Kianzo

While you burn at the stake, I dance with the flames.

His black-rimmed ear flicked sideways, too late catching the angry gnashing of flaming wolves on her back and seeing her dark, lovely face duck away from him and into his chest as he proudly proclaimed his hunting prowess. His inked brow furrowed slightly, the burnt-out old man before them suddenly forgotten in his insignificant in the face of sister’s sudden jealous chagrin. “Sister,” his murmur was quiet, almost apologetic, muzzle beginning to reach out to close the distance that she had put between them—

But then his ears and attention flicked back to the old stallion as she tartly answered his challenging dismissal of the colt’s proffered deal. A dark smirk covered his face in amusement at sister’s annoyed, sharp reply to the grizzled stallion. His brows raised slightly, eyes narrowing a bit as she turned on him, demanding his prey for the man. He paused for a moment, bright blue eyes searching her gaze. “As you wish, Sister,” his clear, surprising deep voice for a colt rang in level response to Kia’s demanding tone.

And his ears sprang forward, eyes upturned to the top of the cave, searching for the flighted creatures she demanded he catch. Given it was daylight out, there were plenty of bats roosted in the nooks and crannies above them. His hyena pup yipped aloud the sudden dark excitement that flowed from the colt into their bond.

With surprising acuity (the colt had practiced after the twins’ run-in with Thranduil), a small and howling thread of hyena-cub-shaped ash hissed from his darkened chest; their gaping jowls of embers hungrily reaching for the rats of the sky. A high-pitched squeak (perhaps too high to be heard by the man’s aged ears, the unkind thought simmered the back of his mind), then silence, then three quiet, muted plops.

The hyena cub’s eerie laugh filled the dark cave, her front paws pouncing on the bat’s body that had fallen near her. Young, but powerful, jaws began to make quick work of the meal, though her greedy eyes stared at the fallen, furry, winged body that had fallen near the horned man and his newly-hatched companion. Her eyes also glanced at the bat that fell near the Kiada’s companion, but she knew (from experience) that the vulture was too quick and flighted to be able to easily steal her meal.

Almost lazily, but definitely ominously, the colt languidly noted to the larger stallion, “That wasn’t an apology,” and his ashen hyenas silently snarled in the air before being blown to dust. (But the magic was still there—still in him).

His eyes flicked questioningly to Kiada—was that better? was she happier?