"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
11-02-2018, 12:03 AM (This post was last modified: 11-02-2018, 01:08 PM by Daemron.)
The wolves had sensed it first, just before the earth shifted. He had felt it in them (raised hackles and flattened ears, throats that filled with the low whine of danger) and he had turned instinctively to Pyxis. She was with her sister and young nephew, and she looked happy. Daemron had paused then, if only to allow the moment to last a little longer.
And then it had started – the earth moved and shook, and he was at her side, murmuring urgently under his breath, ‘We need to leave.’ A look of panic was exchanged between Pyxis and Malis, the meaning of which they all wordlessly understood. Malis turned to him then. Once reunited, the bond between sisters had been made clear; yet while there had never been a sense of much warmth toward him from Malis, Daemron knew what would come next – and so he waited.
‘Take Lupine with you,’ she said. And at his nod, Malis ran. Sudden dread that Pyxis might do the same causes him to send Red, flying low against the ground in the indigo mare’s wake. Then, he is urging Pyxis forward. ‘She’ll stay with her,’ he says, and of all people, Pyxis would understand the significance of those words. He continues with reassurances that are quiet yet firm, keeping an eye on the indigo youth huddled against her opposite side.
A flank of wolves moves with them through Taiga’s woodlands, bright eyes like lamplights as darkness descends. In the dead of night they arrive at Tephra, the nearest sanctuary – and they settle the tired boy in a swath of grass before moving off a little ways, reaching for each other. Daemron’s mouth traces her flesh fervently, almost as though checking for injury before his muzzle comes to rest at her collarbone. “Are you all right?” he asks, the grey of his eyes giving off a faint glow as they dive headlong into the ocean of her gaze.
It had all happened so terribly fast. One moment, he had been snuggled close and warm with mama, and then the earth had shook and rumbled beneath his feet. He hadn’t cared for the way everything had shifted, comfortable and familiar one moment, foreign and strange the next. Mama had looked at the girl then, (her sister, mama said. Pyxis), an aura of wildness about her. Filled with such fearsome determination. He had wanted to follow so badly. She might have needed him, after all.
He could be helpful, he knew it, but instead she had nudged him towards the red woman, urging him to follow. His little ears had lain flat against his skull, and he’d been about to argue, but the look mama had given him had convinced him to listen.
For a while, at least.
He watched her as she left, longing in his eyes as she ran the opposite direction. The wolf had followed her. He scowled at that, as fierce as his little blue face could make it. He doesn’t like the wolves.
He follows them home, the red woman and the wolf man, craning his neck over his shoulder every few steps to see behind him. To see if maybe mama would change her mind and take him with. He’s too young yet to understand what a plague is, to know the consequences, the risks, of braving it head on. But mama had done so, and he sees no reason he couldn’t either.
But, wily child that he is, he watches the path they take, doing his best to memorize it. He’d need to know it, after all. He couldn’t possibly leave mama out there all alone.
So he does not argue when they settle him into a grassy nook shortly after arriving. They leave him alone then, and he breathes a sigh of relief. He doesn’t think he could outrun them, not yet. But he could be very sneaky. He just knows it.
Curling up, he feigns sleep until they disappear a short distance away. Eyes popping open, he peers around him with cautious curiosity. The grass is tall. Tall enough that it hides his equine form, and thus exceptionally perfect for what he needs. Closing his eyes once more, he concentrates. He’d done it once before, he could do it again.
When he opens his eyes again, it is from a body significantly changed. Small and feline, with tiny feet, sharp claws, and wild, fluffy black hair. He blinks blue-green eyes, a nearly silent purr of pleasure rumbling across his little body. With a flick of his tail, he turns and stalks deeper into the grass, towards freedom. They might notice a blue boy trying to escape, but the body of the tiny kitten is far less conspicuous and far easier to hide.
she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees make you thinks she means it this time
The chaos of the time following the release of the disease was such a stark difference to the previous days where the world had been made sweet with reunion. Pyxis had not pretended that she was anything but overjoyed when Daemron had led her to Malis. She could not pretend to be anything but relieved, but completely overwhelmed. She had not hesitated to rush into her sister’s embrace, pressing her nose into the velvet of her neck, tears running down her cheeks as she had wordlessly tangled with Malis.
