Ghastly Woods a nomad's lament

Cloudy skies - Crack of dawn - 0° F/-18° C

The sun was peaking over the horizon as a ball of beautiful light shining upon the snowy woods. A large, towering shape loomed in the bare gray trees just south of the Nomad's Pass. Their home. Tenzin felt completely frozen solid. His bones iced as he tried to moved in the heavy snow. His thoughts moved to the sky as he watched the trees and their lanky arms and legs flailing in the wind. He yawned and tipped his black nose to the frigid air for a few moments. Nope. Nothing.

He stifled a shiver and watched the clouds graze the sky. Oh, how he wished for a chance to rip out someone's throat! After the last encounter with his brother, his frustration and blood lust rose. He doubted that he could hold back on anyone. So that's why he was here, wandering the lowly-populated ghastly woods to get his mind off of the world. Not that it helped much.

Birds began to tweet in the distance, making Ten force his ears flat with annoyance. Damned birds. His tail lashed, and he found himself wandering Northwest where he heard the nature and wildlife. His pelt teemed with the urge to turn back and bound to the places of the area he knew best, but it was too tempting. As the male headed deeper into the forest, a hare, alarmed with the track of a weak twig, took off running through the maze of trees. It wasn't worth going after, but his hunger took control; his mind spiraled into the chaos that was attack mode.

The hare was much faster than Tenzin, but the male used a burst of energy to catch up to the prey. Moments later, he was standing over it and looking around suspiciously. He wanted to make sure no one would try to take it. His tail went above his back and curled dominantly as his broad tawny head surveyed the area.

He found it almost too easy to live in this world, the challenge of living had despaired over time, it had become nothing but a distant memory of the time he had lived in glory and gold. As a god of Asylum life had been harder than many would believe, a lot of packs wanted to see him dead, many wolves resented him, hated him and would have loved to sliced up his throat if they could, so many had seen him dead rather than alive, so many had crossed their claws upon his borders, brooding at the unknown territory, others drowned as they attempted to cross the swamp surrounding his paradise, they had eyes and ears in the swamp that warned Asylum faster than the troops could ever find main land. The bitter taste of what would come as his troops, well-trained of the terrain and well known in there as well, they all knew the paths and the way to go for the others, and they slaughtered them. Slaughtered like pigs in his mud.

Death always came easy to those who had sinned, it didn’t have to come soon or fast, it could sneak up on you, it would come over the ages, letting you realize your time was coming, letting you settle in with fear of death before it even came, letting them remember all their sins they soon had to be faced with, the things they had done and soon was to pay for, everything would come back to them, they earned nothing in the midst of gods and there would be no savior for them. Once they entered the mind and state of sins there was no forgiveness, there would be no getting out alive. They would reach for him, they would beg for forgiveness in life, they would want redemption once they learned what life could be like had they not sinned, they would learn what would come to them and they would want to do it all over, to no longer fear death and find comfort in forgiveness. They knew he had the power to forgive, to redemption. And he did not give out so willingly of it.

Animals were born as animals and was it not he, the god, who had been set out to tame them? Of course he would only tame those he chose to, there would be those he would not touch or redemption for their sins he could not forgive. He knew some were not meant for saving but to burn in hell, to never see home or heaven never feel companionship for life, some said they were satisfied with this and that was in truth a heavy sin to carry. To think you are satisfied, to think you are perfect when you are not, to think you belong, to think you are home when you are so clearly not. Did they all think that this was their home? That this hellish earth was home and soul for them? Were they so foolish that they thought they knew best for themselves? Who ever said they had a mind to think on their own, soul enough to make choices of their own? They had no such rights.

He had eaten off a dead deer earlier that day and it was obvious that someone had brought it down. He could scent the wolves all over it and he knew he wasn’t far from territory of a pack, but he stayed away from the borders with good reason, he had no reason to think they would trust him and he had absolutely no reason to trust them. He knew they were infected, sickened and they were just waiting to be cured, their minds knew it but their bodies didn’t. He was well fed from the carcass and crawled over it licking and cleaning his maw, once again becoming gleaming white as snow, his burnt orange eyes searching with pitch and stone for whoever was out there, his eyes sharp and observant, demanding and deeming for nothing could hold him back. He was not receptive to temptation or sins, he was beyond it, he was too godly and holy for anything like it, there was nothing on this earth that could control him.

