the wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight
{drunk and driven by the devil's hunger}
He was growing, faster and faster, but the natural process of aging was often too slow for the mulberry colt. His mind was billowing outward—soaking in the world, digging into its roots and learning everything it could—but his mind did not follow at the same pace. Woolf could feel himself becoming sharper, tapping into his natural instincts, but his body was still childish and lanky. He was nearing a year of age, but his body just did not fit him right. The muscles were undeveloped. The strength was lacking. It was frustrating.
As had become his habit, he was wandering the kingdom when he heard the horned stallion call upon the Colonel. Woolf had seen Killdare around the Chamber, had rooted through his mind when he was sleeping even, but he had not talked to him. In truth, he had not talked to much of anyone. He was not a loner, per se, but he found conversations often boring and bland. Words being spit out without purpose. But today he was bored and angry at nothing in particular and they seemed like a good enough diversion as any.
So he makes his way toward them in his great-grandfather’s panther form. It had been the first form that he had taken as a colt and he still liked it. Most people in the kingdom knew what Atrox looked like and Woolf liked his privacy. If he was going to break his solitude, he may as well do it as the panther and not as himself. “Hello,” the noise that came out was Atrox’s—lazy and drawling. “Why do you care to know?” he tilted his feline head toward the newcomer. “If you knew the Chamber, you would know her landscape, and if you didn’t, you should have stayed at the border and waited to be escorted in.”
Woolf
