one last breath

Cassiel watched silently as Xanilov, trusting as a babe, swallowed the herbs and the mushrooms and laid his head back down quietly. He lent his comforting warmth to the elder male's side as his eyes slid closed. He watched. He watched as Xanilov's body relaxed, as his breathing slowed. As deep sleep took him. Cassiel watched. Xanilov's breathing slowed, and stopped. He was gone.

Cassiel let out a shaky breath of his own, and pressed his eyes shut. Swallowed hard.

It was a mercy, and Xanilov had known what he was doing and allowed it anyway, but even so... Cassiel had never killed anyone before.

He opened his eyes again. Several minutes had passed as he had struggled with his own soul and decided it was untarnished. Well. Not any more tarnished than previously, anyway. He had done what he had to do.

He studied the limp form beside him. "Well, chum," he said, half to himself and half to the departed. "Let's get you sorted then."

Digging a grave in the rocky soil was slow going, but he managed a decent enough hole, and the rocks he'd been prying out of that godawful ground made a cairn over the grave grander than the old man deserved. Cassiel studied the items left behind, a few small bits and bobs the old man had wrapped in a hide. After a moment he realized that the leather strap attached to the odd rock was to hold it against a paw, and the scent of herbs that came from both the rock and the bowl-shaped rock with it told him that they had been used together. Grinding herbs? Well now wasn't this a treat? The old bastard had left him something after all.

The hide slung across his back by the rawhide strap that had kept it tied up, Cassiel stood beside the cairn-marked grave. No words needed to be said. He hadn't even known the old bastard. But he sucked in a breath between his teeth and muttered "good luck" at whatever soul might be lingering nearby anyway, before he turned to trot off. Maybe he'd go track down Senka and get quietly drunk with her. Or rowdily, as the case may be. But one thing he knew for sure. He wasn't going to tell her what had happened here. She'd been through enough.