11-29-2015, 09:43 PM
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There was a shuffle, or a crunch, a faint noise of something that made him pause mid chew. A muffled thud thud, the sound hooves made when they traversed over snow, the sound they made when they drew closer. He ripped off one final mouthful, before his jaw clenched shut with irritation and his muscles tightened along with the rush of annoyance when he realised his enduring solitude had shattered. With a strip of flesh still dangling from his mouth, he thrust his head towards the sound and found her, she who moved towards him with an intent he was sure was there but knew not of what. And that bothered him. It bothered him because he had been alone for so long and the time between then – when he wasn’t, and now- when he was, well so much had changed. He had grown savage, literally in every sense. He had been born again wild in this self-imposed solitude that any whiff of social grace he may have had was gone, long, long gone. He had let the charade fall to dust. A part of him was proud of that, that he no longer had to try. Dead leaves, brittle twigs and muck. Finally a true manifestation of his bitter and sulking soul. That’s all he was now, perhaps even what he had always been, deep down. So why did she close that gap when any other animal kept the radius wide? What was wrong with her? Or perhaps a better question was what did she want from him? Etojo’s eyes narrowed with suspicion, he had nothing, offered nothing, except… His eyes fell to the carcass chewed and shredded by his hooves, and suddenly, as if that could be the only possible reason, the thought truly illogical, Etojo reached down for his carcass and pulled it possessively to his chest. Mine. His food. Not hers. “So this is what death and dying looks like?” She says when she is finally near. He glared at her, his leaves bristling. Her words as sharp as any barb as she pierced into the essence of what he had become, of what he had let himself been reduced to. Instinctively he gripped his carcass tighter, as if it could act as some sort of deflective shield to reflect the sting of her spoken realities. Her words pulled him from his ridiculousness and at the realisation he wished her more gone then before. He was about to tell her so, the words already half formed on his tongue. But her sweet fleshy smell began to entwine delicately into the potent scent of decay that he was holding onto. And the longer she lingered, the stronger it become. Etojo closed his eyes and breathed her in. She smelled fresh, enticing, and the hunter within him found his growing desire for her hard to quell as his tongue became slick with slaver. He cocked his head to the side and let the carcass fall from his jaws. Why would he need that when he had found something much bigger? And his lips which were about to form go away instead said “Stay.” Etojo smiled a half smile, though it was far from friendly. |