05-26-2020, 11:57 AM
They are not far off from the crater, near the border of the woods, really, when they hear the screams. It reminds them all too well of a familiar battlefield, of the great wheezing gasps of life spilling out of bloody seams. They are on high alert, as they flock to the epicentre, of the great meteor, of the great shrieking.
They see a creature at its core, crawling desperately from the mud, a crack that had not been there before, screaming something wretched. They approach, as others do, they see a dog complain about the noise, they see Dr. Caustic tread closer in his scientific marvelling, they watch Aurum snap at him, and extend a paw.
They are very close, then, when they watch her examine that outstretched paw, when they see her eyes flick between the faces of those around her, the tensing of her jaw. It is instinct then, to react, knowing before those teeth bare that her jaw is going to close upon flesh.
It's not her fault. It isn't his, either, it's all nature and instinct and pain that fuels the bite, it's strength and the wild and the need to be anything other than pitied. It's the strength to survive that wills those jaws open, that will clamp them down on a helping hand, on someone who is not a danger, on someone who does not understand. And they see this, as they did long ago, amongst their people, the adults protecting a child from a prowler in pain, its body trembling with the force of its bite. They see this in the crow that they have been nursing back to health, in its beak and claws that attack their mask.
She doesn't know any better.
Their mind is a mix of languages, Icelandic and English, both barely coherent. Sentences that reach their tongue do not fall past their lips, every way to reason is a garbled mess of words that they cannot translate. They cannot speak. Unable to warn, to tell Aurum to hold his claws. To mind the fangs.
Words fail them, but actions may not.
They are close then, when those teeth gnash, and they are next to Aurum, when those jaws open. They move, to attempt to shove Aurum back, to get between the two of them, to take the hit. Their ear, their face, their shoulder, they don't care where her teeth land, because they know that they will not fight back.
They do not brace, they simply accept.
They see a creature at its core, crawling desperately from the mud, a crack that had not been there before, screaming something wretched. They approach, as others do, they see a dog complain about the noise, they see Dr. Caustic tread closer in his scientific marvelling, they watch Aurum snap at him, and extend a paw.
They are very close, then, when they watch her examine that outstretched paw, when they see her eyes flick between the faces of those around her, the tensing of her jaw. It is instinct then, to react, knowing before those teeth bare that her jaw is going to close upon flesh.
It's not her fault. It isn't his, either, it's all nature and instinct and pain that fuels the bite, it's strength and the wild and the need to be anything other than pitied. It's the strength to survive that wills those jaws open, that will clamp them down on a helping hand, on someone who is not a danger, on someone who does not understand. And they see this, as they did long ago, amongst their people, the adults protecting a child from a prowler in pain, its body trembling with the force of its bite. They see this in the crow that they have been nursing back to health, in its beak and claws that attack their mask.
She doesn't know any better.
Their mind is a mix of languages, Icelandic and English, both barely coherent. Sentences that reach their tongue do not fall past their lips, every way to reason is a garbled mess of words that they cannot translate. They cannot speak. Unable to warn, to tell Aurum to hold his claws. To mind the fangs.
Words fail them, but actions may not.
They are close then, when those teeth gnash, and they are next to Aurum, when those jaws open. They move, to attempt to shove Aurum back, to get between the two of them, to take the hit. Their ear, their face, their shoulder, they don't care where her teeth land, because they know that they will not fight back.
They do not brace, they simply accept.
THE TRUE TEST IS BEFORE THE ALLFATHER.