Death, Grime, Wander, and Lust
The four prominent elements of the human heart
That will carry us either to our doom
Or to our salvation
—Prelate Adamoni Hath, High Priestess of the Yaldaboth Missionary Church
Harkonnen Yaldaboth walks into his modest kitchen, turning on his stove and beginning to cook tea for the long day ahead. His shoulder length cow-brown hair lies shaggy and unkempt, tired eyes staring at the kettle as the water inside it slowly heats. His mouth moves silently, precepts of prayer whispered. He lets the steam rise for a moment, before enveloping his head and neck with the rising water vapor. It collects around his facial hair, his month of growth growing longer after every transformation. His eyes, one a deep and lustrous turquoise, the other a fiery topaz, look back from the sheening surface of the kettle.
From the reflection of the kettle he sees his room- a mix of bare necessities and frivolous playthings: a bookshelf piled with romance fiction, a tea set, a variety of sewing equipment. Hanging from the darkened closet, oil lamp still unlit, his vestments loom. The calendar above his makeshift stove reads clearly.
Tonight the sky will shine with two full moons.
As Harkonnen leaves his home he has two outfits- one, his frock and souri, his daily dress. The other, drawn over his shoulder carefully, does not fit him. In his current form, it would droop and sag.
Tonight it will fit.
As he walks through Frillugandr, head held high, the noonday sun glimmering off of every trellis and window with aplomb, his eyes flit from parishioner to parishioner. Their faces, cheerful in spite of the oncoming night, smiling. The sun summons a river on her back. The vestments, while snug, also insulate. Their pitch-black coloring, accented with crimson thread that swerves across the swimming cloak and tight fitting gherkin, are representative of more than just Harkonnen’s skill at sewing. Each swirl is another night, another month in the clergy, another full moon vanquished to the bowels of the new. Currently his cloak numbers nineteen such markings. They stand in place for the scars across his body hidden.
He approaches his sacrosanct home, the place he preaches and the house he leads. In front of him stands Yaowerty’s sixth smallest church, located in the outskirts of the city. Harkonnen’s walk from the cells of the Order may be long, but he is always thankful for the hour of contemplation and silent worship it allows him. A small crowd has gathered, all bearing gifts. The lunar celebration prior to the nights festivities has become ritual, and despite his desire to ensure his flock never go hungry, Harkonnen greatly appreciates the gifts. Each is met with kind words, a loving nod, and a heartfelt handshake. As he takes to the altar he breathes deeply, the church wheel cart now piled high with foodstuffs, and begins his sermon.
“Dearly beloved, my flock of flocks. We are gathered here today in preparation for tonight. The Moons will rise, and beckon at our hearts. One, with pale ire and ignorance. The other, with shimmering lenses, will gaze upon us with contempt, hatred, disgust. Tonight we shall arm ourselves, not just with our scripture, the benign gift of the Order, but with weaponry.”
The curtains behind him are drawn open, revealing an array of war-hammers, swords, staves, maces, hand-axes, and warpicks, each a viscous point or unwavering bluntness, each waiting for the hands of a villager.
“To quote our Blessed Prelate: ‘On the night the crimson moon sings/lest us not forget what holds to our soil/pain, need, and bloodied spoils/to protect our sacred lands.’ Tonight, when the shaded copses burn bright, and the sky yearns to take your heart, remember that you are not alone. Remember our bond, sacred and pure. Please, all, repeat after me.’Thou shalt not let thine cursed light shine in.’’
A chorus of voices answer, aged and young, some tired, some weary, some prepared.
“’Demark ourselves against this night, for we will never fall. ‘”
They are ready for this night. Of the twelve that come ever year, this is the fifth, and their almanacs read with advice for protection.
“’Let the sun bless us for this day, so that we may see it rise again.’ Good luck and Goddess bless, my friends.”
Harkonnen takes his leave, beginning the long walk home and further walk to the Monastary of the White Wurm. Every villager bows as he leaves, knowing that what he faces will be far worse than their destiny. They arm themselves.
Harkonnen holds them in his mind for the next twenty hours.
