...And The Moon Was Hungry | Bonfire

[THEM]

[align=center][div style="text-align:justify;width:55%;font-family:verdana;"]Really, he should be in more pain than this. He should probably be dead. Surviving a lightning strike wasn't exactly a likely scenario for most, and yet Vathmos managed to hit him with just as many volts and he's still breathing. Alive, holding onto scraps.

His vision comes back double, and he remembers how many times he's seen old roguemates survive the impossible just because they were too drunk to flinch. Figured his stupidity kept him from getting his throat torn out - if he had hesitated at the last moment, any more agile and any less drunk, Vathmos would've had him right by the windpipe. Instead she caught him in the tail-end of his nosedive, snagging the jugular but mostly gashing the tendons that kept his neck and his shoulders in one piece. It would heal in time. He'd be bandaged and aching for a while, but he would be fine.

(Snarl wouldn't let him be anything less.)

His limbs are tense, sore - all Kazuhira can do is focus on the harsh, panting breath wheezing in and out of his nose. He keeps a rhythm, at least until his instincts take over and he stutters into hyperventilation. It's a desperate attempt to exchange oxygen without the volume of blood it had before. His field training kicks in just enough to parse that he should be elevating the wound, applying pressure - but he's too far away from his own mind to do much more than twitch and think of how heavy his paws feel. "Hah... What the fuck?" His vocal chords are fried, for sure - maybe the others would be grateful to have a few weeks' respite from his constant barking. (He'd laugh to himself in his disorientation if it didn't hurt so much.)

In another place, another time, powers were stuff of legend. Certainly his team had heard of the lone wolves that could tear down forests in a breath, walk through walls, rain hellfire from the skies. But he'd never seen anything like it. Mutations of any extreme could be explained away as freaks of nature, though even they were few and far between in his exploits. The rest remained fireside banter - myths of science experiments running loose and eating you up at night. Nothing he had to train for, to worry about. At least, not until Vathmos sank her teeth in and showed him what lightning felt like firsthand.

Barely a rasp of a breath escapes his throat as he stares up at Snarl, her twisting body lunging for Vathmos' hind leg, the anger in her voice ringing high and violent in his ears. She didn't need to fight. He'd already won for her. It was over, now. His legs aren't cooperating, either from the drink or the lulling faintness that comes with the sight of one's own lost blood, but he still grabs for her ankle with whatever strength he's got. Never was Miller one to ask nicely, but it's the closest he can get to please. "Sn - What th'fuck?"

The fire goes out, and he realizes he can see a little better. Somewhere along the line his glasses were knocked off his face, cast aside in the dirt - damn, probably scratched to hell, too. In the shift of light he blinks hard, realizing there's a presence at his side amidst the sudden, sinking vertigo. Medics. He struggles a little, tries to be a good patient and sit up to offer better access to the wound - but at best he only shifts under Kiira's paws and emits another wheeze. "Mmhm. M'here." He's going to be fine, so Kiira says. He wants to hear it from Snarl - not because he doesn't believe the medics, but because he wants to hear something other than her raging screams.

Snarl had done enough - caused enough. He was marked, now, with proof of what he'd give for someone else's survival. Was that not enough?