[P] fragile as a flower

[Sarkan]

Sarkan The moral of the tale is this: whoever allows himself to be whipped, deserves to be whipped.   Sarkan didn’t hear the reapers crying their war-song or the thunder of hooves through a forest still dead from winter. He couldn’t; his ears were too full of the low roar of his blood, the tearing of vines through soil, the crackling of branches, the tremble of dead leaves. He felt grim and savage and certain that once he killed this man, the trees would remember themselves, that they didn’t have arms to reach and fingers to grab (fingers that already encircled one of his legs like one of his own snares). And he would kill this man, would bear him down into the dirt and cut him to bits small enough for the crows to carry off. Each baring their teeth, they prepared to meet - but they never got the chance. The gray’s mouth becomes an O of surprise when something solid and red crashes into him with the thud of flesh and bone meeting. His breath is knocked from him, the knife flung from his grip. Sarkan scrabbled to recover it, turning as he did to face this new enemy - only to gasp when her horn drove into his chest, into his heart. There was no awareness left when the beast leapt for him, and sank its teeth and claws into his pale skin. His whole body shuddered and, thrashing, fell. One moment he’d been certain of victory; the next his sightless eye was reflecting a flat gray sky, foam and blood flecking the corners of his mouth. Sarkan might have thought it was fate, being killed by a unicorn - might have approved, even, if he hadn’t been the victim of it. But the stallion didn’t have the time to process what was happening before he died. Which was a blessing, really, given the way the unicorn and her beast set on him afterward. @Ipomoea @Thana