Ravensblood Forest light of my life, fire of my loins [m]

[mate]

“”

Water.

The dark emeralds of the leaves gave way to his ministering tongue; the shaman licked the dew from them softly, eyes half-lidded with the simple pleasure of it. A wood, with fog wreathing slowly through its boles, was where he had found himself afterwards.

Lynx purled a warning, Her yellow eyes flashing briefly across his addled cognizance. Ah, he breathed in return, turning unhurriedly to catch the bemused flick of one tufted ear. She mocked Her shaman with the curves of a feline body, forcing chained hungers free from their prisons, and he caught the tip of his tongue between yellowed fangs before he cursed his well-beloved Totem.

Hunger gnawed suddenly at his belly, contorting the shaman with a painful grunt. He, who did not recall the taste of meat, suddenly slavered for it now, and with half-parted, dripping jaws, he skulked in search of easy prey.

And when he had sharpened that blade with marrow licked from the cracked bones of a bear's abandoned kill, lust soared into his fickle heart, and he grit his teeth against it. Cursing the betrayal of his skeletal body, yet refusing to allow its need relief, the pale man moved into the curling tendrils of the fog.

Casting his tongue against the ridges of his teeth, the man leant after a time against the grating bole of a great tree who in its time had spawned a thousand tiny saplings. The scent of its might was heady, and in time the dark flavor of its bark replaced the desperate, obstinate throb between his legs.

But he did not press forward, for even as the dull jut of hunger's blade subsided, and his body's carnal desire faded, exhaustion's hammerfall struck Lecter hard, and he reeled into semi-consciousness, slumping into the supportive graces of the old tree before he buckled slowly to the soft cold loam of the dark wood.

The fog breathed forth to envelop him, and he slumbered.