"When it comes to death, nature is much more cruel to predators thanpredators are to their own prey."
—Elizabeth Lowell
. . .
A single word shouldn't be able to hold so much violence.
The wolf suddenly transformed right before his very eyes, becoming larger, so much larger until it was literally towering over him a good foot or two, paws extending into something more human-like until they turned into hands as huge as his entire head till they were grasping onto his neck and hoisting him up high into the air, claws digging into the meat of his neck and drawing out blood.
He screamed.
A w-w-werewolf...?!
Buck struggled uselessly for a couple of seconds, desperately thinking of a way to free himself, a way to save himself. He's not going to die here. He just can't!
He refused to die like this...!
But a sudden change in the air stopped him.
She's here.
"You were quicker than the others... I'd give you that." a distinctly feminine voice remarked, seemingly coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It didn't matter that Buck hadn't heard the voice before nor the fact he hadn't even gotten a good look at her—he knew who owned that voice.
"Aw, stop it," Buck spits out, the fierce, bloody grin on his face completely at odds with his sugary sweet tone. "You're making me blush."
Behind the grotesque-looking thing holding him up, the shadows suddenly... crackled, as though reality itself was glass, shattering, before they effortlessly parted like water, fluid and ethereal as a figure slowly emerged somewhere within its depths.
And Buck involuntarily sucked in a useless breath, all from being strangled, from trying to fight against the oppressing feeling of raw power emanating from her and because—fuck.
The lights above him suddenly flickered to life for a half a second, as though the darkness itself was but a momentary illusion, a glitch in this black reality, and overhead he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of the night sky behind her, one that was filled with too many bright stars, a path of constellations that leads him to one person.
And there she is.
The goddess said to appear if you invoke her name.
Proserpina's eyes were black and so dark, darker than night itself and perhaps more like the never-ending shadows around them. It was the first thing Buck noticed as she seemed to stare down at him.
Her cloak was too long and seemed a bit too large for her too-slender frame that it dragged across the ground behind her even as she remained motionless. And he couldn't help but think that the fabric was the same shade as her eyes and the shadows, that he couldn't really tell where the fabric end or began.
She crossed her arms, causing the fabric to gather up slightly, revealing a pair of pale, almost delicate-looking wrists. Her skin was so pale, so white that it practically stood out, almost glowing eerily against the darkness.
Buck swallowed around the lump in his throat.
The word 'beautiful' doesn't even do her justice.
So unnecessary. So... distracting.
The sudden urge to fall to his knees before her, to beg for mercy and forgiveness... to pray suddenly crossed his mind.
He immediately bit the inside of his cheek.
He wasn't religious, he wasn't going to start now.
"Let me guess," Buck ignored the way his voice cracked, trying to keep it from trembling at the sight of her, "...you've chased after little ole me just to see me dead for yourself? Being a minor goddess must have given you a lot of free time to play tag, huh?"
"Long enough to play, I suppose,"
He snorts. "Didn't your mother taught you not to play with food?"
Proserpina's delicate face curved into a small smile at that, a subtle yet sinister aura surrounding her as she tilted her head ever so slightly, as though to get a better look at him even as her pet deliberately squeezed his neck. It wasn't a tender smile; it was a dangerous one.
And Buck could have sworn if he still had a beating heart, it would have instantly stopped right there and then, "W... what–?"
Too late he realizes that calling Proserpina a minor goddess (or even outright insulting her) was a mistake, because there was absolutely nothing insignificant about her—it was clear to see, in the countless deaths of their kin she had done on her own, the way she brought the others on edge ever since they heard she had set foot in the country.
In the way Buck could feel himself trembling as she seemed to draw near despite standing so still at the same time.
He hadn't blinked.
One moment he was held suspended a good foot from the ground by that shadow, werewolf-like creature but then, the next thing he knows, he saw the goddess staring down at him.
He was on his knees and she reaching down as if to caress the side of his face with such tenderness he almost forgot who—what—he was facing... if it weren't for the ice-cold feeling emanating from her hand despite the glove she was wearing.
She chuckles under her breath, the sound kind of reminding him of bells despite the fact his mind was ringing with a lot of warning sirens as her gloved fingers gripped at his skin hard enough to actually hurt.
"I am not here to kill you," Proserpina tells him.
He wasn't sure if that's a good thing or not though.
Buck couldn't even find himself to be relieved about that (if she was even telling the truth) particular tidbit. Instead, he found himself entranced, looking into those void-like eyes.
He couldn't look away.
There was neither end nor beginning in those eyes.
There was no warmth in them either.
And yet... he could still feel his skin heating up, his chest burning right where his heart feeling like it was about to completely jump right out of his chest the second Proserpina suddenly inched even more closer.
Their lips were almost touching by that point, and whether Proserpina actually intended to kiss him or suck his soul right out of his body, Buck thought, for a terrifying moment that he didn't particularly mind if she did.
"...You are going to do something for me."
