"Breathe, Kael, holding your breath will only make you shake," whispered Blanc, leaning close to his brother's ear in a quiet attempt to calm him.
But, to no avail, as the arrow was loosed too early, thudding into the trunk of a tree just beside the stag.
As if acknowledging his failure, Kael sighed, frustration gathering into a frown on his small forehead, "You just made me more nervous."
Blanc laughed at that. An easy, gravelly laugh. As he turned his face toward the sky, the wind caught in the strands of his unkempt grey hair.
Then, without a word, he knelt among the damp leaves until he was at eye level with Kael.
"Little Kael," he said, grinning, "your mistake was not in the aim but in the listening. You held your breath and missed. Do not blame me for that."
"Ugh, fine." Kael muttered, giving up, "But what now?" he added.
A confused frown appeared on Blanc's face. "What do you mean?"
"What do we do with the stag now? It ran off! Again!" Kael raised his voice, his impatience clearly audible.
Blanc giggled, his farce nearing its end, "We follow after it, of course."
"But how? We don't know where it ran off this time," Kael tried arguing, but Blanc was already past him, running eastward at a speed that shocked Kael every time he saw it.
But there was no time for admiration for his big brother, as the distance between them grew bigger, and that only brought fear to Kael.
So, he ran too.
After a few minutes of continued running, stopping, and listening, Blanc halted hastily before crouching down behind a bush, watching to see if the stag noticed it, fortunately, it did not.
Moments later, Kael's approach broke the silence that fell over the scenery.
His tired breath and heavy footsteps clashing in a battle of mismatched percussion made Blanc quickly signal for silence with his hands.
And Kael understood what his brother requested, as he started controlling his breath in long strides, and his previously chaotic trodding now became a careful walk.
Eyes lowered, Kael began scanning the ground, ensuring that no stray twig offered the stag the excuse it needed to run away again.
Once Kael reached him, Blanc held the arrow he'd pulled from the tree, offering it in silence as his gaze remained predatorily fixed on the stag, gauging the distance and the flow of the wind.
"You think you can make the shot?" Blanc whispered, not facing Kael, "It's a fair bit of distance… and I'd wager you're already out of strength."
Kael crouched beside his brother, quietly nocking the arrow to his bow, he replied, "I imagine I can do it."
"Don't you want to get closer, at least?" Blanc asked. "There's a good spot off to the left of us. Go back the way you came, and circle around. The wind should be in your favor. Or…," he added with a sly grin, "do you want me to wound it for you?"
"Can't I just shoot from here?" Kael replied, frustration adding volume to his whisper.
Blanc finally turned to face him. "You've missed four times already. It's high time we start heading back home."
Kael didn't answer. With a quiet click of the tongue, he turned away, retreating just as carefully as he'd come.
While Kael positioned himself, Blanc remained still, eyes locked on the stag. The beast, completely unaware of the danger it was in.
It struck Blanc as strange, even amusing, how oblivious the creature was.
It had been attacked four times in the last two hours, and yet there it stood, grazing without a care in the world. He couldn't understand it. He wouldn't even try to.
He'd been taught to discard ignorance like an animal discards its sickly pup.
A cruel instinct, perhaps, but one born of survival. Beneficial for the well-being of the herd, no matter how harsh it seemed.
And he knew Kael would come to learn those same lessons in time. But Blanc didn't rush it. He didn't speak them aloud.
There was something worth savoring in his brother's innocence.
But, time for such thoughts suddenly ran out as Kael was now close enough that a hit was all but assured.
After a last check of the surroundings and the prey in front, Blanc gave a nod to his brother.
A moment later, one that seemed to stretch like an hour, the arrow flew, striking the stag foul in the neck.
The beast crumpled, choking as its legs flailed, struggling to breathe.
Kael leaped with joy. "I did it, Blanc! I've done it!" he cried, ecstatic.
But Blanc didn't share the feeling. "Kael, for Vita's sake, put the poor animal out of its misery."
"What?" Kael froze, the celebration cut short by confusion in an instant.
"I said, put it down. Now! Or I'll do it for you, and all this effort will have been for nothing!" Blanc snapped, his voice rising, frustration boiling over as he watched the scene unfold.
The stag thrashed wildly, its legs kicking up leaves and dirt, terror visible in its wide, dark eyes as it gasped soundlessly for air.
