It was early. Not so early to make it difficult for Jody to see in the forest, but early enough to still have that extremely peaceful feeling of being up before most everyone else. Especially during the summer. Jody had always been up with the sun, though he could be a night owl, too. Sleep wasn’t always easy to come by now. He did so much of it as a kid, nothing better to do when you were sedated most of the time and left alone, to be forgotten.
And because of those two years, when his foster parents believed him to be a demon because of powers he did not understand fully, trapped in a basement, Jody took solace in being outside as much as he could. But today, carrying a small plastic bag, he was taking his early morning walk with a purpose, his senses reaching out for the signs of death. It had a smell and a coldness to it. Sometimes even a sound, whispers of his own voice drawing his attention towards it echoing in his head.
He felt it, looking to his right, but it was a thin dying tree. Not helpful for Kynan’s appetite… Then again, and the whisper came this time. Further. He walked further ahead, just a few careful steps. Down. Over. And he knew over meant left instead of right. Jody saw movement in a bush. A small baby bunny. Jody gave a sigh. Rabbits were always the hardest for him. Young creatures of any sort especially. But something about rabbits. Maybe because Judith had loved them so much, although she had never owned one. Too messy indoors.
The little thing was struggling, bleeding from a wound in it’s side. Talons, maybe. A hawk or some bird of prey loosing it’s grip or realizing it was not large enough to bother with. Jody picked it up, using the bag as a barrier. It was grey and not brown, making it more difficult to see among the green foliage for Jody. Greens in the forest tended to look more grey than teal, too much yellow in their spectrum.
As he did, the black smoke rose from his wrist, encircling before moving towards the tiny rabbit in the bag, in his hand. He ventured back towards the dying tree, raising his free hand. The smoke rose from his finger tips and his vision became monochromatic, and slightly blurred, the forest turning more grey to him than before. The reds of the bark in the trees and the dirt on the ground gone entirely. His eyes, the whites, the iris, went entirely black, as though a pitch black ink filled them. The smoke drew out from the little dying thing in his right hand and the smoke drew out of his left hand into the tree. Not much seemed to happen, but Jody could feel it. The tree’s roots revived, enough to give the tree a fighting chance. The baby rabbit’s tiny heart gave it’s last few weak beats.
Carissa stepped into the clearing just in time to see the fate that befell the poor bunny that had been snatched up by the hawk earlier. It must have dropped it after she’d clipped its wing with a spell. But to witness its life force literally get drained out of it, even to put said life force into a tree, it was rather distressing to her. It, frankly, pissed her off. “Did you just...did you just fucking kill a bunny? Why? What’d you do that for?!” She stalked over to the man and smacked his shoulder. “What are you doing, man? The bunny didn’t do anything to you!”
