pride and pain

Vesper · 11-02-2011, 10:32 AM

[html]

Set in late October at the Dampwoods border. For Enkiel.

Vesper was back at the borders of Inferni again. And, again, she was wounded.

This time, however, the physical scars went far deeper than her emotional ones. Her tawny pelt was tainted with crimson, though much of it was not her own. Her blood still drained from her gashes onto the earth, sapping her life energy and making every step weaker. By the time the skulls came into view, she was practically dragging herself.

With her vision growing darker every instant, the coyote hybrid understandably didn’t have many thoughts left to why she was doing this. Something told her to keep moving forward, even when she could make out the skulls hanging on the low tree branches.

Didn’t she know that the last time she approached the borders, she’d been attacked and driven off? Maybe part of her wanted to see that dusky jackal again, spit at him one last time, let him destroy her as he wanted to. If her death was quick, she wouldn’t mind. Perhaps in her next life, she’d do better.

The thought of finding help hovered in the back of her tattered mind, however, but why she was crawling toward a coyote clan was beyond her. The creatures who’d helped or wanted to help her before were young, often ditzy wolf girls, and she was certain she wouldn’t find someone so giggly and concerned here, in the clan of warriors she’d heard so much about.

But the clock was ticking. Vesper lifted her slender muzzle toward one of the wolf skulls and opened her mouth, as if to howl, as if to call for help. But instead she chuckled, even as her legs gave out and she crouched on the forest floor, shoulders shaking with irony and hate and pride and pain.

“Bloody beautiful.”

Image courtesy of venomxbaby@deviantart; Table by the Mentors!

Login




Remember me Lost Password?