So much more than cold will strike the mare tonight. Knox's heart beats with intention, faster than is healthy and harder, harder, harder than he has ever known.

The mare appears before him like a flake in the snow. She is a pretty thing, painted in feathers and innocence, but that is not what he sees when he looks at her standing there before him in the shadow--not for long.

When was the last time you ate? Dovev's sinister tones are brilliantly sharp in his mind. Knox finds himself regretting his actions. How long has he suppressed such brilliance?

And the ancestor's query leaves the hunter wondering. He realizes just how parched his throat is, now, from the long journey. And he feels, now, as the adrenaline dips for a moment, the hunger burning in his chest and shaking his legs.

The hunter feeds his ancestor an answer: Before Helovia, great grandsire.

Dovev snorts in Knox's mind. On the outside, the stallion's head flashes up and the long mane of Cem is tossed in the air. When it lands, it lands on a steel gray neck and its tresses have turned from silky to coarse. The shift is completed before Knox can even realize it has taken place. The stallion standing before this innocent mare, now, is the ghost of Dovev: the murderer.

When was the last time you really ate? the wicked one thinks as he steps forward, concealing no threat, refusing this strange mare an answer.

Knox does not need to consider the question. Dovev pulls him closer and his hunger rages in a flash of memory. He thinks about blood. He thinks about teeth and the tearing of flesh. Why, why had he ever given up such a taste? To separate himself from his family? To shun the memory of his mother and the years of training she cursed him with?

Your mother was a bitch, but she had good taste, Dovev whispers. Knox cannot bring himself to deny the fact. He stands before the mare and stares. He thinks about the taste of blood. He forgets the moment he was forced to swallow his father's last life and the seconds before he knew what it was to drown, the seconds where he thought he would drown in such an evidence of death.

Knox steps closer to the mare. In the shape of Dovev, in the mind of Dovev, he tosses his head and reveals his scars, long, mythic gashes crossing his neck. The bridle slaps his features gently.

The hunger strikes as delusion. For a second, Knox sees the wings and thinks of the Goddess he has so long worshipped. Deprivation of food, water, and sleep cloud his vision.

This strange mare, this innocent creature, becomes a vision of the mistress of moonlight.

Knox does not hesitate. He feels the hunger and he feels the fire--the burning of moonlight and the twisting of his passionate anger. He rears on his ancestor's hooves for the first time in so long and aims at the mare's shoulders with precision.

He has given her no response. There is nothing to say. She is the unfortunate soul, the one standing behind his starved vision of a Goddess, and she is nothing but the one who has left him alone.

In that moment, what is left of Knox blames the stranger for everything. And as he lets his mind and insecurities strike the cold night wind, he thinks of all who he has lost, and screams into the night.

—

[[@[Muriel]]]