GHAUL
i can take you there, but baby, you won't make it back
His eggs are brooding in a warm nest. His father has returned from however far away. He is home for the first time in a year. The world is spinning too perfectly and it sets his teeth on edge. Ghaul tucks his wings to his sides to begin his quick descent to the earth and he lands with a heavy thud among the tall meadow grasses. A quick sniff of the air tells him there are plenty of things to stalk here, but one intrigues him more than the others. It smells like fire and yet there is something else, something familiar about it. A knot forms in his stomach.
Ragged claws scrape up little clumps of dirt with each long stride. The sun is warm across his back but he feels no concept of light and dark. His only concern is the outline of someone lounging in the grasses just up ahead. Ghaul snaps his teeth together irritably until he noses the stalks aside to find her at last. She is not what he had initially thought, however, and his displeasure is evident across his face.
“Who are you?” he demands, not bothering to introduce himself to something that seems unworthy thus far. She has scales across her wings and fire in her throat, certainly, but these things mean little compared to the one he thought he was tracking. She is not the mother who held him close after she found him shivering in the snow, nor is she the mother who crawled from the depths of the afterlife for him. His aggravation builds into a low growl as he edges closer.
Ghaul keeps his small ears turned forward to listen but he tests her by roughly bumping his scaled shoulder into hers. Is she easy to topple? Could he find the soft meat of her belly without much fight? He reaches out and takes a lock of her mane between his teeth to roughly tug at her. “You seem weak. Already on death’s doorstep,” he observes aloud as he circles her. “Do you just need a little push?”
Ragged claws scrape up little clumps of dirt with each long stride. The sun is warm across his back but he feels no concept of light and dark. His only concern is the outline of someone lounging in the grasses just up ahead. Ghaul snaps his teeth together irritably until he noses the stalks aside to find her at last. She is not what he had initially thought, however, and his displeasure is evident across his face.
“Who are you?” he demands, not bothering to introduce himself to something that seems unworthy thus far. She has scales across her wings and fire in her throat, certainly, but these things mean little compared to the one he thought he was tracking. She is not the mother who held him close after she found him shivering in the snow, nor is she the mother who crawled from the depths of the afterlife for him. His aggravation builds into a low growl as he edges closer.
Ghaul keeps his small ears turned forward to listen but he tests her by roughly bumping his scaled shoulder into hers. Is she easy to topple? Could he find the soft meat of her belly without much fight? He reaches out and takes a lock of her mane between his teeth to roughly tug at her. “You seem weak. Already on death’s doorstep,” he observes aloud as he circles her. “Do you just need a little push?”