Shadow Mountain dig so deep for scars

@Scarecrow !!

This was her mountain.

Or, what remained of it. The nightstalker's lips snaked into a sinister grin - a cheshire cat's smile; she had caused such mayhem here, among the great boulders and tears in the surface of rock. Blood had been spilled, a thick crimson that flooded her senses with a rusty tang and tingled her spine with delight. She could hear them now, the chants and howls with the glimmering moon as witness - oh how horrified her brother would have been, trembling like a coward at her paws. Men, they could be such fragile creatures, couldn't they? Life, life itself was so delicate, like the surface of a browning leaf in autumn's chilled fingers. So easily cracked and torn. Perhaps that was why she loved to play with it, to tease and hold the very strings of existence in her own cracked paws, controlling her puppets with a simple wave of her foreleg and display of her incisors. Her wolves had been corrupted, but they were petty little things. Those nights, she had enjoyed them thoroughly.

The woman stalked the mountaintop with feline grace, a deadly prowl resembling a panther's dance guiding her way across the smooth and rough rocks. She did not pause to scent the air, nor did she gaze out across the land beneath her - no, she cared nothing for this world.

A short laugh fled blackened lips and echoed on the wind, a deadly ripple of menace that trembled and shook beneath the rocky ledges. When the world was cruel, there was only one solution - be crueler.

Was it one of those days?
One of those days where all was right?

Not even close. In fact, it was one of those days where everything -And I mean everything- was going horribly.
And it felt so good. 

A cousin of his just died, a dirty mouthed little runt of a coywolf who's ancestry wasn't much in comparison to his own. But boy, oh boy, was it something absolutely awful that killed the fellow! "It was huge!" he began, horror placing itself across that chocolate face of his. "A horrible, no good, very bad wolf!" A shaked head ripped the words apart as he continued across the base of mountains who's name he hadn't cared to learn. "He was evil, ripping the kid apart, and I swear to god he had a smile on his face while he did it." The audience gasped as he was so sorrowful in this story. So terrible was this deed, poor coywolf who was murdered. "But here's the twist," he added to flavor up the story. "nobody knows who did it, and even nobody-er knows where the body went." The shocked silence blew away the terrified ones who listened to him, and the stick-shaped three-year-old shook his head at the invisible crowd. "I know! What a shocker."

He had absolutely no idea what he was even talking about.
But that little voice in his head, did. It knew exactly what and who he was referring to. A little wolf he had met on his travels, someone by the name of Todd,...or was it Tim? The cute little friend needed a friend, and there he was! Scarecrow was right there for him, friendly and all, smiles and things. And they became...
friends.

But time went on, and on, and on, and before the day had turned to nigh, Little Tommy-Tim was nowhere to be seen. Scarecrow looked everywhere for the itty bitty friend, but found no one. Was a shame. A real shame. A shame indeed, as there wasn't more than one of Timmy-Tom, as Scarecrow had helped himself to drowning and eating the child.
It had started with S'crow claiming the kid should try his paw at fishing...
And whether he meant to or not, S'crow just blanked out! Blacked out! And assumed he was eating a fish! Well, he chewed, and chewed, but the mocha warlock couldn't tell the difference then and there. Tasted like fish, he told himself - and tasted pretty damn good.
But as he looked down, someone looked up; the mangled body of this Tommy-Tim-Tim.

Oh well.
Friends were meant to be made and eaten, he supposed as he continued his trek around the mountains.

Icy topaz scanned the land around where he loped leisurely.
Where, oh where would he find another?

She'd thought she was alone on her mountain, the night temptress - but the silence was interrupted by the steps and sounds of another. Vivid eyes of purple shifted toward the noises, and her salmon tongue drew out to slither across her lips with a deep rumble of hunger in her stomach. It rose to her chest and then her throat as a hushed growl, fangs glinting in the evening's scarce light. The moon had begun to rise again, And the sun was dipping beyond the horizon, washing the sky in blues and fading oranges, a mix of darkening hues.

She watched him from atop a smooth ledge. It had been where she had summoned her ghastly followers, and where she had ordered the sacrifice of that poor little man, Maheegan, watching his blood splatter across the faces of the ravenous wolves. As she watched the new stranger wander aimlessly across her land, a sly twinkle shone in the Irya's gaze - it was filled with masked desire, perhaps amusement. Another man, another sacrifice? No, She had nobody to sacrifice to but herself; her rituals had been a spur of the moment creation, but they had been convincing enough for the shadow mountain wolves to follow her command. It had been so easy.

