Cerulean Cape Cause for hate and a cause for ending, it sounds so easy

While I still have time/space for another thread. Set April 1st.

Her anger seemed to come to a head when she crossed Nyx's heavily perfumed trail in the strand, and with her jealousy peaking, Wylla crossed Grimnismal's borders and headed down the coast. Something in her animal brain told her it wasn't a good time to be leaving, that she had things to attend to at home, but another part of her animal brain yearned to roam in search of something she couldn't find, and so she heeded it. That part served her purpose better, and she needed to get away and clear her head. So she set out under the chilly morning sky with her eyes trained on a cloud in the distance.

In her jaws was a splintered piece of driftwood, every inch covered in scores and teeth marks from her chewing. It did little to quell the surging rush of negativity inside her, but she carried it along anyway as a comfort and distraction. She passed the cliffs without much fanfare, and her mood seemed to lighten marginally. Her figure bobbed with her steps as she paced evenly down a decline toward rocky sand and rushing waves and she was compelled to flag her tail dominantly even in these no man's lands, as though her station need be announced to any who found her. She wasn't sure why, but Wylla went with it, driven by more than just her usual acerbic self to flaunt her authority.

For the weeks following his last altercation with the silver female from the down the shore, Raptor found himself staring down a fork in the trail and had stole away to chew on the choice he had to make. In the heat of the moment he had thought his decision certain and thought he knew what he had to do. But when he had calmed, old doubts and insecurities flocked back like hungry gulls that had been briefly chased off a carcass. He questioned himself. He questioned his future. He questioned his place among the crew. He questioned it all.

Stretched out like a sentinel sphinx on a rock, the sable wolf glanced down at the foreleg her teeth had rended. He had kept the wounds clean with salt and tongue. No flies had infested him. No infection had set in. The rips and tears were mostly knitted together now, bound by tough cords of scar tissue. The sight of it drew a smirk to his lips as his burnt umber eyes skimmed the break of the waves across the sea. As he breathed the saline air. As he felt the sun warm on his back. As he beheld the retreat of the snow beyond the reach of the tide.

Alright then.

Raptor, Quartermaster of the Ironsea crew and a master rum-maker of the Killdevil name, rose to his feet and set a course north. His eyes brimmed with intense determination, and his cocksure swagger had taken on predatory aspect with his head held low, his ears pressed forward, and his tail stiff behind him; though it periodically swayed with a hunter's thrill.

The fur along his nape and spine stood on end and quivered in the breeze as it brought her scent to him. It spurred him to lengthen his stride and to close in as his body thrummed with fevered excitement. He did not slow as he sighted her coming down the cape. Snarling hatefully and slavering, and with long fangs bared, he barrelled recklessly toward her. There was no hesitation, for he could not allow there to be if he was to remain committed to this act.

Raptor struck at her furious and wild, jaws snapping savagely in quick succession at her face as he threw himself into an unrelenting attack.

In his mind, he was already watching her fall dead at his feet.

She worked the driftwood in her jaws as her paws hit the sand, and for a time she wandered along that way, tail high and head higher. For the first time in ages she felt like her old, haughty self, with unexplained giddiness fighting for supremacy over her more negative emotions. The weather was nice, the ocean was sparkling, and she wasn't being assaulted by the scents at home that enraged her; it was easy to see why Wylla might be in a rare good mood.

That is, until she noticed who was running toward her. Raptor wasn't fucking around this time; she barely managed to drop the driftwood and set her defensive stance before he was on her, barreling forward with superior weight and snapping jaws. He caught her sharply on a cheek and scored deep marks into it, eliciting a shrill, "what the fuck is wrong with you!" between retaliatory strikes of her own as she stepped back, aiming with speedy lashes of her sharp teeth for his eyes and tender nose.

His teeth raked down her cheek and the hint of blood on his tongue stoked his reckless fire as her words were drowned out by the clash of teeth and snarling; not that he would have been able to provide her a concise and sensible answer anyway.

There was much wrong with Raptor.

