[Center][color=CECECE][h1][u]Yesaris Week[/u][/h1][/color]

[H3][i]The Demon's Maw[/i][/h3][/center]

[hr]

It knew nothing but pain. Burning, biting pain. It could not escape the agony. Not as it’s fur burned away to crispy skin, nor after blackened chunks of flesh ripped apart with each cruel step. 

It screamed.

Then it tumbled over rock and stone, plunging into an abyss. It hit water cold, as a fiery malignant mass, extinguishing the flames in a blink. Yet the sensation of burning did not leave, like a thousand pinpricks of hungry hate.

It knew not how long it sank, or how long it drifted in the deep, but the colder it got, the better. 

Despite the pain, it sensed death and another pain flared because it was hungry. 

Ever hungry. 

So it pressed on, leaving the husk of that burned thing behind in the water. It had tried before, oh so many times to leave, but the burning would have consumed it to ash. But now, it was free.

Never free. 

It drifted in the water, the light of the sun becoming more and more apparent as the watery floor met it. All the time, the feeling of immolation never left its senses. Then it saw death. A small, scaly thing, decaying and preyed upon by smaller things as the water rushed by. It found more, so many more, with the smallest of orbs floating like the stars. Life growing within.

It cared for life. For life brought an end to the hunger, for a time. So it went into the dead fish. For fish were what skimmed in the waters, the most elusive sustenance. The blackened spirit was diminished in size and strength by the burning and thus it fit right at home within its newest host carcass.

It was a new purpose.

So it fed and gained strength. 

This went on for many moons, as more and more life came hither to his maw. Dying in droves before he could even reach them. He swam with death for they were kin and he ate, never fulfilled. Then one day there came the rushing of water, like the power of that dread kin, and it swept him away. 

Far, far away. 

There was no point in fighting, yet it did so for it knew not what else to do but lash out in the face of that which stole its food. 

The flood as it were, eventually began to subside and the fish that it was, continued on in search of prey with little direction in mind.

The water began to turn, growing wider and deeper as the taste changed. What was fresh grew with salt but it did not seem to mind until its form broke apart by those waters and thus the change was felt. 

So it adapted, jumping from carcass to carcass. There were many in those waters. Some fresh, some dying, some already dead. Feasted upon by multitudes of fish, crustaceans and other creatures that swam in the depths where even it dared not to linger. 

It drudged on, finding a way to survive in the endless blue by allowing itself to be eaten, before killing its host and inhabiting a fresh body. It saw many sights in those days and heard many voices, songs and hated melodies. There were giants that swam without care, larger than any it had ever seen that had walked upon land. They avoided it as his stench only brought danger time and time again. There were also vast multitudes of colorful rainbow-like fish that swarmed the waters. Despised adversaries, as they were not scared of its stench but hungered for it. Many a time it would flee only to be sucked apart and eaten. Each and every time its spirit would diminish in strength until it was forced to hide. A relief came when their presence faded and it was at last able to gain strength once more. 

[i]He[/i] grew stronger.

For all the wandering, the eating, the hungering and his battles- They brought about an awareness gleaned through a crucible of struggle. He hated that struggle. For it was ever a perpetual cycle, driven only by his unending hunger. A hunger brought by the one who cursed him. 

The plague god.

He hated the plague god with all his spirit. He hated the kin who denied him his meal. He hated the morsel that burned him. He hated the colorfish that nibbled on his spirit, he hated the giants with their songs, he hated the dancing fish that he could not catch and he hated the ocean. 

He was not a predator here. He was prey. It was time for a change.

Yet awareness was a fickle thing at that time, and it came and went. Lucidity depended upon the state of his hunger. For it was endless as that which he swam through. Either bountiful, splendid when teeming or fathomless and empty as his soul. Still his appetite begged him ever on.

Time went on. 

Then there came a gradual change. Where the waters became shallow with warmth. By then he had grown accustomed to the churning temperatures of the sea but this felt better. He did not like the warm but his fel eyes did not spot flame, which even he dreaded and that was all that mattered. Corals came with small fish, unlike the giants where he came from. Rocky outcroppings gave way to sand and at long last, a verdant land splayed before him.

Ripe for the taking.

To shed his watery form, he would need a carcass. One more suited for land. The form he wore currently had been a large predator. Full of sharp teeth for rending flesh, with fins to cut through the water and a tail to propel ever on. Now decayed, twisted and blackened as he. 

Though he was large, he swam through narrow channels, heading up intakes and rivers in this quest. He saw many creatures drinking and swimming, all far too small for his needs and much too out of reach to satiate his hunger. He eyed the shores when he could, taking in the sights. It all felt… Wrong. Much too small. 

Too peaceful. He hated that too.

It was not until dusk that his opportunity finally arrived. An antlered prince with his court, paltry to any he had seen in his memory. 

But it would do.

With an explosive burst of speed, he launched forth from the water before they could react and in an instant with but one bite- It was all over. 

And it was a beginning. 

[hider=Summary]
The Dread Wehniek survives his encounter with Mish and Zima, but barely. Not heavily diminished in strength, he eks out a living by using the corpse of a salmon that died in spawn. There is plenty to eat and he slowly regains strength but then a FLOOD comes and washes him away where his journey continues into the ocean cause the food is plenty. He finds the open waters taxing, with whales, goldfish, laektears and all that jazz. It is a cycle of him losing and gaining strength. He eventually gains awareness that comes and goes with his hunger. 

He then finds a new land ripe for the taking, with its peaceful and small sights. So he takes a form quite familiar to him- A deer.

And the land would thus know only horror. 
[/hider]

[hider=Spirit]
Wehniek Champion started with 8 spirit
+1 for featuring
+1 for main character of post
+1 for 10+ paragraphs
=11 spirit
[/hider]