[valefor]

Day and night no longer had any meaning to Valefor. Sunlight never reached this place and at times the young male thought he must have died and gone to hell for some unknown atrocity toward his gods. And yet his body didn't agree with his mind. His muscles ached though he wasn't under any physical stress. His mouth was always dry and his stomache always twisted in hunger. Feral thoughts flooded his brain when food or clean water happened to be available, tearing him away from civility to become the beast he was at heart. The beast Oukoku-Kai had dreamed them to be.

Valefor stared at the wall of the caves thise creatures called the Abyss, his eyes having adjusted to the perpetual darkness. He rolled onto his belly, tortured by the sound of trickling water, his mouth dry as bone as his body craved the cool liquid. But his resolve (and his nose) hadn't broken down far enough yet to yearn for that kind of death. The water smelled acrid. Perhaps that was another way the heathens sought to break him. But he would not be broken. Black tipped ears pulled back against his neck, raccoon stripped tail lashing behind him in sheer determination. He was born into a world of blood and gods and he would be damned if he let some heathens change that.

And yet... Valefor's mind wandered again, his tongue lapping at his nose in a vain attempt to wet it as he remembered all that time he had searched for Ezekiel. The memory of his guilt was still strong, but it also allowed seeds of doubt to bury deep in his body. Ezekiel had lived. He'd returned home in reletively good shape. Had he broken under the will of the heathens? If Valefor had indeed lived and wasn't in some hellish underworld, he wondered if he would ever get out and speak to Ezekiel again. 

With a heavy sigh Valefor rested his head on his paws, his entire body feeling too heavy for him, and let his mind wander further. Back to Oukoku-Kai. Back to his mother. Astryd. The once great and feared leader of the Hawks, retired before Valefor had set out for the war. What would they tell her? That he was captured? That he died? Were they looking for him as they had Ezekiel? Who knew? Valefor didn't. It was likely that he never would.