The End of Sunshine and Berries
Clothing was dirty but not worn, hands calloused once more where they had only been bruised and bloodied by frequent rage against the bars that held him, his scalp a tattered mess of black coils streaked with silver showing his age, but the old Black Dog still moved with the fluidity of a man practiced at killing. The horse had been abandoned as he made his way outward from Bree, slipping along winding side paths that only deer and bandits used but he had long ago memorized. They didn’t change much from his childhood.
Work wasn’t consistent, but it was there. Enough coin to fill their pockets, especially with how they currently lived, so that certain luxuries could once more be afforded. He knew his wife appreciated it, though likely she would still prefer a roof over her head. Nomadic existence, however foreign to the pretty thing, would keep them both safe though. And likely she knew it, as he brooded in the solitary trek home out to secure their safety so such drastic measures would no longer be necessity.
Dyn looked up from hanging the laundry on the line as Brutus barked and paced into the woods with a happy wag of his tail. She stood, weaving around the branches and the logs that dotted the wood where Vini likely was to come from. She picked up speed with a smile crossing her features as she saw him; Brutus beating her by several moments still. "Vini!" She chirped, trying to throw her arms around him with a skip in her step. "Vini, can we go to Bree tonight? Please? I want to go to the Pony!"
As the hound bounded circles around them, he brought her into his arms, the smell of sweat still on his skin from the day spent laboring unloading shipments from the Shire with a fresh wash of either dirt or sun across his flesh. Clutching her with affection and a wordless murmur of content, he received the inquiry with a raised eyebrow and a glance towards the distant hush of stream water. “I… Suppose. Will need to wash up a bit first. Any particular reason why?”
Dyn sighed, a pouting slightly as he glanced toward the water. "Because, I'm tired of greens. I want something /baked/. There's only so much I can do with an open flame Vini. That and I was trying and doing so terribly with building a mud oven.." She sighed, rolling her eyes skywards. "I just want something hot, and baked and with more.." She whined, "Please? I've saved up enough coin from selling wild herbs to the merchants."
Aetlution waited. He watched. He hid with twigs in his side, his leg uncomfortable as it supported his weight from a kneeling for position for far too long. With his eyes on their happy little scene, he simply squeezed his bow, sometimes idly watching the dog jump.
The desperation in her voice made him chuckle, raising a hand to tangle in the gold curls as he inhaled the scent on her hair and drew back to look down at her appreciatively. “Of course… We have more than enough for baked goods. I’m glad you waited for me to travel.”
Turning on his heel, he moved towards the water collected for washing and dipped his hands in among clean plates. With one hand raised to run water through his hair, the other undid lacings on his shirt to toss the sweating rag to one side before pursuing a towel. “With how much your craving something baked though, I have to ask… You aren’t late, are you?” The smile that traced his lips was bemused, the tone hopeful as he splashed water across his features.
Dyn watched him keenly, her weight shifting from foot to foot excitedly at the chance of leaving the camp. She had missed their evenings out in Harad, it wouldn't the same, but still.. His words drew her toward his side as she plunked down and folded her legs under her. "Late?" She tilted her head, a confused look crossing her features for a long moment before his meaning dawned on her and she turned red. Her hands fell to her middle and she curled up. "Well.. uhm, I don't know? I.. well.." She bit her lower lip, "It changes. I know most women are supposed to be regular.. but.. well, I.. uhm.. when I travel a lot.. and well, I was so worried before.. Some times it doesn't come.. but I.. well.."
Unable to hear them right out, Aet tried to follow the conversation from their facial expressions. However, the task proved harder than he would have expected, and let's out a low sigh. He decides to watch for a while longer before deciding to walk away.
“We’ll see.” He offered plainly, sliding the towel over riddled scar tissue that crossed his chest and stomach, glancing over his shoulder to the mess of patchwork that had once been flesh. Dipping the towel back in the water, he held it out to her, nodding to his back before adding quietly, “…I wouldn’t fret about it for a couple weeks more. It wouldn’t be the end of the world.” And something in his golden eyes suggested it was anything but. Fred’s greying muzzle swiveled as the breeze changed, his hips rocking back as tail whapped against the ground and he let out a happy whine to smell whatever he did on the wind.
Dyn stood up with a grumbling pout, her brows pinched as she went to him and took up the damp towel. "I don't want to be pregnant yet. We don't have a house, or a farm. Or a good horse." She whined, her nose wrinkling up. "And I don't want to be fat. What would I do for clothes?" She carefully patted down his back.
