Robbin

17. Like a Leaf

He had not led a particularly good life—if good indicated peace-filled, happy, fulfilled. However, he had not led a particularly dishonest life, either, which was why his actions now were so uncharacteristic of him. He slinked among the trees, with his fellows, yet very apart from them at the same time: apart from them in intent.

He supposed every group had to have its idiosyncrasy: it's one odd member, nonconforming to the rest of the group. He liked to think of himself as the idiosyncrasy of this group, though his inconformity thus far was concealed. If they only knew his particular intent... It was meant to start a war. Even if he didn't fully realize it yet, it would.

All he knew was his mental hunger stronger than any physical hunger he had ever felt. A novice to the emotional hungers of man, he craved her like a fruit of inconceivable knowledge, and considering himself a man, wolf man as he was, he felt alive with the hunger he had never once felt in the general girth of his pathetic, simple existence. Being a novice, he also didn't understand that while he craved her, his form of craving could never beat her, because being a novice he did not fully understand the depths of his craving for her.

At this particular moment he did not care if he could win her, though, because at this particular moment all he cared about was finding her, smelling her, being in the presence of what he believed to be all powerful and trying to at least catch a taste of that power for himself.

While the others sniffed the soil for a whiff of nomad, Questrion madly sunk his nostrils into the leaves looking for a very different scent than a nomad's.

Questrion didn't care about asserting dominance; he didn't care about feeling a part of the scene which had unfolded between a nomad leader and a group of demons; he didn't care about carrying the pride of his race to the nomad doorsteps—about taking a seemingly desirable trophy to gain title as the rightly ruling race. He knew how much more she was than a trophy, and how much more what she held was than a trophy.

If they knew his loyalties, they would not have brought him, because he was a traitor to his race—his loyalty was only to himself. Wanting nothing more than to sink his teeth into the girl's flesh, he would not have flinched if his entire pack of companions was killed in the process, because he did not care about pride, he cared about capturing the girl first—the girl with the necklace.

Pawing the ground, sniffing the wind, saliva dripping from his jaws, he padded slyly through their rapt ranks, appearing as if the moisture from his tongue resulted merely from a hunger for pride, for a hunger to flaunt importance in front of his nomad enemy like most of the rest. Instead, he hungered for something much more worth desiring than pride. And not realizing that he was not the only one to tease around taunting desires for the supposed power of a widely fabled necklace, and succumbing to his hunger for the possibility, he also succumbed to the possibility of future implications far beyond any he could yet foresee. For the real difference between he and his companions was not the secret hunger for the necklace, it was that he feared the stories of the witch sisters as much as he should have—that he feared the girl as much as he should have. This oversight in his wolf companions would not last for long, however. As he slipped into the towers, none of the nomads even noticed, for it was unlike a wolf to stalk its prey alone.

***

Terra began to feel strangely as if something important was about to happen. Hunt finally succeeded in pulling her from the tower porch and she tapped him on the shoulder and indicated that she was going to go further back into the towers, to get away from the throng. He nodded, though she felt his eyes on her back as she went.

She didn't care, though. She didn't even go far, just far enough to where she could turn from Hunt and all the others behind her. The impending feeling seemed to hit her all at once. She suddenly felt out of breath. She gasped for air with the sudden onslaught of fear and anxiety. Why was she here?

She heard something coming through an alleyway far removed from the throng. She squinted through the overreaching towers. It wasn't that far away, closer than Hunt, surely.

As she brushed her hand against one of the towers, she suddenly began to hallucinate.

Terra was suddenly staring in a row of trees, lined with four wolves. "What might you want with a witch like me?" she asked.

"WAIT!" she heard Hunt's voice warn from behind her. She abruptly snapped from the vision.

She saw a gray textured form in the shadows of the alleyway that transformed steadily into white as it's body moved out from the shadow of one particular building. The stars of the sky that peeked through the towers at this particular point reflected off its white mane. It was a wolf.

Terra, having never seen one up close, found its form moving as if in slow motion under her quiet observance. Its head would have stood above hers if it had stood close enough to compare height. She realized, awe struck, that it was running toward her. Her eyes went from teeth, to claws, to eyes: sharp as sharpened crystal; long and dangerous as gray iron; liquid balls eying her.

She wondered if she was still hallucinating, but unfortunately, she was not. She wished.

It was a lot closer than she realized. Haunches bowed, powerful hind legs springing—it leaped for her with unnatural grace and strength. She witnessed the razors of its front paws as they were about to rip into her flesh.

She didn't know why it happened. It was coming right for her, but as she looked up to it, her necklace tingled. She felt it, warm upon her chest. In fact, it was hot. It was a furnace! She didn't know why she did it. She thrust her hands up to the ambushing wolf as if to ward it off. But she couldn't possibly.

She ignored rational thought, a sudden instinct overcoming her. She thrust her hands, and she felt the power emanate from them. She stared, aghast, as the wolf, once about to leap down upon her, blew away. It blew like a leaf. She watched it fly back up the way it had come and arc gracefully through the air at her movement of the hands. Its white hair blew, its paws waved weightless, having never touched her. When it landed, with a crash, reality came back to her for a split second.

She heard a short umph and a crash behind her, too. She turned around to see where Hunt had seemingly landed a good few feet off the ground against the wall of a tower. He collapsed back to the ground harshly, the look of worry still accompanying his face as it had when he had tried to come to her aid. It had been too late, though, and Terra realized the force of her hands had warded him off, too, even from the rear as he was. He was getting up, and then he was being pulled into a throng of suddenly riled people. She saw a wolf crashing through them trying to get to something. Then she saw it watching her. It was trying to get to her.

People pulled it back and it was being bombarded. It didn't get within feet of her. Other wolves collided with the nomads from across the clearing. There was commotion, yelling. She thought she heard her name yelled somewhere. "Terra! Terra!"

Someone yelled, "get to Robbin in the clearing! Back up! Back Robbin up!"

Yes, back Robbin up.

"Did any more of them get past the towers?"

She supposed not. She supposed her wolf was the only one. Though she didn't know his name was Questrion.

That was her split second. Then she was hallucinating once more.

a/n: So, the beginning of this chapter was kind of an interesting one... I had SO much writers block with this chapter and the beginning part just kind of happened, but it's meant to explain a little bit about how and why everything unfolds into this giant beef b/w Wolves and Nomads (not that there wasn't already a bit of a beef).

Let me know what you think about poor Terra being caught in the middle of the chaos!

Reads, votes and comments always greatly appreciated:)

Chay