RP:After Rain, Earth Hardens
Part of the A Skull by Any Other Name Arc
Ancient Forest
Senka would very much enjoy painting her coat another shade of red. Already they are turning brown, rust amidst a sea of white, and the taste of pixie is becoming faint on her tongue. She rarely bothers to control her blood lust and even with a skull between her teeth, the beast is in no hurry to do so. Skylei has other plans, leading them through vegetation and underbrush. There are birds, of course, but birds don’t scream when you rip into their flesh. Squirrels, mice, the occasional fox, Senka notices them all in this lazy jog that is very easy to continue when one has four legs. The greenery doesn’t continue, however, and just like that they’re on the edge of the two-walker worlds. Skylei tries to decide where they are, Senka makes up her mind whether she’s up for another hunt. But no, she’s tired. Not in body but in spirit as the occasional flashback of their long, endless, hours of mental torture insist on making an appearance. Another hunt would be taxing, rather than enjoyable. So when Skylei dives into a new kind of greenery, the albino follows without protest. She could do with a nap. A very, very long nap.
Skylei moves through the trees of the forest with a renewed speed. There are two reasons for this increase in speed. First is the fact that she knows where she is. Sage is her home. She knows the lay of the land better than she knows the lines of her own face. She moves with renewed speed, ducking between trees, choosing between multiple paths that look identical to each other without faltering or even pausing to debate her choices. The second reason that she moves so quickly is because of the drow that lurk within the forest. These drow, the hated cousins of their lighter skinned cousins, are sworn enemies of any with pointed ears that lurk within the greenery and have sworn down that all that come within the forest that they have claimed as their own will meet their death. In spite of Skylei’s speed and good intentions the pair quickly come upon a single drow male patrolling the outskirts of the woods. Skylei would draw to a silent halt, attempting to stifle her gulps of air as her mind reaches for Senka, “Drow. We need him dead. He’s in our way.” A silent smile draws across her face as murderous intentions take root in her mind. And yet, she knows pack law all too well, “Do you want to do the honours?” He hasn’t spotted them yet, but continues to pace up and down, drawing ever closer. It’s only a matter of seconds before they’ll lose the element of surprise.
Senka has to appreciate that out of all the two-walker races, Skylei at least has a spot of elf in her. It makes for a much faster travel, one that suits the lingering adrenaline far better. One day, the wolf would love to try and outrun the wind but for now she’ll be satisfied keeping close to Skylei’s heels. This forest is too light for Senka’s tastes, too peaceful and harmless, but it cannot be denied that the forest floor is far easier to run over than the soggy surface that is a swamp. The scent of drow is all around her but being in two-walker territory, the beast expects it to reek of one. What she doesn’t expect is Skylei slowing down, or the wicked smile that takes over. Murderous intent sparks sooner in Sky’s mind than it does in Senka’s and for a moment, the beast is proud. Proud enough for sentiment to take over, it seems: “We’ll do him together.” Just like that it’s decided and the albino only takes a moment to place the skull on the forest floor and free her maw. Even the skull is silent as the predator takes the right side of the drow, lowering her body to the forest floor as she makes for a close circle that will bring the man within leaping distance. Trusting Skylei will be quick in the uptake, and indeed join in this hunt, the beast turns her body to face the drow. The low vegetation won’t hide her for long, but it’ll do while the beast gathers her hind legs behind her and gathers her strength. One heartbeat, one breath, and all her power releases in one fierce leap. Lips pull back, revealing gleaming fangs but no snarl comes from her throat. Not until those bright whites sink deep within the drow’s shoulder, and only then her throat releases a low satisfied, though violent, rumble. Her weight does most of the work, but she still tenses and braces against the forest floor to pull the drow sideways. One arm is useless, trapped between his body and her chest, but the other still swings madly as the man tries to keep his balance, his bow less deadly with only one arm to wield it. With a little luck, his artery will be nice and vulnerable for Skylei to take advantage of. And just in case it isn’t, the albino bites down hard enough for blood to overflow in her maw and leak free from between her fangs, staining her chin a deep red.