The laugh that burst out from his chest was honest as he shook his head, “Babies don’t care ‘bout none of that. And something tells me the horse is what you’re really after…” He offered up a wink over one of the broad shoulders before he caught sight of the hound and he watched the twitching nose for a moment. Patting a thigh, he gently called out to the beast, “Oi, boy… What’cha got?” The brute, now more thoroughly convinced of his initial hunch, stood with a generous wag of his tail and a greeting bay towards what looked mostly like shrubbery.
Dyn pouted again, her lower lip sticking out as Vini laughed at her whining protests and she purposefully wrinkled the damp cloth to allow a line of water to slide down his back into the base of his pants. A grumbling falling from her lips. "I like having a house." She mumbled, her gaze sweeping briefly to Brutus and back. "I'm not having a baby in the woods." She added firmly.
A grimace slowly crawled onto his face as Aetlution realized what was about the happen. He sighed and picked up his bow, taking an arrow from the quiver at his side, and slowly pulling it back on the string of the bow. "Should've have kept quiet..." He murmured to himself as he let the arrow sing with the wind in a deadly harmony, tensing and standing up slightly in case he needed to run.
It happened as things often do when one is powerless, the arrow slamming into the hound’s haunch with a screaming yelp pulling out of his faithful muzzle. Whirling in place to try to get at the barb embedded in his muscles, it was a morbidly comical scene, chasing the extra tail he had acquired even as Vincent bellowed out something in Haradic and threw his body over that of his wife. “It’s okay…” He breathed into the crux of where shoulder met with neck, “I’m going to stand up, and I need you to go for the trees. Do you understand?” There was no fear in his tone, something steeled and brutally calm as everything he kept so carefully leashed was straining, ready, ready to bare teeth and meet whatever foe challenged them.
Dyn yelped a scream ripping from her throat in shock as she tumbled down and found her husband pinning her to the ground. She went stock still, breathing heavily as the sounds of the hound's cries reached her ears. She trembled under Vini as he spoke, whispering against her neck and giving instructions in such a calm, clear tone. She nodded, too scared to speak and not trusting her self to be quite enough.
A sigh of relief burst from his lips as the man did not immediately move. He pulled another arrow free, nocked it in the string, and brought it level with Vini. In a quick motion, he pulled to the right and let the arrow go near the man, but not close enough to hit him.
“I don’t know how many there are, Dyn. Don’t turn back. And fight if you need to.” Slipping the only weapon from his boot, he pressed the handle of the dagger into her hand and then stood with arms spreading as he turned to the hiss of arrow embedding near his feet. “…CEASE FIRE AND SHOW YOURSELF.” He bellowed at the woods and the arrows that spewed forth from them, arms still held wide and not noticeably armed in the least as his teeth bared and he listened to the sound of his wife’s footsteps hopefully fleeing to safety.
Dyn nodded, her eyes blurring with tears as her hands closed around the dagger he pressed into her hand. She fought the urge to clutch at him as the thump of another arrow hit and she pressed herself up and away as he stood. She bolted for the woods, swinging around the nearest tree and plopping herself down on the ground with a panting gasp. She couldn't go far and leave him alone. She couldn't. She called to Brutus softly in Rohirric, pleading for the crying, panicked hound to come to her.
Aelution wasted no time in moving back towards Bree, his feet carefully to avoid sticks and other noisy things. He left his mask on, though even if he didn't there would still be no emotion. His message, regrettably sent, and for now he had all he wanted.
|When no arrow burrowed into his chest, he moved swiftly. First to collect the single weapon he favored from the belongings alongside their meager tent, and second to intercept the hound limping towards the sound of his disobedient spouse’s voice. With battered and pock-marked cudgel in one hand, he lifted the beast back onto its hind legs by the collar and stared down into the pain-stricken eyes even as his teeth chewed out the Roherric command to ‘Find’. There was a moment, tenuous and heartbreaking, where it was evident the old hound would have desired nothing more than the loving embrace of gentler owner and treatment for the bee stinging deeper and deeper into his flesh. The tone of the command did not invite debate though, nor did the rage in master’s eye, and so the greying muzzle turned and the hound limped in the direction indicated by a raised hand, towards the beginning of arrow’s flight path where scent could be found.
