Set
11-24-2018, 12:57 AM
“You’re going to have to do better than that!” he shouts as he hurtles from the cold, grey water.
From the spotted hide of the leopard seal to the piebald hide he’d been born with in the blink of an eye, he surges through the knee-deep water, teeth gritted against the splash of ice and salt. His blood is frenzied with the thrill of it, his Friends tasked with only one order: keep him from reaching his destination. It is a wild and bloody ritual, one that used to leave him broken and bleeding for weeks but now keeps him at his best. Not to say he always escapes unscathed – he ignores the burn of salt to his wounds in one hindquarter from a near miss with a rather determined pod of orcas on his swim over from Icicle Isle. He had escaped into the leopard seal’s form after they had trapped him between ice floes – a body more agile than his own, as well as the black and white whales’ - but not before one had taken its pound of flesh.
The tide is low and it is only a few strides before the water is only up to his fetlocks. There is a brief strip of sand that sucks at his hooves as he slows to a limping jog, his left hind dragging. Magically feeling out his wounds, he stops, nostrils heaving against the damp spring air. A large part of muscle is missing but regeneration is child’s play. The beach is deserted and for a few moments more, his breath and the leathery sound of new muscle and skin stitching back together is all that fills the silence.
A sniff. Thick, calloused pad on shale stone. The hungry pant of an apex predator.
Ears twisting on top of one another, Set determines the wolves are coming from both the east and the west, using the thick bank of fog to disguise their approach. He twists his head, easing his breathing and scenting them out. No doubt led by Niklas’ pet (the typically undetectable hellhound sometimes joins in the fun), it is the pack that took him down the last time he had lost. Their eyes, bright yellow led by blood red, bounce in the fog, drawing closer. Not wasting any more time, he coils and springs, skimming across the sand and the loose shale it gives way to, charging into the forest ahead with a whooping crow that’s swallowed by the fog and ancient trees.
They do not waste a beat, converging together briefly before fanning out in a V formation, driving their prey deeper into Taiga. They can smell the blood on him, from his hastily restored wound. It spurs them on, deeper through the dim wood, tongues lolling from their mouths.
Set is running full out now, instinctively finding the Taigans’ paths, many overgrown from disuse. He’s warm, sweat streaking his sides, behind his ears. He glances back over his shoulder, turning impossibly to avoid a redwood as big around as he is long, tucking his knees to clear a small boulder as he looks ahead again. He can no longer see and hear them – he resists searching for them with his magic, instead depending on his natural senses. Skunk-tail lashing him on, he plants his hindquarters and shoves off of the path and through a thick curtain of vegetation. The low branches grab at his legs, nearly tripping him up several times. He drops his head as a counterweight, his momentum finally carrying him free and clear before he skids to a halt.
Shaking out his short, dreaded mane and blowing hard, it dawns on him that he’s stumbled on to a conversation. Unperturbed, his gaze rolls up. The grin that meets the vaguely familiar buckskin and the purple-marked stallion is a mischievous, crooked one. “Ruan, Magnus. It always seems to put them on edge when he knows their names before they his.
From the spotted hide of the leopard seal to the piebald hide he’d been born with in the blink of an eye, he surges through the knee-deep water, teeth gritted against the splash of ice and salt. His blood is frenzied with the thrill of it, his Friends tasked with only one order: keep him from reaching his destination. It is a wild and bloody ritual, one that used to leave him broken and bleeding for weeks but now keeps him at his best. Not to say he always escapes unscathed – he ignores the burn of salt to his wounds in one hindquarter from a near miss with a rather determined pod of orcas on his swim over from Icicle Isle. He had escaped into the leopard seal’s form after they had trapped him between ice floes – a body more agile than his own, as well as the black and white whales’ - but not before one had taken its pound of flesh.
The tide is low and it is only a few strides before the water is only up to his fetlocks. There is a brief strip of sand that sucks at his hooves as he slows to a limping jog, his left hind dragging. Magically feeling out his wounds, he stops, nostrils heaving against the damp spring air. A large part of muscle is missing but regeneration is child’s play. The beach is deserted and for a few moments more, his breath and the leathery sound of new muscle and skin stitching back together is all that fills the silence.
A sniff. Thick, calloused pad on shale stone. The hungry pant of an apex predator.
Ears twisting on top of one another, Set determines the wolves are coming from both the east and the west, using the thick bank of fog to disguise their approach. He twists his head, easing his breathing and scenting them out. No doubt led by Niklas’ pet (the typically undetectable hellhound sometimes joins in the fun), it is the pack that took him down the last time he had lost. Their eyes, bright yellow led by blood red, bounce in the fog, drawing closer. Not wasting any more time, he coils and springs, skimming across the sand and the loose shale it gives way to, charging into the forest ahead with a whooping crow that’s swallowed by the fog and ancient trees.
They do not waste a beat, converging together briefly before fanning out in a V formation, driving their prey deeper into Taiga. They can smell the blood on him, from his hastily restored wound. It spurs them on, deeper through the dim wood, tongues lolling from their mouths.
Set is running full out now, instinctively finding the Taigans’ paths, many overgrown from disuse. He’s warm, sweat streaking his sides, behind his ears. He glances back over his shoulder, turning impossibly to avoid a redwood as big around as he is long, tucking his knees to clear a small boulder as he looks ahead again. He can no longer see and hear them – he resists searching for them with his magic, instead depending on his natural senses. Skunk-tail lashing him on, he plants his hindquarters and shoves off of the path and through a thick curtain of vegetation. The low branches grab at his legs, nearly tripping him up several times. He drops his head as a counterweight, his momentum finally carrying him free and clear before he skids to a halt.
Shaking out his short, dreaded mane and blowing hard, it dawns on him that he’s stumbled on to a conversation. Unperturbed, his gaze rolls up. The grin that meets the vaguely familiar buckskin and the purple-marked stallion is a mischievous, crooked one. “Ruan, Magnus. It always seems to put them on edge when he knows their names before they his.