Classical Conditioning.

She choked on her saliva that seemed to come in droves as she fought the urge to vomit.

But she was not alone. Her Ravens, they came to her, one offering her a new shiny thing, the other k’rawwing about fetching the fireboy. Absinth gave a reluctant nod, her ears flattening at the thought of showing Aresenn yet another pathetic display… but if her father was skulking around, he needed to know. The raven took off, and Absinth continued on her way, swaying this way and that as a touch of delirium assaulted her psyche with laughter. She progressed slowly, eyes fixed on the path ahead with eerie intensity. When she finally made it to her desired destination, she released a frustrated scream, jaws snapping at nothing in particular in the air around her.

Again a crescendo of laughter escaped her inky law, eyes wide and frantic as they scanned her surroundings before she barreled into a dugout tunnel in the crook of a fallen tree.

Stumbling into her old den, still riddled with her keepsakes and pretty bones. Her body crashed into the side of the den wall, the old claw marks she had left there tugging at her soiled ivory pelt as she lurched against the grooves, limbs fatigued enough that she was entirely unsteady. She had spent the better half of the day in a bloodthirsty daze. Killing anything that moved. Her usually well-kept coat was soaked in blood, so much so that it coagulated at her chest and hung in tear drop shaped clots. She had amassed numerous cuts and scrapes all along her body, but she felt none of them. All she could feel was a chill, a dread that muddled her mind. She hated this. She hated this anticipation that chilled her to her bones, the senseless fear that gripped her. 

She slammed her skull into the wall of the den, eyes squeezed shut as she continued to do so. Every impact was met with a light dusting and crumble of the ceiling of her old abode. Blood dripped from where a rock had defended the wall from her skull, causing a splice above her right eyebrow from sheer blunt force.

At the same time her chest tightened, making it difficult for her to breathe. Fuck! Her heart raced uncontrollably, a thunderous beat echoing in her ears whilst her nails sank deep into the bedding below her paws. Fuck! Fuck!! Sweating and trembling, she struggled to maintain control over her body, quick successive gasps for air came and went, her vision spinning as she tried to ground herself by remembering that she was stronger than her fear. God damn it! But those waves of irrational fear continued to wash over her, distorting her perception of reality. The den around her, once familiar, now seemed menacing and suffocating. Unfamiliar. Strange. Why?! Thoughts raced through her mind at an alarming speed, a chaotic array of worry and dread. He had stolen her freedom, again. His grip an asphyxiating hold on her life, just like the sensation of air barely pulling into her lungs in short painful gasps. She couldn’t breathe. Why.. can’t I get away? Despite being in a place she had often found comforting, she felt an overwhelming sense of isolation. What if he took her back home, as some bullshit form of punishment? Absinth grappled with a sense of impending doom, her instincts urging her to escape while an invisible force held her in place. What was the point in running again? Her thoughts were intense and visceral, her body steadily draining of its vigor as she collapsed into a heap upon bedding littered with feathers. She promised herself she would never run again.