Hideaway Strath look at the fire and think of me

ooh I love it omg

 

Perhaps he should have expected the reaction, but the ex-soldier was lost in a thick head-fog following the collision, and Mona's sudden tears took him by surprise. Instantly he was distressed, and he lifted his head to get a better look at her. Worry flashed briefly in his normally masked gaze; why did she have to cry like that? Already something was strange about his mind-- sluggish and wandering ever-so-slowly off track, clouded thickly with buzzing pain. Concern for the girl washed away the rest of his ability to think, left him blank and instinctual without walls to defend against his crashing emotions.

Nathaniel took a breath, preparing, and clenched his teeth together just before he began to shift. It was without warning, half because he felt better not announcing it out loud. What strength he had left went into the movement, and after a couple of pained tugs he broke free of the crushing weights. A sigh escaped him. Carefully, ignoring that his own blood painted the scene and himself, he rose.
There was no way he could lean at all on his thigh now; distantly, he mused that he may never walk normally again. That the side of his face and head were soaked in crimson was only slightly less bothersome. He reached up with a torn, bloodied foreleg to wipe a bit fruitlessly at the thick congealing blood surrounding his eye. It didn't help much. But he could open his other eye, now, and he turned to look again at Mona. A sharp pain in his chest almost stopped him, and he bit back a pained groan. Broken ribs.
But he had been through worse, and suspected he would again before the end.
When we get there... tell them it was a lion or somethin'. He said, tiredly but with a touch of sarcastic humor. Not a bunch of damn rocks.