06-22-2008, 09:14 PM
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  Maybe now's a good time for Tayui to come in?  He was relieved to see that Lubomir still lived, though he didn't seem to be in the best of states. After his amber eyes analyzed his comrade's health and ascertained that his life was not in immediate danger, he shook his head and turned his eyes back to the dying coyote. They had won...miraculously, they both lived. "She still lives, and she might still for some hours yet. I will need to finish her...but I will grant her final words, if she is in a state to give them." He rose from Lubomir and knelt before the fallen coyote. "Your days of slaughter are over, SteelRose. The wound you have taken is fatal." Though his words were victorious, his voice did not have that ring about it. She was going to die, and it was because of her pointless aggression. "I know that," she said, her legs bracing weakly against the earth. It was clear that a near maddening pain was coursing through her body. "I know both of those things...I opened lots of bellies in my time." It was strange to see this terror of a woman broken so. Even her musical voice was skewed by the blood in her nose. "I just..." Her eyes had been watering from the pain, and though she tried to hold them back, a narrow stream went down onto her left cheek. "Was your father a black-furred wolf, my yellow-haired man?" He was taken aback by the question...both by the irrelevance of the subject matter as well as the fact that she maintained enough spunk to still call him that stupid name despite the circumstances. If his father had been black in color, he might have assumed she'd known him, but he wasn't. Skoll was predominantly yellow, his father was gray and tan, his mother tan and gold and white. "No," he replied, "My father was gray and light brown, with a little bit of yellow that was a little darker than my coat." He paused after his reply, seeing the confusion on her face. "Why?" "Because I was just thinking...as I'm lying here, looking at my own guts, I miss my family. A black wolf came into the human house we lived in one night and killed them all...that happened a long time ago. I saw him...he was the most frightening thing I'd ever seen...and I remember now that he looked a lot like you. I thought maybe he was your father...he would have been too old to be you." She let her head fall back to the ground roughly...more of a jerk than anything. The pain had to be excruciating. "This takes a few hours, right?" "Or a few days," Skoll nodded, glad she had missed him wince when she described what had happened to her family. He knew who she was talking about. It wasn't a truth he wanted to deal with right now. "Yeah..." she coughed red ichor as her voice trailed off. "My sword is hard to do this with...can I borrow something shorter?" She indicated the blade in his left hand, and he nodded in comprehension. "I could..." "I'll do it myself, if it's all the same." Certain that she wasn't able to get up and do anything against himself or Lubomir with it, he handed her the blade. She took it up in her left hand, and studied it for a moment. "It's really nice," she said after a moment. "It looks like it stole the red right out of the rose...I'll name you SteelRose, and you can take the rest of the red from me to make yourself the prettier." She took the blade tip and ran it down the length of her right wrist with one deft stroke. Switching hands carefully and a little clumsily for the self-inflicted wound, she wrapped the four fingers of her right hand around the handle and inflicted an identical wound to her left wrist. She let her arms fall to her sides, and closed her eyes. "Only a few more minutes left," she said in a strange voice that was at once both child-like, and weary as any adult voice could be. She said no more, but Skoll knew that her consciousness still persisted for at least a few more moments. He had no parting words for her...it was a sad time, yes, but she was a monster. Despite her strangely honorable conduct in her demise, the world was still far better without her. Nevertheless...knowing that VoidFane killed her family made him wonder just how many lives his great grandfather had ruined. ~The lyrics are from the best song ever written. |