do you think God stays in his heaven because he, too, lives in fear of what he has created?
He swallows nervously as he waits with the sound of his own pulse thundering in his ears. Smaller prey has never thrilled him and he finds himself delighted at this new challenge. Slowly, Ghaul turns his head from left to right and back again, scanning the meadow for any flare of red until he spots her. Remember, he tells himself, your role is prey. His ears perk up the way he recalls a deer doing once just before he sunk his talons into its face. The prince even pretends to chew grass the way a simple prey animal might.
Closer, closer she slinks and he realizes she is something new entirely. The feline predators of Beqanna prefer to go unseen and so her shape delights him in the sickest way. Her skull will be a trophy worthy of the Pangean queen, he thinks.
When she leaps for him, his wings unfurl with a snap as the leathery appendages ready themselves. With a flap of those draconic wings, he is lunging to meet her with his own talons outstretched. They collide and her claws meet the scales of his chest with an awful gritting noise that makes him cringe. Her weight makes him stumble back for a moment as his talons close around her foreleg. He could lift her into the air, he thinks, just to drop her and watch her body collide with the ground. (What kind of sound would she make? Would the fall tenderize her meat?)
But instead he brings that leg to his jaws. The crooked crocodile teeth lining his mouth are too impatient. He wants her blood coating his tongue now, he thinks as he bites down. But he’s careful not to break the bone. He releases her.
Ghaul wants to see if she will fight or if she will run in the face of a true apex predator. With his wings spread wide in an ancient threat display, he watches the blur of her as a grin spreads across his face. Her blood stains his chin until his vile tongue snakes out, licking himself clean greedily.
“Pretender. Powerless imposter,” he says as he creeps closer to her once more. “Bend. Bend so I don’t have to break you.”
The galaxies across his face shimmer with no concern for her plight or even his if she chooses not to yield. The blind boy, however, just keeps smiling as he waits to see if she will rise to meet him.
@[sochi] let's pretend the scales on his face are softer so she can swipe him and give him a cool scar.