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Remus had a passion for the art of creation, for the act of bringing life from nothing.
Most people with such a spark channeled it into gardening, into their little picket fence families, into puppeteering.
Some of those blessed with the magic that ran through Remus' veins, temporary life bestowed onto an item. Those who offered up an object for a ghost to inhabit safely and comfortably.
That's not the kind of creation Remus was in it for. He sought to understand creating life from undead, not a ghost, not vampiric, not mindless. Something tangibly human as created by him through unnatural means, something permanent.
He stared up at the hulking mass, built of the corpses with the thicker, fatter skin he could find that stitched together easiest. He looked into those gleaming eyes that reflected near golden in the moonlight, wrong for a human to possess but of no creature Remus had ever seen.
I've created something wholly new, he thought to himself, wonder mixed with fear in a way that made his stomach do cartwheels like it wanted him to throw up. What a sight that would be, to experience. You open your eyes to your creator and you're greeted with a vomit soaked front for your troubles.
He almost wished to do it. But his throat was scratchy and sore, the idea of drinking anything having left him a while into his creative process. Hunger gnawed at his bones, craving something to satisfy its maws. His hair and fingernails brittle, white streak more distinct and moustache unkempt.
He's neglected himself in the pursuit of this monster. Remus can't bring himself to care at all. Everything wrong with him can be fixed from a few visits to someone willing to waste energy healing him. His monster could not have begun to exist without his choices.
A lesser man would have taken the inhuman attributes of life created as an excuse to run, mad with terror, and dismiss the field that brought him to create it entirely. Remus needed to see how his monster fared with existence, what it chooses, how it acts. What is natural, what is not, what will it learn to desire?
Questions Remus could hardly wait to learn answers to. Oh, the time for it to know language could not come soon enough.
The exciting thrill didn't take long to wear off. His creation's ability to learn language was far superior than a regular humans; mainly because its brain already knew everything, it just needed to catch back up with the program in its new body.
That didn't stop it from being tedious, or strongly resembling being a real parent. Remus had come close to bailing quite a few times over these months because of it. He didn't sign up for parenthood by creating life in a whole new way. It's obvious in hindsight, but still boresome.
He could grit his teeth and bare it, though. If not for the interest of the developments, then for how his childhood buddy Virgil screamed at the sight of it. He then followed the scream with a punch to Remus' monster in the arm, which resulted in an upset mixed with angry look to cross its face.
Remus found that a nauseating mix of endearing and terrible. As much as Remus had daydreamed any number of people he knows—including himself—dying, he still didn't want that. Mostly himself dying, that's the worst option.
Apparently, Virgil was there because his family back home got worried about Remus. People do that when you send no letters or signs of being alive, it seemed. The idea of thinking about others when they're not next to you was a foreign concept to Remus. He'd let it slip his mind that not everyone thinks the same.
Virgil hadn't wanted to stay long. Remus could see it in his eyes, the wariness and distrust for Remus' monster, how tense his shoulders had remained even when Remus told it to leave the room.
There was another secret motive to Virgil's visit. An envelope that sat in his letter box, sogged through and unopened, read about the loving union of Janus Monroe and Roman Frankenstein. Virgil had been sent as a messenger to be sure Remus knew. An event that was going to be public, by Roman's desire of course, meaning their invited guests and a plus one.
If this wedding were earlier, during his crazed bloom of creation and invention, he would have declined, unwilling to stop. Were he still fresh off that high of life created successfully—not perfectly given the not-quite humanness—he would have declined, brimmed up with curiosity and knowledge to obtain.
But the allure of those had settled. All it left him with was a large creature who was grasping language basics now (could be as eloquent as his brother in another year), one that he was increasingly likely to get bored with.
His passion for his project, his monster, had been revitalised unintentionally by Virgil's appearance. The way they reacted to each other…it was invigorating. Remus' magic had been sparked anew. With the sheer level his blood seemed to vibrate, it felt like it would drip out of every crevice that it could—his mouth, his eyes, his nose, his ears. Everything.
For better or worse, his blood stays inside his body where it is supposed to be. Maybe if it didn't, it would have tipped Virgil off more strongly to question or decline Remus' agreement to go to the wedding. The assurance that he'll be able to find a plus one to satisfy Roman's wants with ease.
The plan settles itself into Remus' bones, etching into his skin, setting him alight with excitement.
Remus is going to set his monster on the wedding, its first tangible interactions with so many people all at once. Virgil was its first exposure to anyone other than Remus, the closest village so far away that it probably barely knew anyone but Remus existed.
All it had known was his makeshift hut surrounded by forest, one that he let it wander around whenever it wanted. He watched to see how it fared, the delightful discoveries (the ones that made it feel like maybe he never would get bored) most often happened out there.
Like the day it figured out fire for itself, that wooden sticks made light, the light was good and warm, and that warm meant safe. So surely a touch to the warm safe could only go well? He'd cackled at the burn it accidentally gave itself, seeming to learn very quickly why that's a bad idea.
Remus had memories of doing that himself as a child. It's why he understood that thought process so intrinsically. He let nature run its course, for his monster to learn by itself those things. It worked for him, why not his creation?
And now he has an all-new opportunity at his fingertips. He can throw his creation into the deep-end of humanity, of a wedding party, and bask in the chaos.
Oh yes, he's very excited indeed.
