Gull

Misery seemed to follow you closer than you own shadow these days. But unlike your shadow, this pain was heavy., and it didn’t do you the courtesy of disappearing at high noon. It wrapped its fiery fingers around your lungs, made you cough before snatching the breath from your throat, stole your voice and ran away with it…only to return to amplify everyone else’s, making your ears ring and your head hang low in agony. Even at night there was no escape from the torment, for what little sleep you managed was plagued by nightmarish memories of Muriel’s broken body in the snow, stripped of both her wings and the beat of her heart.

Yet still you continued your search for her killer, and as your body grew more feverish, your need to find him only sharpened. It was deranged, delirious anger fueled into one aim: revenge. And the longer he went free, the deeper your hatred grew, burrowing itself down in your belly, stretching its roots into your very being, feeding off of your grief and rage with a gaping mouth, like some sick metaphorical worm. But without fully understanding why, you welcomed this parasite. Even as it drained you of your energy, it made you hungrier, gave you a sense of purpose that you hadn’t known you’d possessed. No longer were you some wayward drifter, chasing only your pleasure: you were a head hunter, and you’d find him if it killed you. You only prayed that you’d live long enough to pay him back in kind.

Of course, for all of your vengeful dreams, you knew that without another clue, this was all a wild goose chase. You didn’t know what the killer looked like; all the evidence you’d had to go off of was the purple imprint of hooves and the jagged red tears of vicious teeth that he had left on Muriel’s body. Maybe the bastard still had her wings, and maybe he didn’t. You had no idea what direction he had taken. There were so many questions, and the only one who might have any of the answers had been too shaken to give them to you that night. And so it seemed that you would have another to search for.

Hunting for Brigand hadn’t been easy either. Besides the fact that he was still small, you were too weak to fly, and the thought of looking down from above made your pounding head hurt all the more. You’d had to travel by land, and you weren’t familiar enough with his haunts to know where the boy would go. He hadn’t been at the caves, and now you only had sheer dumb luck to rely on.

But this evening, it seems that sheer dumb luck is on your side. Trudging along as you are, you almost miss the russet form on the bank, hidden by the frosted thistles. However, those four wings are unmistakable, and though it wracks your body with intense pain, you raise your head and whinny as loudly as you can manage. He’s here.

OOC: Questing, part IV! Sorry for the wait, I’m finishing up the end of a term at school (:

trouble just grew wings