Wolf RPG

it was time that shardul mounted another attack against the wolves. the threat to his dominion had been wounded -- he festered with fever -- and so the giant cat was satisfied, rather sure that the upstart would die of his wounds. he ordered regipre to come with him, and together the pair set off toward the collection of jackals shardul had watched for a day or so. staying far clear of the borders, he found a small stream, and directed his charge to wash his scent from her body, despite the icy temperature of the water.


when she had done so, shardul leveled the child with a silent and expectant look -- she knew what he wanted of her -- and he himself secreted his massive body behind a clutch of fallen logs to watch. crossing from the waters, she glanced about herself and then lay down beside the borders, beginning to whine quite piteously.

She shivered slightly as she exited the shallows (she still abhorred deep water). The cold air stung her flesh like a slap. Regipre quickly licked the excess moisture from her tawny pelt, then faced Shardul. By now, she knew the rules. At first, the ploy had repulsed her as much as it intrigued her, for it required close proximity to her enemies and playacting that simply did not come to her naturally. Nowadays, she found a grim pleasure in the farce, happy to bait the wolves so that the cougar could slay them in cold blood.

The three-legged coyote plodded toward the nearby border, unleashing exaggerated and pitiful whines with every few hops. Her wound was no longer open, so Reggie could not claim she was the victim of a recent attack. Now it was just about attempting to garner pity from kinder wolves or evoke a predatory response in those that spotted her weakness and wanted to prey upon it. It was all rather undignified and repugnant but the ends justified the means; as long as she could draw out the wolves, Shardul could kill them.

And when she suddenly stumbled over a root and fell flat on her face, it was authentically pathetic.

And draw at least one of them out, they would.

Though the actual process of drawing one such wolf out did not come readily, though Mordecai had been steadily making his rounds across and around the territory. It came absently, the habitual process something he did while pondering over this and that. Their borders had been quiet as of late much like the surrounding countryside, though he had scarcely put two and two together as to why. It was merely the assumption that his neighbors both north and south of him were busy with their plans to ready for winter.

Some while into his rounds, he was drawn in by the sound of whining. Whatever it was initially he thought to be foreign by default; something about it was off. His hackles prickled uncomfortably along his spine as his steps picked up and became more calculated. Just over a small crest did he spy the coyote, and just in time to see it faceplant spectacularly. His steps halted shortly thereafter, observing his surroundings briefly before honing in on the smaller canine with a stern growl. It didn't seem very old at all and a good look at it told him that it was already injured. The only thing that held him back was the sense to know that it could have been sick and if it was, then it wasn't worth getting bit over something rabid.

the child tripped and collapsed - shardul did not know if the movement was affected or genuine, but at any rate, it did not matter. he remained sheltered, lemon orbs burning in the direction of the agouti-pelted lupine who emerged from the wood. yet the man had not drawn near enough from his home -- not yet -- and so the silver cat remained as he was.

Although she knew Shardul would swoop in and execute any wolf that approached swiftly and without prejudice, the sound of a low growl nonetheless caused Reggie's blood to run cold. Grunting, she crooked her single foreleg and pushed, slowly rising back onto all threes. Dust and detritus clung to her damp fur but the coyote did not take the time to shake it off. She pivoted, carefully, and combed her surroundings until she spotted the wolf a few dozen yards away.

He looked similar to her Khal of yore, right down to his burning amber eyes. Reggie stared at him for a beat, then made a point to hobble a few steps. Truthfully, she was getting good at walking on her three legs. But Reggie made it appear as if she was more handicapped than she really was in the hope that the wolf would come closer to investigate.

When the young coyote rose, Mordecai saw the extent of the injuries it already had. A missing limb, for instance, was definitely something that would hinder even the best of them all. How on earth it had survived thus far was beyond him, but he did not pause to question the odds. The dampness the young canine had was enough to make it look raggedy, but it seemed intent on moving along.

His curiosity got the better of him, and he followed at length. If it was keen on avoiding him, then perhaps it would avoid the rest of the pack. The elements would have their way with it soon enough. But if it were the opposite, he knew he could not take chances — if there was one coyote around, there were bound to be more.

the argent coat of the cat dappled itself in shadow as shardul began the slow and inexorable stalk toward the wolf who had come to investigate the coyote bait. should he lose regipre, the feline would count it a loss indeed -- she had been invaluable to the streak of sociopathy that curdled the blood and set him to murder -- but this wolf seemed to hold no such intention. if the pup would but lull the larger canine some steps further from its gates, shardul would soon close the space between them with a propulsion of speed and splash crimson upon the winter grasses in fulfillment of his own holy crusade against the reeking creatures.

