Neverwinter Forest pulse

sorry yall

Mature Content Warning

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: this is fucked up IM SORRY

The morning begins quietly, as many of them do. She has no reason to suspect that anything might be amiss as she exits her den for the day, trailing behind her excited children. Until she notices the scent. Faint, at first — but distinctly different, off. The hair along her spine prickles and spikes, nose dipping as the realization dawns on her. Wolf scent, strangers; and the trail is right over that of her children.
In an instant her heart is racing, and she follows the scent trail without even a moment's hesitation. Her pace picks up to a run within seconds, and she calls desperately — for @Mal, for @Simmik, for the whole pack if it will save her children. And then she sees them; a pair of fiends tracking her babies through the forest, licking their lips almost hungrily as they close the distance. Surely they can't mean to eat her children...? The thought enrages her, sends her flying forward with a snarl to meet the trespassers with no thought toward waiting for reinforcement. It all goes rather quickly from there: teeth sinking into her from every angle, blood on her tongue, snarls and screams and writhing, nothing around her but fur and flesh and pain and the need to protect. At some point she feels bones breaking between her teeth, but that seems dull compared to the white-hot agony spreading over her. Something thuds lifelessly against the ground — one of the attackers, she realizes, and this seems to spark a wild sort of fury in the remaining intruder. He catches her by the muzzle, wrenching downward — and before she can do anything else, she's pinned in place, pulled and shoved into a position that sets her blood running cold in the moments before the true horror begins.
[elevator music while the world burns in the bg]
When her vision returns, the man is dead, and she feels filthy. Blood drips from her back down her flanks, spine soaked in the warm liquid; he'd died there, she remembers suddenly. On her back. She shudders, stepping away numbly on shaking legs. Away from the corpses, away from the scene of so many crimes in such a short time. Slowly, she starts to fold in on herself, children forgotten for now. Everything is forgotten for now.

Tag for ref. :P

Mal stretched. He was out tracking already, trying to find something to bring back to @Caerus. Whatever he caught, he'd be bringing the best parts back to the boy -- and the rest, too, but if he could tempt him at least into eating the richest meats, maybe that would help. That was at least his current tactic until he could forcibly shove Simmik and Aibreann into talking to him, hoping it would help. So far that opportunity hadn't happened yet. Either way, his son's current condition scared the hell out of him.

Patrols were going to be later in the day, or so was the plan. A plan very quickly destroyed by a panicked howl from Aibreann. Mal was running towards her call before he knew what was going on. What could be happening? The trees were some sort of warp-speed blur around him, but distance meant by the time he would get there, it would all be over. Aibreann! was his repeated call as he got near to where hers had been from. 

He smelled the blood first, slowing from his sprint so he could look for her familiar figure in the trees. He veered towards her, another slightly relieved shout of, Aibreann! since she was on her feet and moving at least. Mal was quick to come up close, looking her over but the amount of blood made him wary to touch her in case there was some wound he didn't see -- was it hers? At least some smelled as if no, and there were the scents of one or two unfamiliar men on her fur. Words poured out of his mouth in a jumble, What happened? Are you ok? I can get you some of the herbs! Where are they? He couldn't see the corpses, they were just out of sight by now. But he continued, What about the kids? He hadn't been here to protect her -- how were dangerous people even in the territory? Or was it just outside? What happened? What could he do? His brain was doing a pretty good job at emulating a keyboard smash, but could you blame him? He was mentally being pulled in about six directions at once, and would snap and pick one if she didn't direct him. When it came to situations of someone being hurt, she was definitely the doctor, he was more of an assistant and he wasn't sure what she wanted him to do.

