Heartleaf Creek [m] heavy in your arms

Content Warning: this thread revolves around suicidal intent, and a very cruel reaction to it. It is between Asmund and Eros only.

The air was filled with noise, great smacking sounds and deep snuffling and skin ripping. The behemoth bear had foregone all of its table manners for this meal, the focal point of its very existence at this time. Its stomach had woken it, demanding that it take in more, and it had been immensely lucky to come across a largely-uneaten moose carcass. The drive to eat was so all-consuming, it hadn't even noticed Asmund as he watched it, monitoring the situation its presence created.

From what he'd learned of grizzlies and their ilk, it would be satisfied once gorged and return to hibernation proper. Still he stood as sentinel, green eyes locked onto the hulking animal while his ears leaned and turned. What if one of those errant children happened this way? Or if he supposed wrong, and it kept wandering? He needed to be ready for this relatively peaceful happenstance to go awry, just in case. That's what guardians were for.

(This post was last modified: Dec 10, 2024, 02:07 AM by Asmund.)

Eros' heart had stuttered to a stop when the scents registered. Grizzly. Carrion. Asmund. That panic set in immediately, screaming for him to move and act. Not another death, not another sibling, he couldn't let it happen. Desperately his tawny frame soared over the snowy ground, the only thing faster being the beating of his heart. When he hit the scene, the leader didn't take even a second to assess it.

Eros' snarling filled the air, followed swiftly by a bellowing roar. His attack was so sudden, the stupored bear had hardly registered his presence before it landed. It cried out in shock and outrage both as his body connected with its immense skull, but that blood-soaked maw was knocked away only briefly. It swung back, aiming for a bite of something different now.

Eros' focus on tearing into the rival's neck superseded everything else, including any kind of defense or evasion. His jaws snapped and dug, almost feverish in their work, but he had only seconds and was failing to get the hold he needed.

Something was tearing through the brush, but the sound wasn't passing. It grew loud and Asmund's head whipped round to see Eros appear in a burst of flying snow and detritus. He'd known it was possible for someone else to appear, but this hadn't been the expectation. His beryl eyes bulged and his mind reeled as what he saw didn't even make sense. Where was Eros' brain?!

"Hør her!" flew out of his mouth while his own paws scrambled to catch up to this abrupt escalation.

The adrenaline dump surged through his body like liquid fire, and flight was what his most base instincts demanded he do instead. This was idiotic, they could both easily end up killed. If he stayed out of it, though, even if he called for help, it was a guarantee that Eros would be torn to pieces. Like Mor.

Asmund got loud, and he feinted at the opposing side of the grizzly's face.

(This post was last modified: Dec 09, 2024, 11:07 PM by Eros.)

It's teeth cut through his fur and grazed his skin, largely failing in what had been intended. All of it's movements were slower and far less coordinated than they should have been, granting Eros a rare advantage over his fellow predator. As ill-thought-out as his attack had been, the fact that the bear was also fighting off the effects of hibernation could have enabled him to turn matters around. Working together, planning for a clean victory, they could have actually eliminated the threat altogether.

The problem was that Eros wasn't thinking about getting himself through the altercation, at all. There was an appeal to this being final, to this being how he died, that existed at the back of his thoughts. Hiding behind them, amongst them, masquerading as other reasons. Asmund was more important, this rival had to die for the pack to be safe, if you really loved someone you made sacrifices, it was a necessary and equivalent exchange.

Its paw had come next, and it struck down between his shoulder blades. The force caused his legs to buckle, but they didn't give. Whatever fur and fat he'd had between his teeth were torn free. His jaws snapped to grab again but found only air; it was rounding on Asmund now, and Eros' fear peaked again.

"Az, stay back!"

The command was sharp and loud, but he couldn't ensure that it was followed. He needed to get the bear to focus on him again, so that it didn't even try to harm the much smaller wolf.

Asmund kept waiting for Eros' growls to devolve into cries, the way Inger's eventually had. The moment the bear's head turned and faced him, he dug in his paws and maintained enough distance to be able to dodge. It let out an angered, frustrated roar. All it had wanted was an end to the gnawing feeling that had woken it in the first place. Az clacked bared fangs to antagonize it further. Eyes on me, asshole.

Eros' voice cut through the air, and Asmund could not help the way it made his own ire split. He had been staying back, he was only in this situation at all because of Eros. Why had he attacked like that, without even taking in the entire scene?

The grizzly was beginning to backpedal, trying to get space between itself and its opponents rather than attempting to whip its addled self back and forth between them. That was good, right? Did Eros want the moose meat for the pack? Asmund's tail was curled high over his back and his hackles on-end as he pushed forward, still snarling and biting at the air.

