paixaorpg | Licking the Wounds [Closed]

Character(s): Riku, Lumen!puppy
Content: Darkboy slinks off to tend his wounds
Setting: Not far inside Niflheim
Time: Late morning
Warnings: Bleeding?

Deciding that no one was going to help him if he didn't help himself - not that he wanted anyone else's help anyway - Riku cast around for a defensible place to sit and take care of the gashes in his arm. A large bronze sculpture of a dragon roared its statuesque fury at the weatherworn state in which it crouched on one side of the square near a mosaic-tiled wall. Figuring it was as good a place as any, and unconscious of the subtle comfort it offered him on some level - Maleficent really had acted as a mother (of sorts) to him all those weeks - Riku made his way over to it, unslinging his sheathed sword and pulling his shirt off as he went.

None of the half-dead blonde people around him seemed to notice, much less care.

He sat down on a small platform between enormous clawed feet and drew Soul Eater, carefully cutting his shirt into strips to use for bandages. Ideally, he knew he should wash the wound before wrapping it up, but it was important to stop the bleeding right now, and he didn't think he would have trusted a water source in this shantytown even if he'd been able to find one.

It was impossible to put pressure on the bleeding while wrapping the cuts. Bad enough he had to wrap his arm one-handed.

Riku did the best he could, the blood-soaked black and yellow fabric looking more like a daring fashion statement than bandages.

By the time he'd tied the last knot, he was starting to feel light-headed.
No way had he lost that much blood from some piddly injuries a stupid Shadow had given him.
Riku tried to remember the last time he'd had anything to eat.

He couldn't.

Ansem had had control of his body for so long at the end...and he didn't eat, at least not in the way normal human beings did. By rights, he should be faint with hunger.

He wasn't, but realising how long he'd gone without food did make him very very hungry all of a sudden.

But he had no money.
And no one around him looked to have any, either.
There wasn't even a single pigeon he might catch unawares out of which he might make a questionable but nutritious breakfast.

Now that he thought about it, there weren't any rats, either. Or dogs. Or alleycats.

Though there were statues and sculptures and artistic renderings of animals, both mundane and fantastical everywhere.

What the hell was this place?

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Some strange creature—at first, gave the impression of a very large white dog—ambled about the area, sniffing curiously about the air (with its glowing nose that was actually not very doglike at all), because apparently there was something interesting that had caught its attention in this area.

The tip of its whiplike tail swayed slowly as it slunk closer, cautiously, to the boy sitting beneath the dragon statue. In a way, the white 'dog' looked a bit like a wingless dragon itself. Emitting a soft murr, it bowed its head submissively and moved to sit right in front of him.

Tilting its head, void yellow eyes stared up at Riku curiously.

Having no other ideas for the time being, Riku sat where he was, willing the dizziness to pass. He was not going to give in to this. Not here.

He just had to find Sora. And some food.

Maybe he should just rest for a while...

He was just leaning back against one of the bronze dragon's forelegs when he saw his first animal wandering across the square. What was it? Not a dog.

Then again, he was somewhere strange, and Riku had seen enough odd life forms in his travels already not to be too surprised by its non-dogness. It certainly wasn't a Heartless - which was a relief after being followed around by that mutant that had cut up his arm.

He could do without Heartless at this point. That one having followed him had only reminded him of everything he wanted to forget of his recent past. Riku told himself it had followed him because of the unconscious consciousness buried deep in his heart - the one he still refused to admit was there - and not himself.

The creature came right up to him, allbeit by a circuitous path, and seemed friendly enough.

Riku had always wanted a dog. He and his mother were lucky if they could afford food for themselves, much less an animal. He'd never been allowed to have one.

So it was a rare boyish smile he offered the creature sitting in front of him as he reached out to let it smell his (left, unbloody) hand before going to pet it.

"Hey, boy," he said. "Where did you come from? Are you lost?"

The creature gave a dismissive dog-like whine, bowing its head a moment then looking back up at him. It stood up again and came closer still, its large white ears pressed against its head. Obviously it couldn't answer Riku with words, but it came right up to him and set its big head in his lap, looking up at him with those hollow but bright eyes.

