don't bother with the trace,

@Jinx: (no need to join, just alerting you to the thread prompt)

He had been reclusive as of late — a lengthy trip to the salted shores of the sea at their back had rejuvenated the old male, and he had carefully washed the blood from his coat in the surf before setting off on a hunt. A spindly fawn had been dragged back to the sands, and there Lecter had killed her in honor of his God, before bathing joyfully in its blood.

He had remained a few more days, in communion with Sos, letting tears for Shearwater's demise at last mingle with the sea. Lecter contemplated the scar upon his hip, remembering the horror of the night during which he and Clarice had been marked. And he lay in the golden bed next to the sea, and he dreamt, free of the cloying poppy or explosive mushroom.

But now he had returned, without pomp, and reinstated himself among them. Sitri had risen above him, but Lecter liked the brute enough not to care, and returned to his den, to take up again the never-ending tend of herbs. Afternoon light found him outside the rocky overhang, quiet, contemplative, and somehow approachable despite the new blood that dripped slowly from his withers.

But despite his apparent calm, at length he bristled, snarling into the darkness. A rank scent of badger had invaded, perhaps a mother intending to begin a new set with her cubs, but the Delta would not allow this, and another growl greeted the slavering of the badger mother within, but he did not enter — not yet.

Mind if I hop in?

The scent of blood always had an affect on the dark wolf, to him it was irresistible and intoxicating, no matter the source. The source of this smell was a wolf's, a packmate if it was so far into Silvertip Mountain borders. A wounded pack member was not good for the pack, which meant it was not good for him. Therefore, the assassin followed the scent.

At the end of the trail was a white wolf splattered with blood, scarred on the base of his neck, staring into a cave underneath a rock overhang. His fur was bristled and a deep snarl rose from his throat. Another smell reached the wolf's nostrils. Badger. Help him. Help your packmate, Kaname. Itzal whispered.

"Do you need help?" He said softly, walking over to the male.

not at all! thanks!!

The badger mother snarled, whirling on the older wolf with an alacrity that left him hobbling from a slash midway upon his foreleg. Backing from the den, Lecter growled furiously, cold eyes coming to rest on an unfamiliar Silvertip male. Guarding the other from the breadth of his own rage, the shaman lifted his head and beckoned his subordinate closer.

"Badger," Lecter hissed. "She has set up here with her kits; she is fierce and will not be easily dissuaded. Help me, and I will let you have your fill of the cubs. Her pelt I want."

The badger slashed her claws at the older white wolf, successfully connecting with his foreleg. The blood-splattered wolf growled and backed away. As Kaname approached, the wolf whirled towards him. Two pairs of ice-blue eyes met, both glaring coldly at each other, one in anger, the other in suspicion. The white wolf beckoned Kaname closer, and when he moved a few paces away, the higher-ranking wolf hissed about the badger and her kits in the den. Help me, and I will let you have your fill of the cubs. Her pelt I want.

"Fair enough." he smiled, licking his lips in anticipation. It has been a long time since he has tasted badger. He was looking forward to eating it again. "Well, may I ask your name first before we eradicate this badger? Mine is Kaname by the way."

"Lecter," the madman grit by way of reply, angered by the slash upon his foreleg, which would surely fester. He slid into the dark cool of the cave again, silently, and curled his body against the far wall. The badger snuffled threateningly but did not attack, and Lecter continued to move slowly toward her rear.

Quickly, he lunged, impatiently unwilling to bide his time, and struck out toward the beast. She snarled in response, but was driven toward the mouth of the cave, where he hoped Kaname would wait to draw her out into the open.

Kaname nodded in response to the wolf's answer. He barely paid any mind to the tone that Lecter answered in, that wound of his looked like it hurt like hell. The white wolf slipped into the den, leaving the younger to wait outside. The badger made threatening noises but from the sound of it she didn't attack.

A few moments later, Lecter lunged, causing the badger to move closer to the mouth of the cave. Kaname walked closer to the entrance, waiting for the badger to get in range. She would not come willingly, and if he snapped at her she might back up into Lecter instead. No, he would have to drag her out and hopefully the bloodstained wolf would help push her if she dug in and resisted.

