Dormant

5

And that, readers, is a portrait of Abbygail (who'll you'll meet in this chapter). It's not as good as the one I did of Death, which I posted in the last chapter, but I am still pleased with the results. Abbygail was a little hard to capture in a way that I wanted to represent her.

Break the world I know,
I fear I'll never see the light of day,
I need you here and now!
Take the pain I hold,
It's crying out to be the end of me,
But I can't hear the sound!

- Nine Lashes, Break the World

5

The tiger laid where it had been thrown, head resting on its large paws and purple eyes narrowed at the two Horsemen. Its purple striped tail flicked back and forth in an frustrated fashion. The ears were flat against its wide skull and every movement that the Horsemen made, the tiger was sure to follow.

And War was beginning to get tired of it.

When the tiger was still unconscious, War had taken it upon himself to hunt food for both himself and Death. The eldest had volunteered for the hunting, only to be turned down and forced to remain by the unconscious tiger's side; Death's condition continued to fall, his coughing fits becoming more common and his already weakened strength diminishing rapidly. What color that had been in his cheeks (which hadn't been much to begin with) had all but vanished, leaving an unhealthy pale complexion behind. The weight in his face was slowly disappearing, making his cheekbones more prominent and his orange eyes sunken. Dark bags grew under his eyes and he never ate. He was always shivering even despite the blanket he would wrap about himself, claiming to be cold even though his forehead burned like a fire and beads of sweat had begun to precipitate, before he would eventually toss the fabric off, returning to shivering state only minutes later. Death had become so weak that he couldn't even stayed focused on anything and spent most of his time in a restless daze.

This worried War. Even as a mortal, Nephilim had hardly ever gotten sick -and, when it was, it was often something that was incurable- and what techniques he had learned to help a sick mortal was slipping his mind. He hadn't needed to remember them when he was immortal. If Fury was here, she would at least have something in mind to help their eldest sibling. She had spent numerous of years reading and researching in the forbidden and once lost libraries, memorizing page after page of century old books in her free time. Surely, she would know what to do.

But War was not Fury and there was no way for him to call upon his sister. For one of the few times of his life, the Red Horseman felt helpless and hopeless.

A small growl came from the tiger when War lifted up the pick he was using to roast part of a bird that he had killed. He glanced over at the creature; it still had yet to move. It was confusing. There was nothing that was stopping the beast from running away and yet it just remained where it was, growling and bristling whenever War got close to it. Assuming that the beast was recovering from their fight seemed likely, though he knew that he had Death had suffered much more serious injuries than the tiger had.

Death's wound on his shoulder had bleed for another hour before it finally had stopped. War's wounds had been more serious. The bite across his shoulder had swelled and the skin around area was turning purple and blue. Puncture marks from the tiger's teeth were visible and Death had commented that the holes looked wide enough to shove his fingers through. War had yet to pull most of his armor back on, the pain from the shoulder wound affecting him too much. Even though War's chest was already decorated with scars from past battles and the new additions from the tiger's claws were rare red and tender. His right hand, which had also suffered from the tiger's jaws, was also swollen and looked similar to a blood red mess. It was almost unusable and the only thing that saved him from all the pain were the bandages that he had wrapped around it. His gauntlet looked like he had shoved it into a smasher; dents randomly dotted the thick armor and the fingers were almost unworkable. Clearly War and Death had taken the brunt of the hit, so why the tiger was still there, War didn't know.