Bramblepoint bury my body down by the highwayside

somehow, the landscape around her has come to be painted almost entirely in greyscale. snow falls lightly still, and fog settles in the low places, entangling itself betwixt trunks and rockfalls. it is here that the wraith crouches near to the side of a deer carcass she'd found and fought for a day prior. scavengers have made fast wor of much of it, though with effort, there is still a meal to be had between the ribs and spine, albeit an unsustaining one. 

straightening, pushing a forelimb against the rib cage for leverage, she tugs at a tendon frozen to one of the delicately curved ribs. a crack, snap, and she settles on her haunches again to worry at her latest prize.

He'd gotten accustomed to roaming the lowlands; they were part of the claim as far as he knew, or at least Hydra's ego considered the hillside as such. The forest was his most frequent haunt. The snow had come, flurrying from on high and covering everything with a blanket of white—or in some cases, thick ice that gripped at the tree branches. Tye wasn't suited for this weather and yet here he was crawling through it, feeling numb except when his skin burned with an unholy heat.

The sound of a scuffle nearby caught in his too-big ears, and he stalked after it. It was hard to be stealthy in a place of such blankness, at least for him. He was this skittering oil-stain against a fuzzy white-noise backdrop; but the forest's shadows helped him to stay somewhat hidden. As he came creeping along to where the stranger was poised over a stick, tugging and thrashing at it, Tye was perplexed; why would anyone waste so much energy on something like that?

He angled himself differently, crept closer, saw that it wasn't a stick but a leg—and felt the burn in the pit of his concave belly. His sides heaved with a deep breath, his ribs quite clear beneath a thin dark skin. He wanted that leg for himself—so he did not waste time and plunged snout-first after it, kicking up a flurry of snow and crunching softly against the dirt near the other wolf, his yellowed teeth bared as he snapped at the stranger's face.

as with the first time she'd found her way to this carcass, she did not go long unaccosted. this time, the stranger offered no warning, diving head-first for the spindly limb attached to the pecked over torso. the wraith pulled back violently, whipping her head out of the way. snarl escaped her as fangs snapped on her chest, hackles already erect as she shoved a shoulder in the boy's direction, snapping at his face in turn. 

her hunger was not great enough warrant fighting tooth and nail for the remnants of the corpse, in she was already weakened by the day-old gash in her flank, but she would not simply turn tail.

He was no warrior; but he knew that any food he could bring back to Moonspear would put him in good favor with the queen and he needed that validation as badly as he needed the calories. He did not think—there was no time to plot or to consider things, only act, which he did as sharply and swiftly as he was able. Long limbs helped Tye to close the distance and as he was quite underweight, he didn't hold much of a punch, however when he collided with the pale stranger he didn't feel as winded as he might've otherwise.

The boy rebounded, braced against the earth, and dove forward again, again, again—straddling part of the carcass possessively while trying to fully deter the stranger. He wouldn't relent until she had fully backed off from the target. His body bristling all-over, with the Blackthorn stripe raising all the more emphatically with the serration of his spine.

He snapped at air mostly, his throat constricting around the sound of his warning snarl so that the pitch undulated, making him sound more like a coyote than a wolf despite his pure blood. His tail raised like a triumphant banner a few times, but it didn't settle for long, and whipped behind him.

the boy huddled low over the carcass, the growl leaking erratically from his throat just as clearly a claim over the bones as his posture. bristling, inching low over the ground, she paced in a tight circle around him, irritation growing. lips curl back over yellowed fangs, and a low, grating growl compliments his. swiftly she uncoils, lunging towards his side in an attempt to get him off, maw agape and ready to grasp and tear at whatever might grow closest to her searching muzzle.

As desperate as he was for food and the good favor of the wolves on the mountain, Tye didn't know how to fight all that well. He was more reactionary than disciplined; attaching himself to this carcass and being as adamant about his claim as he was, he expected her to back down the way he might when facing teeth. She, however, was a proper warrior. The way she circled him and looked for an opening was telling of this; but then when she did lunge, catching Tye with her teeth, the boy yelped and kicked, spiraled, felt the warmth of blood leaking from him—and gave up on the carcass just like that.

He all but tripped over it as he scrambled to safety, and even while he bristled and tried to posture like the hellion he tried to embody, he couldn't keep it up; hit tail tucked naturally at his belly and he made himself as small as he could, his gaze shrewd but averted, staring longingly at the raised leg frozen in place as if it might come alive.

the fresh blood for a moment overwhelmed her with a single-minded curiosity, and she snapped and worried at the boy even as he scrambled back, ears flat to her crown and tail curled high. only a moment after his relenting became apparent did she withdraw, the stiffness of her step and the curl of her muzzle not relaxing in the slightest. she remained only a while longer at the carcass, eating what she could and choosing a forelimb to take away with her, not caring should the boy hang around. she did, however, recognize the danger he posed though whatever pack he ran with turn up, and so a moment later, she was gone.