Broken Antler Fen J'attendrai

@Thorn

He'd fallen behind again, chasing whisps. A lead about abandoned caches, belonging to some recently dissolved pack filled Nails Eyjolfur head with rapt interest. Easy food, it seemed. Nails liked whatever was easy. While his siblings surged ahead, Nails stayed behind, believing he could milk more from the southlands before joining the party in the north. He found the old borders easily enough in a small wood -- the stale scent of urine had not yet faded away. Empty, so far as to be absent of birdsong, there were mysteries abound. Yet, they concerned Nails not. He sought only what they left behind.

Nothing. Not a scrap remined. The caches lay barren, upturned by predators faster than he. He was too late and he lead turned up only frustration. Anger mounting, Nails pushed north and left the ruin behind him. His siblings left no trail to follow, yet he knew the path they forged. Days passed without a sign of them. Perhaps this time, he'd lost them for good. Monotony ensued.

Fog rose from the water. He'd stopped to rest in the wetlands where nary a dry place remained. The water was cold and clear, and Nails did drink.

he was not trailing nails, but he found him all the same - waste deep in murkwater, supping from the icy liquid with an alertness about him. thorn slid from the last dry rise of earth and began treading water, the splash of his passing a tell-tale sign of his advancement.

thorn's shoulders rounded as he slunk through the water; it rippled besides him, cold in a way that sparked his winter-dull senses. he waited until nails had seen him -- and then with an orcish roar, surged towards him with all the blundering force of a bull.

Through the water, as if by some odd circumstance, Nails saw him glide. His brother, a brutish bull of a wolf, sliced through rippling fog with a rare and uncharacteristic grace. Nails stilled, pinning his ears forward as as he caught the bearwolf in his cautious periphery. Eyes met, if only briefly, before Thorn seized the moment, surging forward with jaws wide like some hungry alligator from some warm and musty swamp.

The Eyjolfur's had always been an opportunistic bunch.

Shared blood aside, Nails often found his siblings difficult to read. Dullards, he supposed, though, he assumed that of most. However, they spoke the language of violence so fluently that Nails could not deny it as anything other than a stroke of natural genius. An inherent gift, intrinsic within the Eyjolfur clan itself. Though smaller, weaker, than the rest of his kin -- Nails was no pushover. Lips peeled back in a ugly snarl before laying into his brother's surprise assault. Wrestling in the water, a bid for dominance played out.

thorn blundered downhill, water cascading behind him as he plowed through the rippling river. nails rose to meet him, which evinced a roar of delight from the oxborn man. they wrestled, water splashing in high sun-lit arcs around them, and after a particularly fierce volley of nips, thorn was soundly pushed back by his tenacious brother.

he circled in the water, deciding a further assault would not be prudent. his brother was too well-conditioned to defend himself from his siblings' relentless onslaughts, and nails was just as ironblooded as the rest of his kin, and while small, was no less a contestant.

thorn's posture looked grave until his tail wagged, breaking the somber mood -- and then with a splash aimed towards his brother, he bounded out across the bank in a hearty run.

Torn asunder, the pair rolled in the muck and mire with hungry, razor edged jaws open in sport. Among their clan, the line between affection and violence blurred and the two intermingled into one great beast-- a brutal manifestation of brotherly love. Perhaps barbaric to some, it served as a humbling reminder of a distant home for Nails. While locked in single combat with his brother, Nails realized how much he missed his kin when he was away. It was too bad that he planned to leave them to forge his own path.

There was only so much room to grow in the shadow of his sibling.

Thorn stilled and a standoff ensued. Golden eyes bore down on mud dappled fur and his brother's serious and hungry gaze. He could not hold it for long, Thorn would break first. With the slow wave of a tail, Thorn did. He moved fast, surprising Nails with a splash before surging away to cut a swathe from the shallows to the bank of the pond. Nails was practically begged to give chase.

He tore off in pursuit, cutting away from the frigid water. Mud fell from him in thick globs as he pressed on his brother's heels, unyielding, unwilling to give him a single inch's breadth.

it delighted thorn to hear his brother give chase behind him; with a new surge of energy, the yearling broke into a coltish gallop. he would never be as fast as nails, but his brief boughts of intense energy often afforded him the catastrophic ability to overpower, and it was often sheer force alone that thorn used to his advantage, having an unweildy and massive frame that tired quickly.

uphill they went, nails hot on his heels -- he could feel his brother's dogged breath along his limbs. slamming to a halt, thorn whirled -- and if nails was not incredibly quick in his reaction time he might find himself buried in the thick of thorn's body.