King Elk Forest Entrañable y Lamentable
BLOOD & FEAR
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Ooc — Anthony
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@Burke!
Thread is backdated a few days.. A week at most



If you'd asked Damien where he'd been or who he'd been with the past couple months, he probably would have had another mental breakdown. There was nothing about his life that Damien was enjoying right now, not even his name for he couldn't link it back to anything good, and as a result he had shut off reality, abused any substance he knew would help and dragged his sorry ass away from everything hoping to find death. But he didn't. Death didn't want him.

So with sad eyes and vague determination Damien walked all the way back to the Teekon Wilds, always convincing himself that he wasn't coming back to Blackfeather Woods... Or trying to. He followed a river up the mountain he though he recognized and before it completely faded away he veered east along the treeline of a white-coated forest. A foreboding chill ran down his spine as he walked, and he kept looking over his shoulder as though he was being chased, but only silence followed him.

Night was quickly crawling it's way upon Mundus, and Damien found a lake at which he thought he could spend the night without freezing to death. There was little flesh attached to his bones and he needed to improve his chances. He'd scented the markings of a pack on his way across the vale, and surely there would be caches from which he could steal a bite or two, so cautiously (at the best of his diminished and drug-muffled senses) he crept the borders trying to find something good.

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#2
SUCH EXCITE!

Burke couldn't stop. Even though his limbs weren't working with him or that his winter fur was only there in patches, the male liked to be helpful. He couldn't sit around in his den and wait for his impending death. He felt the cold tug at the places where he was only sporting a thin coat. The male inhaled sharply. He had to put in an effort to smell how told the marks were. Hence why he just mostly stayed walking and being on the lookout for anyone suspicious.

It seemed that today there was something suspicious up ahead. His nose might be lacking but his eyes weren't. Burke let out a growl and trotted forward. When he did he could hear his bones creaking. He soon fell into a determined limpy walk as his trot was too exhausting to keep up in these snows. "Scam! Go away from our borders!," he growled with a raspy old voice towards the skinny stranger.
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The sorry piece of junk thought he was slick, but he was nowhere close. A ward soon caught him red handed, without him even having a chance to get his hands red, and he couldn't even process to flee at the sound of that ragged, menacing voice. He just froze, stood there, wide-eyed and shaking, almost even peed himself like he was some kind of helpless fawn. The opioids had consumed his head and shut down everything necessary to respond. This wasn't new, though. This was what he'd become; an incapable, senseless void.

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Burke raised his hackles and tried to look intimidating towards the other. Though it wasn't really necessary as the other froze on the spot. Burke's pale blue eyes fell into those white pale eyes. A frown of recognition. He only knew one wolf that sported such a dark coat with pale-colored eyes. His eyes roamed over the stranger's body for scars he could recognize. There. On his nose. Damien. It was him.

The new king had fallen himself. Burke squinted his eyes. For a moment, he thought to kill the frozen and pathetic creature that stood before him. He would have his revenge for Damien's betrayal but taking him in such a pathetic state made Burke revise his plan. His bones were old and he couldn't get himself to go through all the effort it would take. He had a better life after Blackfeather. Peaceful.

"Damien, I didn't recognize you," he stated, keeping his head lifted, light falling on his own face. His docked tail rose. Burke was nothing compared to how he looked in his glory days. The male had aged. His dots had mixed with his white muzzle because of the added grey hairs. He wasn't nice in his coat with puffs of fur hanging loose and much of his muscle mass had degraded.
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Fearful ears rotate to find the voice of the stranger again. Damien was indeed his name, he admitted as much, but he didn't want to go back to reality just yet, but that voice was a whole tome in Damien's novella. It seemed like he could only run for so long.

He didn't want them to, but in just a moment his eyes had turned to see the man behind him, grey, old and impossible not to recognize despite the old, ragged look. It wasn't a lie, neither of them looked the way they used to, and the whole picture was little more than pitiful. Two ragged bags of bones, running towards death, and though Damien actually had every possibility to jump back to life, he didn't really plan to do it anytime soon. Burke, though, was as rooted on the ground as he'd ever been. He was resolute in fending off the stranger even though he probably wouldn't be able and it was not, in fact, a stranger this once.

I'm dying, he woofed fearfully, I need food, he added, seeing the slightest chance that perhaps Burke would find it in his hart not to let his son die of hunger. Their history was heavy and mostly full of dark moments and hatred, but Damien had only ever had him to perform the role his true father never seemed to want.

