like having your throat cut,
just that fast
just that fast
It has been almost a year since Amaunet stepped into the canyon hallways for a reason other than a night fighting in the pits. The sun is almost a strange feeling on her wings as she walks instead of flies through the tangled shadows and the leering mouths of overhangs. And she discovers, as she drags a wing through the redstone and covers in her body in dust and dirt, that she missed the thrill of hunting in the daylight.
There is a game the Davke children played. The prize had always been a spear stolen from a warrior in the dead of night or a lash by which the other children would bow and play. It was a savage game, she remembers, and sometimes they did not all come back in one piece. But Amaunet always did.
In her mouth she always held the treasure between her teeth like a lion instead of a girl.
By the time the canyon opens up and the trail slants upwards the noon-sun is ripe in the sky (all blinding and hot enough to coat her skin in sweat). She pauses there, on the curl of her hunting trail, and drags her nose against the stone to follow the smell of wing and fury where an Elder Teryr has flown too closely to the canyon walls.
It is the mistake of a thing statied from a kill but it is the single mistake of the beast that will grant her something other than death this day. And if she dies it will be with a feather between her teeth and glory a ember in her belly until it cools.
She sticks closely to the wall as the trail spirals dangerously up to the cave of the slumbering Teryr (or at least she hopes it is sleeping off its kill). Each step is lighter than the last, an ode to the gracefulness of a pegasus raised on the eve of violence. Her warpaint shines like blood: the only adornment she allowed herself when stealth was the only skill that mattered.
There are miles of curving pathways to go but she is not foolish enough to waste her energy or magic on flight. She does not try to speed up or move faster than a crawl when the sun starts to make her skin feel too tight on her skin. Every movement is a study in patience and the preservation of every ounce of her skill.
Because eventually she will have to be faster than a Teryr enraged that a feather has been plucked and stolen from his wing.
@any!
There is a game the Davke children played. The prize had always been a spear stolen from a warrior in the dead of night or a lash by which the other children would bow and play. It was a savage game, she remembers, and sometimes they did not all come back in one piece. But Amaunet always did.
In her mouth she always held the treasure between her teeth like a lion instead of a girl.
By the time the canyon opens up and the trail slants upwards the noon-sun is ripe in the sky (all blinding and hot enough to coat her skin in sweat). She pauses there, on the curl of her hunting trail, and drags her nose against the stone to follow the smell of wing and fury where an Elder Teryr has flown too closely to the canyon walls.
It is the mistake of a thing statied from a kill but it is the single mistake of the beast that will grant her something other than death this day. And if she dies it will be with a feather between her teeth and glory a ember in her belly until it cools.
She sticks closely to the wall as the trail spirals dangerously up to the cave of the slumbering Teryr (or at least she hopes it is sleeping off its kill). Each step is lighter than the last, an ode to the gracefulness of a pegasus raised on the eve of violence. Her warpaint shines like blood: the only adornment she allowed herself when stealth was the only skill that mattered.
There are miles of curving pathways to go but she is not foolish enough to waste her energy or magic on flight. She does not try to speed up or move faster than a crawl when the sun starts to make her skin feel too tight on her skin. Every movement is a study in patience and the preservation of every ounce of her skill.
Because eventually she will have to be faster than a Teryr enraged that a feather has been plucked and stolen from his wing.
@any!
