OH, TO BE HERE ON THE GROUND
He is starving.
Proud warrior, reduced to hunger and bones.
(And rage. Always the rage, simmering underneath, it never leaves him, there is so much wrong-)
He is not alone. Hajduk trots at his heels always and he is hungry too. It is wrong to feed on the corpses of brethren before they burn, but when have these people ever been his brothers, his sisters?
Never.
Not when he and Seraphina defeated a sandwyrm.
Not when he and Seraphina and all those Solterrans charged against the frozen elk.
Not when they laugh at him, when they scorn him, when they let their feathers flutter in the breeze and sneer at him. Not one brother among them, no, not one who would fight alongside him in battle, never. No value for the life of silly El Toro-
(The lies of his anger twist and curl like a love letter on fire.)
Look at them - starving - in the streets - hungry - sick - weak - and El Toro does not know who to trust with his burning sentiment except Anzhelo and, hell, he can’t risk the life of the one person he knows is trying to do some good.
He got out to meet Anzhelo. Someone turned the walls to nothing and now guards swarm like wasps to a nest of missing bricks and diamonds. He couldn’t do that again. Now, when he has Hajduk. A cub, a child-thing, now he cannot help someone other than himself, not more than he already has, which was barely, Anzhelo could be dead - gods - why did he come back -
Something white twists across the air in front of him and he snatches it with his teeth, glancing over to the soldiers perching on the street corners like vultures.
Look up.
A figure in an alleyway.
Foreboding.
Hajduk puffs up like a cotton ball. (A cotton ball with ribs-)
El Toro sees those gemstone eyes and a shiver runs down his spine. ”Come on, Hajduk.” He does not need to say it but it means that he is not alone, even as he crosses a threshold slick with oil and fury. (Knowing him, he’d probably trip, his hoof against the rock would spark, set the world on fire-)
@
"What I say,"
What I think,
What Hajduk thinks,
