Sanguina was surprisingly chipper for your average demon. Despite her power over blood and air, she focused less on the ruination of humanity or other such things, and instead focused more on wringing every little bit of pleasure and sensation out of her life that she could.
When summoned, she could usually be placated by offerings capable of holding her attention. A game console of some sort, perhaps, or enough bags of cheap fast food to keep her taste-buds occupied. Blood was rarely accepted, except in large enough amounts, and Sanguina is typically, in fact, insulted by small offerings of blood, seeing it as a waste of the very essence of humanity.
Of course, her hedonism also leads her to frequently make forays to the mortal world when her power allows it. Which leads to the events of tonight…
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“Sanguina, this is a really bad idea!” Melancholia said, popping another mint as they drove. Even after downing half the tin, there was still the faintest suggestion of rot and grave dirt in her breath.
“Relaaaax, Melly! This is gonna be a great time! Just you and me, out on the town! Phleggy wouldn’t know a “good idea” if it bit her in the… weird fluid, I guess? Look, my point is, it’s gonna be a great time, relax!” Sanguina replied, eyes intently on the road. Eventually, they’d reached their location, a club in the “bad part” of town. There were shootings daily, and it was frequented by some of the most dangerous supernaturals in the entire state.
To Sanguina, it was absolutely perfect.
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“Hey, buddy, is it true what they say about minotaurs?” Sanguina said to the bull-man, sitting at the bar and holding a mug the size of Sanguina’s head. “My friend over there wants to know…”
Melancholia didn’t bother to look up from her drink as she replied. “Don’t drag me into your sexual misadventures, Sang, I’m only here for the booze.”
Sanguina sighed at what a killjoy her friend was being, but at least she still had a chance with the Minotaur. “Well, my friend may be a bit of a killjoy, but what do you say? Feel like exploring my labyrinth?”
The minotaur snorted dismissively before returning to his drink. Sanguina was rather displeased by this turn of events. Storming over to Melancholia, Sanguina slapped her on the back of her head.
Melancholia glared at Sanguina. “And what the hell was that?!?”
Sanguina returned the glare. “I could ask you the same thing! We had a chance there! No man can resist two attractive bisexual girls, it was in the bag! And you ruined it!”
Melancholia rolled her eyes, sipping her drink. “I don’t “involve” myself with the mortals, Sang. Mortal reproduction is a disgusting interchanging of fluids in the name of creating life, and I see no point, no matter what pleasure my Thrall would derive from it.”
Sanguina couldn’t believe Melancholia right now. Didn’t she get why they here in the first place?!? “Ooooh my god, Melly, you are just… the worst! The absolute worst! Why did I invite you along again?!?”
Melancholia shrugged, barely bothering to pretend that she cared. “Because you’ll inevitably need someone to cover for you when you inevitably fuck up?”
Sanguina had had it with her friends’ sour attitude, and was just about to show how she felt about it when the gunfire started. Apparently some discussion or another had turned sour, and fueled by booze and music had turned violent. This would normally be an interesting way to cap off the night for Sanguina, if it weren’t for the fact that one of the bullets had dug into her Thrall’s back.
Sanguina dropped to the ground, bleeding profusely, and for one horrible moment everything stopped…
And then Sanguina sat up, laughing like a madman. “Oh, WOW! I got shot! I actually got SHOT! This is great, oh my god, it hurts so much!” She said, continuing to stand. “Ahahaha, hey, someone come over here and stick a finger in it, I wanna see if it hurts more!”
Confronted with the insane creature bleeding like your average anime protagonist and laughing maniacally about how painful their bullet wound was, the patrons did just about the only thing that made sense. That being, screaming and running from the bar at the strange immortal creature.
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After a short time spent running from cops and ditching the Thralls, Melancholia and Sanguina were back in their realm. Both weren’t exactly happy with this turn of events.
“Melancholia, you ruined it. Just RUINED IT! If you’d just joined me in seducing that minotaur, then I wouldn’t have been shot and the night would’ve gone perfectly!”
Melancholia could barely be bothered to respond, as she ruminated over the events of the night and how they related to mortality as a whole. “Oh please. Like I’m supposed to go with every little hedonist whim your mind comes up with?”
Sanguina glopped back defeatedly. “Uuuugh, you’re so lame, Melly! Why do we hang out?!?”
Melancholia oozed a little closer to Sanguina, and grazed a tendril across her mass in a way that could almost be considered tender. “Because you totally like me, even though we’re fated enemies?”
Sanguina sighed. “Yeah…”
Tag: melancholia
In The Wrong Heaven…
Hey! It’s the grand finale of the “Sense Of Humor” saga! Melancholia goes batshit, makes some terrible decisions, and everything goes to hell in a handbasket. So sit back and enjoy!
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Melancholia was going to die today. He was certain of it. He’d only been around for a couple years now, but to be entirely honest, he could care less. Part of the point of Melancolia was STUDY. Over the centuries, generations and generations of his forebearers had learned as much as they could. Not like Phlegmus, who learned to USE her knowledge and effect the world. Melancholias learned so that they could horde away the knowledge, preserve it forever like stones in the Earth’s heart.
He would die today. You didn’t just flaunt the Dreambender and expect things to end well. But it was all in the name of knowledge. Preserving it until the very universe itself collapsed in on itself at the end of time.
He wouldn’t have it any other way.
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The time for subtlety had passed. The Pines were on edge now, after the story of the three dead bodies, one leaking the same mysterious substance that had nearly killed Henry all those months ago. They knew something was stalking them, had told Alcor, and now they hoped they were safe.
When the stones had risen from the very earth around the Mystery Shack and began smashing down walls like Gaia herself had had enough, and tarry mud bubbled through the gaps left, they weren’t as surprised as many would be in such a situation.
When the mud coalesced into a form akin to a large, earthen beast, complete with flowing pine-needle fur and fangs of solid obsidian, they were even less surprised.
And when the creature began speaking in the voice of that same dead waiter from last week (granted, with heavy demonic distortion), they were so unsurprised it was surprising.
H͘Ę͘L̀L͞O.̸̛ ̶I̴’͞͝M ̧̛͡Ǵ͝O̡͜͏I͟N҉G̵̡ ̵́T̴͠͡O̶͞͡ ͏̶̧N̡EE̡͢͡D ̡T̢̧̢O̧͢ B̧҉̡O͟R̨R̨̕OW ̸͘M͞Á̕͜BĘ͠͏L̛͡͝ ͘F̛ƠŖ́ ̴́A̸̛ ̴M͟͝O͠M̴E͜N͟͡T͢͟.́͠ Melancholia managed to get out through his new beastly form’s mouth…
“Go back to hell!” Mabel’s voice called out from within the house, shortly before a heavy explosive impacted into Melancholia’s muck and blew his construct’s head into a spray of tar and stone. The headless construct stood there a moment, as if considering its new lack of a head, before a sigh emanated from within it.
O̶k̀͜à͠y̡,̀͠ ͟s̸̡̢o͟ ̡͜͠it̷͝’̢͘ś̴ ̨͜͜g̡ǫn̡n̛͘͠a̢ ̢͞͝be ͘li̶̴k̷̶e ̸th͜͠i̧ş̵̕.̢. The beast rumbled, shortly before reforming a head and opening its mouth wide, several tendrils of thick mud oozing into the house and probing wildly. In a few moments, Henry and Mabel were caught in the tendrils and dragged outside.
