The encounter left Finley restless. Unease tugged at her like a thorny undergrowth. “Worse,” she’d unthinkingly invited @Colin along on the way out, and had no better grasp on her own intentions with the gesture than the stranger’s with Donovan.

Frankly the whole ordeal left her head spinning, and it was much too early for such nonsense. As she traversed back over the mountains, towards the ever-scorching canyons the Saints were now obliged to call home, Finley’s gait was stiff with unspoken tension. If Colin had left in the silence she’d left, she would be neither surprised nor judgmental. But on the off chance he hadn’t, Finley was curious about his lingering presence; Nemisis had left without much fanfare, skulking off to whatever her next encounter might be, and it left Finley with a chance for interaction outside leadership’s shadow.

“What brought you here?” she asked, with little pause preceding it, tone sharp with a curiosity reaching further past the morning. Donovan gave him a new home. But why here? Why him?

Still, the nigh-demanding sound of her words surprised even Finley; Colin was an equal, and she ought to have no expectation of reply—if he was even around at all. Only then did she slow, turning back to gauge how he’d handled himself since the Hollow. Finley’s attention had been divided there, between the rivaling leaders, but her surface-level inquisitiveness remained. Had he too been ready to fight, despite his self-professed peacekeeping?

An ache hammers at his temples. It's a leftover from the fierce anticipation of a fight. You sit in the corner of a bar, and you watch the first blow being exchanged (a dull thunk of a fist against a jawbone) and even though you're not in the fight, not even close to it, your heart beats quick. Your fists clench around a salt shaker. It's electricity.

They walk in silence. Colin chews at his lip, ready to offer an awkward farewell and then to peel off, but then Finley asks him-- What brought you here?

His heart lurches again. All types of confrontation feels the same to your brain. He considers many answers: a sharp Why does it matter? or a soft and distant I don't understand. But what comes out of his mouth is neither. "I couldn't stay back home." 

"Anyone could've found me. It just happened to be Donovan. I just couldn't remain where I was." An interrogation, but Finley didn't have the authority, the confidence, of a detective or a cop. It could've been either one of them handcuffed to the table, or listening through the bulletproof screen glass. 

Colin had been chewing his lip, perhaps ready to leave—but he hadn’t, leaving the window open just enough for Finley’s dart of an inquiry. He didn’t answer immediately, and to her surprise he skimmed right over the obvious for a dive into the past.

“Anyone could’ve found me. It just happened to be Donovan.” The reasons for Colin’s original leave were left tauntingly vague, but a lingering tension in his response dissuaded Finley from prying further. It was of no concern now, why he’d left, and clearly he felt the same.

More concerning was the idea that he could have joined any old pack, and only fate had left him in the Saints’ ranks. It wasn’t as though Finley had been swept in similarly, with mere happenstance pulling her up the river through the flatlands; oh, no, from the moment Donovan began his tirade, Finley’s own future was sealed. It was almost enough to give her belief in destiny.

So why the paranoia?

“Understood,” Finley said, with a finality she did not remotely feel. “Idle curiosity,” she added, as if to dispel the tension—but that was Derg’s expertise, not hers—“did Donovan spar with you?” Would he have taken anyone?

Understood. Idle curiosity. Nothing about this felt idle to him. Then again, he hadn't felt anything like it in a long time. He wonders if he was born this way: constantly turning himself around and over, picking at scabs and at the scalp, picking himself clean down to the bone, through to the marrow. And one day, there would be nothing left.

"No. He did with you?" He asks, but he already knows. "Wait. Forgive me. I just remembered."

Her implication sits in his mind; he wants it out. It has disregarded the lock on his doors and walked in, boots caked with mud, all over on the coffee table. He can't bear it. "I will fight if I have to. Back there, if that woman had-" he searches for the word, "-escalated it, I would've fought." 

"You don't believe me." He starts off with a questioning tone, but halfway through, it loses all inflection. The hybrid sentence skitters along the floor until it dies at her feet.

Once again Colin’s response seemed to read her intentions clear as the morning sun; again he left things temptingly unsaid. “Forgive me. I just remembered.” Remembered what, his spar? How could he forget? Or did he refer to the implication, nestled squarely in her question, that Finley had earned her place through such a fight? His answer was a no, but conditional, and it did not satisfy her.

But his addition was clearer—defensive, even, concluded with the non-question of Finley’s doubt. “That woman.” Nemisis or the monarch? She sought any trace of mutual understanding in Colin’s gaze and found nothing but his own unease.

He’d read her plainly and Finley saw no point in lying. “I’m not sure I do.” But I’d expect nothing less from a Saint. She bit her tongue on the follow-up; what position was she in to unload such judgment? Her longevity in the pack, if it was to her advantage at all, meant nothing in these mountains.