Normally careful about preserving his hide, the sable corsair pressed his assault with abandon and her fangs split his nose and brow, scoring his face and bleeding him as he crowded in to her. He snapped and lunged brutally, heedlessly determined to find purchase on her snout, her leg, her neck — anything within his reach that might assist his mortal goal of wrangling her to the sand beneath her feet.

He was the most dangerous of assailants: one who fought with nothing to lose.

More than once, her teeth smashed into his and set gongs ringing in her head, but Wylla could scarce afford to step back or aim better. Raptor fought with reckless abandon; she struck true several times on his face, but he pushed the assault with relative ease. For all her experience, Wylla was still practically a kid. He was older. He was larger and better capable of bullying his way into her space for it, though it practically meant little. His teeth sliced carelessly into the meatier portion of her foreleg and she hissed.

Then she did a triple backflip, leaping ten feet into the air and fixing him with a murderous glower. She swung her left hind leg out, neatly breaking a hefty branch from a nearby oak tree with a smartly aimed kick. In midair, Wylla spun around, grasped the branch firmly between her teeth, and began her descent with a forward flip and a ululating war cry. She fell rapidly toward Raptor and, at the last second, threw her weight forward and smashed him over the head with the branch so hard that his brain leaked out his nostrils.

She snapped out of her lightning speed fantasy of trashing his ass and quickly moved to retaliate, utilizing some of Lusca's rabbit-like swiftness to surge around and sink her teeth into his shoulder. Though experienced in dirty fighting, she wasn't so well versed in how to fight head-to-head like this; she didn't realize, as she tasted his blood flowing and felt triumph for this small victory, that she had given him the upper hand.

Raptor did not entertain a single conscious thought as he kept up the attack. It was as if he were in a trance. Or as if his brain really had been oozing out of his nose and pooling at his toes. His fangs closed around her foreleg and fastened there like a cruel trap. Her own fangs sank deep into his shoulder, but though he was briefly aware of the lance of pain it did nothing to deter him or raise any doubts.

He nearly had her where he wanted her, and by jerking his head and throwing his weight, he was able to unbalance and topple her. Wylla crashed into the sand and Raptor hastened to straddle her and secure his position, pinning her. For the briefest of moments he reared his head and snarled down at her, savoring that his triumph was so close at paw. He let the scent of her and her blood wreathe his nose; he let the sight of her beneath him excite him. The corsair felt electric fire sweep across him in that instant and spur him on.

Splitting his jaws, he reached for her throat, and caught her flesh between his teeth with a voracious growl born from deep within his chest. He bit down roughly, but his fangs did not pierce or rend her, and then they set themselves against her skin once more further down her neck. Then again. His teeth grasped and bruised, but never drew a drop blood.

Her usual manner of fighting saw her dancing in and out, taking hits at exposed hindquarters, unguarded flanks and ill-placed limbs; Raptor's straightforward assault was incompatible with Wylla's style, and because he was better able to bully her advantage, she was forced to conform to his style. Unfortunately for her, she wasn't well-versed in all the ways to protect herself from a relentless head-on assailant, and so her misstep became her loss. Her eyes widened as he shoved to the side, unbalancing her and toppling her into the sand with childlike ease.

Wylla scrabbled for a hold on the sand, fighting with all the fury and fleetness of a cornered rabbit to regain her feet, but he was on her before she could right herself, and then she was pressed down into the sand. Stupid fucking fuck, her body language screamed as she peeled back her lips, trimmed down her whiskers, and spat at him—and then his teeth were on her throat, and she knew her life was surely over. He pinched down and a sharp sound loosed from her lips. She struggled harder, and managed to plant her teeth into the bridge of his nose, but it was too awkward an angle for her to get a good hold.

She couldn't find the breath to tell him she hoped he felt real good about himself for killing someone he wronged in the first place, but even that would have been a waste of breath on such a low life. In the end she went silent and stared off at the sky, waiting for him to just end her already.

His teeth clenched harder against her flesh when her fangs dug into his muzzle; the roll of his growl became more torrid and loud as his bites became more urgent, landing against her in feverish succession as they descended the curve of her neck toward her chest.