Ş́è͠e̛,̶ ͞I ̶d̛i̡d̸̕ń̛͝’́͜t ̴͢w̛͢àn̨̛t̴ ̧͘t̡̀͟o̴͢ ̷͢d͜ǫ̷̶ t͘h̢i͞s̴̶.͘ ̢A͢l̷͡l ҉͘I͞͡ ̧͝w̡a̶s̴͞ g̶͏ǫ҉nn̢̛a ͏͝d͜o̵̷ ́w̷̶as̸̵ ͡a͟ ļi̴t̸t̸͘͠l͏͜͡e̢͝ ́pó͏ś̷śe̷ş͡s̷͢͟i҉̢o̕n̨,̢͜͝ ̵͘j̶̕usţ͘͝ ţ͝ơ ̧̡ş̨e̷̷͟e̸̷ ̴̡͡w̡ḩ͘̕a͝t̵͠’̨d̀́ ͢h̛a̡͡p͜͜͞pe͠͝ņ͏.̴͏ Melancholia said, almost sounding a bit regretful through his demonic roaring.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with you…” Mabel said, struggling against the thick muck holding her in place and severely hampering her movement, “But people don’t generally like being possessed!”
Henry chimed in. “Yknow, considering you almost killed me and all, I feel the need to back her up.”
Melancholia was silent a moment, before a single eye rose from the muck, considering Henry carefully. Perhaps trying to drudge up a memory through his insane fervor for knowledge, even though he’d seen the man less than a week ago.
It was all the gap Henry needed. In a moment, the Huntsman was out, and the tendril holding Henry in place was severed, dropping to the ground with a “SPLAT” akin to a dropped punch-bowl full of pudding.
O̡͘h,̵̸̀ ͡w̧o̧̡͢w,̛̀͘ ҉g͜͏̡ǫ̶͠s̴̛h̕,̕ ̷́th͠a͘̕͢t̀̕ ̀̕w̵as̷̴͠ ̨͢͝i̵m͜͠p͘o̡l̵i͠t͡҉e͘.̡͟Melancholia rumbled, the eye now examining the sludge-covered Woodsman. B͟u͜t̵͢ ͏g̨͘u͠͞e̛s͢s̴͘ ẃ͡h͏͝͡at,̷͢ ͏̧͢do̡͝͡e͠-̨̕͞boy̴̕?̵ Ỳ̶̕o̢ư’̶̷r͝e̕҉̕ ͡nót҉ o̢n ̴̨y̵͞o͏̶́u̢͡ŗ̸̷ h̨͝om̸e҉ ̶̀͞t̵͘u͘͜͞r͟f͟͝ ̡a̶̴͝ny̴m̴o̸̷ŗ̀e̡̢͝.̡́͡ ͢Bĺàćk B̸̢i͟͠l̸̴͡e̵̸ ͘͡͠r̨e͝͠p͢r҉͟͜ese͠nt̨̡s͟͝ ̧t͞͠h͢e̢̡͝ ̶͏Ȩ̢͡a̡r̷ţ̛́h͞͡.̛͟The voice continued, a perverse grin spreading across the construct’s muddy face. Y͜͠o̢̕u̧’̢r̢͡͝é͏̶ ͝p̷͟͞la̸̢yįn҉g̡̛̀ ̷b̢y̵̢҉ ̕M͢Y̛ ̢r͟u͝l̡e̶̛s͏̢,̢ ̢͜n͠o̸̡͞w!̴̷̕
Spires of stone began to erupt from the ground, seeking to impale the Woodsman and nip this issue in the bud. But Henry was much more graceful than he looked, dodging the spires with ease and hacking at the construct, hardening the mud to dirt through the heat of the flames.
Mabel, taking advantage of this distraction, managed to free an arm from the sludge, grappling hook in grasp. At which point, in a rather shrewd tactical move, she fired the hook at the exposed eye on the construct. It burst on impact, watery black bile gushing from the ruined ocular orb.
S͡ƠN̵̕ O͢F͏̸ ̢͢͠A͟ ̕BI̵TC̸̛H!̨Melancholia screamed, his tendril releasing Mabel and dropping her to the ground.
The Woodsman was putting up a rather admirable fight against the beast, even with its great size and seemingly limitless supplies of mud to work with. Several limbs had been hacked off, and in its rush to replace them the beast was depleting its supplies of mud, gradually growing smaller. In a few moments, it may be small enough to banish or otherwise take care of…
Until, of course, Melancholia pulled out his trump card. Three tendrils whipped out of the beast, and crashed through the attic window. When the triplets screamed, both Henry and Mabel stopped what they were doing. A sick grin spread across Melancholia’s face as he dragged them from the attic, barely noticing or caring as a shard of glass sliced across Acacia’s face, dangerously close to her eye.
“A̕l҉͝r̡̛̀ig̀͠hţ͘,͞ ̡I͘͝ d́́ìd͟n͘’̴̢̕t̢ ͜͞ẁa͢n̵̨͟t͏ ̵͘͡t̷̢͟o͏́ ̛͠d̶̢o͟҉ t̶his.̵̕͢ I͞ ̧͘r͠e̴͝a̧͞l͞͏lỳ̨ d̡͜i̸̶̕d́ņ’͝t̴̛͟.̢”Melancholia began, waving a tendril like some would wave an arm. “B͟͡u͠t ͘͠A̵̶Ṕ̡̨P̀AR͢Ȩ̷Ǹ̴TL͡Y ̡̨́t͡h̀҉̢e ̶͟͠t̛͡͏w̢͞o ͠of ҉̛y̷o͏̢͏u̸̕ ͝j̶̵̀u̡͘s҉t ̀͞d͝ǫn͜͝’́t ̸͢͝f̸̶͜e͡e̵l̸ ̨͢l̕i̷̢͏ķ͞e͡ ̢c͢͝ơ͟ó̸p͟҉e͏̢r̷̀̀a̛t̡͞ing̛.͢ ̕͝Į̷t’ś͡ ͞͠ki͠n̡d̷a̶͠ ͡s̸͟͠ad̷͢,̸́͘ r̕ea҉l͜ly̡̡͘.̨̕͡”Melancholia continued.
He looked over the triplets critically, like the small humans were some disgusting insect instead of children. Eventually, he brought the tendril holding Hank directly up to his mouth, the jagged stone teeth dangerously close to the child. “Ņow, ̨ęi͠t͘her ͞th̷e bo͡th ̨of ͡y̵ou̴ s͢t̕aǹd̸ ̛d͞own̸,҉ ͜o͟r Į ̸bi̕te ̸H̢uḿan ̸J͡r͜ h̨er͏e’̵s ͏head u͜n̕t͟i͘l͝ ̕I hit ͏gr̕áy mat͞t͏er.̛ T̸hér̢e̢’s ̷more tha̧n̴ ͡on͏ę way ̵t͜o ̷gąin ͘kn͘ow̛l҉ed̡g̀e,̵ ͡and͡ ͢Í’̕m̵ n͢ot ́p͘ic̡k͏y̢.̛”
For one terrible moment, it looked like he was about to follow up on his threat. Until, of course, a single, dangerous voice sounded from behind Melancholia.
