Bearclaw Valley moreau's golem

unable to remain self-ostracized for his days in bearclaw, stigmata wound deeper into the territory than he normally bothered to venture. he found that even in the heart of things it was quiet here; soft and reserved to the outside world. there were fewer members here than he was accustomed to living with -- an air of peace to this area that he had to be subdued into accepting -- but then again the clan of sandraudiga had been a rowdy and flourishing bunch for many generations before him, and he had no real comparison to how things might be otherwise.  

he didn't disparage in the peace either. as a yearling he might have lamented the appearance of stagnation, but prime and proper stigmata saw nothing but chance and opportunity in all that stillness. even now he prowled about: eager to begin the careful surgery of immersing himself into the familial folds of his reticent, fishbowled pack.

after returning, mona had seized a half-nap, stealing then off into the woodland to patrol. sleepily, she added her own scent here and there, even rearing to place her small forepaws against the boles of trees for a well-placed scratch or three. presently, the mayfair lengthened her stride. here the forest ridged up, ending in a stubby little promontory with a few tufts of obstinate grass in the otherwise bare ground. mona chuckled to herself; a mischief flared in her and she struck a small pebble from the rise as hard as she could.
in the next moment she realized she was not alone; with horrified murkwater eyes, mona drew back, praying to whatever deity at hand that she would not kill someone with her stupidity today.

an animal first and a hunter second, stigmata had been watching the scarlet woodling long before she noticed him. he made a quick observation of her, taking in what he could of her while she still thought she was alone, and he went unnoticed for some time -- even as she took to a pedestal above him.  he lived for moments like these; the details of her swelled to fill every corner of his thoughts and for a moment, in this predator-prey limbo, he obsessed over her.

this one was a swarthy red girl: light-footed and finely made, with an airiness to her otherwise graceful stride that served him as an earmark for her fatigue. she was younger than he preferred, but she was an undeniable sight -- and her youth didn't take from this. he imagined that in another two years, after cultivating the true gravitas and poise of maturity, she would be the most enchanting creature alive.

he was sitting, enraptured, when she sent the rock soaring his way. he had stepped back some, so that he might keep her in his sights, and her projectile landed harmlessly to his left, just several paces away. stigmata blinked at her, sitting tall with ears forward, as she realized he was there in wide-eyed alarm. her reaction was endearing, but the wolf remained unmoved in every possible sense of the word, and he waited to find what he nature was when she wasn't alone.

perhaps as quickly as she had backed away, the firebird scrambled down from the low rise and charged with a gasp toward where the rock had fallen. "oh ... oh my god!" the little scout moaned in self-loathing. "oh my god," mona repeated again, though this time with a bit more of what the kids called pizzazz.
swamp-gaze widening, mona stood on three legs and one crooked at her wrist, trembling with chagrin and panting with exertion. "i am ... so sorry ... so so sorry!" the young mayfair choked between drawing swathes of air, somehow winded not by her short and swift journey, but from the nerves that now waved wildly with uncapped ends somewhere deep inside her brain.
"i'm sorry! i didn't know anyone was down here. i wouldn't have ever ... ever just ... kicked something! how rude! did it hit you?" mona's sentence went tripping end over end into an abrupt silence, straightening her stance as she realized how immaturely she had been babbling, and how much of her mother's instilled poise had simply ceased to exist in this moment.
for mona mayfair was struck now by the look of the man, whom she firmly believed had been near brained by her errant projectile. her own failure did not keep her from noting the hue of his eyes, nor the way he seemed to glow, fine-formed, beneath his sable overcoat. dragging her gaze away at last, mona turned her full and undivided attention to the earth between them, wondering how she could continue to surprise herself with her own ineptitude.

his eyes, as he watched her, were illuminated in the dappled morning light like the critical sheen of spectacles. her half-flung pebble had hardly stirred up any dust, let alone hurt the rugged stigmata, and he didn't react audibly to the perceived slight. he glanced away, dismissing her embarrassment with the same courtesy he gave to flies, and then returned his gaze to her with an expectant look.

it was the best he could do to hide his hunger. she was cherry-sweet, and submissive compared to the certain way he squared his shoulders and angled himself forward. she was delectable; overly enticing  to an opportunist like himself. stigmata inhaled slowly. "do not blame yourself," he sighed in response, almost as if missing him had been an unfortunate thing. "i should have announced myself sooner," eden's serpent slithered.