The wolf trailed her like an evening shadow, remaining at a distance. Sure that he was watching, Reggie pretended to stumble again. She bent her leg and crumpled slowly to the ground (so slowly that the wolf might suspect a farce). She let out a quiet yip, then began to nip and lick at her remaining foreleg as if to imply she had injured it somehow.

The young coyote then made a show of attempting to stand up, only to sink down time after time. "Help," Regipre eventually cried, looking away into the trees and trying to spot Shardul for a moment before her gaze suddenly swept to the wolf, locking on his face. "I've fallen and I can't get up..."

He watched as the young coyote hobbled around, only to succumb to what he could guess was more of the same. Up until he had heard its voice, he hadn't known whether or not it was simply just a scrawny male or female — ultimately it possibly didn't matter, a coyote was still a coyote and just another natural competitor. And her cries were pitiful by far, leaving him to hasten his steps towards it. She was young and if there happened to be family nearby, Mordecai did not want to take the chance of her drawing others near. With a rumbling growl that turned into a snarl, he swooped in to forcefully scare it away, or meet the sharper of the teeth that he possessed.

had the wolf not leapt at his charge, shardul would have reserved his appearance for the last moment. as it was, he did not wish to lose the coyote child, and so he surged from his crouched position, beginning a ponderous run of bunching muscle toward the moronic lupine. over regipre he soared, landing alongside the wolf with a shriek of wrath and violence -- his claws flashed forth from their sheaths and he sought to crush the inferior beast's shoulder with a full blow. 

beneath the other three of his legs, the coyote would do well to remove herself, lest she be caught up in the beginning struggle between the silver cat and the object of shardul's murderous and violent rage.

The ruse worked. The wolf became aggressive, rushing toward her with teeth bared. Reggie couldn't be sure whether it was meant as a warning or an outright attack. It didn't matter. She jumped onto all threes, betraying her farce, then sprang as hastily as she could out of the way. But the wolf wasn't even the reason she fled. She knew that if she stayed put, she would get trampled or worse when the big cat swooped onto the scene.

Shardul sailed right over her, his tail even tickling over her spine. As fast as her three legs could carry her, she jogged away from the altercation. When she was safely out of the way, she glanced at the combatants, then located the nearest hiding spot and dived beneath a shrub. From her position, she watched with pale, glimmering eyes, her face expressionless as she watched the cat's and wolf's every move and waited for the inevitably bloody outcome.

It was a ruse, he realized perhaps too late to scatter himself. The only thing that occurred to him the moment he saw the feline explode from the brush was that it had been stalking the coyote all along. An unpleasant situation turned thorny, he had little time to react to steer himself clear of the coyote; not that it mattered much with the speed of the feline that came arcing over its assumed quarry. He could not clear the reach from the long armed cougar nor evade the pierce of its cry, and felt the tear and deep burn of its claws through his shoulder.

The yelp that escaped him was suddenly cut off in his throat as he reoriented himself, a snarl followed in its wake. He knew that he would not have long to make sense of the things to come, and tried to prepare a defense against the much quicker feline. His body drew low to the ground to gain speed to circle, trying to stay out of the reach from another strike and hopefully prevent his predator from giving him chase. And if the opportunity presented itself for attack, it would be taken on either side.

adrenaline flooded his body as flesh separated beneath his talons -- he sensed rather than saw the flight of regipre from beneath their churning paws. the wolf leapt deftly aside, avoiding shardul's fanged lunge. dripping blood, the wolf circled 'round, low to the earth, and the silver cat prowled closer, seeking a entry. the rush of his own heart filled his ears -- his movements seemed muted, slow, and the taste of metal was upon his tongue as he lashed his tail behind his hips and sprang a second time at the wounded lupine.

Tense moments seemed to drag on, though it was hardly the reality of the situation. For as focused as he was, the surprise attack had rattled him. Cougars were not things to mess with, for they were faster and more spry than a fair majority of his canine brethren. It didn't necessarily have to be the teeth to end them and this he knew to be all too true.

The feline came round again, moving forward with thunderous power to lunge; Mordecai treated him no differently than a matador at work, and made a go of sidestepping him. But even that came with a price as he went to rake his teeth length-wise to the feline; he was well within the grasp of its powerful paws. This alone propelled him forward and after the pass of a silvery feline shoulder.

shardul soon realized it was necessary to check his attacks -- he glided past the wolf, who evaded him; with a powerful twist of his shoulders, the argentfurred cat aimed to seize the creature with a clip of his massive jaws, seeking to draw blood with the long ivories if not catch up the foolish wolf. to break the spine was a painless end, and one shardul did not wish to bring to the agouti male. no -- he would flay this insipid excuse for an air-breather slowly, until his muzzle was clothed in blood and his appetite had been sated.

