“Yeah, I’ll be seeing you!”
Sára smiled, the calls and laughter of her friends fading away into the trees as the female ulaya bent down to the stream for a drink. The water felt pleasant and cool to her tongue, the soothing gurgle of the rivulet flickered past her muzzle, and the familiar forest noises called all about her. All was right with the world.
Then she became aware of the presence of someone else. Someone behind her, watching from the woods in the sudden silence that fell like rain. She turned, expecting her friend Aurnia to have followed her, perhaps. But what she found was something quite different.
Long dark hair streaked with silver pooled around paws encircled by wide bands of metal. A thick chain connected them that glinted dully like tarnished silver. His pelt was black as night with a single crescent moon suspended underneath the tiny jeweled skull at his forehead, and curled horns the pale white of bleached bone parted the flowing mane. While those eyes… Bloodred, slit-pupiled, and compelling, they bored into hers with an intensity that truly made her feel small.
She tried to speak, but her normally bold voice came out as a choked whisper. “I…” The air seemed suddenly darker, more cruel and unkind.
“Your name?” His voice was low and soft and grave-quiet. This was not a creature who had to shout to make himself heard. A quiet command beyond anything she had ever experienced radiated from every fiber of his being. The kind of command that froze others where they stood.
“S-Sára,” she whispered. It had been a long time since her kithood, or at least she told herself so, but this ulaya seemed to bring back all those childish fears and nighttime terrors by his simple presence. Who was he? What was he?
He moved then, muscles rippling underneath the sleek coat as he flowed to his feet. Broad wings of age-darkened ivory, with tips so sharp they seemed to score the very air, fanned out to either side, and those cool ruby eyes held her where she stood, half-turned to face him.
“Are you afraid, Sára?” the god asked quietly.
Afraid? She wasn’t afraid of anything!
“Yes.” The traitorous word came out unwillingly. He seemed to test it, to nod in satisfaction at finding that it rang true. “Then let us dance,” the other said, and plunged into her mind.
A dark, smothering touch pressed down upon her, the landscape around them flickering madly. Then the outside world was gone altogether, and all the fears she thought she had forgotten replaced it. She was alone in a barren world of ash and dust, wailing her loneliness to an uncaring sky. She was surrounded by a pack of older kits, all nudging and cruelly tormenting the younger. She was watching as her mother stormed off, leaving her and her siblings in the care of their bewildered father. She was shy, she was grief-stricken, she was alone, forever unwanted, but above all else she was terrified.
Dimly she was aware of the god seizing her fears as they roared past, seizing and somehow taking them into himself. But the pain – oh, just let it stop, anything to stop the pain pain pain… Whatever he was doing tore at her very soul.
Finally he receded, leaving tatters of her oldest and dearest defenses in his passing. She was back in herself, but still felt like her soul was bared to his uncaring gaze, as exhausted as if she really had been chased by demons.
“Who… who are you?” she gasped between sobs, her sweaty flanks shivering uncontrollably.
“I am Kuragari,” the God of Fear said. Cold. Implacable as the storm.
-----------------------------
Kuragari watched as the female wept into the dirt, unable to lift her face up to look at him again. They never could, he thought to himself, amusement flickering through him without ever touching those bright eyes. But she had been quite… enjoyable… in her own way.
His mouth curved into a small, secret smile. And that smile was possibly the scariest expression that had ever been seen on his face.
“No regrets,” he whispered. It was soft, like a prayer. Then he let the shadows wrap around him in a caress and the darkness under the trees envelop him.
He was the God of Fear.
