Moon 514 || Blaze and the White Griffon

12 || Icy Blue Eyes

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Latest Revision: 2/26/2013

Icy blue eyes.

They were peering through the long strands of grass separating the hut from the rest of the village.  Instinctually, Blaze became intricately aware of his surroundings:  He was four feet from the left wall, three feet from the right wall, a foot and a half from the wall behind him, and three and a half feet from the doorway.  The mother’s corpse was to his left, angled slightly away from the wall and curled up.  If he put the baby next to the mother, it would be easier to keep track of her location to protect her and avoid tripping if the melee ended up on the inside of the hut.  There were branches hanging slightly from the ceiling in disrepair that appeared loose enough to pull down to distract and misdirect his opponent.  They were slightly to his right and one was within reach if he set the child down.  There was enough room to jump out of an opposing window but it couldn’t be done while keeping the child safe. 

These details flashed through his mind like a sudden gust of air breezing by – come and gone so suddenly that you quickly forget them.  Despite his instincts, quickened pulse, and heightened reflexes, Blaze felt completely calm.  Inexplicably calm.  Those eyes were, after all, attached to some very significant canine teeth – teeth that appeared to be at least 14 inches long.  Based on the beast’s posture, Blaze estimated that its head was lowered from shoulders that neared six feet in height.  Without a better look, he couldn’t be sure of its full size but his gut feeling suggested those eyes were attached to a good 700 pounds of rippling muscle.  His rational mind told him that he should be setting down the child, swiping the control panel on his staff and shooting a hundred energy bullets into this thing before he and the child were both consumed.

But he just stared at the creature.

And it stared back.

Suddenly, it swiped the long strands of grass sideways to remove this obstruction of vision, smashing the doorway so hard that it broke the support beams.  The resulting crash sent Blaze involuntarily back a foot, nearly hitting the back wall, and drew a very surprised reaction from the beast as well.  Furrowing its eyes slightly as it looked at the compromised doorway, the creature appeared confused for a moment before it turned its attention to Blaze and Elayuh.  Somehow, Blaze remained very calm inside but at the same time, his rational mind told him to engage the staff’s control panel while he stared down this tremendous beast.

The panel illuminated.

But he could see the beast better now.  He would have classified it as an albino but for two features: first, those saturated, steely blue eyes were as far from an albino’s eyes as he could imagine and second, its fur had silvery tips that made its coat reflective and shiny.  Canine incisors gave the beast the appearance of what he imagined a saber toothed cat might look like but it had longer fur than any large cat he had ever seen pictures of – other than perhaps a Siberian tiger coming out of a hard winter.  He had seen long haired house cats with fur similar to this but that might be like comparing a gecko to a T-Rex – this thing was huge!  Its face somewhat resembled a cross between a jaguar and a Siberian tiger.  From what he could make of its legs, this beast did not have the stubby appendages of any species of saber toothed cat he had read about; it boasted long muscular legs that belonged to a hunter. 

Noticing the size of those legs normally would have made Blaze feel more intimidated – after all, saber toothed cats were built to attack their prey from above, while jumping off of a tree or a boulder.  Walking on the ground with shorter legs would have suggested that this beast was not hunting for food and that would have left Blaze feeling more relaxed.  In contrast, the longer legs of this hunter suggested something different: an imminent safety problem.