:::not here for my _{confessionals:::}

Today was a day unlike any other.

It was a cold afternoon in late fall, and the wind screamed and shrieked like a harpy, bringing buoyed on its currents the first hint of the coming snows. The male stood and inhaled it, drinking in the promise of winter with gusto, his anticipation clear on his features. His fur stood up on his shoulders, electrified, his whole frame shaking with fear and excitement. Behind him he could scent the thick and cloying reek of Spirane's borders, harsh on the otherwise fresh mountain breeze, and he shivered. If he should be caught trespassing he knew there would be hell to pay. And yet, even Malignus could get over his cowardice for the right rewards.

Her perfume had been haunting him for days, tempting him as he hovered on the borders waiting for the opportune moment to strike. She had not yet noticed him though, and neither had the males who frequented her vicinity, although they too could no doubt scent the early heat that had set upon her. She was one of the first in Moladion who had come upon her pup season, and the scavenger felt both blessed and fevered as though he was to be privileged to sample a new delicacy. Such a small fact, and yet it gave him pleasure unsurpassed. Even the act he was about to commit could not bring him greater joy than knowing that he had found her before any other.

He could hear her pawsteps as she approached, crunching the dry grass and sending shale skittering like frightened birds before her. He swiftly dropped to his stomach in the bushes, pale eyes set on the rise he knew she was about to crest. He waited while she did so, forcing himself to hold back until she was a mere tail-length from where he hid before leaping out to land in front of her. Upon his face he wore a mask of horror and fear, and his eyes were wide with imagined pain as he stood before her, head low and legs shaking with fatigue. His sides puffed in and out like bellows and his tongue hung from slack jaws in a pant before he lifted his face to look upon her. When he spoke, it was with a voice ragged from running and tainted with concern, “Thank goodness I found someone! Please, you have to help me, I don't know what to do! It's my daughter, she's dying and I don't know why. She's only one year old! Please, follow me. If you don't I don't know what I shall do!”

He ended his plea with a heart-rending wail, shedding the sincerest crocodile tears he could manage as he implored her to follow him, begged her to help him save his poor pup. He did not know much about the female but, from what little he had seen of her from his spying, she was introverted and kind-hearted, likely to follow him without question if presented with a dear enough cause. Malignus you old dog, he chided himself in his head even as he attempted to misguide the pretty young ess. Sometimes it was almost sad, taking the innocence from a pretty little flower. Sometimes.