It began to keen, the visible tendons in its skinny throat vibrating until the sound rose beyond the range of my hearing.

Darius flinched as he dropped me on my own feet and covered his ears.

A line of blood dripped from Peroth's nose. 

Envy spoke a vicious statement in a language I didn't understand. The cadence of the verbiage prickled at the nape of my neck. "I put him in the ground over four thousand years ago. What have you done?!"

Peroth laid his hand upon the monster's and slowly pried its unruly talons from his chest. The wounds inflicted upon his person wept a few final tears of crimson but swiftly mended.

"I did what I had to." 

"Abomination!" Balthier snarled, his anger manifesting in a physical lash of energy. It struck the ward and erupted in a fresh shower of sparks. The flora at his feet—already frostbitten or smoldering—succumbed to disease and rot. "I will return him to his death when I put an end to the both of you!"

Momentarily at a stalemate, the Sin of Envy chose the final path open to him; he retreated. Balthier vanished into the Realm without so much as a parting remark, leaving behind a thick patch of ice and a swathe of scorched, decaying vegetation.

We stood, waiting. I doubted any of us knew what we waited for. Balthier's return? The ward's sudden collapse? Only when Peroth exhaled and Darius lost the rigidity of his stance did I dare speak.

"What...." The word was hoarse and barely audible. "What is that?"

The amalgamation twisted so it bones popped and its muscles bulged in grotesque ways. It moved in tandem with Peroth's motion, fixing me with its blank stare as though it could hear and understand what I said. Its arm rose, and it pointed one talon at my heart. Blood welled and dripped from the point. 

A shudder wracked Sloth's body, causing him to grit his honed teeth and groan. The monster they named Tehgrair dissolved in a film opalescent blackness, seeping once more into Peroth's skin as if the nightmare had never been real.