When the arrows stopped firing and her husband moved toward the hound she crept out from behind the tree. She sprinted toward him, her expression twisting in distress as she tried to catch up to Vini's side. She tried to grab at his sleeve pleadingly. "Vini, please, the trail will hold. You'll push him too far!" She cried softly, her voice hushed as she skirted around a log and sticks that littered the ground around her. "Please."
“Cyndyn…” There was a quiet in his voice, rumbling up from the depths of his still bare chest, as he strode after the limping animal and ignored the hands sliding down his arm in plea for the poor beast. “…He’ll live. Or he won’t. But if we don’t find who is out there, then there is a good chance there will be little question as to our survival of the evening.” Silence except for the purposeful crunch of his steel-toed boots conquering step after step that separated him from his quarry, broken only when he snarled out, “And I told you to RUN.”
Dyn shot him a glower, her lips setting together. "No. I recognize those arrows. That fletching.." she frowned, eyeing the arrow sticking in the hound's side. "A week or two ago, there was a pile of animals in the path to Bree. Someone fired arrows at me, but never hit me. He yelled at me to go, and ran off when I did.." She pursed her lips. "Someone has been following me.. and I didn't know it. I'm not running." She bit out, her hands tightening. "If you push Brutus to his death I'm not going to forgive you for it. He's a good hound and deserves more."
“Oh there are far more terrible things you have forgiven me for…” The statement was little more than a growl and it whispered of darker things than either of them dared speak of again, the smile on his lips cruel and twisted as he considered berating her for the lack of information regarding previous encounters with corpses strewn in her path. The impulse was strangled out though by the bay of the hound as he hit scent and gave pursuit, purposeful even in his slowed pace as he stumbled and bled along the lightly trampled path.
Dyn made a frustrated noise at the back of her throat, picking up her pace and her skirts as she trailed after Vini. "I love him Vini, Brutus has always been there for me! Don't you dare push him to death!" She called, no longer keeping her voice down, panting to inhale a breath."I'll.. I'll do something and you won't like it!" She huffed, bundling her skirts around her thighs as she chased after her husband and beloved hound. "And I just thought I ran into a hunter." She added, defending herself despite his lack of beratement.
Aet moved quickly through the woodwork, every step he gained he picked up his pace, sacrificing silence for speed as he tried to get away from his would-be targets. He knew better than to think himself out of the woods, so to speak, keeping both his bow and an arrow at hand.
Just as he had suspected, it did not take more than a few hundred yards of listening to his wife’s adamant refusal to be cooperative and watching his hound bleed profusely that his quarry became sloppy. From here, it would be a hunt he could manage on his own. “Fine.” The accommodation was snarled out as if she were some great inconvenience, brushing past her and releasing the hound with a simple ‘Enough’ murmured in his wife’s native tongue. Then he was following broken twigs and trampled brush, slowing his pace only to confirm he was on the right track before redoubling the pursuit as dappled shadows of fading afternoon painted across his scarred hide.
Dyn fell back with a grimace as her husband took off and she slowed. She stood, torn for several beats as she watched him disapear into the dappled sunlit path. She fell to the ground beside Brutus, her features crumbling as she reached out for the hound and the arrow. A soft command ordered the hound to the ground with a pained noise. She bent, snapping the arrow as close as she dared to the point of entry. She knew little about patching up arrow wounds, but she had lived with Harad and Vini never did trust those around them to patch him up.
Aet hustles his way towards Bree, weaving through branches and brush, keeping an eye out for any of the forest's natural predators. It did not take long for him to hear the one behind him, however. He continued on until a wide tree trunk offered him some cover. He quickly moved and stopped behind, checking his mask to make sure it was tight before nocking the arrow in his short bow. And then he waited.
After the sound of his wife and whimpering hound dissipated, Vincent found a rhythm, the sort of loping pace that wolves favored when game was in their nose and saliva dripping from their panting maws. These woods were not his favored hunting ground, and so he abandoned any effort to move silently in sacrifice for speed. Eventually, he would close the distance. And eventually, he would have an arrow protruding out of his flesh. The latter would prove sufficient evidence that the former had been accomplished.
Thus when he came into the sight of the archer, he made himself available as a target, though not in the slow and plodding way of heavy beast or ignorant forest creature. The light amber of his eyes cut through the shadows with ever sideways swivel of his head as his boots devoured the distance between them, the beating of his heart under bare chest broken apart by tree trunks and bushes that cudgel parted under eerie snap like bones breaking in the dusk.
