Si Daeng

See

Warning: Threat to life

~~

Moments passed in which the man and the wolf just eyed one other intensely, each sizing the other up before committing to the next strategic move on the evolutionary chessboard.

Red, pragmatically theorising that his unlikely survival options swung as a pendulum between plummeting to the foot of the gorge or clambering back to solid footing to confront the hunger of a probably ravenous wolf with bare hands, and so scrabbling his feet against the rock face until locating a narrow ledge from which he could balance to climb upwards from - beast releasing its clawed grip on the torn skin of his hands and retreating, permitting time and space to ascend to that relative, precarious safety.

"Playing with your lunch, dog?", Red spat betwixt ragged breaths as he hauled his own aching limbs up onto the bank and rose to stand, widening his stance, broadening his shoulders, readying for battle.

The wolf had begun to circle him, slowly, growling low, teeth bared and tail flicking from side to side in menace as Red swivelled to keep his front to the threat.

It wasn't a moment to display fear or air weakness, the young man well knew, and conceding even a centimetre could prove fatal.

Yet - was it even fear he truly felt, or raw adrenaline? The more he stared down those eyes, glinting in afternoon's gloom, the more he felt something rising from deep within his core. Something primal and powerful and, fuck, ferocious.

Suddenly Red could hear a second growl - taking some seconds to understand that the sound was originating from within his own body.

And in that moment of realisation, the wolf pounced forwards - raising itself up onto hind legs to match the man's height as he was pinned back against the rough bark of a pine tree. Faces a mere hair's breadth apart, mist of visible breaths confronting in frosty air...

Red's throat was exposed. The wolf would tear out his windpipe, wouldn't it? He was staring death, quite literally, in the eyes. Yet even in the face of it his own eyes burned a blazing flag of 'No Surrender', nostrils flared and upper lip curling into a viscous snarl.

What was that in the fiery amber orbs of the beast? Fleeting query? Hesitation certainly, a kind of hazy concussion through which Red's instincts charged unstoppable as he seized the acquired momentum to push his nose harshly up against that of the creature - nose to snout - and with animalistic wildness commanded:

"Down...down!"

The forest watching on, wide-eyed, unblinking and breath held, as the colossal, silver-coated wolf...just obeyed. Leapt down to back away, then - inexplicably - rolled onto his back on the damp, mossy bed of the woodland carpet to expose the soft white fur of his underbelly: Submission.

Red loomed forward - tangled hair, bloodstained hands and hard breathing - looked down at the beast from his height, then stepped a heeled boot over him and simply walked on in the direction of Bang Haeng's alleged civilisation, without looking back.

//

Was it really him? That angry-with-the-world boy who had faithfully trudged through the forest to the sorcerer's hut with tiny, balled fists and a grimly set jaw since boyhood? It had been many years since he had seen him - periods of migratory exile to other territories for the wolfpack - but it felt like him, yes.

He was far taller now, of course, the boy - no, man - as he had watched him step over the boundary into the woods that morning. Slender with just a hint of athletic muscle, long legged, delicate features that belied the eternal, external hardness in his dark eyes. Still just as magnetically compelling as he had been since they were both mere children.

Knowing he shouldn't - pack sulking back at the caves with questions of ancient prophecy to be deciphered - he couldn't help but keep step with the other, paws padding swiftly, silently, in parallel to the human path.

Did the boy, the man, the one that wore red, not see how the forest around reacted to him? He had never seemed to, always blustering forwards on some self-blinkered mission that left him infinitely removed from the natural world he entered and inhabited. It was the human way, wasn't it?

But amber eyes saw - had always seen. The way sunset-breasted bluebirds celebrated, cavorting gayly above his head, the way nocturnal - even hibernating - creatures roused from slumber simply to watch him as he passed, the way the trees seemed to whisper, branches to bow. A parade. Why?

It had been instinct from the purest depths when he had rushed, hours later, to save the red-coated man as he slid and somersaulted down nature's glacial helter skelter.

And then an awkward confrontation, after all those years of only watching at a distance...

But if that man didn't know his own tangible effect on the forest, then he certainly didn't know that place's effect on him in those moments.

The fact that, as he had dealt his command of "Down...down!", his almond-shaped eyes had kaleidoscoped breathtakingly from brown to red: Ruby red, and nothing so simple as wholly human.

What was that twinge in the heart of the great, silver wolf? A sudden urge to once again stand face to face, eye to eye with that being he had unknowingly shielded since childhood. But stand not as wolf, but in his own human form. He as man too: Sil.