Tension was high, it felt the air was being drawn straight out from his lungs. Ears burned from the intensity of the heat, widening his pores and sweating a stream down his back. The beast stood at the bottom of the rise he stood atop, staring the menacing blue eyes at him. Such feral ferocity in her eyes, animalistic and beastly. Shivers ran down his spine, however, he could not marvel what she was. In a sense, this was nature’s natural product, an equilibrium that he yet did not understand but certain that was needed.

Skidding down the slippery slope, he neared the creature that awaited him. Her eyes trailed his movements, keenly attentive of his every action. There was no doubt that she was filled with suspicion, and truthfully, he was not going to blame her for whatever outcome awaited him. He felt strangely at peace.

Approaching closer, he took tentative steps, testing how far she would let him go. Her quivers started to vibrate, threatening a primal violence. This was as far he was going to go, at least he was close enough where he did not have to yell across a battlefield. The quarry she held in her firm grips sobbing calmed down, but she still grimaced, pained from her missing limb.

He took a deep breath. “Let her go.” He ordered calmly and authoritatively.

She exchanged glances between her prey and him, thoughtfully grumbling in an undertone.

“Why?” She asked.

There was a burning anger in her voice, eyes seethed in bloodlust, and teeth clenched animalistically.

A pause.

“Why must you show compassion?” He queried. Unsure what she meant by her ambiguous question.

“Why? Why? Why?” She repeated hushedly to herself, snorting into the ground as she whipped her head between each sentence.

Good, she is thinking. Aput thought.

He took another step closer, thinking it was an indication that he could do so. She whipped her attention back at him, growling with teeth showing, indicating she did not like his approach the least bit. He held hands out, gesturing to calm down. Stopping again, not taking any unwarranted liberties with her.

“Why what?” He repeated himself.

“Why do you treat me indifferently? Why must she live? This is what everyone wants, no?”

Shock briefly gripped him, this was the most she ever spoke to him. He did not realize how much his actions had confounded her, but he does not blame her for that. It was abnormal for anyone to knowingly protect a demi, society had cast them aside and hunted them like a plague. Taking all the information in, he considered his next few words carefully.

“You should let her live for the same reason as I did, to be the first to show compassion. That is why I treat you, not indifferently, but as an equal.”

“Equal?” Her voice rose. “You view me as an equal? I can kill you in an instant, and you’d never even notice. Or a slow and painful death. Yet, you dare consider me as an equal?”

“You’re right, and I acknowledge that I can’t ever consider you as an equal. We both have our obvious differences in strength, and because of that, we are not equal.”

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Her fists tightened, thinking she had received all she needed to know from him. “But!” He intervened.

The beast’s attention was captivated again. “But?” She growled.

“That does not mean I cannot treat you as an equal. For that reason alone, I showed you compassion. Just because one has the ability of superiority over another, does not mean they have to act with superiority. Show her the same compassion as I did.”

She exchanged glances between them two. “She will leave me, and betray me. Wildebeest says it is safer to dispose of her now, before she becomes a nuisance again.”

“But that is not why you want to kill her. She is like you, isn’t she?” He said.

“Yes.”

“I am sure your safety is important, but you loathe what you are. That was why you deep down hate her too.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“How can you ever expect her to show you compassion if you yourself never showed it first?”

“How could she expect this compassion you speak of if I never received it myself?” She challenged him.

“You’re wrong. I was the first, so it is your turn.”

He stepped in closer to her, even though her quills bristled again. Placing a hand on her arm that gripped her, he pleaded with all of his heart for her to prove him wrong. There was warmth pulsating through her arm, it felt strangely soothing to realize that despite her deformities she was still human beneath that layer of monstrosity. That was what he called for, the human side to rise up to the occasion.

“Treat her as your equal, she may not be your equal, but let her experience that compassion as well.” His eyes narrowed. “If you cannot treat her as an equal, then end my life along with hers.”

Nothing but warmth in every word, he tried to reach out without being forceful. Undoing the mistakes of his past. The blue eyes stared back into his, a connection was being formed. Some sort of mutual understanding was being formed between them, and from that understanding he felt the tension subside. Her grip loosened, dropping her quarry to the ground.

Aput immediately attended to her injuries, finding that her arm was not as serious as he had thought to be, but still serious. He pulled off his scarf and wrapped her stub with it, to keep it from bleeding further.

“No.” She wailed. “Wildebeest, end me. For glory! Let me die and live on in legends.”

He struggled to attend to her with her flailing and kicking, she desperately fought him off.

Another troubled soul.

All he wanted was to help her, but for some reason that he could not understand, she was refusing help. The beast who this young woman yelled at shoved Aput aside, dumbfounded, he reached his arms out in protest.

Did she not have compassion in her after all? Was all my hope for naught?

There was a powerful buzz that started to hum, it was deja vu, his hair stood on end and sparks of electricity started to explode. A blinding light came from the young woman, she glowed a white from a source that he did not comprehend. The beast stood over her, and he tried desperately to stop her but could not move fast enough. Nowhere near as intense as it was as before, the light seemingly died prematurely. Sparks subsided. There was a calm that he did not expect.

Where the woman once flayed violently was now motionless, a calm still and content smile on her face. Aput fisted the ground, angered that this was all he could accomplish. He towered over her, but she ignored him.

“End my hellish life!” He yelled.

Silence.

He was going to repeat himself, but something caught his attention. The quivers vibrated and lines of light reached out like fibers of lightning into the young warrior woman, her throat swelled then her mouth. A small cylindrical object protruding from her mouth, the beast grabbed the thing. At that same moment, the woman gave a coughing bout. He jumped behind her and patted her in the back, massaging the nape of her neck. Whatever it was that was taken out of her, it did the trick of revitalizing her.

The beast took a couple of steps back, holding the object in her hands with a proud smile. Nesting the thing on the ground, crushed it and shattered the earth beneath her along with it. A loud pop and crack shook his eardrums. He held his ears from the loud noise.

“What was that?” He asked.

“Compassion.”