“P͡ut̀ ͝h҉im͏ ̶D͡ÒWN,̡ ͟M̨e̵l҉an͞ch̀o̶li̴a.“ Alcor said. His voice dripped with sheer fury and hatred, as if he was restraining himself from blowing the beast to pieces right then and there.
In a moment, the triplets were on the ground, and Melancholia had turned to face Alcor. ”Oh͟, ̸wow̕, ̨s͝h҉o͠u̢l͝d’̛v̢e͜ see͠n̡ t̶his ͠c͜o̵m͜i̕n̡g.̛ ͘Look,͟ ̢Al͢cor͞, I ju͢st ̛w͘a͜nted͡ t͢o ̷t͟r͟y̷ ̢somȩth͜ing, and ̛t͠he̸n̕ I͞’ll b҉e̴ ͡on̛ ͟m̨y̵ ̢w̵ay.͢”
“L҉̶̸͢e̶̢̧a̵̶҉v͜͠è͞.̵̴̨̨ ̀́͢͟͞N͘͟o҉̸w̛͢.̨́" Alcor’s voice was quiet and level, but there was such venom in it that it was a miracle Melancholia didn’t drop dead hearing it.
”P̀le̡a͡s͏e,̷ ͘A̴l͡c͝or, a͡ seņs͘ib͢le ̶d͢e̴m͠on͡ ҉l͠ik͢e y̨o͢ur͘śel̴f̀ M̴U͡ST͘ ̸see t̢he̵ im҉p̡o͡r̵ta͞n͞çę ͜in͞ ̴k͏nowl͡e͞dg͢e!“ Melancholia stated, condescendingly, as if he couldn’t BELIEVE that Alcor was just being so UNREASONABLE. ”It’̛s͠ a͝n éxp̶e͜ŕi͘men҉t!͞"
Alcor was fuming so hard it was a small miracle steam wasn’t coming out of his ears. “G̢͘E̶̛͟͢T̷́͜͞͞ ͞͡Ơ̷U̢T̢҉!̨̡̛͘”
Melancholia laughed. “W͜h͡a͟t, d҉ò y͢ou͝ ͜th̴ink te̡l҉lin̨g͏ m̛e̶ ̡to̢ go҉ ̸wi͢ll̕ ҉ju̴s̶t ͞makę ̡it all̴ bétt̢èr?̨ That͏ a͠f̛ter I’̕m͢ ͝g͞o̷ne ̧n͟obòdy’s͘ ͢e̴ver gon̷n͏a WON̸DE͠R͟?” Melancholia laughed again, a harsh titter that pointed to how much he’d lost it. “Ýou’́r͝e a̷n ̴a̶n̵om̀a̸l͞y,̛ ̧Alc̕o͘r!҉ A̶ d̴am͘ņ f͟a͟s̴c͘ina͞ting͝ ͜one,́ ͢t҉o͜o!̕ ̢You͞’r̴e ̕a ̵com͏p̷lete ̡out͏l͜ier!͢ E͡ve͘r͏y͝thin͞g ҉w̛e k̛now͜ i͞s w̛r͢o̡ng, and̴ ͏y̶ou’re̵ t̢h͟ę o̷n̛e̶ ͜wh́o ̷sh͟owed́ us̶!̨”The laughter continued, growing in volume, getting more jovial, until eventually Melancholia’s form was wracked with full belly-laughs. “G̸o ҉on̛ ̢a̵h҉èa̧d!͟ ͜K̨i̡l͘l͝ ̷me! ͜T̀here’l͘l̵ ̵b̡e ͠ot͏he̸r͘s! ̵So̴ ̨m̨any ҉others̢ ͏l͘o͠o͜kinǵ t͟ò ͢LEA̸R͜N̛ and ͡ŚEE ͜and͏ ͟U̧N̶DE͢R͞STA͘N͞D! ͢You̡’͏v͜e ҉d͘am̴n͢ed ̵th̶em͞ wìth͜ ͏ýo͡u҉r ̕v̧er͟y̧ exi̡ste҉n̨ce, ̧Alcor̀,͝ ̡an̢d Į’͢m o͏nly͏ ̀t͠hé ̛b̵egi̕n̸n̷ing͏. T̵hi̧s i̸s̕ your͜ fa͞ųlt,́ Ąl̵ço҉r̨. ͟Y̸ou̴rs.́”
Before anyone could react, Melancholia suddenly lunged for Mabel, mouth wide open, intent on biting her in half. If he couldn’t understand, nobody could!
Until he was stopped in his tracks by a flaming spear of sheer demonic energy, directly through the beast’s head. While this would normally be no problem to the construct, the spear, being formed of pure demonic energy, is more than enough to mortally wound Melancholia.
The construct stands for a moment, before completely dissolving, flooding the area with thick mud and large shards of stone. The only living remnant a small pool of black bile, bubbling and steaming.
“Is… is this what death feels like?”Melancholia’s voice sounded, surprisingly small and childlike. “Oh my god… it’s… fascinating… I… think I get it now…” A single eye floated to the surface of the pool, examining Mabel closely. “I don’t think I can apologize… but I think it’s alright. I UNDERSTAND… I finally…understand…”
Somehow, everyone was aware when Melancholia finally died. A sensation akin to a great weight lifting off everyone’s shoulders. They felt… happier. They hadn’t really noticed the sensations of sorrow and desperation pervading the area, but it was gone now. Melancholia was well and truly dead. The bile he was formed of churned for a moment, bubbling intensely like it was about to blow, before sinking into the earth and disappearing.
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Hours later, or possibly days or even months, the new Melancholia opened her eyes. Rising in her true, beautiful form, she examined her surroundings. So this was life, huh? Fascinating. She’d need to learn more.
Suddenly, there was a polite voice, clearing their throat, as if they’d been waiting for her to get acclimated. “Uh, hey, new Melancholia? I’m Chole. We need to talk…”
They Fall From My Right Eye…
Welcome to “Sense Of Humor Part 3”! In this part of the story, Melancholia puts his plan into motion. This plan is mostly just keeping an eye on everyone and occasionally pulling weird demon shit to keep the charade going. Unfortunately, it all starts going horrifically wrong because Melancholia is kinda crazy. Stay tuned!
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Melancholia was absolutely thrilled!
It was crazy how easily Melancholia had gotten himself into the “routine” of Gravity Falls. He’d managed to build up some funds working as a waiter at some restaurant or another in the small town, and he earned enough to stay in some crappy motel or another. Of course, he’d gotten the room at a steal, due to the fact that it was formerly inhabited by a group of manotaurs. Thankfully, Melancholia could just shut off his scent receptors whenever he entered the room, so the intense scent of sweat, body spray and spilled energy drinks barely got to him.
His routine was down to clockwork at this point. Resurrect his body at 7:00 AM, on the dot (he still hadn’t nailed down “sleep” yet…), get breakfast, head to the library and make sure to leave trace amounts of himself on as many books as possible, wait tables for a while, then check if any bits of you got into the Henry mortal.
