Otter Creek I down a coffee, grab my axe and then I'm out

His display seemed to ease the monster, or at the very least, convince him not to feed the earth with his entestines. Whatever it was, the small boy was glad that Vengeance wasn't talking in that booming voice. His teeth however, still flashed in a toothy grin, and all Clay could do was stare at the yellowed bone, not forgetting for a second how easy it would be for this warlord to kill him.

He still spayed himself low on his back, his paws curled inward as he was fed words of doubt. They were the same words his own mind whispered to him, the ones he knew his family thought and looked upon him with. Weak. Useless. Unfit. Clays once fearful stare was now gone—shadowed by something harsh and unforgiving as he let those words circle his at his head once again.

Weak.
You're weak.

It gripped his heart, encasing it in ice and chilling his body down to frigid tempature. Call it his stubbornness, but Clay refused to adhere to it. Refused to accept  it. He rose to his paws infront of Vengeance, his nose pointing directly at the creature as he stared upwards. He didn't notice that he eyes were watering, not until his vision was obscured and the fluid ran down his cheeks. But even then his olive stare was unbroken.

"I'm not weak." He breathed, loud and clear into the still air. His frame shook, struggling to hold the onslaught of emotions that flooded through the boy, but he wasn't about to lose. Not to his family. Not to this man or his pack of killers. Clay never thought of himself as a killer, but the word didn't repulse him. It was just a word— a tool. And if it meant that he could prove he wasn't weak he would allow himself to use it. "I'm not weak," he repeated. "But i'll allow you to make me strong,"