"I-I don't know how," Kael stammered. "I'm scared! What if I can't kill-"
His panic hung in the air for only a breath, and then, a sharp thud interrupted him as Blanc's arrow buried itself deep in the stag's heart, stilling it in an instant.
A miserable silence followed as Kael stood uncertain, the chaos in his heart slowly subsiding. "Brother, I..." he began, but stopped just as quickly.
Blanc was already moving toward the stag, his gray eyes, just as gray as their father's, locked onto the fallen beast with a hunger Kael couldn't understand.
It sent a shiver down his spine. It felt like something primal, something wrong. Instinctively, he stepped closer to the source of both his worries and protection.
"Blanc…" he muttered, voice low, but no answer came. His brother was already kneeling beside the body.
With practiced ease, Blanc placed a hand on the stag's chest.
He moved with the calm of someone who had done this many times before, showing no hesitation, no thought spared for what came next.
Kael watched, barely five feet away, tension curling in his gut.
His mind was caught between fear and curiosity, neither strong enough to silence the other.
And then, silence.
Not just the absence of sound, but a presence in itself.
It pressed in from all sides, so thick and complete it swallowed the world whole.
It made Kael remember what the stories of old depicted death as complete and utter nothingness. But that couldn't be.
Kael's eyes darted to the trees and the swaying branches, the damp earth filled with golden leaves, and everything remained the same, yet... nothing did.
The world hadn't stopped, but it no longer felt like it mattered.
As Kael hovered on the edge of understanding, Blanc felt the faintest tug of guilt.
Not for the stag, but for Kael. Their older brother, Valar, had explained it all to him once, years ago, after his first kill, walking him through each step he had to follow, with a voice as steady as a mountain.
But Blanc had offered Kael neither explanation nor kill, and he blamed himself for that.
Still, there was no time for words. The moment demanded presence, not thought.
Raw Vita always felt slippery to Blanc, and the essence itself did not yield to half measures. It requested to be received, fully, completely, or not at all.
So he sank deeper in the feeling, crawling onto his skin, trying to find its way toward his soul, allowing him to attach himself to that moment, to the quiet hum of the silence, beneath the surface of the normal world.
Yet the stillness demanded discipline, a sharpening of the senses, not their dulling, so he threw even the thoughts away.
And the breath slowed, the muscles in his body stilled, locking him in his place.
Every part of his body suddenly became a vessel, ready to receive what the world was about to give.
Raw Vita was the prize of the hunt. And he would not waste it.
The air began shimmering above the stag's body as if heat rose from its blood.
But there was no warmth, only wilderness.
Then, like mist pouring in reverse, faint strands of crimson and amber began to flow out of the beast's chest, slow and with purpose, curling through the air, drawn towards Blanc.
The strands started to pulse as they began touching him, the rhythm constant, as if taking in the beating of Blanc's heart.
And as they sank deeper and deeper, Blanc knew that the stag had successfully marked him. Not as a burden, but as a gift, the Raw Vita was now part of his soul and body as he felt strength gathering in the muscles of his limbs, clarity sharpened behind his eyes.
For a moment, he was the stag itself.
He felt the tension of a predator's stare, the wind rushing passed antlers he knew he didn't have.
There was no flash behind his eyes, only a subtle shift.
The world tightened around him, and panic surged in his heart, but he remained steady. And the muscles steadied. The vision narrowed. The breath in his lungs deepened.
The Raw Vita made no sound as it bound itself to him, yet a hum lingered behind his sternum.
A new thread, he now felt, pulled him closer to the world's rhythm. He felt faster now. Stronger. Perhaps, a little more attuned to the whisper of the wind and the touch of the forest.
The scene before Kael's eyes offered no answers to his racing mind, as he watched the crimson wisps wave their way towards his brother.
It even crossed his mind to aid him, but he held back, thinking that if there was an issue, Blanc would be able to handle it, just like before.
He always protected him and his younger twin sister, Lune, and they loved him dearly for it, even though they had a different mother from him, he still saw Blanc as nothing less than his brother.
His favorite sibling, actually, concluded Kael as he watched him, the fear he had not long ago, replaced by the love he had for Blanc.
A moment later, a tremor could be felt below his boots.
Not violent, but undeniable.
And, as his brother opened his eyes, showing the same gray yet eyes that held something more than before, Kael finally remembered what he was witnessing.
The long and boring hours of lessons he received from his older sister finally started making sense.
"Vita…" he whispered to himself.
And a smile crept on Blanc's face, seeing Kael's realization. "Let's go home."