Umirin sits quietly on a thick tree branch, obscured by the dense foliage of the boughs. He waits and watches the little bedded down crop of tall grass below him closely.

Finally, after two days of searching, he tracked down a white doe and her white fawn. They are quite rarely seen, but he found them.

He grips his makeshift bow in his hands tightly, a few arrows tied at his back. He had carved them himself, taken great care to wittle them as sharp as he possibly could have, so the kill would be clean.

Painless.

He shudders, his chest faintly aching at having to kill an innocent creature yet again. However, he's had time now to come to terms with it, with what he will become after this is done. He is calm, ready for it.

Spending some time with the Elders showed Umirin that there has always been little difference between him and the beasts. It had only ever been a matter of circumstances that would put him to follow in their wake.

What he is, they once were, and what they are, he will become. And such is the end to his means.

He's been waiting since last night, blended as one with the environment, for the mother to move aside, reveal her baby. Her form obstructs Umirin's aim as she is now, but this tree is the best vantage point he could get, so he compromised to waiting out the night.

Umirin hadn't slept much, and the little he did, had been restless. He dreamt of Shani, his beautiful smile, his soft touch. Their reunion. His soul feels hollow without his beloved by his side.

But it had turned nighmarish very quickly. Shani turning away in disgust hearing what a monster Umirin became to return to him. His family so sickly pleased about making the right choice to cast him away young given what he turned into.

Sleep tortured him so, so Umirin gave up on it after only a few hours.

The doe below him twitches and wakes, raises her head. Umirin tenses, holds his breath as he reaches behind himself and slides loose an arrow, adjusting it against the bow. He must be precise.

Slowly, the elegant white mass of the animal stretches and lifts to her hooves. Umirin sees the fawn then, mimicking its mother.

He grits his teeth as he draws the arrow back with the bow, arms raised and poised while he aims.

Through the eye. He cannot miss.

He waits, muscles stiff, for the doe to walk a ways ahead. The fawn makes to stumble after its mother, frail and unsure, its tiny legs still far too gangly to support it walking.

Umirin adjusts his aim a final time. The fawn turns its head just so, and he releases his arrow.

He doesn't let himself look away as it flies like a blur through the air. A quiet squelch rings out as it pierces the fawn's head, then the baby collapses onto its side, in a little cloud of dust.

It doesn't twitch anymore. Umirin's aim never fails him.

The alarmed doe jumps at the noise and approaches to sniff at her dead offspring. She nudges her fawn's blood splattered furry cheek, but the child is limp.

Umirin makes himself sit and watch, no matter how his heart petrifies into a lump of rock at the sight of his sin. The least he owes the Forest is not to turn away.

He has become as monstrous as he must.

The doe tries in vain to wake up her babe for a while more, eventually giving up and wandering out of this area, likely sensing danger lurking around.

Umirin climbs down the tree only after she is gone, and takes a deep breath, releases it slowly as he approaches the body and kneels by it. The fawn's fur is so brilliantly white, save for its head. From its burst eye sticks out his arrow, a splatter of starkly red, fresh blood staining its fur around the wound. It couldn't have been more than a few months old. It is so small.

Umirin closes his eyes for only a single moment, before turning back to his mission.

He reaches out and grips the shaft of the arrow and gently pries it loose from the corpse, throws it aside. He needs to bring this body back to the Elders' den.

Before he can scoop up the animal, however, he feels the earth rumble beneath him, and freezes. His head snaps up to study the direction he felt this from. A Soulbiter, definitely, but what type?

He grabs for another of his arrows, his best form of defense right now, gripping it tight as he waits. He might not have to fight if it is an Elder.

After that storm that had passed through the Forest, two of the Elders had set out of the cave and into the brush. Umirin did not ask why nor where they are headed, he pesumes to feed.

The rumbling grows louder as the Soulbiter approaches, the brush bending to its mass plowing through, before it finally emerges into view, its eyes immediately trained on the dead fawn. Not an Elder, Umirin takes in, as it is sparsely striped, its black skin stark against the backdrop of bright green of the Forest, the light of the day overhead.

He gets to his feet and holds his arow with both hands, as if it were a spear. It is much shorter though, and he bristles at how little use it'll be.

The Soulbiter, which had clearly been stalking the doe and the fawn also before Umirin interfered, rumbles closer, its maw splitting as it growls.

There will be no bargaining this time. Regular Soulbiters do not possess enough presence of mind. He hadn't thought Elders did to the extent they do before either.

Umirin focuses on the present moment though, watches the Soulbiter loom closer. So focused on its sharp maw as he is, he almost misses that there is something around its neck, something colorful yet somewhat fused to its black skin. The colors are dirty, faded by now, but he knows they'd been bright once.

He knows, because he had given that exact beaded necklace to his mentor for her birthday years ago.

Heart, he'd never thought he'd see miss Anarin again after she'd been bitten. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to see her like this after witnessing the curse take her, at least.

