Because Of You
08-01-2013, 06:03 AM
Cut me loose
My parachute won't let me fall Don't be afraid of a chance for a miracle
It was summer now, not that the northern world seemed to recognize the fact. Come Midsummer's Eve, she would be a yearling. She'd still have a little more growing and defining for her muscles to do, but she'd have reached her full height of thirty-four inches. Her back had become long and shapely and covered in black silk fur. She'd grown into her giant ears and tail a little more, but they were still rather large traits. Milk-white legs carried her through the stone and snow of the mountains, while eyes like twin-cut sapphires took in the beautiful scenery. The sky was clouded and grey, seeming to hang a little lower than usual. It wasn't the best travel weather, but when Orica got it into her head to go foraging, there wasn't much that could stop her. She'd snuck out early that morning, Cross, who lately had been her bodyguard and companion on all her wanderings, had not been around; Probably out hunting or something like a responsible wolf. So the little healer in training had set off alone meaning to stay in the North and be back well before sunset. She'd meant to turn around and start heading back almost an hour ago. But each time something kept her going forward - a spark of green in a mountain crag, the sight of some new bird, the scent of a strange new animal. And then she found the bit of timber woods that looked so much like her birth-land! She couldn't pass that up. The girl had danced under the pine broughs, rolled in the powdery snow, and chased a white coated mink up a conifer. It was as good as the old days. But now she was calming down. She'd need to turn her nose back towards home - That was when the screams came. Well, not so much screams, as high, agonized yelps. The first one froze the girl in place. Her ears swiveled like a bat's searching for any trace of sound. The snow was quite good at smothering things. But she was certain it had come from the far edge of the woods! Before she knew it, she was running again. It wasn't a happy skip anymore though. It was a cold, driven shot towards the break in the pines. She searched for scents and found wolf - but then all she smelled was blood. Someone was hurt! Someone was in trouble! The leather knapsack, her healer's bag, flapped and thudded against her side as she ran hell-bent on finding out what in the world was going on. As soon as she broke the treeline she stopped, staring, her breath coming out in pants that froze into clouds before her eyes. She'd heard the second tremulous whine a second ago, and with it.... with it, the distinct crunch of bone. The first thing she saw was the skinny black male trying to run towards the trees, blood dying the snow behind him. He stumbled, and fell. At first Orica had thought he'd just been hitching up a wounded paw - but now she saw; It had been completely torn off! Wounds themselves never had much of a hold over the girl's fears, but raw violence - that could still do it. And the thought of.... she shuddered, her spine rippling with a quiver that froze half way down. Because now she saw the other wolf. The attacker. "Demyan..." The name came out in a dead whisper. The word was another breath, another cloud in the air. For the briefest of seconds there had been some futile spark of hope that he was just defending himself. Or that he was fighting an honorable match with an equal. But Orica, young and naive though she sometimes proved, was no idiot. Even if she'd somehow managed to cling to that hope - the story of the encounter was written in the snow. This male had just chanced by and been attacked without hesitation. Now he was screaming for his life, running, tripping, floundering on the mountainside. Orica cut felt like her chest had opened up and her heart had fallen to the floor. Of course the smart thing to do was to leave. To run. Now. If she ran fast enough she might just get away and live to see the sunrise. There was no chance she could make any difference in this situation. Any halfblind bystander would take one look at the grey mountain of the male and tell her to flee. The smarter thing to do would be, after she got home, to tell her father at once and have a war party set out to hunt the killer. But Orica didn't do either of those things. She did run, though not back the way she came. She ran forward. Again her lithe little form shot like a black arrow across the snow that she'd been born running in. She'd caught the wild amber gaze of the hunted male, and it only spurred her forward. "DEMYAN! NO!" Her voice came out - not like the usual sweet birdsong or stream's bubbling- but almost like the scream of a mountain wind as it's dragged and torn through the trees- high and fierce and hopeless and haunting. She didn't stop until she was right in the thick of it - standing over the injured male - Hind legs on the side nearest the wood, forelegs splayed faceing the oncoming monster. She'd stopped so suddenly that her medic's bag had been flung off her head - it landed in the snow a pace away, spilling a couple red clover leaves and a dried thistle head. It went unnoticed; Orica only had eyes for the male. Every fur of the girl's coat was bristling. Her tail hung straight out. Her ears pinned back. But her face wasn't creased in a snarl and her teeth only showed when she spoke. Somehow her heart had climbed back inside her ribcage and was drumming like a woodpecker. She was scared now. Really, truly scared. As terrified of Demyan and his bloodied mouth as she had been of his rose-eyed sister. And a sharp, gut-twisting sadness came along with the fear. It wasn't supposed to happen like this! The- the two of them, were either never supposed to meet again - or supposed to meet at a happy time. Orica would be lying to herself if she hadn't daydreamed now and again of what it would be like to see the male on some sunlit meadow - to sit down and talk with him. In her little dream he'd told her that had remembered her, just like he said he would. And he'd said that he was trying to better, trying to be like the white wolf in the story she'd told. What a FOOL she was! What a silly, child's dream! Her hope for Demyan was gone. All she could pray for was that the stranger she stood over like a mother wolf would somehow live - that all this would just stop! |
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