———
After dropping off a wheelcart full of foodstuffs in his ice chest, he begins his walk home, the night’s uniform slung over his shoulder carefully. The return to the city is neither a blessing or a curse, rather a change of state. Here, he walks taller, his eyes prepared and seeking any errant worshiper still out of doors. His arms, tense and prepared, rest on the hilt of his weapon, its blade wrapped in coarse gray cloth and kept dull until tonight. Despite the rarity of its usage, he still feels a significant sense of comfort from it’s presence on his hip. As he sees the monastery in sight, he swerves, walking down a perpetually empty and abandoned alleyway. Standing in the mouth of it, vestments neat yet mud-stained from a similar trek, Ankulus watches Harkonnen approach, similarly shaggy blonde hair kept up in a bun, sharp gray eyes tracing every step of their movement.
“Leg has healed quite nicely, Harky. You might even outpace me tonight.”
“Anky, the only place I can outpace you is in the bedroom, my dearest treasure.”
The two come within arms reach, and within an instant, fall into each other, mouths meeting in an ecstatic embrace, tongues clicking together, hips meshing one another, eyes alight in joy.
“Mmph…”
“Is my darling ready for the hunt tonight?”
“I’m more excited for consuming the prey presented to me afterwards.”
“Always make the most of our monthly allowance, don’t we?”
The two part, momentary sin absolved by want of the heart, and walk side to side, hands clasped. Their hearts beat in magic syncopation as they finally reach the monastery joining the now growing thrum of similarly dressed priests and supplicants, adjoinders and assistants. Some wear the vestments in plain, no personal touches, their experience shown in scars and limps. Some wear golden jewelry, some have their bodies pierced in order to augment their transformative powers. Others, veterans of the lunar conflicts, have twisted visages, eyes left unmeshed, bodies left uncleansed.
Deep within the basements of the monastery, waiting for the moon to rise across the horizon, priests tuck in their forms begin to stir, many-eyed vestiges of humanity preparing for the hunt ahead of them.
Above, handshakes and meetings are exchanged, old friends from faraway lands reuniting on their monthly ritual. Quite a few priestly pairs arrive, their relationship carried on in a similar way to Ankulus and Harkonnen. Some make their connections clear- others prefer the possibility of denial. As the two-bell time rings, the heavy oaken doors of the Order of the White Wurm revealing it’s candlelit innards. The priests begin their recitals, announcing their dedication to the city of Frillugandr, to their country, and to the citizenry they love.
“Let not our bastard moon/strike us down at fall of night/strike the iron, wreak havoc/let our voices sing, our weapons pierce/Gold, steel, copper, platinum/all will fall to our metal whims.”
The prayer bounces off the walls, echoing across the courtyard. The line is single-file, neat, the novice priests allowed pride of place on first entry. They filter through, entering a high-ceiling dining area, rich oaken pillars covered in runic carvings, the walls draped in deep fuchsia cloth. The priests, a hundred in total, begin to converse and coalesce, factions collecting, pairs and triplets threading through the low murmurs to find quiet spots to contemplate the night ahead.
Food approaches. The servants, dressed in simple linens, place a feast unseen by kings and queens, cooked by the finest chefs at a price so low it would make a burgomasters eyes water. Tonight, starting at the noonday bell ring, the priests have been unleashed from their oaths, besides a few. Liquor flows free and golden, slaking a thirst kept in check for thirty days unleashed. The consumption is a requirement for their actions, and the minimum consumption would mute a lesser human. But tonight, the priests celebrate what time they have, old and young, new and experienced.
———
An hour passes, and as the celebration winds down, an ancient gong is struck, the reverberating silence of alert and attention spreading through the party. The collective of men and women, cloaks drawn across their body against the ancient cold of the interior, quiet, and turn to look at a door so ornately carved, it ceases to become a simple piece of furniture. Across its breadth is a history of the city, and moreover the history of the rise of the Order. Behind the door, the innards of the monastery operate, rituals once forsaken as black magic used to build weapons of flesh and steel.
From the outside, the sound of hammers striking molten steel can be heard, echoing across stonework with the heavy tolling of the priest-smith’s bodies. As the ancient locks click, gears the size of a man’s head rescinding jet-black bars of onyx, inscribed with protective runes of the ancient faith, the head of the order, Eldebrest Histolbry, emerges. Wrapped exquisitely in cloth, each inch painted with runic magics, her body the platonic ideal of the Wurmish form, shaped by her own hands in surgery and flesh magicks, saunters to the dais, her eyes covered in the driven-snow-white ceremonial cloth. The Holy Metals shimmer in the candle light, gold and platinum clicking together over copper bindings, as she lowers the veil, letting it wrap around her shoulders, four wide and joyous eyes staring out at her congregation of future supplicants. Her voice is like blade-silk ribbon dancing, soft and supple yet projecting and fierce.
