Stone Circle the devil in hell’s kitchen

Over the few days she’s been in Easthollow, she has not had many freedoms to herself. Wherever she goes, he is not far behind. Usually annoyed with her little effort she puts into anything. Most of the time, she’s forced to follow him and every so often she’s left at the den alone. Most of the time she is sleeping, tucked away underground where the cold air isn’t so frigid. The one good thing she’ll give him credit for is helping warm up their shared space far better than she ever could alone, even if it means she’s trapped until he moved.

This morning has brought on a soft snow fall from early morning. The ground is lightly blanketed but it has faded in most spots. Every so often there will be a short flurry for a few minutes before fading into a flake here or there. @Wardruna had gone off for a while without making her go on the promise she doesn’t leave the den.

Noma holds on to that promise until her stomach churns in a sickening way and she can’t deny it anymore. She rejects everything Wardruna offers. Slowly, she untangled her gangly legs and slips from the den awkwardly. Immediately, she shivers and her bones rattle and she uses all she has to make the short trip to the cache. The ground crunches beneath her paws but the snow is scarce, making the cache easy to find. Noma begins to dig through the cache and find the first thing within reach, pulling it out and attempting to work on it despite the cold.

Wardruna had not intended to make his hunt long and though it wounds him each and every time his hunts turn out unsuccessful because he has judged distance and depth perception wrong cuts him deeper each time. He has been stripped of his very identity: he would never be the berserker that he once was. That Wardruna had faded gradually with the sight in his left eye. He could barely hunt and only a handful of his attempts were successful: how did he expect to battle? He didn’t. The sting is still smarting, the raw nerve exposed, causing rage to bubble and stew beneath his skin like magma just beneath the top of a volcano as it smokes and prepares to rain fire and ash from the sky. He keeps it tempered, keeps it at bay. He knows that his anger will do nothing. It cannot heal his eye, nor the marred flesh around it. It can not reverse time.

Wardruna manages to calm himself down as he heads back to the den he shares with Noma, only to feel his hackles prickle and bristle with unease as a glimpse in it’s entrance shows him that his thrall isn’t present. He follows her paw-prints left in the fading blanket of snow, following her scent trail so intricately woven with his. It does not take him long to find her and he slowly begins to piece together that it’s the cache she’s heading for and not any of the other Easthollow wolves. Sure enough his suspicions are proven correct as he lays his Jack-o-lantern gaze upon her and feels his irritation and pride sting once more. He lets out an inaudible huff and he storms up to her as she attempts to eat the meat she has taken from the cache. It grinds on Wardruna’s nerves that she refuses all the food he offers to her only to sneak out, to defy him to fill her stomach. He knows she is hungry and he has tried all he can think of to get her to eat short of physical violence.

“No.” The Northerner, already in a bad mood, snarls at her darkly and reaches for the meat with the intent of ripping it away from her. If the food he gives her is not good enough then none of it is good enough. He wants her to eat, but he also wants to remind her who is in charge.

She manages two full bites before she hears his storming footsteps and she struggles to take in another, frantically trying to get what she can like a starved street dog. Noma doesn’t have hold of much by the time he’s snarling at her, causing her to flinch away from him but not fast enough to avoid the kill being snatched out of her mouth. A muffled yelp is the only sound she can manage through the quick of it all and she stumbles back a step or two to avoid any further wrath. Her ears droop back against her head and she looks at him from her low swung head and looks upon his contrasting eyes before she lowers her gaze and locks eyes on the kill that should be in her belly. Noma licks her lips a few times, finishing whatever has left behind in her teeth but it is not enough to satisfy the hunger that drove her out here.

He hadn't seen much of her, but he had seen her. He'd caught her scent on the borders and made a point of knowing what she looked like - apparently, the other wolf had not.

"Hey!" Murdock called, indignant on the woman's behalf. "She's one of us. What do you think you're doing?"

He glared at the other male, waiting for a response but not really believing it would be adequete. Who just ripped food out of another wolf's mouth? Out of another pack member's mouth?

