91st of Ash, 120
Arkash had not known such difficulty in finding animals before. In days long gone, they often found him, chased him, tried to eat him. But that cold Ash day, Arkash was the one doing the chasing, the stalking, and the prowling.
He'd bought four Wrogon Piglets to practice his blood magic on, but one of them had escaped during his experiments on the first. The other two remained leashed to the roots of the tree he'd taken shelter under, but he needed all four of them to fully practice the abilities he'd learned of.
The abilities were Sway, Diffuse, Leech, and Sacrifice. On one piglet, he'd pulled off a successful use of leech and sway to make the sword he now carried. It wasn't anything impressive, but it was a proper weapon, if not for the blunt edge. Once he'd leeched some more blight from the piglets, he planned to apply a sharpened edge to the blade, but that was later. At that moment, he had to find the piglet before some animal found it, or the animal froze to death in the wintry wilds.
The claws of his feet crunched the snow they trod on, and thick clumps of the stuff clung to the leather footwraps he'd dressed with. The fur that lined the trims grew damp as he carried on, and he could feel the muscles there tighten as they grew more and more stiff and rigid in the cold. But, Arkash was hot on the trail of the beast, he believed; he could stick through some discomfort for the sake of finding the animal.
Arkash wasn't a hunter, he wasn't even a tracker. He knew not the various footprints and their significance, nor the depths and the width of the stride, nor the implications of such things. All he knew was that there was a trail in the snow that he could follow through the dense forestry; a trail of little impressions accompanied by the vertical drag of stubby legs. It had to be the piglet, he thought. What else would leave such a trail?
So, Arkash wasted none of his time whining about the weather or his frozen claws. If the piglet was just a little further ahead, if he wasn't far behind it, he would be able to return to the warmth in no time at all. The promise of a light at the end of a tunnel kept him going, so to speak.
A hard gust of frost-laced wind blew at the rathor, and Arkash lifted his arm to block against the warmth-stealing breath of the wild. It wasn't very effective, but his extremity caught the majority of the icy coating the gust left, and he shook it off with a flick of his arm.
In his younger days, he'd loved the snow. It always covered up the dirt and grime in lower Nivenhain and made the old, boring stone architecture look sightly with its icicles and shininess. Even if it made him slow and tired, he appreciated the beauty of the details. As he grew, that wonder and enchantment withdrew, became uprooted, and eventually replaced by cynical realism. The snow was a detriment, a bother. Its cold was a pervasive malady that threatened to kill him every Frost, and he had to suffer through it every year.
A shake of his head stole his attention from his gripes with clingy sky-gifted ice, and he settled his gaze on the tracks he followed. They became fresher as he proceeded, implying he was close. With his teeth bared beneath his cowl, he willed his legs to pick up the pace, and he broke into a jog through the shin-deep snow.
In a clearing ahead, there was a break in the frosty quilt, a shape that stood out to the rath. His heart skipped a beat as he closed in, and found the Wrogling laying on its side in the foot of snow. Its eyes were closed, and Arkash couldn't tell if it was breathing or not. "...Fuck my life," he cursed, then knelt beside the carcass, and collected it into his arms. The thing was limp, colder on the surface, but still warm deeper inside. Perhaps he could still use it for material?
It was only when he tucked the beast into his jacket that he realized the creature still drew breath. He could feel the little rushes of force that its lungs pushed rolling in his leathers. Its heart was beating; the piglet lived. A sigh of relief saw Arkash smile, though he didn't fully understand why he cared. What did it matter if the piglet died in the snow or not? He could only cast sacrifice on a living piglet, but a dead one was just spare blood, he supposed.
Eventually, the rath arrived back at the shallow overhang of wrought earth and gnarled roots. The two remaining Wrogling were there, still tied to their leashes and curled up to one another beside the fire. Arkash tilted his head, then got down on his hands and knees to crawl under the overhang. This, in turn, woke the sleeping Wroglings. One after the other, the beasts sat up and watched the rath with caution.
