The Sentinels revenge is in the creator's hands

maybe a @Ford?

donnelaith.
he still heard his mother's soft voice echoing in his head on nights such as these, when he had roved too far from his brethren and found himself contemplative. we buried him in a fairy-ring — soft, deirdre's whisper.
but surely this place was not it. and yet the touch of the ruined land beneath his paws grounded velen in a way he had not felt upon the sea. an ashen charnel house, with dead twigs sifting down from above with each movement of the cold nightwind. lasher taltos mayfair. 
and somewhere in the wreckage of the old druid's pack his body lay still, ivoried bones by now. velen passed his tongue across suddenly dry lips, his burnt-gold ears tipped forward. discomfort; he glanced back abruptly over one thickfurred shoulder, as if to assure himself the sea remained.

The evening air toyed with the jagged black fur along his neck and shoulders, lifting it into a stiff dance. As he peered on the dismal display of ravaged forestry, Ford could not help but feel severely disappointed. For all of his mother's stories of the mystic wood, this was not what he had hoped to see. It gripped something within him and twisted it into a vicious anger.

Ford smothered those feelings with all of the weight that he could.

The wind brought the scent of Velen to him. The titan peered carefully through the scorched wood and sought the chestnut coat of his brother. Stepping with careful precision, Ford followed the aroma of familiarity and finally locked his mismatched gaze on the figure up ahead. Surely, Velen was feeling a similar way about seeing the forest in its current state. Surely, he felt the scorch marks within him just the same as Ford did.

The inkhound pulled up alongside his more richly-colored littermate and motioned to brush his muzzle against the other male's shoulder.

it was ford; velen grunted softly in relief at the touch of the shadow-barred male. back to donnelaith his mind traveled, his deepwood eyes searching the dead place for any sign of life. no, it was not as deirdre had said, but velen was unsure he had expected it to be. a place of magicks lost, and in its bonehouse garb it looked no less. if fire licked at the boy, it was because he had never seen donnelaith in its prime.
"athair," velen muttered. "that's what she called him." he could not say he had ever called the indomitable skellige the same, for it had not been the same type of bond. but while it was difficult for the seaspawn to conceive a father-child relationship unmarked by the impassive cairn nature, it was warm to think about all the same.
"when we settle, i want to mark this place as ours, too," velen declared in a low voice; his muzzle swung sideways, and he considered ford with a long look.

Ford didn't need any reminders. He knew precisely what their mother had called their grandfather, and how much she had adored him; how much he had meant to her. In his earlier years, the titan had felt a pang of envy for his own mother. She had experienced what it meant to grow surrounded by support and love, and she had not weakened because of it. Even then, he was shocked.

The titan did not respond to his brother's comment on their deceased relative. He already knew the fondness that their mother had for the dark druid. Emotions carried very little sway with him. Though he could play the part of any role required, he wasn't fond of sentiments or heavy hearts.

When Velen remarked that he would like to claim the woodland once they took the bay, Ford latched onto him with an intent stare. Nothing was betrayed in the titan's gaze. “Of course. This is just as much our birthright as the bay is,” he responded after a moment or two of studying his sibling's features. “We will need more in numbers if we are to do it, though.” As he turned his attention to the charred landscape, he saw the possibilities of what could have been stretching out before him.

As if summoned by the declarations made privately by the sea-brutes, Spider materialized in the burntwood, keeping her slight frame to the shadows as she peered towards the sound of voices she could not distinguish at first as a conversation. From her angle she could see only one wolf— a mass of immutable onyx, hooded white— and beside him was an amorphous wraith whose dimensions she could not make out with the titan eclipsing him.

A tense, feverish desire coursed through her; and she knew she would claim them, so that she might secure herself a meal-ticket for the coming cold season.

The little scourge dug her claws into the ash-soaked loam, giving pause to apprehension for a brief spell, before employing a cat-like slink to emerge in the distant peripheral of the impressionably-aged males. She was brave enough to present herself, but not so cavalier as to come within striking distance just yet.

