Otter Creek sleep, soldier

The storm had a fat tail, fading out slow as if reluctant to leave, dragging its heels and revealing in its wake an achingly clear night sky. The faintest smears of powder blue on the horizon heralded a new day. Underfoot, the hailstones had started to melt and disappear into the earth.

They lingered for a moment in their makeshift shelter. The two of them were skeptical and perhaps cowardly, but cowardice was what had enabled for them to have lived this long. It was easy for pack wolves to condescend and preach about valor, but beyond their borders there was no such standard.

Thankfully, it did not take long for them to find water. From time to time, Gavrel looked back to see if the nameless boy followed. In the weak light he could finally see the brown of his fur against his dark spine, countershaded like a marine predator. Despite the wound @Drusk was rangy, his movements fluid enough.

He arrived at the bank, flinched as he stepped ankle-deep into the shallows. The water was so cold, it made his bones ache.

By the time the storm broke he was numb to the world. He had not slept, unable to relax for a long enough period of time to let his body slip off to sleep, but at least the wound on his back had become numb too. The shared warmth of their shelter was sorely missed as soon as they were ambulatory; it had not been an aspect of the night that Drusk had fully appreciated until after the fact, as the pair tread through the remainder of forest and began the mission of seeking water.

When it was found, Drusk was slow to venture close. His nostrils were flaring every few minutes as the wind shifted, carrying with it the metallic storm-scent, while he checked for signs of others. Gavrel had more bravery than he; the man went for the shallows and stood there in the water while Drusk kept watch. After a handful of minutes to discern if it was truly safe, he followed.

Although he only stood on the bank, there was an ambient chill from the water that the rogue found familiar and in a strange way, comforting. He bent to drink, lapping at the surface while his ears remained on a swivel for signs of danger.

The water flashed with minnows and other sleek, scaled creatures he could not put a name to.

Greedily, he could not help but quantify every possible mouthful of food, to translate them chemically from flesh to energy in units of time. A fish might be enough for a day of slow travel. Any farther would require meat, real land-animal meat.

At times he would be so hungry as to fill his stomach with berries and tree bark. But with the arrival of spring, other predators slowly but surely had become more careless in their hunting and caching. Oh yes, in the winter it was impossible to scavenge from these misers, but nowadays all Gavrel had to do was to follow the shadows of crows and their ilk.

He waded out deeper, the current tugging at the fur on his chest. Gavrel's expression when he turns to face the boy is expectant, but he remains wordless as he turns back to the thankless task of fishing -- most of which really was just lying in wait.

He would stay alert, but hunger drew the man in to the water and once it was high enough to slick his belly, maybe cascade over his back with its flow, Drusk was paddling. The fish shot away from him as he went. His dark fur became diaphanous and ruddy as it soaked and floated.

Reaching as he went, Drusk paddled out, around, and back to a patch of the swallows, where he crawled out. The water was frigid enough to make him forget about his lower back, but when he shook, he was sharply reminded.

Coughing and bowing towards the embankment, he tried to hide the grimace of pain that unfurled across his dripping face.

As the boy cleaned himself off in the water, a knot of tension loosened in Gavrel's chest. He watched the dark plumes of grime and blood sluice off of the boy and travel downstream, diluting quickly in the steady current. For a few moments it looked as if the boy himself was dissolving, difficult to see where his fur ended and the water began.

He fished well into daylight. The sky became an anemic shade of blue, with cirrus clouds loosed like egg whites across its expanse. After a while he stopped being able to feel his paws, the cold having numbed them thoroughly; he nudged his snout in the water once or twice, a few false starts.

When he surfaced with a fish in his jaws, its muscular body flapping frantically in the air, he tossed it to the river bank where it continued to strain for breath. There was no time to savor his luck.

He looked back where the boy was, dimly surprised that he had stuck around. Though he supposed that any lone wolf would be patient for food if nothing else.

In the act of ultimate altruism (at least, for Gavrel's standards), he waited for the boy to take the first bite. The fish's eyes became glassy, its throes weakened.

Water dripped from every angle. The sun would come to warm his back, but without the ability to shake properly he would remain enmeshed in his slicked fur. As he stood there feeling the initial tendrils of spring's warmth spreading, it was possible to see the boyish figure he happened to wield.

Drusk was a tall thing, had always been that way. Gavrel had once described him as racy and that wasn't far off the mark. He had a runner's build, but because of the height and a lifestyle of scavenging it was clear this wasn't by choice. His body retained only as much muscle as it required for such a lifestyle; one had to be able to cut and run on a moment's notice.

The slapping of the fish drew his eye, and soon he was slinking closer, watching as the creature was dropped to the earth. It suffocated there. Drusk watched the energy burn through the fish in the form of myoclonic jerks without any feeling within himself.

The other man offered the fish to him, which was a surprise. Drusk did not need to translate that offer; he moved to loom over the head and sank his teeth in to a meaty cheek, peeling it apart with a few quick snaps, and withdrew afterwards to chew what he had torn free.

The boy ate his food like he did everything else: his movements frenetic, serrated, and savage.

I meant for you to kill it right then and there, he began, the fish's body going cold on the dirt between them, its red viscera the only vibrant color that existed for miles around them. But I guess you did, in the end. He swallowed the saliva that pooled in his mouth. Translucent beads of it hung from his lips.

Where will you be going? Gavrel knew that he would receive no answer, but it felt good to be talking, a sentiment he had only experienced a handful of times in his life. Usually, it had been he that played the role of wordless and reluctant listener. Are you going to be a pack-animal, suck on the teat of government?

A bitter smile crossed his face. No one would blame you.

He settled down on his feet, tucking his front paws into his chest to warm them.

Sharing wasn't something he was equipped for. There had been too many days of desperation to amount to anything less than that. Drusk sat with the rest of the fish and ate quickly, as he always did when he came across a hot meal, and barely tasted it. Whether he was peeling apart the belly or cracking through a spine, the sound of his companion's commentary and questions filled the void of an otherwise silent affair.

His focus was almost entirely on the meal. One ear kept trained to the shifting pitch of the voice, and when there was nothing left of the fish Drusk sat there gathering some of the blood and guts from off of his chin first, the earth second; sniffing finally at the dirt as if a fish might jump free of the water by virtue of his need.

He coughed up a bone, spat it out, sniffed it too.

Looking south, he gave a more purposeful chuff as if to answer a question he hadn't really heard. That way, maybe?

The rest of the fish was dispatched. He peered at the new fullness of the boy's stomach, the low parabola where there had once been a sharp tuck. Gavrel was not one of those bleeding-hearts that "received as much sustenance from feeding others as they did feeding themselves". But he thought then that he could emphasize with a sliver of their compassion.

Passion in the old sense, meaning some great suffering to be weathered. Compassion, meaning to weather this with another.

They were equally myopic about their futures. Neither had a long-term plan that arced through time on the order of seasons, perhaps even years. Planning was done in war rooms and studies plush with furniture, books, attendants. Planning was a privilege.

He got up and spat to the side. Whenever he was hungry he could quell the worst of it by recalling the arduous months of convalescence from the damned burn. He needed only to conjure the image of sloughing skin, the herbal poultices melding with lymph and blood.

The only signs of their loitering were scattered fishbones in the dirt. He waited for the boy to lead the way.