Fairspell Meadow lucifer bleeds ichor

Time Stamp: approx. dusk but super close to nightfall.

under the candied and softened glow of moonbeams kitsune finds blissful reprieve from the harsh burn of golden sunrays and strikes out from his hiding place — a moderately sized abandoned fox den that he'd make adjustments to, to accommodate his size. luckily, though he is tall he is of a streamlined frame and fits easily enough in the dark earth that is only meant to be temporary. though, in truth, as he traverses from serpent lake — where he briefly he veers to take a drink of water — into the depths of fairspell meadow ...he has no destination in mind.

these lands are wildly foreign to him. the tall heather grasses sway around him as he moves swiftly through them, trying to be stealthy of foot but the rustle of drying grasses is unavoidable as they prepare for the winter ahead. kitsune takes in the shadows as they writhe around him, having learned a long time ago not to fear the darkness of night. it is all he's ever seen of the world: when everything is bathed in breathing shadows and saccharine moonshine.

his ...blessing, as his mother and father have deemed it since he was old enough to understand their words, makes it near impossible for him to navigate in the daylight hours. others in their bloodline, he was told, have been entirely blinded by the albinism. he was fortune to at least be able to navigate the world by nightfall as opposed to being unable to navigate it all. still, it is a gift that marks him as a true kijo in the words of the caldera's elders.

kitsune's steps give pause as he studies the dying vestiges of sunlight in the distant horizon, studying the star sprinkled sky in its myriad of rich colors: blood red, citrine orange, candy floss pink. it's marvelous and the young and aspiring astronomer is enraptured, wishing that he could pause this moment so he would not have to keep moving.

there was no home with the nightwalkers, only the general protection offered to yearlings without a pack. merrick’s succor had always been astara; where he went, so did the shadow. bonded, unyielding, malleable only to one another.
but even she left him empty as of late, unable to bridge the great chasm that had opened within merrick upon the taste of indra’s blood. he had not slept; he spent his days hunting for what meat could be found, wanting endlessly to be alone in the cold halls of his suffering mind.
there was but one way to regain hope.
the moon was soon to began its ascent, and merrick too had paused between the tall dry stalks to gaze heavenward. in another time, a world that felt so greatly removed from who it was now wore his name, merrick had loved the stars.
copperlight gaze silently identified the constellations taught to him by terance in his youth, and for a single trembling moment, the yearling felt a glissade of hopeful wanting.
it was obscured by the sound of gentle footsteps not far beyond merrick; dark ears swiveled, thrust, and his breathing cadenced as the hunt began again, as he began to press through the meadowgrass in search of what was beyond, a stalk endowing his thinning legs.

kitsune, though a creature who is intimately familiar with the shadows of nightfall is unwelcomed by the writhing shadows that skitter and dance across the landscape. he is borne of pearls and pink siphoned from the most delicate of roses and thus is a beast of the moon-mother, refusing to be camouflaged by even the dark whispers of the tall grasses. spurned and chased to the embrace of night only to be rejected by her shadows; a tragedy perhaps, in and of itself.

a deep breath is taken, leathery rosé pink nostrils flaring as kitsune draws in the unfamiliar scent of another. his attention snaps earthbound, elegant shoulders tensing as he glimpses around him though the tall grasses do not betray the other by uncloaking him. though it is much easier for kitsune to see in the dark he suffers the same issue as any other does: the shadows are secretive and rarely so willing to give them up. something swells within his breast — envy, maybe? — but he tucks it away to call out, hello? hoping that he would receive an answer.

moonchased and balefully visible: a slim-hipped vision to slake the melancholy that had too long echoed in merrick’s heart. a voice, and though the boy did not yet see fear writ into the narrow ivoried features, the night was still young. time enough for that.
”hello,” he purled in response, though made no effort to unveil himself before those odd, searching eyes. snow and sorbet; a treat to be devoured, and slowly.
merrick would save the gaze for last.
”do you know where you are?” he hissed suddenly, voice sibilant against the backdrop of aching earth and groaning trees.

hello, comes a purled response from the shadows. kitsune's ears pivot atop his skull and his head swings in the direction he thinks the voice comes from. nightfall has a way of distorting noise and carrying it — the shadow cloaked stranger could be further away than kitsune assumes. this makes it difficult to pinpoint specifically but kitsune is well-versed in navigating the night and the challenges she presents him with.

his tail brushes against his hocks as he surveys the whispering grasses once more searching for any movement that would appear unnatural compared to the sway of the cool autumn breeze. the voice hisses out at him like a serpent and a pearlescent ear twitches pausing only to consider his words before speaking, no. not specifically. there was no point in lying when it was surely apparent enough. even so, it truthfully doesn't occur to kitsune to be more careful with how honest he is.

”a pity,” merrick rejoined, moreso for the careful contemplation of his target.
how beatific the boy, standing confidently among the tall grasses as he attempted to pinpoint his hunter.
the yearling knew with a blink of lantern-eyes that summarily the blood would run viscous and vibrant against such a backdrop of trembling snow.
”perhaps you know what a homba is,” merrick breathed, body poised, throat dry as wildfire ash. a story told to him by tadec in his childhood, and the only thing about his father that the young coywolf truly recalled.

a pity, speaks the veiled other. pity? kitsune turns the word over and over in his mind, deconstructing it ...looking for any other meaning besides the one that jumps to the forefront of his mind as a shiver slithers up his spine: from tail to neck. he has been the hunter oft enough to get the creeping suspicion that he has now become the prey ...for no other reason than the fact that the other has not revealed himself; and yet the sweet and innocent part of the fae-like kitsune did not want to believe that his instinct of self-preservation was right. it couldn't be! for what reason was he being hunted? he wants to scoff at himself.

yet ...he cannot entirely shake the persistent feeling all the same.

should i? he asks, not in any way condescending. the word does not strike him as familiar and try as he might he cannot place it to anything in specific. to kitsune, it is just a word with no present meaning. like a word repeated one too many times that ceases to make sense any longer.

