Blackbeak Bluff and i whisper "my wife,"

@Gallo @Buffalo

iliksis stood along the broken promontory, his back to the world and the sweltering sun that sat in an inferno behind it. he had lost the boys, their scents all but faded -- and iliksis was bled of any volition to follow them. he was sufficiently convinced they did not harbor the girl -- and without the girl, they were of very little interest to him.

he was lonely, but not in a way buffalo nor the two boys could fulfill. often his dark thoughts turned to relmyna, and inadvertently the brood that suckled at her stomach. these thoughts always went south, soured by tepid anger and possessiveness -- he was quick to think of something else to distract his mind from such irritating and infuriating things.


presently, there was a chill wind that hugged around him and lifted his fur in small bursts of tufted disarray. the scent of brine washed over him, a sensation he had not experienced in quite some time. the scream of the shore and the raucous call of gulls would soon come to a quiet conclusion, for around them the first slip of dusk fell, the world nestled by radiant rays of virulent red.

Her sides expanded and collapsed in a rhythmic pattern. It would be obvious that she had, in some way, physically tasked herself. The sharp hair stinging her lungs but she was forced to keep breathing it. She had to steady her breathing again. Blue eyes locked onto the rocky drop off just below her.

Gallo was forced to wonder how many had fallen. Accidental or otherwise. How many survived and how many had no time to focus on what had happened? The thoughts were fleeting - disappearing as quickly as they appeared.

She would have preferred to keep moving along - find somewhere better to be - but there was a dark figure on her path. Sure, she could have gone around them with ease (plenty of space still left between them) but she wanted the straight path in front of her. It was with that thought in mind that a deep sound began to bubble in the pits of her throat.

Perhaps she was being a bit dramatic.

with the success in bandaging whatever mess the dark wolf had gotten into, buffalo had discovered a traveling companion in iliksis. in the beginning, the bloodstained bedlamite banged back and forth, testing the limits of his energy as he ran wide circles and great arcs around his dour fiend. when he had all but exhausted himself, buffalo entertained the limits of his wildly thrumming mind
byll
by purling sweet nothings toward iliksis, prancing at the sable flank, rife with a rapturous glee. and by day's end, buffalo found himself exhausted, and slunk through the trees for a reprieve. however, where the dybukk loomed, the sos-touched boy hunted. and where the woman found herself in the former's presence, buffalo regarded her with open interest, visible against the landscape by way of the fresh blood he had used to anoint himself.

iliksis turned back from the dull setting of orange that hung above glimmering waves; at first he had thought buffalo had come alongside him, cleaned of the blood that constantly gouted his features. yet it was not buffalo; visibly, iliksis' muzzle lifted as he glanced from the newcomer to his much more familiar (and much more bloodied) companion.

he sought the sea-blue of her eyes, and a thin tongue pressed across his hungry muzzle. in silence the wraith pressed towards her, rolling in the insidious manner of a fast approaching fog.

At first, there had been one and now there was two. One who almost looked like herself except he was bloodied. She didn't know (nor did she care) if it was his own or came from another creature. When the darker figure closed in on her, she stood her ground.

Gallo didn't know what his - or the other's - intentions were but she was sticking around to find out. If only to take the path that she wanted.

She was, perhaps, stupidly stubborn.

had it not been for her clear control, the health, the wary strength in her snowy limbs, buffalo could have pretended it was byll, appeared to fetch him and bring them both to whatever utopia she had created. but it was not; he felt brief the sting of disappointment.
iliksis advanced, oil beyond the ridge; the bloodstained madman lit with a death's-head grin and he followed. quite awed by the way the woman did not shy from the deviant reek that auoraed his black-souled compatriot, buffalo gazed at the pallid creature with open admiration, before the need to speak bubbled in his throat. 
"is this the part where one of us gives you a riddle?" the sos-touched man inquired in a tone of deep curiosity, before the siblance of laughter followed; he looked to iliksis then, preferring to defer in this moment in terms of what should be done with so brave a woman.

indeed, the brave woman might have seen a different outcome had it not been for her clear condition, which spoke of hale fortitude and strength that was not easily overcome. iliksis, often preferring his quarry be a little more thrifty, a little less robust, had already decided this woman was not a creature that would satiate his appetite -- at least not in a way that he would draw full enjoyment from.

better to toy with her, and then be on their way.

once the distance between them had been closed iliksis halted with his body facing her. careless of rebuke, the wraith drew his lean muzzle against the she-wolf's neck. the thick tufts of fur tickled his nostrils and trailed past his tongue; he drank of the warmth of her body and, underneath the thick clout of fur, felt the heat of a pulse he longed to suppress.

should the alabaster-cloaked wolf allow his advances, he would then pull back with a wicked grin dousing his muzzle in response to his comrade's query. "what disappears as soon as you speak it?" his gaze fell to gallo's eyes, studying her for any response -- while his lips hung in a content smile.

should she know it, perhaps she might remain unmarred in her passing. iliksis hadn't made up his mind yet.

Her lip tugged up at the touch and her tail dared to arch over her spine. If he dared to get any closer or try anything she would see it fit to rip into him with teeth that were far too hungry.

She did not like fancy displays of words — puzzles, jokes, riddles — for she found them useless. Her features twisted to display her disinterest and disapproval. What does it matter? Her tones were deep and rough to conflict with her feminine features. If it's gone, it's gone. Gallo had no time for things that wanted to disappear.

if it's gone, it's gone indeed; iliksis shared a silent look with the still sniggering buffalo -- what that look conveyed, only they knew. it was not the answer that granted this woman passage free of injury, but whatever clandestine exchange existed between buffalo's intensely mismatched eyes and the dull yellow of iliksis' had other decrees.

the wraith sneered, shouldered his companion, and the two moved on without another word to the woman.