08-30-2017, 10:00 PM
THANA.
(as black as your soul)
Run!
And she had.
She had run, and she had run – until her lithe and agile legs had become tired and weak, until the echo of the ground rumbling raucously beneath her weight disappeared, leaving her with nothing but the stifling silence of the dark woodland that had beckoned her forth from the wreckage. When she does finally come to a halt, with her lungs heaving within the confinement of her chest and clutching at every gasp of sharp, frigid oxygen it can grasp onto, she is all too-aware of a distinct, sharp jolt of pain sliding up the length of her left hindleg. Her grasp and poise were no match for the height of the carefully crafted wall of bristling thorns and entangled branches, and her landing had been hurried, and a mere misstep resulted in a deep ache tucked away within the marrow of her bones.
Ah, but she would not linger upon it, a sneer tugging at the corner of her mouth while her darkened gaze settles yet again upon the path she had just taken – to the reckoning that had taken place by way of land and sea. The anger she had felt (a caged dog, she had been; entrapped and foaming at the mouth) had waned, and in its place, a wry, wicked sort of laughter is rising, echoing in the thicket surrounding her, and carrying through the dense woodland as the incredulity of it all dawned upon her.
Breathlessly, her legs carry her through the darkness, a faint limp hindering her and stirring ire, roiling somewhere beneath the surface – but she has no time, nor any desire to linger on the thought of it for long. While she, herself, had survived, she could not say how many others might have perished, and there is a building dread expanding inside of her, suffocating her wildly beating heart, overwhelming her with uncertainty. Gryffen. Had he survived? Had he been taken by the snapping, fiery jaws of the magma wolves? Had he been swept away by the churning waters, and carried out to sea?
Thana had never cared before. Not of anyone who was not her beloved sister, Isra – or her birth-giver, Michaelis, who had woven the very shadow tendrils that had acted as a womb, creating she and her sister out of nothing. Out of magic. Out of darkness, and so, such darkness had taken her heart and seized it for her own, making it callous, hardened, and black - but there is a pang beneath her breast, growing heavy with each passing moment that his scent does not envelope her – with each passing moment that she does not find him.
And then she does, and an exhalation of relief filters through her dark, parted lips, while her limber limbs lost their thick and downy fur, elongating into the smooth, finely muscled legs of an equine, while her dark tresses fall across her roving black eye, while the steel gray bores into her King – into the wraith that had intrigued her so, and gently, her teeth graze along the curve of his lip and across the notches of his rib cage, before affectionately plucking at the dried leaves and pine needs tangled in his mane.
She had found him – no one else mattered; the rest were disposable.
She cared little.
When the wench to his left opened her mouth, her words biting and laced with arsenic, her own teeth are bared, while the ferocity of her gaze is settled upon her – though there is a ghost of a smirk hidden within the darkness of her mouth. ”If only the sea had swallowed you up, too – what a pity.” Ah, and there it is – the menacing cackle, suppressed into little else but a wry chuckle, but with her worry and uncertainty put at ease, she felt herself once more.
”What now, my King?” she croons, for he would always be the true King of the Taiga to her.
And she had.
She had run, and she had run – until her lithe and agile legs had become tired and weak, until the echo of the ground rumbling raucously beneath her weight disappeared, leaving her with nothing but the stifling silence of the dark woodland that had beckoned her forth from the wreckage. When she does finally come to a halt, with her lungs heaving within the confinement of her chest and clutching at every gasp of sharp, frigid oxygen it can grasp onto, she is all too-aware of a distinct, sharp jolt of pain sliding up the length of her left hindleg. Her grasp and poise were no match for the height of the carefully crafted wall of bristling thorns and entangled branches, and her landing had been hurried, and a mere misstep resulted in a deep ache tucked away within the marrow of her bones.
Ah, but she would not linger upon it, a sneer tugging at the corner of her mouth while her darkened gaze settles yet again upon the path she had just taken – to the reckoning that had taken place by way of land and sea. The anger she had felt (a caged dog, she had been; entrapped and foaming at the mouth) had waned, and in its place, a wry, wicked sort of laughter is rising, echoing in the thicket surrounding her, and carrying through the dense woodland as the incredulity of it all dawned upon her.
Breathlessly, her legs carry her through the darkness, a faint limp hindering her and stirring ire, roiling somewhere beneath the surface – but she has no time, nor any desire to linger on the thought of it for long. While she, herself, had survived, she could not say how many others might have perished, and there is a building dread expanding inside of her, suffocating her wildly beating heart, overwhelming her with uncertainty. Gryffen. Had he survived? Had he been taken by the snapping, fiery jaws of the magma wolves? Had he been swept away by the churning waters, and carried out to sea?
Thana had never cared before. Not of anyone who was not her beloved sister, Isra – or her birth-giver, Michaelis, who had woven the very shadow tendrils that had acted as a womb, creating she and her sister out of nothing. Out of magic. Out of darkness, and so, such darkness had taken her heart and seized it for her own, making it callous, hardened, and black - but there is a pang beneath her breast, growing heavy with each passing moment that his scent does not envelope her – with each passing moment that she does not find him.
And then she does, and an exhalation of relief filters through her dark, parted lips, while her limber limbs lost their thick and downy fur, elongating into the smooth, finely muscled legs of an equine, while her dark tresses fall across her roving black eye, while the steel gray bores into her King – into the wraith that had intrigued her so, and gently, her teeth graze along the curve of his lip and across the notches of his rib cage, before affectionately plucking at the dried leaves and pine needs tangled in his mane.
She had found him – no one else mattered; the rest were disposable.
She cared little.
When the wench to his left opened her mouth, her words biting and laced with arsenic, her own teeth are bared, while the ferocity of her gaze is settled upon her – though there is a ghost of a smirk hidden within the darkness of her mouth. ”If only the sea had swallowed you up, too – what a pity.” Ah, and there it is – the menacing cackle, suppressed into little else but a wry chuckle, but with her worry and uncertainty put at ease, she felt herself once more.
”What now, my King?” she croons, for he would always be the true King of the Taiga to her.