LYCOS | tacet anima mea [Wenclair Omegaverse]

SCALDING | moon | i (4) | 3.5k

| xi |

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☼ ⋆⁺₊⋆

| (she hunts) |

One badger is all you found. Scruffed in your hand, it weighs more than enough. Your arrow is still through its hide. There was no chase. No thrill. You doubt it knew what struck mid-swallow, at one of the academy creeks.

The white of its pattern is stained, and as you stride through the trees, to an opening, you already feel them crawl their welcome. They have always swarmed to you. Enthralled by your scent, perhaps, or you've mingled with the hives enough to have gotten yourself acquainted.

And they take particular interest in the badger. Not so much the honey bees, but rather their small, black counterparts. A new hive, which took Eugene a week and three days to convince them to be cordial.

Some crawl along your collar. It has you smile.

Vulture bees had been your suggestion. To build Eugene's strength in his telepathy, because these are far from the docile hives he regularly tends to. They're wild. They require more.

They'd also been a curiosity of yours — a fleeting one, for their honey — before Eugene shook his head and explained, given their scavenger tendencies, that the toxicology is to be wary of. Which was a disappointing revelation, to say the least. The look in his eyes told you to not explain that poisons (confirmed, or otherwise) are an Addams delicacy.

You spent the last semester to assure him that getting yourself stung is a joy to be had. This one will be to wear him down and have yourself a vulturine feast.

As you approach, you find the shed's door left ajar. Sometimes, Eugene forgets that the frame had been knocked into through the renovations. The workshop class needed a final project. Eugene insisted that we'd do better with a larger space.

So, there was an agreement made. With every jar of honey was a new board nailed in place. And by the end, the workshop was left assured that there'd be more to be had — be it the honey itself, or the wax. In some respects, that is what has happened. Production has been, as Eugene constantly expresses, booming.

In others, no.

There are the vulture bees, then projects of your own.

Including this one, where the badger is laid across your side of the shed's counterspace. A step down in elevation, for the sake of hygiene. Most of your taxidermy work is done here, as well as the occasional dissection. Then hunt, if this will continue. Knowing Enid, it'll be a one-off, and between her and Eugene, you find that there's little you can do to convince her of anything, let alone wear her down. (In actuality, it works the other way. Hence the taxidermy table, rather than your desk. ...much to your chagrin.)

Both braids are tied, and off your shoulders. Instruments are spread. An apron, tied around. A hand passes to you your straight-bladed scissors. You rock them between your fingertips, eyes kept to the badger's hydrated smile. Its chin remains damp, down to its chest. You figure the head is a good size.

"Why crawl all your way here...? I thought this is the hour where Enid ropes you into her gossip."

The dental record on this thing would've been something to aspire to... White as any bone. None missing. Sharp enough to tear through your knife's ego. The gums, too, are of health — dying now, of course.

You glance at Thing, who decides to sit himself at its tail.

"I wouldn't stay there. I just caught it not ten minutes ago."