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Metal jaws had locked shut around the she-wolf's paw. The steel was oh-so-cold on her dark fur, the bite so bold on the huntress, and scarlet blood wept from the paw that had carried her leagues and miles, crimson against the ebony. Yet it was not the trap, holding her with jaws of hungry steel, that hurt her heart the color of soot and charcoal- it was that her head had been bowed, forced down, muzzle swatted and a hand firm around her snarling, dripping maw. No matter how hard the she-wolf of her fractured mind fought against its binding hold, she could not free herself. But on occasion, a wolf will attempt to chew off his own paw, to escape traps. Not this wolf, however.
This wolf would wait to turn her terribly sharp teeth on the source of the pain.
Confutatis had fought hard, with the desperation of a bear protecting her cubs- her cubs being her freedom. The chaos-seeker well knew of what she tried to steal would eventually return to her, vengeance in their minds; she was no blind fool just born from a mother's womb. Oh, the mare of shadow and malice had tread carefully, little more than a skeleton with a threadbare skin, knowing how perilous even a short battle might be the death of her winter-weakened body- but it was inevitable that eventually the battle would come. On the day he had come, the night had been clouded, the bone white of the stars and moon hidden, their stark brightness gone from the ebon sky. From the shadows he came, his form glinting with shades of dull gray, just barely illuminated by the ghastly yellow of the lantern trees.
The sordid details came to her swiftly. Moonlit flowers crushed beneath her charcoal hooves. A gleam of gold on the river. Grass wet, glistening with dew. Rumblings of an angry sky. The fall of blessed rain, announcing the death of crisp white snowflakes. Sparkles of faded light, caught in a gleaming horn of polished glass.
It's difficult to breathe. Every breath rasps uncomfortably in her lungs; useless lumps of rocks in her chest. Lady Death's crown has slipped. In honesty, it has fallen, broken upon the ground, split into two golden pieces to be eaten by miss and decay. A cold. Her nostrils are clogged with white mucus, dripping from her muzzle most unpleasantly. a cough wracks her frail form, once muscular and full, lithe and graceful. Yet her eyes still burn with a flaming passion; ambition and aggression, a hunger and desire residing deep in her sooty soul reflected in that eye of amber. Blood marks her cheeks, a new bite wound beneath her good eye. A long, gruesome scrape curls down her right haunch, a deep testament to the battle she fought. The battle she lost.
She smoulders, she smokes, she is hot with contempt. For what has bested her but a unicorn, thin and weakly, hardly stronger than she; if only she had had more time to graze on the blossoming green grass and shining flowers, the petals crushed and sickly sweet on her tongue. If only. No matter how she despairs, she perseveres. Confutatis is confident in the knowledge she will, eventually, worm her way out of the stallion's precarious grip, to flee to a place safe, and put distance between herself and others so crude and disruptive. For now, however... the cougar is at the mercy of the hunter holding the rifle to her brazen skull.
When she wakes from the darkness of sleep to the darkness of eternal moonlight, she knows she is not alone.
"Come out, boy," she rasps, voice a hoarse growl in her throat. How she despises having fought, and lost.
"Gravedigger, why have you come to get me?"
Frost gleams on the grass. Though Birdsong has come, it is cold and still here in the forest. The trees sway and groan, bark cracking and moaning protest, sap glistening in thick ropes on weathered, wet bark. This place is unpleasantly soaked, with a cold that settles in the bones, but she shall not complain as she stands among the massive trees, for there is something compelling in the vast age of the trees and their enormous size. If only they could speak.
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