"Hello, traveller~" The words snaked from her tongue with such delicacy, laced with hidden venom. Would he interest her enough, perhaps she would entertain his presence. If not... well, she was growing hungry and had not tasted the flesh of another wolf in far too long (...perhaps a couple of moons).

The words stopped everything. Time held it's breath as he caught an entirely different alignment in both mind and body. Everything had shifted from jovial and jaunty to silent as the graves where no one dared to tread.

The mocha mixbreed stopped with such a halted posture, unmoving as the voice of cauldron brew called him from his solo-time. His tail moved naught, his heart barely even beat at this point, as his extreme concentration went into this lone voice.

To assess the voice, a neck craned almost to it's most natural limit over a slender lean shoulder, pale blue gaze meeting the roya amethysts that greeted him so...perfectly. A bone's join popped in his neck, and with quite a gorey loudness.
Well, it was rather rude to not give the woman full attention, now wasn't it?

"It is!" he confirmed with a macabre smile, flecks of garnet betwixt beguiling ivories. "Tim Tom says hello, too!", he commented cheekily as a stained tongue wrapped morbidly around his dear friendly cousin's remains.

"You must be-" he began, taking a step forward in a way that reminded one of corpse dances. "the one who's playtimes never end! I've travelled all over looking for you," he barked with such glee. "My newest and oldest best friend..."

Earthy skeleton walked himself forward, looking up at her with such intent. Something disturbed and broken lie in those dead blue eyes, near colorless save for the most minute of tint.
She would be the latest to replace the voice in his head, wouldn't she?
He couldn't wait to tell her his name.

And couldn't wait even more for him to ingest hers.

There was a moment of silence where she could almost hear his heart thrumming against his chest - or perhaps it was her own. Perhaps it was the very blood that coursed through the coywolf's veins, or it was simply Kelina's imagination as she eyed him so hungrily, as though longing to flick her tongue across the tender muscles beneath his skin; shame he was such a spindly creature, but regardless he was made of flesh and therefore a potential meal.

There was something else, though. The Nightstalker appeared to have a knack for coming across the... mentally unstable - those with a distinct lack of sanity, or those broken to the point of losing themselves entirely. This man was no exception. He began to ramble on about this and that, and though the woman shrouded in darkenss had little clue what he was bubbling up about, she decided for now to play along with his game. This game - it would be so simple to crawl under his skin like a spider and twist his strings as she had done the others, but first she would have to observe him and his habits. Observe who he was, and how his mind worked.

"you must be... the one who's playtimes never end."

He knew what he saw - she would give him that, if nothing else.

Scintillating eyes flicked briefly to the remains of an unfortunate creature, who had been granted the name Tim Tom before they returned to the coywolf, an inticing grin plastered across the temptress' face. "Looking... for me?" She purred, shadowed head quirking to the side. A step forward was taken by the stranger, who gazed at her with indistinguishable intent. "What is your name, little wanderer?" Came a falsely innocent enquiry, body prowling down from her ledge and stalking toward the skeleton with ears tipped forward upon her crown.

”Of course! He confirmed the question with certainty that wasn’t his to take. “I’ve looked everywhere from Heaven to Hell, and both are pointing at each other; none take ownership of who touched you first, darling.” 

Coy as he was, his smile told it all. Tilting his own head like a true gentleman, the hushed voice fell from inky and stained lips. “My name is whatever you want it to be, Kelina.” Oh, what? Her name was Kelina?
Well of course it was. Scarecrow had heard of this beauty for years now, and he hadn’t wandered over by this mountains pass by accident, now had he? 
Oh no, no, he was entirely too smart for that. Or stupid. Stupid only because he had heard of what this woman was up to, what she had been doing, and naturally wanted to see if she was all myth and rumor, or as legendary as those corpses painted her to be.

”Allow me a taste of your sweet and terrible sins, dearie...” he asked with every possible level of hunger a starved and decrepit soul could release from the abyss of the damned.

Oh, he was a coy one.

The Nightstalker's grin did not waver, watching him with the eyes of a feline locked onto a mouse, tongue resisting the urge to trace along her lips. She liked his attitude, daring to tempt her toward him with such urgency, and the mystery of his being was one that she was intruiged to discover; closer the dark queen stalked, until they could breathe the same air and she could almost feel the coywolf's fur tickling her own. 