The shaman snarled, flashing teeth toward the badger's hindquarters and stumbling over one of her kits in the process, which squealed. Maddened by the sound of her child's cry, the beast raked blunt claws toward the pale witch, but his attack drove her toward the mouth of the cave, and, unfearing, he continued to drive her forth, narrowly avoiding a nasty bite to his muzzle.

Kaname waited to grab her, and Lecter raised his head to nod at his companion. There was nowhere for the badger to run; she faced certain death now.

Again Lecter lunged at the badger, but this time a high-pitched squeal answered the attack; one of her kits. He could not really see the details inside the cave, but he guessed that the white wolf had somehow hit one of the badger's children. The badger grew angry and tried to attack, but Lecter kept pushing her nearer and nearer to Kaname. Soon Lecter's head appeared in his view and he gave a nod.

The dark wolf smiled maliciously, baring his fangs. He buried the teeth into the haunch of the sow and dragged her into the open. He tore into her flesh, angering the badger naturally. After a bit of tugging, the sow was almost half way out of the cave. In the corner of his eye, he could see the kits behind Lecter. The dark assassin smirked and pulled harder. He could not wait for the feast that lay behind the white wolf.

Lecter, too, lunged for the sow and ripped her, her angered snarls turning to squeals of pain as the powerful jaws of the lupine pair made quick work of her. Favoring the leg she had injured, Lecter whirled to pounce among the wailing cubs, scattering them for the benefit of his packmate as their mother's blood slowly seeped to stain the dusty earth.

While Kaname presumably slew those who blundered toward him, the shaman aided with swift slashes of his jaws, and rose, dripping, with two small bodies puddled at his paws. Icewater eyes danced sideways and he laughed roughly for the sheer rush of it all, eventually settling his haunches to lick blood from his jaws and watch Kaname's work.

Lecter had clamped his jaws onto the badger and ripped at her, shortening the time it took to dispatch of the angered sow. The assassin laughed around the mouthful of fur as the once angry badger whimpered in pain before they tore into her and killed her. Dropping the carcass, he licked his lips contently. His partner in crime turned his attention towards the orphaned kits mewling pitifully in the den. The kits scattered, a few heading towards him.
Eyes gleaming, Kaname pounced on one of them, tearing slowly at its back, finally reaching it's spine and cracking it in his jaws.

The other two tried crawling away, but to no avail. The dark wolf pounced on one, taking it in his jaws and shaking it like a ragdoll until he heard an audible snap. He dropped the dead kit and batted the last one with his paw roughly into the side of the den. Satisfied, Kaname looked up at Lecter, covered in blood and laughing. The assassin smiled and rounded up his prize. "Well, he drawled, chuckling softly. "That was fun."

"Indeed," Lecter muttered, his attention upon the wound rent in his foreleg. The bloodlust was beginning to fade away, and the pain growing in his flesh was distracting. However, the shaman suppressed the sensation to look upon the carnage he and Kaname had rent, and a cold smirk trailed across his lips.

"You kill many as though you have done so before," he observed dryly, seeking the other's eyes to hold them.

"You're an astute observer, Lecter." he sat back to admire the pile of badger kits at his paws. This little escapade was quite bountiful. There were no more than five of the little things, all of them almost big enough to exit the den. They were quite fatty too, a treat he rarely enjoyed. He looked back up at the older male, locking eyes with him.

"I am an assassin. Born and raised one. My parents were assassins and so was the rest of my family. Killing is in my blood."

The madman patted the bloodied fur of the hapless badger with an idle paw. An assassin. His mind reached back through memory for the meaning of such a word, and he surfaced with a low grunt. "Who directs your killing now?" He doubted it was Jinx; she was a proud sort who would prefer to shed blood with her own jaws.

"And how did your family come to adopt that as their legacy?" the shaman muttered, intrigued despite himself.

"Normally, it is my alpha." He thought back to all the lessons his mother and father taught him about hiring out his services. "But Jinx told me she rather kill herself. But if she ever needs me, I'll kill for her. In other cases, sometimes my family was hired by outsiders to killl within a pack, but I rarely do that anymore. Too many risks." Kaname sighed, thinking back to that day when the pack discovered his family...