More often than not, he’d find himself inside some child who’d checked out the “Nancy Drew” he’d left a drop on, or a researcher who’d somehow checked out every single encyclopedia that had been contaminated, but some days he got lucky. In that case, he’d get the droplet into the Henry human’s brain, fiddle around his memories for a moment, and see what he could find. Unfortunately, his droplets were usually destroyed by that same odd creature that was currently inhabiting Henry.
But one day, he finally found a lead. Probing around the thoughts of Henry, Melancholia discovered that he was apparently more of a “bystander” to Alcor, but he was married to a prime player in this whole fiasco. A human known as “Mabel”. This intrigued Melancholia, and he decided to make an attempt to get closer to her, and perhaps get a look into her perspective…
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Henry was uncomfortably surprised right now.
Henry supposed that he shouldn’t have been surprised. From what he could tell, the man he’d helped earlier in the month had been ready to put down stakes in Gravity Falls. Still, it’s a bit odd when a random stranger you let use your phone and then never expect to see again is your waiter on the one date night you manage to have.
“Oh, gosh, it’s you!” Melancholia had said. “It’s great to see you again! Hey, thanks for that thing a month ago, really saved my bacon, yknow?”
Henry tried not to look the man in the eye. Every time he did, something in Henry felt way too angry. “Uh, yeah, it’s no big deal…”
Mabel looked at the waiter, a bit confused. “Henry, uh… who’s this?”
Henry sighed. “Some guy I let use our phone, because his car broke down near us. I figured he was just passing through town, but apparently not!”
Melancholia let out a little laugh. “Yeah, I’m living here now! Got a place nearby, now I work here. Anyways, we’re not here to chat, can I start you guys with drinks?”
Mabel was a bit unnerved by this guy. He seemed nice enough, but every time he looked at them his gaze was… piercing. Like he was picking apart their brains in his mind, searching for some little bit. An analytical, searching look. But he seemed on the level enough, and a weird look wasn’t something to dislike a person over!
Melancholia, to his credit, was rather subtle about his infection of every food and drink item he was given. A single tear, while tinged a somewhat unsubtle black, was easy enough to slip into food, or a beverage. And so, over the course of the meal, Mabel consumed approximately 5 (somewhat diluted) drops of Melancholia.
Mabel had no idea, and Melancholia thought he’d committed the perfect crime. But the funny thing about Melancholia’s corruption was that, while it was subtle, it was technically a form of demonic possession. Sure, he couldn’t take over her body or anything, and all he did was comb a few thoughts and memories.
But someone had already claimed the soul of Mabel Pines. Someone with intense power, and someone who took very poorly to any demon of any kind interacting with the Pines family.
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Alcor the Dreambender was not pleased.
He’d been annoyed enough by Melancholia when the slimy bastard had just been watching Alcor from afar and being a dumb nerdy fanboy. But bothering the Pines family. That was something he couldn’t allow to happen.
And possessing Mabel was like a cherry on the “Absolutely Not” cake. A line crossed, even after crossing 15 other lines. Melancholia was going to pay. Alcor would see to that.
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Sanguina and Phlegmus weren’t exactly thrilled.
They supposed that Melancholia’s dalliances in the mortal world were harmless enough. Learning a bit about those fiddly mortals and gathering information on Alcor the Dreambender were simple pastimes, a bit eccentric, but ultimately no cause for concern.
And then, on an examination of his daily routine, they noticed him deliberately placing his corruption into one Mabel Pines. As they were both remarkably more intelligent than Melancholia, they immediately knew how poorly this was going to end.
And so, with this knowledge in mind, and in an attempt to save their friend/enemy/colleague from the wrath of a crazy ass demon, they cornered Melancholia’s physical form in his motel room, and brutally stabbed him to death before he could even begin to react.
They supposed it was awfully messy, and three dead bodies in a cheap motel room, one oozing black liquid from dozens of stab wounds, would raise some eyebrows. But they could hardly give less of a damn, because Melancholia was making a terrible, terrible mistake that would bite him directly on his formless ass if he let it go any further.
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Melancholia was rather pissed off at the moment, and not afraid to express it.
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?!?“ he asked his friends, tendrils flailing wildly.
"What that was for, you moron, was the fact you were heading straight for certain doom.” Phlegmus replied, looking rather unimpressed in her physical form. “You DO realize what you’ve done, right? Possessing FUCKING MIZAR?!? Do you HAVE A DEATH WISH?!?”
Sanguina looked up from her magazine (where the hell did she get that…?) to chime in with her two scents. “Yeah, pretty damn stupid there, Melly.”
Melancholia huffed. “It’s fine. I would’ve been in and out by the end of the week.”
Melancholia’s angry train of thought is suddenly derailed by the fact that his corruption managed to pick out a particularly juicy detail from Mabel’s brain. She is, in fact, the twin sister of Alcor. This… wow. This changed everything. EVERYTHING. Who was to say that, perhaps, the spark of demonic fire couldn’t be inside of this mortal right now? Who’s to say she couldn’t reach the same level of power?
…with the right push, could she become a demon too?
Despite the obvious problems with continuing to mess with Mabel, Melancholia had a new plan. A new, final plan that he’d bring to completion or die trying.
He’d bring Mabel to the same level as her brother. A new demon, so in-tune with their mortality and in-tune with demonic energy that she could answer every question he had. Through her, Melancholia would finally UNDERSTAND. And in the end, that was all he really wanted.
Distantly, he was aware of the other two pestering him. He nodded quietly, and they figured that his sudden quiet streak indicated he was aware of the issues in his plan. But that wasn’t the case at all.
Melancholia had a plan now. And nothing would stop him. Nothing.
Melancholia was the happiest he’d ever been in his entire life.
Bodies In Motion
Hello, friends, and welcome to Part 2 of the Humor Saga, AKA “The Sequel To A Sense Of Humor”! This is where the story picks up, as Melancholia comes up with a plan significantly less likely to be doomed to failure, and I introduce Phlegmus, the former friend of Melancholia’s “mother”. Body horror abound, my friends!
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Melancholia, to put it a bit bluntly, had learned nothing from his little expedition through Henry’s internal organs beyond “The Woodsman is a scary motherfucker”. And due to this, about a month after the fiasco was over and the event had been mostly forgotten, Melancholia went to pester Phlegmus for an idea on how to act more human. After all, Phlegmus was one of the smartest demons he knew!
Phlegmus, to her credit, was remarkably calm about the young, annoying child of her closest friend bursting into her realm and pestering her about how to seem more human. But then, she was calm about most things.
“Phlegmus! Hey, I need your help, friend!” Melancholia shouted, currently in a human form and sitting on one side of a professional-looking wooden desk. Melancholia looked about the same as he always did, a vaguely “goth” look to his outfit, black hair covering one eye, and the other empty socket constantly dribbling bile to the ground.
Phlegmus, meanwhile, was also in human form, looking for all the world like your average terrifying businesswoman, aside from the fact that a single drop of a sickly yellow fluid would drip from her eyes. “Yes, Melancholia, you’ve told me. Several times. And you’ve told my spawn as well. SEVERAL TIMES.”
Phlegmus shook her head. “I know what you want. You want to simulate mortality, and you don’t care how it’s accomplished.” She said, an edge of disgust in her voice. Melancholia, for his part, was blissfully unaware. Phlegmus approached a window in the room, overseeing what looked like a factory floor, brains scattered across various mechanical implements. Some were having their tissue spooled into a grayish-pink thread. Others were jabbed with needles, their fluids being drained into oversized tanks.