She became suspended, and Raptor indulged his newfound liberty, reaching back up to swiftly nip the slim line of her jaw before his nose began a trace along her carotid, nudging firmly, insistently, on his way to the base of her ear. He plied his tongue along its delicate edge as a needy whine slipped through his growl. Then all tenderness — so subtle and brief as it were — was lost as he clamped down on her ear and yanked hard in a bid to roughly coerce her to action.

A brief moment of fight or flight saw Wylla thrashing on the sand in search of a weak point to exploit, but then Raptor's grip changed. He continued to bite at her but never broke the skin, and as he worked down the side of her neck, he triggered something base and instinctual not unlike scruffing a cat caused them to go limp.

A soft whistle began from her nose in response to Raptor's whine. There was nothing tender or wanting about it; it was full of uncertainty and suspicion. That was mostly confirmed when suddenly he grabbed her ear and yanked her head sideways, eliciting a sharp growl and snap of fangs from Wylla. But he got what he wanted—as though on autopilot, Wylla rose to her feet and glared at him through narrowed eyes with bared teeth, body rigid and tail lashing.

He had sprang side ways, evading the snap of her teeth and allowing her the chance to find her feet. Raptor's last action had encouraged her to do so — he had wanted to make her stand — but the sable wolf had become mercurial and reactive; it offended him now to see her face off with him again. He met her eyes and nearly mirrored her stance: he curled his lips over his long fangs and raised his hackles as he assumed a stiff and aggressive stance.

He sustained a throaty growl as he stalked forward, eyes ablaze and determined. His tail betrayed his warring intentions, alternating between threatening rigidity and an appeasing half wag. His ears behaved similarly, pitching ahead as he pressed in, but flicking back in response to any any uninviting twitch that Wylla made. But when Raptor made a move, there was no apparent conflict and no hesitance. He was swift and assured as he lunged, biting roughly at her flank and rump. He was dogged and willful, not to be deterred by the punishment of her fangs as he searched for — and found — his opportunity to rise up and clutch her hips between his forelegs.

What a prick. Of course he wasn't going to concede to her authority—nobody else did, not even her actual subordinates, so why would he? His display was met with further contrition from Wylla, who craned her neck and snarled bodily at him as her entire body bristled. The only thing keeping her from launching another attack was the confusing mix of submission and dominance he showed as he approached—one minute his tail was threatening in its stillness, the next it relaxed and drifted reassuringly. Wylla's eyes narrowed into slits as he got close, and then he made his daring move.
He bit at her flank and she turned immediately to retaliate, opening herself to his advance. The moment she felt his forelegs touch her rump, the young Luschyon bucked him off and turned to snap a warning at his jaws. There must have been something in that act, though, for after several tense moments in which they alternated between a rigid stand off and scuffling with one another, Raptor tried his luck again and she begrudgingly consented, driven by an imperative deeper than her hatred to tolerate him just long enough to get his rocks off in a hurried and far-from-sweet manner, after which she twisted and snarled and went down in the sand in a flurry of aggression with him still tenderly attached.

He was spent and addled. Tongue lolling from his slackened jaw, he was unprepared for the resurgence of fury that came for him. He yelped as he tried to evade her teeth, straining against his own tender flesh as he went down too. Raptor's limbs kicked out and sought purchase against her as he tried to push and lean as far away as he could from her snaps, shoving the side of his face into the sand and squeezing his eyes shut.

He had no further aggression with which to confront her; any further abuse was his to take in total compliance. But when at last their coupling subsided, he endeavored to take no more and hastened out of her reach. Scrabbling to his paws, the sable wolf bolted, tail tucked between his legs and ears pressed to his skull.

He looked over his shoulder to see if he was being chased.

It took a little time during which both wolves struggled to get away, but eventually, the bond between them was severed. Wylla found her feet instantly and spun around to snap and snarl at Raptor, but he was already taking his leave of the scene with swift strides. She charged after him for several yards before slowing to a walk and, breathing hard, she returned to Grimnismal's shore.