The northerner is successful in his plight as the meat tears from Noma’s grip, earning him a muffled yelp from his thrall. His functioning pupil narrows into a near slit as she glimpses into his eyes. I’m in charge, his eyes tell her. The meat is cold, hard even against his stronger grasp. The whole purpose of taking her as thrall was to keep her alive, to nurse her back to health and he’s been so frustrated with her absolute refusal to take anything he offers her knowing that she will simply waste away. He supposes he should be happy that she wished to sate her hunger but he’s not. He’s not because by sneaking out she’s taken the power from him and that wasn’t how their ….relationship worked. He intends to give it back to her, now that he thinks he’s proven his point of ‘you eat what I give you’ but before he can even take so much as a step towards her another crashes onto the scene sticking his nose where it’s most unwelcome and blurting out questions.

Wardruna’s jaw clenches around the meat, resisting the urge to bear his teeth in annoyance. He bids it back, thinking rapidly to try to manipulate the situation to his advantage. The Gods may have taken away his brawn and brawling prowess but they did not strip him of his mind: that is still sharp, still deadly. If not more so. The male has no context of what has happened: he knows only what he has seen but without reason. Wardruna spits the meat out at his paws and physically turns his head to fixate the unknown male in his singular gaze. “This meat is not good,” The northerner speaks in his heavy accent, taking a moment to think through his next translation. “Not fresh. Almost rotted. Look at her. She needs good meat. Fresh meat. I was hunting for her but the prey escaped me.” Oh! It burns to speak of it, burns like acid upon his tongue. Yet, it effectively works to his story. In hindsight, he is grateful for his failure now ( though it still smarts, make no mistake ). Always lace lies with the truth: it makes it more believable, he’s come to learn.

“I have her nursing back to health,” The translation in his head is a tangle of words mixing and mingling: northerner and common but Wardruna has realized that his translations will never match up perfectly: the common tongue has words that his mother tongue does not and vice versa. “She’s my kona, ah …what’s the word …my wo-woman?” He tests it out on his tongue, feeling it heavy and strange. He looks to Noma then, his gaze lingering for a moment longer before Wardruna’s head swings back to the unnamed pack-mate.

He doesn’t have time to do or say anything when someone else approaches. Most of her days are filled only with Wardruna that it takes a few seconds to register and she slowly looks in the stranger’s direction. Her gaze remains on him for a moment, listening to the accusing questions, but they are back on Wardruna to flounder to excuse his actions.

It surprises her he comes up with something at all, something that—on top of his brutish use of the common tongue—might be plausible. She licks her lips a few times, staring down at the kill on the ground before her attention is redirected to what he calls her. He does not use the word native to his tongue (not that she’d expect him to confess to such a thing) but he manages to mask it anyway.

Slowly, she lowers her rear to the ground but she still remains hunched and small, only lifting her nose a little as she considers giving him a hand with the word he is looking for but she does not, waiting to see how the stranger takes to the explanation.

The situation only seemed weirder when the stranger tried explaining it. Murdock looked between the two, unable to imagine a reality where he remained fit and healthy while allowing his woman to get into the state she was in, now. Suspicion grew on his aging features, plain for both wolves to see, but he wasn't here for couple's counselling.

"Jesus. A little rot never killed anyone, but starvation sure does," he said, still trying to figure out what the hell was happening here. Was the man so worried about fresh meat that he'd starved his poor wife? More likely, he'd been taking the freshest meat for himself and giving her the scraps.

"Let's hunt," he said abruptly, looking back to the male. And when they were done, he'd make sure to see who was eating the best cuts.

Wardruna cannot help but feel that part of the blame for this lays at Noma’s own paws. If she would just eat when he gives her food …but she is unbearably stubborn and chooses to waste away and steal food when he’s not present when there’s no need for it. He offers her food frequently: the freshest kills in the cache, taking the oldest for himself because getting her health back was his singular focus but it only worked if she played her part and thus far she hasn’t. His ears pivot back as he feels the male judging him with his eyes. Wardruna has been good to Noma. He has brought her here when he found her, insisted she get checked over and has tried to make her eat. Wardruna very much desires to snap that he does not starve her …that she starves herself but he holds his tongue. He is crafty but not sure if he’s crafty enough to cover the hole that admitting that would rip in his weaved story…but surely this male didn’t really believe that Wardruna would starve Noma? She was not useful to him ( or Easthollow ) in the state she’s in now. The stranger’s words sounded like an assumption: but without knowing the full story or that Wardruna has worked tirelessly to provide for Noma, trying to hunt fresh food for her even ( and having her witness almost all of his failures ). Sure, it’s for selfish gain but the point was: he wanted her to regain her health.

