if i lose myself tonight

It made sense that if he let them take the injured female and just leave, he'd be pleasantly alone again and not have to worry about the unwanted visitors cluttering up his nice cool cave any longer. Everyone in the cave seemed pretty agreed on that, and insisted on thrusting that opinion onto his ears over and over in their irritating, strident voices. Truth was, Hati was nowhere near thinking straight at the moment, clinging to the fury like a lifeline in the sea of bad memories and waking nightmares.

So when first the female, then the male took turns not only refusing to leave immediately as he'd demanded, but spoke rudely, even insultingly to him, he gladly latched on to the anger and let it have free-rein. A sharp, cracking snarl rang from his parted jaws as he leaped forward. But who to attack? Which wolf to sink his fevered teeth into, to punish for their transgressions? To show that he was the monster they believed him to be? Gaze darted between one wolf and the other even as he leaped, the tiny, delicate female and the burly red-eyed male, their forms blurring together as the red closed in on his vision. Tiny red-eyed female, his teeth ready to sink in... Akemi!

The big male jerked to a stop, his breath catching in his chest, his vision suddenly clear again as he flinched back, his jaws so very close to having clamped onto the smart-mouthed little female. The snarl faded to a confused half-whine. He backpedaled rapidly a couple steps, but his legs were quivering in reaction and he simply dropped to his belly, his golden eyes jumping wildly between the three wolves in front of him to assure himself that no, he had not nearly mauled Akemi, that Akemi was not there.



"Speech"

the sins of our father, the sins of our young