Lost Creek Hollow the light was weak and carnivorous

It is the sound of the waterfall that draws Baal’s attention. He trudges through the snow with a shiver slithering down his spine. His winter coat has grown in: coarse and heavy but he’s rawboned from travel and a coat is no good without proper insulation. What he can catch are morsels and when he doesn’t he steals from half frozen corpses that are mostly already all picked apart. He is debased and in his sister’s continued absence his anxiety, at times, causes what little bit of food he manages to scrounge up to slither back up his throat and expel from his body as if it is poison. To this day, Baal’s not sure what came over him that night: the night of the fight. He’s an omega …he’s been an omega his whole life and that was where he was most content. A shadow. His mind is so loud and outside of the spotlight, in the deep and dark shadows is where he thrives. They quiet the noise of his head: quiet the guilt and the desires and his empathetic nature. It is a rare gift to see all sides, all points of view impartially. Raising his voice at his sister: refusing her commands is the boldest thing Baal’s ever done in his life. It was utterly out of character for him. He could say it was grief from losing Hann but he’s not even sure it’s true. Losing Hann affected him in more ways than he’ll ever admit to anyone: they were the closest of the les enfants terrible. Born seconds apart and mirrors of one another: as a different species they would have been twins.

As he comes upon the waterfall: droplets of cold water from the spray peppering his muzzle as he nears the bank, his steps cease and he looks up at it. He sees it but he doesn’t. The bits of frozen rib meat he’d eaten from a half frozen mountain cat corpse half an hour ago causes his stomach to clench and roil with abrupt nausea. Baal swallows, fighting it. He knows what his stomach wants: but he fights that, too. He hadn’t wanted to kill and …eat. He hadn’t wanted to eat the dead during the famine that stole through Kipkark Cove either. He regrets fighting with his sister. He is lost without her, without a leader. He lives barely because survival is too strong an instinct to ignore.

Baal’s fight is futile as he vomits up his meager and pathetic meal: his sides heaving as he empties the small contents of his stomach and is filled with an aching pain. It wants fresh meat, warm meat. Any would do for the moment but he knows that in the end he will always crave the forbidden and that he will forever be affected by that desperate choice. The choice to survive because Hann had wanted him to survive and Baal had never been able to tell him no. Baal lets out a pitiful whimper, salmon pink tongue drawing across his muzzle stained crimson from blood from the few fresh kill’s he’s been able to make over his travels to clean the sick off of his whiskers. If he does not do something soon he becomes painfully aware that this place will be his grave.