#nier atuomata | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

meetthetank · 3 years

Text

Cruciamen Chapter 9: Sabbath of Filth

Rating: Mature Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Categories: F/M, Other Fandom: NieR: Automata (Video Game) Relationships: 2B/9S (NieR: Automata), A2/A4 (NieR: Automata) Characters: 2B (NieR: Automata), 9S (NieR: Automata), A2 (NieR: Automata), A4 (NieR: Automata), Emil (NieR: Automata), Kainé (NieR) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, genre typical violence, On the Run, Monster of the Week, 9S is a half demon, 2B and A2 are shapeshifter Dragons, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Smut in the future, inaccurate depictions of medical procedures, Fantasy Biology, A2 is Nonbinary

They lose track of time after the second day.

It becomes harder and harder for A2 to remain lucid as the minutes drag into hours, hours into days, days into....It doesn’t matter, really. They barely have the strength to look up at the sky anyway, not that it’d make much difference. A2 lay against the mud wall, their eyes glazed over with exhaustion as they watch the starving men they shared this prison with devour one of their own. The dead man passed earlier that day, and the others waste no time tearing into his flesh and breaking his bones against rocks. While they may not be human, the idea of feasting on the man’s corpse disgusts A2. They’d rather continue to starve than eat the scraps of flesh off the dead man.

Though, if they are honest with themself, A2 considers it more than once. They turn their head away from the spectacle as the old man cracks the corpse’s skull open and scoops out fingerfulls of fatty grey matter. A shiver wracks their body, something that happens more frequently as the days drag on. As the temperatures change throughout the day, their body reacts violently. Shivering in the cold, sweating in the heat. Sometimes they drag themself along with the sun’s rays or hide in the shadows to maintain some kind of balance within them, but the comfort is always painfully temporary.

The inability to maintain their body heat is only one part of their personal hell, however, and not the most concerning part. After removing the poison arrow from their shoulder and “dressing” it with filthy rags, the skin around the wound turned fetid. It drips pus and infected blood constantly, spreading the infection further. Scales start to fall off of them in patches, exposing the raw, red skin beneath that bleeds at the lightest touch. Even their hair begins to fall out in clumps whenever they run their hands through it, or they’ll wake up to find more stuck to the mud. Their clothes feel loose; their vision is blurred to the point of near blindness. Whenever rotten scraps of food get tossed their way, they vomit up whatever ungodly thing they put in their mouth.

They feel their body falling apart piece by piece. They can’t even transform anymore. The last time they did they passed out for so long that they woke up to rats gnawing on their toes and the starving men staring at them with a horrific glint in their eyes.

A sinking suspicion rises in A2’s gut as they try not to listen to the act of cannibalism just a few feet from them. If that man hadn’t died when he did, A2 would have been killed. They’re outnumbered, weak, and if they were being honest with themself, they would have welcomed it.

Wasting away in a pit of filth is about the worst way to die A2 can think of.

They glance at a discarded bone fragment from the dead man. It looks to have been part of a long bone. Sharp, sturdy… lethal. More than enough to get the job done.

A2 braces their arm against the wall of the pit and pulls themself to their feet. Their knees buckle under their weight, but they manage to stay upright, at least partially. Slowly, they stumble over to the forgotten bone. One of the men looks up at them with the look of a starving dog defending its meal, but he remains silent and returns to his scraps of meat. The idea is revolting to A2, but the hunger pains overrule morality. They shouldn’t be alive, they want to simply be consumed by hunger in their sleep, but instincts drive their body to the point where they don’t even realize they’ve picked up the bone.

Commotion erupts from above. A cacophony of drums, flutes, and voices drift down to the prisoners. Though A2 can’t understand the language they hear joy and excitement in the strange song the witches sing. The instruments and their wild, boisterous tunes echo across the bog and loop back on itself, creating the illusion of call and response. There must be some kind of celebration or festival happening above. The primal, starved part of A2’s mind leaps at the thought of food being dropped for them, but that hope is dashed the moment they look over and see the old man sobbing into his hands.

“Oh gods...help us please…” he cries. He clasps his hands in front of him and bows low to the ground. The other men follow suit, throwing their bodies onto the ground nearby. In yet another language new to A2, the men begin to recite a mournful hymn the likes of which A2 has never heard. Its sorrowful, plaintive words, and though they can’t understand the language it sends chills down A2’s spine. It’s a prayer for the dead.

A2 staggers over to the old man, brows furrowed and heart thundering with growing anxiety. They kick him over to his side, the anger, disgust, and fear reaching a boiling point within them. The old man looks up at them, tears streaming down his wrinkled face as he wails for mercy.

“What the hell is going on?!” A2 shouts, kicking the man again.

The other men drag him away from A2 as they prepare to kick him a third time.

