It was with a haughty sort of eagerness that she had continued down the mountain and across the flatlands; the lake spotted from the peaks was stopped at—briefly—but hadn’t held her interest for very long before she was off again. She could see a forest, which she kept away from, the scent of a pack discouraging her; she wasn’t scared or anything, she just didn’t feel like dealing with a bunch of mindless, uptight pack wolves. To her, they were like sheep, so easily controlled and lacking their own, individual thoughts. Those belonging to the Gorgon family had, in the past, all come together in order to live on through the winter, but never had they formed a pack. They claimed no set piece of land, traversing the mountains freely and mocking any of the obedient little dogs that dared to cross their paths. Simply thinking of packs left a sour taste in her mouth, as well as drove her to get by the woods as quickly as she could without drawing any attention to herself.

Thankfully, the next arrangement of trees to catch her attention had yet to be tainted by the vile touch of a wolf’s herd, making it suitable for entry. As she broke through the barrier of trees that separated the outside world from the forest within, she was rather surprised by what she encountered: death. Whilst winter was known for killing everything, this place seemed as if life had never existed there to begin with. Initially, she was unsettled by it, but the feeling was quickly shaken. Replacing it was her usual, cocky self as she delved deeper, sniffing every now and again as she sought food. It was doubtful that she’d find anything, for nothing worth eating would ever end up the—wait, what’s that? A sharp intake of air brought to her the unmistakable scent of blood; it was metallic and sweet, distracting her from the wolfish hints intermingling with it.

Stalking forward she was silent, muscles tensed like a viper right before it struck—and strike she did, noticing only at the very last second that it was another wolf at the receiving end of her assault. And even though she tried to stop mid-lunge, she was too late and, should he not move, would surely land right on top of him, a forelimb placed sturdily on both sides of his neck.

When the wolf reacted with snarls and snaps, she’d been prepared. From the moment she realised that her target was a wolf, she prepared herself for anything and everything that could be thrown her way. Yet, as the boy actually started after her, she was slightly thrown off by his terrible aim. She was literally right there, yet not a single one of his bites connected with flesh. In all honesty, she was rather disappointed. She was considering retaliating, her head pulled back so as to avoid his teeth just in case he wised up, when she noticed his face; disgusting and bloody, a gaping hole where his eye should be. Instantly appalled by the fact that, that thing was touching her, Sorina removed herself from him even quicker than she’d arrived, putting several steps worth of distance between them.

Scowling at him, she asked, “What the fuck is wrong with your face?” And why, she silently added, did he think it was appropriate to let her remain on him when he knew that he looked like a living disaster? “How dare you snap at me when you look like that,” she huffed, in a state of total disbelief. “What? Are you jealous that I have both of my eyes and all you have is that mangled mess you call a face—and don’t even get me started with the side you’re missing an eye on.” Seriously, what the hell happened to this guy?

Oh, so he thought he could speak to her now, did he? Even through her continuous ranting she was able to pick up on his voice. In an instant, she was standing tall and glaring at him, head cocked to the side with her chin pointed downwards—similar to a cat about to attack. Although he didn’t finish his sentence, she had a pretty good idea of what he was planning on saying, and none of it fell under the category of what she considered acceptable. Flashing her teeth, she took a slow, small step towards him, eyes unblinking. The nerve of this guy! Not only had he touched her, but now he was trying to talk back to her? What was the world coming to! A wolf—and a male, no less—speaking to her as if she was just another pup out for a stroll. She scoffed at the thought.

What really got to her was that it didn’t stop there.

All of a sudden, he raised his voice with her, earning another few steps in his direction and a low growl. “Well maybe if you didn’t look like a carcass, I wouldn’t have jumped you,” she countered, certain she was in the right—because, come on now, when wasn’t she? “Who gave you permission to talk back to me anyways?! Shut the hell up already—don’t you think you’ve done enough? Touching with me your filthy self… do you know how long it’s going to take me to get the image of that”—she jutted her chin out further, motioning towards his empty eye socket—“touching me out of my head?! Disgusting.” The thought alone made her stomach twist with nausea.

“And what the fuck is Moonspear?” she asked, spitting the name. “Why the hell would I go there? Is that where you lost your face? Fuck that—I’m not going there.” Risk messing up her pretty face? Never! How would anyone survive knowing that her beauty was wiped clean from the earth?

