Work Text:
They do not breathe at the same pace.
The girl-child is the only one trapped in true slumber. Her straw-thatched head hangs like a doll's against his shoulder. Her little paws are upturned in her lap.
She, unlike the small one, has shoes.
The small one is restless. It twitches and snuffles, tossing between his knees.
Cold is coming, and fog. Down from the scraped mountainside, to cover bare ground and forest-hem alike.
Fog, and cold, and--
He is strung up by his nightmares. His warped neck stiffens. His mouth bites tight.
The small one opens its eyes.
It lifts its filthy, shivering paw and touches his cheek.
He moans. Then his hands shift, cradling the small one. His head tilts as it would in a noose, resting on the small one's upturned face.
They are his, these creatures.
Killing such creatures is great sport. Children sometimes bear pain better than their elders, but it always shocks them more. They quiver wonderfully, under the knife. Then, like all things, they fade to blood-oneness, screaming.
He would be ruined, to wake among their cooling blood. Ruined and irretrievable. All his sport would be trapped, in that single moment of morning, then lost.
It has its eyes unshuttered again, the small one does. It is looking into the darkness. It goes still.
It sleeps again, small and shivering and stupid.
He would know, but the night took him. He has lived and guarded his precious innards, his blood-oneness, his fear. It is too soon to have them. Let the fog come first.
(I leave them there.)