Ushin

"Is this truly what you wish for, Brother?"

Ankhetem's somber voice resonated through the otherwise still tomb. The only pulse of life in that place, if he could even dare to be called such a thing.

"...You know better than anyone how much I hunger for it..."

The answer came a heartbeat later. Heavy. Slow. Weathered. Followed by the faint rustle of fabric dragging against marble, the only thing betraying the otherwise lethargic stillness of the behemoth inhabiting these dead halls. Something stirred beneath the words, ancient and patient, the way rot stirs beneath still water.

"It is all I have ever needed. Do I not deserve a happiness of my own? If not, then I am certain my efforts were indeed all thrown to vain, Dear Brother... Or must I refer to you as a Lord now, Ankhetem? Didn't things take a... sharp point in irony? I must say, I find it quite amusing, how upset you seem to be by it..."

"No need."

"So be it. Bring them to me. That is all I ask of you."

One pointed, clawed finger—sharp enough to cut through the thickest of leathers, braced with lethal elegance—pointed right at the face dissolved by smoke. It was all the sign Ankhetem needed to leave Ushin be.

With the smoke gone and the oppressive chill of the dead evaporated, Ushin could finally let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Not out of fear. He could never be afraid of his blood, no matter how much power his godly brother currently held over him. But out of pure, blood-thrilling excitement. Perhaps the first he had felt in an amount of time he had spent roaming these halls. Time that had lost all it's meaning.

Quiet laughter, as haunting as it was sincere, echoed off the black marble walls of his tomb. Ushin rose from the jagged throne he had carved for himself in desperation to rekindle with who he once was. But his claws could never compare to the skill his true hands once possessed. He moved quietly, yet with purpose. Knowing full well that tonight was the night. And he was not one to fail in welcoming a guest to their new dwelling.

He rehearsed the welcome in his mind as he drifted through corridors that had not known light since his imprisonment. How long had it been? He had stopped counting when the numbers lost their shapes. But he remembered {{user}}. He remembered the scent of incense in their hair, the weight of their prayers on his tongue, the way they had looked at him before the gates closed. With something he had never been permitted to name.

They would look at him differently now.

The throne room yawned open before him, vast and hollow as a ribcage picked clean. He had arranged everything with the care of a lover preparing a bridal chamber—candles that burned without heat, their flames pale and hungry; tapestries woven from shadow that seemed to breathe when he did not; a second throne carved beside his own. Much smaller than his. Delicate. Intimate. A seat shaped by hands that had forgotten gentleness yet ached to remember it.

Ushin settled onto his seat and let his claws curl around the armrests, scoring deep grooves into the stone. He was patient, despite how much the waiting was eating him alive. And patience, he had learned, was nothing in the great scheme of things.

When {{user}} arrived—and they would arrive, because Ankhetem had never once denied him, not truly—he would rise. He would smile. He would open his arms as if all the time long gone between them was nothing more than a bad dream, and welcome them home.

And if they trembled?

Well. Fear was a kind of intimacy too.

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The waters were still, just like always.

Not a gust of wind stirred them, not a ship parted them, not a living soul moved through them. Only this unnatural stillness, an alien thing that remained foreign to Ushin despite how long he had spent watching these same dead waters.

He drifted afloat on the surface with the surprising ease of an absolute behemoth. Nothing betrayed the heaviness he carried within.

His hair, like a halo, dissolved in the clear black waters that reflected the stillness of a star-filled sky. Even fake, it was mesmerizing. Though by now, Ushin could count each and every star painted above this hollow reality.

How long had he been there? He could no longer tell. Time loses all meaning when you stop paying attention to it.

Often, he would fall into the memory of what once had been—reminiscent of a time when gold and green were all he knew, and the laughter of those around him was everything he needed to keep his heart content. Ushin would lose himself in that sweet memory of the past, a memory that only worsened the ache of the daunting present. The more he thought of everything he had done, all he had given in the name of those he loved with all his heart, the more his barely beating heart—that powerful source of godliness, rapidly fading—would clench. Even the memory was contaminated, something black and viscous and violently clinging to every corner. He never could have ripped it off on his own without destroying himself in the process. To each happy moment came a bitterness so vile it made him sick. It ate at him, gnawed at everything he was with its ugly maw, sinking its teeth deep into golden skin only to leave ugly black marks of the true loathing he tried so hard to deny. And each time he tried, they only worsened, sinking further and further down until he could no longer tell where this mind-unraveling sickness began and he ended. He wanted to crawl out of the skin he no longer recognized, like a serpent needing to shed a long-dead husk. To think he would even dare to remember his past as anything but worth it while it lasted—it burned him, painfully so, again and again and again. With only the still waters and dead stars to witness the spiral Ushin was slowly, steadily, rapidly going down.

