Work Text:
Wounds were something Blóðhundur was familiar with. In the way their little finger and a third of their ring finger were gone on the left hand- others on the right, in how their lungs burned on long treks through the foothills, and how the cold still bit deeper through them than it should.
But, as they also knew well, physical wounds were not the only kind. No, the ones that cut deeper than any blade or tooth came from the mind and heart.
They knew this in the death of Artur by their once young mind, the death of Boone by their once captured heart.
Much deeper beneath them lay their parents, fuzzy memories that were so far away and faint but still managed to claw at them.
Loathe to admit it as they were, Blóðhundur was just as wounded as the prowler they now tracked. Shot, but not killed. Hurt, but still shambling and suffering.
Their world was very much the same, now. Marred but still holding on, be it from spite or resilience, they weren't sure. But it was angry, or perhaps delirious from the fever that had set in so many years ago, left to fester to the surface in great plumes of smoke and flows of molten earth.
Talos was dying, but slowly.
And still that did not stop Hammond from coming back to pick its bones, to crack even them open to extract the very last of its marrow. To leave no chance to ever heal.
Parekh too had joined them recently, a new ship on the earth, brightly colored and seemingly jovial. They could not bring themselves to hate her, though, as much as it hurt to see. Her shop would not add much to Talos's wounds, but to build upon a corpse was odd to them. Hammond sponsored her, and Hound would not put it past them to know perhaps this shop would be doomed as well.
Regardless, they doubted she held any allegiance to them. She didn't seem like the type to care beyond negotiations being settled, getting her lifes work back in order. They couldn't blame her, she was young, and they knew well how youth blinded one to consequences. Hound didn't enjoy the feeling of being a hypocrite.
But that didnt mean it didnt hurt.
