Kankri and the Beast

A Castle in the Trees

With teeth bared and deep growls ripping from their throats, they leapt for Kankri, who immediately dug his feet into the earth and took off. Kankri felt the brush of wind behind his left ankle as the jaws of a wolf snapped at it.

The forest turned on him as his continued to pound the fading path with his leather boots. The space between trees became thinner as Kankri entered an area never before blazed with a path. Branches and thorns groped his body as he flew past, attempting to slow him down, if not halt him completely and feed him to the wolves. Not one to give up so easily, he pushed these obstacles out of his way, gathering small scratches that drew just the slightest blood from each.

No matter how much determination one has, however, it is near impossible to run blindly into a forest turned against you and hope to outrun a pack of hungry and equally determined wolves. Especially if the one running is a certain Kankri Vantas, who was in no means fit before passing on his duties. His heart felt like it was one beat away from flying from his chest and his breath was coming out in short, fast pants, leaving him foggy-headed.

The wolves were getting faster the longer they ran. They felt not the burn in their limbs, nor in their lungs as they flew forward towards their prey. It had been so long since they had gotten to chase human; so long since they had to do more than dig up hidden critters that were barely able to feed them on a good day. But this was a human. Even though tiny, it would be a rather hearty meal compared to squirrels and rabbits.

Kankri stumbled over a protruding root, slowing down his pace enough for one of the wolves' jaws to snap down on the end of his hood. In order to avoid those same jaws ending up somewhere much more unpleasant, Kankri relented his coat, shedding it without a second thought as he gathered himself and continued to run.

Of course, as the world would have it, rain began to fall. It started off as just a little misting, but soon transformed into fat, heavy drops that were icy to the touch, stinging his bare flesh as it made contact. His unruly locks flattened to his forehead, sticking to the pale flesh and blinding him from time to time.

In was during one of these moments of blindness that he found himself running straight into a solid surface that was much bigger and colder than a simple tree.

With barely a though of hesitation, Kankri's hands wrapped around the rusting bars of the large gate, using a nearby tree to push his feet above the wolves as they reached his location. They leapt up in the air, snapping their powerful jaws in an attempt to catch a limb, or even a scrap of cloth, in order to pull him down to their feasting. Kankri denied them of this, climbing his way over the top of the gate before hopping off on the other side.

The wolves growled and whined, trying to dig under the gate when they found it too strong to push over and the bars too close to slip through.

"Just you wait, ex-Red," the largest and the obvious leader, due to his ability to speak human tongue, growled out. He stood in front of the pack, baring his fangs at Kankri. "You can't stay here forever. Even you gots to eats, and when you do, we will be here. It's too late to let you go now." The large creature barked something in his wolf tongue to the others, causing them to burst into the wolf-equivalent of cackling.

The wolves disported from sight, but did not leave the perimeter. They surrounded the small castle, which, now that Kankri got a better look at it, looked almost as intimidating as the hunting wolves outside the gate. They could not let him slip away, not now that they had hunted him. It would only take one word from Kankri and they would be the ones being hunted. Their punishment would be great from the Makaras, whether it be banishment or worse.

Kankri bit his lower lip, eyes darting between the seemingly empty forest and the equally seemingly empty castle. As the rain pelted against his face over and over, he made his choice.

As he hesitantly made his way to the front door, he wondered if this would be the second bad decision he has made today.