are the dead really silent?The stranger lowered himself to my level. The closer he got the more suffocated I began to feel. Fear flickered through him. I did not know if it was radiating off this wolf, or if it was the seal of my own fate pressing in against me. What I had done manifested in this wolf before him. Every word he spoke sank into my flesh and seeped into my soul. My love for my family… Kaliska, Psyche, Solstice, Beltane, Thoth, and Alouette… What would my own fate do to them? The misery I bore would surely settle on their shoulders. Now the lives of the strangers who were my blood. The blood they were born into. The man’s words haunted me more than the spirits I had walked with all my life. Their own voices gave his voluminous power.
I knew his intentions. I understood them on a level he need not have stated. He loved his children, just as I loved mine. He wanted to wipe my stain from her coat, just as I wished to wash the strain from my own children. I would have done anything to save them from the curse I had brought them. The curse of my blood and the world around me. Forever they would be touched by this curse, the curse of life and the curse of death. Fate and life would touch them each differently and each would feel its breathy kiss. Whether the love of life would embrace them cruelly or kindly was a story yet to be written.
He moved still closer, his threats and promise poised and graceful. I could not deny him his right to seek vengeance, to recreate the balance. I could not deny that I did not deserve it. I could not ignore the call beyond the the veil, calling and speaking to me, cursing me and urging me. He moved closer and whispered words that were more of a threat, almost a challenge. Would they know the truth? They would never know I loved them. I longed, prayed, wished for their siblings, their siblings they may never meet, to speak to them about who they really and what I had once been. I looked to the man who would take my life and I saw the world of the unknown reflecting in his eyes. The truth was known to none, only the reality the perceived.
Instinct overwhelmed me. The whirl of the world took over in my mind. The thoughts and feelings clouded into me like a dark mist that enveloped me and stole my senses. His teeth were in my shoulder, his bulk forcing my withered body below his. I thrashed against his hold, my teeth trying to tear at his, but never getting close enough to do so. As my body sank to the ground I could feel the growing weight on my body. The weight of what I had done and the fate that was becoming my own. My growl was also a whine the lower I sank. My fighting became fevered and useless. Jaws snapped shut and my eyes blinded over as the hands from beyond the veil started to reach for me.
lord; 41in/190lbs; Psyche’s fateXheartless; Asteraia |