"love breaks my bones and i laugh."
Blood drools from his chin as he lifts his head victoriously from the cougar that attacked him. She heard its desperate cries when Vulgaris tackled it to the ground, smelled its blood when he sank his teeth into its delicate throat. The young deer never stood a chance, but the cougar had put up a decent fight when she tried to steal his kill. Her claws ripped angry red lines through the scales across his shoulders and face but managed to miss his arteries and his eyes. He knows he’ll be stiff and sore come tomorrow but for now, he decides to rinse himself of the ordeal.
The water finds all the smaller cuts along his legs from the fight and he sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth. Still, he eases deeper into the river until his shoulders are covered. Vulgaris growls softly and the sound is something like a crocodile’s warning croon. When the water flows clearly once again, he dips his face and snorts to keep the water from his nostrils. The bubbles bloom pink with his blood before being swept further downstream.
He lifts his red and gray head when he hears someone call out around the bend in the river and he wonders if another predator has smelled his blood. (Does he smell like prey or could another hunter recognize him from afar?) Vulgaris drags himself through the water until he returns to the dry land where he will have better footing. The serpent follows the curve of the river until he sees the buckskin girl all covered in mud and blood as he had been moments ago. His own wounds are still bright pink and red against his skin.
“Were you speaking to me?” he asks curiously before spitting the copper taste from his mouth. Water continues to drip from him even after he gives his head a little shake. Soon, his wounds will be gooey with plasma as it tries to repair itself. It would be nice to have some distraction from the sight and feeling until the brown and burgundy scabs form, he thinks. A part of him wants to ask how she happened to be in such a similar shape but he’d be lying if he said he was actually interested, so he tosses the thought away for now.
“Don’t I know you?” he asks with a tilt of his head as he draws closer to her. If she were a little cleaner, he would be certain that they had met in the Field, but she’s hardly recognizable in her current state.
Vulgaris.