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Burke snorted when the other didn't even have things to say to him other than that he was hungry. Couldn't the boy fend for himself now? Clearly not. Pathetic. "You think I would feed you after what you did to me? Because you wanted power?," Burke growled. "Besides. Do I look like I can get a meal for you? I can't. I might die in the process myself," he pointed out grumpily. Burke was not very willing to do thins for the boy that kicked him from his throne because he wanted to be happy himself.

Burke planted his butt down. He was panting slightly as if the light rant at his former son had exhausted him. Even though the male wanted to get him some food, Burke was probably not able to carry a meal towards the border even if it was taken from the caches. "Unless you want me to retch up what I recently ate," he pointed out. How humiliating that would be for the forming dark prince.
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A faint, sorry smile drew up Damien's cheeks for a second, You're still mad about that? he laughed, scarcely making out his eyes at all. He was about to suggest that Burke took something from this caches, but the old guy covered that base first, leaving Damien with little else than his familial bond with Burke to survive. He knew that if Burke didn't find it in himself to help him now he would probably end him instead. Damien had indeed thrown a low blow when he dethroned who he'd always defined as his mentor, and Burke was in his full right to take revenge. Yet somewhere deep inside Damien's heart he knew that their relationship still meant for something.

But then Burke suggested an alternative. He was obviously flouting out at Damien, making fun of him, but at the point in which he was, Damien only needed to consider it once. Anything, he said, and the seriousness of his eyes left no space for doubt. He would eat shit if he found any, and an actual meal, although semi-digested, was way better.

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Burke tipped his head a bit. Was he still mad? No, but he wasn't very inclined to help Damien right now. He did wonder what caused the male to end up like this on the doorstep of his pack. "I am too old to hold a grudge but I can't say I look back fondly at that time in my life. I thought we were close," he commented to the darker one. Burke kept his eyes on Damien, he did look really bad.

Burke stepped a bit forward and then threw up his last meal before Damien's feet. A bit of a satisfied smirk came upon Burke's lips. "Warm meal for ya,' he commented. Burke had his grumpy moments but often he was inclined to help. That had already been the case at Blackfeather. He had been a therapist for many of the members. Burke stepped back with a bit of a limp. "How did you end up here? Did they do the same to you as you did to me?," he asked curiously as he let Damien eat up his puke. Something satisfying about it.
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Damien knew that bitterness flooded every one of Burke's words and a smirk was drawn across his face, perhaps corrupted by a smudge of guilt. It hadn't been his fault entirely, though. Nemesis had had a lot to do with it and every ounce of disgrace that had befallen Blackfeather Woods rested on her shoulders as it did on Damien's. Things were easy with Burke on top of the command chain, maybe a bit stagnant, but it worked alright. With Damien and Nemesis... It was an absolute mess at the very best.

For as bad as it was, Damien's mouth started watering when Burke threw up for him. He hadn't eaten in days and his stomach churned at the wet sound of Burke's pre-digested offering spilling before them. Like a shadow Damien approached cautiously and silently, head low looking up to Burke's chest minding his manners. For confident as he was that Burke wouldn't harm him there was still an inmensurable chance that things would end terribly for both of them. As soon as the bile was within reach Damien threw himself on it eagerly, ignoring the rancid, acid taste of his supper, for it could very well be his last.

Between bites, retching and heavy breathing Damien didn't find an answer to Burke's question. Damien had indeed been dethroned, but it hadn't been an uprising as it was in Burke's case. Damien had fallen on his own, broken down to pieces perhaps too small to repair, and the way back to the top was steep and full of challenges that he wasn't sure he could take on. You could have stayed, he said between grunts and chewing, I needed you to stay... he added thoughtfully, almost whispering before diving his nose back into his meal.

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Burke watched as his former son approached. He looked worse than he thought when he came from the shadows. The old commander watched as he started to eat. How easily he could take his revenge, as bitter as he was the older male was not bitter enough to kill the other. Perhaps he sounded bitter now seeing Damien again after so many years but he wasn't truly revengeful to the other.

"I could have," he confirmed. Then a whisper told him that he was needed. "If you only showed that to me at the time. What it sounded like was that I was going to be a prisoner in my own home. Plus, Malice was part of the escape as well. She was unhappy. Perhaps if it was just me I would have stayed,' he shrugged. There wasn't much he could change now. It happened.

'It happened,' he stated with a shrug. The old male planted his butt down in the snow. He needed to sit. Burke watched the other, knowing that he still hadn't gotten a reply to his own question. Though perhaps it wasn't important. "I warned you for this. You weren't ready. I would have given the spot to you when I felt you were ready. But you were impatient," he accused. "And now you have to follow the consequences. Grow stronger from it. I might die in the next couple weeks but you shouldn't."
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