Perhaps he did not know of her at all - it would not be surprising, if his jolty mental state was held firm in mind, but it bothered her little. With a sly smirk, the irya began to circle him with a darkness in her vivid eyes, the shadowed gaze of a raven but blessed with a haunting purple; her inky body brushed against his own, and her tail swept like a plume under his chin, perhaps teasing, perhaps simply watching for a reaction.

His voice, starved... he was begging her, and there was never a sweeter tune to the temptress' ears. "If you know me, you know I am not be tested~," She whispered, like a snake slithering off her tongue, drawing up at his other side. "My sins are as black as night - you do not fear them, traveller?"

She brought herself within range of both body and fang, and Scarecrow knew exactly how near death could seduce him so quickly. But the Warlock was on a teeter totter of testing both tastes of Life, Death, and that gorgeous Unknown in between. Both were the same in and out, but what lies between the shallow shades in difference? What perish song was sung by the souls trapped between identical planes? That was what the bastard sought, And in each wistful and blissful word silkening from Kelina, it only brought him that much closer to clarity in this conundrum.  

“I’m not here to test” he chuckled as though she assumed the lowest of him. “I’m here to take.” It was true; there wasn’t enough time in the universe that could amble past and allow him to waste it on trying certain things -or wolves, in this case- out. Either they were meant to be a meal, or they were meant to be a friend. 

He watched her circle behind him in his mind, closing his dead eyes as he envisioned the skeleton within this dark woman underneath all of that muscle and tendon work. That pale ivory flecked softly under his chin and his self control had never been so nearly undone; he wanted to savagely maul her right then and there, to engorge himself and just feel that tender voice inside him as the others were. So many would hush to listen to her voice, even he, and such a reality sent ice through to his marrow. 

A smile bled across terrible lips. “Fear is bitter; doesn’t do well to sate the sophisticated palate, darling. “ 

"I'm not here to test. I'm here to take."

A nefarious spark would glimmer in her eyes, so twisted and full of malice, so haunted and deadly. She was a viper, coiled around her prey, and with time perhaps her fangs would pierce the skin of his throat, watch as his blood stained the ground. Another death would mean nothing to her, but the taste would be savoured as crimson pooled on her tongue; she could almost feel it, so hot and thick against her lips. The walker of shadows could have ended his life with a simple snap, holding his life so tenderly between the edges of her glistening fangs, but she did not. Not yet.

All good things came to those who would wait.

She had destroyed many lives - a feat she wore like a necklace around her nape, a priceless piece of jewellery to display to those she passed, those who watched. She carried around the lost souls of the unfortunate, and they hung around her body like little bottles, little bottles of little, meaningless lives. They were hers now, hers to keep and hers to flaunt.

"What is it you would take...?" She murmered against his ear, watching his chest rise and fall, watching and imagining. Waiting.

It came from a voice he couldn’t recognize - it couldn’t have been his own. But with so many voices blurring in and out of his world, who was he to tell them they had no free speech in this moment? This was their stage, and the spirits delighted in his wonderful desire here and now. Not far from their happiness, was his own. 
Was Kelina here to take stage with him and his gay little weave? Another strand in a loom made only for her? 
She could be his centerpiece, his voice to finally converse with - provided she survive his deadly lust for that scant Unknown. She had to be the one, his one, and maybe his only. 
So in this instance, the Coy could see it truly was his voice once that reply slid out as passionately as it did. 

“You.”

That level of possessiveness! It was heated beyond the pure pyres of Hell’s furnaces which baked souls on the daily, more molten than the crags of volcanic ruins. This ebony dame would know his words, she would feel his intangible delight in both pleasure and pain. And through both, she would know she was meant to roam the world in him. His world, and hers...the union of a lifetime. 

That claim was soft and silent when he had made it. And as if scarfed around her ears as gentle as a butterfly’s grace, his body too had gone from carefree and edged to silent and void. He stood with extreme stillness, nearing almost corpse movement, as he regarded that gorgeous face of hers, relishes that succulent voice one more time...

before throwing himself forward in near unreal speeds, to end it all. 
His jaws opened with devilish angle as his body became one with treachery. And with carnage in mind, he would see it wrought. 

All across that beautiful soul he so desired.

"You."

Never had a word been spoken with such a desire, an impulsive claim of hunger that echoed deep within the blackened depths of her minacious chest. She could feel whispers test the strength of her lips, their lust to escape from the shackles that bore them to her will - would they bend to the sharpness of her incisors, or would they boil from her skull and slither into the air without her voice to guide them? 

