Fell tears back and forth along the shoreline where Rafe and Kohelet had departed. His feathered hooves leave uneven, bloodied gouges in the pebbled sand, his gait hindered by the heavy limp the striped stallion had left him with. He knows he cannot follow, but part of him longs to throw himself into the sea anyway, to drown himself chasing his lover just to be able to say that he tried.

He cannot even call out to her as she disappears into the waves.

Anger does not begin to describe the hurricane within Fell. He had not known his father well, but he knows of Rougaru’s wolf, the focused and cunning predator within the King of Paradise. Oh, how the wretched, defective spawn of the Wolf King wishes he had inherited that part of Rougaru; the cleverness, the intelligence, the control, but all he had gotten was a useless beast. A furious, ravenous, aimless beast. It writhes within Fell, his chest full to bursting with a scream he cannot release, the keening of his monster ripping through his ears and drowning out all else. In this moment, he is as deaf as he is mute, and for all his rage he is untethered, unanchored, adrift.

Useless.

The loathing within Fell is all-consuming, but it is no longer for Rafe. Maybe it never had been for Rafe; the Salem stallion had only been an outlet, and not even a very good one. No, he cannot deflect his hatred anymore, not now that Kohelet is no longer here to help convince him that he is more of a person than a beast. It turns oppressively inward, and there is no escaping; nowhere to turn to or run, no one whose life he can extinguish to keep it at bay.

He runs the edge of the beach, back and forth, long after the sun sets. He is in no condition to attend the children, at least not without hurting them, but Khoshekh dutifully herds them away from the beach. Fell might have been embarrassed, if he had the capacity, but that flavor of shame does not hold a candle to the crushing weight of failure. The leg that had been damaged in his fight with Loupgaru is far worse now, but he throws his weight deliberately onto it, leaning into the pain, punishing himself with it. Punishing himself with exhaustion as he runs himself into the ground, and when he finally collapses, he punishes himself further by digging cruely into the wet sand, packing his wounds with grit and salt.

FELL

stallion. 16hh. black. marwari x. Rougaru x visurix.