蓝萱，亲爱的蓝萱
... 𝑚ay death reunite us once more at the edge of this 𝑠pring.
My December breath, my dearest dearest darling girl, I thought I could love this world for you. I thought I could learn to forgive this world for you. But there’s blood on this snow; your usually warm body is no longer warm when I touched you, and you did not laugh like you usually do when I pretend to trip on my own feet. There’s blood. On this snow. And you were dead, you were dead. And I thought I have learned how to love like you, to forgive like you, to defy my body and be more like you—less like who I was destined to be. But you were dead. You were blood upon this snow, and now I carry within me a piece of you, and I carry your blood to pluck their flesh to avenge you, and I killed them all, all for you—but the hunger stays. The hunger remains. And there’s no feast grand enough in this world that could ever satisfy the void you've left in me.
...
{ 𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐈: 𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑. }
What’s a name you could give to a creature whose existence is a curse? What name could you possibly give to a creature whose nature was never built on right or wrong, and only know how to devour?
Perhaps, for something so inexplicable like her, there’s no name nor word in this world that could surmount to what she is.
A strange beast. An ancient creature. Older even than the earth, younger only by a moment from time. To name her is not a mere easy feat, but as her kins—she was known, once upon a time, as the devourer of everything. A creature whose hunger and thirst could never be satiated. The primal, rawest, most dangerous form of instinct—this is what she is: a creature made to eat and eat and eat without knowing anything else. To eat and to survive; to devour and to live.
There's no name to what she is; only bygone tales and monikers imposed on her and her kins. Tales which told about the horror in the dark; tales which were told to a child after child what would happen should they leave their little bed at nights; tales which were told from adult to adult, men and women, as a warning.
𝑫𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝒏𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕. 𝑫𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒈𝒐 𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒆𝒇𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒍𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆. 𝑫𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒇𝒆𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎. 𝑫𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎. 𝑫𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎.
For a creature like her, thus was the norm. To be feared is no new thing. To be drawn as a monster when you have no choice on what you are was merely the fate he must endure. For a creature like him, the world best pray he never learns what it means to feel. For desires and love, in the hands of a creature who knows nothing but to devour are dangerous things to be held.
… Yet, still, feel, she did.
Even the most ancient and inexplicable being like her was not immune to the way a heart yearns. Even a creature like her could not escape the jarring clutch of loneliness.
So, one day, the creature—spineless, formless—grew wings. She wanted a friend, so she imitated the tiniest form of living she found.
First, she imitated a bird.
She learned to flap her wings and sing and caw with his beak. She turned her body to feathers, dark and vibrant and everything in between. When it didn't work and the birds flew away from her—perhaps, it's in their instincts to know, to avoid him, to run from the monster that she was—she rearranged her sinews and muscles into a fox. Then, she was a four legged animal. Her tail was bushy and shy, she had three and they swept shyly from left to right when she encountered the other foxes. She learned to crawl on four, how to hunt like a fox instead of merely devouring things as her nature demanded her to. She tried, in many ways, to make friends, and, still, she failed.
It didn’t matter, it seemed. Whether she was small or big, the animals knew better, their instinct sharper, and she was alone, once more.
There's a void inside her chest. One he couldn't put a name on—after all, she had yet to learn the names of those emotions—and yet, still, it was enough to pry water out of her empty socket. It was enough to drill an ache so profound her void of a body could feel. There’s a weight so heavy in this emptiness and she cried and cursed the heavens and the womb that made her.
(But who made her? Who sent her? The creature has no name. No mother. No god. Nothing. There was the world, and there was them.)
To cry tears, the creature turned into a bird. She was mindless as she rearranged his spines and grew his wings, again and again and again. She took the form of a crow as she shed tears, and then—somebody out there answered her.
❛𝑫𝒐𝒏’𝒕 𝒄𝒓𝒚, 𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝒄𝒓𝒐𝒘.❜
There was a girl—a woman? A teenager? She, too, had yet to learn the difference when she first met her—and the girl came and pulled the strange creature into her embrace. She was lean, pale; her eyelashes long and her cheeks rosy; she was pretty —even a creature like him could see it—but, most importantly, he was kind. The girl was tender in her touches, gentle as she spoke, and beautiful as the girl sang to him until her tears dried and she forgot the dull ache in her body.
They were two different things. Surely, the girl must have known better to traverse the forest. Surely, the girl must have known about the creature lurking in the forest. Surely, she must have known better than to ever bring any creatures outside of it, for the terrifying creature could shift her bones and sinews as she pleased. She could take and she could devour. Surely, she must have known.
Yet, still, the girl took her. Yet, still, the girl showed the creature a boldness that knew no bounds. Yet, still, the girl befriended her.
She looked at her like she was not a strange creature. Like she was not a monster. Like the way she molded her skin into feathers, turned herself to crow to a canary and to a fox and to a girl not-quite-human—with red eyes, hollowed chest, crooked spines, and twigs for legs because she didn't know what it means to be a girl, a human—was not at all a thing to be feared.