Their union would be one to remember, perhaps; but her soul was not ready to descend into a being of another world, a ghostly apparition of the glory she'd held within her own ink-lavished paws. She enjoyed her power in life far too much to slink into the darkness of another, even to guide his poorly managed mind - she'd considered pulling his head from his body, dangling his pallid skull amongst her collections of gore. It would look stunning beside her prizes, but no, they would become one. Not yet, but oh, as he sprung at her with the speed of a cheetah, she barely had time to scramble to the side, prancing just out of reach.

"Not yet," She would whisper against his ear; his teeth, so sworn to their task, would pierce skin - not enough for death to claim her body, but enough for crimson blood to trickle from beneath her coat of black, and her eyes of violet watched him with a tenacious glee. A taste - he had asked for a taste, so only a taste she would give.

He was given a gift, a sweet and sour curve of flavors that seized his mind as he seized that hide, seized that flesh, seized that drink of courtship. It hit the tongue like ice to his fire, melting and soothing that manic jitter, all the while igniting near complacency in the Warlock. Kelina has a pact made with him, just that fast. Should it be redeemed by tendencies that even the most savage would shield themselves from? Should he forgo his whimsical terror on the few he passed, just to see what melodious massacres the two might birth, together? 

Absolutely.

So at her pardon, S’crow cut the amplitude of his frenzy to silence as he pulled free of her immediate proximity. 
Tall auds faced her as he watched her intently. He said nothing while his interest was solely upon her doings. 

“There’s so much work to do, Kelina...” he confirmed his prospect of the world around them. The place was unfit for the misfits, and the Spirits were not pleased. Despair was not prevalent here, and much would need to correct that.
But with the voice that was Kelina, he would be forced to stay with her until she had joined the many in his mind. 
He had no other choice...

He was hers until she was his.

It was a deliciously memorable expression on the warlock's face that filled the night temptress' vision, those glistening eyes of alluring violet, the gaze intense enough to leave cold corpses in their wake. She watched as he swallowed the beading blood from her nape, savouring the taste of the life that coursed through her veins - and oh, he enjoyed it. Her lips curved up in a sickening smirk, pleased at the effect of her spell; indeed, she had him in a trance.

His announcement was abrupt, after the smooth silence only heartbeats before, and a midnight brow quirked up, venom dancing in the ribbons of purple that billowed through her orbs. "Oh?" A honeyed voice swept from her lips, continuing to watch him intently. "Then tell me." She whispered, lowering herself into a nonchalant sit, swift tail curling around her paws.

Dark deeds she had gotten herself tied into, but who could resist such a sibylline proposal?

He bode no words until she required it of him. He was silent, moreso relapsing mentally into the anchoring bliss that this wretched witch had him shackled by. But by her gentle yank, he spoke.

”You have no seat atop this plane. And as time fades, chip by chip does your throne. The world must be spun rightly by your will, or else the rituals will be empty.”

His tent-like auds flashed a hazardous backwards as he recalled the silence that came with the unhappy Spirits. Should they grow quiet, his guidance would too. He couldn’t allow them to part from him so easily- 
he had to garner their attention. 

Slaughter his way to their hearts

”Time waits for the Past, yet the Living must suffer.”

He spoke in riddles, and the meaning was warped in her own head - words, words... actions were better than words. Her legs were tiring of standing still, and the nightstalker flicked an ebony tail at him - "We ought to get moving, yes? The sooner we begin, the better?" She would ride along, see where this distorted trail led her; that was, after all, her favoured way.

"Are you hungry, traveller? Perhaps we ought to feed." Oh yes, her stomach rumbled and mouth watered at the thought: rusty, salted crimson to dribble over her tongue, the tearing of flesh and the satiation of ravenous, gut-wrenching hunger - surely she was not alone in this malicious daydreaming?

Her rugged consort must be starving.

Ironically enough, he wasn’t. “Tim Tom is still making peace with me,”  he relieved to the seductress. “But I will be with you.” S’crow would stand by this terrible woman with everything he had in him. It was his bond, and should he not follow through with such demands, the Spirits would revoke his powers! 

A canted crown from the spidery wisp of a wolf indicates that she had lead, unless she desired him to seek for her. He had no quarrels with either, though he felt he would feel much more of use finding food for her-  but she was a respected woman! She might want to find the trail herself, and it wasn’t her displeasure he wanted aroused in her hellish heart.