#and the mythic figure he's built around himself completely *shatter* if only for a moment... he's *human* and he's *exquisite.* | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

serpentmythos · 4 years

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Scars - Baron Draxum/OC One Shot

3.8k words, SWF (Mentions of gore, blood, and mild nudity)

A monstrous snarl echoed through the maze of tunnels that was New York's Underground City, followed by the slamming of something heavy on metal. A clawed hand lashed out, ripping paper from corkboard and sending pages fluttering through the air, only to settle haphazardly across the concrete beneath. Baron Draxum grit his teeth, eyeing the discarded notes with the purest of malice and malcontent. "Now now, My Lord, that can't be good for your blood pressure..." A mythic-sounding female voice sounded from behind him, one that the warring warrior scientist had grown accustomed to hearing as time passed. He let out another snarl, looking over his shoulder to glare at the immortal Queen of Egypt. "Your Majesty..." He growled, tone filled with warning, one that the woman clearly didn't heed.

Nafretiri chuckled and shook her head, folding her arms under her chest and giving him a knowing grin. "Errors in your stoichiometry again?" She questioned, and Draxum groaned, slapping his hand to his forehead and dragging it down his face. "No matter what I try, I can't seem to get the same results as the first!" He griped, turning around and slamming his hands on the metal lab table, making laboratory glassware shudder and shake in protest. A few empty test tubes rolled off the table and threatened the shatter on the ground, but with a snap of her fingers, a golden aura surrounded them. The tubes floated lazily through the air before righting themselves back into their proper racks. "Well, you certainly aren't going to get the same results by throwing a tantrum."

“You’d be wise to hold your tongue, woman.” Draxum warned, which made the enchantress roll her one remaining eye and scowl. “And a Baron would be wise to not order a Queen’s silence.” She snapped back without missing a beat. Draxum sighed, not having an appetite for Nafretiri’s sass at the moment. He needed to figure out what was going wrong in his formula notes, but now that a distraction was here in the form of The Oracle, his mind had little energy left to devote to focusing on his work… Watching the way his shoulders relaxed, and hearing the breath that left his lips, Nafretiri smirked.

“Come away from the table, Draxum. Allow me to help you with relieving a little stress.” She spoke, waving her hand and materializing a golden staff, a striking cobra coiled around the upper quarter of it. The Baron let out a low chuckle, knowing precisely what the enchantress was referring to. “With pleasure, Your Majesty.” He muttered, producing a pair of purple seed pods in his palm. A wicked grin spread across Nafretiri’s wine red lips, gold snake bite piercings glinting in the dim green light of the underground laboratory. Draxum turned, an insane grin of his own plastered on his face. The two relocated to a more spacious and open area of the lab, standing on opposing sides of the great room. Crushing a seed pod in each hand, a toxic purple slime encrusted up the length of Draxum’s arms, spikes erupting from various places upon his limbs. With the subtlest of nods, Nafretiri raised her arms, one clutching her staff, the other facing her open palm towards the male in front of her. Her palm brushed against the back of the golden cobra’s hood, its ruby eyes beginning to glow a brilliant red. The same golden miasma that surrounded the test tubes earlier began to envelope the cobra and her empty hand, a golden aura flickering from her eye as well. “O Geb, Mighty Lord of Land and Earth, lend me your Might!” She called, voice echoing with a bizarre power that had since been lost to times long ago. “Rise ye, soldiers, my Sentinels of the Desert Sands! Strike down this enemy of The Pharaoh, so your Queen commands it!”

As she recited her incantation, she moved her other arm out towards him, her open palm now facing the ground beneath her. Sand began cascading down from her palm, and pouring out of the golden cobra’s gaping mouth, the grit flowing freely around its bared fangs. Slowly the mounting piles of sand began to take shape, morphing themselves into pairs of tall and imposing looking golems, broad-shouldered and solidly built. Draxum’s grin only grew as he witnessed The Oracle channeling her magic. It was other-worldly, graceful, powerful to behold. No matter how many times he had borne witness to it, it made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end, and his skin prickle with excitement. The woman before him truly was a force to be reckoned with. Perhaps if he could convince her to join his cause…? He didn’t have the luxury of time to finish his internal musings, as one of her Sentinels rushed him, stone spear poised to impale itself through his abdominal cavity. He raised his arms into a quick guard, the stone spear point shattering upon impact with his armored limbs. A swipe of his hand summoned a massive vine, the wood-y plant’s flesh colored the same toxic purple as his arms. The vine twirled and whipped about, thrusting itself through the Sentinel’s chest. With one swift flicking motion, the sand golem was sent flying through the air, crashing into another and both collapsing into dust. The sheer giddiness the Baron felt was clear in his expression. Golems could not feel the same pain that he and The Oracle could. Draxum could be as ruthless and destructive as he wanted to be with them, with no fear of repercussions. He could rip them apart and fling them about like ragdolls without a care. And sometimes that was the purest form of joy in the world.

