DREAM SWALLOWER.

In common lore, the Snow Leopard symbolizes Intuition, Solitude, Secrets,     Allure, Sexual Prowess, and PURITY. A solitary animal, it watches, observes, and collects information, striking only when beneficial. It cares well for its own, and is often associated     in legend and lore with self-discovery through excruciating trial. It is only appropriate, then, that Amycus produce such a manifestation of his own soul, for his own trial by fire (or ice) is ever burning.

“  Snow bursts     from beneath the feet of his steed, plumes, waves like a powdered sea,     settling into his hair, dampening his shoulders; a strange cacophony of     sensations this is, to be flanked by friends, to sit astride a steed known     from birth, to chase after a family of deer with such plebian fervor – but     to do so while wielding such magnificent power. Wand rolls between gloved     fingers, cutting down branches and bursting birds into plumes of smoke and     feather as he passes, the master, the pointed lead of the deadly formation.     All it is, is fun – they give no thought to slaughtering deer, to gutting     them and leaving them to bleed upon the snow simply for their amusement;     Amycus cannot help but wonder if his horse has some sort of moral     objection to chasing such a close cousin to its death – but the thought     only makes him laugh. Long before he killed the poor boy whose last sight     would be the brick alley outside a dingy pub, he finds his release in the bloodshed of     animals. After all, they cannot really     fight back, can they? Perhaps the mountain lion can, the bear, the     cougar whose skin now serves as a rug in his mother’s boudoir, but never     the deer. And there is something almost erotic about complete and total     domination. Surely his comrades smell his power, even now – they’ve seen     it before, and they’ll see it now, even if the prey has neither the power     nor the foresight to fight back. But this is joy in its essence – a band     of brothers, warriors, like-minded personifications of violence itself who     kill not for the pride, the purpose, the profit, but for the thrill of     watching blood spill over an untouched bank of snow. Amycus throws a wild     grin, a haphazard glance, over his shoulder to one of his comrades, who     thrusts his wand in the air. He looks to the other, who does the same. He     looks forth, wand thrust forward and battle cry, a flurry of     indiscriminate curses slipping from chapped lips, and urges his horse     forward.

   The first deer falls with a whip-crack and a plume of red light, and -