It had been a long day of patrolling, everyday he would do his rounds about the territory, but there had been more predators to ward off than usual today. A young fox had approached one of his territory lines, and he had to run it off. In a usual scenario they might have overlapping territories, wolves generally being indifferent to foxes, but he had a congregation to protect. He went back after running it off, emphasizing his boundary markers to prevent such an overstep again.
He was returning when he caught the smell of blood. It started off with just a small whiff, but the smell kept getting stronger and stronger, the nearer he got to the far side of his domain. He broke into a run, his long strides bringing quickly him to the site of the scent. A blood bath met him. An entire family of rabbits, strewn about in various stages of dismemberment, their warren dug up, dirt clumps scattered among their corpses, soaking in their lifeblood.
He stood, shocked, flashbacks of his family and the gore of A’gia’s death filling his thoughts. He felt the anguish as if it was reliving it, overlaid with the scene in front of him. Details that he had blocked out unfolded in pellucid detail. There was his brother’s stomach, his brother’s heart, his brother’s head, golden eyes staring hollowly up at him, accusingly. A’gia lay on her side, her throat ripped open, fur a vibrant sanguine. Her eyes sought his as she bled out, asking him why why why. His fault, it was his fault all over again. He felt the panic rising, his limbs shaking, his eyes blurring in and out of focus.
He had been so stupid to think he could protect those he loved, so stupid to think he could ever move on from these moments of failure. He was trapped, trapped in his mind, replaying over and over his murders, his immense sins. He shouldn’t move on, he should pay for what he had done, should stay here in this moment as penance.
A wolf’s growl snapped him out of his gruesome recollections, forcing him to confront the matter at hand. One of his children approached at his shoulder, peering around him to the slaughter ahead, growling her discontent. They watched as one of her siblings appeared from around a tree, trotting over with a fresh kill in his jaws, shaking it viciously like a toy with a playful growl. He caught sight of Tva, the dead rabbit dropping from his mouth, before bolting. His sister lunged from Tva’s side giving chase, nipping at his heels and chasing him off. Tva wondered if she had done it on purpose, had chased him away from their home intentionally rather than let him suffer the retribution he was owed. He was in no state to serve his son his rightful punishment.
The clean up was an exercise in grief, finding the disassembled parts of each rabbit and piecing them back together before laying a blessed lupus on their torn bodies and creating a magnetic field capable of accelerating their deterioration into the soil. His remaining three acolytes watched with solemnity.
This time the rabbits didn’t have justice. The acolyte had run off, and there was no means of assuring them it wouldn’t happen again. Tva himself wasn’t sure it could never happen again. He eyed his acolytes warily, who would turn next? He shook off the thought. He couldn’t think like that, he had to trust them. He turned back to the assembled rabbits, their angry grunts and thumping back legs loud and condemnatory to his ears, ‘What happened was a tragedy, an unforeseeable catastrophe. But I have promised to keep you safe and I will deliver on that promise.’ He felt like a politician, speaking words wasn’t sure were true, that he wasn’t sure he could keep, but what else could he do, he thought, despondent.
One rabbit approached him, raising its forepaws and dragging a single lupus flower out of his coat. Another followed, and another, and another. He still had some flowers by the end of their remonstration, but they were significantly fewer, each rabbit in the clearing now with one of his blessed blooms. With angry eyes the rabbits began eating the flowers, chewing the blooms with irate grinding bites. One by one they began the grisly transformation, until the whole clearing was filled with the sound of their piercing shrieks as they each thrashed about under the assault of the transformation.
Tva watched somberly as the former rabbits got up, assessing their new forms on clumsy legs. Then, as a group, they turned their backs on him, rejecting him and his empty promise of protection. And left.