Here Finley paused, both in word and walk, assessing the landscape. They had yet to fully descend into the sands, and the heat was oppressive enough without all this lingering not-quite-strife “Care for a spar?” The question came with as little warning as her first. “You have nothing to prove to me, as an equal.” So why did she ask? “A hunt would do just as well. Something to clear the air.” An odd insistence crept into her otherwise flat voice; something. Anything.

A demand colors her voice; her assertion is rythmic and persistent and it matches the ebb and flow of his headache. The skeptical look on her face isn't harsh or derisive, but he's tempted to act as if it is. Frustration coils around his heart. It squeezes. It releases.

It would clear the air. He scrabbles at a sense of psuedo-comfort. This poor imitation of closure-- he is tempted by its clean promise.

"Okay."

The word is absurdly clipped and civilized for what's about to follow. He crouches, gripping the sand, lip raised in a perfunctory, soundless snarl. He lunges forward to her left shoulder, but feints at the moment before impact to headbutt her in the chest, his jaw clenched, anticipating the jarring shock of an unstoppable projectile meeting an immovable object.

A simple “Okay” indicated Colin’s acceptance. He dropped into a crouch; Finley mirrored the gesture, noting his silent and seemingly unenthusiastic snarl. Huh, it wasn’t as though she’d forced this on him. But her thoughts faded to a background static.

Colin started the fight with a lunge to her left; Finley bounded right. He swerved, her traction slipped in the sand; with a muffled thud skull hit chest and Colin shoved her back, momentarily winding her. For a haggard thing he packed a punch.

Hind paws dug into the earth; Finley stood, if unsteady, and twisted forth with an open maw towards the shoulder—then ducked down, her true target being his forelimbs. If she made contact she would keep her bite light, but would not let go.

Colin and Finley collide, reminiscent of a spindly vintage car in a fender bender with a more stocky and reliable model. His teeth grate; he sees stars, but she is winded. The sound of air being slammed out of someone wasn't one so easily forgotten.

Already, she's lashing back with a bite. Her teeth connect with his left arm. There isn't much fat there to cushion the blow, and the sensation of a vice this close to the complex of veins, muscle, and tendon, it makes his heart buck. The pain is dull and her grip is light, but he is now trapped, a dog worrying at its toy bone. 

He twists away as much as he can under her grasp and snaps at her shoulder. It is the most he can do under such cramped quarters, and he hopes to tear himself away from her teeth with his own. If he made contact, he would bite down firmly, just enough to draw blood.

Teeth made contact with one leg, not enough to draw blood but no less firm. Colin squirmed in her grip; snapping pain shot down from her shoulder, drawing blood. A fresh addition to their game.

Her own teeth clamped down, returning the gesture. She jerked her head back, hoping to throw him off-balance in a yanking tug-of-war—but her grip loosened in the gesture and Finley’s teeth closed once more around open air, and Colin was free. Momentarily bewildered, catching her breath, she stayed back and watched him with a hunter’s focus. Their spar was, in her eyes, far from over.

The sharp taste of iron in his mouth-- his stomach rolls and clenches. Her fur tickles the back of his throat. He manages to slip away from Finley's hold on his arm, and as she draws back, he does too.

They circle the ring, pupils dilated, their pulses roaring in their ears. The low and aching noise of a tide rushing in, dragging out. His lungs squeeze with the effort. Squinting through the kicked up sand, he rushes back in with a grunt, ears swept back and hackles raised, mouth half-open. His teeth flash in the garish summer sun as he aims to grab her chin. Sweat rolls down his neck, crawls down his forehead. He blinks it away, but he is acutely aware of the saline sting.

They circled each other, recovering—the lull, temporary. Colin made the first move, ever silent; his aim was clear and Finley darted aside, dodging a tag. Straightforward, no trickery. Was he getting tired already?

Without pause she turned on him, charging; just before contact she turned, throwing her unbitten shoulder at his side with half her weight. Could he keep steady? Her attack would be swift if not.

His mouth closes around nothing. The sensation is frightening, the same drop in your stomach when you miss a step in the staircase or a rung on the ladder. 

This time, it is Finley that butts into him, bull-like. Caught off balance, he staggers, and his side hits the sand. For a few moments he is caught breathless, but there's still fight left in him. He looks up at her, backlit by a saturated sky and its sun. Inhales. Exhales. Half on the floor, he reaches for her forelimb, whichever is closest. If he got a hold of her, he would try to twist and drag her down.

Down. Colin stumbled, side hitting sand, and she dove in. The face grab was a dominant move, one Finley didn’t necessarily have the right to perform, but in the midst of a spar that mattered to her little.

But Colin was faster, his teeth sinking into her forelimb; they twisted in tandem, Finley to shake him and Colin pulling down; neither succeeded. She growled, feigning frustration—then dove in again, snapping down over and around his head. Whether he released her leg or not didn’t matter; she aimed for the neck, far from the throat but close as she could reach to scruff and side, making no effort to back down. If this were a real fight the pain shooting up her limb would matter even less.