All of a sudden, none of it mattered.
The years separated.
The years running.
Everything that had happened to them both.
Nothing mattered except the feel of her wild sister next to her, the bruises in her eyes fading away as they reconnected without a word—without missing a beat. The time after had been honeysuckle and Pyxis had savored it slowly, listening as Malis shared what she was willing to divulge, watching her trickster of a son romp around them. It had been beautiful and perfect and if Pyxis knew anything about perfect…
It didn’t last.
And, thus, this moment didn’t last either.
The vision came and, with it, chaos. Malis looked to her, coming undone underneath the weight of her fear for their family, and she wordlessly accepts her child as her ward. Her heart leapt in her throat when Malis turned and fled into the darkness, but she checked herself from running after her into the fray. Maybe once she would have. Maybe she would again. But now there was more than just her own safety to consider and she felt herself curl protectively around the lives blossoming in her swelling stomach.
She feels emotion swell in her throat when Daemron sends his companion flying after her sister without another word and she looks back at him with it raw in the blue of her eyes. Silently, she moves to his side, nodding at his reassurances and making sure that Malis’ boy remained tucked into her sides. They move quickly through the night, protected by Daemron’s pack. Her antlered head rises and swivels as they go, delicate nostrils flaring to drink in the forest. To Tephra. To a safe place. To family, of a sort.
She doesn’t say anything until they reach the border and place the child down to rest, doesn’t say anything as they step away for a moment. Exhausted, running thin on fear, she steps into his embrace. He smells like the woods and the wolves and the earth, and she drinks it in, comforted by his steady presence. “I’m okay,” she lies, the practice of it so innate that the words slip off her tongue before she can stop them.
Pausing, she takes a deep breath, pressing her forehead into his neck. “I’m not. I’m worried.” There are so many fears that swirl in her belly now. So many things she cannot express. The weight of so many things that she had spent so long trying to avoid. “I’m worried for Malis. I’m worried for you. I’m worried for us.” Her eyes widen a little when she realizes what she let slip and she pulls back, clearing her throat.
“There is going to be an us, Daemron.”
She doesn’t know that it will be more than just one.
She doesn’t know that it will be sooner than even she expects.
She only knows that she can feel the life swelling in her.
But she doesn’t give him much time to digest what she says because her eyes are sliding away from the glowing silver of his toward the patch of grass where they had let Lupine rest. She draws in a sharp breath, pushing away to rush toward the now empty space. “Oh no,” her voice is tight as she lifts her wild gaze to the horizon, to where they had just come from. “Lupine!”
she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair but I still love her, I don't really care
11-08-2018, 11:43 PM (This post was last modified: 11-09-2018, 12:03 AM by Daemron.)
They are still there, watching (waiting), though they remain at an imperceptible distance in the darkness. He wouldn’t risk sending them away – not now – but they aren’t like Red. These wolves are strangers summoned in an instant from the wilderness, and he senses the edge to their primality like flint that might strike at any moment if not for the restraint of his silent command. Under the surface, Daemron is on edge, too – agitated to think anything might happen to Pyxis, or her family.
Or theirs, as he would soon find out.
He exhales when she presses her head against him, the now-familiar brush of velvet antlers on his skin a small comfort as he lets himself inhale her warmth. Beneath an unshakeable exterior, her presence serves to soothe his innermost nerves. His mouth finds the nape of her neck past locks of her dark hair – and when she tells him she’s worried, he can almost feel her pulse skip a beat when she says the word: us. Daemron watches as she pulls back to meet his eyes, hardly allowing himself to draw another breath when she tells him the news.
“An us,” he repeats, his gaze falling to the soft slope of her belly. Instinctively he steps closer, and without thought he lets his muzzle come to rest upon the gentle swelling, near to her heartbeat – near to the heartbeats of his family. “An us,” he says again, more firmly this time, and he closes his eyes as though to listen harder for what he was sure would be the sound of his own heart beating outside of himself therein.
They were going to be a family.
