They'll Rise.

Ergot let go, simply dropping the human doll he held so cherished in his grasp and in his arms.

Raising his eyes to the scene that revolved slowly with his torso, he stroked his hair with his arms covered in her blood, as the rest of his body was splattered with countless others. Another stand still and he smiled, pausing to enjoy the vapors of rapid decay, rigamortis, the smell of copper mines splayed for floor harvesting. He walked and twirled as his lute lay, and suddenly the urge, the carnal urge deployed in his mind. He ran to the lute in the corner, sliding in someone's bloody mary spilled below, skidding and falling. His hands were imprinted in congealment, and Ergot rose, pausing to smell what he got himself into. It was beauty spilled and entrenched within his fingerprints. It wouldn't have tasted good, like a ladybug in June, but he had the craving to clean these ghastly wounds. He didn't.

Ergot giddily jogged to the lute, a matter of feet away. Sliding again, bumping against someone's splayed hand, smacking his damp hands against the spotless walls of Larkin's castle and sarcophagus. Watching his imprints dry, he picked up the instrument of emotion that was his own and struck the strings lightly, listening to them echo. In the back ground, there were always yells and cries, but that was just the audience swooning. That was just their hunger and lust. Ergot couldn't do anything about it, it was part of the show. It was the beauty of chaos that lit his fire, that made him play harder and harder. Resolute, back bent slightly in a defensive gesture against the crowd, he pushed forward against invisible forces with one hand, protecting his gorgeous with the arm entangled around it.

Suddenly, Ergot's ears pricked up and he stood straight, in the center of the ball room with bodies strewn. His audience was laying down for sleep, and he had to nurture their dreams. So stretching and cracking the tissue and cartilage within his bony hands and fingers, he kneeled on one knee, taking a statuesque pose and making the notes scream and cry and lull his rotting crowd asleep. His children needed to lay down for the night, with sweet chords to let them imagine from within.

A sort of Zen was reached, and time took a joy ride. Ergot was entranced, and he listened to the effortless screams in the back ground, virtually inept at realizing that they were not for him. And even at that, it wouldn't matter. They could have been the screams of dying children, banshees, or fantasy creatures valiantly dying. Ergot still would have played, for anyone remotely hearing his lute was the fan he'd die for. And, as tonight showed, play for among the hurt, the dying, the mourning, and yes, the dead.