Blackfeather Woods blackwater

When the Silencer melted into the shadows, Coelacanth tried to comfort herself with the errant hope, “Maybe he will stay away.” She had not posed a threat to any of his brethren — had not attempted to escape — had not entreated her captors for food or water beyond what they provided. In every way possible, she had been a Very Good Dog — so maybe this time they’d forgive her the one command she could not obey.

The tiny sheepdog had been savaged and shaken, but she retained a certain naïveté that seemed impossible given her current state of affairs. While she’d come to expect physical abuse, she never could have suspected how cruelly they might toy with her heart. She never truly relaxed — even in the most idyllic conditions, there was an ever-present layer of worry that sharpened her senses and shaped the way she interacted with others — but she allowed herself now to believe that the dark harbinger had gone and the mournful night was hers. A soft sigh stirred the dust that tangled in the feathers of her wrists and ankles.

Movement behind her whipped a new fit of trembling through her tightly bound frame. Seelie wasn’t alone — if anything, she was in more danger now. He was angry with her, and the hot curl of his breath over her prone form flogged her heart, hummingbird-swift. Her Neptune eyes rolled, showing ample slivers of whalebone white that betrayed her terror, and she licked nervously at her lips. The emaciated stray had no love for her captors, but the desire to please and appease was innate: she opened her mouth and tried to remember what it looked like when others said her name. “Th-th-th — s-s-s — ” she faltered desperately, rose blush tongue perched timorously betwixt her incisors. She couldn’t obey him.

Tears welled in her desolate cerulean eyes and traced dirty rivulets down her sharply-etched cheeks. Utterly humiliated, she rolled onto her back to offer the exaggerated slope of her belly to him in surrender, her feathered tail curling demurely to preserve her modesty, and tucked her forelegs against her sternum. I tried, she thought at him, nervously licking her lips as she cast him a fearful glance.