Wapun Meadow What Rough Beast

The feeling hadn't left, even as the sun dragged above and below the horizon another three times. In fact, it had gotten stronger. Mephistopheles had followed the tugging on their soul, desperate to find what had so disquieted them.

And what had was the source of a strange dream.

It had come in shades of blood and fire, senseless but wrong in all ways. Somewhere in their soul, Mephisto knew it was tied to their hunt. There could be no other explanation, they had seen red.

In the dream, the blue of the sky had turned black, but they knew it to be day. The sun had burned with a scarlet flame, thrashing and and screaming in countless voices young and old as it tried to esape the sky. There was a sense of a kind of barrier, elastic and all but see through that kept it from falling to the land below. It had reminded Mephistopheles of the surface of still water.

They hadn't been able to focus on that, however. The screams and the sun's battle to break through had cast the world in forever shifting blackness and burning red light. Strobing like carmine sunlight through leaves to dapple the land in shifting shadows.

Through it all, they had stood rooted in place. Even as a great mass had begun to lurch its way towards him, silhouetted and black as moonless night. Countless forms made one great crowd, filled with endless teeth and eyes. It was the end.

The dream had left them hyperventilating upon awakening, their black fur on edge and their eyes wide to the point of strain. It couldn't be let alone, something was coming. Something terrible and grim, it would tear flesh and break bone. There would be blood.

Red blood. Like the flowers dotted through this meadow, peeking out from their less rubescent brethren.

Mephistopheles came to a stop before one such flower, staring down at it in thought.