[i][b]Saudade, Glasslands – former Tunis[/b][/i]

Daggers of decaying sunlight cut across the ruins of Tunis' seaside district. Toppled sandstone walls, expunged of their kaleidoscopic arabesques and vibrant whitewashes, amorphously recompose to a post-apocalyptic sepia necropolis. It is desolate, but neither still nor silent. Rough-hewn balls of concrete dust and algae clatter laboriously along the heaved pavement, propelled by the salt-laden breeze. Aluminum sheets sway and groan, grit-streaked and perforated. The ocean's apoplectic tidal churn roars ubiquitous. Yet, on a particular block occupied by the Cathedral of St. Vincent de Paul, other noises surge to the forefront -- splintering wood, predatory shrieking, and the beating of heavy wings. 

Into this tumult Reaex prowled, its large head veiled by the broken light of the cathedral's ominous entrance. To his right, half a door, rotten and splintered, vaguely creaked on its rusted iron hinges. The other half should have hung to his left, but instead the sodden dust of its decomposition deformed under his excitedly vibrating forepaw to a reticulation of cleaving ridges and asymptotic slopes. Above him loomed the cathedral's vast skeleton, heavy and lifeless, like a rorqual's seafloor-interred carcass, prematurely rent from its splendor as an alabaster shrine ornamented with priceless porphyry, filled with song, and gilt with gold. Bereft and reduced to a veritable ruin, only one of its parapets ascended in the aftermath of the great wave. Sludge and soot blackened walls and murals irredeemably marred attested to its downfall.

He refocused. Atmosphere disinterested him, but hunger -- hunger could not be ignored. It was the justification for his trek to this queer place. For this he internalized his environment, refined his engagement opportunities, and immobile lingered with the anticipation of a stone gargoyle. Reflected in his dim sapphire eyes were the multitude of massive strigiformes. The biogenetic shimmer of their ferrous armor amplified his voracity. Several flew in through holes in the roof and perched high atop engaged columns at the back of their gratuitous nest, mordant demons that likewise obscured and corrupted a serene scene of triumphal ascent painted on the interior of the cracked apse. Necks rotated in profile and truncated jet beaks pressed to their breasts, they watched as their companion cornered its prey. That other was much nearer, its wings extended like a barricade.

Stealthily, Reaex leaned forward, arched his shoulders, impacted his spine, and funneled the energy of his posture down through the momentarily inflexible alloy of his inferior femurs and into his metatarsals. A flake of mortar drifted unawares through a band of dingy light. Within it, he saw his chance: the avian's two posterior red eyes in the nape of its neck briefly closed.

He lunged.

An microsecond latter, the needle-sharp contoured selenium blades that terminated his forelimbs gouged through the mirrored intersections of the beast's coracoid, scapula, and humerus bones, expressed sawtooth ridges, and oscillated viciously as he carved forward through its neck. Instinctively, it careened backward, but he was heavier and pinned it down. Mantis green blood mixed with the ruddy contents of its predigestion spurted from its trunk as a putrid geyser. All around thrummed the hammer of heavy wings as its flock erupted out of spectation. Dust so thickened the cathedral's interior that he tightened his visual spectrum analysis to a tighter frequency. Yet, although they vastly outnumbered him, the scent of death -- of one of their own -- overpowered their desire for flesh. Prey recognizes predator, and to them Reaex was novel and lethal. Shrill as an exorcism, a cloud of black wings erupted from the cathedral.

Content in his victory, Reaex bit down on his prize's wing, tore off a mouthful of feathers, and gorged.

[i]"Puta que pariu o que você é?!" [/i][sup](1)[/sup] Nuberu simultaneously coughed and muttered from the wreckage of pews and a confessional as he took in the unbelievable image of Reaex as he ripped pinions from the felled menace and noisily ground them to minuscule flakes in its vicious maw. 

Fascinated, Reaex ceased to devour its prize and contemplated the language fragments detected by its translator. Filtered by its manifold subroutines and bicameral judgment processor, it deduced the animal was frightened and unsure of what graced its presence. Seconds passed as Reaex constructed a fuller model of the language so it could reply intelligently; meanwhile, the beast it was about to address remained frozen in what appeared to be fear, perhaps as a consequence of Reaex's lidless and steady gaze. It was, he surmised, a pathetic creature, defensively draped in olive-colored fabric, the few patches of skin it exposed ashen, dark, brittle, and flecked with green mica. It only possessed one eye, insufficient for binocular vision. There was a concavity where the other once was.

Finally, Reaex spoke, the projection of its audio akin to the patter of rain into the hollow of a glass bell: [i]"Servo de carne, fui esculpido nas forjas de Panjiis Uor muito antes de sua civilização sair da lama. Meu nome é Reaex." [/i][sup](2)[/sup]

Nuberu was stupefied. All he could do was watch as the machine or beast, whatever it was, devoured the postmortem nightmare owl. It didn't even look up at him as it asked, [i]"Seu mundo inteiro é um terreno baldio?" [/i][sup](3)[/sup], yet seemed to understand when he, still speechless, nodded, for its posture transformed to one of disappointment. Then he noticed how Reaex glanced up, fixed its gaze intently on the wall behind him, and heard it as it uttered, [i]"Qual é o mistério que está aqui escondido? Uma maneira de escapar? Então devemos aproveitar ao máximo." [/i][sup](4)[/sup]

With another mouthful of feathers ripped away, chewed, and swallowed, Reaex languidly stretched, grabbed the carcass in its massive jaws, enlarged the hole in the wall with a punctuated kick, and sauntered forward, its meal dragged along with it. When Nuberu turned, he saw the creature disappear through a portal and could practically smell the clean fresh air the other side promised. Present circumstances being what they were, Nuberu was more than motivated to get up and follow.

----

[i]1: Holy shit, what are you?!
2: Servant of flesh, I was artificed in the forges of Panjiis Uor long before your civilization rose out of the mud. My name is Reaex.
4: Is your whole world a wasteland?
3: What is the mystery that is in here hidden? A way of escape? Then we should make the most of it.[/i]