Luke Castellan POV
Track: Breathe (In The Air), Pink Floyd
The Monster is a raven, or perhaps more of a rabbit, and I am a hunting dog, and this story can only end one way.
I stumble out of the castle—I need to catch his scent. The guards have been sending me pitying glances recently—and the nurses, too. It's because if I don't kill the raven, the rabbit, how will I ever be worthy of love? My father is right; I'm just a dog, just a bloodhound, and I lost the scent because Nico wasn't in the Chase's house. I'm an idiot who must have mistaken him for another bird, yes that's right, there was another bird in the house and now I have to find the right one.
The air bites but it's not as bad as metal, so I'm safer while I hunt, so I might as well not turn back or ask my father to reconsider. This is safe. Well, not for the rabbit. Raven. Whatever.
The world still tips and spins sometimes.
I look down at my hands and I see my nails grow and twist into deadly claws, and yes, that's a good thing because I'll need claws because I'm just a bloodhound and I need to find the prey.
I stumble into the town to go find the Chase's house just to make sure it was the wrong bird because don't all birds look sort of alike? Black feathers. I have to remember the black feathers. That was important, I think.
When I get to the Chase's house, Mr. Chase is convinced there's something wrong with me, so I ask again where the raven is, or where the rabbit is, and then when neither of those work, I yell, "Just tell me where the Monster is so that I can be safe, damn you!"
Mr. Chase stares at me.
I huff and limp out of the house, and Mr. Chase is trying to convince me to come back.
I stumble into the woods. There're people following me, I think, and they're made of metal. I try to lose them in the woods—maybe the monster sent them—but the metal people keep following and so eventually I give up because none of them are ravens or rabbits and so they're not my target, even if I'm theirs.
The woods are vast and dense and they swallow you up, so I swim through the intestines of the forest, I think. I wonder what a rabbit smells like. How will I know when I've caught the scent if I don't know?
The intestines of the forest are cold. I briefly feel submerged in them, the acid flowing over my head ceaselessly and it hurts to open my eyes in the midst of it all, and a powerful rushing force pushes me down and down and down and down and—
up. Metal pulls me up and out of the intestines.
"He nearly fucking drowned," growls a feminine voice. "The king is insane for letting him leave bed, let alone out of the castle."
My lungs cough and cough and cough.
And I think I smell smoke. Smoke like smoked rabbit—has someone already killed it, cooked it up on a platter?
"I've got the scent," I mutter.
Run, rabbit, run—I'm a bloodhound, and I've found your burrow, and this can only end one way.
Word count: 560
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Wings
FanfictionNico di Angelo is a Guardian--a near-human species that has gone nearly extinct and is hardly known outside of minority religious circles. In the nearby village, he's known instead as the Monster due to the king's relentless hunting teams sent to f...
