The avian wheezed and wheezed for breath, feeling himself weakening with each and every step. His stone just constantly kept the field of little oxygen about him, as if trying to get him to just stop. Beneath the obsidian mask, Azazel's carmine gaze dulled. His eyes became glassy as he felt tears prick at his ducts. Heh. It was a good thing that birds couldn't cry... or could they? He blinked, and a bit of water slipped from his eyes and went down his cheeks. The Bone King's chest tightened and he felt as if he were being constricted by a python. Any minute now, he expected, his lungs would burst and he'd be dead.

Warmth flooded him.

A gentle paw lay on his back, and he didn't even struggle. It was almost comforting.

He felt like he was back in his chrysalis.

Warm... comfortable... protected... all things he'd felt before his stone decided to throw him into this cruel and harsh world.

Azazel's struggling and thrashing stopped as he shut his eyes and lay limp on the earth. He sighed deeply, and his stone finally let go of the spell.

As he went to attempt another breath of air... he could truly feel it. Oxygen rushed into his lungs. He wasn't dead.

Or maybe he was.

But he couldn't be.

He was just so warm. Weakly, the avian looked up to find a beak full of pearly white fur. Azazel couldn't help the stupidly giddy smile that spread across his face. "Thank you, Kerberos," he breathed out after a long silence. He wriggled slowly from underneath the cerberus's paw, and looked up again. "I... I'll listen. I'll wait."

table code © rasta 2015