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31_days2011-01-22 12:37 am
treeflamingo.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2011-01-22 12:37 am
[Jan 21] [Original] The Heart-Breakingly Soft Pad of Paws
Title: The Heart-Breakingly Soft Pad of Paws
Day/Theme: Jan 21/Two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other
Series: Original - The Girl In The Yellow Dres
Characters: Louise (though unnamed here), a man, a wolf
Rating: G
A/N: This... is pulling from characters and settings for a novel I've been working on for some time but have made little progress against. I apologize for this piece. It's coming out of left field in the most literal fashion possible that can be achieved without an actual baseball game.
Her skirts rustled frantically but her feet made no noise against the forest floor. She ran madly, breath heaving in her lungs and searing at her throat like blood, the distance stretching behind her (but not nearly fast enough (never fast enough (she could still hear him crashing through the underbrush))), but her feet were calm in their native-made moccasins and were accustomed to silence, and they did not betray her. A petticoat hitched on the twigging fingers of a dead infant tamarack and tore away from her. Her bodice, untucked from the skirt, unceremoniously, indelicately, went writhing about her torso as though it wanted to scream.
Her breast still ached where he had grabbed her.
He had come at her from the stone-hewn dugout they kept the spades and the potatoes in. She had not thought to worry; she had known him since childhood. He had approached her with a thirst in his eyes, and he had covered her mouth with one hand as the other went to work on her. The gagging hand was unnecessary; she would not have screamed. She knew some of her siblings to be in the house beyond, knew her oldest brother to be not far away, in other part of the cote, close enough for vengeance if not for salvation. But she would not have screamed. She would not have thought to.
She remembered that she had watched bugs excrete foul humors to deter a bird from eating. She threw up on him. He grunted loudly and swore, but she was running already.
He was definitely still coming after her. The sounds were not a memory; she heard fresh plants breaking.
She ran instinctively to the clearing where she had first met the family of deer, many years ago, when she was still a child (still safe), and when she arrived she found it already occupied.
He was large and gray, although ill-kept and thin, and very out of season. His eyes were yellow and wise with violence. She stopped suddenly; only her skirts kept up their swishing, or one might have believed she had never been moving at all. The wolf twitched a muscle upon his left shoulder. They regarded each other.
She could hear him pounding closer, the man she was running from, the stranger she had known since childhood, and she let a bit of her fear show in her eyes. The wolf turned his nose to the sound. She moved swiftly to a large stone on the far side, as distant from the wolf as from where she had been standing before. Swift and smooth and silent. She crouched behind the stone and regained the wolf’s gaze.
His fur was matted in places and patched in others. He needed grooming behind the ears. He did not seem young, and she wondered how long it had been since his mate had died, if he was still mourning her.
His ears flattened and the man crashed into the clearing.
She heard his breath stop sharply, heard the guttural warning from the wolf, the crunch of awkward boots on leaves, and the heart-breakingly soft pad of paws. And then she heard him flee.
She rose once the sounds of crashing faded. The wolf turned to her slowly, bringing his head up. His ears were alert. She held empty palms to him, sorrowfully, and they regarded each other once more.
And then the wolf turned on silent paws and left.
Day/Theme: Jan 21/Two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other
Series: Original - The Girl In The Yellow Dres
Characters: Louise (though unnamed here), a man, a wolf
Rating: G
A/N: This... is pulling from characters and settings for a novel I've been working on for some time but have made little progress against. I apologize for this piece. It's coming out of left field in the most literal fashion possible that can be achieved without an actual baseball game.
Her skirts rustled frantically but her feet made no noise against the forest floor. She ran madly, breath heaving in her lungs and searing at her throat like blood, the distance stretching behind her (but not nearly fast enough (never fast enough (she could still hear him crashing through the underbrush))), but her feet were calm in their native-made moccasins and were accustomed to silence, and they did not betray her. A petticoat hitched on the twigging fingers of a dead infant tamarack and tore away from her. Her bodice, untucked from the skirt, unceremoniously, indelicately, went writhing about her torso as though it wanted to scream.
Her breast still ached where he had grabbed her.
He had come at her from the stone-hewn dugout they kept the spades and the potatoes in. She had not thought to worry; she had known him since childhood. He had approached her with a thirst in his eyes, and he had covered her mouth with one hand as the other went to work on her. The gagging hand was unnecessary; she would not have screamed. She knew some of her siblings to be in the house beyond, knew her oldest brother to be not far away, in other part of the cote, close enough for vengeance if not for salvation. But she would not have screamed. She would not have thought to.
She remembered that she had watched bugs excrete foul humors to deter a bird from eating. She threw up on him. He grunted loudly and swore, but she was running already.
He was definitely still coming after her. The sounds were not a memory; she heard fresh plants breaking.
She ran instinctively to the clearing where she had first met the family of deer, many years ago, when she was still a child (still safe), and when she arrived she found it already occupied.
He was large and gray, although ill-kept and thin, and very out of season. His eyes were yellow and wise with violence. She stopped suddenly; only her skirts kept up their swishing, or one might have believed she had never been moving at all. The wolf twitched a muscle upon his left shoulder. They regarded each other.
She could hear him pounding closer, the man she was running from, the stranger she had known since childhood, and she let a bit of her fear show in her eyes. The wolf turned his nose to the sound. She moved swiftly to a large stone on the far side, as distant from the wolf as from where she had been standing before. Swift and smooth and silent. She crouched behind the stone and regained the wolf’s gaze.
His fur was matted in places and patched in others. He needed grooming behind the ears. He did not seem young, and she wondered how long it had been since his mate had died, if he was still mourning her.
His ears flattened and the man crashed into the clearing.
She heard his breath stop sharply, heard the guttural warning from the wolf, the crunch of awkward boots on leaves, and the heart-breakingly soft pad of paws. And then she heard him flee.
She rose once the sounds of crashing faded. The wolf turned to her slowly, bringing his head up. His ears were alert. She held empty palms to him, sorrowfully, and they regarded each other once more.
And then the wolf turned on silent paws and left.