Dyn made do with what she had, ripping off apron and using the whole of the linen to wrap around the wounded hound's injury. She pressed down on the wound, staring into the darkening woods with a worried look. She bit her lip, glancing down at the dog and back in the direction Vini had disappeared into.
Aetlution grinned as the man swiftly moved upon him. A challenge. Soon, the arrow was loosed onto the man, the hunter's keen eye focused on his chest for a bigger area to hit. As soon as the feathers passed past his left fingers, the bow was abandoned and both hands reached for the two long daggers hanging from his belt. It had been so long since they tasted blood. Aetlution may have been unnerved at the smile that crept across his face when he realized he could feed them again. May have.
The arrow brought loose something akin to a roar, a cry out in Haradic curse as the cudgel swung, shattering the shaft where it had embedded between shoulder and chest on the opposite arm to the one he favored. Then he was on the archer, the distance between them consumed completely with that downward blow in a matter of seconds. The space between an inhale and an exhale was what would save either of them now as the brutal weapon swept out in a wicked cut that started low and climbed high. And so the masked attacker met with the Black Dog.
Dyn heard the roaring in Haradic, a distant echo that bounced off trees and sang in the shadows around her. She looked down in a panic at the hound beside her, her heart leaping into her throat. She didn't /want/ to stay behind. Vini could be hurt, he could need her help. What if the hunter was tracking them for Rhoane? What if Vini was in danger? She couldn't think straight, not as her mind raced. Still she clutched at the linen in her fists, pressing it against the injured hound. She couldn't carry him, and if Vini was hurt... She rose, swallowing hard as she looked down at Brutus. "Stay, please, oh please stay." She murmured in Rohirric.
Aetlution quickly dropped his back foot and swung it away, allowing his body to quickly move away from the cudgel's wide arc. He returned the Dog's kind words with his own, however his took the form of Rhunic taunting. The leather on his left hand groaned as his grip tightened and he sent the dagger towards Vini's gut, the other staying put in his other hand.
The brutal metal instrument dropped with the carved effort to spill his entrails, the sound of blade sliding across pocked surface screaming for the man who now settled into silence. While his height did not promise the force behind his blows, the strength even suffering under initial injury and tired from the day at work was exceptional. He shoved forward as the knife reached the guard just before cudgel met with calloused hand, and used his weight to rock the man back either onto his heels or unbalanced enough that the dagger’s twin would not dare trespass.
Dyn waited moments to be sure that Brutus stayed, glancing back at the hound and back to the woods before she took off. She ran, stumbling into the woods in the direction that Vini had disappeared into. Her feet crunched under sticks, twigs in her rush. Still she didn't stop.
Aetlution let his forward foot quickly fall back to pick up the slack of his balance, forcing his left hand to retreat as soon as it invaded. He spit out more insults in Rhun as he slowly stalked around the Dog. He watched and waited for the man's next move.
Settling back as the insults slid off his sweating skin as easily as the blood leaking from where arrow barb still bobbed, he watched the motions of the smaller man. Lithe and faster, this would be no combat he could win by quickness of hand that much was easily determined. Thus when he moved to reconnect in combat, no ground was given, leaving himself open for the jab he knew would come from the secondary dagger. In his charge, the injured shoulder dropped to present a thick target as the cudgel swung low for a kneecap.
Dyn caught herself on a nearby tree as she tripped and nearly fell face forward onto the ground. She bit her lower lip, holding back a cry of surprise as she curled around the tree. The silence that hung in the forest belied the violence that took over the woods. She shivered, starting forward again in a rush of limbs.
Aetlution's eyes focused on the man as he moved, before they quickly locked in on the cudgel, knowing that it's painful blows were more of a threat to him. Without thinking twice, Aetlution stepped forward his left foot and sprung forward, trying to both avoid the cudgel and plant his right knee in the man's gut.
By the time the distance closed, he had managed to whip back his arm enough to make the collision of flesh and metal truly crunch. The blunt object slammed home in a fashion that promised no forgiveness regardless of armament worn, even as the knee flung up and into his torso. The dropped central weight of his charge ensured the blow missed his gut, but a bruise would blossom as soon as the blood returned to the impact point across his chest, something having cracked in a way that suggested breathing would hurt when the adrenaline wore off. All of these considerations were transitory now though, as he brought his lowered shoulder up and aimed an elbow for the chin of his assailant on the rising motion.