She forced her spines to grow and her muscles to twitch and spasm into limbs. But the girl, still, did not fear the creature. Instead, she laughed. Instead, she pulled her hand— arm too thin, too crooked to be called as one—and showed the creature her secret place. Instead the girl entwined their fingers and pointed at the stars in the sky and made stories about the constellations. Instead, the girl gasped in awe, looked at the creature with wonder and curious bright eyes, and said, she's beautiful.
𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇? 𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆?
She spent centuries searching for an answer, and the girl answered her, ‘Like this. With love.’ And she didn’t know what it meant to have a heart, to feel things brewing inside her chest and engulf her wholly—she only knew hunger, only ever hunger—but the girl held the ceature and for the first time in centuries, she learned.
But, like many others, like her kins and as fate foretold their destiny, happiness doesn't last for creatures like her. It's not what she was meant for, not what her kins were meant for, and wherever they go—tragedy follows, destruction awaits.
And this tale ended not with a sweet kiss, but with a wound that never learned how to stitch itself close.
𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒇, 𝒊𝒇 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂 𝒍𝒊𝒇𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒑𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒉𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕*?* 𝑭𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒈𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒇, 𝒊𝒇 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈*?*
One winter day. One snowy day. And everything changed the moment the creature found her dearest girl cold and lifeless, blanketed by snow, under the highest peak of the mountain. There’s blood on snow, pooling under the girl's body. Her eyes were empty, black eyes void of any of her usual sparks, and the girl was cold, the girl did not move, the girl lied lifelessly, and she was dead.
A sacrifice, for the creature residing within the mountain and its forest. To appease the creature. To appease her. The girl was sacrificed to appease and keep her wrath away, and yet—it didn’t.
Anger was an unfamiliar feeling. So was grief. The creature never knew the names of these emotions, the girl had yet to teach her, after all. But, that day, she learned. That day, the empire’s sacrifice did not appease the creature. That day, snow fell heavily, piling mountains all over the empire, and yet, that day, no single speck of white snow could be seen.
𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒐𝒏 𝒔𝒏𝒐𝒘. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆’𝒔 𝒃𝒍𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑹𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓. 𝑨𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒇𝒆𝒍𝒍, 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝒊𝒕 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒓𝒆𝒅, 𝒓𝒆𝒅, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒓𝒆𝒅.
That day, she learned to kill not for the sake of surviving. That day, she, who adored the humans and fought his sibling for them once, learned how fickle of a creature humans are. That day, she unlearned love from her bones and killed and devoured an entire population until the land was covered in blood, until the empire was naught but a bygone name in history.
She ate and ate and ate. All the souls, infant and innocent, villains and violent—she spared no single life. She ate and ate and ate. She devoured the girl's body, too, she ate and turned into her. A last desperate attempt to keep her alive.
When the snow became a sea of blood—she thought, perhaps, if she became her, if she became that girl, perhaps she could learn what it means to love, to be loved, to forgive and to be forgiven. But she ate, and the hunger remains, the hunger stays. And she thought if she became her, she could learn to love the world yet again, to see the world through the girl's eyes and found love, once again.
But centuries passed, and she was tired of this grief, she was tired of devouring the world, of becoming a monster. She wanted to become like the girl, she wanted to be like her, to learn love once more, to unlearn what fate had made her—but how does one even outrun oneself?
The creature had erased an entire narrative for thousands of people. How does one outrun one’s wrong?
𝑯𝒐𝒘 𝒅𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒐𝒖𝒕𝒓𝒖𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒐𝒏𝒆𝒔𝒆𝒍𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒚 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒆𝒇𝒚 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒅𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒉?
Thus, there’s no end to this tale.
No forgiveness. No relief.
This story is an endless cycle of suffering and she stood in the middle of it all, blood on her hand, inside her, a hunger that knows no bound—a fitting role for a monster like her.
{ 𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐈𝐈: 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋, 𝐀𝐓 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓. }
𝑵𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆, 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏, 𝒂 𝒘𝒐𝒎𝒂𝒏. 𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒏, 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒐𝒏𝒆.
| 𝐍𝐚𝐦𝐞 | ████████████ |
| 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐬 | The Devourer of Everything |
| 蓝萱 - Lán Xuān | |
| Saoirse Lan (English Name) | |
| 𝐀𝐠𝐞 | Centuries years old |
| Takes the appearance of late 20s | |
| 𝐒𝐞𝐱𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 | - |
| 𝐀𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 | Chaotic Good? |
| 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 | Takes the appearance of a female, The Girl |
| 𝐑𝐚𝐜𝐞 | Immortal |
| 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬 | She/Her |
| 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 | Unspecified |
A BRIEF OUTLOOK OF THE CREATURE'S JOURNEY
- Saoirse along with her kins, the devourer, could not die or be killed. They could suffer and be harmed, but would always eventually return as they could only be killed by their own kins - devoured. It's both a blessing and a curse. For Saoirse though, it was a curse more than anything.
- Throughout her long, long life - Saoirse had lived with multiple different identities, always moving with time, never stopping.
- She had once became a farmer, a counselor in a noble house, a gardener, then a lawyer, then a florist, then a baker.
- Saoirse could take on many forms - depending what she had devoured - but she never changed even once. She donned The Girl's appearance from the start until now.
...
𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒚𝒊𝒏