Santeria had always been regarded as odd, even amongst the Khon Yakhi. Though the colony's entire culture revolved around death, blood, and the strong eating the weak, that didn’t mean that everyone necessarily enjoyed it. Most understood it as a necessary need for survival and held a quiet compemtment for what they had to do, but respected traditions and the sacrifices that prey made.
Santeria - on the other paw - reveled in death.
She found it exciting and fascinating. A part of life that opened up the ultimate euphoric experience in someone’s final moments. Ever since she was a cub, she had been fascinated by the study of those drawing their last breath. What did they experience, what were the stages of death, how best to ease the death, and what lay on the other side? How can those living celebrate death and incorporate it more into daily life? All of these questions and more, Santeria yearned for the answer to. She tossed herself into the study and documentation of all things death. She leveraged her noble status to gain access to sacrifices and the dying on levels that few were privileged to experience. Not out of greed for more blood, but pure academic purposes. She was well on her way to becoming the colony’s first expert death doula - someone who could offer comfort and ease the passing for sacrifices and members alike.
That was, until her entire world was shaken and flipped upside down. Her beloved father, who always encouraged her studies and eccentric personality, was captured, put on trial, and sentenced to sacrifice by the previous Sovereign. His quiet whispers of discontent with the Sovereign’s practices and bloodthirsty nature had finally reached the wrong ears.
Santeria could only watch in horror as her father was slowly beaten and tortured. Then, the Sovereign turned his attention to her and the rest of her family. They were presented with a very simple choice: Swear undying loyalty to the Sovereign and prove themselves loyal by consuming their traitor father, or join him in death.
Every single member of her family, aside from her, chose death over betraying their kin. Santeria steeled herself and looked into the mournful eyes of her father one last time. Though the Sovereign and the other loyalists couldn’t see it, her eyes burned bright with anger and vengeance as she regarded her father, making him a silent promise that would change the course of her entire life:
She would make all of them pay. She would kill every single last one of them and take delight in making them watch as she consumed their black hearts in front of their very eyes. She would avenge her family.
Then, she began to eat.
Every last morsel of her family’s bodies was consumed as a reward for their service by the Sovereign’s loyalists. Santeria’s place amongst the nobility of the colony was secured once again, and she was free to go as a proud and loyal member.
Her grand plots began that day. Eventually, leading her to Sephtis. As the enthralled son of the Sovereign, she saw an opportunity that would benefit them both. She secretly aided his rise in power and movement, providing supplies, intel, and sowing chaos to weaken the leadership surrounding the Sovereign by playing into his paranoia and fear. One by one, those who were previously deemed loyal were killed, and Santeria reveled in each of their deaths.
Till finally, the moment of judgment came for the twisted man who had robbed her of her family. The old Sovereign was dead, a new one in his place.
Santeria’s promise had been fulfilled.
Now that her mission of vengeance had been fulfilled, Santeria was left with an aching, empty hole in her heart. For years her life had been shaped and controlled by a singular goal, and now that she had completed that goal….well…she wasn’t quite sure where to go from here.
She was lost, but trying to find solace again in her old habits and studies, and offering counsel to the new Sovereign who was struggling to rebuild a colony that had been ravaged by a madman. Today seemed like it would be a counseling day rather than a death doula day.
“Sssephtisss.” She lowly purred, her long, extended fangs that poked through her upper teeth drawled out her S’s in an almost snake-like manner. Her pale pink eyes scanned him lazily up and down as she regarded him with curious interest. “And what reassson do I owe the pleasssure of your presssence today?”
Fairy Snails
