Velonnic Sin - The Lernæan Fiend

Another abomination of Echidna and Typhus
Rose from the pall with assailants nine—
Entangling maws that pulsed in one heart's time.

I watched twilight whisper
Shadows to the meager dead,
Then I contained my reticence
To set with murderous intent.
I stalked beside a crumpled man
Who butchered his kin in madness rent.

Repent drove his life-worn hands,
Cratered deep his wan visage—
Desire soaked his ravaged mind,
Coerced me as his charioteer.
Twin daggers our eyes and
The darkness our shroud…

He skinned the Nemean's pelt;
Then with restlessness atoned,
We sought in Cernitian shade
The fiend's tenebrous hole.

The flash of salient amethyst
Clashed upon our bold entrance.
And before us stood the wretched beast,
Braying in its black-throated dance—
It was an inexorable thing, monstrous and crushing…

He failed to sear its heart,
For each fallen pillar brought two in its start.
Until stemmed I its sadistic tremors
With flames that lapped in murmurs—
Halting its regenerating faculties.
We stopped its skin from clambering,
Staunching the blood from virile veins.
But the barrenness of attainment
Distills the conquest of reprisal—
The Lernæan Fiend

For after all his curtailed misery and pain,
Enrobed he lay in agony's throes—
Pulsing away in Oeta's pyre,
Soundless like our slaughtered foes.