Tallygrin — The Tithe-Gnawer

His grin keeps count,
each tooth a debt.
He comes when oaths sour,
and leaves you lighter.
 
Tallygrin was birthed from the margin where signatures rot. The Codex carved marks in the dark and the marks learned to bite. His mouth is a ledger: every tooth a broken vow, every gap a debt already paid in bone.

He appears when bargains overripe begin to stink—at bedside, at threshold, at the edge of a whisper. Coins tarnish in his presence, ink curdles, and the tongue that swore grows heavy. He collects not gold but what was promised: a day of life, a secret, a name. Refuse him, and he tallies interest in flesh; his bite leaves rows like notches in wood.

Scorpion’s venom blackens the teeth he counts, and he grins wider. For the Codex made Tallygrin keeper of arrears—there is no plea, only payment. When his chewing stops, something you thought was yours is gone, and the ledger closes with a click of enamel.