El Como sat.
That was the entire act, the whole spectacle, the grand performance — him, lowering himself onto the cold stone like a man who had never quite figured out whether he was supposed to rule the world or just brood theatrically in corners. He had done both in the past, sometimes simultaneously, and both with equal amounts of dissatisfaction.
Now, however, the stone was not his chief concern. Nor was Tuke, poor lad, whose body he had only just slipped out of like an uninvited guest sneaking away before the landlord awoke. Tuke would be fine. Probably. Or at least not fatally inconvenienced. That was, in El Como's view, practically the same as being fine.
The concern — the irritation — the puzzle, the little itch gnawing at him now, was the matter of the runes.
They had started appearing weeks ago. Or was it months? Time had a way of becoming elastic when one's hobbies included jumping into people's bodies unannounced and making sarcastic remarks at their expense. The runes had first shown up as faint scratches, like half-finished doodles a bored god might leave on his palm. They had deepened since. Grown bolder. And every time he entered someone — "permeated," as he liked to call it, in the same way a bad smell permeates a cloak — the runes had flared a little more.
Now they were glowing.
Not white, not gold, not the noble silver that poets adored when trying to sound ethereal. No, the runes glowed bright black. A contradiction. A paradox. A color that wasn't a color, like a lamp lit from shadow itself.
It was beautiful. It was horrifying. It was also, frankly, inconvenient.
He held out his hand, palm upward. The runes coiled there, glowing against his skin. They looked like writing — ancient, delicate, purposeful. Runes that had been scribed by some higher design. At least, that was what a scholar would say. El Como, meanwhile, squinted at them and muttered:
"Of course. My body is now a walking chalkboard for cryptic scribbles. Because possessing people wasn't dramatic enough, clearly."
The rune on his wrist flickered, as if in offense.
"Oh don't look at me like that," he told his own arm. "You're the one glowing bright black, which, might I add, isn't even supposed to be a thing. If you're going to break the laws of chromatics, at least have the decency to look impressive about it."
The rune pulsed faintly. El Como rolled his eyes.
He leaned back against the stone, tilting his head toward the cavernous ceiling above. The castle walls stretched high, too high, designed less for practicality and more for theatrics. Everything in this blasted place was. And yet it was empty, as though someone had built a kingdom out of echoes and dust motes.
He considered the runes again.
The first theory: they were a curse. Curses were fashionable, after all. The sort of thing noble witches and disgruntled sorcerers liked to slap onto meddlesome intruders. He was, by his own generous admission, a meddlesome intruder par excellence.
The second theory: they were a gift. Some ancient, benevolent force blessing him with forbidden power. That one made him laugh. A short, sharp sound that echoed in the emptiness like a cough from the gods. Him, blessed? Hilarious.
The third theory: his body was, for lack of a better phrase, malfunctioning.
"Which," he said aloud, addressing no one, "would not surprise me in the slightest. If I were me — and unfortunately I am — I'd malfunction too. Years of abuse. Constant sarcasm. Chronic possession of other people's lungs. A body can only take so much before it starts scribbling its complaints in glowing black."
He flexed his hand. The runes stretched and coiled with the movement, as though they weren't merely on his skin but under it, alive, waiting.
It was both unnerving and absurdly theatrical. And he hated how much he appreciated the aesthetics of it.
Sitting there, he drifted into one of his customary spirals of thought — half-philosophical, half-ridiculous, wholly sarcastic.
"If these runes are supposed to scare me, they'll have to try harder," he muttered. "I've seen scarier things. I've been scarier things. Once I was inside a goat for three hours. Don't ask. But trust me, this isn't the worst my skin has looked."
The rune along his forearm brightened, as if scandalized.
"Oh, don't act offended," he said. "You're literally a tattoo that gives off the aesthetic of an existential crisis. That's your job. My job, apparently, is to sit here and look at you until I go mad. Which, by the way, is a terribly dull job description."
The rune pulsed again, brighter this time.
Something about it — about them — stirred a faint pull in his chest. A tug, like the way a word teeters on the edge of memory. He felt, absurdly, as though the runes were not just on him, but trying to speak through him.