And thanks to Nafretiri’s magic, there were endless waves of the sand brutes to work through, further honing his skill, perfecting his fighting style, testing the limits of his stamina. This was a challenge, and oh, how Draxum loved a good challenge. Despite the seemingly infinite supply of golems, he made it his silent goal to push Nafretiri’s defenses back, to corner her, to exercise his superiority over the Queen. He would tear down her walls of Sentinels one by one until there was nothing left! Force that haughty woman to bow before him! Another Sentinel fell, and another. Vines whipped and flailed, writhed and stabbed, cutting down the golems one by one as they rushed mindlessly towards the warrior scientist. Ones that managed to slip though his botanical defenses, Draxum finished off himself with nothing more than a few well-placed strikes. The more golems she created, the more Draxum found himself falling into a frenzy, relishing in the delight that the sandy carnage surrounding him brought. But, he might have been the only one enjoying it…

Across from the Baron, behind the much taller forms of the Sentinels, Nafretiri’s arms quaked. Sweat beaded along her brow, and her teeth gritted together from the strain. Usually Draxum was satisfied with just a few dozen golems slaughtered, but he was pushing well into the hundreds, now. This was far more than she could handle without more advanced preparations! As each Sentinel fell to Draxum’s might, Nafretiri felt her consciousness fading. She was only barely aware of the toxic purple vines creeping closer to her, and Draxum pressing further into her defenses. A vine swept a wave of Sentinels out of the way, and it coiled itself snugly around her waist. However, it had only just begun to bring her closer to Draxum, when everything went dark. Her body slumped and her grip on her staff slackened, before the golden artifact slipped out of her fingers entirely, falling to the floor with a metallic clatter. Without her staff to channel her magic, the Sentinels froze in place and soon collapsed into piles of sand once again, before slowly beginning to fade from existence entirely. Draxum let out a laugh of triumph, and as the last Sentinels began to freeze and fall at his cloven feet, he prepared to gloat over his apparent victory. Except, instead of the Queen standing there with a displeased scowl like he expected, her slack form in his vine caught him off guard. “Nafretiri…?” Her name had barely left his lips before her body went completely limp, head falling forward and her golden mantle falling, the crown rolling away from her and coming to rest at his feet.

His eyes went wide in shock, and slowly he began to approach the unconscious body of the Queen. “Your… Majesty?” Draxum questioned, reaching out to lift her chin. However, when his clawed fingers were just a few inches away from her, a great golden spark leapt from her body to his, electrifying him and making him snarl in pain and surprise. He grit his teeth and withdrew his hand, as a warmth cascading from his hand up and through his body. He looked up when the pulses of magic began radiating from his form, and the same pulses came from the slumped form of the enchantress in his vines. A few more pulses, this time slower, before the magical energy froze in the air. Draxum looked about in confusion, letting out a small shout when the energy suddenly imploded in on the two, and promptly exploded back out, only this time it was different.

The explosion of magical energy seemed to transform the empty room they were in. Great stone pillars erupted from the ground, stone walls came alive with colorful murals depicting hunts, coronation ceremonies, images of war. Gold, ghostly silhouettes of hundreds of people began to fill the room, their faint and echoing voices chattering in a tongue he couldn’t understand. A pair of great wooden doors swung open, and music swelled. A procession began to file in, and figures that he could only assume were religious ones entered first, swinging metal pots of burning incense and filling the air with smoke. He tried to dodge out of the way but froze instead, when he realized that the ghostly priestesses simply… Walked right through him. As if HE were the apparition here... The musicians came next, plucking their harps and lutes, shaking strange loops of metal that made sounds like tambourines, banging their animal skin drums, clapping their hands to a beat he was unfamiliar with. His eyes widened further as the next group came in, taking him aback completely. He stumbled back and tripped over Nafretiri’s crown, falling to the ground as the dancers moved in. The chiming of bells reached him, flowing skeins of dyed, sheer muslin graced every woman, with thick gilded necklaces being the only thing obscuring their breasts from prying eyes. His eyes fell on one dancer in particular, and familiarity tugged hard at his mind. Why did he feel as if he knew her...?