He opens his eyes, emotion shining clearly through their faint grey light – but the moment is interrupted by Pyxis’ outcry as she abruptly pushes past him. Daemron whirls, quickly grasping the situation while the antlered mare calls her nephew’s name. He is about to take a step forward when he feels it. A small black outline rustling through nearby grasses (close; too close). The smell of prey (of Lupine) thick in his nostrils. The promise of the hunt surging suddenly through his veins.
The flint, struck and ignited.
And the wolves react ––
But so does he.
They are already lunging when he intervenes, taking control of a silvery she-wolf whose maw was gaping wide to snap up the miniscule feline in a single bite. He is just in time to loosen her jaw, enough that when her mouth closes he doesn’t feel the kill (warm blood and soft bones). Not like before. The other wolves are crying out their protests, releasing their frustrations as they snarl and bite at each other instead – but only after the wild animal emerges from the darkness would Pyxis realize the commotion was not, in fact, a signal of her nephew’s demise.
Silver fur glistens in the moonlight as she carries Lupine to them between her teeth, slanted eyes curiously blank; there was none of the wolf left for now. There was only Daemron. It is his paws that tread noiselessly toward them. It is his jaw that holds the squirming kitten – his mouth that salivates past a lolling tongue – and it is his veins that roar with predatory instincts that are at complete odds with his actions. Still, the wolf deposits her would-be prize at Pyxis’ feet, before turning to melt into the night once more.
A moment later, Daemron comes back to himself. A ripple runs through him then, and he finds that he is furious – furious at what might have happened. What if Pyxis hadn’t noticed the child’s disappearance at that exact moment? What if he hadn’t gotten control of the silvery wolf in the split second that he did? “What were you thinking?” he fumes. “It’s not safe!” Perhaps his voice is harder than he’d meant it to be – but his pulse yet races, though whether it is with sudden paternal trepidation or with remnants of the hunt, he isn’t sure.
For a moment, he has almost succeeded. For a moment, he can nearly taste freedom. But in the blink of an eye, that moment is lost as the low snarl of a wolf reaches his ears.
He knew he didn’t like the wolves.
His entire body goes rigid as the salivating wolf bears down upon him, his dark hair standing entirely on end. He ears flatten against his skull as he hisses at the menacing creature. He presses himself into the ground as he swipes with tiny clawed feet, doing his very best to scare the fearsome beast away. He could be very fierce too, he knows it. If only he were just a bit bigger.
But then the wolf’s jaws clamp around him, but rather than crushing, they simply hold him with startling gentleness. Not that this does anything to assuage the little black kitten’s terrifies rage. He squirms inside the beast’s jaws, an unearthly yowl escaping his surprisingly robust throat. He bites and spits, little claws needling in to any surface he can find.
When finally the wolf deposits him at Pyxis’ feet, Lupine’s entire body arches as he let’s out another (adorably) menacing hiss. His pupils are wide as he scrambles backwards, hair standing out straight in every direction, until he bumps into the red woman’s hoof. With a little growl, he snags his claws into her conveniently placed fetlock and scrambles a little clumsily up her leg until he’s able to pull himself onto her back.
His entire body is shaking by the time he reaches her withers, but that hardly seems far enough. With another hiss at the retreating wolf, he balances on his aunt’s neck, nearly slipping a time or two before he reaches the safety of the space between her ears. And there he crouches, trembling like a leaf as he tries to ignore the wolf man shouting at him.
she'll lie and steal and cheat and beg you from her knees make you thinks she means it this time
The maternal panic that swells within her is completely foreign, and she struggles to breathe around it. Her heart is thrumming in her chest too fast, the beats too close together, and she feels her throat swelling as she gasps for air. “Lupine!” she cries again when she hears the wolves begin their commotion. Daemron has gone still, far too still next to her, but she can’t stop and figure out where he’s gone.
Tremors race up and down her spine and she remains frozen in place.
She should run forward, but she can’t risk stepping on him. She should race after him, but she isn’t even sure which direction he took off. All she knows is the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears, the sound of the wolves in the distance, no doubt hunting for their midnight snack, and the stillness of the grey-eyed stallion beside her. Frantic, she turns on Daemron, lips peeling back.
