Caracara's Hunt

The adult man also came closer, but this time he did so from the front, so Arawn could not reach him with his tail. It was smart on his part, but Arawn could have really used someone to hit. The indistinct sense of familiarity with the kid was all but forgotten in the face of his newfound hatred.

No other creature on land was so despicable as to tell untruths to one another. Arawn had hesitated to kill him, and the human youth had actually repaid him in such a cruel way. If he"d had any doubt about whether all humans deserved death, Arawn was now sure of it.

"Maybe he"s retreated into himself to avoid reality? I"ve seen victims who"ve been hurt so bad that they could no longer take it and had left mentally."

"What does that mean?"

"When the mind is faced with the unbearable, it goes elsewhere. This means they live like shadows of themselves, habit and instinct leading them on rather than their self. Depending on how far the mind has gone, sometimes it can no longer find its way back," the adult explained.

The bout turned to face him with a puzzled expression. "Arawn"s went through no traumatic experience in the woods. It"s not the first time he"s killed people either. I saw him do it in the city, and he was fine after that."

"I said it was probably similar, not identical. We don"t know how or why anyone turns into a beast. Maybe something blocks their mind then? Maybe their instincts get too strong? It"s not like other people have wanted to go mad after changing, but they did."

The discussion might have been interesting if Arawn could understand what the two humans were talking about. His hold on the human concepts was tentative at best, and all their speech about mind, instinct, and self being different just didn"t make any sense. There was only one him, so what they were yammering on about?

Tired of listening to their nonsense, he closed his eyes and prepared to sleep. His side still hurt and he"d sc.r.a.pped even more of his skin off near the bindings, but exhaustion finally caught up to him. He was used to spending most of the day snoozing around so the whole day and night of no rest left him without any energy to do anything.

"Why don"t you try talking to him? There"s still a long way to go till Mairya."

"Me? Talk to him?" the boy asked with irritation. "I don"t even know him."

The adult pushed off the wooden structure and began walking away. "That"s all I can offer. Mind injuries can"t be healed with ether, and I"ve spent even less time with him than you. Besides, those idiots chose to name me leader, so I need to go and help them."

After saying that, he turned around and did just that. Arawn expected to have some peace then, but the boy brought in his stuff and prepared the horse. Moments later, they were once more rattling down the road, and Arawn could describe each stone that got under the wheels of the wooden creature.

His eyes were closed, but every time he was about to nod off, a larger stone would shake the whole structure, and he would jump in the air. His skin would sc.r.a.pe against the bindings while his side would scream from the discomfort.

"Your doctor told me to talk to you, speak about our shared experiences, but we didn"t have that many, and I don"t think you would really want to remember them. They"re part of your nightmares, aren"t they? Yet you know, I asked Corwal to leave at that time you went off to hunt the beast, but he refused. He needed you to hate him, but he didn"t want you to carry the guilt of letting your friends die.

"Yet the world always laughs at his wishes. Val lost his hand, which was something not even an artefact amulet could heal. Do you know what it"s worth though? Corwal has been throwing them around like they"re nothing, but each one of them hides five years of being a hound. Most people don"t last a few months, so they don"t even know such a reward exists.

"But it does," the boy said through gritted teeth. "Corwal has been saving them for years, but now he"s wasted both amulets to help you. Do you understand what that means? If he dies, it"ll be on you!"

The boy turned around at that moment, staring back, but Arawn could not see him. He could only judge what happened based on the sound.

"I don"t care if you saved me. The moment Corwal dies, I"ll repay you with the same, for it"ll be your fault. He pulled me out from the streets of that twice cursed city and gave me a chance to live, for which I owe him everything. I can"t protect him from the king, but I can avenge him. No one involved in his death will survive."

Arawn listened to his words without paying much attention to them. He was too tired to work out the hidden meanings and puzzle out who the people in the story were.

Instead, he let the boy"s words lull him into sleep. They gave him something to focus on that wasn"t pain, and he let his imagination recreate the story on its own. It wasn"t close to what the human youth was going for, but Arawn didn"t care. He raced through the fields while fighting with his kin and unfamiliar humans that cheated by using earth and wind to move faster.

The dream finally took him out of the real world, and he fell asleep. Yet his rest was short and fitful. There were humans all around him, and he seemed to be one as well. It was strange in itself, but they talked and laughed, smiling at him like they were part of the pack.

To his surprise, he realized he cared about them too. Their joy was his joy, and when the scene changed and he saw them facing off against giant striped cats, their terror was his terror. It was as if they shared some kind of bond.

While he tried to make sense of that, the scene changed again, and he was standing surrounded by human corpses. Yet instead of feeling proud, he felt sick. His stomach twisted, and tears collected in his eyes. Instinctively, he knew he had killed all of them in a moment of lost control.