‘We’ll do him together’ is as good as a marriage proposal from the albino. A willingness to share the joy of a fresh kill is pure romance from the lycan and Skylei’s eyes briefly widen with surprise before narrowing into a stare of concentration. As Senka leaps into the fray Skylei pulls an arrow from her quiver. She would shoot it into the heart of the drow without any problems, but she wants to feel the pulsing of blood around his body, the life draining out of him; she needs to feel it happen. If she had claws she would have used them instead. She feels that bestial instinct flooding her senses as she moves into to assist with the kill. Whatever Senka’s intention had been, Skylei goes for the neck. Basic medical training means that she knows that this is one of the weakest spots on the body of any race and so that is where she places the projectile with a sharp kick to his flailing arm. As the arrow is dug into his neck, painfully slowly, Skylei stares the drow dead in the eyes. Eventually, she spits in the face of the dark elf and rips the arrow out of the penetrated artery with little to no care. Blood spurts freely, covering her hands and lower portion of her face in a fresh layer of gore, and Skylei turns away in disgust. Drow are disgusting. She leaves Senka to enjoy the dying cries and then the still warm body. Once she’s had her fun, had a snack or whatever it was that she wants with the dead drow, Skylei would continue on into the forest. It would only take a few minute more before they reached the hollow that Skyei had been talking about. Within the trunk of a great tree, the base so wide that it would take twenty people all with arms outstretched to surround it, there is a small hollow, covered over by a great bush that grows in front of it. It’s hidden, warm and dry. Exactly the kind of place any sane person wouldn’t want to go with a lycan with murder on their mind…
Senka ’s disgust for the two-walker form is well known among those she allows to live in her presence, even to the less observant of the lot. It’s weak, breakable and defenceless and it proves this to her yet again as the drow weakens by nothing more than an arrowhead a particularly fierce girl. The albino wants the drow to show it to her, two-walker-weakness, show how defenceless he truly is under the assault of the two-man-pack. There’s wicked satisfaction and a cruel sense of humour in her gaze as he does so, oozing life fluid out of the wound inflicted by her packmate. Red eyes watch without judgement as Skylei then spits in the face of a man she just murdered, even if he’s still dying, and no amount of mind-meshing will ever make her feel remorse. Instead the wolf lowers her noble head along with the drow’s body as he sinks to his knees and tugs to pull him flat on his back. For a moment she looms over him, panting feverishly hot lycan breath into his face as a vengeful ghost from the past. Then without warning, she lowers her head to sink her fangs deep within the soft flesh of his face and gives a twist to rip the tissue clean off. Not even bothering to swallow, she already lowers her head to close her maw over his jaw, feeling teeth against her the fangs on the upper part of her maw and letting the fangs of her jaw sink deep into his chin. She feels one shuddery, fear driven, dying drow breath flutter over her nose before she pulls and separates his jaw from his face. It’s a mess, blood covering her all the way down to her chest but still red eyes need to watch the life vanish from dark male eyes. So much for the drow. Still holding onto his jaw like a sick trophy, the beast easily makes her way over vegetation to the abandoned skull. “Don’t even think about putting that disgusting piece of-“ Harold begins to protest but the beast has already opened her stinky blood-covered maw to clamp it carefully over the smooth skull. Now stuck in a wolf’s maw with another bone to keep him company (flesh still attached) the skull can only sigh as the former alpha trots after her companion. They reach the spot the elf has been guiding her to and for a moment the Elder observes their surroundings. The hollow is peaceful, calm, and everything the lycan usually avoids but with murder on the brain and adrenaline in her veins the beast will settle for anything right now as long as they can rest. She needs a place to calm down or the more murderous part of her will take over and not even see the difference between friend or foe. It doesn’t take a Labyrinth for Senks to have an unusual interest in Skylei’s pulse, after all, pack or no pack. But it does take a merging of minds to make the beast more sentimental, let alone ruin her enough to voice it. “I should’ve taken a souvenir. Something to remember that by,” Other than the drow’s jaw, apparently. With that thought settled, the beast releases a long shuddery breath that has her shivering like an exhausted child on a sugar rush but nevertheless has her mind somewhat more under her control. A quick trot brings the albino into that hollowed out tree, where she reluctantly lowers her hind legs to settle in something that will do as sitting. Murder. Such a rush.
Skylei has second thoughts once the pair reach the hollow. Does she truly wish to crawl into an enclosed, hidden space with a wolf with blood on her maw, murder running in her veins and… what was that? Did Senka just say that she wanted to remember that? Is she talking about the unadulterated joy that they had shared in the thrill of the chase and the tearing of flesh? Skylei doesn’t know if she can express the pleasure that had flooded her veins at the flow of blood from the drow’s. She wouldn’t respond to Senka’s strangely sentimental utterance, simply turning to the albino and offering her a childlike smile of adoration. Whether it’s the wolf she adores or the blood that stains her hands, no one can be sure. Moving through the foliage, her heart still racing, pushing blood around her body in a manner that must be torturous for a lycan with blood on her mind. There is a steady beating of her pulse visible to those with keen senses; the thrill of the hunt has clearly left Skylei more excited than it normally does. What was it that she had said when the two had been alone in the bloody waters; that she had never enjoyed a kill? That shaky fact now lies completely untrue as the half-elf grins and crawls into the hollow alongside the albino. She leaves Senka her space, settling a metre or so away. Skylei, so worn from the quickly dissipating adrenaline that had pumped through her body, curls up into a small ball with her eyes wide open, staring at the albino. So small and pale and covered in blood, Skylei is the strangest juxtaposition of innocence and danger in that moment. She is vulnerable and deadly. She is Skylei and Senka combined, personified and epitomised in one single figure. Her bloody hands, still holding the tiny pixie spine as a makeshift weapon are balled into fists and rest against her mouth, leaving only her stormy eyes visible amid a cloud of dark hair. Eventually she would speak, her eyes never leaving the albino. “Your fur is shimmering.” In spite of the journey that the two have undertaken, dust remains clinging to the albino. As Sky continues to look over the albino, she takes in the injuries that mar the wolf, “Is that a spear in your ear?”
