Felltree Marsh red duck

the longer sivaak feasted, the more content what grew within her womb became. and once they were content—their mother could think clearly once again. but now she is ever aware of what happens to the north of her. there is commotion.

and the iron scent of blood. that, that is what lures the muradoii.

upon arriving, it is with languid strides. muscle thrumming beneath a scarred hide, tattered by what she has lived, and she is in no hurry. only, she soaks in the view, watching as the two girls quarrel with black scar. sivaak's bloodied mouth visibly reacts; lips pulling upwards, taut, teeth of stained gore vibrating.

a snarl in the cage. strange girl seeks to fight this man, to put into action what sivaak has taught her. but it does not impress sivaak. it irks her. black scar is a man sivaak hunted with—man who has gained some semblance of her respect. sivaak's mind is a thin trap. her heart is like black coal.

she charges in, to not punish black scar, but strange girl. what strange girl think she doing?! the blood-drinker snarls, then lunges to the commotion. uncaring as to how sun eater tries to man-handle strange girl. let him.

she forgets. she forgets that sivaak is not friend, is not mother. sobeille was once slave. she became student at expense of sivaak's rare mercy. now she acts foolish in sivaak's name and sivaak does not take kind to it.

Caught in the crossfire of her own making, Yura could only watch with great dread as Sobeille rampaged upon the scene. Iron filled the air and in the fray she could not see who bled. That should have been her!

But it was not. The stargirl remained frozen in time as their duel resumed, searching, seeking for an opening that would bring an end to this. Cen reared and Yuralria knew; Sobeille was unlikely to withstand his crushing weight. 

It is the same lumps of flesh beneath the man's tail that she targets again, teeth snapping in a last ditch effort to inflict as much if not more pain than before. She knows from talks prior what she aims to crush, satisfaction, burning desire to rid this man the privilege of creating life. To end his bloodline as she had renounced Nuiruk's.

Yuralria almost missed the arrival of Sivaak, but she heard the roar of her voice all the same. Saw as she made for Sobielle's writhing form and was reminded of their tentative alliance. 

Moondoe's fawn spares a final glance to the trio of writhing bodies and it is with simmering regret and fear of what would become of her that she pulls back sharply, fleeing the scene for good. A silent prayer left in her wake, that Sobeille could find it in her heart to forgive.

yura out </3

some small measure of satisfaction glimmered within sobeille to have known the taste of black scar's blood; though he be larger, what difference did size make to a caribou killer?

a dark excitement pulsed within her.

his reprisal came swift; he struck her hard, a volcanic blow that sent her reeling with cosmic rays of pain. something else erupted within her that somehow steadied her quivering limbs. she coughed, blood spluttering from her throat as his monolithic shape reared above her.

she saw the streak of ivory in her periphery and smug knowing spread within her. sivaak would show him what amounted of men who laid their teeth against women.

yet justice's loosened arrow flew past him and plunged its searing tip into her instead. bludgeoned by sivaak's form, sobeille was sent sprawling like a hare caught mid-air by the seeking talons of a hawk. her body twisting as the ground was stolen out from her, the world in spinning orbit, her eyes tracking a single lonely cloud --

she gasped, sucking air into lungs that burst with agony. though her eyes stung she saw yura inching close.

what blade was this to sink so deep?

spasms rent her spine; a lesson so cruelly applied that sobeille scarcely regathered herself, a thousand eyed stare upon her betrayer. gradually her eyes turned from glazed to dark, having tasted only bitterness in sivaak's parting lesson.

it stung all the more to have come from her own coven.

now sobeille did as the caribou taught her. rounding her shoulders, the girl dropped her panting head and bolted after yura's retreating form. teeth and claws made red ribbons of her auburn skin, but it did not matter to the girl whose only motive now was survive at all costs.