The last words she'd ever screamed to him in the agony of her body bending and expanding, the crush of her bones snapping and reshaping, were to never falter no matter the challenge before him, no matter the horrors.

He grips his weapon tighter and stands his ground, focusing his gaze on the Soulbiter's eyes instead. Milky and unfeeling. His beloved mentor has been gone for years now. This is only a monster before him now. And a monster is before it, too.

The Soulbiter lunges with a snarl, Umirin leaps out of the way.

He evades its snarling and biting, and bats and stabs at it with his arrow, though it does no damage but for brief distraction to allow him to regain his footing. He hopes to outlast it, evade it long enough for it to give up, because he cannot hurt nor kill it. The only thing he knows capable of injuring a Soulbiter is another Soulbiter.

The beast is relentless though, and no matter how much Umirin beats at it with his arrows or pelts it with rocks, he can not drive it off. If he didn't know any better, he'd assume Anarin's incessantly stubborn spirit is still alive and well within the creature, driving it to get on his very last nerve as she was wont to do. She practiced tough love, but she did love him, he knows that.

He pants with exertion as he keeps dodging this monstrous remnant of her, trying not to stray too far from the fawn's body so he doesn't lose it while evading in circles.

It is dizzying, and he can feel his muscles ache, but he must keep himself moving to stay out of range. The Soulbiter roars after him, enraged by his maneuvering, and it rushes him again, swinging its head at him.

Umirin scrambles to get out of the way before he gets struck, but doesn't manage, he feels the beast's snout slam into his ribs with force that knocks air from him with a cry, sending him sprawling to the ground in a heap of limbs.

He gasps for air as he immediately claws at the ground to get away, kicking his legs haplessly like a fish out of water. The Soulbiter's shadow falls over him, dark as the death coming his way if he doesn't get his body to move faster.

He hears a snapping maw over his shoulder, the beast lowering closer. He rolls onto his back and kicks its snout just above him, burying his heel into its nose forcefully enough to jerk its head away, earning himself precious seconds to try to rise to his feet and put some distance between them.

The Soulbiter recovers faster than Umirin though and savagely snaps at his leg that kicked it, Umirin's body seizing as he feels its maw close on his ankle.

This is it.

A roar echoes, Umirin convinced this is the last thing he will hear in this world instead of his beloved's voice, but a blur of movement halts his racing mind at once. The feeling of teeth around his ankle is gone, and suddenly, there is a powerful thud and even more howling.

Umirin can just stare helplessly at the fact another Soulbiter looms in the scene, one of the two Elders that left the cave earlier, it growls at the smaller form of what was once his mentor.

The Elder rolls in front of him, protecting him, maws poised to battle. The other Soulbiter hisses in turn and strikes.

Umirin pants as their massive, hulking forms clash and collide, a flurry of biting and snapping and crashing blurring before his eyes. He watches, frozen, shuddering at their might as they roar and howl over each other.

It's impossible to tear his eyes away, but he must, because he must secure the fawn before either of the beasts destroy it in their fight. He pushes himself to his feet, his side aching where he'd been hit, and stumbles his way over to the body, scooping up the small, furry white form into his arms, cradling it close to his chest, limp and cold though it may be.

Umirin sneaks his way around the edges of the grass crop, intending to run for the cave. He trusts the Elder can handle itself, and he cannot help it much either way. He is certain it will kill what's left of miss Anarin.

Perhaps that's a mercy, in its own way.

He spares that beaded necklace one final glance in the rush of the ongoing battle, his insides heavy, before turning away and running from there. The dense brush slows him somewhat, but he knows his way well, he'd carefully mapped his hunting paths while he'd been searching for the fawn, he has no trouble making it back to the cave.

It doesn't take long before he reaches the clearing where the mouth of it is. He shudders ahead of time at having to traverse some of its tunnels in darkness, but that cannot be helped. He heads into the cool, damp caverns, and walks deeper, winding through the darkness that consumes him eventually until the first of those glowing crystals shed some light for his remaining way.

He takes deep breaths the closer he gets, wondering what the Elders will do with the fawn in his arms. Heart, it is so light and small. So dainty.

Umirin emerges into the large cavern where the Elders congregate soon, finding four of them there. However, it is not just them.

Before their forms, on the stone floor, his back to the entrance, sits Shani. Wait, Shani? What?

Umirin is struck with shock, freezing mid step as he takes in the shape of his husband. Has his mind broken under the stress of his yearning and conjured up this image? How could he be here?

"Shani?" he manages a small whimper, his soul quivering. Oh, if his husband really is here, he will burst into shameful tears. He missed him so badly.

Something—seems off, though, about his beloved. His head seems a bit...misshapen?

As soon as Umirin speaks, Shani turns around to face him. Umirin gasps at the sight, his limbs going loose with horror, the fawn falling from his arms onto the rocky floor.

His heart has leapt into his throat, he can barely choke words out around it, "Oh Heart my love, what happened to you?"