“Do something,” she snarls, blind to his act. She wants to rage against him but there is a sound of wolves breaking through the brush and relief floods through her as the wolf comes back with the cat between its jaws. Relief is quickly chased with terror at the thought of what might have happened, her imagination making her sick to her stomach, and then shame as she realizes what Daemron had been doing.
It all wars in her chest so that she only breaks free as her nephew’s claws hook into her flesh.
She cries out in surprise as he claws his way up her shoulder and then her neck. She levels her neck out, ears splaying to the side as Lupine takes his place between her antlers. Afraid to move, she scowls, eyes heating as she turns to Daemron. “Yelling isn’t going to solve anything,” her voice has an edge, the mare all too aware of the trembling creature curled on her head. Exasperated, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, completely overwhelmed by everything that has happened this evening.
How is she supposed to be a mother if she can’t even watch Lupine for one night?
How is Daemron and her supposed to raise a family if she snaps at him at the first sign of trouble?
What is she even doing?
she'll tear a hole in you, the one you can't repair but I still love her, I don't really care
As the small feline hisses and scrambles up Pyxis’ back, Daemron has to grit his teeth against his anger (against the taste that lingers on a silver wolf’s tongue) – but then he notes her glare, and while the iciness of her voice nearly incentivizes him further, he catches himself. A short silence simmers between them. “You’re right,” he intones past the residual tightness in his throat. “I shouldn’t have yelled.”
He steps toward her, the hard light of his eyes flickering in the darkness as he glances to the black creature poised defiantly between her antlers. “I’m sorry.” His gaze lowers slightly, searching to meet Pyxis’ own. Daemron knew he had overreacted. The events of the day had frayed his nerves short. “Pyxis, I’m sorry.” He could no longer stand how her eyes had shut against him, and so he moves to hold her – if only she would let him.
Slowly, the adrenaline and the brooding dissipates; though in its place comes the worry. Lupine’s brush with the wolves sits ill in his stomach, and he finds himself thinking of the life that was yet to come. “I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.” His nose dips to press fervently against her side. “To either of you.” The worry pounds through him, drumming in rhythm with a quickening pulse as he imagines the dangers that could threaten his family.
“You and the baby – you’re all that matters to me.” The murmur is rife with his emotion, and for a moment he steels himself against the thrum of anxiety by cradling Pyxis close. Silently, he asks for her forgiveness with the brush of a kiss upon splashed mahogany skin. Then he lifts his head, looking pointedly at Lupine before uttering his next words, more evenly this time. “It’s our job to look out for you right now, so your aunt and I need you to stay here. Can you do that, Lupine?”
It has become exceedingly clear that he must put far more planning into any escape he might make than he had. Of course, his childish mind had not considered that there might be consequences to his actions. It’s not something he had ever had to experience before, and so it is understandably alarming to discover that the world is not nearly so safe as he had assumed.
He would have to be much more careful, he thinks.
Still, he has too much of his mother (and his father, though he doesn’t know it yet) to give up on his plans just yet. But this experience, at the very least, has taught him caution. Or, it would, once he’s actually had time to consider it. For the moment he has very little thought in his head except relief and residual fear. As the adrenaline begins to wear of his energy wanes with it, the violent shivers wracking his small body subsiding beneath a wave of exhaustion.
He pays barely any mind to them as they whisper to each, oblivious to their fear and stress over his failed escapade. As is the way of children.
It isn’t until the words are directed at him at he pays any sort of attention. By that point, the shaking has all but stopped, his fluffed fur begin to settle into a more manageable disarray once again. His wide blue-green eyes turn to Daemron as he addresses him sternly. The pupils that had nearly swallowed his iris’ have begun to shrink, becoming more feline slits once again as he warily eyes the wolf-man.
For a long moment he stares at him silently. Of course, the wise thing would be to simply agree. But his mother is out there somewhere. What if she needs his help? But, he supposes, for now, he could stay. At least, until he had more time to formulate a better plan. Finally, after a long silence, he lets out a squeaky little mew before settling more comfortably between Pyxis’ ears. His eyes begin to drift wearily closed then, exhausted by his unfortunate mis-adventure. After another moment’s silence, a low purr begins to rumble from his chest, surprisingly audible despite his small size.