Dyn finally found the two combatants. She stood, clinging to a nearby tree as she stared, her features going white as her heart pounded in her ears. She knew better than to call out to Vini, to be a distraction. At least, until she eyed the man fighting him. Then all she could hear was a roaring panic at the sight of the two. She knew that hunter. Only he had peeled back his mask and came to her with a smile then. "Aetlution!"
Aetlution cried out in rage, pain and hatred all at once as he felt the cudgel's wrath. While it wasn't totally broken, thanks to the timing, it didn't exactly feel massaged either. His grip slackened as he dropped the dagger and put a hand up to grab the man's arm, his clothing and lithe form having betrayed just how taut the muscles underneath were. As soon as he had the larger's man arm, his dagger he hadn't abandoned made to slice the muscle of Vini's weapon arm.
The motion took him unaware, a technique that he caught only in time to spare the tendons that would refuse to heal. Jerking back as the knife came slashing down, blood blossomed in near-cinematic spray across the masked countenance as his teeth set and he dropped the cudgel to grip the forearm of his attacker. Without the strength to swing, he pulled the man forward, hoping to force him off balance as the sudden cry of his wife rang out and properly distracted him before he could bring his head crashing forward and into the other man’s skull. Instead, he looked just as off balance and just kind of stared at the other individual with a crude mixture of disgust and vindication tracing his features.
Dyn rushed forward at the sight of her husband's blood, unable to stay back. There was no ring of fighters or men to harry her shadows and scream insults. No one to keep her back. Clear thought had escaped her as she raced toward the two. "Oh no, Vini, oh.." She bit her lower lip, her fingers fluttering. "Aetlution why? Please, stop it! Vini did /nothing/! Why?"
Aetlution had hesitations once. But they were beaten out of him long ago. And he didn't need his balance, but the momentum of being pulled forward. Without even a glance towards Dyn, or any recognition of her presence, he shoved the dagger back towards Vini's gut again, though this time he stared right back into the Dog's eyes, reflecting his vindication but with a grim sense of duty.
There was only one force that could leash the thing that had collided so fiercely with Aetlution, and that was the voice that had called out over his blood streaked and sweat soaked shoulders. Certainly the instinct to finish it haunted him, but he could not act, would not act.
‘I’ll give him one chance…’ Vincent had promised, and then when he stole a kiss and she laughed like they were both drunk off the presence of the other person, he had allowed graciously, ‘…two’ He could kill the man where he stood, or at least endeavor to do so, but the moment of hesitation when the man’s trespasses were tallied cost the brute, and the knife slid in a wicked arc from right hip upwards until reflex saved him the far more brutal evisceration.
And as he fell backwards and pieced it together, he blinked once and managed only to say, “…You shot my dog.” As if this completely established just how much of an asshole the other bloke really was.
Dyn made a high pitched scream, dropping the dagger she had clung to the entire way over through her track in the woods. Her hands pressed over her mouth at the sight of Vini's blood trickling down his skin. Her heart stopped, fear pooling in her gut as she fell back and down with a swish of skirts. Then, suddenly, her features were hardening, her fear twisting into anger. He had lied to her! He'd hurt Brutus! And worse yet, he had hurt Vini. Her Vini. Her world. So she scrambled up, as Vini fell backwards she tried to force slight weight onto Aetlution with a howl. "How DARE YOU!"
Aet simply raised his left arm and waited for her to connect even slightly. As soon as she did, he'd use her momentum against her and knock her to the ground, her small mass not helping her cause. Aelution lowered his mask at that, dropping his hood before picking up the first dagger and slipping them both away.. He retrieved his bow, knocked an arrow, and stood a fair distance from the man. Instead of responding to Cyndyn, he instead shot her a steely gaze with cold intent and no mis-communication. He then turned the bow towards the wounded man. "And that is the only part of this afternoon I regret." He stalked a bit, his eyes just assessing the man. "I will say this once, and only once. If you /ever/ harm her, I will finish what I started here. It will hurt. I will break you. And then I leave you for dinner to whatever animal would be so pathetic to see you as fitting meal.” He shot one more look to Cyndyn, this one softer and almost apologetic. Almost. He then started to make his way towards Bree.
Dyn growled, charging him again with raised fists and every intent to try to punch at him wherever she could reach. She snarled, snapped and screamed her frustration at him, trying to find purchase with nails scrabbing at his clothes, his face, anything she could reach. Her eyes were damp with tears, her features stained with a flush of anger and she swore at him in a plethora of languages that trailed in and out of Common tongue.
