It had been far, far too long.

Screams of torment and repent were his constant lullaby, they sang their sorrows to the false lunar disk in the sky, one that dripped a putrid, muddied red onto the ‘earth’ below. To call it such was a bit of a mercy, the ground as it were was little more than sludgy, russet mud that perfumed this eternal night with sinful stench, not unlike rotting. The landscape went on for miles, naked torso’s drowning in the sinking mud, in various degrees of stuck, hands outstretched and tears a flow. Tree’s cropped up here and there, curled and broken splinters of barren giants. It was in the hollow of one of these damp and accursed vegetation that a noir talon tapped. There were three on the front of his feet, and one around the back, each sharp and easily scoring the wood, even with a gentle step. The colour of him, unable to be described in the cursed shadow. The red light of a substitute moon saw his form rendered in an outline, a large, perhaps even ten foot tall avian, a predatory one that could not be mistaken for anything else but an over-sized owl… before large, lucid yellows broke the darkness. They illuminated in the nightfall, two disks of sunlight in an otherwise decrepit world… and even a third, almond shaped orb opened slowly upon the creature’s brow. They contained no pupil or sclera, only the third eyeball that creaked open contained anything, and that was only a pale, faded circle of lighter yellow.

He was sick of this place. Tired of picking the wrong doings from victims and picking at their souls through bone-meal. There was nothing for those eyes to pique here, nothing new, nothing to learn from the beseeching mercy the grappling fingers and screaming lips seemed to so solemnly long for. Remarkable, how a sinner could repent for a time longer than the lifespan they spent conducting their crimes. The observation, made for the fifth time in an hour, was interrupted. Fresh crimson flooded from the moon in copious amounts, pushing the old, stagnant sludge from its surface, ran anew with bloodied promise of redemption for at least one soul in this place. His. The bodies below were all but soaked by it, but not the creature who flocked from his hide away towards the glowing light. Divine red, it was nothing more than a window for him, an escape. The silhouette of a giant owl flapped only once, before the dark being was pulled into a vision of ruby incarnate.

Free, at last.

Small claws scraped against the floor in uncertainty. White, downy feathers tickled his legs, and lead into a bird much smaller than he had ever recalled being. An avian of speckled greys and pale, faded creams and tweed. A heart shaped landscape of snowy fluff was his face, where bright gold had been replaced with two dark coals that simmered quietly in his new position. Was this…? A wing was lifted and, with the turn of a frighteningly flexible head, examined. …Was he a barn owl? 

“…”

As if dismissing the notion altogether, the winged heathen turned his attention to a collapsed form, hopping towards it, her, hastily. He recognised her to be… human, if he recalled correctly, with dark strands of hair and an offensively dusty way about her… and of course, to his silent amazement, that pendant. That, accursed accessory, that ill-gotten necklace. He held no reserve in jumping ontop of her torso, collecting the talisman in a skilled, dexterous foot.

[i]‘Awaken.’[/i]

The single word was not for the living to heed, or the departed. It was a word ‘spoken’ just for her, only for their ears, in a voice soft and masculine, almost a whisper in the air. Not for any concern of her resting position, simply because this was his volume. There was no need to, pardon the humour, but make a flap about the occurrence. He had been summoned, but curiosity, a rarity for one like himself, had struck. Why? Why he, and why this female specimen before him. She seemed, at best, a novice. His past contracts had been… more influential beings. Atleast, a little older, and not often female. …His least favourite summoning had come from them.

[i]‘State your business. How did you come to possess this?’[/i]

He fully expected her to come too, it would seem. Poised upon her with one foot tightly bound to that pendant. He could not take it from her, it would never belong to him—and truthfully, that bothered him. This was his freedom that he held, and yet, had no grasp of it. The vial-coddling item was tossed carelessly back at her with contempt. She was weak, or, weaker than he was used to serving atleast. He could not even take on a more suiting form—stuck within the cuddly forest creature. He was thankful flight was not alien to him, it was one thing to look like this, but it was another to be graceless in it. Where was he? What was his purpose here? Had he not been fated to have been dragged from his abode every time this song and dance called to him, he might have waited for someone more capable. Still, anywhere was better than home. He just had to fathom how he intended to survive his time with this one… and if she could offer him something he didn’t know. A glance procured from the room made him wonder, was he within a curio-place? That wasn’t so terrible. There was much to be gained from knowledge, and mental stimulation was a truly wonderful pursuit. Perhaps he would have her collect his baring for him and give a clue as to his where-abouts, but something here was… familiar.

That's what he'd become. A familiar.