“Do you realize that what you’re doing is so… AGAINST what you represent? You do not get into the thick of things, Melancholia. You wait. And you watch. And you plan. You’re like the Earth. Strong. Predictable. Always THERE, but never DIRECTLY SO. I’m only doing this because your mother was a wonderful woman. Or, something similar, at least. Demons are finicky creatures, even at their best, Melancholia.”
Melancholia nodded, not entirely sure of why Phlegmus was so damn angry at him. And then he was suddenly preoccupied by two needles full of a black, inky fluid jabbing themselves straight into his goddamn eye sockets.
“AAAAAAAAHHHHH! OH MY GOD, THIS HURTS! THIS ACTUALLY HURTS!” Pain was a relatively rare sensation for Melancholia. Sure, the smacks and other expressions of hatred from Sanguina were one thing, but underneath it was always that feeling like an odd mixture of love, hatred and lust…
Here, it was only a cold, unfeeling machine jamming needles the size of fingers into one of the most delicate and lasting parts of Melancholia’s anatomy. Understandably, he was not fond of the sensation.
“Quit your blubbering, you child, this is for your own good.”
What Melancholia wasn’t aware of was the fact that he was currently getting a little bit of his mother injected directly into him. Not enough to bring her back, but enough to impart her large understanding of humanity. When the pain faded and Melancholia had new eyes, he finally UNDERSTOOD. Melancholia stood, wiping away the dribbles of Bile and ruined fragments of eyeball running down his face.
“I get it now, Phlegmus. Thank you…” Melancholia said, turning to leave. “But if you do that again, I swear on my mother’s gravepit that I will kill you.”
————————————
Melancholia ’s next step of the plan involved a secluded graveyard somewhere across the country from Gravity Falls. Melancholia searched the graves for a suitable body, and found one in some poor bastard who’d lost his life in a construction accident. The average 20-something male, his corpse was near spotless beyond the autopsy stitches and a hole where his stomach used to be. Bars of rebar through the gut tended to be fatal. But Melancholia could fix this.
As Melancholia entered the corpse, letting the Bile flow freely, he dissolved the stitches and used the Bile to “glue’ the cuts together. All there was now was a slight black line where the lines had remained. The hole, too, was filled in, but with more obvious evidence of his tampering. Bile constantly flowed from a single pinprick hole in the flesh. With any luck, he could fix it with gauze…
Next, he tried to simulate a heartbeat.
BLORPsplurshbrrrble…
Oof, ow, yeah, he just caused the heart to burst. Definitely too hard. No matter. In a moment, the tattered bits of flesh and gristle had been sewn back together, small lines of black bile holding them together.
THUMP
Almost…
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
Perfection. And breathing would be no issue at all. Just move air through the nose. Now the second step of his plan.After a quick teleportation, Melancholia stood outside the large shack. Hopefully nobody would recognize him… Melancholia took a deep breath, pointless at this point but good for appearances, and knocked on the door.
——————————
Henry wasn’t sure why the young man standing at the door disturbed him quite so much. He seemed perfectly normal, even if he was breathing a bit hard. But then he’d told his story, and Henry understood his nervousness.
“Gosh, sir, I’m sorry to bother you, but, uh, my car broke down and this was the closest building I could find. Mind if I use your phone real quick?” The young man stated, his breathing calming a bit as he talked.
Henry supposed it wasn’t that bad an idea. You’d have to be a moron to try and rob the Pines, and he was sure that the young man was harmless.
Of course, Melancholia was harmless… for the time being. Melancholia called the tow truck, and as an afterthought willed a car into being a good distance away from anything resembling society, but close enough to a major road to not cause suspicion. As he hung up, he turned to Henry.
“Thanks, I appreciate it. Name’s Maurice. Nice to meet you.”
As Henry and Melancholia shook hands, neither of them noticed Willow standing in the doorway, staring in wide-eyed terror at Melancholia.
——————————–
This wasn’t a person. She could TELL it wasn’t a person. She could SEE that this… THING, standing in the living room and shaking hands with her father, wasn’t a person. For one thing, people did not have pure black eyes that seemed to wobble like gelating whenever they moved. For another, they certainly didn’t have mouths constantly dribbling with black fluid. For a moment, she wondered why her father didn’t notice the fluid dribbling on the ground and staining the carpet, until she realized that it must be her Sight.
For another thing, she saw nothing but a thick black wave radiating from the creature, filling the room with what she could recognize as sheer sorrow. Somehow, though, he didn’t seem affected, as if the sorrow were more an incidential part of him than actual emotion. Someone feeling that much genuine sorrow should barely be able to get up in the morning, let alone smile and discuss places to get coffee.
Finally, she felt that this… THING was dangerous. Very, very dangerous. And if she told her father, even INDICATED that this thing was dangerous, something bad could happen. Something VERY BAD. She’d tell Alcor, but somehow she got the feeling that this thing KNEW she could call on him. Like he had some plan in reserve in case of it.
For now, Willow said nothing.
———————————————-
And that’s that over! Part 2 concluded, and Melancholia figures out how not to horrifically botch mortality. I definitely intend to implement Phlegmus more. She’s basically become one of my favorite of the Humor Demons to work with.
A Sense Of Humor
I need help. Due to being in the midst of a writing frenzy, I’ve decided to see if I can write a multi-part story, about Melancholia losing his goddamn mind in his crazy attempts to understand mortality through the Pines family. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be absolutely disgusted at what a living mass of sadness and tar can do when it gets in a human’s system! Well, to be honest, probably more the first and third than the second, but two out of three ain’t bad. Let’s begin!
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Melancholia, for all his adorable nerdiness and fanboying of mortals, is still a demon. A powerful one at that, considering the fact that he is not only empowered by Earth, but also by depression and other expressions of one’s sorrow. Thankfully, he’s a bit too dumb to capitalize on that, but a demon with an obsession can be a dangerous creature. Thankfully, Melancholia’s danger was a bit negated when his latest obsession drove him to do something stupid enough that it’s a miracle he survived.
He messed with the Pines family.
It all started one fine summer afternoon, with Henry off work for the day and having just finished with several manual-labor intensive tasks for Grunkle Stan. Melancholia, meanwhile, had figured that the moose-man of the Pines family was his best avenue for figuring out just how those fiddly mortal interactions worked. After all, it seemed everyone in the family trusted him…
And surely any oddness would be attributed to stress or drugs or something humans did that made them act weird. There was absolutely no way this could go wrong.
And so, as Henry showered, Melancholia snuck his way into the Mystery Shack’s pipes and managed to sneak a small amount of himself into the shower water. Within minutes, he’d managed to get up Henry’s sinuses, and Melancholia immediately set himself to work, expanding the small amount of himself and setting himself up in vital systems of Henry’s. By now, after his many travels with Sanguina, he’d established the pattern well.
First, get into the lungs. Diffuse yourself into the mortal’s bloodstream. And then, when you were flowing through his veins like that weird red stuff that Sanguina always got really excited about, you started expanding. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Melancholia wasn’t made of literal blood like Sanguina was, this meant he needed to get rid of the weird red stuff. And so, Henry started bleeding heavily out of his mouth, nose, and eyes. Henry was, understandably, rather alarmed. But Melancholia didn’t have time for that.