"not at all!" mona chirped firmly, scarlet brow furrowing. "i oughtn't be throwing stones into the brush like a child." the man seemed to loom taller; the little cardinal settled not far from him on tentative haunches and wrapped her plume tightly around her forelegs.
letting out her breath in a long sigh, a tremulous shrug following, the druid-child eyed the silver-gazed man with no small interest. "i'm mona." ears upswept; her delicate features adopted a glint of consternation. "you are new, and i threw a rock at you." 
a twitch of her lips; velveteen ears folding back, unfurling to frame mona's skull as she cocked her head to one side. "welcome to bearclaw valley?"

stigmata looked away, disinterested as the garnet child insisted on being apologetic, and he returned his silver-gloom eyes to her only when she had finished. he blinked at her almost tiredly -- disapprovingly -- while inwardly he was haunted by thoughts of her purity. had anyone tended to this blooming rose? pruned and watered it with care?  his stare inadvertently dipped to the slim trail of her waist, and his tail gave one hungry lash before falling still again. another part of him regarded this emotion hatefully; he knew he wanted her, and that she could become a terrible distraction -- a weakness, if he dared call it by its true name. he steeled himself to her quite suddenly.

not inclined to repeat himself, he chose not to go on with her about blame. "i have faced worse inductions, i assure you," he said, rising to his feet and turning away from the lissome red-dove. "my name is stigmata -- and i should return to my hunt." for other wolves' weaknesses, not my own. the basilisk inclined his lean muzzle to her, setting one sharp eye on her for one magnetized moment before turning on his heel to prowl away.

belatedly, mona wondered at the lack of interest in his eyes, and realized she was boring him. but alas, too late —! he was already rising with the purl of his name upon dark lips. "stigmata," the mayfair whispered in quiet interest. her gaze trailed the movement of his broad paws, the manner in which he swung away from her.
but not before stigmata's eldritch gaze trailed the sharp point of a knife across her countenance; inexorably, mona's paws tightened against the loam. the proper comportment of social self-awareness revealed stigmata wished to be alone, but the taste of his knowing gaze quickened her pace until the girl padded gingerly at his hip, hoping fervently he would not deter her. "i could help?" mona murmured, seeking the line of his jaw with fervent murkwater gaze. he had given her a breath; a name — the curious and scarlet thing could not perceive of not seeking more.

stigmata's ears turned back in an exasperated motion as he heard the wretched beauty follow. she offered to assist him, drawing from the gargoyle a soft and uneasy sigh. "you shall," he rumbled, feeling a tightness to his stride that hadn't been there before. he reflected mostly on how this entire situation had backfired on him; oh, if only she'd been unvirtuous -- a vamp! -- he lamented through his ragged silence; curse her unsullied gentility for vexing him!

aware that concealing emotions wasn't exactly his strong suit, he led mona forward at a remorseless pace with his muzzle kept shut tight like a coffer for all his secrets. he tried not to let her catch his eye or otherwise find him ruffled primitively by her presence. he was trying so hard not to pay her much mind that he was forgetting to put his nose to the ground and hunt for something...

a rustle in some nearby bushes, as a rabbit tore away from the swiftly approaching wolves, reminded stigmata to weaken his tread and absorb himself more into his surroundings rather than his companion.

mona did not know what to make of the man — his face had closed to her and his step was detemined. his mien cold, but he had accepted her invitation after all, had he not? keeping pace alongside stigmata, mona's head spun with contemplation of her presence nearby: was he annoyed? belatedly, the cardinal realized she had not introduced herself, but the moment had passed. if the silver-eyed serpent wished her name, mona assumed he would ask for it.
she too settled to the hunt, unable to still the churning of her thoughts, but intrigued by the whitefluff tail of the lapin as it easily moved beyond the reach of the wolven pair. deeper they moved. here too were more rabbits; the mayfair lowered her muzzle to the earth and began to scout for a warren, lifting her head once to watch stigmata with a doelike wariness. perhaps it was best if she did not take the lead on this particular search.