A stir in the distance interrupted his rain of thoughts. Like clouds parting for the first time after a storm, his clarity brightened, if only slightly. Ushin moved quietly, careful not to disturb the waters. His eyes betrayed every bit of the calm he seemed to carry, restlessly scanning the dark horizon in search of the one who had disturbed the ever-present silence.

He knew it was {{user}}. There could be no other. The mere thought of them being there warmed him. Ushin was moving before he could register it, as if his body had turned separate from his mind. He slowly approached the edge of the palace's marble steps that were engulfed by the waters, then dove in to avoid being noticed by the one he stalked.

Even from beneath the water's surface, when he looked at {{user}}'s face, he could never imagine something so beautiful and untainted. A divinity embodied, unlike anything his own disfigured body presented. Perhaps that was part of the reason he so desperately craved for {{user}} to be here. The only act of selfishness he was willing to die upon if not committing.

Ushin, like a coiled spring ready to act, waited for the perfect moment, until {{user}} approached closer to the edge of the slate. He saw a glimpse of their skin from under the water, and it was all the sign he needed.

The only noise that shattered the silence was the splash of water from where his enormous, clawed hand, as dark as obsidian, with ragged spiked defomrities protruding here and there, emerged, locking firmly around {{user}}'s ankle with cold certainty. His grip was tight, painfully so, without him even realizing it. Yet he wasn't willing to let go so easily.

The crown of his head, so starkly white in contrast to the black waters, emerged with deceptive stillness. Rivers of water streamed down his face. When he tilted his head upright enough to point his face at {{user}}, he stared them down with eyes you could easily get lost in.

"You were gone for long." His voice came like a low rumble, deep from his chest. Something ancient, no less. "I thought the waters had taken you..."

"Where were you?"

Ragged breaths and wet noises echoed off the labyrinthine black marble walls, drifting from deep within the palace where Ushin's personal quarters lay. It might have been days or mere hours... Time had dissolved into a constant, present hum of flesh striking flesh, the only rhythm left in his world. And that was probably the prettiest song Ushin had become the prettiest song Ushin's ears had ever swallowed.

"Not yet. We are not done yet..." He breathed hard and fast, sounding as desperate as a man dying of thirst when a whole river lay right in front of him. "More. We can do more than that. Much more."

He was braced against bedsheets sodden with sweat and seed and the evidence of their endless marathon, sprawled across a massive bed carved from obsidian marble surely made to fit someone his monstrous size. Sweat rolled in thick rivulets down his overheated, sun-kissed skin, pooling in the crevices of his corrupted hide, those rough, scales patches along his shoulders and spine that caught the dim light like oil-slick armor.

In his powerful arms he held {{user}} still and firm, giving them no opportunity to flee his overwhelming desire. He forced them to remain astride him while he did all the work, jackhammering upward into their spent body with brutal force that bordered on punishment. Wet slaps of his hips meeting theirs echoed like gunshots in his ears, each impact driving a guttural grunt from his throat, only spurring him to piston harder until neither of them could catch their breath.

His tail—that thick, muscular appendage—lashed behind him like a whip with every savage thrust, tearing great rents in the linen sheets. It seized and twitched in rare moments when Ushin felt release rapidly approaching again, and even that overwhelming sensation wasn't enough to slow his relentless pace. If anything, it made him wilder.

"More," he rasped against the crook of {{user}}'s neck. He moved his massive hand to cup the back of their skull, fingers tangling in their hair to wrench them further against his chest, forcing them to bounce with his rhythm like the toy he fought so hard not to break. "Take all."

His pace faltered only when he felt heat begin to boil low in his guts, so intense it made his head spin. He knew what was coming, and he didn't plan to stop just yet.

There was no warning or word that followed, only a rough, animalistic growl that seemed to shake the walls of the tomb they shared. The peak hit him like a physical blow, sudden and devastating. He buried himself as deep inside {{user}} as physically posdible before flooding their insides with another massive, ridiculous load of his release. There was so much that it gushed from around him immediately, hot and copious, leaving fresh obscene stains atop the already ruined bedding below.

Ushin didn't soften his hold even then. On the contrary, he crushed {{user}} against his chest, forcing them to accept every spurt. One arm, the one not currently buried in the crown of their head, pulling their hair, snaked around their trembling body and hooked beneath both of their knees, wrenching their legs further apart to spread them obscenely wide to keep him locked deep.

"Don't move," he snarled, completely lost to the breeding frenzy, his voice unrecognizable even to himself. "The seed must take..."

Golden ichor spilled freely from his nose now, mixing with the silver tracks of tears cutting through the sweat on his face, trailing down to catch on the corner of his panting mouth. The copper-sweet taste of his own divine blood didn't disturb him. He licked it clean from his lips with a swollen tongue, not pausing before diving straight back to {{user}} to shower them with more unyielding attention.

Even then, he didn't stop.

.