| Subject: an answer |
Author:
Wenu
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Date Posted: 06:17:35 03/16/06 Thu
In reply to:
Thea
's message, "Where Angels Fly" on 16:09:15 03/15/06 Wed
He lived alone in a hole as black as himself.
Silent Paw are creatures of the free air, of windy hilltops and rushing streams and dew-coated grass. Yet presently the pinnacle of the species, the perfect specimen, the greatest creature the race had ever produced had not seen the sky for several weeks. In a hole he had dug himself, with a long tunnel that let in only faint light, the largest four-legged creature ever to walk in the Blue Valleys lay at repose, massive black-feathered wings resting on the dirt floor to either side of his sleek muscular body.
The hole was obvious, of course - he was far too large for there to be any real chance of secrecy. It was an enormous opening in the side of a hill, but he had marked it well and all living creatures had come to avoid that hill for a good distance all around. He did not need to eat, but nor did he hesitate to kill when the impulse took him. All around the opening of the hole lay bones and bodies, and the hillside was streaked with blood that he had spilled with claws and teeth, yet no birds came to pick at the corpses. The Silent Paw, the great princes of the Valleys, so bold and clever, had never put up a fight when he came for them - they were good little martyrs, bowing their heads and exposing their necks to him, and he bit out their life with a single snap. The Many-Color, however, were another story. Though as a rule they held tremendous respect for the Paw, they saw in this new creature something whose feet should never have touched the blue grass, and fought quite fiercely and en masse. His last act before retiring to this cave had been to destroy an entire herd of them, hunting down even the mares and foals who had tried to escape in the end. He felt no malice or resentment and had no sense of vengeance, but neither did he feel pity.
The Silent Paw called him Wenu, and when they said it he could hear its meaning in the color of their voices. Black one, they called him. Feeling that it suited him, he accepted it and even came to use the name in self-referral in the tunnels of his own dark thoughts.
He lived in a hole but he was not hiding; he was simply waiting, gathering his strength and waiting with timeless patience for the call of another, which he knew would come just as the creatures of free air know that spring will follow winter. He waited, unmoving for days at a time, never sleeping, ever expectant. No one would have to tell him when the moment arrived.
And so when it did arrive, a little after sunrise as, far to the north, a spirit danced over the stone and, far to the west, a family gathered beside the great mountains and, far to the north, old friends were reunited under unusual circumstances, he showed no surprise. He simply stood and walked to the tunnel on the silent feet that gave his kind their name, and when he emerged into the light after weeks of darkness he did not even blink at the bright sun. His eyes, large and clear and aggressively violet, took in for a moment the movement of sunlight on grass and the flies, unique in their treason, trespassing on his trophies.
He turned north and climbed the hill above his hole, and when he reached the top he did not pause but launched himself into the air with powerful legs, throwing out wings black as night and moving north and a little west.
She was searching for him. He would not disappoint her.
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