nothing comes of wishing on stars.
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A hare hung limp from the vagabond’s jaws, as meager of meat as the hunter that had slain it, but it was a prized catch indeed. Not rotten. Not covered with flies. The hare and wolf alike were covered in dirt, clots of it nesting in Bramble’s shaggy brown coat. The chase had not lived up to its expectations, so he had dug the wily beast from its hole. One of them, anyway, there had been several. It had to run out of options at some point.
No, hunter extraordinaire he was not, hence his withered shape, hovering just above starvation. But spring would be better than winter, and he would survive… probably. Despite his failings as a predator, when he had seen the herds on the move, he knew well enough to follow. They returned to a home he had never known, a land obliterated at the time of his birth, a hundred miles away. The wolves were flooding in as well, following the food, or their hearts, and this made him uncomfortable—but, the food was plentiful, and it was worth the risk. He had found his way, like most, into the massive circular valley. He didn’t know to call it a crater, didn’t know its origins or the consequences of the devastation. Moreover, he couldn’t conceive that a series of events beginning here had left him orphaned, and cursed by misery.
He had made a home of sorts on the western side of the crater. Numerous caves dotted the landscape, which suited his needs just fine. Due to the landscape, darkness settled quicker here, the shadows beginning to take hold mere hours after midday. He thought it might keep others away, chasing sunlight until true night fell. He walked the narrow ledges of a steep incline, a wall of rock curved to the shape of the crater itself. Further along, water gushed from its peak, filling the pool at the base of the cliff. The path widened here, at its midpoint, becoming a ledge some two feet across. It passed behind the falls, providing concealment for the shallow cave located here. It was only really visible in the short hours of daylight this extreme edge of the crater saw. If one didn’t know the cave was there, they would hardly have reason to tread the damp path this far. Clever, yes, he knew.
Heavy drops fell across him as he slipped behind the waterfall, turning the dirt in his coat into mud, which was the common state of it anyway. He craned his head into the cave for caution’s sake, when a flurry of wings broke across his face.
He shut his good right eye and the other empty socket against the beating wings and the rancid stench that now filled his nostrils. Eyes closed, in the darkness of the cave, lights flashed before his vision nonetheless, black wings blotting out the sun as his ears rang with the blaring cacophony of crows. There was a searing pain where his eye once was, and he cried out, backpedaling from the cave he had already forgotten. His pulse raced furiously as he sucked in short, panicked breaths of air, choking on water, his paws slipping on the slickened stone, and then—his stomach was in his throat as he fell through the air, through the water, plunging with a sickening speed until he was submerged. He writhed, confused, the birds still beating their wings against his mind as he fought both them and his water-bound state. Somehow, he reached the surface, and, half-mad with terror, made it to the nearest exposed stone. Coughing up water, he clung to it like a wet cat, his body shaking with the trauma of his relived experience. The shore lay a few yards away, but in his current state he couldn’t bring himself to attempt even that scant distance. Not when his mind was no longer his own.
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B R A M B L E
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nothing comes of the songs people sing
however sorry they are
two years | loner | no mate | no imprint
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