Word Count » 520
He was late, and he knew that, but it took a while to get a baby ready to go to something like this, and what was even worse was that he could not find his master no matter where he looked and it was really worrying him. So after looking all over the place, he realized that he would probably be where there was blood. And since there would be fresh blood, he bet his master was already there. Feeling bad now, he shifted his jacket up on his shoulders before he reached down for Enigma, holding the pup close to him before he left, moving swiftly and quietly over the land. The baby seemed to be getting sleepy anyway so it was a good excuse for the child to take a nap in his father’s arms. Looking down fondly at the little child, Janos wound his way expertly through the trees until the smoke of the fires tantalized his senses, the call of blood pulling the high-ranked male towards the gathering. As he came upon the scene, he stayed near the back until a slave found him and he partook of the paste before he wound his way through the crowd, following the scent of his master. He saw many faces around that he didn’t know but he figured that it wasn’t something that was altogether too strange. After all, he was an arbiter, one of the boogeymen of the pack, it wasn’t like he associated with a whole lot of the more general population.
The heavily scarred male quietly took his place behind Bastion, reaching out to touch the other’s shoulder lightly to let him know that he was here and that Enigma was here, the pup shifting a bit in his sleep, the other sleeping very lightly. It was hard for the pup to stay asleep with all this excitement so Janos didn’t know how long it was going to last. He watched as Eris cut open the body of the wolf and it was hard for him to watch not because it was gory since that was a part of life, but rather because it brought back so many memories of what he had done in the past that it was painful. But he endured it with the same emotionless expression on his face that he had had on his face during that time too. It was just the way that things were that he ended up in this place and just his fate that he would have such bad memories attached to such a gruesome display. But a part of him couldn’t help but think that this was an incredibly beautiful display, as beautiful as it was horrendous to look upon. Looking over at his love, he stood protectively behind him, watching passively as the organ was thrown into the fire. What beautiful sparks it sent up, as if it were a last homage to the sacrifice and was an acceptance by the universe of the Salsolan ways. It was a quiet, reverential moment to him, his steely cold eyes trained on the flickering flames.
