Iridescent Lagoon Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

RE - The sky is dark with storm clouds.

Paws padded gently across the marshy ground at the edge of the lagoon. It had been so long since she had dared to come here, and the sight that she saw now was so different to the turbulent body of water she had thrown herself into to escape from the flames. She still remembered the crack of thunder and the smell of smoke... The way she almost drowned and the two dark strangers who had helped to save her… It had been like being back home to be surrounded by taller, darker wolves. She did miss her home. But she had a new one now, and there were many mouths to feed.

Fugitive glances toward the stormy sky confirmed that perhaps this wasn’t the type of day to be out and about, but waist deep in the crystalline waters had to give her a better chance than nestled amongst the trees if there happened to be another fire started by lightning… didn’t it? She pushed the thoughts from her mind as the rapidly cooling water wrapped around her toes and worked its way up her legs. She waded out until the water brushed her belly and she waited. Golden eyes watching for the tell-tale flash of fish beneath the surface.

She waited, statue still for what felt like an age. Small bugs flew about her head and she ignored them, roving eyes and slowly moving chest the only sign that the wolf was, in fact, a wolf, and not some sort of speckled wolf shaped boulder. All was silent. She was in a world of her own.

"speech"

(This post was last modified: Sep 27, 2012, 03:56 AM by Aniu.)

Shadows punched a hole through blue glass sky.    In rushed the bruise – the swollen clouds piled from one horizon to the next. Infection, thought the wolf. She dug records of the weather’s violence from her mind. Find shelter, crowed the voice of instinct. Hide.    She wandered on.    In the end, the black wolf knew: hunger fears nothing. The packless stray fears everything.    She wandered far from glass walls to another country – ripe with new scent. Maybe here, she thought, her yellow gaze a beacon turned once toward the sky. Eventually the strongest pack would find her crawling slow along their borders.    Then would be the choice: lay down, or starve? Djinn paced along the stranger’s track in silence, paws muffled by the grasping mud. Her belly clenched.    At last, the outline of a wolf: like granite limned with purple light. Still water choked the scent at water’s edge but Djinn lifted her muddy nose. She recognized the cut of ears, the posture of one waiting – surely wolf. There.    Maybe others, too… She blinked and scanned the ripening shadows for the glow of eyes. This strange wolf smelled of pack – the mingled taste of many riding on the bland perfume of one.    One female, young. The water ate everything else.    Djinn’s mind recalled a time – the heat of wolf blood spilled over her nose. The taste – acceptable.    Pink tongue rolled across her lips.    “Brave child, hunting here alone.” A small chance given out of courtesy. Her gravel voice was wet with hunger, brittle with the threat of storm. This creature would be useful one of many ways.    It was the hunter’s path to chase them down until Djinn knew just which.

They had taken their time, as fish were often known to do, to adjust to her presence in the water. She watched as a brave few darted closer, yet still too small to even wrap her jaws around. But she knew, where little fish swam, larger ones would follow. Greedy fish intent on gulping down whatever would fit in their mouths. It was only a matter of time.

She didn’t hear the wolf approach behind her, nor did she scent the loner who also happened to be traveling downwind. Surely her father had drummed into her often enough to always watch her back. My my she was growing complacent.

So when the voice sounded behind her, submissive instincts kicked into overdrive. A startled yelp escaped her mouth and she fell to her side with a splash, shoulder hitting the muddy bottom of the lagoon and head disappearing beneath the turbulent surface before she registered she would drown if she didn’t get back up. So she fought her way back to the surface, gasping for air, emerging a sodden, muddy swamp beast...

Turning to face the newcomer, her ears pinned back and eyes settled anywhere but on the wolf before her, yet kept the creature as much in her peripherals as possible. She wasn’t far from family, should the need arise to call on them, but she also wasn’t close enough to be sure of a passing patrol. She was small, but she was very fast... When she was out of the water.

She was used to being mistaken for a child with her small stature and flighty nature. But she didn’t take offense. She still at least owed the wolf before her a response, as if her embarrassing display hadn’t been enough... but before words could leave her mouth a crack of thunder sounded through the air and the sky opened up. She ran straight at the skinny stranger in her fright... Shaking like a leaf the whole way to the bank where she paused, sides heaving in terrified breaths.

“S-s-sorry.” she gasped as she pulled up just short of the stranger, shrinking down low, her tail tucked. “W-what do you want?” she asked concerned. She had a hungry look in her eye and didn’t smell of others. Maybe this one really would eat her...

