Built to Burn

It was out of the ordinary for Artorias to be anywhere up in the castle tower on his own. Usually the only time he came up this way was when he was with Briar, taking his lover to the top of the tower for an intimate moment for themselves, but this time, he had a purpose. While everyone was down in the lower levels of the castle beginning the process of cleaning out the dust bunnies from the winter in preparations for spring, the Aegis himself headed up to the aptly named Goose Room of the tower. No one had set foot in the room since Askan's disappearance (and ultimate demise) thanks mostly due to his hyper aggressive goose and its territorial habits. It wasn't until long after the frantic, frenzied honking had stopped did Artorias determine the poor bastard was dead—and that had been a year ago. Since then, no wolf had a need to go in there. Some believed it to be cursed, telling ghost stories of haunted, manic honking coming from the room in the dead of night. Thankfully, Artorias wasn't nearly as superstitious as some others. The solitary tower room didn't scare him.

Trudging up the stairs with an empty sack and bucket of water to begin cleaning the room and washing the floors, Artorias neared the fourth level bedroom—only to hear some sort of cacophony of calamity within. Crashes and shrieks of a bird of prey caught his attention and made the brute furrow his brow in confusion. What the fuck was happening in there? As he neared the door on high alert, the next sound he heard made his heart stop and his blood turn to ice in his veins. A desperate cry for help. Not another second was wasted as Art nearly broke the door down rushing in. The room was cooler than the rest of the castle, having not had any heat in it for over a year, and everything was covered in a layer of dust. Particles hung in the air, dancing in the sunlight filtering from the large windows like static in the air. Old bones picked clean of meat and sinew were strewn about the room, a familiar goose skull amongst them, as well as a fresh corpse of an owl covered in blood. But what caught the Aegis' attention was the massive eagle clawing frantically at the old bed in the corner of the room, ripping at the wood and mattress trying to reach something.

Again Artorias heard the terrified cries coming from the bed and reacted without thinking, hurling the bucket of water towards the eagle, which reacted to the sudden splash of its feathers by jerking away from the bed in a flurry of wings and feathers. The raptor screeched in fury while Artorias dropped the sack and ran at the bird, leaping off an old table in the middle of the room to lunge for the attacking bird. The eagle deftly dodged the wolf's teeth and claws, then responded in turn by diving at Artorias' face, its talons seeking the wolf's eyes. Artorias reacted quicker, dropping to a roll and dodging out of the way, getting scratched and clawed along his back instead. The obsidian and azure wolf snarled at the eagle, chomping at the air to try and drive it back out the broken window it had come in from, but the eagle was not about to leave its roost so easily. For a while the two apex predators scuffled with one another, moving back and forth around the room trying to land strikes against the other. At one point, Artorias had managed to get a good bite on one of the eagle's talons, biting down hard enough to crush cartilage between his teeth and drawing a pained screech from the eagle.

The harpy eagle redoubled its efforts, using its good talon and beak to try and peck and claw at every soft part of the wolf it could find. Artorias snarled and flinched away, earning a few cuts while he tried to swat the bothersome bird out of his face with sharp claws. The eagle was persistent and refused to give up. It began to drive Artorias back, aiming for his amber eyes and trying to blind the wolf. Artorias leapt away, crawling beneath the table to take cover while he sought a way to bring down the bird. The answer laid on the wall of the room. A pair of decorative swords hung behind a rusty coat of arms. Though not the most ideal weapon, they would do. Artorias waited until he'd heard the eagle back off and return to the bed before he ran to grab one of the swords by the hilt, yanking it off the wall and rounding on the eagle. The raptor saw the wolf emerge once more and screeched in rage, flying across the room with a few strong flaps of its wings aiming straight for Art.

A flash of silver steel was the last thing the eagle saw as Artorias timed his strike to near perfection. As the eagle came within reach, Artorias was already bringing his sword in an upward swing, catching the eagle between the wing and breast. Since the sword hadn't been sharpened, it didn't cleave the way he wanted it to, but it did send the eagle careening out of control to crash into the stone wall hard. The eagle fell to the ground in a crumple of tawny feathers, giving confused, dazed cries while it tried to right itself. Artorias didn't give it the chance. The Aegis brought the point of the sword down hard into the bird's chest, piercing its breast and crushing hollow bones with ease while he shoved the sword down like a cleaver to split the eagle almost in two. It was sloppy and far from how clean he wanted the kill to be, but it got the job done. The eagle struggled for only a few moments, and then it died in a mess of feathers, blood, and gore.

With his enemy vanquished, Artorias left the sword lodged in the raptor's chest cavity and stepped back, breathing hard to catch his breath from the sudden unexpected brawl he'd found in his own home. Blood dripped from the cuts the eagle had left on him, but they weren't anything serious. He wasn't done yet however. Amber eyes slid over to spy the old bed, torn to shreds by the enraged eagle. The curiosity in the alpha grew with every step he took closer to it, pausing near the edge and ever so slowly peeking down beneath it. He hadn't know what to expect under there—but the baby bird he saw beneath the mattress would have been the farthest thing from any guess he made. "Hi, little guy," he called to the cowering chick, lowering himself to his belly to make himself seem as least threatening as he could. "It's okay, the bad bird is gone. You can come out now. It's safe, I promise." Artorias reached an azure paw out for the chick, warm amber eyes pleading for him to come out so he could see to his injuries.

WC: 1202
Total: 1891 / 1500

"Artorias Carpathius" | "Carpathian"