Chapter Text
He runs, and runs, and runs, but somehow the shouts are never far enough away.
His clothes are torn and soaked with blood. Deep lacerations cover his arms and chest, and there are marks on his legs as well that scream with pain every step he takes, but he cannot stop. He has to keep running, has to outrun the people chasing him, the people accusing him of a crime he didn’t commit, the people thirsting for his blood. And so he keeps running, stumbling through this thick, fark forest, as his clothes stain an even darker crimson and his body burns with pain and exhaustion. He briefly considers, after nearly tripping over yet another exposed tree root, if he would be better served by transforming, but he isn’t sure he would survive it in this condition.
He keeps stumbling forward, unable to even think about trying to disguise the sheer amount of blood he’s losing-
And then suddenly there is silence, so startling that it causes him to trip again, and this time he does fall, into a bloody heap on the forest floor, and agony lances through him. Trying to catch his breath, to gather his strength- to do anything other than lie there- he listens and realizes he cannot hear his pursuers anymore. The sound of the villagers, and their threats, have vanished into the air as if they never existed at all. He finds the strength to push his arms under him, but he can barely lift himself three inches off of the ground before he collapses again, and this time he highly doubts he has the strength to try again.
This is it, then. This is where, and how, he dies.
His eyesight is failing him, blurring even more than usual- his spectacles are cracked, damaged in his desperate escape, and the beating that came before it- and he lets his eyes flutter closed. With what little energy he has left, he breathes deeply, inhaling the smell of the forest, the trees and dirt and the foliage around him. His senses are not as strong in this form, but it’s a comfort regardless. At least he will die amongst nature, he thinks wearily… and then, faint but growing louder, he hears the sound of footsteps.
He is too exhausted to raise his head, but he opens his eyes, and at the edges of his fading vision he sees a figure appear, cloaked in a robe that flows like rippling water- it must be silk- move into his vision, and then approach him. The grass and leaves crunch under this new arrival as they kneel down in front of the bleeding man. He closes his eyes again, afraid that whoever this stranger is, they’ve come to finish the job. It wouldn’t take much, he has to be close to bleeding out… but then a hand settles into his filthy hair, fingers sheathed in some sort of filmy glove material, and the touch is so gentle, so kind, that tears begin to slide unbidden down his face. How long has it been since he was touched like this? How long has it been since he was looked at as anything other than a tool, or a monster?
“Well,” a voice sounds, lighter than he expects, rich with something he can’t quite identify. “What is this? Has someone been hunting unlawfully at the edges of my domain?”
The dying man has no idea what that means, but with his waning energy, he forces his mouth open. “I-I…”
“Shh,” the stranger murmurs softly. “It’s alright. I don’t know who hurt you, nor where they are, but they will not find you here. The barrier protecting my lands will not let those with such darkness in their hearts pass through.”
The knowledge that he won’t be pursued anymore is enough of a relief that the dying man closes his eyes again. At least he can pass away in peace, then. But before his muddled thoughts can linger too much on that, there is a new sensation, a
magical
sensation, as if he is being covered by a second skin, made entirely of faintly charged fog. This new sensation causes his wounds to prickle, but the pain has largely faded now- undoubtedly a product of his near-death state. He feels what might be arms run over the wounds on his torso, but then the fog reaches his head, and he sinks into the embrace it offers, free of a life that had started so wonderfully, and now ends in tragedy.