"Marvelous," he sighed. "Haunted tattoos. Just what I needed. Why couldn't I get something normal? A scar that tells a good story. A birthmark shaped like a potato. No, I get the shadow-runes of doom, complete with personality. Lucky me."
He stared longer. The runes shifted — not moved, not exactly, but rearranged themselves when he wasn't paying full attention. Like words in a sentence that shuffled when you blinked.
It was unnerving. It was fascinating. It was deeply, deeply annoying.
"What are you trying to tell me?" he asked, his tone as dry as parchment. "Go on, enlighten me. Am I destined to conquer the world? Or am I destined to stub my toe on a cosmic rock and bleed bright black all over creation? Be specific."
No answer, of course. Just the faint hum, the glow of contradiction, the brightness of black.
He closed his eyes. Took a breath. Tried, against his better instincts, to listen.
And in that moment, something whispered. Not words, not quite — but impressions.
Untamed. Unfinished. Hungry.
He opened his eyes again. Snorted.
"Well, that's vague. Hungry. Splendid. I'm marked with the stomach grumblings of the universe. Perhaps if I feed you a sandwich, you'll glow properly instead of sulking on my arm like badly inked graffiti."
The rune dimmed slightly.
He smirked. "Thought so. Even cosmic parasites have no comeback to sandwiches."
Time passed — or pretended to. The castle's silence stretched, and El Como remained, tracing the runes with idle fingers, thinking, mocking, brooding.
He wondered what would happen if someone else saw them. Would they recognize the runes? Would they flinch? Bow? Laugh?
He imagined Tuke, waking and seeing the marks. Poor boy would probably faint, or worse, ask questions. And El Como loathed questions he couldn't answer with sarcasm.
"Better keep this my little secret," he muttered. "At least until I've figured out whether it kills me, empowers me, or just keeps glowing at inopportune times like some embarrassing magical rash."
The rune on his wrist twitched again, as if trying to correct him.
He smirked. "Oh, don't pout. You are a rash. A very fancy, very glowing rash. But a rash nonetheless. Own it."
He sat like that for a long time, the silence punctuated only by his own commentary. And if anyone had walked in then — anyone at all — they would have seen a strange figure in the dim castle light: a man half-shadow, half-mockery, with runes glowing black upon his skin.
A figure at once powerful, mysterious, and, above all, profoundly irritated with his own existence.
And he thought, not without a kind of bitter amusement:
"Well. If this is the beginning of my grand destiny, I can only hope it comes with a better seating arrangement. Because this rock is doing my back no favors."
The rock beneath him was hard, his patience was thin, and the runes were stubborn.
El Como exhaled sharply through his nose. He had been staring at his forearm for what felt like hours, and the runes had stared back, smugly refusing to provide anything resembling an explanation.
"You know," he muttered, "if you lot are supposed to be some ancient, sentient power, you're doing a terrible job of introductions. Where's the grand booming voice? The 'El Como, thou art chosen' nonsense? The dramatic lightning? I feel cheated. All I get is… bright black squiggles."
The rune nearest his thumb pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
He tilted his head. "Oh. That's it? A pulse? Marvelous. Thank you for that deeply clarifying gesture. Truly, I'm enlightened now. No further questions."
The rune didn't respond again.
"Figures," he said, scratching at his jaw. "Even my own skin ignores me. That's the level of respect I command these days."
He flexed his fingers, watching the black light slide across his knuckles like spilled ink that refused to behave. An idea crept in — a reckless, half-baked thing, the sort of idea he specialized in.
Experimentation.
Because if one is cursed, one might as well prod the curse with a stick.
"Alright," he told the runes, "let's see what you do when I…"
He clenched his fist. Nothing.
He spread his fingers wide. Nothing.
He shook his arm like a man trying to dry his sleeve in the rain. Still nothing.
He scowled. "Brilliant. I'm branded with cosmic graffiti that's less responsive than a tavern drunk. At least drunks will sing if you poke them hard enough."
He thought a moment. Then, because he was equal parts genius and fool, he whispered:
"Light."
The rune brightened. Just a flicker, but enough to make his heart thump once, annoyed at itself for caring.
"Well, well," he said. "So you can hear me. I knew it. You're just stubborn. Wonderful. I've got sentient tattoos with commitment issues."
He tapped his arm. "Do that again. Light."