Her hair was woven into dozens upon dozens of braids, multitudes of fine gold and glass beads adorning each one. Her makeup accentuated her beautiful face, but what sparked his memory wasn’t her face, but instead it was her eyes… That same piercing gaze that always seemed to look into his very soul… “Nafre…tiri?” He asked, slowly coming to a stand as the apparition of the now-mortal enchantress made her way towards him. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her graceful form, her dance was absolutely hypnotizing! The way her body moved and flexed, each motion flowing into the next so smoothly… It took his breath away. He tried to reach out to her, but the door slammed shut behind the end of the procession, and the celebration scene suddenly flashed out of existence. He started as they were suddenly in a courtyard, two young men vying for the affections of a now more modestly (well, modest by ancient standards) dressed Nafretiri. One tried to woo her with gifts of tigers’ pelts and exotic perfumes, while the other recited poems of his own writing. The next scene flashed, and she was kneeling with one of the young men in some kind of religious temple, in front of rectangular pool, floating flowers on the water and praying to a massive stone statue of a falcon-headed man. Movement out of the corner of his eye made Draxum turn his head, and the first young man from before was hiding behind a pillar, scowling and his eyes filled with heartbreak and bitter envy.

The hazy apparitions continued to show the progression of Nafretiri’s life. The passing of the previous Pharaoh from illness, the younger of his twin sons ascending to the throne with Nafretiri as his Queen, the older twin becoming his advisor. The couple in the Pharaoh’s bed chambers, bodies obscured by a veil, but silhouettes depicting a passionate embrace and a kiss that only two lovers could ever hope to share. A religious ceremony with the Pharaoh and his Queen sitting on raised thrones carried by soldiers, Nafretiri’s belly swollen and round with child. The pained screaming of the new mother as she lay in an ornately decorated pool of water, squeezing her King’s hand as midwives attended to the birthing of the young prince. The crying baby boy being lifted from the water, his umbilical cord cut with a knife, and both cord and afterbirth placed in a dish for sacrifice to the goddesses in exchange for the child’s protection. Nafretiri whimpered as the midwife handed her the little prince, and through her tears of pain she was smiling the dreamiest of smiles. She whispered something that sounded like a blessing (Draxum couldn’t be sure, this birthing process as a whole was something he had never seen before), kissing the crying baby’s forehead and nuzzling him close to her breast. The child grew before his eyes, from a crying newborn, to a babbling baby, and finally a rambunctious toddler that the slaves and nursemaids would chase endlessly throughout the palace. The Pharaoh scooped the boy into his arms, laughing heartily and carrying the prince outside to his mother, where she was dressed for a journey and seated in a barge for a trip down river. She bid a tearful farewell to her son, and kissed her husband, before a blessing was said over the barge by priests, and sailed off down the river, fading away.

It was only now that Draxum realized that the Pharaoh’s advisor had been present through every apparition, always nearby, but never truly getting involved. Always eyeing his brother and nephew with malice. But this time, he noticed the absence of the older twin. Draxum caught a glimpse of the man behind another pillar, holding a perforated earthen ware pot, with a muslin lid secured over the top with a red cord, and a manic grin on his face. The half-mutant snarled a bit, not liking the look of that pot in the slightest. Something was amiss. Some more timed passed, and the Pharaoh and little prince were napping peacefully in the Pharaoh’s bed chamber. Silent as a mouse, the advisor crept in, carefully setting down the pot and undoing the red cord. Tipping the pot over with his foot, ashen gray and tan scales of an Egyptian cobra could be seen. Slowly, the serpent slithered its way out of the ceramic vessel. It lifted a portion of its body off of the floor, raising its head before slithering towards the bed, silently moving its body under the linen covers, where the ruler and young heir were sleeping. The advisor picked up the pot and closed the wooden door to the bed chamber. Not long after, as the advisor was walking down the hall, the high-pitched and pained shrieking of the toddler prince, and the panicked shouts of the Pharaoh sent the palace staff sprinting towards the bed chamber.

The scene that flashed next, was a gut wrenching one. Nafretiri walking up from the tomb of her now-mummified husband and son, eyes puffy, and red from crying. The older twin feigned sympathy, hugging the woman, comforting her. It made Draxum’s blood boil. The funerary procession marched somberly back through the desert to the capital city. The apparitions progressed further, showing the older twin rising to rule, and exercising his newfound power in such a ruthless fashion that it shocked even Draxum. Monuments of the old Pharaoh were toppled, his burial tomb destroyed, scrolls burned, murals torn down, and repainted. Those who mentioned the old king or young prince were publically executed. This new Pharaoh took every step he could to erase his brother and nephew from the annals of history. Nafretiri simply sat back and… Watched it all happen. She spent a majority of her time in the palace locked in her bed chamber. The Queen grew thin, her eyes sunken, her once-beautiful face having turned gaunt from grief. To see the apparition before him, and comparing it to the immortal enchantress he knew now, it was like comparing night and day. To see the strong and powerful woman he knew so weak… Draxum felt a tightness in his chest. His heart ached for her. He wanted to reach out to the apparition, to pull it close to him, and comfort her. But those feelings were brief. They were soon replaced with the deepest rage, and bottomless hate, for the man who did this to her. He let out a roar and lunged for the form of the new Pharaoh, but the scene changed again.