“My children! We gather here, on this most holy of nights, once again! I see among our nested flock faces new and visages old, new scars and old. I see the people who have taken an aesthetic pledge against the sin, the consumption, the flesh. I absolve you all of these monthly sins. In this night, you will all be granted clemency. I thank all of you for your lives, your hearts, and in this escapade, your most valuable of commodities, your spirits and your flesh.”
She bows deeply, touching the dais with her head, aquiline features going neutral as she meditates for a moment. The party of priests follow, eyes closed, heads down, as underneath them, the ground rumbles and the White Wurm shuffles.
“We give thanks to our protector, our augur of war, Nithhogg, present for our greatest victories, protectorate after our worst defeats. We beseech thee! Grant us your blessing for the this night of nights!”
Eldebrest rises. Aids rush to the center of the dining hall, quickly pulling open the porthole, the empty air inside rushing out as scales and fangs and tail shuffle and squirm beneath them. Eldebrest approaches, shedding the ritual wrappings, exposing herself completely. An army of aids and assistants flood in, each having been assigned to a specific priest beforehand. Each carries equipment, a backpack of provisions, and most importantly, hefted with two hands, the weapons of each priest. A line forms, tidy and complete. The serpent’s fang, ancient and sturdy, dripping with venom, is presented to the mouth of the trapdoor. With derelict ease, Eldebrest takes the fang, as wide as her hips at base, and gently suckles it’s tip, tossing rich beefsteak down the gullet of the beast, cloudy purple liquid sliding down her throat.
A cheer rings out as Histolbry, eyes aflame, doffs whatever remains of her vestments. Her hips, silken smooth, jut out, gold-tipped pelvic bone wings. The junior priest at the head of the line, sweat pouring down his forehead, approaches, hsi shaking hands, still rough from the farm, and places them on the pelvic wings. His eyes, polite, stare at her stomach.
“My child…” Her hands caress his chin, bringing his eyes up across her body. “Do not be afraid of the flesh. Yours will will serve you well.”
With that her eyes flare a brilliant purple, her jaw distends, and fangs pop from under her canines. Without a second of hesitation, she slams her hands down on the boys shoulders, piercing them with her polished metal fingertips, and begins the transformation.
Every joint in the boys body slips out of socket. Every ounce of blood is smitten with itself, and doubles proactively. His face disstends, bones of his jaw crackling and separating and expanding, teeth growing sharper, fangs extending. His forehead crackles and splits, ocular lenses protruding bloody and clouded, blinking away refuse with eyelids raw and red. His fingers magnify, knuckles crackling like popcorn, the already toned musculature expanding and seeping lactic acid like a broken faultline. He screeches, falling backwards as his spine, wrapped in high-tension silver, gold, and copper wire, stretches, and his body shoots hair from every pore, his now dog-like snout gnashing in pain.
With a garrulous roar, Eldebrest faces the coalition. “Come forth, my children! And begin!”
———
Harkonnen, furry and strengthened, feels his hands, steady, undiminished, carry his weapon. It is curved and sickeningly toothed, shredding and terrible. His face, now heavy with fur matted in the heavy mist of the swampy district, covers one pair of eyes. His uniform fits snugly on his body, his primal and lycan form unfit for most styles of dress besides drapery. His ears twitch as twigs crack beneath his talons.
The district Harkonnen patrols is deserted, but when it suffers, it suffers harshly. The beasts that roam these derelict hillsides and struggling farmsteads are wreathed in anger and vitriol, and will not hesitate to take it out on any living thing they encounter. Any beast misshapen, ill-intentioned, or touched by the wreathing terrible ocular lunar being above, must be felled.
Above, the Red Tongue lolls, its eyes corpulent and pus-filled. The new moon arises with it, the light reflecting off it’s pure-white crated expanse paling in comparison to the hearty crimson glow of the Eye. It possesses many names across many cultures- The Red Menace, He of the Glowing Sky, Yal’Shobboth’Icknee. Whatever it is called, it inflicts the same carnal torture upon the ground it views, its crazed gaze inflicting madness and metamorphosis with random spread. As Harkonnen emerges from the eves of a gnarled an derlict homestead, his six eyes blink in rapid succession, the runes across his chest and cloak glow with gentle fuchsia light. He howls his love for his idolator, a deep bellowing bravato that echoes and quakes across the district.
