GOATS

[blackgoat]

"Do you have children?"

The voice seemed to come before the lady, as if the question summoned her, rather than was actually spoken.

Small, demure in appearance, lovely in a way that quickly extended itself into the realm of disquieting. She seemed doll like, unliving and not quite made of flesh.

Little hands resting on a heavily pregnant belly, the woman draped in heavy Victorian dresses of stone grays, off whites and dull sky blues, with that porcelain skin and wild snow white hair, she'd almost look like she was trying to blend into the snow.

"If you do not, do you want them?"

Ah, so it was her speaking, the voice soft and sweet, if... off, in an odd way. A tone that crept up the spine and settled into the neck and base of the skull, like cold fingers pressed against the nape.

Comments

[grantuseyes]

"Just the one. My Nightmare of Mensis. Formed through ritual and with Mergo, ah, the blessed architect! My mind the blueprints, his heritage as Great One the foundation. A place where his Wet Nurse could attend to him, and I could continue to...humbly search for mankind's salvation. Someplace closer to the cosmos, someplace past the murky bulwark of truth. Like a blind, crawling thing 'pon the bottom of a lake," he muses dreamily, "stuck beneath the mud. One must, with fiendish determination, abandon such an. Obscuring, suffocating vantage, rise above it, to see the clarity of the grand lake, and higher still..."

Seeming to realize he got off on a rambling tangent, Micolash pulls himself back to more relevant conversation with a queasy smile and a mumbled, "Forgive me, I tend to lose myself these days, when I get to...talking. Heavens." He looks genuinely flustered for running his mouth in such a fashion and to such a person(?).

The lady's thoughts on the simplicity of parentage makes him fidget and smile nervously. "Oh, I would not be so boorish as to vacate once the deed was done! If. Ah, a vast, expansive if, I were. To conceive a child, I would...prefer. To oversee its growth. Observe its development. Perhaps? Impart knowledge? Encourage matters to ensure the child will be special once it is grown, if it is not by birth already." Relatively noble, if strangely phrased.

[blackgoat]

"You wish to see past the truth?" Now there was something she'd heard before, in so many different ways. It was a wish often spoken, though not usually asked of her. "Perhaps my husband, Hastur, could be of assistance."

She waited patiently for him to finish, not interrupting nor appearing at all offended by it. Perhaps more a vague, detached sort of interest. Like a human watching a single, faintly intriguing insect.

Noble yes, for a human. After speaking with others here, she'd gathered that humanity seemed to prize the nurturing presence of a father, no matter how inconsequential the young. It'd seem also, there were no 'inconsequential' young, as far as humans went.

.... Understandable. Most could only create one at a time, and the rearing of that creation was of paramount importance, if the whelp was to survive.

Weak, needy creatures.

"Humans are born unformed, unlearned. ... Yes, I see, a teacher would be necessary for any human child. Even my husband's half breed needed to be raised, the humanity in him delayed so many developments..."

A shame it was necessary that he be such.

[grantuseyes]

A husband! Micolash reflexively averts his eyes when he hears a mention of this Hastur. How interesting! A being such as this with a mate? A spouse? There is historical precedent for mortals wedding to Great Ones, but said precedent is a single woman to a single being. Both of them profoundly powerful and important. And one of those two, he'd care not to think about just now. It's hard to avoid, however, with the lady before him. Dressed in white, pale and ghost-like, belly swollen with child?

A nauseating chill ripples through his innards to make the connections and to briefly wonder, is this her? Has the Queen found me in a new form? A meeting he would not care to facilitate. However, it would be rude beyond measure to flee without warning and doing so on just a potential coincidence! Either way, this is not a being he would care to offend, so the scholar mentally sifts this all to the side to resume conversation.

"Any help to elevate my understanding and Insight is. A cherished and dear blessing! I would not think to impose upon your...husband?" The notion and the word in this context is still so strange! "Unless he would care to assist. I know not to demand things." From people like you, is the unsaid part.

"...Were I to have my druthers," he continues carefully with a nervous, wobbly smile, "I would prefer any child of mine to. Not be human? Or to transcend it in due time. Either by nature or by. Scientific intervention. I would hate to curse a new life with such an ignoble fate as to persist in being human. And besides, I have had a great, great deal of experience with babes of the more. Cosmic variety. But I would hate to sound as though I am, as I am, worthy of such offspring! But perhaps? Someday?"

[blackgoat]

Two of them, no less. The All Mother always had her pick of mates, after all, and simply one father would never be enough for her needs. Chances were good there were many more entities that could at least claim to be consorts of hers, but only two could ever claim true partnership.

The motion of course, was not missed. He'd find now his attention almost chased, the small woman beginning to slowly impose herself on his personal space. Now what was that motion for, Micolash?

"Give me your name, child. So that I might pass your wishes on to him. My husband is ever gracious and eager to share his insight with others." Much to the crippling detriment of the poor soul recieving such a 'gift', unfortunately. The Yellow Sign only imparted madness. But... well. How much madder could this man get?

"I know this desire well." A request she'd been begged of before, quite common in fact among her followers. "A worthy wish, to hope that your offspring should transcend yourself. One that many of my followers hold, and pray for.

Perhaps, child." The smile was soft, small, and alien on what would otherwise seem to be a face carved from marble. "Someday."

[grantuseyes]

"Micolash!" he says quickly and breathlessly, hands clasped together again. "I am...Micolash, once Headmaster of Mensis, once Host of the Nightmare. I am most covetous of all Insight. Even the smallest scrap is to be cherished." He certainly knows how the brain can only retain so much before it starts to liquify and hemphorage out the ears and nose and eyes. But his is altered, tempered, reforged into something more suitable for cosmic knowledge. Sanity is a negligible exchange.

The smile and encouragement of someday having offspring closer to the likes of Kos/m or Mergo makes the sallow scholar blush slightly and once again avert his eyes. Micolash smiles as well, wobbly and embarrassed, skinny fingers hovering near his mouth in a shy gesture. "I did not mean to sound. Presumptuous. I know I am...imperfect. As I am. Human." The two words might as well mean the same thing.