She got the feeling she resembled his attackers—good. Why was she even still there? Probably because she was so argumentive that backing away and leaving seemed like way more work than continuing back and forth. Besides, she wanted to go that way—not at first, but now she did just because he was in her way. “First of all, you little shit”—one, two, three more steps forward—“I didn’t attack you. Do you honestly think you’d still be breathing if I had? Hell, you’re such an easy target that some pansy ass kid could take you out—you want that? Maybe I should go find a newborn to kill you, then at least you’d be on the same level as your actual attacker.” Zita’s kids could probably kill him, for fuck’s sake, and they were all about that pacifist lifestyle—tch, losers.

Four, five, six, seven.

By now, she’d crept close enough that she could lunge forward at any moment and tackle him down—and she nearly did, the sight of his gouged out eye being the only thing holding her back. “Based on how pleasant you’ve been with me, I’m sure they had many reasons to take your eye,” she declared matter-of-factly. “They could’ve taken anything that they damn well wanted from you, and you would have deserved it.” She didn’t know what had happened, what led up to it, or anything related to it. That, however, didn’t keep her from running her mouth. She was pissed off and disgusted, and he was the only one there to take the brunt of her emotions; of course she was going to be hard on him, it didn’t even matter that she still had no idea who this guy was or anything else about him.

He still deserved it.

And the second he tried to tell her what to do, he automatically deserved way more than having his eye ripped out. “What face?!” was shrieked right before she launched herself at him once again, intending to knock him off his feet and then straddle him, should she managed to get him back on the ground. “Even if you had a face, I wouldn’t get out of it,” was her bright response, rational statements having left her mind in order to make room for all the rage. “You do not tell me what to do. Got it?!” She snapped at him, extra careful not to actually touch him—how gross would that be?

She ignored him.

The fact that she was no longer making any sense didn’t matter and his asking of who she was went not unheard, but unanswered. Why should she answer him when all he was doing was yelling and being completely unreasonable? Their similarities flew right over her head, unseen and unwelcome. “Who am I?” she parroted, mocking him. “Who the fuck are you?” There still wasn’t anything clicking. Nope. No way could she see through her own veil of utter bullshit and realise that, hey, they weren’t too different from one another—minus the whole face issue, of course. That was probably their biggest difference at this point.

Face-to-face, she held her ground, neither backing up nor moving forward; being so close to his empty socket grossed her the fuck out, but she ignored that and focused on his slightly-less-ugly side. And again, she scoffed at his remark. “Even with half my face torn off, I still wouldn’t look as disgusting as you do,” she threw back. “You stupid little—” Before she could even finish the sentence, her head jerked forward with widened jaws, eager to lock them down around his muzzle—nothing. With an audible snap her mouth closed down around nothing but air, the boy now on the ground instead of in her face.

“You’re just now realising that?” Took him long enough. “Don’t you think you should have figured that out when—oh, I don’t know—half of your fucking face was torn off?!” Seriously, how slow could he possibly be?! Stalking even closer yet, she asked, “Seriously, what is wrong with you? I’ve never met someone as stupid as you before, so I’m genuinely curious about what the hell happened to get you to this point in your sad, sad life.” She had known him for a total of… what? Ten minutes now? Give or take. Either way, in such a short amount of time, she’d decided that she knew his entire life story and immediately decided it was pathetic.

Despite what she’d said, she hadn’t actually been expecting details. Really, she didn’t even want them. All she wanted to hear was something along the lines of yeah, my parents dropped me on my head a few times. No big deal. Clearly, they weren’t on the same page, as he decided to tell her everything—what sane person does that?! And even though she hadn’t originally wanted any details—and kept telling herself that she still didn’t—Sorina was uncharacteristically quiet whilst she listened to everything he had to say. Which was a lot. She couldn’t believe that everything was true, finding it both strange and utterly frustrating that he’d experienced so much already, whilst she had only recently ventured out into the big, bag world; jealousy had a habit of appearing at strange and completely inappropriate times. Having spent her life protected by her father and other family members, she couldn’t fully grasp either the seriousness of his story or how it wasn’t at all good. All she could gather from it was that he had gone out and done so much, meanwhile, she’d spent most of her time stuck at home. How unfair.

After his story was drawn to a close, she remained silent, absorbing all of this new information. There was a forest that she should probably avoid, or maybe visit and fuck around with—she was pretty sure she’d passed by said woods on her way here. There was also another mountain range somewhere around here—she probably saw it on the horizon when she was staring at the world from atop the Sunspire—that was inhabited by an unreasonable lot; she would definitely be avoiding them. Not out of fear—no, she was too confident in herself to think that she’d ever be given the same fate as the boy—but out of sheer impatience. Why intentionally hang around wolves that jumped to conclusions and made asses out of themselves? As eager as she was to argue, even she wouldn’t do that.

Once everything was all sorted out in her head, she had only one question left on her mind.