The recitation elicits a response.
Emerging like a dragooned warship from the misty street, a beast. Flesh ripe and acrid, it’s sinewy contortions of humanity scuttle along the cobbles, teeth-gnashing, blood-seeking. Without hesitation, Harkonnen lashes out with his tool, his grace, his weapon. It tears through the swollen corpulescent beastie, spraying bracking bile across the street. It’s claws falter and fall away, a final pitiful screech exiting its lips.
Herkonnen bellows, half in hatred, half in bloodlust. His ears flicker and his eyes scan and his tongue, snake-like and forked, slips out and tests the air. At the moment, twenty-four beasts of varying sizes surround him, their forms resolute in causing his demise. Their eyes pinpricks of crimson in the dead pitch of night, their claws and fangs tip-tap-rapping on the stones. Their bodies smell of sulfur and sweat.
The feast Harkonnen partook of earlier has been digested, the herbs within it fuel for his transformation. Now, his stomach sits empty, hungry. He takes a deep, solemnous breath.
A creature, human-like and twisted, scuttles forward, wielding a simple hatchet. It swings up, throat bulging with pus and venom. Harkonnen dodges sideways, his left hand snaking out vicously. The crosses sewn into his knuckles connect radiating vicious energy and force, and the head of the malformed entity pops like a grape under a thumb, sending viscera and brain matter splattering. From behind, an animal skitters forward. Before it can scratch with gnarled claws, he leaps, lashing downward with his own claws and tearing it’s scalp from its skull.
Harkonnen pirouettes, swinging the bloodied flap of corrugated brain matter into a charging foe’s face which he disassembles with similar grace as he lands, his shin run through by a pitchfork. He growls and lashes and spins and dances, dances as the red light wreathes him, he realizes everyone he knows will one day die, but tonight he will never die, never die. The whistling toothed blade making stinging remarks, organs spilling and blood roiling and splashing across the cobblestones as Harkonnen laughs and his jaw curls into a depraved grin as he worships the Nithhogg.
———
The streets stand clear, tinged with crimson and viscera. Harkonnen stands battered and bleeding, holding one of the putrescent forms in his claws. Blood drips down his holy symbols, staining his vestments as he consumes. The enchantments carved across his extended ribcage morph and change his stomach, and he remains immune to the effects of the cursed meat in either form. In any case, he chews hungrily at a particularly meaty clump, slowly limping his way towards the inner city. His destination lies in sight as he tosses bones across his shoulder, scattering them as seeds across his ploughed field of death.
He reaches a wrought-iron ladder nailed to the side of a house and begins to clamber, his weapon clinking against each rung, his maw twisted in pain as blood drips from his wounds. The wooden shingles clink as he clambers over the edge, reaching his hands down to a catch hidden in the roof only accessible due to his elongated fingers, clicking in. The clockwork mechanism begins to twirl, and the attic opens before him.
The roof opens into a well-furnished attic room, beds and couches and old bloodstains soaked into the floorboards. He collapses into one of the beds, breath coming hot and ragged as he strips himself bare, tossing the clothing out the wide opening, snapping his maw. He reaches into the open box in the center of the room, removing bandages and ointment and pure alcohol.
His fur, deep black and purple and red, parts at his touch, revealing the gruesome wound. The bone reveals itself, brown and covered in runes, and he grimaces as he pours alcohol into the wound. He chants perfunctorily, inner lips whispering the ancient tongue, and slowly the skin begins to knit itself together. The muscle will take far longer.
He leans back to rest. The first wave has been slain successfully, and the second will take time to foist itself upon the city. For now, he has rest.
He hears the rungs creak as another being clambers up them. Wincing, he reaches for his weapon, only for another hunter to peak across the railing, giving a lupine grin of joy. Their eyes meet and their mouths curl at the tips.
Despite their forms, despite their visages, the two recognize each other easily. Ankulus’s lean and lithe body, kept thin for speed and maneuverability, bounds forward and begins dressing the wounds. Both of their bestial forms are covered in blood and viscera and organs from their slain foes. The smell emanating from them is enough to make every rat and rodent in the near vicinity flee.