And then there it was. His eyes had been searching and along with the sound of twigs breaking, sounds of a hunt and the scent of wolf an abnormality of the forest came to his attention. The world rumbled beneath him, darkness overwhelming the sky, fire erupted, it melted over the land but swelled around the ground Loath stood on, the trees changed, died in front of him, burned by the fire that came to earth and the birds went silent all life around him quiet down and died around him. He slowly walked, slowly moved and snarled at his surroundings. The world was full of pseudomorphs to every living thing and every action he ever saw, now was no different. He knew it was a wolf, yet, he could not tell what it was, for what it seemed it was a demon and not a wolf, a demon that brought on hell and fire to earth and who else was to defeat demons than god himself? This was what he was born for.

He felt no fear as he saw the best in front of him he felt no regret to coming upon him. No, no he was glad he came to him for now that he saw him he knew it was his responsibility to rid this world of him. To his eyes he saw what little less than a demon, a hideous infected body gripped by a demonic power, unholy and disgusting to every man’s eye. Rotting flesh, the burning scent of death and decay, Loath had seen it once before and he would not let it be set upon earth once again. He had healed and saved the other and so he would heal and save this one, so he would rid him of his demons! Loath didn’t mind to be seen or heard he stood in front of him, watched him with the same look of a ruler who knew his place, his eyes burning with ferocity, wrath and spirit. Nothing could hold him back, nothing would tear him down, for he was god upon this earth and he stood tall in front of the demon, eyeing his enemy of the rotten flesh, the decaying minion of hell. A servant of a larger evil facing the overhead of good, and he had no doubts who would win.

”Don’t fear, for I have seen you.” He saw the wolf’s pain, the misery and the sickness that tore in his body for the demon had stolen his body and he had overtaken him. He was dying from the inside as his body was falling apart used up by the demon over the time the demon had laid within him. Loath didn’t stalk him for he was not prey, he walked up to him, no fear, no aggression the cold eyes of Loath holding the gaze of the demon, keeping him at bay for now, the god rarely let anyone touch him of those he had saved, but when it came to demons he fought them off, his purity protected him from any bad omens or curses of the demons. For they were nothing toward him and they could not touch him. ”You have a sickness growing inside of you. I will heal you.”

He charged. He didn’t try to hide it for he would face this demon, this infected sickening demon head on, jaws open and aiming for his scruff to try and push him into submission, to push the demon to the ground and hold him there. Demons were not for this earth and they would not fight him to win, they would fight him to kill him and he would not let it happen. The good would prevail for everything in this world and while the world was burning around them he would fight this furious demon, he would tear him apart, put his pieces back together to save him, to show him the road to heaven and out of this burning hell they stood within in a battle between good and evil. God could only prevail for it was the way of the universe.

It was the way of the god.

Responses are slow from my end cause I just gave birth to a tiny boy.

“Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.”

In moments, he noticed a shape lurking in the trees. Why was someone here? In his land? Just because he left for a few days doesn't mean it wasn't his! In the flash of an eye, a white man came at him. He couldn't get a good look at him, though. Anger soared through his veins. Why was this wolf attacking him? What the hell did he do? Suddenly, his scruff was being bitten and he felt himself being thrown into the ground. Caught by surprise and unable to fight the weight off, his face was smashed into the ground. He snarled and sucked in dry dirt through his mouth. Spluttering, he shook his neck furiously in the attempt to throw him off. His tail lashed in frustration.

As he tumbled to the ground with the weight, his leg twisted a bit, and he felt a sting of pain. It was the same leg that got bit by Rhysis a few days back. With this, he shook his body harder. The wolf's words echoed in his mind, "Don’t fear, for I have seen you. You have a sickness growing inside of you. I will heal you.”

"What the fu-No I don't!" He raised his muzzle and spat. This wolf must be hallucinating or something. His head spun with the craziness of the situation. What's a guy gotta do to take a stroll around here? His red and gray fur bristled just like he was struck by lightning.

