The Boy and the Animal

Part I | Twenty-Two

Running didn't even begin to describe the way in which the prisoners fled from their captivity.

Dark and Jesiter bolted mindlessly from the dungeon, bear feet kissing the fresh dew of a land they felt as if they hadn't seen in centuries. If someone had told the youngest son of the LaBane family that he would be exerting himself as he was then, he would have balked at their ridiculousness, but now that he was free of that wretched place it was exhilarating.

He was always the brightest child, the one that worked with his mind rather than his hands- the one who excelled in the arts and finances and books- until the moment his feet pounded against the ground like a frenzied lion. They made him feel as though he was made for this kind of labor. Heart pounding, panting like a madman, he could feel the wolf. The wild.

Bruised and bloody feet ripped into the dirt and wild grass of the forgotten wilderness with all the grace of a canon balls tumbling downhill. The desperate bounds for escape unraveled into the inertia of simply needing to just go. The rasping throat that rattled underneath the pants was ready to heave. His arid tongue nearly crumbled from the drought. But he kept running.

Jesiter was close beside him. His smaller frame struggled to keep the man's greuling discipline, but he pushed passed his hurt without complaint; getting as far away as possible from that place was more important than being comfortable. Still, it wasn't to say the sweltering humidity of the morning sun was any less suffocating.

Clothes were already things that he hadn't particularly gotten used to by then, but in the heat they were sticky and damp with his sweat, clinging to his skin. Insects with insatiable appetites devoured him until they were too fat and swollen to fly, no matter how much he swatted at them.

His heart, no longer used to running and surviving from the months of pampering, could hardly keep up at such a pace. He could feel it waning under the pressure. Around it, his skin was burning under the sun that hadn't lost its blaze. Looking at Dark, though, he dared not to complain.

Dark could now feel the very outline of the metal digging in his skin from the arrows. The fact that he was running after so much lost blood was more than a miracle- and yet, miracles were inexplicable. As much as he feared the answer, this was not. His body was headed for a destination he didn't even have to think about, and it wasn't by his own accord.

Perhaps an hour later, or perhaps months, the fugitives finally came to a stop. It was only, however, when Dark's body suddenly gave in.

The man collapsed onto the ground, mind already gone and body fast asleep before he hit the dirt. Jesiter skidded to a halt and turned back to him with a gasp, dropping to his knees to hold the man in his arms. His heart shook. He begged with all his soul that he wasn't died; he couldn't take it again.

The boy peered around the dense trees surrounding him and pressed the man to his chest in the only comfort he knew. Tears rolled down his cheeks. In the middle of those woods, the hollow echoes of woodland monsters caw-ing and aroo-ing bouncing off of the towering trees that cast shadows darker than death, he suddenly realized that without Dark...

He was alone.

Dark gave a snore.

At the piglike, obnoxious sound, Jesiter's heart welled up, and he squeezed the man in his arms. He was okay. As long as Dark was around, he could do this. He would be okay. At that thought, he nodded and kissed his nose. He could leave it to him now.

By the time Dark's eyes fluttered open again, the sun had settled just above the horizon, nestled in that tentative cradle and yawning with the colors of baby pink and cotton orange. He was puzzled at first as to what had happened to them, but, as the memories of Jesiter and his new charge flooded back to him, he came to to a sensation around his body.

He sat up from the bed of leaves and dirt- a mound that seemed to have really been purposefully shaped into a crude bed complete with dirt hills as pillows with markings drawn by little fingers that looked suspiciously like the designs on his pillow sheets at the inn. When he looked down at his torso, a warmth spread over his cheeks.

Strips of both his and Jesiter's shirts were tied around his wounds with delicate care, glued to him by the sticky good of smashed and grounded leaves. The detail and consideration, however inexperienced and shoddy, made his heart buzz. Ma was the only one that had ever... He swallowed and looked up from his patched wounds.

Jesiter sat some feet away from him, gathering wood together and smashing rocks together in a childlike attempt to start a fire. In the dusk that settled over his tanned skin, his naked form almost gleamed. His slender body formed like a cool river on his bones, moving just as silkily. And for the first time, Dark realized that he was beautiful.

This wild child, the prowler of the wilderness and son of destruction and chaos, was more than that. He was powerful, yet he was small. He was matron of survival and bloodthirst, yet he was struggling over some rocks and wining like a child. And a child... He most certainly wasn't.

All things considered, Dark surmised that he was probably the same age as him, maybe even slightly older. He was an adult by all rights and standards. Maybe physically, but... Watching his try so hard to start a fire for them, after struggling to care for his wounds so, there was something so alluring. Was this what I'd seen in him? Dark swallowed.

No. He shook his head of the thoughts and snapped himself out of that daze. Not now. Not ever. The thoughts coming over him, the feelings that dared to even try arise, they weren't his, he reminded himself. It was a curse, and it was one that he would not yield to.

Settling his chest, Dark stood and sat beside the boy, taking the rocks from him. Jesiter blushed and gave a pout.

"It's okay, Jess, you did great," Dark assured him. "Go grab some bark." Jesiter's chirp melted into a look as if the man had lost his mind.

"D-Dog?" He questioned him. Dark snorted.

"No," the man chuckled, "bark is the brown stuff on a tree."

Jesiter lit up at the word tree. Hopping to his feet, the boy sauntered off to do as he was told while Dark sifted out the wet from the dry wood the teen had gathered. For a moment, Dark wondered how he had even made it so long on his own, but that was a rabbit hole he was too injured to go down.

Before he could ponder it too long, anyway, his ear twitched at a loud crack! sounding not too far from where he sat. He flipped his head back to see the source, heart stopping, when his eyes suddenly burst wide open.

"Tree?" Jesiter question him. Tree, indeed, Dark thought to himself as he gawked at the half-sized tree in Jesiter's arms. It was by no means one of the towering oaks that flooded the woods- but it was no seed, either. It was a wonder he didn't snap anyone's neck just from poking them... And why he didn't use that strength back when they needed it.

"N-No, Jessy," Dark muttered. He sighed and stood, chipping a piece of bark from the tree. "Bark."

"Woof?" The boy replied. Dark palmed his face.

They may have been the same age, but Jesiter would have a lot of catching up to do. He supposed on their way to the next destination ahead of them, he could take over where it was left off.

Until they reach the end of the line. Whatever that may be.