He swept that memory to the back of his mind where it belonged, and answered Lecter's second question. "The pack my family originated from was in constant war with another for over three generations. The alpha needed a way to kill his enemies without hurting his pack in the process. So he sent his best scouts to kill the son of his rival's alpha. Those were my grandparents' grandparents. It was successful and those scouts were used to kill the rest of those the alpha thought were dangerous. Soon the war was over, but the scouts continued to be used as assassins. But then, we were banished by the alpha's son who inherited the pack at the alpha's death. We became wandering assassins then, offering our services for food and security."

He grunted when Kaname had finished. "That all is quite interesting," the shaman muttered, intrigued by this role of which he had not heard before now. He had heard of quiet poisonings, a wolf held beneath waters until he or she moved no longer, but it was not a rank or a title one took upon themselves, to be the killers of their own kind.

"Do you take anything in payment?" Lecter chuffed after a moment, determined to learn his fill of this new knowledge.

"Usually its food and other resources like pelts or herbs. In the winter we ask for land for us to live on until spring. Sometimes if a pack cannot provide any of those things, we take one of their wolves in service for a time, depending on the type of job we do." He thought back to the wide-eyed wolves who glared at him with fear and suspicion as they darted from wolf to wolf, tending to their needs. They were not slaves, as some accused them of. No...they were more like indentured servants. Once their time was up, they were returned back to their home pack, safe and sound.

"We would always find a way to make our clients pay up. Our pack rarely did anything for free and we never granted favors. We prefered to be politically neutral, but always gave to the highest bidder."

Lecter nodded, appreciating the sort of barter Kaname's family had upheld. Had he not traded his own skills for the herbs of the Vale? that he had killed no wolf was irrelevant. The fetishes he had planted had cursed them well enough, and they had gone. For a long moment he said nothing, glancing instead to his foreleg, and gave a low grunt. "What will you do with them?" he inquired, gesturing at the pile of small badger forms near Kaname.

He looked at the little bodies that lay at his paws. The kits had a few weeks behind them. Their eyes were open and they could scramble from place to place but that was all. "Hmm....I'm not sure." He flicked one of the bodies with his paws. "I am training to be a gamekeeper, so I may put a few in the pack caches...but I will keep some for myself. Not sure what to do with the pelts though, they're too small." He looked at the badger sow. "What about you? Do you need help taking care of that?"

wrap up after another round? :)

"Fortunately we are near to my den; I shall not need to drag her far. Her fur is the only thing I need; I will leave the meat for the caches." He had eaten such carrion before, and found it distasteful, but in times of starvation, one could not afford to be proud. "I must tend to this now, Kaname," Lecter grunted, motioning to his bloodied foreleg as he stood. "If I do not pack herbs into it soon, it will stiffen and infect."

Oops, sorry, I forgot about this. DX But yeah, we could.

He gave the badger a look over. It didn't seem big enough to give Ledger a problem, but the white wolf's leg wound might make it troublesome for him. The dark wolf would stick around the area, just to make sure that Jinx's mate could get back to his den without exerting himself.

His eyes went back to Lecter as he diagnosed himself. "Oh, so you're a healer then?"

<3

"Yes," Lecter answered, a brief pride insinuating itself into his voice. "I have been a healer for many years. Come to me if you are ever injured and I will mend you." With a lingering look of grudging approval, Lecter took up the badger and began to carry it into the nearby den, nares flared and hackles prickled at the stench of the sow and her kits. It would air in time, and he dropped her on the stone floor to move to his herbs, beginning to select what he would need.

The healer's voice held a tinge of pride as he told Kaname of his experience in the field of healing. The ice-eyed wolf didn't blame him for being so proud; he was probably one of the only wolves in Teekon Wilds to boast of such skill and age. "I will." he promised. He seemed a better healer than the toxicologist anyways.

With that, the old healer began bringing the sow to his head. It was obvious from his gait that he was in pain, but if the male insisted that he was well, then by all means the dark wolf would leave him alone. He bundled the little kits together, and once he counted five, he picked them up by their paws. Barely keeping them in his mouth, he headed off towards his little den where he would prepare some of them for the pack, and keep the others for himself.

thanks for the thread!

Having fallen into his remedies and potions, Lecter scarcely heard the departure of Kaname, but muttered a prayer to Sos for the continued well-being of the dark assassin, who he had come to like despite his own innate suspicion.