And so, as Melancholia continued expanding and pushing out that awful red stuff (a process Sanguina would outright faint at, what with Melancholia’s rude disregard for his enemy/friend/lover’s bread and butter), he suddenly became acutely aware of another presence that was rather upset with Melancholia’s conduct.
“Enemy. You leave. NOW.“ The voice said, causing Melancholia to giggle from deep within Henry’s arteries like a little schoolgirl.
"Oh gosh, WOW, you actually think you can change this. Who the hell are you, anyway, and why do you think you can affect m-”
Seconds later, after a spiritual beating that left Melancholia feeling like he’d been run over by a ghost train, Henry began profusely vomiting up a thick black fluid that smelled like a combination of grave-dirt and week-old deep-fryer oil. In fact, he was vomiting SO profusely that Mabel could hear it from across the damn house, and decided to investigate. One can only imagine her surprise when confronted with her husband, face streaked with gore and lips stained with black bile. Silently, she counted her blessings that the children had gone out to play.
Several hours later, Melancholia figured it was safe to leave the drain system. Sure, that weird wailing human vehicle with the red cross on it had left a long time ago, BUT WHAT IF THAT DEER THING WAS STILL HERE?!?
Melancholia later figured that the major problem with his plan was not that, say, he was possessing a living, breathing human instead of the corpses he usually mingled with, but that he’d possessed the WRONG living, breathing human. And so, Melancholia watched and waited. It was something he was good at.
He’d have it all figured out soon, just wait and see…
—————————-
A Night On The Town
Okay, turns out I like Melancholia a lot more than I thought I would, and I figured now was as good a time as any to start introducing the other Humor Demons. So now, meet Sanguina, Melancholia’s weird combination of a mortal enemy, good friend, and semi-lover. Gosh, demons sure are weird!
—————————————-
There were some days that Melancholia just couldn’t muster up the effort to make his own body. Sure, it was really just a thin shell of skin around a solid mass of Bile, but sometimes even that was too much. So on those sorts of days, he went and bothered Sanguina. Technically, the two of them were supposed to hate each other with a passion, and Melancholia HAD already killed Sanguina’s last form as vengeance for his fallen “Mother”.
But demons were weird that way. And so, the two of them slummed around Sanguina’s realm, occasionally smacking each other upside the head in a “Why does the TV have to be on the fritz” way while they watched static flicker across the device Sanguina had stolen from a cultist of hers.
“Oh my LORD I am so damn bored right now.“ Melancholia stated, slapping a gooey tendril over the single eye he’d extruded.
"Well you know, you tarry moron, we could go out tonight and do something." Sanguina replied, multiple eyes rolling in the coagulated mess that was currently splattered across an armchair.
"The entire reason I’m HERE is because I don’t want to make a physical form, you bleeding idiot.” He replied, melting slightly more into the human-skin beanbag chair he’d glopped into.
Sanguina sat up a bit straighter… or at least as much as she could, being a mass of semi-coagulated gore with various body parts within. “Wait, don’t tell me, you never learned how to make a thrall. This is PRICELESS, could you be any dumber?” Sanguina said, oozing out of the chair and making for a newly-appeared portal. “Here, follow me and I’ll show you what to do.”
Melancholia, instead of going through the portal in his slow, tarry form, instead figured out where the portal was heading and teleported himself there instead. Now, Sanguina and him were in a catacombs. Sanguina oozed towards a body, slowly dripping across the corpse.
“Here’s how we’re gonna do this. Watch closely, tar-for-brains.” Sanguina said. Slowly, she let a few drops of herself fall into the corpse’s mouth, the blood-like substance spreading across the cadaver’s tongue and slowly down its throat. After a few tense minutes, the corpse shuddered and sat up, while Sanguina’s main form disappeared in a puff of metallic-scented smoke.
“Holy COW what a rush!” the corpse said, now the voice of a young man instead of Melancholia’s sorta-enemy-sorta-friend-possibly-with-benefits-who-knows. “Now you do it. Just get a bit of your essence into a corpse and we’ll go from there.”
Melancholia set himself over a corpse, and slowly extended a tendril down the dead woman’s throat. The bile began suffusing itself into the body’s very being, and suddenly Melancholia was acutely aware of being a woman lying on a slab. The rest of him had disappeared in a smoky cloud that smelled of freshly-turned dirt and vomit.
“Oooohhhh WOW!” Melancholia shouted, sitting up and standing on the slab. “Is this what mortality’s like?!? Shit, this is AWESOME!” he shouted, arms shooting into the air in a “victory” pose. Sanguina shooshed him.
“You idiot! We’re in a BURIAL GROUND, they have guards for this sort of thing! Do you want them to find two bodies just stood up and left?!?”
Melancholia, however, was far too busy exploring actual mortality to pay attention. “Hahahaha, wow!” he said, moving his limbs in an unnaturally slow, jerky way compared to the fluid movements of Sanguina. “Geeze, is this what being a woman’s like? Why do you do it all the time?” he asked Sanguina, hands fondling at his chest. “What the hell are these things for?”
Sanguina shrugged, ignoring the jerky movements of Melancholia. “Hell if I know. It’s just sort of a thing female humans have? Reminder that humans are SUPER weird, Melancholia.”
It was around that time that an employee of the graveyard these catacombs were in came into the area. He’d heard voices from below, and had decided to investigate. And now he was confronted with a young man with blood-streaked lips and popped autopsy stitches having a polite conversation with a woman covered in grave dirt and apparently examining her own body. He did the only sensible thing one could do in this situation, and ran screaming from the crypt.
Sanguina examined the fleeing human with some interest. “Oh for the love of… Look what you’ve done, now they’re going to be looking for us. Get out of that poor woman, let’s get going.”
Before Melancholia could bother to complain, the two of them were back in Sanguina’s realm, in their “true” forms, and the TV was miraculously working again.
“Oh, hey, that weird box is working again. Sweet.”
Before Melancholia could sit down, however, Sanguina had slapped him a head-like part of his mass and forcibly ejected him from her realm.
“Well gosh, not even a "goodbye”.“ Melancholia, to his credit, was less bothered by this than he should be. In fact, his main thought was when they could do that again…
——————————–
So, yes, the Humor Demons can possess dead bodies and turn them into "Thralls”, basically specialized undead that very strongly take after “Traditional” undead. Sanguina, unsurprisingly, takes after Vampires, while Melancholia takes after the traditional Romero brand of Zombie. I dunno, I’m just having a ton of fun messing with weird demon relationships, haha!
Drowning Your Sorrows
Another fic for Melancholia, this one showing how, even though he is a big nerd, he’s also still a fucking demon, who doesn’t quite realize that sometimes the things he does are absolutely horrible because he’s a demon who sees things in “Things I Like” and “Things I Don’t Like”. Enjoy the show.
———————-
The cultist supposed, in the grand scheme of things, he should’ve been a bit more careful. But then, if he were more careful, he wouldn’t have gone through with it in the first place.
