A cold moon rose over the ruins. The broken, jagged bones of the dead city were deceptively softened by a thick blanket of wedding-gown-white snow that glittered beneath the sky, catching and reflecting starlight back to the heavens. It might have been a place of wonder if one looked at it only briefly and from a distance.
Closer inspection would reveal the shadows and the ashes mixed with the snow, the tracks of predators and prey marring the snowbanks and the occasional splash of blood or abandoned carcass not yet picked clean by the scavengers.
At night the hunters were more active, prowling on silent wings and paws to make their strikes and dine on kills.
One of the hunters perched on a stone wall, his long white hair a tangled braid behind him, his tunic torn and caked with blood both old and fresh and the black drippings of his own tears and saliva. He was a strange parody of the impeccable bard who had once walked the streets of the Settlement with such elegant grace and confidence. Now he licked fresh blood from his fingers, savoring the steaming liquid as he dipped them once more into the broken body of the cat beside him. His clothes should not have been enough to keep him warm, but he seemed heedless of the cold Deepfrost air as he crooned a gentle, wordless lullaby to the dead beast at his side in between sucking each finger clean in turn before dabbing them into the upthrust, broken ribcage again and beginning the process anew.
Bastien
Closer inspection would reveal the shadows and the ashes mixed with the snow, the tracks of predators and prey marring the snowbanks and the occasional splash of blood or abandoned carcass not yet picked clean by the scavengers.
At night the hunters were more active, prowling on silent wings and paws to make their strikes and dine on kills.
One of the hunters perched on a stone wall, his long white hair a tangled braid behind him, his tunic torn and caked with blood both old and fresh and the black drippings of his own tears and saliva. He was a strange parody of the impeccable bard who had once walked the streets of the Settlement with such elegant grace and confidence. Now he licked fresh blood from his fingers, savoring the steaming liquid as he dipped them once more into the broken body of the cat beside him. His clothes should not have been enough to keep him warm, but he seemed heedless of the cold Deepfrost air as he crooned a gentle, wordless lullaby to the dead beast at his side in between sucking each finger clean in turn before dabbing them into the upthrust, broken ribcage again and beginning the process anew.
