this is the reckoning
He snorted – conjuring all the notions, all the nuances, he’d learned and experienced over the years he’d lived within Caido. Monsters; some for their barbarity, some for their strangeness, and some not horrifying, dangerous, or terrifying at all – just different, altered, from the regularity of their own race. What lurked in the jungles could be any range of possibilities – and while he didn’t have the multitude of knowledge based in this form of elemental wares (more prone to forests beside the sea, mountains, or the ruinous junctures of the Grounds), maybe Aisha did. She seemed far more content and grounded into the facets. What creatures did you have before? Before being swept up into Outlander orchestrations? Before being portalled and taken?
Thereafter, upon having his fill, picking at bones, the beast lifted his head, glancing along the waterbed; the certainty curling and coiling in the back of his mind. To wander wherever the water took them (instinctively – towards the sea), a nod granted and given at the suggestion.
Then he was movement and motion again, paws wading into the embankment, touching along the water, entirely coaxed and enticed into its threshold – occasionally launching a series of splashes in the leopard’s direction – and lifting his nose to catch telltale scents once more.
Thereafter, upon having his fill, picking at bones, the beast lifted his head, glancing along the waterbed; the certainty curling and coiling in the back of his mind. To wander wherever the water took them (instinctively – towards the sea), a nod granted and given at the suggestion.
Then he was movement and motion again, paws wading into the embankment, touching along the water, entirely coaxed and enticed into its threshold – occasionally launching a series of splashes in the leopard’s direction – and lifting his nose to catch telltale scents once more.
DEIMOS