With a small wiggle, and a lilting whine, she urged them both to let her nearer.

well, no shit, velen snarked inside his head at his abacus of a brother. not a bad thing, however — ford was good with numbers. and fighting. and being fuck-all gigantic. still, it wasn't a shit gig to be in ford's literal shadow — once his brother had subdued some poor sap, velen was then free to roast the shit out of said idiot. like trespassers.
"so like sixty-ni —" the dredge began to jest back. however, the clearly witty remainder of that sentence was cut off when something came scampering out of the dead forest, provoking a warning snarl from the wraith. velen might have been cursed with the malady of never shutting his piehole, but when situations needed a firmer hand, he was there to flank ford and rannveig, offering no escape.
staring toward the black sprawl of limbs huddled on the ground, velen kept his attention trained on her, his senses awaiting the move of his cairn brother.

The words that followed were met with an unimpressed stare. Heterochromic eyes glistened lifelessly on the dirt-colored hound. Ford twitched his lip so that it lifted over a single canine and he turned his head away in a sneer that suggested he found the interrupted joke neither funny nor clever. What he did find interesting was the ink-cloaked female who whimpered at them from the brush beyond. Her eyes seemed to dance with a dangerous light; the Mayfair-Cairn studied them intently.

Velen was quick to move. He positioned himself in an ideal location so that he might show more of his large frame. Ford remained passively beside his sibling, holding his calculated stare on the stranger without a hint of fear. What was there to be wary of, after all? They were in their domain, and there was nothing that could cause him to feel as though he was in any danger there.

“What is it you want?” the titan barked in a smoky voice. He drew his crown upward and peered into her gaze without a twitch of emotion to show for it.

Spider twitched— her limbs going stiff, and her ears creasing for a flash— as a snarl clawed through the night air and disturbed what mournful peace there was left in that mass grave. She eyed the dark mouth of the giant one, and upon seeing no shine of teeth, the she-wolf chose not to take his companion's reaction personally.

She eyed the now visible form of the earth-brown male, who looked just as deadly as the reaper he flanked like a loyal dog. Spider coveted their bond, and quivered at the prospect of making it hers.

"Everything you're capable of giving," she answered succinctly, dashing forward several energetic steps before settling down to the ground once more; her expression, brimming with attentiveness to their every detail, swiveled between them both. "In exchange, I'll offer the same." And while the trade seemed most beneficial for herself at present, she was a forward-thinker, and imagined that there   something to be gained for her gender and the fact that she wasn't related to them.

as used as he was to ford's deadpan regard of any fuckery, velen didn't think his massive brother would drop dead if he laughed once. everyone found the wraith hilarious, if not merely tolerable. everyone except ford. at a later date, velen would determine to work more on the 'dad' variety of jokes; for now, his chestnut eyes fixed on the inkblot and her submissive approach.
something about her unnerved velen, despite her clear show of obeisance. it was in the flicker of her yellow eyes, the way she brought herself low before them. had it been his decision, the boy would have had few qualms about telling the woman to get her gollum ass gone, but it was not up to him.
and nor did velen feel that he wanted the responsibility of such decisions. ford was unafraid, but his brother gazed at the darkened shadows beyond the woman's prone form, wondering what else would come forth from the graveyard.

Her answer is what triggered something inside of him. Her suggestion at a trade for each other's talents.

Ford conjured a guttural snarl that echoed through the chambers of his chest like a beating war drum. How dare she assume that she had anything to offer the great Mayfair-Cairn children? It was a pragmatic pull that forced the titan to react. The pride he felt for what he carried and what he aimed to accomplish was far greater than the means to humbly obtain the numbers needed for such a task. She might have offered them what she could, but it would never be enough.

“You could offer us nothing compared to what you would receive,” Ford snarled, snapping his fangs toward her and aiming to strike against her flesh. It would be a test for her to pass or fail. Adapt, or die...

Still, his eyes reflected no emotion.

Spider, who could not have known that her able body and willingness to serve held such little meaning to the savage yearlings, was instead confronted with a reality far more dire than just a pair of roguish roughhousers. They were deranged— with egos as sensitive as a mouse trap. She was glad for having not come into his long, razor-faced reach.

