07-15-2010, 07:27 PM
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Once, there had been fear. It had been a certain and tangible thing, something he could touch and fathom. In the weeks since that fire (which was not the first and certainly not the last) something had begun to change within him. This change had been deep and quiet, an undertow that had ripped from him anything it could grasp. No longer was there fear, and no longer was there the certainty that he had once carried. Once he believed he could save his family, but in the years and months and weeks that had passed, he realized that they too were doomed. All of them were destined to suffer, to wither and crumble and die, and he could do nothing about it.
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Once, there had been fear. It had been a certain and tangible thing, something he could touch and fathom. In the weeks since that fire (which was not the first and certainly not the last) something had begun to change within him. This change had been deep and quiet, an undertow that had ripped from him anything it could grasp. No longer was there fear, and no longer was there the certainty that he had once carried. Once he believed he could save his family, but in the years and months and weeks that had passed, he realized that they too were doomed. All of them were destined to suffer, to wither and crumble and die, and he could do nothing about it.
That one simple fact had filled him with a terrible coldness. What he had been afraid of was not that chill, which had sunk into his bones, but the fact he had not only liked it, but embraced it. So he had walked into the thick-fog night without fear. There was only anticipation. Death was coming, oh yes, but not death for him.
Gabriel sensed the approaching typhoon seconds before he heard it. A heavy thunder, muted by paws capped with black claws, carried doom towards him. Almost instantly he had moved, the metal tip of the spear lowered and waiting. His Shadow-brother would come, and he would leap for the throat—if he could get that sharpened point into the beasts throat it would be over.