The wind whistles and howls through a well worn path along an untamed mountainside. The earthy smell of sweat and hay dances with the dusky mountain air, heavy with cedar and pine, the last traces of the days travelers. The last few shadows on the road stopped being travelers some time after sunset kissed the mountainside.
Two hearts pounding as they stumble and trip through rocky earth, over root and under limb, stinking of sour terror. Behind them a tangle of shadows rips through the overgrowth and like an avalanche it seems unstoppable as it pursues them. They rush past a silent figure, their passage knocking back her hood and revealing a pair of blue eyes so clear and bright they look nearly silver and red hair so dark and pure it seems like countless strands of silk washed with blood. The pair don't call out to her as they pass. They don't look back as the fury that pursues them wraps around her. They don't stop to listen to the whimpers that echo down the road after them.
Life flows in crimson rivers along unseen highways, branching, parting, joining again until suddenly it spills through, bleeding outward, bubbling like a living beast. Gather it. Bend it to your will. Twist and pull. Like mercury bleeding from open veins, quicksilver spills out from between the fingers, over and down into the sheathe as a silent hand closes around the hilt and icy blue eyes glitter. Fangs and claws and fur and tendons wrap around the silent figure; the blade dances, taking a dozen steps across bare flesh before the beast can tighten its grip and crush its prey. Black blood drips from the length of the blade and the red-haired shadow at the center of this dance drops to a knee and breaths a single word, "Vegeo."
A flash of silver light illuminates a feral visage as silver flames erupt in ribbons, eating into the flesh of the beast, biting deep into the flesh and bone, kindling it black before they vanish into greasy gray trails of smoke. The smells of burnt hair and cooked flesh fill the air with a greasy stench. The beast falls back, quivering, eyes once filled with fire growing dull as the she-wolf's broken form becomes more and more feminine. For a creature grown comfortable with brief pains and the itch of healing wounds the cold searing of these unhealing burns is foreign. Flesh shrinks back and claws recede as she whimpers in anguish, shirking away from the cold gaze of her prey.
"Sit," the prey commands, stepping toward the she-wolf as the predator scoots backwards, bare bottom against the wet grass, until her hip finds
the lean of a tree in her path, dark brown hair hanging in tattered
strands and golden eyes slitted tightly. In the moonlight, wild, raspberry-black hair belies a calm, serious expression, set with appraising eyes chilled to granite and punctuated by slitted pupils. A single scar on the girl's left cheek is underscored by a slightly welling thin red line. Another two such scratches have left the girl's blouse parted from her shoulder, her interest clearly peaked in the brisk air before another step drowns her features in darkness once more.
Two shadows meet in the lee of a towering cypress, as foreign to the landscape as their coupling. One lies shaking and silent. The second moves with gentle purpose, hands quieting the first with soft caresses until the shaking stops. "We should have said something," a boy sobs, "We just ran."
"Hush, hush," his mother whispers back, "The monster's far, far away. We're-" Coughing, the woman gurgles. Something red and sticky splatters across the boy's face. Behind her half a dozen slitted eyes glitter in the shadows as the light fades in her eyes. When the claws and fangs close in there's no rush of quicksilver or burst of magic to cast the monsters away. A soft, wet crunch breaks through the silence.
