[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

His vision blurred as he felt the familiar stab from that last thought. She had become greviously ill whilst caring for him, and they hadn't had the money to pay for a doctor... Thire had found the plant he had been looking for the day after she died. The miracle plant that the town were talking about in hushed voices, that the doctors were overjoyed could cure almost any disease... He had found it, and had brought it home to be greeted by an empty house, his mother's corpse already having been carted away to the churchyard...

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

At least they had allowed her that small blessing, he thought. He knew what people thought of her, and was immensely grateful for the priest who had decided to allow her to have a decent burial. A pauper's funeral, admittedly, but it was a burial, as opposed to being left to rot on a junk pile in the streets. Though he knew the priest had only done it to make himself look generous in the public eye, Thire couldn't help but be grateful - it was the only kindness they had been shown, however tainted, and it meant a lot to him, even though he would never express it more than hanging his head and staying out of sight of the priest. He himself would never even receive a pauper's funeral, he knew - one more side effect of being branded a demon spawn - and he knew exactly what fate would await his body after he died.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He shook himself out of his morose thoughts. After all, what was the use of worrying about what would happen to him post-mortem? He would be dead, after all, and you stop being able to care after you're dead. And nobody else would miss him, especially the people around his patch of the slums. They would probably celebrate, and dance on his grave, he thought grimly.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He had never even considered the possibility of having someone miss him. It was an unthinkable, unimaginable situation to him - that someone would look past the sins of his father, and like him enough to be anything to him... Though he had often wished it, he had never believed in it. After all, who could love a demon spawn, a burden, a pitfall, a stain... He had been called many things, some worse than others, but that one had really hit him hard.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He was so busy thinking these dark thoughts, that he didn't pay enough attention to what he was doing. "Ah!" he exclaimed, as he nicked his finger with the knife he had been sharpening. This was just what he didn't need. Reduced dexterity in his left hand, coupled with the scent of blood to give him away... not what he wanted on a hunting trip. Especially when it came to the Tengel rainforest, where you weren't always the hunter, even if you were the one holding the weapons...

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He wrapped some bloodmoss around his wound, and bound it firmly with some scraps of material. He didn't have any proper bandages, so he would have to make do with rags - hopefully it wouldn't bleed too much. He got his pack together; the bag for carrying food and bait in, the knife, the poison pellets, just in case he got attacked... They wouldn't actually kill, but they would sting the eyes like mad, and the creature would be blind for a few hours. As he left, he looked back at his empty house, seeming so small, sad and forgotten...

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Thire crouched down silently, watching the cuniflare drink at the river's edge. He had managed to approach it from downwind, so it hadn't noticed him yet. He raised his dagger, and got ready to lunge... It never even saw him coming. He put the body in his pack, and made sure to rinse his knife in the stream before heading back into the rainforest to forage for wild mushrooms and other vegetation to flesh out his meal. He would divide the meat, and dry some, in order to make it last as long as possible - he disliked hunting, but he needed to eat.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He settled to eat a quarter of the cuniflare tonight, along with some nettles and mushrooms in a stew. He butchered the cuniflare, and hung various pieces of it over the fire from the ceiling, to be smoked as he cooked. He got his mother's pot out of the cupboard, and went to fetch some water from the river. He had stocked up on firewood, brought from the rainforest, so unlike most people he didn't need to worry about fuel... Most people refused to enter the rainforest because of the moonlings, and the fact that he appeared not to fear them only reaffirmed their opinions that he was demonic.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

As he cooked his stew, he thought about his mother again. She had been so frail, so weak at the end, that he had had to learn to do everything. He desperately missed his mother, and at times he felt like joining her, but he didn't have the heart to take his own life. It would feel like he was betraying her, throwing away all the sacrifices she had made for him, and he couldn't bear to do that to her... So he would ride the pain out, and ignore the stares, and the comments, and the jeers... he would live for her.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

The smell of his cooking attracted the attention of the neighbours, unbeknownst to Thire. As he sat at his pot, they all spoke with hushed voices of the 'witches brew' and 'demonic tonic' he must be making, yet each speaker secretly wished to taste that delicious-smelling stew that couldn't be normal. For his part, Thire simply focused on not letting the house get too smoky, and not letting the stew sit too long or overboil. He would sit there stirring until the cuniflare meat was tender enough to pull apart with just the wooden spoon, then he would take the pot off the fire to eat it. He would normally have sat in the doorway with his mother, but today he just wished to avoid the stares from the neighbours.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

He looked at it; he had clearly underestimated how much he had put in, for there was enough stew for three meals in there. He sighed, and got up to get some empty jars from the shelves. He carefully ladled the extra stew into each jar, and putting the lid on them, replaced them on the shelf to cool. His mother had taught him well; if he didn't serve it out before setting down to eat, she had warned him, he might eat too much and then go hungry. And they had gone hungry, very hungry, many times, and he didn't want to have to face that again, especially alone.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

As he ate his meal, his thoughts again returned to his mother. Gentle, loving, patient mother, who had stayed by him, loyal to the end... He wept into his stew, as he noticed how much it tasted like her stew, yet didn't quite match it. He was alone, and he wept openly as the waves of pain rolled over him, until he at last calmed down enough to eat his stew. Once done, he didn't even bother to wash out his plates; he simply pushed them to the side and lay down in the hopes that sweet sleep would release him from his heartache for a little while...

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

Thire woke, but didn't move. Something wasn't right, he could feel it, and he didn't like it. Whatever it was, it was in there with him, and it seemed to watch him as he lay. He kept his eyes half closed, and glanced through his half-open eyelids around the room. There, in the corner - that shadow wasn't, couldn't be normal. It was too big, and distorted, and out of place in the room.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

It seemed to resonate, almost, against the lifeless backdrop of the wall. Like a plant seems to look alive when placed next to something like a rock. Not to mention the two glowing pits where eyes would be on a normal head. Thire couldn't help himself, he shivered, and suppressed a growl. Whatever this thing was, he felt it wasn't really...alive, even if it seemed conscious, and that meant he had no idea how to fight it.

[ToxxicRenegadeAngel]

But as it turned out, he didn't have to. The shadow just...faded into the- well, it was actually a piece of corrugated iron, but it acted like a wall. Thire got up, and went to check the corner where it had been. He couldn't stop the shivers that ran down his spine, or his fur standing on end, when he saw nothing there to indicate that there had been anything there at all. He didn't even bother trying to sleep after that; he went to the river to wash the dishes, and then sat in the doorway waiting for the sun to come up.