Silverlight Terrace run, boy, run.

Keir could taste blood-- but no remorse fell upon his shoulders. It was his blood. It was his sister's blood. It was triumph, it was terror. It was heavy chains, broken through at long last.

Keir was let loose, and he was so certain that it would be at the cost of his own life.

His pads were raw, and his lungs ... oh, how they burned. His body viciously lusted for a mere moment of repose, but Keir would not-- no, he could not stop. Life and death were his closest companions, and Keir was no stranger to stars dancing behind his eyelids or the dizzying dark teetering within his skull. His body was severely weakened, and, malnourished, Keir already had a major disadvantage against his father; but the fear urged him onwards. The voice, embedded deep into the back of his mind, pushed him forth.

RUN, OR DIE.

He refused to give in-- even if his knees shook and buckled underneath what little weight he had. Even if he lay there, eyes rolled into the back of his head as fang met flesh, Keir would fight. He had not come this far to die a rabbit's death. I will run and run and run and you will someday catch me, old man-- but you gave me fangs. You should have ripped them from my jaws when you had the chance, you bastard. 

Keir would see punishment for his crimes-- but he was ready. His muscles screamed, his heart howled-- but Keir was unafraid of death. Rasping for air, he barreled onwards, aware of the gutteral sound of his father's voice behind him. Part of him was tempted to halt, to veer around and face his old man. A waltz in hell; a pas de deux long time coming, betwee father and son. Keir managed a pitiful, breathless laugh. This was all Hrath's undoing; he brought it unto himself. For all the days he muttered that he should have reaped his son from the world before his first breath ever came, Keir felt smug satisfaction by the fact that he'd never done it.

And what had it cost?

The life of his favourite daughter.

She lay dead in the ground now, broken. She was dead by Keir's jaws, and he only felt pure schadenfreude. The bitch had it coming-- years of abuse, of cruelty, of torment all accumulated and she paid for it. When his teeth met her throat, Keir did not let go. Even when she started screaming, he only bit down harder. He could still taste her blood at the back of his throat. Still feel the sensation of it gushing from her carotid arteries. For as long as he could recall, that voice had urged him. It's a kill or be killed world. There's one simple fix to your problems, and then you won't have to ever worry about their taunts again.

And it was true. In the seconds before Keir ran for his life, horror had been wild in his sisters' eyes, in the eyes of the rest of the pack. As if they never saw it coming, as if they expected him to take the brunt of the world's fury forever, as if he would always be insignificant trash in their eyes--!!!

He crashed through the undergrowth, muzzle stinging from thorns and branches whipping across his face. Keir kept running.

And running.

And running.

And running.

Until, he could not keep running.