and then it falls.

Anatole Aston · 09-22-2012, 09:51 PM

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A deep instinct had warned him that outside was dangerous. He had smelt the rain and felt the wind, watched it with fear deep in his heart. Anatole had seen storms before—he had lost his brother to one, though this memory was ingrained into older fears that trailed back to true wolves and he was not willing to make the connection to that lost thing that had once been his blood. Fear had driven him underground to wait, listening, until finally he slept.

Water woke him. An unholy fear filled him to the point of panic and he scrambled for the entrance, nearly hysterical. Even the calming voice of that invisible guide could not calm him, so deeply ingrained was his fear. He wheeled and stared, wide-eyed, at the mouth of his home. It was apparent now why the water had begun to flood in—the uppermost lip of the mouth had been worn by the sheer quantity of the storm’s wrath. Even as he watched, horror-stricken, mud and twigs and gallons upon gallons of the rain sloshed into what was—or had been—his home.

Then he finally heard Donoma. He heard her but did not hear words, only felt that he must go. He trusted his instincts, her guidance, and he trusted these things because the message was too terrible to ignore even in the wake of his own loss.

So he thundered through the forest even as the storm thundered ahead, slipped in a muddy mass that had not been there before and rose half-covered in the stuff. He pushed himself to his feet and focused, with desperate need, on gaining hands. They would need them to face this storm, and like it or not, he would need them. Black fur spilled from his shoulders as the water soaked him, as his bones cracked and ached, and as the mud dripped from his body.

Then he was running again, following her voice. He burst through the treeline in time to see the grayish mass of his cousin enter the place and feel all the ancient fear rise up in one terrible cry. It bellowed forth from his mouth even as he rushed forward, even as he saw the stones and earth collapse. White hands turned black as he scrambled, frantically, to shove aside the wet ground and stones. He was calling his cousin’s name the whole time, though his voice was lost in the storm’s howling gale.

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