Firefly Glen [M] stop, don't save yourself

They fought mercilessly. The wolf protected its ugly, foul kin. The bear sought to start the land anew, resetting it from the pure origins where all was in balance. Yakwahe knew suffering, and he knew pain. But these were not animals fully capable of it. They were but rodents, picking away at the life of the planet, feigning sentience in the way their human-loving relatives did. They were one and the same with what was wrong, and Yakwahe felt nothing as he tore their lives apart one by one.

He felt the female biting at his side and shoulder, yet paid little mind to her aggression. When the monster's teeth found their target, he crunched down as hard as he could, pulling the wolf from his hold the way one might extract a tick that's found its way deep into the skin. Yakwahe shook the little beast briefly before tossing him into the snow, and wanted to swipe the female, but she was gone.

Heavy, rattled breathing filled his lungs. Exhaustion. The threat of death looming overhead in the form of a great eagle. He stood there, heaving on all fours, saliva and blood dripping in ugly globs from his tongue and lips into the clean white below.

When he stepped forward to follow the white one, he found that his front limb carried a heavy limp. With his great bulk, the injury had worsened as he'd continued putting weight on it. The brief pause in the combat found Yakwahe weakened. But he would not lose this fight for purity. His cause was greater than theirs, for they were pests in the fields of paradise, and he would not allow them to sully it further.

The bear lumbered toward the grieving she-wolf registering such emotion as but a mere illusion. When he was close, he lurched forward and moved to strike her down with a heavy paw and a bite tuned to her shoulder.

You will die. He thought.