Wounds dressed, Ankulus stands, placing his weapons along the far wall, intertwining handles and blades and whips, and snags two large bento boxes of food warming on a heat plate, kept warm by the roaring coal fire at the center of the suburban mansion, and brings them both to Harkonnen’s lap. The two wolfmen cuddle gently, each dedicating their hands to cradling and feeding the other.
The box is filled with the traditional meal of the night, made to be edible and easily consumed by the warrior-priests. Dumplings, infused with magical herbs, fried in oil blessed by a cleric. Heads of broccoli and cauliflower, lightly steamed and spattered with butter. Whole fish, to be caught downstream from a mountain spring closest to the sky, sauteed in a brown butter sauce and garnished with onions grown in a graveyard. Along with the specks of flesh doting their bodies, all of this is consumed with fervor and greed. The final dumpling is popped into Ankulus’s mouth, and Harkonnen half-jokingly pursues it, their maws embracing, their tongues wrapping around each other. Their breathing grows rough and heavy. Each reaches down, down, threading along the others chest, Harkonnen tracing scars from a surgery to remove breasts unfitting of Ankulus’s form, Ankulus cradling the injured shoulder of his lover with care so their forms do not stress it unnecessarily.
A gentle ding as the elevator, placed in the body of an ancient oak that serves as the main joist of the home, begins its ascent. The two, regretfully, unhappily, part. The handcranked elevator gives them moments, but the risk is to great. The cleric classes make up a significant portion of the Orders political machinations, and have a far more conservative bent. Depending on the cleric, of course.
The ringing bell signaling the arrival of the elvator sounds through the small enclave, and Ankulus clambers forward to open it. The door opens to reveal a cleric, wrapped in sand-hued bandages, the only part of her showing pearly-white skin and pouty lips, decorated with the symbols of the faith. Tattoos, twisting and viscious and sharp. She takes small steps forward, Ankulus guiding her blindfolded figure forward. She moves to the center of the room, waiting. Carefully, the two unwrap her hands, removing a surface layer of tissue to reveal pearlescent and perfect arms, pierced at the joints with the triple-brace of the clericality, signifying her body is thread through with platinum and silver and gold, placed carefully and judiciously. They both know her- she is Evangeline, the house’s resident healer. With a voice like clouds floating over a summer brook, she begins.
“My warriors… is it the two of you once again?”
They both give an assenting grunt.
“Ah… such treasures can be found, even on this night… I shall not forget the nights we spend together outside of these fateful encounters…”
If they had the capacity, both would grin at the mention of picnics and long nights in librariums.
“Nonetheless, it is time…”
Her hands begins to glow, the energies she has control over flowing freely across her fingertips.
“My bearers of our sacred curse… seek not to rally against the beast within you…”
She places her hands on their foreheads, sharp artificial nails piercing their skin, jointing three bloodstreams into one continuous flow of runic potential.
“Seek instead, my warriors, to embrace the darkness within you, if only for tonight… Lest you be slain, and I lose my two favorite beasts…”
Her fingers poke deeper, sliding against the bone of their skull. Her breath quickens as her hollow sockets fill with witchfire. Harkonnen’s wounds begin to knit and heal. Ankulus’s broken toe sets and mends itself. The two feel warmth spread gently, their pierced joints beginning to absorb heat and energy and love until their entire bodies are alight and flaming and their hearts quicken and blood seeps through cracks in Evangeline’s skin and she collapses their arms, spent. Carefully, they place her figure in the elevator and send it back down, cracking the pulley as quick as they possibly can, the doctor within the house standing at the ready. When the elevator clunks down, they turn, faces set, many eyes staring out across the landscape of the city. A tell-tale screeching howl ravages the silence. They grab their weapons and toss themselves bodily over the landing, a pair in life and in death, and run into the night.
———
In the dark of night, some beasts must be dealt with grimly and quickly. The two men scramble across rooftops and over sewage drains, their weapons slipping and clacking against their backs. Quickly, they trace the sound, the source, and arrive at a house ripped apart and strewn about. Stonework is scattered across the cobbled streets, blood stained. Organs decorate the interior of the house, and a hulking mass of raw meat and sinew vibrates facing a corner of the room. What it has for legs sit crossed, the hands dipping down to a pile of viscera, gently pulling out bones, children and man and woman, and chewing them. The sound of shattering bone and tombstone teeth clashing echoes across the street.