Perhaps, Wardruna thinks, he should have saved himself the trouble and left her to die — but admitting that feels like failure and he’s already had one failure today. He will not make a second one. Wardruna almost declines the strangers abrupt …request to hunt and resists the urge to tell him to leave them alone. That his presence was unwanted. He is stuck and he wonders that if he and the interrupting stranger are successful if she will eat it or if she will stick her nose up at it. If he was without the hyphema that had caused blood to pull in his left eye — which at first had caused severe pain but gradually as the pain faded so too did his eye sight — he would have refused but it has been so long since he’s had anything fresh and he suspects it has, perhaps, been longer than for Noma and he has appearances to keep up: because he needed Easthollow and he needed Noma and he was in no position to deny a helping paw with a hunt, for either of their sakes.

“We hunt.” The Northerner agrees curtly but hesitates after he takes a few steps towards the stranger and turns his head to look back at Noma. Wardruna is hesitant to leave her a second time. “Go back to the den, Noma. It is warm there. I will come back with fresh meat and try not to be long.” If it means Wardruna'll go hungry today to prove that he’s not trying to starve his woman as he’s now called her then that is what he will do. So long as it gets rid of his nuisance of a man and Wardruna and Noma can be left to their own devices.

Feel free to skip me for now and tag me when you want me to pop back in!

The stranger doesn’t seem to question them anymore, instead offering to hunt something fresh in order for her to have a decent meal. She hates she hadn’t been faster or snuck away sooner or any other plausible thing to blame. One way or another, she’s always come up short. 

Noma tightens her jaw as, to her surprise once more, Wardruna agrees to hunting with him. The stranger accepts the situation for what it is and Wardruna benefits off normalizing their relationship. He will be more careful in the furniture, but it is only another stone set as she feels herself taking a mental step back. His command causes her ears to twitch but she does not object, lingering between the two and avoids any further eye contact as she turns and retreats back the way she came.

For a second, it looked as though the other male would refuse this offer. Murdock's expression stayed in the range of unguarded suspicion as he looked between the two, still unable to puzzle out what was going on, here. It just didn't make sense - why would someone want to starve their mate?

In the end, though, the man agreed. Murdock rolled his eyes at their exchange - he'd never been able to stomach other couples, since his Chemukh had passed - and gestured for Wardrunna to take the lead. "Turkeys are easy, and they're almost at their fattest around this time of year," he said to the younger male, nostrils flaring as tested the air for traces of them. There were always turkeys around, but they weren't always easy to find. "Not the biggest kills, but it should be enough to put some meat back on your girl's bones."

The futher he removed himself from the incident, the easier it was to convince himself it had been some kind of misunderstanding. The strange male was clearly foreign, and not great with the common tongue. His mate didn't appear to speak it at all. There was something at play that Murdock must have missed. "I'm Mur, by the way," he added, fishing for his companion's name.

Wardruna watches Noma depart back to the den and wonders if she’ll stay there this time, but he does not spend long mulling it over. He turns back to the stranger, ears swiveling to the side as he moves so that the other male is on his right side — within his sight. There are few wolves he trust to his left, blind side. Surprisingly, Noma is one of them but he does not exactly want her to know that he cannot see from that eye. Not yet — though it is likely she has figured out that something is wrong. Beyond the marred flesh and blood pooled in the iris that is. The older male prattles on about turkeys — and is unsure that he knows what, exactly, a turkey is: but according to his companion they are an easy kill and fat around this time of year. He almost regrets that he’s already decided that he will not touch the kill since it seems entirely likely that this man has made it his mission to interfere on business that is not his own, much to Wardruna’s annoyance.

Wardruna is silent as the pair move, though he primarily follows the older male’s lead, but he offers a noise of agreement in his throat. He still isn’t sure Noma will eat but perhaps the lure of fresh meat will be too much for her to resist even if he’s the one to give it to her. There is a twitch of umbra ears as the older male introduces himself as Mur. “Wardruna.” The northerner speaks his name in return, getting the sense that it was what the older male had been after.

Wardrunna, as he named himself, did not seem to want to talk. That wasn't Mur's preference, but it didn't bother him, either. He could operate just as well in silence as he could while shootin' the breeze, so he opted to keep quiet as they traced through the territory and finally came upon a group of gobbling birds around the outskirts of Easthollow's woods.

Murdock's nose twitched as he observed them, looking for the best specimens while also taking into account how well they bred - it wouldn't do to take all of them and leave none to make more come springtime.