He’d been at the bottom of the totem pole all his life. Passed up for promotions, ignored at bars, and generally given the shaft whenever the universe had a decent enough excuse. And he was tired of it. Sick and tired. So, one day, reading through demonology texts at the library, he’d found a demon who he thought could give the sorrow he felt to his enemies, tenfold.
He’d arranged the circle, he’d gotten the reagents, and he’d taken a symbol of his happiest memory, the diploma from his college graduation. The one time when he’d truly succeeded in life, and he was going to burn it. But if this ritual worked as planned, then it was worth it. VERY worth it.
Of course, nobody had bothered to explain to our unnamed cultist that the demonology text he’d read was 20 years out of date. He hadn’t bothered to check if the Melancholia described in the book was the Melancholia that existed today. And he certainly hadn’t read the rest of the section, and taken note of the fact that the Humor Demons die every 10 years or so and are reborn into new forms. But they hadn’t, and so what happened, happened.
“Σκοτεινή Βασίλισσα των θλίψεων , να προκύψουν σε προσφορά μου!” the cultist had shouted, setting the diploma alight and chanting the greek with perfect pronunciation. As the ashes of the diploma settled at the center of the summoning circle, the ashes suddenly darkened, and began to liquify, a solid black puddle spreading to the edges of the circle and bubbling. A voice emitted from the pool, ripples shuddering across the surface.
“H̀a̧h̨a͏̵̕h̛a̵,͏̵͜ ҉oh͝ ҉ẀO̕W̡,͡͏ ̛̀t̛h̀͡á͘t̨ ̕w̴̸a̵̕s͏́ ̢̢Ǵ̸r̢a̶҉m̕m̧͞a’s̢͠ ̵s̶̡umm̸̡o̴͝n!͏̴ ̴̶I̸ ͠h͏̷̸a͘͟v͢e͏ņ͜’̕ţ́ ͠h̵̢́ęa͘͜͢r҉̷d̀͟ t̵͟͝hat̕ ̧i͝҉n̸͡ ͘àg҉͟e̷s͞!͞” the dread voice spoke, the words akin to a teenage boy drowning in a tar pit. “W̢̡͢h̕a҉̀͝t̕ ̡d͘o̵҉͡ ̢y̶o̴͘u͠ ͞ne͢e̷̕d,̨͝ ̧̀f̕͜r҉i̸̡enḑ͡?”
The cultist shuddered in revulsion. The room filled with the scent of decay, and somewhere deep in his heart he felt true despair. Shaking it off, he made his offer. “Uh, great Lady of Sorrow…”
“W̵̷͜h͢͝oop̷, ̸ho̷͠l̶͞͝d͜ ̵̀ù̵͢p͡͠ ̢͜b̢͡͡ú͞d̛d̸ý̷̢,̷͠ ̶̨͟y͘͡ơ͜u̶’͜r҉̛͜e t͏aļ̴̛k̶͏̀i҉̴͟n̡͟͞g̸҉ ̴̕͞a̸̕b̛ơ͠ú͘͠t҉̵͠ ͡m͝͠y͢ ̴m҉̛o͠͠m.̀ ̸̸S̷͘͜h͏͟e̕’s͜ ̸́͜b̛e̕͟e̕n̸̡͢ ͏̕de͢a̷͜͡d͏ ͏̡f͘͘o̸r̷͞ ̸̡tw͢͢o̢ ̴͘y͠e̸̶a̢͜rs̀͝ ҉ńow҉.” The voice cut in. “T̵́h̡͠͞a͝͝t’s̡̀ ͝L̢O̶̵R҉D̸́ ̷̶o̡͟f̵͝ ̨Sor̡͜r̕o̶͠͡w̢͟,͢ ͞t̨̀́ha҉̸n͟͜ks҉.҉”
The cultist was taken aback… mother? “Er, yes, Lord… Great Lord of Sorrow, I feel great despair in my heart, and I have been lain low by great enemies in my life. I beseech you, take this sorrow in my heart, and bestow it unto my enemies tenfold!”
The puddle made a “Hmmmm…” noise, more ripples forming and bubbles glopping on the surface. “S͘u̢͜͡ŗ͘͞e̕ ̸t̡̀hi̷̛n̛g,̨͏ ҉͏budd͟y͢͠, bu̶͟t̶ ͏̨̕t̢͢h͢͞e͜͡r̢͟͠e͏̡͘’̴̧̨s͞ ͏̧̢ą̛͢ ̡p̡r̢i̶̡c̸͞ę̸.̀̀”
“Any price is acceptable!” the cultist shouted, drawing closer to the circle in his rage and desperation. “Just make them hurt! Make them suffer like I do! More than I do! THEY DESERVE IT!”
“W͠o͡ah t҉͟҉ḩ̴͡e͟͝r̶è́,̧̀ ̷͢f͠ri͟end̶,͢ n҉҉͡o ̀͜n̡e̴̴ed͜ ̨͏t҉͝o ͝g̸̢e̴͜t͜͟҉ f̢͜e͞ì̧͢s҉͟t͏ý͏.̸̵͡ I̵̕͝’͘̕m҉̕ ̨́g͟͝͠l̕ą͢͏d͡͝ ͞͡w̸̛é̡ ̷̕͢h̷a̵v̵͘ȩ à d̵͏e̷͜͠ą́l̴̕,̕ t̶͡hǫu̴͢gh.̵́̀ ̨Ş͟h̡́͡a̶̷k҉e͏͡ ̵̷͟o̴̧͠n ̢i͡t̴̨?̶͢͠” The pool of bile said, extending an inky black tendril to the edge of the circle. The cultist reached a hand in, grasping the tendril, and that’s when everything went to hell.
Suddenly, dozens of tendrils began whipping around the room, grasping objects and drawing them into its tarry mass. The tendril the cultist had grabbed began spreading, attempting to draw the cultist into itself. The puddle expanded past the confines of the circle, spreading across concrete and drawing in larger objects the tendrils couldn’t take.
The cultist, for his credit, immediately broke free of the grasp and legged it up the stairs. His front door, however, was completely covered in the black ooze, as were his windows and every door in the house. As he fled upstairs, the ichor flowed after him, tendrils grasping at his ankles as they ran. Eventually, he sought solace in the attic, but eventually the ichor reached him there too.
The voice burbled again from the flow of black slime. “W̶҉o̴͠ẃ̡̡,̸̀ ̢y͘͢͝o͏ú’̀̀v͏è̢ ͞go҉̀t̨ a ̢t̛͜o҉n͝ ͟o̶͠͡f̸͘͏ ̵̶st̸͟ưf͞f̛ ͏̨͡h̵e̸͢r҉̵̡e!͠ ̀Có͜͠òl͢ ̶̧s̛͟t̨̡ú̡̀f͏̴́f͝ ͢͏t̴̨͞ò́͏o͞҉̶!̀͏” the voice stated, briefly becoming less demonic and more like that of a fascinated teenage boy. “I͞’͟ve҉ ̨͟g̛o͏̷͘t̕ ̷̧al̵͘͜m̢͞͝o͞s̴t͝ ̵̛e̶͡v̨҉ęr̷y̸̴͞t̛͜h̀͡͞in̶g̀͢͝,̡͜͡ ̧̛j́͏̡u͜͞s̷͘͜t̶͘ on̵̸e ̸͜m̷o͢͢r͏͢e̸ t̴̡h̕͞i̵̵̛n̢̢g̸̢͠.͢.̴.̴”
With that, several tendrils shot from the mass at dizzying speed, grasped the cultist, and dragged him into the mass. Choking slime flowed into his mouth and nostrils, filling his lungs. For a moment, the cultist felt panic, but it was immediately overtaken by a severe depression. He deserved this, really. He’d done horrible things to others in the name of envy… maybe it’d just be better if…
NO! No, that wasn’t him! He deserved glory! Everything they had should be his! It couldn’t end like this! It couldn’t!