Senka sneezes. There’s dust remaining in her nose too, harmless except for her allergies. Less harmless is the murderous intent thundering through her veins but in the moments that Skylei rests in her curled up form, the albino is beginning to feel it fade. Eventually she lowers her body, that seems so heavy now after all that excitement, in a curve that follows the natural shape of the wood she’s resting against. Her hind legs sprawl to the side but her front legs are still directly underneath her head, ready to push her up and back into battle at a moment’s notice. The adrenaline is fading, yes, but so is her energy and like that child on a sugar rush, the wolf will crash soon. In fact, a large yawn already forces her to drop the hard-earned companion and her little drow-trophy and stretch her paws into satisfied curls. She really ought to tug on someone’s intenstines again. It’s been far too long since she’s used her claws properly- Skylei is speaking, cutting straight through the psychopath’s gentle musings and with a disturbed little blink the wolf looks up to her companion. Just seeing the half-elf curled up is making the wolf feel shivery, cold after all that heated anger. “Those pixies,” The albino adds a comment to that statement, suggesting that the tiny creatures do things that will no doubt be possible only to those who actively practise yoga. “It’ll be a while before I’m dust-free.” And of course, now that Skylei has mentioned her ear does Senka feel the throbbing pain of an open wound. She’ll feel a lot more aches all over her body before too long, in fact, she’s pretty sure she won’t be able to move for the next couple of hours. And move like an old lady after that, probably. “Come and get it out.” Orders. That’s asking nicely albino style. At least her mental ‘voice’ is no more violent than its usual grumpy tone. “Then we can sleep.”
There’s dust in Skylei’s hair too. That mass of ebon locks glistens just as the albino’s fur does although Skylei cannot see that as she’s curled up on the floor. She’s almost looks the picture of naïve innocence. That picture is broken when the half-elf moves her hands down from her face revealing the blood splattered lower portion of her features. Skylei receives her orders and pulls herself up from the floor, stretching her arms high above her head in a deep yawn. She’s ready for rest now, all of the fire that she had felt within her as they ran through the labyrinth, fought the pixies, beat a hasty retreat and fought that drow has gone and now all that Skylei craves is a warm blanket and bed. Still, first, she must attend to the needs of the alpha and pull the spear from her flesh. Now that the adrenaline and bestial hellfire that she had possessed is quelling, Skylei’s hands are shaking. Whether it is the cold, exhaustion or something else that causes the shake of her limbs, it is undeniable that the half-elf is unable to keep her hands steady. As she reaches Senka, she would place one shaking hand on the wolf’s skull whilst the other grips the spear and attempts to tug it free. It’s not easy. The gore that has bled from the wound has near enough glued the spear in place and it takes some force before the half-elf is able to wrench it free of the albino’s ear. Unfortunately, such a delicate operation with such unstable hands leads to less than pleasant results. Though the spear might now be in Skylei’s hands, in its place in Senka’s ear is the little pixie spine that Skylei has been treasuring since it was torn from body of its previous owner. Skylei’s eyes widen with shock as she realises her folly and she attempts to reassure the albino, “Nearly there. Bloody pixies, eh?” Skylei tugs on the spine gentle, but the vertebrae grip tightly to the sides of the wound and refuse to move from within the albino’s ear. Skylei attempts a second tactic, she wraps her entire fist around the spine attempting to crush the bone and break it into pieces. Somehow the spine is resilient to her strength, bending into an incomplete ring instead. With a panicked bite to her lip, Skylei lights a tiny fire in a single finger in an attempt to melt the bone. It melts sure enough, but melds together forming a complete hoop in Senka’s ear. “Just cauterising it. Don’t want any of that dust getting into your system.” Skylei lies smoothly as the smell of burning fur fills the hollow before holding up the spear before Senka’s eyes. “All done.” Sky can only hope that Senka doesn’t realise she’s got a new earring.