"Do you remember me?"

Arawn whirled around to see a stranger before himself. Something in him told him that he should know the dark-haired green-eyed man, but he was a beast, how could he know any humans? And yet he knew this one. He was certain of that.

The scene was also way too familiar. He could swear he had seen it before. It felt as if he only needed to reach out with his hand and push through the veil to learn about all that was bothering him.

But his arm froze moments after he started to raise it. A sense of dread washed over him, and he realized he didn"t want to know the truth. All his instincts told him that it wouldn"t end well, that he was better off without that knowledge.

Wasn"t he fine the way he was? Why did he have to learn about some humans? They were his enemies!

"Do you remember me?" the figure repeated in a sombre voice. The man stood perfectly still, like an ice sculpture.

Arawn took a step back, refusing to acknowledge him, then realized what he was doing and growled in disgust. When had he become this weak and pathetic? Was he actually scared of learning about himself? He was certainly not such a contemptible being!

With viciousness, he raised his arm and tore apart the veil that hid his memories. They washed over him like a flood and stole the ground from under his feet. He tried to find something to hold onto, but all he could grab on were different memories from years and years of being a human.

They seared into his mind, creating paths were there had been none and lodging themselves to stay there forever. He saw the archmage telling him that his name was Arawn, the king drowning him to see if he"ll turn into a beast, himself sitting in a gla.s.s cage and listening to the celebration at the princess" birth, then staring at his brother"s preserved corpse being shown to him.

After that came a dingy dungeon where five ma.s.sive men approached him with disgusting leers. They had been five times his size, and he was only ten years old. He cried and called for help, but no one came. Only mockery came from the other cells. A few people were hootting and begging to be allowed to join in on the fun.

He hadn"t understood what was happening, what they wanted to do to him, but he knew it would hurt. It terrified him so much he let go of the little control he had of himself and allowed whatever was inside him loose.

Back then, the human kid only reawakened to a ma.s.sacre and the horrified screams of the guards, but at that moment, Arawn saw everything that happened before then. It was him, the him of now, that had taken control and arisen like a vengeful ghost.

He was a caracara, so even if he was in an unfamiliar body, he wasn"t going to be humiliated by some humans. Ether was something that belonged to them, so he called upon it and slammed it against them. There was a strange sense of justice killing them with their own weapon.

Two men died instantly. One of the surviving two rushed at him, but Arawn brought more ether into himself. The man was instantly spiked on the wall, right next to his shivering companion. This last survivor went down on his knees and begged to be spared, but he was human.

Arawn killed him without a second thought and turned around to face the other inmates. He had a sense of them being part of it, of wanting to humiliate him as well, so he showed them that they shouldn"t bother a caracara ever again.

Not one person survived in that dungeon. Arawn didn"t have his own body, so he slaughtered the disgusting humans with the ether. As long as they all died, he didn"t mind how it happened.

Once he was done, he sat down on the ground and looked around. It was a bit cold though, so he stood up and grabbed a blanket. A smile stretched across his face when he observed his day"s work, and he decided to take a short nap.

Slinging the ether was surprisingly tiresome, so he found a cleaner cot and lay down. His eyes closed, and the person who awoke to the screams of the guards was no longer him. It was the human child.

It wasn"t a month till the next ma.s.sacre, and it was him who had showed up again. Every time the human child got into trouble, he was too scared to move, and Arawn had to come in to save him.

Years pa.s.sed with the human child in control. He lived and grew while Arawn slept, unaware that he was only a pa.s.senger in his own life. Whenever he woke up, it was only for a short time. The moment the danger pa.s.sed, he would retreat, giving way to the human child like it was perfectly normal to do so.

In time, he even came to care about the child"s wishes. That tall, green-eyed human before him earlier had been a friend, so Arawn did not kill him and instead allowed the child to return. Later, when the child refused to face reality, Arawn stayed in the world in his place and acted like a human.

Yet something wrong had happened at that time. It had been him in control of the body, but his mind had been dazed. He would have certainly killed the archmage and the king upon seeing them, but his thoughts were stretched so thin that even sitting and walking took up all the concentration he possessed.

It felt as if he wasn"t supposed to stay around for so long. The more time pa.s.sed, the weaker his control of the body became, like he was fading away.

"I"m a caracara," Arawn whispered when the memories came to a halt upon catching up to when he had woken up near the mansion. "Yet this life doesn"t belong to me. I"m only a leech that"s stuck itself onto a human child."

He laughed humorlessly and closed his eyes. Maybe, for once in his life, he should have acted prudent and not torn down everything in his path. The world was a simpler place when he thought he was just another human-hating beast running in the wild.