I hope to arrive to my death
Late, in love, and a little drunk
The sun burned overhead, seething and gold within the belly of the wide blue sky. The coming fall did little to temper the sweltering heat, but most around here didn’t seem to mind. Those who lived within Solterra found comfort beneath the heat. This land wasn’t for the weak or weary, or the gentle at heart. And that’s the way it should always be.
“Hm.”
The Coyote Prince stood firm within the sand, seafoam eyes peering through his permanent mask upon the carcasses. Buzzards had not yet fallen upon the dead fighters, and a warm desert breeze ruffled fur and feathers alike. Within the sand lay a coyote, deep gashes dug within it’s pelt, the mortal wound inflicted across its extended neck. The profound bleeding had long since dried beneath the beating light of day. One eye had been gouged out, and its teeth still carried the blood of the golden eagle that lay entwined with the canid. Some feathers danced away, having been pulled from the bird during its death throes, and one wing remained twisted in a brutal unnatural angle. The bird’s neck was broken as well, still captured between the jaws of the dog. It was romantic to Killian, like a pair of lovers, bound to one another as the reaper claimed them both at once. But which of the pair had won? Sure, the coyote had managed to capture the raptor and break its neck, but the bird’s great talons in its last attempts to break free had made it bleed out into the sand, so even in death it had been victorious.
The golden boy mulled the sight over, wondering what a glorious fight it must have been. Though the life of a warrior would never suit him, is still managed to intrigue him. Certainly many proud soldiers would desire to die upon the battlefield to a deserving adversary, yet Killian could never imagine ruining his body in such a grotesque and macabre way.
Perhaps what was important wasn’t who won, for in the end, it was the desert’s sands that would consume the pair. The the heat would quicken the decomposition process, the vultures would pick the carcasses clean, the sun would bleach the bones to a pristine ivory white, and finally the wind would bury their bodies, cover them in golden sands, and no one would ever know how beautiful they had been as their lives were stolen by the other.
Pensive, he tipped his head, continuing to stare at the pair. The sound of another approaching finally pulled his attention away, and as he lifted his crowned head, he cast a charming smile. “Lo, stranger, I have a question to propose.” Gesturing with his head for the stranger to come closer, again he looked down. “Do you think it’s possible to determine the victor? Or do you think in the end, perhaps it is the desert who always wins, or is the fight skewed as the reaper always swings his scythe and collects what is his in the end?”
