14 November 2012
The crimson trail disappeared into the night... Tangy spatters from her sweet veins, I feared as I fully regained consciousness.
Ever since the Beast had come to find us, we had pushed northward, through the snowy wood towards the Abbey ruins, where we could finally be safe.
We'd almost reached the moon-bleached stone of our sanctuary when the Beast attacked. It came from behind; I don't know if it had struck Freya first, but it plunged claws deep into my back and shoulder and bit off the top of my left ear.
The shock, the pain, the crushing weight of the creature pitched me forward, and I fell unconscious here, beneath the rheumy eye of the full moon. Icy crackled on my clothes when I woke, and my breath was light and stinging in my lungs. The landscape was vicious, beautied silver embossed into indigo sky. I felt weak and sick, and breathing was even more difficult when I forced myself to stand. Wincing, I shrugged off the remains of my shredded rucksack, and dropped it in a bloody heap in the snow. The wounds in my back and ear raged and burned, but this was good; it kept me from sleeping and never waking. There was no excuse slipping into endless dreams if this wasn't finished.
I needed to know what had happened to her.
It drove me on for a few hundred metres. Through the woods, forever following the scarlet morse which was leaking from her. How long could she keep going, bleeding like that?
I was nearly finished myself. There's a point at which the will - no matter how strong - is tempted by physical exhaustion or pain. They start to bleach out all the nobility in your limbs, numb the mind to compassion and selflessness, and compels you to give up. Sit back and be a spectator in your own defeat. Or your death.
I despise the idea of being mortality's bitch though, so I fight on. Sweat and fevers. Aching muscles. Ebbing strength.. Like tides of fire in the veins orchestrated by the moon.
The moon. One of natures great cycles. Regulating change in a way that's predictable. Transforming what is whole to fragments, then remaking them. This is the way of the Beast we were tracking. Freya always seemed to want to enjoy the places we hunted it, to find the beauty in its patterns. I saw the blood and the carnage, and it foreshadowed our own.
Freya herself was prey to the vicious cycle; the same, of course, as every woman. But her changes came as strikingly as the crescent to the full moon: she transformed during her cycle from assertive, confident pacifist to fragile, raging protagonist. These were all true parts of the woman and they all made me love her with intensity and fascination - and sometimes a safe distance.
God, I wanted to smell her now and feel her strength as she fought to live. Surely I must be close to them now - my beauty.and our beast?
In the mess of snow and blood ahead, there was a larger, darker shape. I prayed it was not Freya. Loping forward, moving in nothing more than a kind of forward-moving collapse I strained to see if the shape was hers.
As I drew near I could see it was too small. Much too small. My relief was short lived though, when I realised the object in the snow was my torn rucksack. I had obviously come this way once before and passed out, forgetting the previous circular route I'd stumbled around. Another vicious circle and one which should have taken my life. But now I was too pissed off to die.
Growling like a spoiled brat, I was about to smash at the ground with my firsts, when SHE came out of the trees. Hips and confidence. So very hot. I reached out for her. She stood watching me, hands on hips - unharmed.
"Stop being a tit. Die with some dignity, please.'
'Die?'
'Yes. Die. Hurry up about it. I smell deer. This place is heaven.'
A whole lot of pennies were dropping. It was a veritable storm of pennies. You're a ...beast... too?'
'THE beast. We haven't been tracking the monster, the monster has been leading you on. I'm bored of doing this by myself.'
I fell to my knees.
'But it...you... Hurt me.'
'It'll pass. Everything does. And on the other side, there's the woods, the deer...and the sex. Wolfsex makes doggie style feel like a piggyback. And the smells in this forest...'
I passed out then, feeling the life leave my limbs until I was nothing more than a ball of life centred around my struggling heart. Before long, that too slowed, and I died to the sound of her applause.
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I sprung to my feet, enormous paws impervious to the cold, it seemed. I ran in the woods with her. I'm running still.
The Vicious Circle • Opuss № I