Life couldn’t be nearly as terrible as the other one thought it was, he couldn’t hate as much as the world wanted him to, he was too devoted to life on earth. The battles of power, pain and sickness had forever lived in this world, yet it had always been the weak that did not accept their faith and life to come. They held back and tried to stop what would come, they tried to pause death, to pause life itself for the sake of not dying. Yet when death would come it was time to go and you could only honor it for what it was, it was the end of your time here and facing consequences for everything. The consequences of living, to sin, to breathe, to breed without permission of a higher order, it was all meant to be and if you moved out of balance it would all fall, it would all have consequences, hit you with bricks and walls as it came crumbling. God was not blind.

Holy, honorable and all seeing, he would know when life was coming, he would know when life was passing by, he knew what consequences you had to face and he would not take kindly on your mistakes, your life sins and if you looked for him to support you, your sinful soul better weight light. The crystalized gem of destruction was beyond his reach, the peach of living was not his, the crammed fuel of destruction took too hard on him and he would live with destruction and fight it head on as he did to any other demon, as he destroyed demons and cleansed life itself. Blood would run, blood would come and he was not in paradise anymore, the demons, the monsters he had seen had all been apart from him, now they entered his regime. He couldn’t accept or stand by anymore.

Fiction was meeting frustration, meeting the destructible parental instinct of living, to find your children and keep them alive. Eurhythmic calls from heaven would call him when time was ready, when life itself could conquer more than what could be seen. He lived for this, he was breathing for this, to fight any demon of any dimension, he had been born for it, chosen for this, he was breathing and living for the purpose of defeating and taking out every demon of life and death, and he would not stop or fail by the hand of them, the devil had shaped them to kill and cause misery and he was designed beyond that, perfect in every meaning of the word, perfect shaped head and hears, perfect long neck, perfect fur, perfect eyes and most of all a perfect soul. They had nothing on him.

"What the fu-No I don't!" Denial, another sin to add to the list another imperfect destruction of the wild that was already infected with the impurity of the world. Why did they destroy everything perfecta nd beautiful? It was not he, who should ask questions but he should shape the world into its rightful order, into what perfection there was left and he was to keep order of the wild, the world and the beasts that turned here. They were not of this earth and they were not meant to be walking here, he would chase them out, change them and save what could be saved. Annihilate the rest.

His mouth filled with fur and scruff he did not reply to the other wolf who found that the weight of Loath was too much to simply stand back up. He did struggle but Loath was not willing to let go, was not willing to let him be free, was not willing to let the beast roam freely. Loath was completely out of reach for the other wolf’s jaws and he intended to keep it that way. Instead of letting go he would twist his jaws and head, a rumbling thunder from his mouth erupting in the intensity of fighting, rushing blood in his veins as he tried to do this twist, twisting skin and fur around in a painful pinch, to hold him even closer and harder to the ground, not allowing him to get up. Should that succeed for the god he would also try and push his weight down on his shoulder, pressing where his chest was underneath, squeeze the air out of him if possible or make it harder for him to breathe at least. If it was harder for him to breathe he would have less energy, should he get up he would get dizzy and stumble, generally lack of blood circulation could only be an advantage to the white god.

And gods take every advantage they can of the evil they strive to destroy. He would snarl angrily at the other wolf, he wanted him to hold still, to not fight the savior that had come to him, to keep still doing his saving and the god could not be more displeased with his struggle. Life had come too easily to this one, he would learn to appreciate a different picture of death, to see it up close and realize that it would come to him if he defied him, if he tried to struggle forever, Loath would invite death to him without holding back, he was the master of his life and he was the absolute god to demons as him. He had yet to see it and realize it, he had yet to understand what would come of it if he defied him, what was yet to come if he served him and bend to his will, it was the best option of the two, but Loath knew and hardly expected the other one to understand that or give in, he knew he would fight for as long as he could, and Loath was readying himself for it.

Roll in your drawer, pop the pill glass and swallow raw as the magnitude of pain overtakes.

Responses are slow from my end cause I just gave birth to a tiny boy.