The raptor knows what he embodies. He is death. Pravda feels the primitive, cruel glee through their bond. Prigovora is a creature that delights in terror; that takes optimises it, manipulates it, becomes it.
But Pravda’s command is just enough to still the beast. It is just enough to draw Prigovora back from the precipice upon which he hunts; to make him pause, and reconsider. Yes. The raptor does not strike, and the child comes scrambling to rest in Pravda’s shadow. Relief floods him, cool and strange and dizzying. His legs almost buckle from the way it rushes over him, as consuming as a wave.
He cannot allow himself that privilege, though, as Prigovora remains staged and staring. The creatures eyes no longer rest on the child; instead they lock with Pravda’s own and he feels the same old rush of terror that he has lived besides his entire life. Priest Muzhestvo may as well be there, and Pravda may as well be a child, for all that gaze wrenches from him. Prigovora sharpens at the child’s desperate cry, and with the swiftness of a diving falcon the raptor closes the distance between them. Prigovora opens his gaping jaws and shrieks, a cry belonging to eons and eons past. Blood and phlegm and spittle fly from his razor teeth but, just as swiftly, the raptor withdraws to the shadows and is gone.
Pravda can feel his amusement through their bond. It is a game. It has always been a game, to the beast, to the bringer of justice and pain. Pravda feels himself shaking, but there is no time for that; he must console the child and so he turns, his eyes bright, to look at the young, winged boy who has shifted even closer to Pravda. After a long, strangled moment after the boy’s sob has cut off, Pravda speaks. “I know that was terrifying…” he admits. “But you’re safe now. He won’t bother you again, everything will be fine. I promise.” The child cannot know it, but Pravda’s word is as binding as a blood oath.
