He follows the elk until the shivers wracking his body nearly topple him off his feet, lacking the fat needed even to insulate his body -- he is entirely too thin for this kind of weather, hip-bones jutting out and ribs carving slats into his sides. He is empty of thought, of reasoning, only that broken shard of something from his childhood jabbing him every time he tries to stop -- don’t leave me, don’t leave me behind -- but even so, he loses the elk in the storm eventually. He falls to his knees in the deepening snow and barely feels the impact they have with the sharp ice beneath, the crimson liquid staining the sterile white beneath him. His breath catches in his chest, like knives in his lungs that slash every time he drags in another gasp of oxygen, and in a way he’s not even surprised by this turn of events. Everything in his life has left him at one point or another, never to return once they realized they were handling only broken glass and gasoline. How quickly had Jetsam left him when he’d realized that he would never be able to say those three words the other had craved? How quick had Elysium been to believe the worst of him, to write him off and cast him off? “So-fucking-what if I do,” He snarls in response to the words in the storm, shoving himself to his feet with herculean effort and swinging around to face the mare with pinned ears and bared teeth. There is blood streaming from his knees and freezing itself to his skin, a layer of snow stubbornly clinging to his neck and barrel, and he looks like the next stiff wind might blow him over -- but yet he readies himself for the fight, muscles tense and quivering. “Why don’t you fuck off back to your precious fucking court and leave me the fuck alone.” |
@Teiran