“T-the…” the old man whimpers, “The sabbath....”

Before A2 has the chance to demand an explanation, the cage sitting atop the pit is lifted off. Witches armed with spears and carrying lengths of rope drop down into their prison one by one. The men cower together behind the oldest, who extends his arms out in a feeble attempt to defend the others. He crumples to the ground after one of the witches punches him in the temple. One by one the men are grabbed and bound in rope. None of them resist beyond continuing to pray, whispering their psalms under their breaths.

A2 hisses at a witch that strides up to them. They can’t see her face through the strange, crocodilian hide mask she wears, but they’re willing to bet that she’s sneering down at them. One of her tattooed hands shoots out and grabs them by their hair. They thrash and squirm in her grip, lashing out with tooth and claw at any scrap of flesh they can catch. Their fingers catch the skin of the witch’s arm, but their claws fail to pierce through. The witch laughs and roars something to her comrades at their pitiful fumbling. A2 hadn’t realized just how weak they really are; they can’t resist beyond swaying their body back and forth as the witch ties their limbs together.

Their body, much lighter now than before, is lifted up onto the witch’s shoulder like a bundle of old sticks. Her shoulder digs into A2’s stomach, forcing up the few scraps of food from their gut. The witch just laughs at them, barks a few words, then begins to ascend a crude rope ladder that drops into the pit.

For the first time in gods know how long, A2 sees the world beyond their prison. The entire village of witches seems to be out for this festival, all of them dressed in scaled skin cloaks and ghoulish masks made from the heads of crocodiles and alligators. The children scamper behind A2, giggling and pointing at them. They gnash their teeth and snarl at the witch children and they dart away, screaming and laughing with fear and delight. The village dances, cheers, and sings as A2 is paraded through the square along with the other prisoners. They can barely hear the old man sobbing over the din of music.

An old woman dressed in an alligator hide covered with red and white paint approaches the prisoners, flanked by two masked huntresses each carrying bowls of black liquid. She speaks a long, droning prayer that catches the attention of the other witches, who gather around. Even the children go silent and cling to their mother’s sides. The shaman approaches the old man, places her hand on his head, then dips her thumb into one of the bowls and smears the black paste onto his forehead. She makes her way down the line of prisoners, each one being “anointed” by the paste. A2 snarls at the old, masked woman as she comes to them. Her prayer rises to a fervent scream as the villagers and huntresses join in. They try to bite her fingers when she smears the black sludge in much more complicated patterns on their face. However, their strength fades from their body. They can’t even lift their head enough to snag the shaman’s fingers, all A2 can do is weakly open and close their mouth.

A2 and the prisoners are once again taken around the center of the village to another boisterous hymn. The witches jeer and laugh at them, the faces of the crowd blurring into one shapeless mass. Fumes from the pungent black substance lightens A2’s head to the point that they feel like they’re floating through the air. All resistance in their body fades; they lie limp in the witch’s grasp, eyes rolling into the back of their head, jaw slack.

Then the music shifts from playful to sinister in an instant. Rapid drumbeats fill the air like thunder and the entire village silences in its wake. The shaman bellows a short hymn before the procession of prisoners diverts from the center of the village. A2 tries to crane their head around to see where they’re being taken now. They see five logs jutting out of a bank of mud in front of a massive open lake, the only patch of Bog that they’ve seen that is void of mangrove trees. The only feature on the body of water is a single submerged log floating nearby.

One prisoner is tied to each log with roughspun rope, tight enough to hold the men up without any support. A2 snarls as they’re pressed up against the bark of the central log with enough force that it rattles their lungs and pushes the air out of them. Ropes are tied around their body, suspending them above the mire and facing the massive lake of stagnant water. The shaman continues her hymns and leads her attendants behind the logs and out of sight from the offerings.

A2 shuffles their body back and forth in an attempt to loosen their bindings. The rope digs into their already raw, exposed skin. Blood trickles down their arms and legs into the mud beneath. Turning their head they see the other prisoners wailing for mercy or sobbing quietly. They try to ask the man beside them if they have any idea what is going to happen to them, but all he responds with is a choking, hopeless sob.

Their mind races with possibilities in time with the beating drums, each more horrific than the last. They could be shot with arrows until they bled to death, flayed, set ablaze, or simply left to bake in the sun and be picked apart by animals. Somehow, despite the threat of agonizing torment, A2 finds peace in the closeness of death. Whatever may come, at least they won’t be suffering much longer. They could endure the pain, and they would walk into the next life without any regrets.

Well...