Thought is unneeded. Ankulus clambers upwards, getting higher ground and drawing their weapon. Harkonnen approaches straight on, eyes focused on the beast. He hulks his saw-toothed tool above his head, gently padding to the rear of the beast.
Within a foot, begins to shudder and quake. It’s spine spits out of the skin, tendons wrapped, silver wire caught in the ripping tearing motion, and Ankulus tucks and rolls. The pointed tip of the spine pierces the stonework, stone dust showering the ground. Harkonnen rolls as the back unfolds, shooting blood-spattered ropes of bone. Harknnen strikes at the base, shattering the bone, slicing the tendons, the bone whips going limp. The beast roars, standing up and rollicking the upper levels of the home away, lumber splintering in it’s grasp.
Ankulus leaps, entire body gripping his weapon, and slams into the beast. Forty-eight inches of blessed platinum slam home in the creature’s eye, puncturing organs and sprinkling blood across his fur. He leaps away, avoiding the swipes of the enraged flesh-beast excepting one, the coiled fist of fleshy-snake fingers colliding with his legs. A sharp crack and howl rings out, as Harkonnen uses the opportunity to rage and rip and tear his tool across the beast’s chest, opening it up, it’s organs falling like scattered fruit. Harkonnen steps back and catches Ankulus in his arms, the setting sulk of the Crimson Oculunar entity casting the landscape of the city in blood red glow.
Ankulus whimpers and clasps his arms around Harkonnen, who returns the embrace. The final bell rings, and the two begin to make their way back to the monastery, walking across the broken shards of home and dying, gutted beast gingerly.
———
As the clash of bodies outside the cathedral continues to swell as the moon swivels its corpulent eyes away from the cursed patch of land, the white moon setting as the crimson one flies off into parambulous orbit. Some posit it goes to visit other planets neighboring ours. Some believe that it goes to slumber in the sun. Others believe it simply dissipates, reappearing at at the beginning of the lunar cycle as cyclical punishment for humanity’s sins of the flesh and metal.
Who’s to say they aren’t all a little bit correct?
———
As the sun rises in the west, the doors of the monastery are thrown open. Medical aids rush out, two to each lupine member, one versed in the ancient runic arts and one experienced in medicine. Harkonnen and Ankulus, bodies ruined by transformation fade-out and injury, sink to the ground in each others arms, tears streaming down their eyes. As initial wounds are tended to, Eldebrest slowly walks from the monastery, body shielded entirely so that the sun does not affect the pallor of her skin. She is followed by a party of similarly dressed, less-appointed cleric who disperse among the grounds, dispensing with the transformative runes and sucking away their energies, causing the beast-men to return to human form.
The echoes of their screams reverberates for half a mile, and the tradition of tightly shutting your doors and insulating them with blankets has become standard practice decades ago. One by one, the protectorates of the city are dragged to a towering brick behemoth, char gray and boxy, across the square, to a hundred different cells. There, the attendants inject, set, sew, amputate, abdicate, pray, pry, and indemnify their patients. Later, as the sun reaches the midpoint of the sky and the amphetamines begin to take their full effect, the priests rest wearily cuddling their healers.
As Ankulus and Harkonnen, both in human form, hair beginning to fall from their skin, are dragged away, they grip each other senselessly through the pain. Eldbrest comes forward and stands over the pair, the quadruple guard dumbfounded as to their course of action. The two naked figures, one sobbing, the other screeching and reaching towards the newbie with desire and need and want, make Eldebrest’s mouth curl with well-placed affection and love. She moves her head towards the attendants.
“My children… tend to these two together. Extra care for the both of them. They served us well. And when the noonday bell rings… leave them be.”
The attendants nod, and begin.
———
The noon day bell rings, its gonging echoing throughout the city. The attendants are providing the physical affection foregone by much of the priesthood happily on their day of freedom. The ones within Harkonnen’s and Ankulus’s room quickly remove themselves, leaving heaping helpings of stimulants and alcohol and fresh food, finding an empty cell and full bottle to have their own fun and not waste the day. As the peons leave, Harkonnen grunts, immediately reaching down and manhandling Ankulus, who lets out a happy moan and returns the favor. The two kiss, mouths hot, fangs still present and jutting, and the single bed creaks as they cuddle, singing sweet empire songs.