Asmund didn't listen. The younger wolf had always been so good at running away, and now he stood his ground, even against a leader's order. Damnit! Eros had to end this, quickly. Before something happened to Az, and they were all thrown into grieving again. It would be his fault. He recognized it but not fully, not enough to stop himself and change momentum. Not one of the three of them actually needed to perish today and yet Eros continued almost rabidly.

Where Asmund maintained a breadth of safety, the larger sibling rushed the grizzly once again. His teeth cut its cheek, and its pierced through his left ear. Claws caught his shoulder, and then its skull purposefully collided with his, causing him to stagger back. It was getting quicker, that drive for survival beating back the fog. This needed to end now.

Eros charged forward, directly into harm's way to get a shot at the part of its throat just under its jaw.

Apparently, it wasn't enough for Eros. Asmund's gaze kept dodging back and forth from the grizzly to Viorel's son, thoughts scrambling to try and comprehend what was going through the other wolf's mind. It was dawning on him that Eros wasn't going to stop, that for some reason he was determined to have the bear killed. It was going to get him killed, the way he was going about it.

Eros lunged right toward those massive paws and Asmund's own features morphed from horror to determination. He lurched into motion, and put every ounce of strength he had into throwing his body into his leader's, shoulder first. The momentum was maintained, and he knew he must have been successful, but it was hard to make sense of much else. There had been an escarpment, and Az had known this, but he hadn't been prepared for just how hard his body hit the ground each time nor how much speed they would pick up before finally coming to a stop again.

When he was able to shakily rise to his paws again, Asmund was panting heavily and he ached in sharp points all over. The grizzly was watching them from afar, but had not given chase. All it had wanted was the damned food. Green eyes glaring, he turned to face Eros. His voice seethed.

"What the fuck are you thinking?! Do you want to die?!"

(This post was last modified: Dec 10, 2024, 12:51 AM by Eros.)

He wouldn't have met his mark. Eros could see it almost as if it was in slow motion, the paws would catch him first, and those claws would pierce his sides, and then its fangs would cave in his skull and he would cease to be. Then, after tossing his broken body aside, it would turn on Asmund as though no one had ever come for him at all.

The wind was knocked from him, but it wasn't his opponent's doing. His paws couldn't catch him and before he knew it, he and Asmund were tangled together and falling through air. His front right leg reconnected with the ground first, and the rest of his and his brother's weight came down upon it. It was only the first hard hit before he finally stilled, but it did the most damage. With a heavier frame, he didn't go as far as Az, but still the younger wolf beat him to standing. He could hardly bear to put weight on that limb, and he looked first for the grizzly, anxiety clear in the furrowing of his brow and the quivering of his peach irises. Even when he spotted it, unmoving and plenty far enough to escape from, that feeling did not fade.

Az's sharp voice drew his attention back squarely onto his sibling. His first interrobang prompted a cut frown and a raising of his tail, a non-verbal 'try that again.' The second caused his expression to drop and his eyes to widen, ever so slightly. A slip that he was quick to try and cover up with a scowl and an indignant snort, nectarine gaze dodging to the left.

Asmund hadn't expected the way Eros' eyes lit with a kind of recognition, a look of being recognized. It was there then gone, but it had been more than enough. The pieces finally clicked into place, and for a moment the gravity of it settled in his chest. Then the anger came. Hot, searing, burning brighter than he'd ever known it to. Of everyone here, with everything they have been through... With everything Viorel has been through.

He closed the bit of space between them, and brought his own paw down on that favored foot, suddenly and with cruel force. Eros' yelp was immediate, and satisfying. The other was larger, stronger, more experienced yet he was the one who flinched backward as Asmund raised to his full height, tail curling over his back. He spoke through bared fangs, voice dripping with contempt.

"You don't have that option."

Asmund's face drew nearer and nearer to Eros', eyes taking on a poisonous hue.

"You selfish, spoiled brat."

(This post was last modified: Dec 10, 2024, 02:30 AM by Asmund.)

Eros' gaze was drawn back to Asmund when he moved, but even while watching it happen he couldn't know what was coming next. Pain jolted through his leg, but it was nothing compared to what he felt when his shoulder reactively pulled back. Stars swarmed his vision and he nearly collapsed back onto the ground, the hurt was so overwhelming. If it hadn't been broken before, it certainly was now. Eros gasped for the breath that had been stolen from him as his head hung low, his own cry ringing in his ears.

A dark voice he had never heard before took the place of Az's. Peach eyes peered up to see a face he'd helped raise filled with hate. The aggression in his actions, posture and words was so at odds with the brother he knew, Eros was thoroughly taken aback and, for the moment, cowed. A different kind of pain entered his consciousness to compete with the burning in his leg; his chest ached.

"Asmund..."

He needed to maintain authority, perhaps one of the last bulwarks he had, but he also needed to explain himself, didn't he? His heart was picking up speed, but these panicked sprints were becoming old news. He was caught.