"One or two of the hens shouldn't hurt nothin'," he decided, padding forward once more. "They fly, so come up on 'em easy, and then pounce fast," he said to Wardrunna - a mouthful if he'd ever heard one. Mentally, he shortened the younger male's name to War. He didn't take into account that his colloqialisms might make it harder for the (obviously foreign) male to understand him, and thus, carried on without another thought toward the other wolf.

For a moment Wardruna stares at the birds and comes to a single conclusion: they are one of the ugliest birds he’s ever seen in his life and he hopes that they taste better than they look. One nearer to Wardruna lets out a noise and the northerner’s lips curls back as Mur makes mention that the fly. Oh, that was great. He could barely catch things that couldn’t take to the sky to escape death …how, precisely, was he meant to attempt to kill something that could? Not to mention, there was still his trouble adjusting to the depth perception and judgement of distance with just one, functioning eye. Wardruna wants to provide for Noma and himself, he wants to be self-reliant but it’s never been a matter of what he wants. Yet, the northerner has had to humble himself, to swallow his bitter pride — what little of it even exists anymore — and confess his weakness to get in here and perhaps it was the competition of testosterone, or perhaps it was because he just wanted the other male to leave Noma and him alone but he doesn’t want Mur to know about his condition. It’s obvious enough to tell there’s something wrong with his left eye, of course, blood pooling in the iris isn’t exactly normal but none would know the true extent of his injury unless he chose to tell them as he had with Valette.

As the other male pays no further heed to Wardruna, the northerner does the same, ready to be rid of him. Wardruna crouches low, his singular, haunting jack-o-lantern gaze locks upon a hen, taking his time in assessing her distance from him. Adjusting to his developed condition is far from easy and somedays are measurably easier than others but there is still a long path for Wardruna to walk, a whole new him to be discovered because the northerner can never go back to what he was before. He leaps forward, his approach balancing more towards stealth but his teeth snap at air as the startled hen lurches forward and takes flight avoiding the northerner’s grasp.

Frusteration and anger rage beneath Wardruna’s skin. It would seem that the gods find humor in his misfortune this day.

Thank god for turkeys, Murdock thought to himself as he moved opposite of War, keeping his brown body low and partially concealed in the dry grasses. There were many times when he'd been too weak to hunt anything substantial, but turkeys had always been easy picking. They were meaty and slow, and when you were hungry, downright delectable.

And the woman sure seemed hungry.

War snapped for one, but the bird skirted him just in the nick of time. Bad luck, thought Murdock. And a bad eye. There was no doubt that it was a dead one, now. Murdock had wondered, but it seemed as though he wouldn't have to wonder any longer. Luckily, War had Mur with him that day. The birds startled right in his direction, and though the choicest animal seemed to sense him and flew far above his head, Murdock was able to dart for a younger female and close his teeth around one of her flapping wings.

She put up a good fight, but with a few harsh shakes, went limp. With a wag of his tail and a muffled bark in War's direction, the male turned and began heading back toward @Noma. When the den was in sight, he set the kill down and gave a short, happy bark. Soup's on.

In the meantime, Noma tries to find the warmth again. Shedding most of it in her walk—with no reward—makes it difficult to find the heat. She tucks away in the back with her legs beneath her, head low, and her eyes closing to preserve further energy. The time it takes them to leave and return is lost on her and when the bark fills her ears, she flinches in surprise. No one steps into the den but she can smell blood and the dust of feathers, in addition to the stranger that had approached them. Wardruna’s is not prevalent just yet and she hesitates uncurling and slipping outside the den again.

Partly because she’ll lose all her heat again.

After a moment, she chuffs her exit and awkwardly slips from the den. The turkey radiates warmth and she wants to break in and curl up inside and eat her way out but she restrains herself, offers the brute a smile, and before she sees Wardruna’s return, breaks into the belly of the kill.

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There is an unbridled flare of jealousy in Wardruna’s chest as he watches Mur take down the hen with little to no trouble. His lip curls back for a second and his nostrils flare in a low, near inaudible snort but the northerner works to mask it quickly before the other male can see. His expression is neutral but he doubts the other male is paying him enough attention. Wardruna follows from behind, as per his choice as Mur moves too comfortably towards his and Noma’s den and the northerner wonders how clear he will have to make the boundaries of their den. Noma was his woman and he definitely did not like the idea of other males coming around. The territoriality is only natural to Wardruna: and he will not make moves to mask it if he thinks asserting it is necessary. How would Mur feel, Wardruna wonders, if he had a woman and the northerner was all confident and intrusive in their life? Probably not all that well, if the northerner had to guess ( but he can’t say for sure, of course ).

