amaroq
in his own country
Death can be kind
Death can be kind
The girl-unicorn, savage thing she is, does not learn well. In the background - loud enough, strange enough now to draw Amaroq’s eye - her companion is transforming. The stallion doesn’t know whether the wolf is becoming or being unmade; there is only the furious sound of its snarling, the unnatural splintering of bones that multiply and lengthen, pale magic crawling over him like hoarfrost.
Eat him, the girl says, and Amaroq’s eyes are as hard, as cold, as the wall of an iceberg jutting above the ruinous black sea. For a moment - for a heartbeat, as the girl spits blood and the thing-that-was-a-wolf throws back its head to howl, the kelpie considers running her through. How long has it been, since his horn was more than decoration and warning? How long since it was consecrated?
But he knows that if he did - if he took the time - he would die. And he is not ready for that, not at the jaws of some pet beast. In the next half-breath he is turning, gnashing his teeth even as he springs with the snow flying up from his heels and the wolf following after. It is not his nature to flee. But it is to survive, and he is no fool to not realize when he is outmatched.
And oh, he is. Behind him, limned by moonlight, the beast leaps. Amaroq, running for the shore and the quiet surf beyond, calls up his magic, coating his skin in a crust of ice thick as armor, and even so the wolf’s claws and the force of his leap cut through, making the ice shriek like scraped glass, raking Amaroq’s hindquarters beneath. The kelpie kicks hard and continues to run, and inside he is howling too, even as his breath comes harsh between his jaws and the ice regrows over his skin.
Then he is at the beach, in the waves, knee-high, chest-high, chin-high and gone, down where no wolf could follow, and no girl would dare.
@Avesta |
