Haunting. These woods reminded him of forbidden places, of dark realms devoid of beauty, and mercy, and light. Indeed, the evening sun hardly touched this part of the woods, so obstructed by the spindling branches of trees that did not seem to shed their leaves, so defiant of the order assigned to every plant but them. Willows waved in the soft autumn breeze and carried the smell of blood towards him. His nostrils twitched, but he did not lose pace.
He had never much liked the smell.
He followed the weep of a spectral voice, her anguished song roaming as a whisper through the wetlands to touch the Brother's probing ears, and so, over bog and loamy ground, he let his heart guide him toward her.
And he found her, tucked beneath an ancient willow, bleeding sorrow and life into the murky waters below. And he knew the likes of her. He had been told of her kind, many times, and father had warned him. But where he had seen death, Augustine saw life: and this, father had often said, would be his downfall, for there were some beasts that were simply their enemies; there were some that were born with murder in their hearts; there were some that should not be saved.
With every warning he remembered, he drifted another step forward with no effort to conceal himself, even though he knew the danger; knew she could outpower him.
"My friend," he said once the shadows no longer obscured him, "why do you weep?"
He knew, of course, why she wept. This much was evident. But he wished for her to tell him.
Tears welled, but she tried her best to hold them back. It seemed too early to give up. Too early to go. But she was a realistic creature, and she knew that the likelihood of her survival was thin. Poor.
All she had left was her voice, and she called out to the earth with it.
Then she'll be a true love of mine..
As she sang, her voice quivered, fell apart between words.
She saw a wolf then, her harbinger of death. Surely, he had followed the scent of her so to kill her when the white one could not. The tears welled over, spilling down her cheeks as she looked at this voice of death, who did not know what he was killing. His eyes were gleaming as wolf eyes do. His fur was like chocolate, and she thought it was a nice look to a poor excuse for a death.
Then he spoke, and she had nothing to lose in answering.
I will die soon, wolf,
she said. Laying upon her said, her voice felt weak, whispering. It's fitting that one of you acts as death, since one of you did this to me,
she said quietly. It wasn't accusatory, but merely factual. Her voice felt weak, and she felt ready. This would surely be her end.
He cupped his ears. Her voice, weak, either through injury or by the strain of emotion. How one like him could do this to her... he understood, of course. They were enemies by nature, and some base, archaic order, rooted in evils too deep for him to fully understand, except to know that things had not always been this way.
Augustine lingered in the dismal afterglow of her words, and knew he did not fear her. He drew forward on spindling legs. The stale air caught his fur.
"I am not death," he said, and smile, softly. The frosted mud crinkled underfoot. "May I... see?" Gilded eyes gestured toward her deepest wounds.
If she said no, and wished to die, he still would not let her. But he would give her the choice, first.
The dark canine claimed he was not death, moving forward. He looked to be a young wolf, not that she was any expert in gauging the ages of the predators. He had long legs, like he hadn't quite grown into them yet. As he moved closer, he asked, carefully, to see her wounds.
Umi breathed out a scattered sigh, finding that the bruising to her abdomen made it hurt to breathe in too deeply. She swallowed, looking toward him. While the tears had stopped falling, her eyes remained glassy. She didn't know what he would do.
The cat looked at him, watched his eyes of curiosity, and kindness. Wolves were harder to read than cats, but she was no fool. If he had wanted to hurt her, he would have done it already. She nodded. Okay,
she said. The wounds were days old, at least, but several of them were seeping blood or some kind of thin, pink fluid. The white wolf had done a number on her. She tried in vain to shift her position and sit up, but sighed in pain and stayed lying on the less hurting side.