Post by Raul Adalwulf on Jul 29, 2020 8:49:46 GMT -5
His prey still had some fight left. Her aura was shattered but she still fought. It would have been admirable, were the wolf in a position to even recognize the concept of admiration. All he understood in that instant was the boundless chasm of rage that churned within him. Her hands feebly beat him about the head where his jaws were fastened tight across her neck. He could feel the fight going out of her, could taste her blood. It would have been a simple thing, to just bite down, to allow his fangs to sink up to the root in the soft warm flesh, and even though in that instant it was something he genuinely might have wanted, something, like a dim recollection at the very back of his mind, stopped him.
As Bianca approached, it was to the sound of scuffing bootheels hammering against the packed earth, and of muted growls and muffled choking gasps. Ignorant of the drama unfolding around them, with the freed prisoners taking up arms against their former captors, the pair were locked into a drama all their own, a drama the script of which stretched right back to the earliest eons when the first predator ran down the first prey. Without releasing the neck of the one he held, who for her part still clung valiantly to a life quickly departing, frenzied lupine eyes, nearly black with the pupils dilated right back until the iris were but thin blue halos, looked up at the approaching reptile. A low throaty growl of warning greeted her, ears pinned back, gaze fixed even as the increasingly weakened hands of his victim scratched and slapped at his face. It was as if she'd interrupted a feral creature jealously guarding a kill, only this kill wasn't dead yet.
The woman made a croaking sound that sounded pitifully pleading as her bulging eyes rolled up to find Bianca standing over them. Having lost hope, and genuinely come to believe that this monster on her was going to kill her, and then probably eat her, the bandit chief felt a fresh surge of hope even as the last sliver of his consciousness and indeed her life, ebbed away, one oxygen starved heartbeat at a time. She reached out with trembling blood streaked fingers, croaking out a petition for mercy, for salvation from a doom that was currently choking the life out of her. The enraged beast responded to this by shaking the human savagely by her throat until her nerveless limbs flopped back to the earth limply and her eyes started to roll back into her head, emitting one final ragged croak.
Then he released her, dumping her from his jaws in a toneless heap. For a moment it seemed this mercy which one might think uncharacteristic of a creature so savage in aspect, might have come too late, but then the former chieftain gave a sudden percussive gasp as starved lungs labored to draw in a precious gust of life giving air. The wolf for his part glared down at the broken shape, breathing heavily, each exhaled breath coming out in an earth shaking snarl. His twisted features were painted with the absolute extreme of primal fury and hatred, carved deep into the bestial creases of his visage, while his body covered head to foot in a thin layer of fur it had not possessed a few minutes before shook violently with utter outrage. There was something brutal and hateful in his almost entirely black eyes, and there was a long terrible moment where it seemed he might fall upon the stricken shape again at any instant and finish the work he'd only just turned away from already.
But then something happened. It was subtle at first. It began with his eyes, as the pupils contracted and the pale gentle blue of his eyes returned to dominance. Simultaneously the bestial savagery of his face seemed to melt away, as his expression returned to something approaching neutrality. What had been barely recognizable as human slowly became something closer to the sensitively developed features of mankind. Even the fine fur that seemed to have spontaneously covered his body thinned out and vanished, all but for the coarsest examples surrounding his neck, shoulders forearms and back. His breathing slowed and that continuous baleful growl became nothing but quiet panting. Then finally, recognition, and understanding seemed to dawn on his face, and as if surprised to find himself there, Raul looked around with wide eyes and flattened ears.
The ruin of the camp surrounding him, a dead man less than a dozen feet away, and before him, a human being, wracked with coughing fits as she tried to draw air through a traumatized throat, all sank in like one nail after another, and with each detail the expression of mute horror on Raul's placid features mounted. He looked at the crumpled heap of the man nearby, now a corpse, neck and back twisted impossibly, and as thin trickle of horrible remembrance insinuated itself into his mind. Then he looked at the woman before him, curled up in a fetal position and desperately trying to protect herself from further assault by drawing limbs towards her core. Then he licked his lips, and he tasted something metallic. Raul wiped his mouth, as he recoiled from the sight of what he'd done, standing up to his full height and taking a step back. When his hand came away from his lips bloody, he realized fully what his part in all this had been.
He turned back to Bianca, the only anchor he had in a world quickly spinning apart around him, and with wet trembling eyes he emitted a low plaintive whine. He was too wracked with his own horror to even hear what she had said to him. Even if he had heard, and even if he could have understood, what about him? Who was going to look after him? Who was going to make sense of this? How did you make sense of this? Raul had just killed someone, and very nearly someone else. Up until this day he'd never once in his entire life felt even the hint of the desire to harm another person, and now he'd killed someone. He'd... Killed... Someone...
That was it. Everything that man ever was, and everything he ever would be. Gone.. Now just a pile of pulverized meat and broken bones. And Raul had done it. Without even thinking. Without even really meaning to. He was a killer now. He was everything his mother had ever told him not to be. It felt all of a sudden as if the entire world were subtly off axis, as if everything he had once thought familiar, had once known, was suddenly just so slightly twisted so that none of it fit together neatly anymore. He'd never felt so horribly alone. He'd never felt so empty.
