Blooded

I run...it seemed I was always running. Purple and black skirts swishing out behind me with my three tails as I pant. My silver hair flies out behind me, and I can hear them...hear them screaming, shouting, cursing my people's ways. Heathens, wizards, witches, harlots...we gypsies are a hated people. I do not remember a time in all my 18 years when we were not hated. My family constantly moving from town to town, only wishing to make a living. We are a large family, nearly 50. Parents, Children, Grandparents going back several generations, cousins, aunts, uncles...we are not all vulpine, as I am...some are feline, canine, bovince, equine, mustiline...all species...crossbreeds. But to the towns...our species matters not...we are monsters always...those who desecrate their churches, steal their children, seduce their sons and daughters. This time they follow us with fire and far implements. I can see in the corner of my eye the fire glinting off the sharply twisting bits of metal, the angry, rabid look on their faces.

I see the wagons leaving, charging off without me. I will never make it in time, and my family cannot risk being caught by my ill made time. I can feel the heat of the flames against my wings, my back. I look around hastily for a place to escape, a place to run to...Ahead, a thick wall of pines that extends up the side of a small mountain...with my last bit of strength I surge forward, panting, into the thick darkness of greenery. The sharp scent of cedar and pine and aspen assails my nose. I shake my head, wrinkling my muzzle delicately. I wait, silent, sitting in a small pile of rust hued needles..waiting. I hear shouts from the rode I only moments ago fled. I curl up tightly, spreading my black, black wings, and lie still...so very still. I pear out from the slit were my wings fold onto one and other.

I wait more...the confused villagers look, then turn towards the woods and charge through the boughs. Darkness slowly falls. I can feel their footsteps as I lay with my muzzle and cheek against the pricking needles, and I constrain my breathing as best I can, praying to the Goddess and Lord above that it does not betray me. They grow weary as the moon rises, a pale disk of milk across an ebony sky. They are a superstitious people, and the dark frightens them. I remember times not so long ago when my siblings and I lit great fires in the autumn meadows and danced underneath the fullness of the moon, her light and the fire setting the glow of life to our fur, and we spun and danced and praised the earth, our mother, for life, for love, for food, for the glory she has given us all.

At last...at long last, the final villager leaves the wood, making the sign against evil across his leonine chest, clutching his dully carved wooden cross close to his breast, taking one last sweep with his golden feline eyes. He turns and follows the last torch bearer out of the wood. I relax, and then remember that now I have no one, for my family is surly miles from here by now...and I begin to sob. My eyes are too clouded with tears for me to notice something moving behind me, to feel the cool wind when I know there was no wind before, a wind that moves nothing but the delicate silver of my hair and the tips of my feathers. I turn, waiting to be engulfed in fire, to be impaled upon some gleaming farm instrument that once was used to grow vegetables for a family.

But I see only him. He is tall...still enshadowed. He moves forward, the light from the moon cascading down on him. I almost think him an illusion, for his fur is the same color as the pallid light that now moves around him. He smiles to me, cool...he is lupine...wolf...his eyes are dark...not black...but brown, the color of sweetest chocolate, of rich earth...He wears a black shirt which is laced up the front with a thin strand of silk the same color as the shirt...his hair is raven, truly black, a thick wave down to his back, long, luxurious.