The aching was deep.

The rattle of his own skull and clinking of golden teeth echoing in his piked ears as he opened and shut his jaws, body searing with pain as he heaved himself off of the ground. He craned his neck and tipped his heavy horned head for hollow sockets to gaze at the dark fleshy wings that protruded from his sides. He strained as he stretched them in and out, feeling the awkwardness of sharp splayed finger-like limbs that helped to stabilize the sensitive leathery membrane between them. The cool air that brushed against the exposed skin made him cringe; he had never felt anything like this when he had his perfect feathered wings.

He hissed in a shaking breath as he remembered the events prior to his waking here...the price he paid for that gold. "Goddess be damned..." he snarled as his gold teeth clicked with the words that rumbled from deep within his chest. The sound a horrible clinking reminder of what she had done to him. Distorting him into this monster...he didn't care he had stolen from her.  All he cared about was himself and what she had done to him, and he would never forgive her nor forget it either.

Porthos surveyed the forest around him, dark and filled with the heady scent of decaying leaves and damp soil. He had no idea where the goddess had sent him, and he knew this sure as hell was not the home he once knew. Slender black legs carried him forward at a slinking walk with his piked ears swiveling to take in the sounds of the forest, alert to the sound of potential company. Be it benevolent or malevolent. At this point he didn't care who he ran into, so long as they could tell him where the hell he was. Following a slender trail of brown and reddish leaves, he weaved through thick forest for what seemed like hours with seemingly no end in sight. He would fly if not for the thick canopy of the trees making it impossible to access the skies above. As well as the intense aching pain his body felt with each movement he made.

He had no idea if it were day or night with how dark it was here, and he wondered if this was some sort of never-ending forest the goddess had sent him to wander for eternity... the thought making his rage begin to boil. His silky black tail swished irritably, catching stray strands upon the grabbing thorny clutches of thorn bushes as he passed between them. Would this trail ever end?