Vincent breathed. Every last syllable of the threat was taken in like whiskey burning down his throat to sink and stay in his gut. He let the other have his daggers. His arrows. His dramatic monologue. And then he simply shook his head and spit a wad of blood and phlegm out onto the soil before murmuring, “Stupid boy. You already hurt her more than I ever could.”
He made no move to rise, but instead smiled up at the bastard, contempt in every line worn into the corners of his eyes as they flashed gold. Slowly he stood, pained obviously by the wounds he would patch later, before limping after his near-rabid wife. Eventually an arm would slide around her hips, pull her back and collect her firmly to bring her to his blood and dirt smeared skin as he offered up softly, ever so softly, “It’s not worth it…He’s not worth it…Dyn…Dynnie…Shh….”
Without an active defense, Aetlution's blood was finally drawn. Three long nails raked his left cheek, leaving three thin lines of blood, which fell like tears down the side of his cheek. Again, he pushed her down towards the ground, enough to knock her off her feet without hurting her. His gaze quickly turned back on the wounded pup. "She may hate me to her dying breath, but I've seen the type of fear you instill in her. I'm content with my decisions. Now tend to your wounds, and take good care to avoid more. Next time, I will tend to them for you." And with that, he turned again to leave, the limp in his left leg slowly beginning to show.
Cyndyn was sobbing by the time Vini's arm slid around her waist, her vision clouded over with tears as she bit and kicked and snarled at Aetlution in blind anger.
Her memories were tainted now. Every sweet word, gentle touch and caress were now blackened and charred and burned up with the image of Aetlution before her. To the man that had stood before her in the hall and begged a kiss. Who had lied to her face and tried to kill the man she loved above all else.
Her heart was no longer torn. It sang with pain though, at loss that had been ripped open anew.
“I BEGGED FOR YOU! I pleaded for YOU! For your LIFE!” She screamed at him, her hands closing around Vini's arm as he tugged her back to him. She stood shaking, red faced, and tear stained with her golden locks a tumbled halo around her features. She collapsed against his bloody frame. She pressed her cheek against the sweat and blood soaked skin of his chest; crying hard as she clung to him. Her chest rising and falling in rapid, short bursts of air.
As much as his muscles ached and his body began to scream protests for every motion, arms moved up to pull her tighter, ignoring the sharp pain of arrow head wedged just a bit higher than where those curls pooled. Still, a hand swept golden tresses sideways and let her sink against his trembling body, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead as he looked over her hitching shoulders at the man’s departure and smiled in the way of a man who had most undoubtedly won. Fear had taken years to manipulate, inspire, coax and reinforce. Betrayal and hatred, though… He could not have engineered her full isolation from supposed saviors any better. Sometimes even the most monstrous individuals are right about the greater evils than they.
Aetlution paused a moment, his head turning to look over his shoulder, his eyes fixed on the face that he had once loved. In this moment, he hesitated. He stood silent for a moment, before he finally found his voice again, but the raspy, harsher one that he gained from his travels, not the one that used to speak sweet nothings. "I don't need protection anymore. But you do, even if you don't realize it. Hopefully this will be enough. Don't you ever smile at me. I am the face of your death, and no false sense of acceptance or safety will keep you from me."
Dyn smiled up at Vini, her frame twisting around to press against him fully as she wrapped her arms up and around his shoulders, avoiding his wounded shoulder as best she could. She sniffled, her eyes still watering as she hid her features against his chest. Aelutions word's took moments to register as her world narrowed to the feel of Vini's heart beat beneath her ear.
Even though tears till stung her eyes, trickling down her cheeks as Vini's blood seeped into her dress and stained it red.
The continued promises fell on deaf ears, or perhaps whatever paced behind his eyes simply hungered for more, because he smiled and breathed in the scent of sweat with the taste of his own blood on his tongue. And the humor only faded when he tilted up her chin and took the kiss that was more proclamation of what he had stolen, not here, but years ago when the boy she loved disappeared and he took her away from everything she had ever known. And after the taste of her tears salved over the copper on his palate did he murmur softly, “Let’s get back to camp and see to Brutus.”
The kiss bothered the boy. So much to the point that the boy simply gave up there and then, and died. And the man buried him, before turning and walking back towards Bree as if nothing at all had happened.