Wardruna’s prowl is slow and near predatory as he approaches the scene, his gaze going to Noma as she eats from the belly of the hen before it slides to Mur. It was meant to be him that provided for her and his nostrils flare once more but he must play the sheep once more. He is grateful — however reluctantly — that Mur has brought Noma fresh meat. It will do her good to have something warm and fresh in her belly but Wardruna wishes to communicate that this isn’t going to be a regular thing. He will learn to hunt again with his single eye, and he will efficiently take care of his thrall. “Thank you,” The words are a bit forced from the northerner’s lips the gratitude and ugly envy at war within him. Wardruna’s mouth waters at the smell but he ignores the rumble of his own stomach. He will take from the cache once Mur goes about his own business.

Wardruna does not know a polite way to say now leave in either of his languages and he frowns but ultimately says it in subtle posturing. “Perhaps Noma would like to eat in peace?” Wardruna subtly suggests and gestures in the direction of the nearby cache with his muzzle. He is too hungry and if Mur wants proof that the hen will all go to Noma Wardruna pads to the cache, chooses something that is half frozen but as fresh as it’s going to get for him and begins to gnaw at the toughened meat, placing it between his paws when he lowers into a sphinx-like position, fixing the other male in a haunting stare, not sure if he’s hoping to get across: You are free to take your leave or if he’s attempting to unnerve him into leaving. Whichever works, Wardruna supposes.

Although the feeling of wrongness had gone away during the hunt, it came back full-force when all three parties were back in eyesight of each other. The male left Noma to her meal, but remained nearby, trying to pinpoint the feeling of off that wouldn't be shaken or explained away. His eyes slid around the area, skipping over Noma's painfully thin form and lingering near War, who seemed surlier than ever.

"Ain't nothin'," Murdock replied automatically, waving away War's words of thanks. His mind was elsewhere, and so, he didn't notice the concentrated animosity until War gave voice to it. Murdock realized all over again that he wasn't welcome, and that things around here most certainly weren't right. "'Course. Have a good one," he said to the male, turning to take his leave. "Ma'am," he added toward Noma, trotting off toward where he thought he might find Stephie. A little normality might help shake the cold fist of anxiety from around his lungs.

Wardruna approaches and Noma slows down her eating to look at him, dropping the bite in her mouth and licking her lips. A brief moment and she thinks he’s going to take it away but Murdock’s presence reassures her that she is, for the time being, okay to eat. She glances down at the turkey but takes a few seconds to go back to it, listening to Wardruna’s suggestion for their pack mate to go. She shoots him a sorry, thankful look before he goes as he speaks to her, and then the other before she tentatively goes back to her meal.

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Jealousy is not something that Wardruna is accustomed to feeling and thus he isn’t able to correctly correlate with word with the feeling. It burns and seethes and boils like hot magma in his veins and it tastes like acid upon his tongue: harsh, chemical and bitter. All he knows is he doesn’t want Mur to hang around Noma. He doesn’t want her to feed her or do anything that he — Wardruna’s meant to do for her. She’s his thrall …his woman. The northerner doesn’t feel the relief that he’s meant to feel when Mur gets the hit and leaves them be and the northerner watches the other male leave a bloodied gaze that could set an inferno on the entire forest if it were capable of such things. He’s unhappy that it wasn’t him to bring Noma the hen and he chokes on his piece of frozen meat, hacking it back up. Immediately disgusted: with the meat, with himself and with the roil of his stomach he suddenly has a disinterest in eating. He lets the meat out though he knows he won’t return to it and by the next morning it would be gone: taken by some scavenger or other. He’s in too brooding of a mood to care. He moves towards their den, needing more than anything to untangle and attempt to understand the complicated mess of things he’s feeling; he’s not meant to feel this jealous and anxious and inferior and clearly there is something deeper at work than just the possession over his thrall. Wardruna doesn’t really want to look too closely: he’s been contented to be ignorant, to keep that veil closed …up until now, evidently. He brushes past her as he enters the den, turning an ignoring eye to her meal and does not beckon her inside. He knows she will return to the den for warmth when she’s finished and for the moment it’s a lot less complicated when she’s not in his direct view to continue brood and try to find the root of the crux.

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