[OPEN] yesterday, there was blood

[Mystery]

Yesterday, there had been blood.

On these sands that were now barely warm enough to make his feet itch through his boots, there had been blood. Not nearly enough of it. Damion was through waiting. It was here on the sands that he needed to meet with Riku again, but she had moved on from laying in wait in the sands. Damion was frustrated. There was the ringing in his ears that said it had been far too long since he'd had his hands wrist deep in something warm and bloody. The ache was there, and a growing gnawing sensation that was driving him completely. Utterly. Mad.

Even Damiosk, the violent, bloodthirsty creature that he was, was keeping his distance. Crouched on the edge of the sands, he kept only his large, whirling eyes on his handler, not even testing the mental leash that had been the subject of a constant tug of war since the day he had hatched and Impressed. He didn't dare. Damion was strung too tightly, too thin to risk it. Damiosk knew his rider, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before they were told to go back home, to Rindell, if only for the peace of Damion's mind. Move from one hunting ground to the other.

Damiosk had learned long ago to watch his handler. To observe him as anyone might. From the tense shoulders to the movement of his eyes, Damion was stalking back and forth through the warm sands. There had been blood here, it might not have been much, but Damion had missed it. Not all of it, he'd shown up somewhere towards the end but there had been no death. What was a hatching without a little death. What was life, without a little death.