Nafretiri and the Pharaoh were arguing. Nafretiri yelling through tears and the Pharaoh drawing ever closer to her, clearly demanding that she hand something over. When the woman continued to refuse, Draxum’s anger only mounted higher as the Pharaoh seized his wife, and plunged his hand into her right eye, ripping the beautiful green orb from its socket and throwing it to the floor. The sound of the blood pounding in his ears and his vision going red obscured the sight of Nafretiri crumpling to the floor and clutching her face, and droned out the poor Queen’s shrieks of unimaginable pain. Draxum lunged once more for the Pharaoh’s apparition, but obviously phased right through him. He was about to try again when there was a gasp from behind him, and the Baron whirled around as the scene surrounding him faded. They were back in his lab, Nafretiri had regained consciousness! In his anger the vine that restrained her had rotted away, leaving the immortal Enchantress in a crumpled heap on the floor. She was panting, her eye wide, and hands shaking. Slowly, Draxum approached her, picking up her fallen crown and holding it out to her.

It took Nafretiri a moment to register what was happening, but she looked up at Draxum holding her crown out to her. Nodding in silent thanks, she took the crown and placed it back on to her head. “I fail to understand…” Draxum spoke, making Nafretiri glare up at him in disdain. “You know damn well that if I overexert myself, I lose control of my-“

“I’m not talking about that!” Draxum interrupted, startling the woman. Growling, he was clenching his fists as his face went dark. “I fail to understand how you don’t hold the same hatred for humanity that I do! That wretched waste of organic material… That, false king… What he did was unforgivable, scarred you for life!” He shouted.

Nafretiri looked down at her hands, as she slowly came back to a stand, piecing together what happened when she passed out. She remembered… Bits and pieces of her past life floating through in a dream like state. She must’ve projected her dream into the real world when she fainted and lost control of her power. Draxum… Draxum witnessed everything. The treachery that lead to her death. The disgraceful acts that left her permanently disfigured, even now, thousands of years later. She was, as he said, scarred for life… “That was nearly three thousand years ago, Draxum…” She muttered, refusing to look up, her hair obscuring most of her face from him. “As the Mighty Ra’s solar barque sails ever forward, bringing with it one new day after another, scars begin to fade away…”

Draxum came forward, grabbing her chin and forcefully lifting her face to look at him as he leaned in, staring at the muslin bandages that obscured her hollow right eye socket from the rest of world. Her remaining eye was wet with tears, something he wasn’t expecting. His mind briefly flitted back to the crying, grieving Queen in the apparition of her dream. “Scars may fade, but they never truly heal, do they?” He snarled, but it wasn’t as threatening as before. She jerked her head out of his grip, turning and kneeling down to pick up her golden staff. “Touché…” She responded, looking over her staff and keeping her back turned to him.

Pursing his lips, Draxum stood there for a while, before coming closer to her. The armor on his arms cracked and flaked, decaying away from his skin and returning his limbs to normal. Just as she turned back to face him, she felt a tightness wrap itself around her body. She came face to face (or rather, face to chest) with the warring warrior scientist, the half mutant pulling her into a hug. It was a strange thing for Draxum to do. She expected such action from Huginn and Muninn, but from Draxum… Her vision went blurry as more tears formed, and she failed in choking back a sob, wrapping her arms around the Baron and burying her face into his chest. The Queen leaned into him, crying her heart out as all the painful memories came flooding back. He squeezed her a bit tighter, placing a hand on her head. “I’m sorry, Nafretiri…” He muttered, not expecting a reply. After what seemed like ages, the tears began to slow, and her sobs were replaced by whimpering hiccups. “I need to get back to work now…” Was all Draxum said before letting go of her and turning to walk back into the main part of his lab, leaving her there to dry her tears and regain her composure.

Huginn and Muninn flew down from their perch in the rafters, draping a small blanket around her shoulders. “C’mon, gorgeous, we’ll escort you back to your hotel…” Muninn spoke softly, Huginn nodding in agreement and gently pushing the Queen in the direction of the lab's exit. Draxum watched his gargoyle minions tend to the grieving Queen from the darkened hallway, gritting his teeth as his mind recalled all that he saw. Snarling, he shoved himself off the wall and strode off back into the lab, picking up his discarded notes and working on them with renewed spite, vigor, and determination. His eyes drifted up to the test tubes that Nafretiri saved from breaking earlier, reaching over to pick one up. Growling, he shattered the glass in his hand and dropped the shards to the floor. Humanity will pay for their transgressions… Not just towards yokai and mutant-kind, but towards Nafretiri as well. Humanity and their ancestors will suffer. They will all… Suffer.

(A/N: Please leave comments and criticisms, I wanna know how I can improve my writing ; u ; Reblogs > Likes.)

#rottmnt #rottmnt baron draxum #baron draxum #rottmnt oc #one shot #hurt/comfort

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