What the Fuck is happening to me?

Titanic paws moved in a slow, steady progression across the crags, feeling unusually stiff and giving me a rigid, automaton gait. Every once in a while, a small spasm would writhe across my skin and make one of the appendages tremble as if I were severely cold, linger for the few beats of a heart and then dissipate.

Grizzled mandibles gnaw with voracious frustration upon the fractured skull of the bobcat I had killed some weeks ago. All the meat had long been stripped away, and all that remained of the corpse had been devoured save for a couple of ribs and a portion of the spine. I’ve carried the skull with me for a number of days now, as I track the scent of my daughter back towards the lands of Moladian and away from the harsh environments of Pariah. Something about the act of chewing, of grating my teeth against bone, brought some semblance of comfort… or at the very least complacency to my mind wrought with confusion and anger.

Why had she abandoned me? Surely Pariah had not been too much for her? It was by far no easy land to inhabit, unlike the lush and bountiful lands of Moladian, and yet that was the exact purpose of our traveling there. Izarra wanted more than training. More than stories- She’d wanted experience. She wanted to taste the genuine wrath and ferocity of the wild world first hand and she’d asked me to show her the way. To take her there. She’d asked for my guidance and teaching and to make her more than those fat fools of Moladian. She wanted grit and tenacity… and the only way to earn her these life lessons was to take her out beyond the happy abundance that her birthplace had to offer. She had to go where only the strong survived, and even then only by the sheer force of her own inner Will.

But not long after our departure, things had started to…. Slip. At first, I thought nothing of the long moments when I drew still and silent and stared out into the howling winds and blinding blizzards, sometimes for hours on end. I’d written off the slow tide of mood swings that started to grate in the back of my mind as a yearning for the mate waiting for me back in our Grotto. An old man gets used to his creature comforts after all. Becomes accustomed to stability and I had been more than sated with my life beside Stella. Parting with her, even for the sake of my Daughter’s future, had been no easy thing. Even if it was only a temporary separation.

But then I started noticing other things…. Strange things. And worse, Izarra noticed them too. Moments when I forgot what I was saying, right in the middle of a sentence… the words… the line of thought… would simply vanish. Impossible to retrieve no matter how hard I wracked my weary mind. Sometimes it scared the living Hell out of me to look into her face and…and not recognize her. Not remember who she was or what she meant to me. Now… now I was beginning to experience brief lapses in time. Like that time she and I were running down a black bear cub. I was right on his flanks, lunging for the fatty meat of his glut, and I closed my eyes to protect them from his retaliating claws… only when I opened them again… I was nowhere near the bear. I didn’t remember bringing it down. I didn’t remember gorging myself on the meats but my belly was fat and distended. Izarra wouldn’t approach me either. She did not speak and kept her distance, her eyes watching me warily and her stomach still gargled with the pangs of hunger as if I had not shared the kill with her… I had felt so disoriented, but when I approached to question her she’d lashed out at me with fang and claw and so I let her have her space….

And then she was gone. I don’t recall her leaving our make-shift den. I don’t remember exchanging words with her. Only waking sometime in the night and finding the space beside me vacant and long cold of her body heat. I’d waited all through the night and into the next day for her to return but she never did.

Finally I went searching for her, and as I tracked her scent I came to realize she was heading away from Pariah. Back towards the safety of Moladian. Fucking Fuck the Bitch Then! At first I was so fucking pissed I didn’t bother going after her. Instead I remained in my isolation, taking out my anguish on any hapless creature that crossed my path… Like my bobcat friend here.

Scritch-scritch-cr-i-i-i-ck Canines rake maddeningly against the porous calcium. Jaws clutched the mauled and broken skull like a precious object, possessive and needy. I liked the feel of it between my teeth, the texture as it vibrated against the roof of my mouth. The Crags were quiet this time of year, still a bit brisk in the early spring season and a cool mist slithered between the jagged stones. Izarra had passed through here on her journey home. I’ll break her scrawny neck when I find her… I shake my head, trying to staunch the loathsome thought that came unbidden.

I would not harm my own blood… but these thoughts raced like wildfire, as temperamental and uncontrollable as my mood swings….

What The Fuck is Happening to Me…?

_{Furian Bastard + Brindle + 21Y + 45", 195lbs + Stalks Stella + Sired Zildjian, Bellatrix, Izarra & Asterian}