The Music of Moros

An eerie howl on the wind, the trees creaking in the night, the bright orange moon rising in the sky. It all pointed to one thing and one thing only, the season and spirit of corruption was here. He had been preparing for this day, all his hunts, all the oddities he collected, they were leading up to now. He returned to that spot that he had found so many years ago, back when the sun graced his face. 

It was a day much like the present, an unusual chill on the wind, every faunid and fawn on edge as the season of corruption loomed ever closer. Back then, he still collected oddities, faunid skulls, eyeballs, vials of pure essence, nothing was too weird for him to store. It outcasted him from the others of his town, they thought him strange and maybe a bit dangerous, but he carried on his life. Until the sun began to set and the moon rose and he heard music. Such beautiful music, beckoning him, calling him, whispering his name and pulling him closer. Where did he end up? In the forest, a place of evil and danger, but all he could focus on was that music. It sounded closer, or maybe farther? The distance didn't matter, he followed it, a basket of his collectables in hand, till he came upon a stump. The stump hummed such music to him, illuminated by the now fully risen moon. 

He set the basket down on top of the wood, and knelt. He didn't know why, but he felt compelled to. Maybe it was the ever present music in his ear, it whispered such things to him. It gave him instruction, and a wanting so deep it could never be satisfied. Before he knew it, he was willed to commit unspeakable acts, and he did them. Anything for that music, anything to make the wanting just stop. It was unbearable now, it ate him like hunger, like a disease that just kept growing. His basket, his collectables, the stump, he covered it in the blood of his first ever victim. Some poor unsuspecting faunid who thought the night was safe to wander. But now something else called to him, a delectable scent too good to resist, and it was coming from- the carcass. 

He feasted. What more could he do? His hunger drove him on, the music drove him on. Consequences be damned, he had to satisfy the urges he felt. That's when it happened, the music screeched to a halt. His head was rung by a splitting migraine that seemed never ending, spine arching with a burning fire as his tail tore itself in half. It didn’t end there, no that would be too easy, too simple. After the migraine died and the fire quelled, as he caught his breath, something started to push through his skin. He howled into the night as the pain consumed him. Eventually, when he woke the music was playing again and it said one thing on repeat. His name, or rather, his new name.

Now, a year later, he was back at that same stump. The same music drew him closer, that same hunger gnawed at him. In his basket of collectables this year was an assortment of items, a paw he tore from a predator after slaying it, a faunid skull from his most recent kill, an eyeball also from his kill, some scales discarded by a rocky outcrop, a couple of mirrors he stole from the local village, a vial of essence he stored for safe keeping, and finally a locust he found while making the journey. Just like last year, he put the items on the stump and that music whispered to him what he was to do. He hunted down another faunid, spilling their blood over the wood and items he collected. Preparing himself for the changes that were to come.

I’ll spare you the details of his further transformation into darkness, it was an unpleasant sight that would surely shake you to your core. When the sun rose the next day, his dark deeds had tainted his body beyond what was left of the faunid he used to be. His muzzle was split in half, the bottom jaw skin falling off in the process. His hooves had morphed into the very paw he brought with him. His tails became 3 and were no longer fluffy, the last shred of the faunid he used to be, corrupted, turned into intertwining scorpion tails. His vision seemed different as well, when he reached up, he felt not 1, not 2, but 3 pairs of eyes. He had become an even more dangerous hunter in that dark forest he now called home. The music sang his name with such praise, not the name he used to bear. He doesn’t even remember what others used to call him. No, the music called him Moros, and such will never be his name.