hollowed heart
for volcanic
He had toddled past the border without even realizing it, far too lost in his own thoughts to care or even worry. He moved through the early snow at a slow pace, blindly weaving a path away from Winterfell as he made his way. His thoughts were grim and dark, mostly to do with his older siblings and how they must have hated him, one of them certainly seemed to, although Incendio told him she would b nicer to them from now on. What was nicer compared to how mean she had been the first time they met? He couldn’t say.
When he looked up he saw…something, he didn’t quite understand, it was big, bigger than anything he had ever seen, maybe even bigger than the ship he wasn’t allowed to go near, to him it was an all encompassing black barrier with a barely visible trickle of light over the top of it. He tilted his head left and then right as he examined the structure, trying to make sense of it as he paced along the blockade, sniffing it. It smelled like stone and something else he couldn’t quite place, something sour and earthy. He wrinkled his nose at it and turned away, deciding it wasn’t worth his time, not while he was amid brooding so thoughtfully. And yet… He turned toward it again and decided it wouldn’t hurt to walk next to it, just to find out how far it went, even though the shade cast by the barrier left him in near complete darkness. He shuffled along beside the structure, sometimes brushing against it and finding the scratching sensation the rough-hewn stones supplied to be pleasant, he stopped for a bit to scratch himself on one of the stones then grinned as he trotted beside the blockade.
All the while he was playing, the leopard was stalking him, amber eyes watching intently as he wobbled and trundled through the frost, a low growl on its throat as it watched the small pup with malicious intent. It crouched low, then sprang to the top of the wall, tail swishing as it stalked its prey its footfalls barely audible. With a purr the cat readied itself, coiling its muscles taught. A patch of snow dislodged from one paw step and Volcanic turned to face it with a soft gasp. Something was there. Before he knew it the cat had pounced and landed right behind him, he could smell the stink of its fur and hear the low growls and he knew in that instant that he was in danger
“DADDY!”
Speech |