He went in pursuit of the cat unquestionably, taking what long strides he could stand to keep pace. It did not help when the cat folded back to face him, teeth bared with their intent keen; a necessary evil and one again, he could not avoid. He used his momentum to clash with the foe, and literally reared his ugly head to smack against the blood-seeking jaws.

shardul did not expect the wolf's gambit; pain spread in a hotfire wave from his jawline to the top of his dome, and his neck was thrust back with the impact as his maw snapped together audibly. however, this did not stop the cracking of a back molar -- even as he leapt from the wolf's jaws, blood flooded from his lips. a macabre hiss was given the man -- shardul was enraged -- and he approached again, his tread careful but tinged in their focus.

Where he expected his employed tactic to have a flaw, it did not this time. If there was one flaw to be drawn, it would have been the dull ache that now resided somewhere above an eye socket. It radiated out — that cat was rather hard-headed. But the resounding hiss was satisfying as they separated. Mordecai did not relent in his pursuit even with the connection; to stop now may as well have been a signature to a death certificate. He snarled at the caution in the feline's steps, his own pathing giving the creature berth as they dwindled closer. He steeled his resolve; his own injury turned away from the feline to avoid an easy target.

likewise was the wolf stubborn, but shardul wished to break him, to tear the confidence from his visage and watch the piercing eyes dull with fear, with the agony of disembowelment -- to see the entrails falling bloodily to trip the wolf would please the silver cat greatly, and so he gathered his hindquarters beneath him and sprang. this time, however, he checked himself so that the canine could not step away; he lashed out at the last moment with both forepaws, intending to tangle them both to the ground.

For all the things that he considered, the feline springing upward into the fray again was not one of them. A foolish thing to forget indeed; he felt his breath hitch momentarily as the full body of the beast went airborne. With no time to evade such an assault, he was left with the full weight of the cat to come down on him, effectively pinning him in a place he would have preferred to stay out of. But for as stubborn as he was, Mordecai did not find entangled without putting up a proper fight — his teeth snapped frightfully, rage boiling over as he reached out for whatever he could grab and tear from the ashen creature. Whatever purchase he found, he took without question.

powerful jaws tore flesh from the tender places between shardul's toes, superficial wounds that opened and bled down with stinging agony upon the wolf. the cougar snarled and wrenched his paws aside, satisfied that the weight of his body held the creature where he wished. his face[url][/url] twisted into the corpse of a grin -- the pain of his lacerated foot was forgotten. "which eye shall i take?" the silver beast hissed, laughing hoarsely. "what dost thou wish me to devour first?"

Prone with the hulking beast over him, Mordecai struggled. It was futile, but the temptation to do so was far too much for him to resist. Eventually those movements ceased, and he was caught between a conservation of strength and the pain from his bleeding shoulder. The coarse voice of the feline came to him, the stoicism in his feral countenance was a sobering note for all that had been endured.

"Surprise me," Mordecai returned, his own voice a sandy rasp as a similar laughter overcame him.

the wolf strangely ceased his struggling, and spat defiantly back at shardul. his own face, however, was fed into more madness by the odd challenge, and he spoke no more, but lowered his broad muzzle and rasped his tongue once over the side of the wolf's muzzle, the tiny spines catching upon the pelt that tasted of earth and autumn leaves. his body responded with a glissade of erotic sensation that coursed across his flesh, and his teeth flashed once before he began his slow and violent assault upon the wolf's visage.

blood dripped from his jaws.

He had hoped for more of a discourse between them, something to buy him time. But there were times when luck was not innately on his side; as it were, this happened to be one of those times. Silence met him as the cougar drew his face in close, his barbed tongue raking roughly against the length of his muzzle. The sensations therein made his skin crawl unpleasantly, his feature recoiling in mute disgust.

He did not see the flash of pearly whites, but felt them. The wound at his shoulder was minute in comparison to the searing flash of white hot fire that came. Like a shot of adrenaline through him, the shock was enough to make the world as he knew it collapse in on itself. The embrace of darkness was swift to follow in its wake, and the last of his thoughts were conspicuously absent; his knowledge of what was to follow was very much the same.

shardul claimed what he wished from the unwilling form of the wolf beneath him, and when the screams penetrated the muted blackness that had fallen over his senses, he used them as fodder for the darkest of his wants, perpetrated in blood and in horrifying violence upon the body of the wolf who fell into his own black pit. his flesh vibrated;  it seemed to split across his shoulders, his hips, his spine -- blood filled his mouth and wrung bestial moans from between his lips at the sheer killing pleasure of it all.

in time, shardul rose, sated, to stagger away from the still and silent form on liquid limbs and collect regipre as they departed the place, his eyes empty and staring, the bloodstained semi-circle of trampled grass that lay beneath the wolf evidence of the most violent show of shardul's strength to date.