The surface of the water stirs as the drumbeats increase in tempo. The piece of wood floating on the lake drifts towards them… and grows in size. A2 watches, mouth agape, as the small log emerges from the water. The log turns from a piece of driftwood, to a tree trunk, to a snout. The piece that had been above water had only been the tip of an enormous alligator’s nose. Rows of spines and ivory teeth line this monster’s mouth in a crooked smile. Its yellow eyes seem to glow in the dim light of the bog and dart from prisoner to prisoner. Most of its body lies below the water with the top portion of its head visible. The rest is obscured by the murky depths of the lake, masking the primordial beast’s true size. Its nostrils flare as it drinks in the scent of terror from the restrained offerings.

A2 watches in horror as the alligator opens its maw wide enough to engulf one of the thousands of mangrove trees. Its rancid breath washes over them like a soft breeze carrying the stench of death. They close their eyes to the sight and wait for oblivion.

“Looks like I’m gonna see you sooner than you’d like...4S…” They whisper.

A deafening crack splits A2’s ears. Their eyes shoot open to see the crocodile’s mouth where the two men beside them were tied. They spot a limb thrown far from its body floating in the lake nearby, already attracting scavenging fish to come feast on the great beasts' scraps.

The village erupts into cheers, goading the alligator on to feast again. In a single swallow it gulps down two men as it turns to the old man to A2’s left. With a sigh, the monster languidly takes him into his jaws. The old man cries out from inside the alligator’s jaws. His hand, sticking out from its mouth grasps for purchase before the beast turns its head up and the kind old man is swallowed whole and alive.

As the witch village sings the praises of this ancient, evil creature, A2 can only look on as the last surviving prisoner. The alligator lowers its head back down, its yellow eyes level with their body. It… watches them squirm in their bindings. Its eyes alone dwarf A2 and draw them in like a terrible portal to its mind. There’s a strange, foriegn intelligence behind it. It’s sizing them up, or trying to understand the pitiful creature before it. The alligator blinks, its third eyelids gliding over its eyes like a fleshy viel, before it sinks back into the depths, vanishing from sight.

The music grinds to a halt as the alligator disappears. Confused mumbling drifts from the village as the witches try to decipher the will of the reptilian god, though A2 might be more lost than the entire population combined. Why weren’t they eaten? Why did the alligator spare them out of all the other prisoners? What will the witches do to them now that they were rejected?

Why does the universe refuse to let them die?!

Suddenly chaos erupts behind them. The sounds of panicked witches mix with hoofbeats, war drums, and a language that A2 can understand.

“Be on guard, sisters!” a voice bellows, “Their weapons are coated in poisons!”

There’s weapon clashes, war cries, horses screaming and rats shrieking. The crackle of flames and heat of an inferno starts to lick at A2’s body. They try to look over their shoulder, but the log is too wide to look around while tied to it. Instinct defeats their self destructive desires. A2 puts their remaining strength into thrashing back and forth against the ropes. The log shakes with them and eventually comes loose from the mud and falls to the side, taking A2 with it. They writhe in the mud and cover their body with the foul smelling sludge. It seeps through their clothes and helps them slide out of their binds.

A2 digs their fingers into the mud and drags themself across the ground towards a crumbling hut about fifty feet away. They spare glances around as people in black robes, hoods, and gleaming silver armor beat back hoards of witches and their rodent mounts. Whoever these new warriors are, they easily overpower the village huntresses and shaman. The warriors… knights… cultists… whoever they are… wield an assortment of ornate gold and silver weaponry. Swords, axes, maces, flails, all of them seem to emit light on their own, even when coated with the witches’ mud-like blood.

It is a massacre, but they could all burn in Inferno for all A2 cares. Damn the witches of the Bog and the Bog itself. A2 crawls on their belly through the muck like a worm but salvation, however temporary, is a mere twenty feet away.

“Sister! Over here!!” a female voice calls, a voice that is sickeningly close.

A2’s stomach drops as they throw a frantic look over their shoulder. One of the robed warriors looms over them with a dagger in one hand and a spiked flail in the other. The spiked silver mass dangles from a thin chain and emits a faint, fragrant smoke as it sways in the breeze.

“Please, stay still,” the figure says in a calm, soothing voice, “We’re going to-”

A2 scrabbles against the slick mud away from the armed figure, but a sudden weight pins them to the ground. Arms covered in black fabric restrain them as they thrash against the warrior’s body to no avail. A short conversation takes place as A2 throws themself back and forth like a cornered animal.

Two armored boots appear in front of them. A towering black robed figure in a silver mask depicting a serene face stands over them holding a small vial with a thin, long needle protruding from it. They hiss and shout and curse but their pathetic displays of intimidation do nothing to stop the warrior as the needle is plunged into A2’s neck.

Their world fades to blessed oblivion within an instant.

#nier atuomata #a2 #fanfiction #fantasy au #nier fanfiction #tank fics

4 notes · View notes