Hawksblood: Don't Look for me in Orange Skies - Chapter Five - StoriesMania - short stories, poems, and more online fiction

**Lubesh** · Tweet this Post! #1 (**permalink**) 07-09-2007, 12:24 PM

Chapter Five

As the heavens opened again all that was left behind was the diluted blood of Saabi lying broken. Disturbing the air around him was the perturbed and forlorn neighing and foot stamping of horses left in their stables.

Steering through the tumult for a short time brought the creature back to the caves together with his prize.

Once inside he set down the unconscious guest and hurriedly made a clear spot where he swept together dry grasses and other assorted debris in an effort to make her comfortable. Why he would do that he did not know and again began to thwart the surging confusion and inner conflicts. He lay her gently against a few rocks and lay her head against the damp cushioning.

Gabrielle began to stir and her moans and restlessness interrupted a study of her that had began immediately, since never before had he been this close to such an opportunity. Her arousal was momentary and so he continued, he had no choice.

Gingerly he levitated his misshapen clawed grasp just a few inches as it swept the length of her legs then up over her body and finally stopped as it began to caress her golden hair, which when he leaned over he breathed in through his nostrils. The more intense he sought to capture the scent the more severe the rhythmic contractions and sound. Digits spread and precisely lifted up loose strands, which he ran his face across and this time abruptly snorted.

Less than an inch from her pale but smooth porcelain like skin, murky, green eyes stared. The stare never wavered from the face's centre as he absorbed every detail, even as his head wrung and wafted gently about, sending out a sound, which vibrated softly. Frightened he may disturb her too soon, he sat back on haunches and again enveloped himself in the comfort of his wing's fold.

Through her sleep Gabrielle sobbed and her bottom lip trembled like a child, her head thrust back and forth and from side to side. Her body began to shake slightly. The raised goose flesh visible on her forearms became more animated and intrigued the hideous onlooker as he reached before he could stop himself to explore this strange appearance, which to him tainted the rare flower he thought he had found and stolen.

Without knowing, too harsh was his touch and the tiny brush aggravated and rasped, grazing the slender arm he held. Gabrielle jerked and was brought to her senses. The flicker of her eyelashes as she adjusted to half-light and awareness, caused the intruding claws to pull away hastily, at the same time his head lowered to meet hers still bowed. As they came eye to eye, the clearest azure holding the shock and fear and trauma of a nightmare met the ogling, beady, green eyes carrying rivers of blood and many lifetimes of evil - evil that is, depending on the eyes of the beholder.

Once fully shocked out of her stupor, Gabrielle's mouth, a wide and gaping orifice, trembled again. She found her arms and pulled herself up onto her elbows, her peripheral vision told her she was indeed in the never world she fought to make a vile dream, just a nightmare, but in total horror as realisation washed over her a cold and chilling spray, she could no longer fight. In the few seconds of awakening she came to see as he towered now in front of her, this was in fact the nightmare...and one that had only just begun.

Panting to catch her breath she let go of a tremendous build up of fear, loathing and disgust, interwoven with a mind bending puzzlement of how and why and what on God's earth was this messenger from hell. Her piercing, tortuous scream brought an onslaught of birds, nested in the quirky hollows along the lining of the cave and rats that came upon her in their scampering and fled as quickly as they had appeared. Before she could stop, the returning lightning strikes brought with them heavy and deafening thunder. A windstorm drove into the caves for a few feet, lashes of rain.

The temporary peace and serenity, a tranquillity he had never before experienced while he enjoyed the novel and pure essence of this strange being was shattered and he once again was directed to the wildness outside. Standing erect he paced a few paces away from Gabrielle, still screaming. Clearly an annoyance to him she continued for as long as she hoped her lungs would hold out. Soon exhausted by this and her ordeal, she collapsed back down immediately curling into ball with her head turned away and tucked in out of sight, as if this would make her invisible. She lay still and sobbed.

Eyes now face to the moon, he stood on the ledge; his yellow orange glint followed the tangerine strands of cloud as they roamed the sky. A mighty gust ensured their hastened speed at which point the hues darkened and did an about turn as the force dictated that a time was near and the time was ripe for an orange fragrance to be released into the atmosphere.

Cracks of thunder caused off shooting small branches clinging to the cliff face to break off and hit the ledge outside of her prison. Gabrielle jumped and as she lifted her head she gasped as he turned towards her. Utmost terror filled her blood as she saw his eyes change to the more practical green haze. She stood up in desperation as he turned his glare on her again. Her hopes were confounded, where could she run? What would be the point, but instinct left hope behind and she made a play for the rocks behind her and a ledge leading to darkness. She flung herself towards them but her feet and hands could not maintain a grip as sure or as fast before she heard his stomping pace. Gabrielle slid and whilst she did she gave up and fell to a heap. She clutched at the crucifix on her delicate gold chain and as she prayed, tears collided and ran down her cupped fist.

