Impulse control wasn’t one of his strongest attributes. It was sheer luck that he hadn’t torn out his own beating heart just to see what would happen. It wasn’t as though he’d die, he knew. He was immortal. His flesh was rotting away and his bones showed through the skin, but he would not, could not die, no matter how hard he tried. He inhaled sulfuric fumes and he exhaled maggots and darkened, viscous muck. His eyes were hollow sockets and his lips a jackal grin, exposing elongated canines. The she-yote cared for him at his command, for he couldn’t bother to care for himself. Immortals didn’t need to eat and maintain as lowly, unworthy mortals. It had been a long, long time since he’d felt hunger or thirst. He ate and drank out of habit, not necessity.
Another might gaze on him and see only a frightful, skeletal beast, but Samael saw himself in a far different light. He remained the ethereal child of his youth, with a face carved by the hands of angels. Once, he’d truly been beautiful. Once, he’d been fine-boned and elegant, but that was a long, long time ago. He was withered now. Scars knotted across his flesh, marring him. Introspect was through a filthy, broken mirror showing only what he wanted to see. He crept along the coast, dreaming of her, and dreaming of the Angel, though he dared not step too close to the skull and pike border just ahead. No, he turned away, heading back along the sea, trudging through the snow and slicing his worn, weathered pad on a shard of ice.
Pain was subjective. He felt nothing.