Dark Horse

Tyranis watched as a red leaf fell from a branch and slowly drifted down toward the ground. Autumn. With the arrival of Autumn came the memories of the last winter he spent in Boreas, and how terribly that had gone for him. He remembered the winter that had birthed his two small pups, the winter that had brought a madness with it that chased him away from Dauntless in the first place. He gave a brief sneeze of contempt and continued to walk through the eerie forest. It would still be some time before he could safely raise his pack which meant that he would need to find a den before the winter and line it with fur and moss for himself and his son to keep warm. He looked over the sprawling trees and shook out his fur. This would have to do.

He sniffed the base of a large tree with gnarled roots at its base and without a word began to dig. How the mighty had fallen. To go from a den at the peak of a mountain with his family surrounding him, now to be stuck digging a hole in the earth by himself. He supposed he could have called for Astraios, but the boy was better suited to being on his own for now, and learning what he could on his own. That had been his mistake with Rain, he was sure. He had coddled the boy, sheltered him too much, and the result had been a whelp that had all the initiative of a drooling boar.

His jaws clenched on a damp root as he dug, pulling it with all the strength his body had able since the fall of Ruina until it broke free. Satisfied he tossed the root aside and continued to dig. Ruina’s fall was still an open wound in him. More than the abandonment of those who had sworn loyalty to Ruina the loss of his father still filled him with rage and immense heartbreak. In the night his thoughts carried him to the day he and his father first met; the swell of his father’s thick chest and the immense pride in his burning red eyes as they beheld his son, his most loyal son, his most successful son, the son that swore to serve him and his family for all time and had proven so by taking the name Praetor. He awoke from those dreams, expecting to still be in his cave on the maw, expecting to find the silhouette of his father standing at the mouth of his cave, assuring him that it had only been a dream. Instead he awoke cold with his fur dirty and his limbs aching from searching for a new place to raise his pack.

He stopped and sat, looking at his half-finished effort at making a den. Maybe he was wrong to leave the maw. Maybe he should have kept Mt.Vulcan as his so his erstwhile family at least had the benefit of being able to find him, wherever they were. He shook out his fur, sneezed the dirt from his nose, then resumed digging. This needed to be done before nightfall and he still needed to find food for both himself and Astraios to eat. Astraios was another source of pain for him, although he refused to let it show when he was near the boy. Tyranis felt like he had failed his ruddy child, bringing him to Ruina and making him extravagant promises as though he had expected it to be there for all time. In his defense he hadn’t expected his father to so suddenly disappear but he should have been more proactive with his son, and insisted on seeing to his training himself rather than leaving him in Acere’s care or Elias’s. Maybe then he wouldn’t feel like he had betrayed the boy so much or gotten his hopes raised only to have them dashed so miserably.

He crawled into the den, making sure he fit snugly into the hole and that it was deep enough to escape the winter winds that were to come. With a few final scrapes of his paws Tyranis ensured that the base would be big enough to comfortably hold insulation, then rubbed himself against the tree his den stayed under to mark it as his own. With a low howl he called Astraios back to him then skulked away to gather moss and fur to keep them both warm.

Although he had never thought to consider himself a hunter Tyranis had learned enough about hunting to fend for himself and while they were traveling, to care for his weakling son. With his nose to the ground Tyranis sniffed for the one prey he knew to be plentiful in the autumn, the same prey he had always found himself stalking at one point or another. He crouched low, his golden eyes locked on his target. He had gotten lucky, there were four, an entire family. With a ripping snarl Tyranis pounced, his jaws snapping and breaking the spine of one of the fox cubs as his large paw pinned down the other. The male shrieked and sprang forward, jaws agape only to meet the lightning king’s considerably larger fangs around the back of his throat. He shook the male’s body until he felt and heard the pop of his neck breaking, then dropped him limply as his paw twisted to end the trapped cub’s life. With blood dripping from his jaws he turned to the female, a snarl climbing his muzzle while she stood frozen in horror and urinated in fear. One lightning fast pounce later and it was finished. He collected his kills as quickly as he could and brought them back to his den to begin cleaning and skinning them. Maybe he would make something else from their pieces. With a pause a single word popped into his mind and resonated inside his thoughts “Crown.”

He pushed the thought aside for the time being as he dropped the last of his kill at the mouth of his newly made den. With another raise of his head he called Astraios again, this time with the promise of food.

speaking Thinking You