Fear answered the damp grind of Djinn’s hungry voice. Poor girl, just screaming meat. Maybe not useful after all. Maybe just bones to crack, another voice to cry for help with no one near.    Djinn thought, you aren’t like them. The black wolf’s belly clenched. You’re soft, you child. Eyeteeth glinted in the low light – never smiling but rebuking all the angry things within this blackened flesh. Mud tastes of rot and rich, damp soil and the clinging cloy of wet.    Djinn bristled when the soaking wolf fled up – the bank, up from the water like a ghost. “Be still!” the command cracked like lightning, like the afterecho of the bruised sky’s poor attempt at noise.    Above, clouds turned and twisted. Lightning painted strange tableaus in burning white and Djinn stepped back – one step – and longed for better trees. Anticipation crackled in her coarse fur. Here, beneath the birth of something greater than two wolves –    was not a place to eat.    Black ears pressed back like blades. Pale teeth flashed from under tight lips, and Djinn’s eyes burned with a look like fury. She would glare this tiny thing right into dust and piss on its remains.    “What does a child know of want?” she asked, though the pale shapes in front of her spoke of a creature nearer her own years. What saw so many winters and still squeaked? Such soft lives only opened doors for cruel disaster. And Djinn was disaster wrapped in wisdom, in the hunger of a wild lonely wolf.    A sudden, brittle snap of teeth brought Djinn’s face forward once again – clipping the empty air in front of a pale, graying muzzle. There’s no time for mercy, Djinn thought. I was never kind.    Yet she meant kindness as she growled, tail bristling high above her back. I want to hunt, she thought. I want to tear you into strings.    She wanted something strong enough to stop it.

I like what Djinn does to Ani's brain. >.<

All the world will be your enemy, Prince of a Thousand enemies. And when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you...

Onyx and Granite... seemingly frozen in place for just a split second. The wind whipped furiously about the pair, as the stranger called her child once again. She flinched away from the words. Yes, she was small, and yes, she was meek... But she hadn’t always been like this...

Months on her own had worn at her resolve, attack, after attack for her prideful carriage and tone. She had been a little spitfire. Once. But being a mouse seemed to attract far less hostility, only pity, and disdainful dismissal. A little voice somewhere whispered Enough. But the little static coated girl quailed. It had been so long. It was so much easier to run...

Eyes darted, seeking an escape. It had to be near. The mud may be slippery but her wide paws would find traction where they must... Shame the stranger had the same advantage as she...

The snap of teeth so close to her delicate face, ripped through her entire body. She was torn between the little voice of provocation and the now instinctual need to piss and run. She shrunk lower on herself, but if she didn’t act soon, surely this would be the end of her.

Her eyes caught sight of the bristling tail, arched high and her brows furrowed in disapproval. So close to her home, this stranger would posture like a leader, intent on discipline? Something in her mind shifted in that moment, and her knees unbuckled.

Fight, or Flight?

She ran.

"speech"

Djinn knew only confidence – no turmoil. She gazed into the other’s eyes and understood so little of what brewed there – though it felt like storm.    Good, thought the black wolf. Evolution. But such processes are slow. In half a lifetime more, perhaps, she would return to find reward. Now?    Such small prey.    Another snap, growl like a distant thunder echoing from rib to rib. The sky tore open and the black wolf lunged. She saw prey running and she gave chase – no morality.    No question.    Mud squelched beneath her paws. Ears flattened back. Though shadows never stressed her eyes, this friction-place between the light and dark sowed only rage.    Djinn ran behind a questing nose. The little one was like the lightning – swift and fleeting. She would slip away, Djinn thought, and once the running started up the good games had all ended.    Predators are beasts of patience and repose. Djinn was a strategist, but no sprint racer.    Still – the hard whuff of her breath burned in the black wolf’s lungs. She would give chase until the storm subsided, until any trace of scent and sound was gone. For now, from one moment to the next, the little pitter-pat of small paws and the hard hiss of the grey wolf’s breath were clues enough. Djinn didn’t think of moments up ahead when short black limbs would fail.    A body made for crushing fails at speed. A mind for setting traps can hardly fool the rabbit when fears makes such creatures blind.

o m g that table <3

You can decide to let Aniu escape her here, if you want. Or we can keep going, and maybe hope somebody else joins in? Whatever you wanna do :P

She could hear the rasp and thud behind her as the other wolf pursued. Her wet paws slipping on the marshy ground as she made for the trees. She had to get home. She had to get at least close. It was only a little further...

Of course, she slipped with a frightened yelp, and her legs folded beneath her. Tumbling, sprawling, picking up more mud and leaves to add to her already sodden coat, she winced as small stones bruised her flesh. She came to a stop against the trunk of an ancient tree, blocking her path... The same tree that had almost crushed her a few months before? It would be just her luck... She knew that tree was meant to be the death of her.

Her heart hammered in her chest as she scrambled to her feet. Shooting pain lanced through her left foreleg. So much for outrunning the beast, any head start she had was now lost... Gingerly, she tried the limb, suppressing yelp as the pain shot through, a small whimper still escaped her chest. It didn’t seem to be broken, but that didn’t mean it was any use for running right now...