”i am the homba,” merrick sighed into the growing night, ”and this is my domain.” he surveyed the quarry again; was that a hint of fear lacing the crisp air?
merrick lusted after the thin tendril of it, demanded more. his anathema; his poison. swallowing the strangled whine which had threatened to give him away as mortal stalking beast, merrick smirked in the darkness.
”some say i grant wishes,” the boy went on, tones cooling. ”but i’m really in no mood.” at last he unfurled himself from the shadows, detached and slipping between crackling stalks into the awareness of those odd, compelling eyes. 
here merrick lurked a long moment, not bothering to hide the butcher’s shimmer upon his black pupils and their copperburn hellscape; he smiled in the dying light.
”run.”
energy coursing his bones, mouts pooling with saliva —
not a request, after all.

the veiled stranger replies that he is the homba and that kitsune has wondered into his domain. homba smelled like a wolf but there was an eerie silence blanketing this place that lends kitsune to believe that perhaps he was mistaken. though the name meant nothing to him there was a certain gravity to it that caused the persistent instinct to be on guard to push at him, screaming at him to be let out of its prison. oh, falls from him in a breath. i'm sorry i — i didn't know dies on his lips as the other reveals himself.

it is no wonder why the shadows embraced him: he is borne of shadows with a gaze as hellish as the fireglow of the relenting sun as it dips beneath the earth. before kitsune has a chance to utter that he'll leave he is met with a butcher's grin. kitsune, made by the shadows, moonbeam and starglow of night has never feared any of it: not the breathing shadows, not the things that went 'bump' in the night — and how could he when he was a will-o-wisp himself? — ...but that butcher's grin causes ice to pool in his stomach and his ears to flutter against his skull as he takes a ghosting step away.

run.

and what was kitsune to do but to comply with the command? but run. he takes flight, heart pounding in his throat, in his ears. hoping that he is fleet of foot enough to outrun the hellhound.

churning legs carried the stranger away from merrick, who allowed a second of repose to pass before snaking into a run that followed the crushed stalks left behind in the other’s wake.
here the tempest and the ecstasy! here the agony of lungs fitting to burst too soon, expanding in the slendering ribcage of a young body who has gone too long without proper nourishment.
shoving himself beyond all the same, merrick gave lurid pursuit, eyes fixed on the pale bobbing haunches darting just ahead. he hungered for the vein-split of a breaking bone between his teeth, for the scream, for the swallow and inhale of power.
as if waking from a dream, with each step merrick began to come more alive, nerve and artery and loins pulsing, pulsing with the vitality of the hunt and the cold lash of wind across his sneering visage.

the — god?

or ... mortal? — does it matter?

gives chase to kitsune who wills his long legs to carry him with the speed they were streamlined for. he yearns and silently begs for the moon to embrace him and become his shield. to become the willo'wisp that had begun as a torment from the cubs in the neighboring pack ...only to be twisted into his gift by words of his elders. to be kijo is to be proud. would his ancestors — those bearing the gift and those that did not — be proud of him if they could hear his heart in his chest? not fierce and steady like a wardrum but fluttering wildly and rapidily like a hummingbird's wings? would they be proud of the way he flees the hellhound?

presently, kitsune struggles to find it within himself to care. he only knows he wishes to live and against each aching and shallow draw of breath in his lungs he pushes himself further, faster. blindly. he will suffer whatever consequence that befalls him ...as long as he is still living at the end of this night.

they ran, hunter, hunted; whirling through cold night as the bow of the moon rose pregnant above the chasing fields. graceful the boy before him, an arching wit that merrick could only long for. but it mattered not; he lunged in the glittering dark for the pulsing flank of the pale creature, unsure if he would miss or land his strike
snowchased, terrified; merrick savoured the other's fear and kept on with it, even as he began to lag behind the silkworm and in that knowledge, leapt a second time in an attempt to drag down his slender quarry.

don't turn around...

don't stop....

kitsune's lungs burned, each breath unsatisfying as he takes it, muscles in his legs aching from the sudden burst of exertion as he continues to push himself: slowly to his limits like the steady but true buildup of suspension.

he knows what will happen if he's caught by the hellhound. will-o'-wisp or not seemed hardly to matter and that kijo blood and the supposed magic it held? where was it now? the first lunge that the hellhound makes misses kitsune by a hairsbreadth — he could feel the other male's hot breath skirting against the tendrils of his fur.

the rush of adrenaline is a blessed boost of speed but it makes him jittery and the second time the hellhound grabs for him, he finds purchase. the pierce of flesh into teeth is heard before its felt — and then the rushing hot pain comes in. kitsune lets out a half snarl, half yelp.

puh-please... let his ancestors see him beg for his life — what choice did they leave him? neither them nor the so-called magic in his veins help him. please, he simpers. don't kill me. pathetic. i'll do anything! anything you want.

pathetic indeed. with the taste of blood, merrick's prey became as a sniveling cub, begging, pleading. it had been effortless to bring the other so low, and now merrick sought to drag the other down to the cold earth.
"there is nothing you can give me that i can't take," the boy chuckled gleefully, the arcing sound
of it sharp in the night's air. down,
down, down,
he would cripple this strange pale beast and draw his fill of the uncommonly sweet blood. "your name?" merrick breathed affectionately from red-stained lips, single eye burning lantern bright in the dim.