after supper walk a mile

Gabriel de le Poer · 01-25-2010, 03:21 AM

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Word Count: 502

In Character

The dead animal lay at his feet, staring up into the cloudy, graying sky with those brown, empty eyes. Gabriel, still panting, still unwilling to put weight on his arm, remained standing and staring down at the doe. An hour ago, she was alive, and whole. Now her body was all that was left, and they would consume it as biology demanded. Vaguely, he recalled the wound on his side, and let his right hand travel to inspect the fur over the wound. He was no longer bleeding, and the texture felt thick, sticky, and unwelcomed against his fingers. Irritated by the wound, more then he was by anything else that had happened this afternoon, he pulled the hand back and grunted with displeasure. They were in a war and he had managed to get himself hurt by chasing a deer—a limping deer at that.

His mouth opened, exhaling a breath of gray white steam as his tongue rolled up to touch the back of his teeth, traveling to their faces as he tasted iron and found this comforting. Blood was not something he had ever considered a desire, but he had begun to accept that such a thing was needed. He was certain that everything he had ever harmed had been out of a need, and not a want. The deer had died silently, but he had always needed that sound he had managed to hear so rarely. Conri had been the first, with that horrible, awful, incredibly ecstatic cry that had made his head spin and a dizzying rush of colors flood his vision. But now, though, there was no color. Only the gray tones of the Waste and the brown coat of the doe laying at his feet. Suddenly, Gabriel felt very hollow, and knew that one thing alone would cure this. Blood.

Kaena’s scent came rushing down from the caves, and he looked up from where he stood to spy his mother making her way towards him. She looked so small to him, so weak and tired, and he ached not only for himself but for her. It was pathetic that he had not been able to kill her assailant, and he would not rest so long as Haku Soul walked the earth. The devil wolf needed to fall, and once he did, Inferni would no longer need to ready itself for war daily. He considered this, and a thousand other things, right up until the doe’s dark brown eye pulled away from his own and began to follow the path his mother was carving in the thin snow and worn grass. Silently, Gabriel followed after her, grabbing the other leg of the deer with his right hand, unwilling to make her drag the carcass alone. It was not entirely because he doubted her strength, for he knew she was able to handle herself, but he refused to look like he was unable or unwilling to assist when it was his duty as Aquila to do so.

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