Stupid as it seemed, this was the first kindness and affection Riku had received in months. It made his heart hurt with loneliness. Animals were so unconditionally accepting. This creature didn't care that he'd murdered people and destroyed worlds - and enjoyed it. It wasn't going to judge him for having betrayed, attacked and used his dearest friends.

He clenched his teeth against a lump forming in his throat and petted the trusting head that rested in his lap. It wasn't furry exactly, but. His blood pressure started to drop, and his brainwaves began to drift into the healing wavelengths it would have if he were petting a real dog.

Riku stroked its ears, his smile becoming more genuine and childlike still. Looking at it up close, he saw how thin the creature was; its ribs could be easily seen through its coat/scales/skin. It had to be some kind of stray.

"Are you hungry, boy?" he asked it. "Maybe we should try to find something to eat..."

The lumen enjoyed the petting, apparently, because it emitted some strange noise akin to a mixture of a purr and a contented whine. At the suggestion of food, apparently it understood that word—it perked up suddenly and pulled away from Riku, opening it's massive (glowing!) jaws and snagging its teeth on a bit of his clothing, as if trying to urge him to his feet.

"You understand me?"

See, this was the best part of life forms in other worlds. They could always surprise you. This thing looked like an animal of some kind, but apparently it was a lot smarter than dogs back home.

Riku put a hand up to its snout and carefully detached it from his pantleg so he could get up. He closed his eyes a minute as a nauseating wave of dizziness passed, and then looked down at his companion.

"You know where there's food? Let's go!"

He was starving in spite of feeling sick to his stomach.

The dog thing backed up slightly, looking up at Riku, almost as if it were suddenly confused. It began to turn a moment- but seemed to be hesitating somehow, and suddenly came back to Riku, its glowing snout finding one of the boy's hands and suddenly, without warning, it's glowing maw opened and chomped right down on his fingers, giving the arm a good hard YANK.

Its eyes began to illuminate more than they had been before, the scales of glowing yellow on its back rising and brightening, almost as if it were signaling it was being threatened. Riku would probably begin to feel a bit energized despite the pain...

"Aaah!"

A detached part of Riku's mind snarked that it WOULD get his good hand. And his eternal pessimism told him it just figured that the one friendly face he'd found here would bite him.

There was no denying that the creature meant business. This was no playful nip or "follow me to save Timmy down the well" tug on his hand. The way its hackles rose immediately and it was suddenly GLOWing...

Riku fumbled behind him for Soul Eater, inwardly cursing himself for having taken the weapon off and leaving it off.

His chest was starting to feel funny. Both good and bad...and also somewhat as if his circulatory system was having an athsma attack.

"Damnit!" he shouted with rage and grief, knowing he was going to have to kill the first being to show him any kindness in months.

And deep inside him, there was a rumbling, the light pumping into him unwelcome to the deep darkness slumbering there.

The creature growled viciously, tugging at Riku's arm so he wouldn't be able to fetch his weapon, and, perhaps, use it on him. The dog wasn't going to give up so easily, and so hopefully it was strong enough to keep him in place; to add leverage, it sank its teeth deeper into his skin, forcing the light from its own heart into Riku's body, forcing itself to withstand the bitter taste of darkness within him.

This one must be healed. He was full of far too much darkness.

The Presence came roaring up out of the blackness, furious at the pain of the light when it had been resting to heal itself. Like an irate volcano kami, it exploded into the back of Riku's mind.

No! You're supposed to be dead!

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Riku kicked the dog-but-not-like-creature away, hoping he wouldn't lose any fingers in the process.

Before the blast of dark energy could fully form, Riku wrenched his consciousness back from Ansem and snatched up Soul Eater before sprinting off down the street. He needed to put distance between the strange creature and himself, and get somewhere dark and quiet where he could pound his unwelcome hitchhiker back down to the depths of his consciousness.

"Go back to hell!" Riku shouted, getting some interesting looks from the docile passers-by.

The dog let out a loud yelp as it was kicked aside, thus releasing Riku's hand. Its body went tumbling across the glass ground, left far too startled to chase after the boy once it finally regained its composure.

Rolling onto its stomach, it whined and growled with annoyance, glowing nose twitching as its hackles lowered. The scent of darkness was still strong, but it knew there was no way it could overcome it in the boy all by itself...

It grumbled unintelliably, forcing itself to all fours and trodded off half-heartedly.

Licking the Wounds [Closed]

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