The moon was high in the sky, and it almost beckoned up at him to look at it, it was so beautiful in the sky. It was still a new thing, a fresh thing in his mind to look up at it, to see all of the sky above him, and that freshness dropped his jaw a little as he stared at the ocean of stars, so bright that it seemed almost impossible to find a truly black spot in the sky, someplace that didn't have the faintest twinkle of something there. And those that were bright, were so much brighter than the others that they looked like rare gems amongst a sea of sparkling sands. Remembering that his mouth was open, he closed it, but the bright smile was still there, so broadly that it seemed as if his muscles were somewhat frozen in place, the smile growing a bit more as he tried to smother it.
Shaking his head a little he remembered that he needed to gather wood, and so he bent down to grab small branches that had fallen down off of the trees. He had not been given an axe or anything of the sort, for it was feared what he might do with it. He had already proven himself to be stronger and more aggressive at night, and his masters were afraid of what might occur if he were to be given such instruments at night. Still, firewood always needed gathering, and they were afraid to do it at night in the wilds, with the beasts that were lurking about, so they sent him instead, for it seemed regardless of what beasts might be on the prowl, he would always come back eventually in the night, unscathed.
He did not know where they were taking him now, but he had overheard them talking about where they were going to sell him off to. Delphi had not been the promising town of trade that they had thought, and he had been the only one who had not been purchased, which had earned him an extra whipping and little food for a few days. By the end of it he had been hungry enough to tear the door from his cage asunder and had run out into the wilds, feasting on the first few animals he could find with that deep, undeniable hunger that filled his every waking thought. Had there been someone unlucky enough to have been in his way then he might easily have killed them instead, but he was fortunate, this time.
The action, however, had lead to rumors that he was indeed cursed by the gods themselves, that he was an agent of Hades, and had escaped from the realm of the dead. When asked about it, he had simply remained silent. He did not know who Hades was, nor where the realm of the dead was supposed to be. Was where he came from not a place of death? He could remember the pit, the place where he'd spent days scratching at. That was a pit of death... what was there to say that he had not indeed come from the land of the dead itself, pulled his way into the world of the living and escaped? After his not saying anything to that, the beatings had stopped, and he was allowed to roam free in the nights provided that he swore a bload oath not to attack anyone in the camp so long as he was given this limited freedom.
He did not understand what a blood oath really meant, but it sounded like the sort of thing one could not ignore. Sometimes though, like tonight, he was tasked with doing things in the night time, thus making it harder for him to find his meals, especially where game was scarce. Tonight though he had stumbled upon a rather large boar and had attacked it, drinking from it until it had stopped fighting him and then finishing it off, gorging on it until he thought that he might explode from how full he felt. He had pondered whether or not he should bring such a catch back to the camp, but had ultimately decided against it. They tended to be skittish when he brought back large animals he'd killed, and they never did anything with them except burn them and make prayers to the Gods that they feared might have gotten offended by such actions.