the bard's last note

His half-blind gaze shuttered at the words blighted territory. He'd been correct. How cruel. Worse yet, he was being forced into a quarantine for such a brief trespass. For a brief moment, a flash of rage bloomed in his gut- wouldn't be exposed if you hadn't given chase- and it was gone just as quickly as it had come. He'd treated all manner of blights and plagues in his young life, having lingered on the fringes of the kingdom tending to the sick and the downtrodden. This was simply the way of the world. It didn't make the white-hot pinpricks of claws digging into the thin, weak flesh around his spine any more bearable. Head resting on the last of his worldly possessions, limbs sprawled awkwardly across the cold, wet sand- prostrated beneath yet another subjugator. Yet again a victim of life's many cruel jokes. Not even strong enough to struggle, as the last dregs of adrenaline gave way to shock. The sand was sapping the warmth from his underbelly, whatever of it he had left by now.

Armada. Funny. He'd commanded one of those before. Relinquished it to his overbearing brother rather quickly.

Though he hardly relished the thought of belonging to another creature, it was at least marginally preferable to a gruesome death. The ominous weight of a much larger body concentrated upon a broad paw, splayed across his back in such a way that it spanned his entire narrow ribcage. Sodden lashes fluttered weakly as he lifted his gaze upwards, a slow and arduous motion that brought the looming figure of his captor into partial view. Only some of him. The glint of enormous fangs, of brilliant cerulean markings. Plumes of mist wreathing a titanic skull as each breath was forced out into the cold midnight air.

A rare moment of delirious spite, paired with golden ears pinned tight to his battered skull. The subtle tilt of his features to better frame the immense wolf within the gaze of his functional eye. "And what does this make me, then- a lab rat?" he questioned, making a pitiful show of hiding the terror that sunk into his marrow at the very thought.

"speaking" -- "in another language"