Cricking his neck in pondering the form not quite out of the shadows, he stopped and listened. It again picked upon scents and sensations that stirred him almost to a crazed frustration. Something called him, something long absent and alien now and something he fought with as a new and superior specimen always shielding what was precious and all that he knew from relics of a long buried and inert ancestry, before the wars and before time itself had been disrupted and began again temporarily in this evaporating glitch of a land he had found himself in.

He was ripped from this idyll by the unfolding scent that had found its way into the caves by way of a cyclonic stream surrounding their door. The time was now. Her sobs and contradictions conflicted, but instinct had the upper hand as it took hold and overwhelmed his senses.

He thrust out his chest, which rippled with bulging strength and flickered with the downed and erupted skin. The moon climbed and sailed eastwards and a flaming orange crescendo over the cave's crown dripped fire as the silver piercing eyes of the moon blocked the cave entrance.

Gabrielle was swept up from praying, but not for a moment did she leave go of the hope she held tightly in her shaking hands. She chanted and kept on chanting, her eyes closed and remained as distant as she was. He lay Gabrielle in the nest that had awaited her; a gasp pushed Gabrielle even further from her foreboding and her bizarre surroundings and further to a place of safety, where she would stay.

Before Gabrielle was drowned in an unconsciousness lest she totally go insane with the pain and brutality, she glanced defiantly toward the writhing and thrusting shadow probably laughing at her from the crevassed cave walls as it clung triumphantly and then back to her cross, holding firm all the while the notion that she had nothing to fear, for as she would suffer so she would be released and into something far beyond this creature's psyche and capabilities. Her faith and conviction was a strong and one that gave her the formidable strength to overpower her disgust, revulsion and sheer horror, and told her not be afraid for her life or sanity any longer. She would and could endure this debauched and heinous savagery intruding her every fibre and which caused her veins to pulsate and stretch as if her very soul would explode in utter and incomprehensible torture. She would not ponder any more the reason or seek an earthly logic for it, as he was not of this earth nor of hell.

* * *

When he left Gabrielle and walked the caves he could hear her subdued and piteous cry. It seemed to his ears as if all her hopes and her life had ended. It craned its neck as if eavesdropping on the very core of her emotional and spiritual being. A draft of the essence of what he had done when he consumed this pure and fragile creature was heightened and an abnormal abhorrence surfaced again, which made him question his acts which only now made him begin to hope it was, as it was to him...just the way? For the last thing he would have wanted, amidst a preordained ritualistic response was to hurt this most intricate and delicate specimen, whose skin was as smooth and as tender as her very own favourite, morning flowers.

Dry mouthed and in interminable pain Gabrielle came too fully, her near broken and bruised bloodied body draped as lifeless as the feathers she lay on. She was bathed in darkness by an encroaching shadow and she quickly feigned sleep. She could feel his gaze and heard his obnoxious breathing from a short distance and when she slyly dared to peek she found him to have a near quizzical expression as if searching for something. She went limp as he lifted her arms to examine them then moved on to her exposed torso, which was bruised and swollen with welts bloodied from the revolting oily curves and ragged edges of brittle skin.

After a time he seemed content as she witnessed an affirmation of it's head before he walked away yet again and nestled between large rocks and shrouded itself in contentment.

In her lapses and tormented dazed state, Gabrielle had noted the moon giving way to sunrises a few times and often felt or dreamed she was at a well for she felt trickles of water upon her parched and cracked lips. She finally awoke to the pain still real and fraught with despicable memories and to the cause, who lurked this time a reassuring and deliberate distance from her.

"You will sleep again in a short while and be at rest as you have much to do."

Gabrielle looked at him in awe and wonderment after receiving his incredible statement, so matter of factly delivered.

"I will be leaving you soon and when the time is upon us I will return."

Still trying to capture a station of normality and calm and still reeling from her ordeal in total revulsion and incomprehension, Gabrielle was puzzled and questions rang out.

"Return? You are leaving? Then can I be released, if you have done with your vile deeds?

"You must stay and rest and tend to our young, only then can I return."

The full force of what had occurred and the bizarre reasons hit Gabrielle, as it stretched credulity and insanity. Surely, not thought Gabrielle...

"You will be safe here, no harm will come about you...trust that I will be back."

I can't stay here! You can't leave me here. They will be searching for me you have to let me go!"

"Please be still and accept that which is your fate. They won't consider to look here, why would they? Again, no harm will come to you as you slumber, safe and warm."

