Kiss of Fire

Crows Torture

The heat was intense, but the smell of burning flesh was worse. Muffled, muted cries of pain filled his ears and only later would he realize they were his. Crow struggled, but only because instinct demanded that he did, his mind already knowing it was useless. Only after the branding had been finished was he released, his body collapsing onto the damp stone floor. His breath came out in ragged gasps, and his eyes couldn't help but spill tears. They had marked his face, making it clear to anyone that ever laid eyes on him just what he was.

"Get up." Growled the guard that had been holding him. His rough hand grabbing Crow's upper arm none too kindly as he yanked him up onto his feet. Already his face was swelling from the torture, but he stumbled after the guard anyways as he was lead out into the bright light outside if the stone house basement. The pack looked at him with mixed expressions. Some viewing him as a monster, the others snarling at him as if they wanted nothing more than to kill him. Being mauled to death seemed like a lesser of the two evils at this point.

"Go on, Rogue." The guard said, shoving him forward away from the gathered pack and towards the trees and the border beyond. "Before you find a much more suitable ending for your kind." His kind? Crow wanted to spit out his resentment towards the guard and the pack, to snarl his hate towards the alpha. But it would do him no good to tell them he was nothing close to a heartless rogue. Only a nomad, a loner, who did not like to stay in one place. How could they not see the difference in comparison to those wretched wolves?

Struggling to get up, having been locked down in that basement for a few days with nothing to ear or drink, Crow managed to make it to the trees before he fell again once he had gotten out of sight from the pack. He could not make it, not like this. His eyes were nearly swelled shut. So, he called onto his beast and let out a painful groan as his injured face changed to the shape of a wolf. He lay there for only a moment before getting up, shaking out his multicolored fur before taking off through the forest.

Every sense tingled, alerting him to trees and things for him to avoid, and the scents that lay around him. Though it was not fool proof, and he tripped often, and still got caught in a few thorny vines. By time he stumbled over the border, his paws were cut and his fur a mess. Leaves clung to his pelt, while patches had clearly been ripped out. But it was his face that showed the worst damage. Swollen so that his face barely looked like a wolf's.