10-03-2021, 01:42 AM
i'm torn from the truth that holds my soul
i'm down in the grave where I belong --
His mother was too difficult to keep up with.
They were the same, but also not. He had armor like her, and that strange knife-tipped tail, but he knew he was not exactly like her, and he knew she could see it too. He could respond to her alien-like clicks and sounds, but he found his tongue always wanting to make different ones—trying to form into shapes to match the thoughts in his head, but he never could quite figure out how to do it. He was not as fast as her either, and Ripley did not seem entirely concerned with whether or not he was able to keep pace. He had learned at a young age that he couldn’t afford to fall behind, because she would not go looking for him, and while there isn’t any kind of love that he can decipher, there is a need, an instinct that tells him to keep close if he wanted to survive.
She taught him what she could.
He learned to hunt, learned to stalk prey, and learned that the brightest angel in Hyaline was off-limits. But he didn’t like to hunt nearly as much as his mother seemed to be implying he should, and he found that he preferred much smaller game, and only on occasion.
But mostly, he knew he was different because he could not stop staring at the others.
The ones his mother avoided, not because she was afraid but because she didn’t seem to care for them. They were prey just like everything else, and they only seemed to be spared if they lived in a protected kingdom, or if his mother was already full. He didn’t want to hunt them, though. He wanted to talk to them in that strange language they communicated in, the one that almost sounded similar to the thoughts inside of his head.
It’s why when he fell behind on the last hunt—an especially laborious one—he did not try to catch back up. He stood in the middle of the forest and watched his mother disappear into the dark, and when something clenched inside of him (he did not yet know what sadness was) and he hated the way it felt he turned, and he ran.
It was the first time he learned that he could not outrun that feeling in his chest, but replacing it with a new one—the physical tightening and sharp ache that came from running too far—was just as good.
He has been in the meadow for a few days now, but no one seemed to pay any mind to the strange looking colt with the galaxy-tinted armor and leathery wings. He was tall in comparison to the others his age (almost a year old now), with the rapidly growing body of a predator designed to be able to fend for itself by this point. In the dark he looks hardly any different from the other oddities that roamed this land of magic and curses, but he is still surprised when he hears a voice behind him—one that seems to be speaking directly to him.
He turns to find the cat staring at him, crouched in a familiar stance. He recognizes it, that look of a hunter in her eye, but it was unlikely she was expecting this armored creature to turn towards her, and she wouldn't like what she found if she sank her teeth into him. Reflexively, his knife-tipped tail snakes around the front of him, and he flicks it once in warning, his ears flattening back into the armor that covers his neck. “No,” is the only thing he says to her, the single word thick and cumbersome in his mouth, but he thinks she will understand.
i'm down in the grave where I belong --
His mother was too difficult to keep up with.
They were the same, but also not. He had armor like her, and that strange knife-tipped tail, but he knew he was not exactly like her, and he knew she could see it too. He could respond to her alien-like clicks and sounds, but he found his tongue always wanting to make different ones—trying to form into shapes to match the thoughts in his head, but he never could quite figure out how to do it. He was not as fast as her either, and Ripley did not seem entirely concerned with whether or not he was able to keep pace. He had learned at a young age that he couldn’t afford to fall behind, because she would not go looking for him, and while there isn’t any kind of love that he can decipher, there is a need, an instinct that tells him to keep close if he wanted to survive.
She taught him what she could.
He learned to hunt, learned to stalk prey, and learned that the brightest angel in Hyaline was off-limits. But he didn’t like to hunt nearly as much as his mother seemed to be implying he should, and he found that he preferred much smaller game, and only on occasion.
But mostly, he knew he was different because he could not stop staring at the others.
The ones his mother avoided, not because she was afraid but because she didn’t seem to care for them. They were prey just like everything else, and they only seemed to be spared if they lived in a protected kingdom, or if his mother was already full. He didn’t want to hunt them, though. He wanted to talk to them in that strange language they communicated in, the one that almost sounded similar to the thoughts inside of his head.
It’s why when he fell behind on the last hunt—an especially laborious one—he did not try to catch back up. He stood in the middle of the forest and watched his mother disappear into the dark, and when something clenched inside of him (he did not yet know what sadness was) and he hated the way it felt he turned, and he ran.
It was the first time he learned that he could not outrun that feeling in his chest, but replacing it with a new one—the physical tightening and sharp ache that came from running too far—was just as good.
He has been in the meadow for a few days now, but no one seemed to pay any mind to the strange looking colt with the galaxy-tinted armor and leathery wings. He was tall in comparison to the others his age (almost a year old now), with the rapidly growing body of a predator designed to be able to fend for itself by this point. In the dark he looks hardly any different from the other oddities that roamed this land of magic and curses, but he is still surprised when he hears a voice behind him—one that seems to be speaking directly to him.
He turns to find the cat staring at him, crouched in a familiar stance. He recognizes it, that look of a hunter in her eye, but it was unlikely she was expecting this armored creature to turn towards her, and she wouldn't like what she found if she sank her teeth into him. Reflexively, his knife-tipped tail snakes around the front of him, and he flicks it once in warning, his ears flattening back into the armor that covers his neck. “No,” is the only thing he says to her, the single word thick and cumbersome in his mouth, but he thinks she will understand.
-- f r e t
@Arrowe