Gabrielle shrieked in hysterical laughter, "No harm? Of course, how stupid of me, for what more harm could possibly come to me?"... She stopped her sardonic onslaught and shuddered before she withdrew momentarily. She had to think, she had to fight for her release and her life.

"Let me go at least leave me where they can find me, for they will, in time," humouring him frantically, she continued, Yes, I will sleep, but promise me not on my own here in this, this... nest."

She stemmed disgust and to appease him further she recoiled inside before she feigned a look of earnest sincerity and offered him a gesture of resolve and glimmer of feeling. She reached out with a trembling arm. This touched him. A soft churning sound seeped as his confusion and mind was pulled every which way, this exquisite creature still tugged at a lost time and long forgotten instincts. He was tempted not to let her go at all and even risk his own fate and that of an heir and carry her off then and there. Apart from the double blow that would result in such hasty action, there lurked a third of which the creature in was not aware.

He walked away from Gabrielle's pleading eyes as if to further distance himself from temptation. Gabrielle lay back as gently as she could and cried once more, accepting her attempts to be futile.

Another day had passed and time was pressing as forks of lighting's rage and a now ash orange crescent beckoned and forced the creature to make a choice. He mistook Gabrielle's heavy sleeping, coupled with her severe bruising, to be a sign that ovulation had begun and was entering a state she would remain in whist she carried his lifeblood, which would thrive until they emerged. Only then could the giver of the life return to reclaim what was his.

During this time he had considered Gabrielle's desperate request and he picked her up from the monstrosity of a creature home and walked with her to the foot of the caves, where if she was to be found she would still be as lifeless and useless to the finders. To give her abnormal state some time to take full hold he decided on the shackles he saw snaked about the floor. He didn't trust her to stay lest he be called before her period of gestation began.

The chains and wrist attachments were in place and he lingered to look at her longingly and thoughts of fleeing stirred once more.

Blue streaks forced the creature's mind and disrupted Gabrielle's chaotic dozing. A slow gaze into Gabrielle's eyes when they finally met his caused her to flinch. She whipped back her head when instinct prevailed, before she could remember her promise; she had to sustain a pretence for however long it took until this abomination was gone and out of her stare and her life for good.

She braced herself once again, allowing him to touch her. Two grooved and ridged talons had already made their way towards her eyes. Softly and with a subtlety that made Gabrielle near explode as this added surprise filled her with more horror and confusion, her mind like an inner drum filled to capacity and while it teetered on the brink he placed his other hand on her heaving chest and in an instant all was clam. Gabrielle resisted the urge to look down for fear of endangering her eyes with his touch upon them.

With a slight and gentle pressure a deep serenity enveloped her. All the chaos began to evaporate as she succumbed to a hypnotic, detached and alien sense of being, which paraded all she had suffered out and away. She could almost watch it all as it left her now sleeping and wrecked body.

dorian hanes · Tweet this Post! #2 (**permalink**) 08-09-2007, 06:41 AM

You know me so with that...

Was this a space error or did you mean to make these statements separate?

Quote:

Panting to catch her breath she let go of a tremendous build up of fear, loathing and disgust, interwoven with a mind bending puzzlement of how and why and what on God's earth was this messenger from hell.
Her piercing, tortuous scream brought an onslaught of birds, nested in the quirky hollows along the lining of the cave and rats that came upon her in their scampering and fled as quickly as they had appeared.
Before she could stop, the returning lightning strikes brought with them heavy and deafening thunder. A windstorm drove into the caves for a few feet, lashes of rain.

These *** should be centered and not found at the left side of the page as you have previously typed.

Quote:

He walked away from Gabrielle's pleading eyes as if to further distance himself from temptation. Gabrielle lay back as gently as she could and cried once more, accepting her attempts to be futile.

Another day had passed and time was pressing as forks of lighting's rage and a now ash orange crescent beckoned and forced the creature to make a choice. He mistook Gabrielle's heavy sleeping, coupled with her severe bruising, to be a sign that ovulation had begun and was entering a state she would remain in whist she carried his lifeblood, which would thrive until they emerged. Only then could the giver of the life return to reclaim what was his.

There is too much space between these paragraphs that is my opinion.

Quote:

She braced herself once again, allowing him to touch her. Two grooved and ridged talons had already made their way towards her eyes. Softly and with a subtlety that made Gabrielle near explode as this added surprise filled her with more horror and confusion, her mind like an inner drum filled to capacity and while it teetered on the brink he placed his other hand on her heaving chest and in an instant all was clam. Gabrielle resisted the urge to look down for fear of endangering her eyes with his touch upon them

A missed period at the end of this paragraph.

All in all, this is still a riveting narrative.