Kianzo

I loathe your prayer. I wallow in sin. Let the nightmare begin.

Kianzo may be a hunter, but Keusi (despite her bonded’s predatory proclivities) was still a scavenger by instinct. So, despite the dark prince preferring to do his own killing, occasionally the hunting pair found themselves following another hunter, to steal the freshly killed meals the moment they stopped struggling.

Tonight was a night such as this where, beneath the full moon Kianzo yielded to Keusi’s instincts because his own were far inferior to hers in the pallid light. Two pairs of sharply blue eyes glittered beneath the pale white light, tinged an eerie red by the Blood Falls’ surroundings. The dark golden pair stalked a giant grizzly, a beast so large that whatever he felled would assuredly be more than they could hunt on their own (unless, of course, they used their combined magics).

However, their stalking was interrupted by another who hunted their prey/predator. The dark prince abruptly stopped in the rubied shadows, his brows raised as he watched a muscular gray wolf trail after the bear— but there was something different about how this wolf moved…it didn’t have quite the natural silence and stealth of the few wolves he and Kiada had seen in the Basin. In fact, the colt almost thought that he moved more quietly through the red willows, courtesy of Thranduil’s impatient teachings.

Dark lips pressed together in thought—was this wolf another scavenger to contend with? ’New prey?’ was Keusi’s eager snarl into his mind; it was not often that the pair hunted predators to eat. And, though Keusi truthfully preferred the taste of herbivore flesh, killing a predator was much more exhilarating that killing simpleton grass-eaters.

ROAR

The pair’s mental conversation was cut short as pandemonium broke out between the bear, the wolf, and a suddenly appeared eagle (—did that eagle look familiar?—). The bear’s massive paws swiped at his skull, the wolf lunged forward—for blood? was that shine glass?— and then a grey yearling filly was sprinting past both he and Keusi; the grey eagle furiously flapping through the reddish leaves.

And Kianzo is suddenly face-to-face with a charging, infuriated grizzly bear; again, the hunter becoming the hunted. A surprising low bellow of shock left his shadowed chest (his voice was deepening by the day, it seemed, as hormones flushed his veins and thickened his muscle), ears flush with his skull as he realized he had no time to run, as the grey filly had—the bear’s teeth and slashing claws were nearly on top of him.

So, with a teeth bared, heart pounding, and eyes wide, his ashen magic erupted from his chest. The hyenas of ash and scalding gases had their wide mouths open in silent snarls as they engulfed the bear’s own, snarling and snapping face.

But the bear was too large and in too close of quarters for his suspended-animation magic to work on all of it. So, it froze only one foreleg, the head, and neck of the beast. With jaws set open and dripping angry saliva, the bear’s free forepaw slashed relentlessly at Kianzo and the fearfully snarling Keusi.

“Come back here and help me!” was his deep, commanding bark (so eerily and unknowing like his father’s), to the fleeing filly and her eagle. The bear was far too large for him to hold onto with just his and his companion’s magic.

Keusi, meanwhile, gathered her magic—but wasn’t sure if a frightened, angry bear was better than just an angry bear to fight. So, with her own heart pounding a scared staccato in her chest, she crouched and watched for an opening between slashes to sink her bone-crushing jaws in to the bear’s frozen, pulsing neck.