As the cultist finally began to black out, he felt a tendril gently caressing his face, like a collector confronted with a cherished centerpiece.
“M̶̨y͘͝ ͏́f͡͝i̷͠r̷s͜ţ̵̡ r̢̧ę͜͠a͘ĺ ̢͘c̢ul̸͝tíst͝͡͞!̷̀ Y͢͞ou’̡͢r̷e̴͢ ͘g̵͘o͘ìn̸g̨ ͝͏rìg̢͜ht ͢o̶͡n̵ th҉̸͘e͜ ̨͡m͟͡a͏̴nt̛͟҉l͞҉̸e̛҉!”
1 Week Later…
Melancholia briefly extended his consciousness past the confines of his realm, examining the mortals on their own turf. To be precise, he focuses on an executive. The last one on his list. All it really took for this one was a simple whisper in his ear, a silent message from an invisible tormentor.
“S̡he̵͝’̸̨d̸͞ ̶͘b͟e͘ ̢̢͢a̛̕s͢ha̧͠m̸̧͜e̷̸d͜,͏̸͡ ͘yo̵̧̕u ͜ķn̸̡o̷͟w͢͡.͠.̴.”
And with that, his work was done. By the end of the month, all of these men would be depressed wrecks. Melancholia chuckled to himself, examining the preserved cultist on his mantle, his lips frozen in a scream of terror, black bile choking his systems, even filling his eyes. Sure, he supposed he’d gotten a bit greedy in setting his price…
But Melancholia always kept his end of the bargain.
Bile Fascination
Lord freakin’ help me, I can’t stop creating new characters for this. This one’s another demon, because I feel like we’re critically lacking in demons that aren’t immediately slain by some character or another, and because eldritch abominations with distinctly human personalities are my personal favorite thing. So, meet Melancholia, the Fourth Humor Demon, representing Black Bile and its general associations.
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Somehow, nobody had ever explained to Melancholia that a fascination in mortals like the Humor Demon had was generally uncalled for. That generally, when a demon was fascinated in something, it kept the collection of its fascinations well hidden and isolated. And nobody had ever bothered to tell Melancholia that generally, humans were lower beings on the totem pole than demons who barely deserved more respect than gum on one’s shoe. Not that he’d believe them, of course.
But, for what it was worth, Melancholia was a relatively new demon, spawned from the black puddle of ooze the former Melancholia had dissolved into when she was slain in honorable combat with her destined rival Sanguinum. And Melancholia was certainly not a NORMAL demon, either. His favored shapes were entirely mortal in origin, be they animal or human in shape, and unlike the dozens of Melancholia throughout the millenniums, he favored male shapes. He was a bit of an outcast, even amongst the other three Humor Demons, who were surprisingly close for all their squabbling.
This newness, combined with generally being ignored by the rest of the demon population, lead to him taking solace in mortality. Their art, their traditions, their history… and their music. ESPECIALLY their music. Humanity had put so many exquisite emotions into song. Their happiness, their anger, their sadness, oh yes their sadness! And so Melancholia was basically the demon equivalent of that nerd who spent all their time focusing on their collections. And for some reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on, poor Melancholia was FASCINATED with Alcor the Dreambender.
He couldn’t figure it out. Alcor was extremely powerful, capable of wiping out Melancholia in an instant, but Melancholia couldn’t think of anyone else who fascinated him on such an individual level. And so, whenever he could, he followed, and analyzed, and studied Alcor as much as he possibly could. Every day, he was sure he was closer and closer, and one day he found it. The problem was, breaking his discovery to Alcor in the most tactful, least-likely-to-get-me-mashed-to-paste way possible…
Alcor sighed, finally relaxing for a moment in the dreamscape. It had been a busy Halloween, dozens of cultists summoning him to fulfill tasks, and some terrified teenagers summoning him for their idea of Halloween funtimes. Now was the moment to take a load off, if only for a bit… He watched a sheep approach him, and… wait a minute, that wasn’t one of his sheep. For one thing, the wool was simply too… uniform. The puffs were all the same size, there were no stray wisps… For another thing, it was made entirely of black sludge and had no face to speak of.
“ALCOR OH MY GOSH I AM A HUGE FAN!” the sheep said, shortly before dissolving entirely and becoming a slick black puddle on the grass, exuding a smell that could only be called “Significant Lack Of A Shower”.
Alcor looked down at the puddle of ooze, already preparing to destroy it, before a tendril sprouted and formed a hand in the universally-recognized “Stop” gesture. “Wait! Please don’t smite me! I’m just a super huge fan and I wanted to talk to you!
Suddenly, two arms began to pull themselves from the ooze, followed by a head and an entire upper body, the ooze clinging and spreading across the new arrival’s torso and arms, and the rest of the man as he pulled himself up. Eventually, the outfit solidified into a black t-shirt, black cargo shorts, and black sneakers. The man’s hair was also dark enough to be mistaken for the night sky, and covered a single eye.
“Hi!” he said. “I’m Melancholia! And oh my gosh, I’ve waited for so long to just talk to you like this!!!”
Alcor tried not to be horrifically disgusted with this newcomer, who was so obviously a demon that you’d have to be not paying attention at all to not already realize.
Melancholia reached into the still-remaining puddle of ooze next to him, rifling through the gunk. “Little Shop Of Horrors Soundtrack, no… broken MP3 player, certainly not… original manuscript of "The Epic Of Gilgamesh”… Oh, there we are! Now, I just wanted to-“
Before he could even continue, there was a clawed hand around his throat and Melancholia was lifted bodily into the air. Alcor seemed to have reached his limit. "Please, explain to me why I shouldn’t end you RIGHT THIS MINUTE?”
Melancholia squeaked a bit, and immediately dissolved into more black gunk, sliding through Alcor’s fingers and glopping its way to the other puddle. Sliding in, the puddle immediately dissolved into nothing more than a black crust on more the grass, leaving the notebook behind.
Alcor, in his curiosity, opened the notebook. It had to be something important, for a demon to just outright approach him. Inside were a variety of observations, written quotes from conversations he’d had in the past, and even various sketches, mostly incomplete, of Alcor himself outside of his main form. On the final page, only a few words were written, circled and surrounded by hastily scribbled exclamation points and arrows.
“ALCOR WAS ONCE A MORTAL.”
Alcor felt fear grip his heart. Someone knew?!? Oh no, he was absolutely finished, there’s no way they’d take him seriously now! What was he going to…
“And it is THE COOLEST! Don’t tell anyone, they don’t deserve to know!!!”
Oh. Well then. He still hoped that weird Melancholia demon never bothered him again.
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Be honest, is this garbage? Should I just stop?
Also, I apologize for the pun in the title.
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