03-08-2021, 11:50 AM
He wakes buried beneath a new foot of snow, opens his pale blue eyes to what feels like being trapped inside a frozen tomb. But there is no swell of panic within his chest as he lifts his heavy head and shakes the snow from his face, blinking around at a world that is still dark but somehow made brighter by the reflective white of winter. There is hardly any light to capture, but the shining crust of white snow claims every bit of it.
He wonders if it is morning (if it would have been if not for the way the sun and moon seem unwilling to part) or if his body has surrendered to this new normal and he rises rested in the middle of the night. It makes no difference though, he only finds it odd to have nothing with which to mark the passing of time. How long had it been since the world started to die? How long had it been since food became scarce for his family. He is thin beneath his thick, woolly fur, and it is only by the grace of his winter coat that his bones don’t protrude from him like inelegant branches.
When he rises from his resting place, it is like a small mountain escaping it’s moorings, and the frozen ground groans beneath those large cloven hooves. He shakes his body, but frost and snow and ice still cling to him, forming icicles that chime together down the length of his throat to his broad chest. Mother is gone, he can tell that easily in a glance, for it is hard to miss anyone even half the size that they are. Living hills with soft hair and blinking eyes. He doesn’t mind being alone, he understands that she is only hunting for greener places, that she hasn’t left him. She has always been migrant in that way.
Besides, she cannot stay beside him long without attracting the misfortune of whatever curse he had managed to inherit. They had realized a while ago that bad luck only seemed to find her when she was with him, and that somehow he never shared in it. It was safer for her if they were apart.
Still, it is eerily quiet in the dark, quieter even when the deep snow mutes everything, and he finds that it is hard to keep his quiet eyes still for very long. And it's strange, maybe, because the monsters hardly seem to notice him. They chitter and gnash their jaws, spilling past him like smoke only to pause for a second and watch him, but then they move on as though he is not there at all.
It is because he is like them, he doesn’t realize, because even these beastly creatures are not immune to his ominous aura, and when they find him they find a likeness that doesn’t trigger a bloodlust.
He is same, he is like them, he is not prey.
Still, it is hard not to be unsettled by the feeling of eyes crawling all over him while his back is turned, so he chooses to distract himself by making his way to the river for a drink. He is no delicate creature, and the trees bend away from him as he walks, long furrows like paths in the snow behind him. And when he comes to the waters edge and finds that it had frozen in the hours since last drinking from it, he cracks it with his tusks until there is a spot large enough for his dark lips.
He wonders if it is morning (if it would have been if not for the way the sun and moon seem unwilling to part) or if his body has surrendered to this new normal and he rises rested in the middle of the night. It makes no difference though, he only finds it odd to have nothing with which to mark the passing of time. How long had it been since the world started to die? How long had it been since food became scarce for his family. He is thin beneath his thick, woolly fur, and it is only by the grace of his winter coat that his bones don’t protrude from him like inelegant branches.
When he rises from his resting place, it is like a small mountain escaping it’s moorings, and the frozen ground groans beneath those large cloven hooves. He shakes his body, but frost and snow and ice still cling to him, forming icicles that chime together down the length of his throat to his broad chest. Mother is gone, he can tell that easily in a glance, for it is hard to miss anyone even half the size that they are. Living hills with soft hair and blinking eyes. He doesn’t mind being alone, he understands that she is only hunting for greener places, that she hasn’t left him. She has always been migrant in that way.
Besides, she cannot stay beside him long without attracting the misfortune of whatever curse he had managed to inherit. They had realized a while ago that bad luck only seemed to find her when she was with him, and that somehow he never shared in it. It was safer for her if they were apart.
Still, it is eerily quiet in the dark, quieter even when the deep snow mutes everything, and he finds that it is hard to keep his quiet eyes still for very long. And it's strange, maybe, because the monsters hardly seem to notice him. They chitter and gnash their jaws, spilling past him like smoke only to pause for a second and watch him, but then they move on as though he is not there at all.
It is because he is like them, he doesn’t realize, because even these beastly creatures are not immune to his ominous aura, and when they find him they find a likeness that doesn’t trigger a bloodlust.
He is same, he is like them, he is not prey.
Still, it is hard not to be unsettled by the feeling of eyes crawling all over him while his back is turned, so he chooses to distract himself by making his way to the river for a drink. He is no delicate creature, and the trees bend away from him as he walks, long furrows like paths in the snow behind him. And when he comes to the waters edge and finds that it had frozen in the hours since last drinking from it, he cracks it with his tusks until there is a spot large enough for his dark lips.
RANNOCH
equus mammuthus
son of furious and extinct
@[aestas]