In the commotion, Finley reaches for his muzzle. A flash of vulnerability burns through him-- he grunts, muffled, in instinctive protest.

He bites down harder on her leg, deriving some dark and primal satisfaction from it. The line between pastor and wolf thins out and disappears without much fanfare. Blood pools in his mouth, is smeared around his mouth as some sort of perverse makeup. 

Finley's leg jerks to the side as she prepares another attack; he realises that he must concede his position in order to squirm out of her reach. He attempts to roll away, legs tucked, disturbing the sand. Adrenaline continues its frantic tempo throughout his body.

A grunt from Colin protested the move, followed by a vicegrip that stained his mouth red—and, accompanying the stabbing ache that had her eye twitching in a fleeting wince, a twisted glee shot through Finley. So he could fight—and she was the one to drive him to it, “self-defense” be damned. His skills with his life on the line must have been formidable tenfold.

Her bites snipped at air, peppered gratuitously with sand from the wolves’ fight, as Colin rolled away. Perhaps Finley could cede, his strength proven and her leg throbbing—but pride spurred her for one more blow. Blood flicked onto the sand as Finley surged forward, fangs outstretched for one last grab at Colin’s scruff. If she was quick enough she’d get him before he could rise.

Success was just in his reach, an escape just at his fingertips--

-- his head jerks back as Finley grabs him by his scruff. A black anger rises in him, unbidden. Another snarl twists his features, this time intentional and very much audible.

Then as if a switch has been flipped, he blinks and loosens. He looks at his bloody hands. They shake with so many things: adrenaline, pain, the fading vestiges of that alien rage. He collects himself. His face only a few inches away from the sand, he's back where he was moments before. Half on the ground, half off.

The fight is nearing its inevitable end. He knows this the same way he knows when a storm is coming, when a deer is about to notice him and disappear. He attempts to writhe out of Finley's grasp yet again, dimly noticing the blood that is creeping down his throat.

There was something primal in Colin’s snarl, burning with a ferocity far surpassing his previous noise. Finley loved it. When he wrenched himself out of her grasp, at last she relented, dipping her head and stepping away. She’d been used to spars ending with one towered over the other, their strength firmly asserted, but with her last-minute attack deflected she felt no need to bleed their efforts dry.

Also, her leg fucking hurt.

“Impressive,” Finley said, each breath loudly pronounced as adrenaline ebbed away. Colin could go for another surprise attack and she’d be none the wiser; somehow she wasn’t sure she cared. “You fight well.” As if he’d had anything to prove, any obligation to earn her favor, to start—but that wasn’t why she spoke. Her words instead bore the breathless admiration of someone who, to her immense satisfaction, had been proven very, very wrong.

He might've come out of this more bruised, but it was he that drew the most blood. The realisation settles into him, frigid. Impressive, she says.

What a sick joke it is-- that physical violence is as foreign to him as simple playtime is for Finley, but in the end, he had been ensnared by his biology. By thousands of years of evolution. This is just what you are. Your hands were never clean.

Thank you. He says, breathless. Then at length, You too. Fatigue grabs at him, shackles his feet to the ground. His muscles burn with lactic acid. If Finley had come away from this with some strange satisfaction, Colin was left only with a vague confusion. He recalls how just a few seconds ago his mind had been serrated and sharpened simply by fighting, and notes how edgeless and noisy it has become, now at rest.

He turns wordlessly to limp back down into the canyon. His steps are slow and deliberate-- if she wished to catch up and grab his attention, she very well could.

Something was odd in how Colin took to the comment, but he thanked her nonetheless and eventually returned the sentiment. Weariness took its time creeping into Finley as a post-battle release; it hit Colin, meanwhile, with the sympathy of a careening ram. Were fights like this common for him? His sinking demeanor—along with the barely-conceived realization that Finley’s upbringing was, perhaps, not a norm—suggested otherwise. “Only in self-defense” indeed.

Colin left without further fanfare; Finley, being a wolf of few words herself, was content to let their encounter end with that. Perhaps there were things left unsaid, but for her there was no more point to the spar than the motions themselves. Doubt and worry and other such nonsense could creep in later, unwelcome as the sand that would surely irritate her wounds. But for now, Finley was content.

She took a moment to lap at the bite on her foreleg, wondering idly how long it’d leave a mark, allowing the distance between herself and Colin to grow. Then, as if none of this had happened (barring the slightest limp), Finley descended back towards the canyons.

Her doubts about Colin, at least, had been firmly quelled.

As he descends, he can't help but turn back to steal look at Finley, who was nursing her wounds. He thinks, distantly, that he should do the same to his scrapes. He spits blood and saliva to the side before continuing on his way.

He's too tired to deal with his usual melange of thoughts-- for once, he allows himself the simple luxury of existing. Nothing more, nothing less.