// and rise with me forever across the silent sand //
He has been gone longer than he said he would be, and that’s the first sign to the Butcher that something isn’t quite right. The second sign is when the time continues to move hour after hour without any signs of life from the other Ancient. The third sign is when the Butcher sets out to try and find him, making his way to the Oerwoud only to come up empty there in the general area he thinks the Maverick would have gone. The fourth sign is the blood left behind, vanishing when he presumably shifted to his gore crow shift and took off.
So then, the Butcher returns to being the hunter, the scout to try and follow the trail, but it’s made far more difficult when there’s a multitude of shifts his lover could be, and without his own flighted shift these days, the Butcher finds himself shifting to the Feirw to race back toward Torchline’s shores, trying to follow any sign of anything amiss that might indicate the presence of the Theocrat.
Is he a little manic by this point? Yes. Will he admit it? No. Does the fiery deer finally spot the Maverick on the outskirts of the Ahi Coast, walking alone, appearing injured and race toward him? Absolutely. He shifts back by the time he’s within a healthy distance, because he knows how Danta gets when his bloodlust gets this bad. He also knows to be as inconspicuous as possible in case he hasn’t managed to succeed in sating it. “Danta,” he breathes through a pant, sand kicking up where he hurries his steps to stop before the Maverick, looking him over with all the blood that stains his clothes, drying to his skin, the puncture wounds that have him hesitating to touch him. “What happened, darling?” He tries for the normalcy, but there’s a quiet underline of panic and worry that threads through the tones.
So then, the Butcher returns to being the hunter, the scout to try and follow the trail, but it’s made far more difficult when there’s a multitude of shifts his lover could be, and without his own flighted shift these days, the Butcher finds himself shifting to the Feirw to race back toward Torchline’s shores, trying to follow any sign of anything amiss that might indicate the presence of the Theocrat.
Is he a little manic by this point? Yes. Will he admit it? No. Does the fiery deer finally spot the Maverick on the outskirts of the Ahi Coast, walking alone, appearing injured and race toward him? Absolutely. He shifts back by the time he’s within a healthy distance, because he knows how Danta gets when his bloodlust gets this bad. He also knows to be as inconspicuous as possible in case he hasn’t managed to succeed in sating it. “Danta,” he breathes through a pant, sand kicking up where he hurries his steps to stop before the Maverick, looking him over with all the blood that stains his clothes, drying to his skin, the puncture wounds that have him hesitating to touch him. “What happened, darling?” He tries for the normalcy, but there’s a quiet underline of panic and worry that threads through the tones.
Astaroth
// and the stars will be your eyes and the wind will be my hands //