He fixed Bianca with a stare that held within it all the sorrow of the ages, and he said to her the only thing he could think to say, something that could never do justice to the storm of confusion, disgust and despair within him. Even his voice, thin and ragged and seemingly on the verge of collapse, sounded strange to his own ears.
"Why....?"
1222/9769
As Bianca approached, it was to the sound of scuffing bootheels hammering against the packed earth, and of muted growls and muffled choking gasps. Ignorant of the drama unfolding around them, with the freed prisoners taking up arms against their former captors, the pair were locked into a drama all their own, a drama the script of which stretched right back to the earliest eons when the first predator ran down the first prey. Without releasing the neck of the one he held, who for her part still clung valiantly to a life quickly departing, frenzied lupine eyes, nearly black with the pupils dilated right back until the iris were but thin blue halos, looked up at the approaching reptile. A low throaty growl of warning greeted her, ears pinned back, gaze fixed even as the increasingly weakened hands of his victim scratched and slapped at his face. It was as if she'd interrupted a feral creature jealously guarding a kill, only this kill wasn't dead yet.
The woman made a croaking sound that sounded pitifully pleading as her bulging eyes rolled up to find Bianca standing over them. Having lost hope, and genuinely come to believe that this monster on her was going to kill her, and then probably eat her, the bandit chief felt a fresh surge of hope even as the last sliver of his consciousness and indeed her life, ebbed away, one oxygen starved heartbeat at a time. She reached out with trembling blood streaked fingers, croaking out a petition for mercy, for salvation from a doom that was currently choking the life out of her. The enraged beast responded to this by shaking the human savagely by her throat until her nerveless limbs flopped back to the earth limply and her eyes started to roll back into her head, emitting one final ragged croak.
Then he released her, dumping her from his jaws in a toneless heap. For a moment it seemed this mercy which one might think uncharacteristic of a creature so savage in aspect, might have come too late, but then the former chieftain gave a sudden percussive gasp as starved lungs labored to draw in a precious gust of life giving air. The wolf for his part glared down at the broken shape, breathing heavily, each exhaled breath coming out in an earth shaking snarl. His twisted features were painted with the absolute extreme of primal fury and hatred, carved deep into the bestial creases of his visage, while his body covered head to foot in a thin layer of fur it had not possessed a few minutes before shook violently with utter outrage. There was something brutal and hateful in his almost entirely black eyes, and there was a long terrible moment where it seemed he might fall upon the stricken shape again at any instant and finish the work he'd only just turned away from already.
But then something happened. It was subtle at first. It began with his eyes, as the pupils contracted and the pale gentle blue of his eyes returned to dominance. Simultaneously the bestial savagery of his face seemed to melt away, as his expression returned to something approaching neutrality. What had been barely recognizable as human slowly became something closer to the sensitively developed features of mankind. Even the fine fur that seemed to have spontaneously covered his body thinned out and vanished, all but for the coarsest examples surrounding his neck, shoulders forearms and back. His breathing slowed and that continuous baleful growl became nothing but quiet panting. Then finally, recognition, and understanding seemed to dawn on his face, and as if surprised to find himself there, Raul looked around with wide eyes and flattened ears.
The ruin of the camp surrounding him, a dead man less than a dozen feet away, and before him, a human being, wracked with coughing fits as she tried to draw air through a traumatized throat, all sank in like one nail after another, and with each detail the expression of mute horror on Raul's placid features mounted. He looked at the crumpled heap of the man nearby, now a corpse, neck and back twisted impossibly, and as thin trickle of horrible remembrance insinuated itself into his mind. Then he looked at the woman before him, curled up in a fetal position and desperately trying to protect herself from further assault by drawing limbs towards her core. Then he licked his lips, and he tasted something metallic. Raul wiped his mouth, as he recoiled from the sight of what he'd done, standing up to his full height and taking a step back. When his hand came away from his lips bloody, he realized fully what his part in all this had been.
He turned back to Bianca, the only anchor he had in a world quickly spinning apart around him, and with wet trembling eyes he emitted a low plaintive whine. He was too wracked with his own horror to even hear what she had said to him. Even if he had heard, and even if he could have understood, what about him? Who was going to look after him? Who was going to make sense of this? How did you make sense of this? Raul had just killed someone, and very nearly someone else. Up until this day he'd never once in his entire life felt even the hint of the desire to harm another person, and now he'd killed someone. He'd... Killed... Someone...
That was it. Everything that man ever was, and everything he ever would be. Gone.. Now just a pile of pulverized meat and broken bones. And Raul had done it. Without even thinking. Without even really meaning to. He was a killer now. He was everything his mother had ever told him not to be. It felt all of a sudden as if the entire world were subtly off axis, as if everything he had once thought familiar, had once known, was suddenly just so slightly twisted so that none of it fit together neatly anymore. He'd never felt so horribly alone. He'd never felt so empty.
He fixed Bianca with a stare that held within it all the sorrow of the ages, and he said to her the only thing he could think to say, something that could never do justice to the storm of confusion, disgust and despair within him. Even his voice, thin and ragged and seemingly on the verge of collapse, sounded strange to his own ears.
"Why....?"
1222/9769
