FADING — o, discovery

[Luca]

Luca hadn't been burned in centuries. The last time he had been bitten by the metaphorical jaws of fire, he had been but a child. It was during his human life, his first life, and it was to punish him for a crime that he didn't commit. He was thrown under the bus a lot back then- all the kids were. It was a part of life that they had to get used to, because when you were caught doing something you weren't supposed to, your only options were to frame someone else or take the overly harsh punishment. He was touched on the stomach with iron heated red-hot; fleeting yet immensely painful. Unlike the electric shocks, burns lingered, heating the skin like the iron had never left his body. Back then, Luca had been reaching the end of his rope. It was pretty close to when he had made the deal, he remembered, and after the deal there were definitely no more burns. The darkness had gifted him dominion over fire, and what he had once feared became his one hope for salvation. Flames would never hurt him again, for now they bowed to him, refused to harm his body.

Because of all this, Luca was understandably confused (and a little alarmed) when he awoke from his nap to find a small portion of his body alight with the uncomfortable sting of a burn. He frowned and pulled himself to his paws, twisting his body to get a look at the painful patch of skin. Usually pain wasn't unwelcome, but it was the mystery of it all that made Luca's heart speed up in his chest. He licked at the fur but there was no rawness, no obvious wound there to be causing him the trouble. He decided to seek out one of the medics to ask them if they've ever heard of anything similar. Ignoring things like that had led to an early death in the past. God, he hoped it wasn't poison.

Luca exited his house and closed the door behind him with a sway of his hips, not bothering to lock it. He didn't have that many possessions he was all that attached to, and the ones he did care about were easily identifiable though scent. Right as he started towards the jungle he was stopped by the sound of splashing, and then a sudden intensifying of the pain on his side. His eyes narrowed in a subtle wince, but returned to normal as the pain dulled again. Luca turned towards the source of the sounds, his sharp ears easily picking it out from the fairly quiet shoreline, and his stomach dropped at what he found. Usually he'd be pretty happy to see Marcellus, but it wasn't the cheetah himself that was causing the hellhound such discomfort. The red burn on his side, equal in size and shape to the sore patch on Luca's skin, was what his eyes were locked on. It took a while for it to sink in. Slowly, he began to move towards his fellow striker, speeding up until he broke into a run. He had been through this sort of thing before, so he had an idea of what was going on. "Marcellus!" Luca said urgently as he ran over. "Are we- did you-" but in the middle of speaking a better idea came to him than spitting out some jumbled question.

His mouth opened in a silent gasp before moving to his pouch and nosing it open, bringing out the small knife that he kept on him at all times. Without thinking he drove it quickly into his own shoulder, ignoring the pain to look up and watch Marcellus with panicked eyes to see if his hypothesis was actually correct. If they were sharing each other's pain, that could only mean a small handful of things, the most likely answer being one that Luca absolutely did not want to face. He wasn't sure he could handle another mental bond, especially with someone that he assumed was mortal.