Thunder Dome full circle

Set just prior to the locust invasion hitting this territory. @Shardul >:]

In the distance, the skies were darkening, and there was a droning hum that grew as the strange shadow creeped forward. Luke had never seen such a thing and knew not what to make of it; what he knew was the pack needed food as much as rest, and so he parted from Saena and her pups to go looking for some. But he found that prey was scarce, and it was just as well. The white wolf struggled to maintain a focus on hunting when the darkness in the skies seemed to shift and move in a way that was not like a cloud, and he could no longer keep his eyes off it as it appeared to pitch down toward the earth. The noise was escalating, and as he stood staring into the distance, he wondered if perhaps it was birds.

he had lost his prize and fallen into several days of a foul black humour, murdering whatever came across his path and stalking the now empty peak where he had trapped the pale bit of milkweed fluff. he had not eaten since the would-be king escaped his clutches, and now he lay across a low ledge snarling lowly to himself, in the curses of cats and their secret murmurings.

however, he was roused by the clawings of his belly -- he set off reluctantly to hunt the horned bucks that ran up and down the mount, but was distracted by the familiar scent of a wolf.

he knew this creature, from the pride of his muscularity to the fire that burned in his eyes, and shardul gave a great and menacing laugh.

There was a time when he wanted nothing more than to see the cat again, to have his chance at redemption, or death. But that time had come and gone, and though the white wolf still carried the torment of the cat's attack on him, the mountain lion lived only in the far dark corners of his mind now. He no longer thought routinely of it, his focus square on the road ahead. If asked, he would not say he ever thought he would see the devil again, but the fates were strange.

He did not need to look to place that laugh. His blood ran cold, and he was awash in a slurry of emotions. Fear was among them, less for himself and more for Saena and her pups not so far away. But the emotion that rose most fiercely to the surface to appear on his face, was rage. Even before he turned to face the cat his muzzle creased severely, drawing his lips above his fangs. His ire was born of his own hate and reason, but also out of protectiveness of his companion. The same could be said of the fear that flitted about his breast and begged to be expressed.

But he would not let it.

He quartered slowly, until he held the beast fully in his eyes. Sharp as his gaze was, it could not pierce that creature's hide. But he would see to it that his fangs did. Luke did not wait, he lunged with a snarl for the cat's face.

the noise upon the horizon was forgotten, as was the darkness -- all that filled the bright yellow of the feline's eyes was the vengeful face of the pale wolf, the first one he had brutalized, the first one to spark within him a deep and abiding lust for cruelty and for torture. it was fitting that they should meet now -- shardul bared his fangs and would have mocked the creature, had not he been attacked by the very jackal who should have feared him.

the blow was glancing but tore his cheek; shardul tasted blood at the corner of his mouth. "thou shalt regret this," the cat murmured softly, and then the time for words had passed and he sprang at the pale demon, claws extended.

He had no tactic against this cat; for one, there was no fairness in a conflict between wolf and mountain lion, and for two, the white wolf was not a fighter the first time they met and that had not changed. His muscles and fangs were fueled by emotion more than strategy, an indomitable desperation, because he knew that this cat was death, and that it was by some fluke that he had survived their first encounter. If the cat did not die this time, then he would, and surely after that Saena, her pups, or his packmembers would follow. He was as sure of this as he was sure the sun would rise tomorrow.

So with hatred roiling in his blood he leaped side ways in an effort to keep his feet this time. The cats claws raked him and scored him deeply, but there was no pause in his attack to consider these wounds, or even feel them. His teeth snapped again at the cat's cheek, ear, snout, whatever tender area he might manage to reach as the two bodies moved, for he had not the power nor the weaponry to inflict great damage anywhere else and the beast was not yet wearied enough, nor positioned right, that he might find the windpipe or jugular.

it had been his mother's abuses which first planted the seed of anger and of rage into shardul's young heart -- he could not recall what she had done, for it had been repressed within him -- only that she had hurt him beyond measure. but his counterparts were not so; eventually, the silver cat had decided that the rage within him was warm with welcome, and so lay with it each night until it wound itself 'round his soul until the barbs bit deep.

teeth! fangs! they flashed and they cut him, they scored his muzzle and split his ear, razed his cheek. but like the wolf, he did not feel these wounds, nor how they dripped crimson into the dirt and churned it to mud beneath their dancing paws. shardul feinted, lunged again, aimed stabbing bites and crushing blows of his paws the pale wolf whom, after all this time, he had never ruined.

It seemed like a decade that two fought; trading blows and blood, the hum of the incoming locusts drowned by snarls. But it had been no more than minutes. The white wolf could feel himself fatiguing fast, and once more he bore the deep, savage gouges of the cat's claws and teeth. Yet, all this time he had managed to keep his feet, and the cat had not succeeded in pinning him nor in throwing him as it had before.

Just when it felt like he would go down, claimed by blood loss and weariness, the cat's throat loomed before him, exposed and inviting. His adrenaline fueled one last hail-mary snap and his aim and his fading power was true. His fangs closed on the windpipe; none of the bites he had inflicted with them before had mattered; but this one would.

His jaws locked.

the wolf's jaws closed with the determination of a vise and shardul, who had come close to deal what he hoped was a final and fatal blow, checked his attack. paw fell back to earth and his eyes widened as airflow to his lungs began to stifle -- he dragged the wolf backward, snarling hoarsely past the noose of teeth, his claws lashing out to gouge and to cut the other's flesh.

for the first time, terror rose in shardul -- he did not immediately identify it as such, but he burned hotly for one moment, and then it was as if he had been bathed in icewater the next. his bowels loosened; weakness flooded his limbs. shardul writhed in hatred, drawing the wolf closer and tumbling onto his back, that he might grip the tenacious pale creature.

two strokes of his hindpaws and entrails looped from their ripped chamber to entangle his legs and shower him with gore. but still the wolf held, and shardul saw the grey mists of death swim before him. "no!" he hissed, struggling feebly against the shale, until one final burst of strength and desperation o'ertook them, and he dragged himself to the edge of the cliff.

the grey darkened to black, swimming before his dulling eyes -- shardul flung himself from the rock and with him descended the gutted wolf, for in his madness he thought only to drown the millstone 'round his neck.

it was the pale jackal that dragged him down, the water wringing the last breath from shardul's kicking body until he moved no more, eyes wide and rife with the horror of facing the same death that he had brought unto so many others.

It was as if the muscles and bones in his jaws had sized; never again would his teeth separate, fused into the flesh of the beast that had wrought such terror upon himself and his brothers. He was aware of the sickening pull in his abdomen, of his fragile grip on consciousness, and in the last moments, as he became the stone that would sink the condemned, he was aware of his triumph and of the inherent failure of death. Even has his body screamed for breath, his jaws refused to unlock. He towed the cat down with him, and while the devil died in horror, the white wolf died in peace knowing this was one harm that would not befall those he was leaving behind, in whose defense he sacrificed himself.