[ Erik jolts in place, muscle locked down stiff over bone at the hiss and crack of the bolt over his head. The beast drops.
When he looks back to her from the twitching corpse, the look in his eye is somewhere halfway between gratitude and a solid middle finger, steel cable tension still pent up beneath short breaths and the edges carved in hard around his face.
He takes a long swig of water, and then another, watching her all the while, until he’s had his fill and cast the canteen back down into his pack.
Three more of the abominations are on them before the canteen hits bottom, rasping, rattling, all hooked talons and plucked feathers. The knife on Erik’s belt has stapled one to a tree and returned to his hand in the time it takes him to square on the other two dropping through the branches, sweat stinging his eyes, burning behind his sinuses.
no subject
When he looks back to her from the twitching corpse, the look in his eye is somewhere halfway between gratitude and a solid middle finger, steel cable tension still pent up beneath short breaths and the edges carved in hard around his face.
He takes a long swig of water, and then another, watching her all the while, until he’s had his fill and cast the canteen back down into his pack.
Three more of the abominations are on them before the canteen hits bottom, rasping, rattling, all hooked talons and plucked feathers. The knife on Erik’s belt has stapled one to a tree and returned to his hand in the time it takes him to square on the other two dropping through the branches, sweat stinging his eyes, burning behind his sinuses.
He hasn’t been alive quite as long as she has. ]