storypaint (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
storypaint) wrote2009-01-05 01:34 pm
storypaint) wrote2009-01-05 01:34 pm
Warcry (Tobias/Rachel)
Title: Warcry
Day/Theme: Oct 22 // the killer in me
Series: Animorphs
Character/Pairing: Tobias/Rachel (set post-series)
Rating: PG for hunting references.
Excerpt: I'd like to hear her again, under different circumstances. I'd like to see her smiling in a white cotton dress and chunky bracelets, to sit gently on her shoulder and let her stroke my feathers, to morph human and try to remember how to kiss a girl.
The killer in me has Rachel's voice.
It is something I have refused to admit to myself in the past, but I am a hawk and hawks cannot lie. Or rather, they have no need of lies. They have their eyes and the sky and the moment.
That is all a hawk needs. It's all I need.
The problem being that sometimes, as a human, I want.
*
I'd like to hear her again, under different circumstances. I'd like to see her smiling in a white cotton dress and chunky bracelets, to sit gently on her shoulder and let her stroke my feathers, to morph human and try to remember how to kiss a girl.
(Not that I have had much experience with that, in any case.)
But she's dead, she's gone. I spread her ashes myself, flying higher as the heavy urn got lighter and lighter, thinking about spiraling downward until I just hit the ground and didn't have to worry anymore.
I thought about it and I scanned the forest, looking for a good tree to bash my head in, and the hawk's voice in my head cried, Squirrel! with great interest, and I ended up dropping the urn and catching dinner.
*
When I was human, I was not particularly interested in death and its trappings. My uncle never took me hunting and my aunt was vegetarian. I had no need to think about small, scrabbling mammals. It just never came up.
When I became a nothlit, I realized that I had no one to depend on except myself (perhaps that is unfair, I know Jake tried, but trying isn't enough to keep anyone alive for long). So I learned how to hunt, and I hated it before I loved it.
She always loved to watch me, as morbid as it sounds. There is so much power in your talons, she said to me. There is an elegance in your body when you pounce, like a big cat given wings. I don't know about that. But she enjoyed it.
Rachel did not enjoy dying, but she always enjoyed the fight.
*
She is with me when I stalk the scrabbling creatures in the brush, when my talons close on fur and flesh. She catches the movement from the corner of my eye and she dives with me, screaming.
It's not what I want, but it's all that I can have, so it has to be good enough.
Day/Theme: Oct 22 // the killer in me
Series: Animorphs
Character/Pairing: Tobias/Rachel (set post-series)
Rating: PG for hunting references.
Excerpt: I'd like to hear her again, under different circumstances. I'd like to see her smiling in a white cotton dress and chunky bracelets, to sit gently on her shoulder and let her stroke my feathers, to morph human and try to remember how to kiss a girl.
The killer in me has Rachel's voice.
It is something I have refused to admit to myself in the past, but I am a hawk and hawks cannot lie. Or rather, they have no need of lies. They have their eyes and the sky and the moment.
That is all a hawk needs. It's all I need.
The problem being that sometimes, as a human, I want.
*
I'd like to hear her again, under different circumstances. I'd like to see her smiling in a white cotton dress and chunky bracelets, to sit gently on her shoulder and let her stroke my feathers, to morph human and try to remember how to kiss a girl.
(Not that I have had much experience with that, in any case.)
But she's dead, she's gone. I spread her ashes myself, flying higher as the heavy urn got lighter and lighter, thinking about spiraling downward until I just hit the ground and didn't have to worry anymore.
I thought about it and I scanned the forest, looking for a good tree to bash my head in, and the hawk's voice in my head cried, Squirrel! with great interest, and I ended up dropping the urn and catching dinner.
*
When I was human, I was not particularly interested in death and its trappings. My uncle never took me hunting and my aunt was vegetarian. I had no need to think about small, scrabbling mammals. It just never came up.
When I became a nothlit, I realized that I had no one to depend on except myself (perhaps that is unfair, I know Jake tried, but trying isn't enough to keep anyone alive for long). So I learned how to hunt, and I hated it before I loved it.
She always loved to watch me, as morbid as it sounds. There is so much power in your talons, she said to me. There is an elegance in your body when you pounce, like a big cat given wings. I don't know about that. But she enjoyed it.
Rachel did not enjoy dying, but she always enjoyed the fight.
*
She is with me when I stalk the scrabbling creatures in the brush, when my talons close on fur and flesh. She catches the movement from the corner of my eye and she dives with me, screaming.
It's not what I want, but it's all that I can have, so it has to be good enough.