Senka has all kinds of stuff in her fur, really. From the swampy residue sticking to the underside of her belly and her paws, to the blood staining her maw and ear until the dust is nothing more than icing on the cake. Luckily the creature never does pay much attention to her appearance unless it’s to intimidate. The wound, however, is irritating and the pain insistent now that there’s a foreign object stuck through her flesh. It’s a testimony to how tired the beast is that she doesn’t even utter a moody huff as Skylei enters her personal space, something she normally defends so vigilantly. All the wolf does is follow the other with her stare and stay carefully still when Skylei reaches out. The half-elf’s hands are shaking and the lycan eyes them dubiously, suddenly entertaining the thought of the spear staying exactly where it is. She might not mind appearance much but if the woman tears off half her ear the wolf’s going to get violent. Sure enough it stings and hurts and more blood soaks through her fur to stick it to her scalp. Her maw wrinkles dangerously and the albino tenses but the fight is already leaving before it can quite set her heart on fire. It’s enough. They’ve done enough. All she wants is that blasted arrow out of her ear and some well-deserved sleep to soften the blow of the mental torture that they’ve been through. Her muscles are aching, her –body- is aching and as she can do nothing but endure it Senka is suddenly quite aware of her years. She’s too old for this sh- “All done.” The beast hasn’t even noticed the spear being replaced, or even the magic Skylei used. It hurt, she endured it, and now it’s time for sleep and that’s all she really cares about. So with a sudden turn of her head, the albino curls back her lip to reveal fangs still stained with the drow’s blood. They reach for Skylei’s muck stained shirt to impatiently tug her forward. Another would have done it with more care, it’s possible the lycan pinches the half-human’s skin but her intent isn’t to hurt. In fact, in a fit of sentimentally that is downright out of character for the wolf, Senka tugs Skylei straight into the curve of her resting body. She’ll offer the other the heat of her lycan body in turn of the comfort of hers and for one night, this night, Senka will allow herself the comfort of pack. After that tug, she utters a high pitched whine that announces a jaw breaking yawn before lowering her noble head for the last time that night. She’ll rest her chin on her paws and rely, just this once, on their hiding spot to keep them safe. It’s not as if she has the energy left to protect anyone, anyway, not even herself. It doesn’t even occur to her that these soft hearted feelings can be traced back, directly, to their little adventure that was a hunt gone wrong.
It takes all of Skylei’s self-control not to squeak in surprise and fear as the albino’s teeth clamp down on her shirt and pull her forward. For a brief moment, Skylei sees her life flash before her eyes. Who can blame the half-elf for thinking that those jaws are soon to be rushing her flesh and bone? Instead, Senka pulls the half-elf in close as though she is a other watching over her pup, pulling her in to protect from the cold and whatever dangers there are lurking outside of the hollow. Skylei doesn’t understand, but she’s too tired to question the wolf’s motives. If she wakes up in the middle of the night and Senka has taken a large bite out of Skylei’s leg, then the half-elf will simply have to deal with it then and there. For now, the warmth of the lycan’s body and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have realised that Skylei has stuck a pixie spine into her body will do nicely. Her hands are pulled back in tight to her chest, the thundering of her heart relaxes and her eyes begin to flutter as Sky fights the losing battle with sleep. In this moment, Skylei’s sentimentality is kept at bay by the straight talking no-nonsense of the wolf that shares her psyche and she resists the urge to wish the wolf a pleasant sleep. She simply lets dreams, real dreams rather than the nightmarish visions of the Labyrinth, take her.
Senka is a psychopath, a former alpha, and an albino; all things she’s well known for. But she’s also a mother and in moments like these, when her guard is down and her lust for violence satisfied, this filters through. So when Sky’s head settles on her ribcage and disturbs the lingering dust there, all the beast does is rest her snout on one leg instead of both of them, curling her body further around the half-elf. Red eyes stare at the sprawled legs of the woman as they lay in front of her, watching as the dust Skylei has set free from her fur slowly falls to the forest floor. It sparkles, harmless now the magic has worn off, like tiny gently falling stars that twinkle kindly at her. Go to sleep Senka, they seem to say, all is safe now. Restlessly the beast snorts, turning her eyes to see the skull grinning at her and the decaying jaw just inches away before sliding to the entrance of their hideout. It’s well-hidden, as are their scents underneath all that dust and swampy smell. Her eyes turn back to Skylei, heavy with sleep, watching her lift and fall along with her ribcage with every breath, sinking deeply when the albino lets out a tired sigh. The dust twinkles insistently, seeming becoming bigger and brighter as the world around it tilts, sways, then fades away. Black lids finally close as the wolf sinks into a dreamless sleep, her mind settling far away from the horrors that she has seen today. Tomorrow. Tomorrow she’ll be the cause for new horrors rather than having them inflicted upon her. But for now… she will sleep.