She could hear the laboured breath of the other wolf, it sent a shiver down her spine to hear restless feet shifting through fallen leaves. Ears flattened as she stepped backwards, large tree pressing against her rump... and the dark stranger approaching from the front. Anxiety welled in her chest, ears flattened as she forced her injured paw down. The pain grounded her as she tried to get her breathing under control. Nervous yellow eyes darted about, searching for the wolf she knew was coming. What the hell would she do now?

"speech"

(This post was last modified: Oct 02, 2012, 12:07 PM by Aniu.)

Luck spread its wings today.    The slap of small paws ended in a yelp – there, just around the tree. Wet leaves and trailing branches slapped Djinn’s face. Sparse grass and flecks of mud tied knots into the thick wolf’s belly fur. But, prey, gasped a hungry facet of the beast’s dark mind.    Run. Chase. Kill.    She pressed the mud into a blur beneath her soggy toes and pulled her lips back from pale teeth. There! a flash of grey fur swept beneath a jagged peal of lightning. Djinn curled around the wood and then another shadow reared up high before them.    Blessed by circumstance, the black wolf pulled her haunches close and slowed her frenzied gallop. Now a wall against the smaller wolf’s retreat, Djinn hunched her back and growled.    “Get up,” an order issued like an epithet. She did not want to kill it while it lay there – huddling, shivering, wet. Perhaps she ought to let it go, or drag its carcass further on and leave it at the borders as a warning.    I am alone, and I am stronger than all yours.    Already, she knew of two groups lacking spines. Did no one scent her and come out to rip her into shreds? She would not bow to anybody else. She would not lay her ears back for some whining children.    Up, then, seethed her silence, and she closed in with her head down, eyes alive as little fires in her face. They burned with no warmth – just the friction of delight in chase. Now they stood face to face again it would be over soon – there had been deer who trapped themselves when Djinn ran with the pack. Her memory recalled them gasping, sweeping with their tines or boxing with their little hooves. Will you fight? she wondered, closing in, thinking – a quick bite at the nose? a limb? flank? throat? The black hairs on her chin brushed ground up, soggy earth.    Left, right, left, right – black form sweeping each direction, always saying no, no chance to bolt. The small wolf’s wet shape reeked of fear and indecision. Yes, Djinn thought. She would press just close enough and it would move, exposing something vital.    Then it would be meat and bones, and she would eat or leave. And its brethren would know – there is a shadow in the woods.    She looked ahead that far already, blind with hubris. Hungry with a need for challenge.

Get up.

She had hardly realised she had been cowering before the dark stranger. Her legs unfolded as her small frame rose from the dirt. Her coat thick with mud and soaked with the rain. She shook, not from the cold or the pain, but from the fear.

This couldn’t be the end.

What about the pups? This wolf was danger. This wolf was death. Images flashed through her mind of the four small bodies strewn across her home. The old, and the new. The memories of the smell overwhelmed her, the sorrow, and the retribution.

Something inside her snapped.

It wouldn’t be the end.

A growl left her chest then, the noise almost shocked her, but she knew it had been there. Buried down deep. Tail thrashed in frustration against the log at her back and the familiar tingle of hackles rising to stand on edge rippled down her spine. Her ears were pinned flat against her skull and her chin dipped low as her lips peeled back from her teeth. It had been so long since she had donned this cloak of rage, the need to protect coursing through her blood like fire.

For the first time in an age, she felt like herself again.

For the first time in an age, she lunged at the shoulder of another, aiming for a flank or a leg.

She wouldn’t go down without a fight.

"speech"

Sometimes running ended only in a finish line, the joy bled from chase long before her teeth sank into skin. Then only instinct moved inside her brain – no thought to break the cycle of run, follow, follow, run.    In seconds now she poised to strike, her pale teeth glimmering when lightning forked across the sky. Her ears rang with the pulse of thunder booming, like a heartbeat deep inside the earth. Some sky beast threatened to wake up and tear the heavens down.    And Djinn would have blood in her mouth before it happened.    Then the lightning opened up again and black spots swam before her eyes, and something made of static, moving like a bullet, growled and leapt up from its huddle.    Instinct moved as Djinn’s throat gargled in surprise. Low to the ground she swerved. Pain bloomed bright as the skylights and teeth tore into the black wolf’s right hind leg, above the stifle joint. It promised to bleed a little later, punctured skin shallow above thick bone. But --    Djinn spun too, snarling. Her own jaws flexed open, grabbing for the little she-wolf’s spine or for the same place on a hind leg. Cripple it, tear it up, throw it away. It fought, though.    Later, perhaps, Djinn would lay down nursing shallow wounds and laugh.    Now – now she only tried to kill it with great fervor. It would take more fight than this to knock her back and make her pause. She was not one to give in when her enemies cowered like children.    She would make it roll onto its belly, and then tear its belly out.