The wretch abandoned her post in a swift, dark blur, and now lurked in a position that would force the hellion to constantly adjust himself if he wanted to keep her in his sights, meanwhile making sure that his large body became an obstacle for the other male, should he feel the need to add his fangs to the count. Emotionless and brutish she could take; a spar, she could handle, but such senseless, ham-fisted violence, and the fact that he would seek to injure her, when all she had to depend on was her own limbs, was... well, in short it pissed her off.

"I'm too fast for either of you," she boasted, flashing them a salacious smirk. Seawolves. Always thinking themselves better, more adept. But Michael Phelps wasn't about to beat Usain Bolt in a footrace, and Spider was positive she could outrun (and by extension, outsmart) these wanna-be tyrants. Wolves who had seen true war didn't act like this; and they didn't have to respect her life, but she had given them no real reason to threaten it either. "Back off now, and no one'll get neutered today," she teased them further, her voice airy and dripping with mephitic playfulness; her tail lashing as she prepared to be lunged at once more.

ford did not like assumptions. to velen, he was a direct beast who preferred plain words, and as few of them as possible. his intellect was devoted to conquest, to claim, to enforcing the lineage of their clan, a cool hunger driven by a savage pride. thus, when the spooky little gremlin of a wolf uttered everything, velen's features hiked into a quick lol yikes expression. this was not going to go w —
nope, velen added to himself, watching ford snap forward with a speed that his massive frame concealed. the titan's fangs clashed, and to the dredge it was the metallic crash of warhound teeth that arched his own hackles in a feral spikespine of pride. she skittered; melting into the shadows, surely wrought with fear. velen had no qualms admitting ford had terrified him in the past; it was why he followed. no other creature commanded his respectful fealty so — not even skellige.
the idiot spoke, attempting to mock them after her near brush with death. velen glanced about the scoured forest, the ash rising from the quick movements. neuter? a hair closer and her blood would be staining donnelaith. a feeling rose within him, something massive, mocking; scorn; a long, baleful laugh of pure derision poured from velen's throat now. 
you are weak.

The spindly little wench had failed.

In the moments that it took for her to scurry back to where she belonged, Ford had already lost any interest he had once had in her. The glint of light against his mismatched gaze held her own features with a disinterested expression on his face. The spike of Velen's coat was not missed; he knew that his brother was capable of wicked things when provoked. He carried the blood of the Cairn in his rugged limbs, and he was adept in more than just the swell of the ocean.

Once the female had placed distance between them, her tone changed. It seemed that she was no longer interested in offering them her skills and traits, but a quick lash of her tongue. Ford would have laughed if she wasn't quite as pathetic as she had made herself out to be. It would have added insult to further insult. The titan curled his dark lips downward in a disappointed frown.

The ragged little bitch suggested that they were close to being neutered. The warhound fixed her with a clenched jaw and canted his head. She moved as though she was attempting to make it difficult to follow her movements without making a move himself. The snippy little thing was no supernatural beast; she was very much ordinary in her capabilities. Ford was not phased.

“If you are seen in the forest again, a hunting party will be sent to collect your skull,” the warhound drawled to her in a tone that suggested he was entirely unimpressed with her display. To Velen, the titan clenched his jaw and released a huff of a breath. Childish games had no place in his world.

post to wrap this as spider has gone inactive <3

perhaps taking the promise of his brother for what it was, the little blight skittered into the darkness and was gone. velen looked after her for a time, then back to ford; he gathered himself for their invariable return to the sea. and yet he was perturbed that the spidery thing remained here in this sacred place, the graveyard of magicks only his mother had ever known.

The dark little scuttling creature had no place in their mother's forest. Ford protected his family first, and that included their legacy. The ashen field of withered trees and sad, dark images was still a part of who they were, and he would not allow for someone of that nature to prowl among the depression. It seemed that the dark thing thought the same, for she turned just as quickly as she had come and fled into the shadows. Ford watched as his brother moved to ensure that she had truly vanished from the Sentinels. Once he had returned back, the two made their way toward the shore and the sound of crashing waves.