“If you didn’t kill her, then why the hell did you run?” she asked, breaking the silence. “Why didn’t you just wait there so you could explain yourself? Dumbass—you could still have your eye right now if you hadn’t run away.” With everything out in the open now—all of his business, anyways—she couldn’t keep her mind from wandering, wondering what he looked like before being maimed. Really though, it didn’t matter—not like he could get his eye back or face repaired at the shop down by the river.

The second he became defensive, she smirked, amused by his realisation that he truly was a dumbass. And perhaps said smirk would have remained, had he not spoken back to her the way that he did; now, it was her turn to take up the defensive side of the conversation, though her line between defensive and offensive was severely blurred. “I might not have met them before, but I know enough about packs to understand that you running did nothing to help your case,” she shot back. “All you did was make yourself look even more guilty.” For generations, her family had spent their lives avoiding packs. They neither joined nor led them, but instead belittled them and everything that they represented. Never had they lived in unison with them, either, which had forced her to learn early on that which was okay and not okay around the sheep and their land; but really, even a child would know that running from the scene of a crime would, undoubtedly, make you appear guilty to any wolf, not just those single-minded pack dwellers.

“Maybe it would have been better had they just killed you,” she then commented. “It’s not exactly ideal for you to continue living—especially if you ever plan to reproduce. We don’t need any more idiots like you running around out there.” Sorina shrugged her shoulders, treating her words as if they weren’t downright mean and uncalled for. “Anyways, I think it’s time for you to take what’s left of your face and get the fuck out of my way before I take your other eye,” were the next words to leave her mouth, voice even and tone bored with an annoyed edge. “You can talk to me again when you’re smarter—if you can find me.” As if anyone would want to find her.

In Sorina’s head, her opinions mattered. Every little thing that she could think to say was meant to be listened to with eager ears and, should her words deem it necessary, obeyed. She’d been born with this sort of mindset, with the growth and development of it later being fueled by the members of her family—namely, her father. To even consider that someone might not value every thought she could concoct was impossible; she refused to humour the possibility, even as it played out right before her. She just kept throwing verbal punches, oblivious to how little force she had backing them up.

Pulling back her lips to reveal a set of glistening incisors, she snarled at the male. “Some rogue?!” she growled out, deciding right then that the comment was the worst of insults to ever be uttered. “I am so much greater than a lowly rogue.” Whilst she had lived her entire life thus far without a pack to back her up, she had never viewed herself as a rogue. Each time she heard the word, all she could imagine was a mangy, flea-ridden scoundrel that could hardly speak; where this image originated from, she couldn’t remember, she knew only that it popped into her head each time she heard the word. The notion that she could be anything like that infuriated her, tempting her to lash out and show him what she was made of—yet, she held back. He wasn’t worth her wrath, he was hardly worth the attention of a field mouse—

—or, maybe not.

Each time she tried to get past him, he moved in front of her, blocking her exit. Snapping, she threw her previous thoughts to the wind—he was deserving of much, much more than her wrath. Without much warning, she threw herself towards him, intending to collide with his body and send them both rolling; she’d fight to be on top should he fall, though, given her rash decision and impulsive actions, she was unlikely to succeed.

There were a number of things that she’d expected to happen, including, but not limited to: falling, tumbling, getting a few bruises, and maybe a sprain. But what did she get? Her nose slipping into the empty eye socket of the male. At first, it didn’t fully register exactly what had happened, but that sweet moment of oblivion didn’t last long.

In an instant, Sorina was pulling out and stumbling backwards, shocked and disgusted. Her stomach churned, threatening to eject its contents, but she swallowed down what she could as disgust turned to rage. “You bastard!”—she was seething—“What the fuck, what the fuck, what the actual fuck?! Oh my—” She cut herself off, body dropping to the ground as she began furiously pawing at her face, trying to rid her muzzle of his blood and tissues. “I’ll kill you—I swear I will, nothing will stop me—for this!” She rubbed her face against the ground, through the snow, doing everything in her power to get the remnants of his eye off of her.

Fully invested in cleaning herself up, Sorina hadn’t even noticed the boy’s escape until long after he was gone—which made her even angrier. She wanted to attack him—to kill him, even—and make him pay for having defiled her pretty face with his… his whatever that was! Yet, at the same time, she just wanted to move on with her life and forget it had ever happened (she hoped like hell that no one had been around to see what had happened, certain that the embarrassment alone would kill her). So once she was as clean as the snow would allow her to be, the serpent took off to find a nice body of water to better rinse her face in—unbeknownst to her, however, she went in the exact same direction as her new friend.