The Truth about Justice

[Alaine Winters]

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http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/vv28 ... table2.png); background-position:top; background-repeat:no-repeat;"> ooc: Thanks again Marit for this lovely table! My first thread. Please let me know if there are things I must change! :3 BTW, not all my posts will be this large. Infact, this will be the only monstrous-sized one. Sorry about that! THE TRUTH ABOUT JUSTICE ... Is that there is none. To live, you have to be better than right, better than strong, better than heart-felt. You have to be cunning. She ran, shadows at her heels as they skipped through darkness so black that it blinded her vision, tore at her throat. Nothing more than a silhouette in the dusk, the night that yawned like a gaping mouth and ate the world. Ate her. Ate him. No, never him. The bundle in her mouth squirmed slightly, a small murmur of fitful dream slipping from maw not before tainted with the foulness of angst or anger. The she-dog grimaced, her eyes burning brightly with unshed, unfelt tears in the growing darkness as her son, her tenuous hold to this fragile space of mind, whined. The soft sound, so full of terror and pain, rent at her heart much more than the slashes at her sides, the wounds on her throat, her legs, her stomach... The fight had been brief but disastrous, and now the mother was running on her last pair of legs. How many moons had it been since the terror, the pain, the flight? A choked sob split through the she-dog's maw, muffled by the twitching bundle held there, cradled like the most precious of gold and jewels. Her memory was blank, a soothing wall of darkness that engulfed everything but the need to escape. The need for safety. The need to be there, be there, hurry, hurry; For Caillen, she had to. For Caillen. Be where? Eyes of purest emerald lifted now to the land that was around her; Pine trees, elevated so high above that their ghastly limbs seemed to reach to the very sky, tear at the dark expanse. The stars, lost between skeletal fingers of bark and leaf, were but winking eyes seen only between the rush of her feverish tears. The pup in her maw moaned again, the sounds stabbing at her sanity. How long had she been running? The pads on her feet were a wreck, a mess of scars and fresh blood that invisibly marked the ground behind them. A scent trail that would be their undoing, if they didn't reach somewhere soon. If they didn't reach somewhere before he reached them. The father was in her head; his snarling face a livid thing, a horrible thing as it clawed at mind's eye. He was talking to her, that cold, lifeless tone that told the fanatical beauty everything she needed to know without actually listening. How had he found them? She was so weak, so weak; curled about her son. He wanted her son. He wanted her. I will kill you. I will kill you. In her half-unconscious state, delirium a haunting of ghastly faces and memories, the she-dog snarled; the sound rent the air about them, more a scream than the hollow threat it was meant to be. Her beautiful body, more lithe and hairless than that of a wolf, shuddered and tripped; protruding ribs slammed forward into the ground, head twisted backwards as she threw the bundle forwards to save him from being crushed by the fall. Earth rose up to meet her; teeth came down hard upon tongue as pedigree head collided with the ground, fangs piercing through the soft flesh as glorious green eyes rolled back up into her head. Blood drizzled from the corner of the delicate, shapely maw as body slid to a halt; lush green grass sprang back up about her fallen, sickly-famished frame as if it had never been flattened in the first place. Darkness blotched out her vision of the forest, one last, horrible moan splitting from that mouth as it eclipsed all beyond. Caillen? I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... ------------------- He had been having that dream again. The eyes, the red, red eyes that hunted him down. Where was mama? Where was his mama? Those flashing white teeth were back, spread in a wicked sneer as they closed about his trembling body... Jolted awake by the sudden movement of his carrier, Caillen opened bleary ice blue eyes to the world. His heart was thudding, a thunderous beat of fear and fever as the little thing whined into awareness. His tail, a curl of soft color, tickled spine and he wriggled in response, little mouth widening onto a yawn as those shadowed sights blinked drowsily. He could feel his mother's breath, a sharp rush between her teeth at his scruff as her body jerked unsteadily with the run. She is sobbing, again... Had been doing that on and off for some time now. That little mouth opened to tell her that it was fine, he was fine, they were fine, when she stumbled again; a snarl rushed past his frame, so frightfully vicious that the pup shivered in fright. Then they were falling, falling, falling, and he was being flung through the air, just as her body crashed to the ground where he would have been crushed. Little paws batted uselessly at nothing, searching the blankness for an earth that found him anyway. The scrawny bundle connected with the soil in a harsh thump, the air whooshing through his lungs as eyes watered at the sudden pain. The roaring in his ears began to dull, a new sound carrying through as the shocked little whelp lay listless on the soft earth - a moan, a cry, almost a howl in its crescendo. Mother! The shaking in his body doubled, that little frame a quaking mess of mottled terracotta, copper and cream fur as he slowly rolled onto his stomach. He was hungry... So hungry, but his mother needed him now. So Caillen crawled the meter between them, crawled the expanse of grass that seemed to take a life-time to conquer. He reached her head; sharp breath rushed through that bleeding mouth, heart beat faintly through her soft, beautiful pelt. "M-m-m-mama? Oh, mama... P-p-p-please wake up!" Tears flowed forth, but they went unheeded by the pile of fur before him. He was cold and hungry, so cold and hungry; abandoning the hope of reviving her, the whelp curled his body up against her chest, the soft beating of her heart lulling him into a fitful sleep. No justice. No justice.

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