[Ashen Hunt] Death Masks

Back when Lucas was in his late teens to early twenties, he read several psychology books in an attempt to understand the wiring in his brain. One of the books he came across focused on Freud's work on the two fundamental drives within humans; Eros and Thanatos. Eros represented the drive for pleasure, love, and creation whereas Thanatos represented the drive for death and destruction. For all the flack Freud got about his various research methods--which were admittedly deeply flawed at times--the Fairest had to give it to him when it came to those drives; the struggle within him resonated with what he read.

There was a powerful urge inside of him to drop the knife and check on Fawkes. As awful as tonight was, come tomorrow night Lucas would be able to wash the blood off of his hands. He could go to a wild Spring party and lose himself in any number of intoxicants. He could show up at Dani's door with takeout and watch spoopy movies until sleep overtook him. Hell, he could even show up at Eurydice's doorstep and lose himself in some kind of adventure with her. Whereas for the Elemental,  his hands would become bloodied again and again. It was one thing to have Sedna give him a run down on what the Mourners had to do, it was another to actually be in their position, preparing to stain his own hands with death.

Out of the two drives, Thanatos was winning. The drums of war roared violently in his ears while his heart became heavier with sorrow. Often times, humans and Lost alike tend to view sorrow as a passive feeling. An emotion that draws you away from everyone and everything and deep into isolation. While that was often true, sorrow also created a ripple effect of emotions. The sorrowful thought that haunted his mind was how the Gentry had made it a necessity that someone would have to become a butcher on a nightly basis.  He wasn't wrong to be upset over the Freehold's apathetic attitude towards the suffering both the Sunbanishers and mortals went through after the events of the failed rite.  However, when it came down to it, the real culprits were the Gentry. They forced all of them to live in a constant state of fear. Combine all of that fear with magical trauma on top of mundane psychological trauma and it was a recipe for disaster. 


Instead of his mind spiraling into a pit of hopelessness, his sorrow took him in another direction. A different kind of anger started to brew inside of him. A violent, destructive anger. He could feel a cold sweat break out over him and pool up by the nape of his neck as adrenaline rushed through him. For so long he had been afraid of touching the ugly anger that brewed inside of him when he came across an injustice like this. He suddenly realized that he didn't have to extinguish this anger; he needed a better outlet for it. The Gentry were ruthless abominations who deserved no empathy, mercy, or semblance of decency. Any misfortunate that fell upon them could never be considered cruel because the atrocities they committed would make any act of kindness towards them an act of cruelty.

The magical nature of the knife helped him compartmentalize his actions. Instead of processing the reality of what he was doing, he dived into an angry fantasty, picturing the face in front of him belonging to Necropolis. He had no idea what Necropolis actually looked like in a manifested humanoid form. In his nightmares, the Gentry looked like a cloaked figure with various, terrifying masks. His eyes narrowed on the face and he began to carve away at it until it was no longer a face. It was a flap of skin that easily peeled off and looked like some kind of latex horror prop. 

He didn't shriek away from the body or vomit like he thought he would have when the task was first given to them. The Fairest made a promise to himself that he would uphold the oath that he pledged to Sedna and he would carry the Mourner's sorrow for them tonight.