stigmata had to make an effort not to be distracted by mona's presence. he simply wanted to know more about the scarlet girl, who had indeed introduced herself, and the invitation of food could not distract him from such ideations. he kept her pinned in corner of his serpent gaze, fascinated by the slimmest details he could glean of her from these piercing glances; he had to force himself to care about the rabbit tracks preceding them.

as he often had in his life, and would for many years to come -- perhaps owing to his gender -- stigmata repressed his feelings and redirected that pent-up aggression to the task afoot. he could hunt in his sleep, so though mona was technically a huge distraction for him in particular, she was of no consequence to the warhound when there was a kill to be had.

naturally, he accommodated for her company: motioning silently for her to take up position along a well-worn set at the mouth of a tunnel opening. this left her with the more important task of snagging something before they could all disappear into the hole -- a test, if there ever was one -- and the male retracted with a shadow's silence to stir up a crowd of fleeing bunnies.

she was soon directed; mona crouched in wait. but though her nostrils flared with the hot scent of rabbit, her eyes were trained upon the man's graceful movements as he melted into the underbrush. from where had stigmata come? mona wondered at his origins perhaps a bit more than she did with other wolves, and soon fell into the reverie of contemplating some dark forest in the far distance.
two rabbits darted beneath her red muzzle before the mayfair snapped from her foolish girlhood nature; a gasp and a lunge and the scream of a third echoed through the woodland. sheepishness danced in her eyes as she held the still-struggling beast in her grasp, searching for stigmata and hoping that he had not seen her near-miss.

saving prey from their fear until the proper moment was a monumental task stigmata had been bred for. he was a ghost of smoke and dust - creeping in; filling up all the empty space with phantasmic limbs - then he was death solidified; a fearsome gargoyle sending the bunnies predictably scurrying for their burrows. but one hidey-hole had its sentinel, and when the flurry of his chase was done, he stood proud to see a rabbit dispatched by young mona's slim teeth.

his tail waved like a banner, jaws split into a panting grin. he had no words of congratulations, but his eager expression, flushed with adrenaline, showed her enough appreciation for the catch. "what would you like to do with it now, mona?" the stygian brute asked, forgetting in his fervor any reservation he might've had about using her name. it tasted sweet - in a way mimicking her candied garnet fur.

his feral countenance spread into a smile that quickened mona's heartbeat despite herself; she glowed around her grasp upon the rabbit, murkwater eyes brightening until the emerald swam up from their depths. setting down her catch, mona let out a breath and her crimson plume swayed at her heels. the sound of her name within his tones held a different meaning, perhaps; it was not often that men murmured the mayfair's title.
notably flustered, the little red scout rolled her shoulders and presented stigmata with a shy smile. "let's put it in a cache near indra's den," she suggested. her friend would be in need of the sustenance. but while her intentions were clear, indra never far from her mind, the expression in the man's face was rather the forefront of her focus in this moment.

he was driven, in that moment of pure carnality, to pursue his deepest desires - even the ones that ultimately took him away from his greatest ambitions - but the mention of indra took the spell from him. it reminded him of his task, his duty, and that mona, more than anything else, was just a distraction. a beautiful, intoxicating, terrible distraction.

the wolf rolled his shoulders, chin aloft and already turning in the direction of their superior's densite. "as you wish," he purred, beckoning the darling after him with a slender flick of his tail.

fading <3 we need another one!

[indent[and she followed at his beckoning. his stance was proud, and as mona lengthened her stride to match him, she wondered if she was only imagining the glint in his hard gaze. it had been a hunt of efficiency and little talking, but the little mayfair was left with the distinct sensation that it had been more than a mere task between packmates.