The rune flickered once more.
He barked a laugh, sharp and humorless. "Oh, splendid! I've discovered the arcane equivalent of a candle. Truly, the heights of power are mine."
He paused, looked around the cavernous chamber, and muttered: "Next step: I'll invent the world's first sarcastic flashlight."
For a while, he tested words like a schoolboy tormenting an insect.
"Fire." Nothing.
"Darkness." Nothing.
"Bread." Still nothing.
"Cheese." The rune dimmed, as though ashamed of him.
"Don't judge me," he said flatly. "Cheese is a perfectly valid experiment. Some of the most powerful things in history have involved cheese. Wars. Treaties. Constipation."
Still nothing.
He sighed and leaned back. "Fine. Only 'Light.' How thrilling. I'm truly spoiled for options. At this rate, I'll terrify enemies by politely illuminating their shoelaces."
His thoughts drifted.
He remembered the first time he'd noticed the runes, faint as spider scratches along his wrist. It had been after he left the body of a scholar — a pompous man who had smelled strongly of ink and onions, and who, El Como suspected, had never once in his life laughed at anything that wasn't a footnote.
When he had slipped out of the man's body, El Como had glanced at his arm and seen the faint lines. He had thought, at the time, that it was just irritation. After all, possessing someone was messy business. Bodies weren't built to be shared. Sometimes you left bruises. Sometimes you got splinters. Sometimes, apparently, you got faint runes of destiny.
He had ignored it, naturally. Ignoring ominous things was one of his talents. But the runes hadn't ignored him. They had grown.
And now here they were, glowing black, mocking him silently like an audience of critics he had never asked for.
He scratched the back of his neck and muttered, "If you're going to be permanent, at least be useful. A weapon, perhaps. A shield. Something. Not this glowing-when-I-say-'light' trick. That's just sad."
The rune near his elbow pulsed faintly, like a cough.
"Oh, what's that? Protest? Sorry, did I wound your pride? Well, welcome to my life. I wound everyone's pride. It's practically a service I provide free of charge."
He rubbed his temple, exasperated. "Gods above. I'm arguing with my own skin. This is the lowest point of my week. And mind you, this week I also possessed a donkey by accident, so the bar was already subterranean."
Still, he couldn't stop staring at the runes. The contradiction of them fascinated him. Bright black. It was wrong, and yet it worked. Like laughing at a funeral. Like a knife that healed as it cut.
He whispered, softer now, "What are you?"
For once, no sarcasm followed. Just the question, floating in the empty chamber.
The runes answered with silence.
He sighed, long and weary. "Typical. Even my own curse has better things to do than talk to me."
And then — because the universe loved to torment him — something did happen.
The runes flared, sudden and sharp, flooding the chamber with their impossible glow. Bright black spilled like shadow-light across the walls, chasing the darkness into corners where even darkness looked confused about its role.
El Como froze.
"Oh," he said. "Well. That's new."
The runes writhed along his skin, twisting, shifting, rearranging into a pattern he had never seen before. It was writing, unmistakably writing, curling letters that formed and dissolved too quickly for him to read.
He leaned closer, squinting at his own arm. "Hold still, damn you. If you're going to be cryptic, at least give me time to misinterpret you properly."
The letters twisted again. His eyes caught a word — maybe. Or maybe it was just his brain making desperate sense of nonsense.
"Feed."
He blinked.
"…Feed? Really? That's it? After all this brooding, you reveal your great cosmic purpose: hunger? Congratulations, you're officially no different than a tavern dog."
The runes pulsed harder, almost angrily.
"Oh, don't start with me," he said. "You want food? Fine. Do you take bread? Soup? The occasional turnip? Or do you prefer the souls of the innocent, because I'll tell you right now, I'm fresh out of those."
The runes dimmed, sulking again.
He spread his hands, exasperated. "Marvelous. I've been cursed with the world's pickiest parasite."
He sat back, head thunking against the stone wall.
Somewhere deep in his chest, the pull returned — that gnawing sense, that impression of hunger. And for the first time, El Como wondered if the hunger wasn't the rune's, but his own.
Which, naturally, he refused to admit aloud.
Instead, he muttered, "If this ends with me eating salad, I'm going to be furious..."