Black Heart (mxm)

To Touch a Soul

Life had finally begun again within the keep's old walls. Where there once was debris and dust littering the staircases and halls, the areas were now surprisingly clean. Each window had been scrubbed free of grime and cobwebs, along with the carpets, floors and any other possible surfaces.

While traces of the zombified rats could still be glimpsed in the castle's dark dungeon, they no longer roamed the halls freely and kept mostly away from the building. Without their main food source overrunning the area, a majority of the large spiders also vanished from the keep's grounds. A few might be spotted here and there high upon the looming towers of the building, but one would just think that the shadows played with their vision, since arachnids surely couldn't reach such a size.

"My lord, how have you been feeling?" One of Fin's many new human servants asked as he offered him a small tray of tea and cookies, setting them on the little table beside the large winged chair he currently sat in within his study.

The room had been decorated in deep reds and golds, with a black rug in the middle of the floor that matched the chairs scattered about the area.

"Better by the day." Fin replied, honestly shocked that his body hadn't begun to revert back to being a corpse.

His skin remained soft and warm to the touch. Where his eyes had once been faded and dark from death, they now showed the color of the sky on a bright sunny day.

"That is very good. You have made a miraculous recovery, my lord." The man said as he tidied up the area, then excused himself.

Fin watched him leave before picking up the warm tea cup and lifted it to his lips. It actually tasted as it should. The cookies, too, tasted of sugar and cinnamon when he took a bite from one a moment later, then slowly chewed.

Having been undead for so long, he'd had to make up a rather intricate story about how he had just been severely sick for so long and was suddenly getting better and in need of real sustenance and more help around the giant keep. He had also had to make up a story about the humans he'd murdered, and found that blaming a crazed zombie, which he had easily been able to provide as proof, was easy enough to convince the townsfolk.

Pressing another cookie to his tongue, he savored the taste. Flavor was something he'd been denied the moment he'd been resurrected. When one is no longer truly alive, things like taste buds do not exist. Everything tasted of nothing. He ate because it had sustained him, and for no other reason. There had been no pleasure in it... or anything else.

That thought brought his attention down to his crotch, a twisted smile appearing on his lips. He'd yet to have the chance to enjoy himself in such a way, but he fully intended to do so in the coming days. He had missed out on so many things...

Leaning his head back, Fin allowed his eyes to close as he took in a slow, deep breath.

Let him go free. You have his life. Do not make his soul remain trapped in that room.

Cracking his eyes open, Fin narrowed them on the small tabby cat sitting atop one of the wing chairs across the room from him.

"Be gone, bitch. You had your chance to take him and you failed. He belongs to me now." He said lazily, making a shoo gesture with his right hand before bringing another cookie to his mouth.

The cat's fur ruffled and it hissed quietly, only drawing Fin's smirk wider on his lips. He was about to close his eyes again and ignore the almighty annoyance, when he noticed something flit across the edge of his vision. His attention immediately drew to his left, where the door was still firmly shut and not a shadow was moving about.