You are unwanted.
A constellation of emotions exploded in the yearling, like the seething fissure of a violently dying star.
You are unwanted.
Laurel stood before him with her lips curled. The hair stood up along his back. She had pinned him to the ground and all he could feel was the astounding flare of white pain behind his eyelids. Of agony and shame as he felt something wet and warm seeping his fur. He's screaming, crying as his mother's dark shadow lifts from him and then he's running, running -- not a red flame like the arc of a fading star, but a dark streak through Easthollow all the same.
He shook the memory from his head with a rapid shake of his ears. Laurel wasn't here. Orlaith wasn't his mother. Yet his fur was on end and a whirring current rippled up and down his spine.
Another memory:
Picturesque stream. The dark lines of the red face of his aunt. Tears stream her cheeks -- why is she crying? She's bending over them, nosing each of them into place. He can feel sunlight as it bounces off of the river. Warmth. He feels his aunt's teeth gentling around his scruff and then suddenly he's forced under -- NO!
Cold.
He's kicking and screaming as his back is pressed to the riverbed. Bubbles obscure his vision, water funnels into this throat with icy claws. His throat is on fire, it's on -- he's suddenly pulled up and thrown on the bank and he's crying louder than he'd ever cried before, his lungs warbling with water that sends him in coughing fits.
What did he have to do with any of them? He'd laid his head to rest in the red keep and now suddenly, they defined him? He'd been in Easthollow a lifetime longer than the three days he'd spent in the redsands, but now he was worth less than the filth under Orlaith's feet because he'd found a pack that could feed him and wanted him?
He could scarcely contain the shaking of his voice, the hurt and anger both vying for contention in the sharp edge of his gritted tone. "You don't know anything about me." If he was loquacious he could detail a thousand ways he wasn't the company he kept, but Riley's tongue and mind did him no favors then. "You don't even treat me like I'm a living thing, too." Riley supplied sulkily, still looking away despite how overwhelmed with injustice he felt.
A constellation of emotions exploded in the yearling, like the seething fissure of a violently dying star.
You are unwanted.
Laurel stood before him with her lips curled. The hair stood up along his back. She had pinned him to the ground and all he could feel was the astounding flare of white pain behind his eyelids. Of agony and shame as he felt something wet and warm seeping his fur. He's screaming, crying as his mother's dark shadow lifts from him and then he's running, running -- not a red flame like the arc of a fading star, but a dark streak through Easthollow all the same.
He shook the memory from his head with a rapid shake of his ears. Laurel wasn't here. Orlaith wasn't his mother. Yet his fur was on end and a whirring current rippled up and down his spine.
Another memory:
Picturesque stream. The dark lines of the red face of his aunt. Tears stream her cheeks -- why is she crying? She's bending over them, nosing each of them into place. He can feel sunlight as it bounces off of the river. Warmth. He feels his aunt's teeth gentling around his scruff and then suddenly he's forced under -- NO!
Cold.
He's kicking and screaming as his back is pressed to the riverbed. Bubbles obscure his vision, water funnels into this throat with icy claws. His throat is on fire, it's on -- he's suddenly pulled up and thrown on the bank and he's crying louder than he'd ever cried before, his lungs warbling with water that sends him in coughing fits.
What did he have to do with any of them? He'd laid his head to rest in the red keep and now suddenly, they defined him? He'd been in Easthollow a lifetime longer than the three days he'd spent in the redsands, but now he was worth less than the filth under Orlaith's feet because he'd found a pack that could feed him and wanted him?
He could scarcely contain the shaking of his voice, the hurt and anger both vying for contention in the sharp edge of his gritted tone. "You don't know anything about me." If he was loquacious he could detail a thousand ways he wasn't the company he kept, but Riley's tongue and mind did him no favors then. "You don't even treat me like I'm a living thing, too." Riley supplied sulkily, still looking away despite how overwhelmed with injustice he felt.
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »
Messages In This Thread
I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 04:59 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 05:18 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 05:51 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 06:02 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 06:10 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 06:17 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 06:23 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 06:35 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 06:42 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by RIP Fury - August 02, 2020, 06:46 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 06:55 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 07:05 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by RIP Fury - August 02, 2020, 07:13 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Caróg - August 02, 2020, 07:15 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Riley - August 02, 2020, 07:18 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 07:23 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by RIP Fury - August 02, 2020, 07:33 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Caróg - August 02, 2020, 07:46 PM
RE: I see fire, burning the trees, - by Orlaith - August 02, 2020, 08:02 PM