The slip of winged shadow overhead still ignites him, like a discharge of electricity down his spine. His chest squeezes, constricting him to a tight coil; ears flicking forward and around. Primal habit drives him for a second, becomes him, and he thumps a back hoof, splaying dirty slush in a meager wake around it. It wasn’t so long ago—(no, actually, it was an achingly long time)—that a shade like that was a portent of sure death, driving him and his below ground for fear of being the one who doesn’t slip the grip of some beast’s talons today.
Being the one left in a calm shower of fur and some blood from the puncturing of the soft place around the spine where the grip had been sealed shut.
He exhales, shallow and shuttering down this tightened throat, his ruby eyes turn skyward to catch sight of this elil, to see for himself, in his preything’s mind, that which brings the rabbit to the surface with unwanted and uninvited precision. Still, after all this time— Yes, indeed, after all this time, for he is a severed soul. He still carries around the part of him that was exacted as payment for his petty foolishness as a cavalier young buck. Still, after years of repentance; after minutes spent trying to forgive himself; after seconds, drew long and sombre, lipping the rabbit’s skull that hangs (thump-thuump) against his breastbone.
But what he sees is far too big to be any bird of prey, so the next breath that is realized is long and hard and flushed with the bright flame of shame for such a weakling reaction. It’s nothing, and even it is was something, you’re far too big for any elil from the sky, now, Maxie-boy. He watches with keen curiosity head tilted, overlong ears pricking forward, a small grin twitching one corner of his lip in a second nature of nonchalant roguishness. He’d oft pondered the strange differences and similarities he once shared with the kin of the sky. For he has one had a world underground, beyond the reach of land-dwellers (such as himself, now) that offered cool, earthy freedom; they, the wide, vast skies.
Freedom, indeed.
His eyes drift over the early-spring continents of slush and old, melting snow, surrounded by bodies of meltwater and brown-green grass, laying low and unappetising. This is his realm now. This, and this alone. He is about to drifts into one of his sober contemplations, unbecoming as they are, when the buffeting of wing (woooosh) snaps his eyes up, taking a step back in mindless instinct. The stranger lands with a slosh and a squelch of damp earth below his feet and Max nods—eyes shuttering for a moment aaginst the wing’s great, pumping breeze, ears tilting back bit. “Well,” he says, voice full of cavalier pride and low, swelling slyness, “I daresay my landing would have been worse from such heights. So I wouldn’t worry about it,” his grin deepening to an impish crack. “Maximus.”
Being the one left in a calm shower of fur and some blood from the puncturing of the soft place around the spine where the grip had been sealed shut.
He exhales, shallow and shuttering down this tightened throat, his ruby eyes turn skyward to catch sight of this elil, to see for himself, in his preything’s mind, that which brings the rabbit to the surface with unwanted and uninvited precision. Still, after all this time— Yes, indeed, after all this time, for he is a severed soul. He still carries around the part of him that was exacted as payment for his petty foolishness as a cavalier young buck. Still, after years of repentance; after minutes spent trying to forgive himself; after seconds, drew long and sombre, lipping the rabbit’s skull that hangs (thump-thuump) against his breastbone.
But what he sees is far too big to be any bird of prey, so the next breath that is realized is long and hard and flushed with the bright flame of shame for such a weakling reaction. It’s nothing, and even it is was something, you’re far too big for any elil from the sky, now, Maxie-boy. He watches with keen curiosity head tilted, overlong ears pricking forward, a small grin twitching one corner of his lip in a second nature of nonchalant roguishness. He’d oft pondered the strange differences and similarities he once shared with the kin of the sky. For he has one had a world underground, beyond the reach of land-dwellers (such as himself, now) that offered cool, earthy freedom; they, the wide, vast skies.
Freedom, indeed.
His eyes drift over the early-spring continents of slush and old, melting snow, surrounded by bodies of meltwater and brown-green grass, laying low and unappetising. This is his realm now. This, and this alone. He is about to drifts into one of his sober contemplations, unbecoming as they are, when the buffeting of wing (woooosh) snaps his eyes up, taking a step back in mindless instinct. The stranger lands with a slosh and a squelch of damp earth below his feet and Max nods—eyes shuttering for a moment aaginst the wing’s great, pumping breeze, ears tilting back bit. “Well,” he says, voice full of cavalier pride and low, swelling slyness, “I daresay my landing would have been worse from such heights. So I wouldn’t worry about it,” his grin deepening to an impish crack. “Maximus.”
Hover for translation
@Sirius
@Sirius