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teeth closed on sensitive skin. sun eater whirled to kick, and would have released the attacking girl to maim the first. her fangtips would leave their imprint to humiliate him later, but then there was a roar of muradoii.

sivaak's scent struck him first. his quarry was knocked across the snow, and just as well, for he had intended to split her skull. he soared for her as did the other caribou hunter, claws glinting. but the run had been winding, the conflict additional.

the moon girl fled. muradoii tangled with student; lanzadoii stood by, panting hard, blood trickling as hateful eye watched the trajectory of the fleeing nuiruk. "i catch! i kill! run!" he bellowed after her, belly hurting, chest aching; "run and run! you never escape saatsine! you never escape cen!"

his rage was unbridled, unchained, unmoored; he lunged to chase the second wolf in flight though he flagged after some ways. his pride was wounded, but more than that, he had lost the moon wolf. yet — had it been greed? did he not already have one?

it did not matter; for her insolence he would hunt her and deliver that pelt to the moon bitch who was her mother. he stalked gingerly back to where he had plucked furs from her tail and began to gather them, stinging in eye and groin, twice then.

sun eater would turn only if sivaak returned to speak, and then to say first: "she should have been fed to the sea as the stories said you would do."

it is a beautiful, macabre scene. sivaak looks with quiet eyes, a eerie lack of emotion present there as the scene unfolds. black scar raging, lost to the drink of his own indulgence, shouting curses and hex into the sky. the moon girl runs, and sivaak turns on mighty paws.

eyes of anger, of rage, of bloodlust. a coward! sivaak would shred her of her hide and drink the blood from her still breathing body! strange girl goes after her, escaping the wrath of cen by a hair's breath, and blood drinker watches with excitement licking at her hackles.

muscle twitches beneath a pelt soaked in the blood of fresh kills which stain her. she feels the angry life that squirms inside her, can hear their mewling, their cries for the blood their mother could spill. the future of muradoii—and sivaak shall sate her children's demands. but later. now, she stalks, stepping left, then right, each paw crunching above ice and snow. she paces, waiting for black scar to appear—she can taste his scent on the wind—when he does, she appraises him with bloody eyes.

his words—sivaak grins in response to them, but it is one that does not reach her eyes. humorless and cold, borderline sadistic and yearning for the blood that wets his mouth. she feels the urge to lick it from his face and comes closer, polar bear in wolf woman's form, tongue curling across stained teeth.

which one, black scar? sivaak asks with cruel cadence. coward girl or warrior girl? it is clear in the way she says the last and smiles that she is proud of her strange girl—though initial anger does linger. she does not know if she will see her again, but if she does, she hopes it is to know she has stolen the head from traitor moon girl—if cen does not take it first. sivaak feels her blood curdle at the thought, with excitement! it elicits pleasure in her chest. sivaak womb grows with future blood drinker. muradoii join lanzadoii. she raises cold, beady malicious eyes on black scar. daring him to deny.

last from me!

she fled.

run and run! you never escape saatsine! you never escape cen!

sobeille ran to salvage her life. she ran to save yura, to make sense of all that just occurred. her heart pounded a harder staccato than her galloping feet; a blessing then that her ribs were constructed so rigidly, else her heart might have shorn clean from bone then and there!

later, after careful doubling of tracks had her leaning against a felled oak in exhaustion, sobeille would put aside the mindless urgency of survival and allow thoughts to once more creep within her mind. foremost, she'd think of sivaak -- blood-drinker. caribou-killer. and now a new epithet, drawn from the betrayal of her own coven.

judas.

sobeille sank to the ground and felt her blood thrum weakly within her. now she thought of black scar; his name spinning clean as glacial water over stone in her mind.

cen.

over and over until her thoughts invariably turned again, this time to the witch in the cave. the haggard skull brandished around her thin neck.

cen and judas and the witch; each face cycling in and out of mind until at last a survivor's tormented sleep subsumed here.

he did not answer. sivaak understood and had proven the alliance between blood-drinker and lanzadoii by dismissing the girl so fiercely. sun eater wished only to question, to command, until the bluster in his chest grew less.

and so he breathed, nodded once to say he had heard. sun eater would not force them to be lanzadoii; sivaak kept him and he would keep her.

"then we go. back to saatsine. you are hunter now, flesh-eater."

though he could not yet smile through such anger, sun eater meant to welcome sivaak in his own way.

"one captive is of the moon, i think. if i take a second, i will trade her away. that way the heart of their tribe is truly broken." he did not need two captives, and less than that he did not need two related who would work together against him.

once more he stared after the two, then jerked himself into a turn with a loud growl, hackles flared in frustration, and he would not speak again until they had come back to their settlement.