Carefully, Arkash removed the half-frozen Wrog from his leathers, and set the beast down beside the fire to warm up. He couldn't control if it survived or not from there, but the open fire he hoped would help.
His yellow eyes traced the two remaining Wroglings, who watched him in turn. Their gazes were fixed on him, unflinching. In some primitive, instinctual way, they feared him. They recognized the traits of a predator, the things he'd done to their fallen brother, who made up his new sword. They were right to fear him, as he possessed a force that shouldn't exist in nature. That same force, he was bound to practice on their bodies.
Sacrifice was an ability that allowed him to siphon an exceptional amount of ether from either his own, self-inflicted wounds or from the throat of someone conscious and trapped. His gaze slid to the sleeping Wrogon, then drifted to the two that were conscious. His claws had warmed plenty besides the fire by the time he'd chosen which one he wished to practice on, then reached for them.
He expected no resistance aside from the thrashing and pulling, but found otherwise as he attempted to grip the piglet's neck. The animal bit him and forced a hiss from the rathor. Quickly, he reeled and looked to the finger the creature had chomped. Thankfully, it didn't look as though the piglet had pierced his scales, but that didn't help to stay Arkash's fury. Wild, widened eyes set on that same piglet, and in a burst of force, he reached and snatched the piglet's leash, then pulled with as much strength as he could muster to yank the Wrogon over the fire, and gripped their head as he forced them to the ground.
The creature thrashed and squirmed in his hold, he could feel its muscles and bones shifting beneath its skin while it squealed and shrieked. Arkash narrowed his eyes while he looked down at the baby animal, then collected his dirty knife from the floor and pressed it to the beast's neck. Despite his rage, he focused. Again, he had to dig deep to find the tethers of his ether, and reached into the squirming piglet's neck with it, ready to drink from the wound as he would have if he were simply leching.
Then, with a glide of his knife, he pressed hard into the Wrogon's skin and slashed deeply into the piglet's flesh to sever the arteries in the area completely. The beast began to gurgle and squeal as it's throat spurt and filled its lungs with its own life force. Arkash's unseen ether tethers latched onto the fresh jugular blood, rich with oxygen, and drew a deep breath as he found what he perceived to be a bounty of power. To any experienced mage, the power he gained from sacrificing an animal wasn't all too impressive, but to Arkash, it felt nigh infinite. With the gathered blight, he extended the length of his sword with a push of his own ether, then focused on the blade's edges. Shivers ran down his spine while he warped and pressed firmly on the edges, and began to cast suffuse.
The sharpened edges became finer, more narrow as Arkash magically imbued the property of sharpness into the weapon; it was perhaps the only property he really understood, the only property he really ever experienced. It was born of something fine; something hard and pointy in a straight edge. It directed all the force applied to it to a single point and allowed the ability to cut through other things, to rend them in two. That was sharpness, and he'd felt it all over his scales, applied it to rocks, trees, people, and piglets.
When he was finally done with his experimentation of sacrifice and Suffuse, he woke from the haze of his focus, and found the still Wrogling in his claws, coupled with a small puddle of blood that the frozen earth hesitantly drank. They weren't quite as withered as the last experiment, which Arkash found curious. It took him a moment to recognize the life he'd taken, as he'd only seen them as a tool necessary for his growth and exploration of his powers.
He'd killed a second piglet, a second baby animal. That was yet another one that wouldn't get to experience the world. With a sigh, he lifted the piglet by its broken neck and placed its body on the open flame. Arkash watched as the flame engulfed the carcass, then looked to the last piglet still conscious. It was shaking, terrified. Arkash had taken them from their mother and killed two of their siblings before their eyes. "It's alright," he sighed in vithmi. "They're not missing much," he assured the piglet as his gaze fell on the two burning carcasses that rested on the forming pyre.
Image source.