In the moments between the end of the struggle and Mal's arrival, she finds herself lost in her own mind. Something has shattered within her; that precarious sense of safety she'd clung to, the peace she'd had in feeling that no evil could touch her and her children. She'd been wrong. And while the stinging ache all over her body is thankfully the extent of the physical damage she'd received, her mind is still fractured by the encounter — by the intentions of the men she'd killed, and by the fact that she'd killed them at all. The shadow of the dread she'd felt during those brief moments when the latter of the two had been atop her still lingers, too. He hadn't gotten his way, in the end — but he'd still left his scars.
Mal receives no more acknowledgement than a flick of her ears at first, a subtle shift of her gaze to watch him as he approaches. For several seconds, she only stares, not quite understanding his words. I — don't know... She trails off, eyes distant and glazed and wandering away from the alpha, fixing somewhere in the distance.
Then, like the breaking of a spell, the expression disappears.
She swallows, shuddering slightly, and looks back to Mal. Her voice is sharp and clear when she speaks again, a stark contrast from the small broken words she'd started with, though each word is strained with pain and weariness. The children are deeper within the territory. They'd just left the den for the morning, and a pair of intruders followed them. They seemed... She shakes her head slightly, writing the thought off as irrational panic. They're dead now. No need to mention what had almost happened, how it cut into the core of her and now she feels as if she's drowning. Mal has plenty of burdens to bear — and she can't stand the thought of him looking at her and seeing that. She takes a deep breath, and tries to address all of his worries instead. The bleeding must be stopped. There is moss in my herb cache, east of my den. Send someone to check on the children — or do it yourself, and send another to help me tend my wounds, it doesn't matter. She doesn't matter — only their children are truly of importance right now.

Mal will be back for my next post. But if Simmik shows up in thread and wants to do a couple rounds before Mal returns that's ok! All his actions are described below for what he'd be off doing.

Her response at first was kind of chilling. What had happened? His thoughts didn't have to go too far to run into what happened to Liliana and Simmik. He hoped not. He'd started to reach out to her when she'd snapped back to talking and it made him jump back a couple inches because he wasn't expecting it at all. He listened. And he wasn't going to just be happy that she'd apparently killed the bad guys either, mostly because he thought that none of them should have to kill anyone. If anyone had to kill some threat, it should be Mal -- let him shoulder the problems out there, he was plenty willing. Not Simmik, not Aibreann -- or Hua either in case she had to. They should all be free, the world had already decided to dump a lot of things on him, so he'd just take the rest if he could. His ears folded back a little, Okay. I'll take care of it all, don't worry. Just stay put -- I'm sure Simmik will be here soon too. He hoped. But she could be patrolling on the far side of the territory or something too, which would mean he might actually be able to get back by then if he got lucky.  He reached out to try to touch a clean spot on her cheek with his nose if she'd allow it, then turned and sprinted off into the forest.

This shouldn't be happening. None of it should have.

He was hot on the pups' trail, calling for @Cam to meet him on the way. It didn't take too long for his friend to show up, after all, he'd heard her howl too. Mal gave him the rundown: Aibreann had been attacked by some trespassers but didn't seem too bad off and the trespassers weren't so lucky, their children needed to be corralled and kept safe until Mal was certain there was no more danger and Aibreann had a chance to clean up and treat her wounds. The kids didn't need to see all that when things were going to be ok -- he figured Aibreann would probably have a good way to talk to them about it later too. Mal (and hopefully Aibreann herself) would come to see Cam and the kids as soon as possible after.

With that sorted, his next task was to go gather the previously mentioned moss, galloping back to the den and searching around until he found it. He grabbed most of what was there, taking no chances and . That was when he headed back to Aibreann -- it felt like it took ages. Had it really? He wasn't sure.

She had been patrolling when she heard the call, and had tried to answer it as quickly as possible. She had no idea what was going on, but it did not sound good. Aibreann's howl was desperate and laced with fear, and with how things had gone lately, Simmik was expecting the worst to have happened. 

Still, she wasn't at all expecting to arrive to such chaos. There were two lifeless bodies strewn about, blood seeping from each to pool around them. Bloody paw prints lead from each pool and she followed them to where Aibreann lay injured. She had scented Mal as well, but did not see him as she scanned the area, making her chest tighten and her mind race with a dozen things that might have happened. 

She rushed over to her packmate. Aibreann, she said, swallowing hard. What happened? Where's Mal? She looked her over— she smelled of the dead strangers and the Beta wondered if she had intercepted them. Had Mal fought them off too? She wished she had been here sooner to help. What do you need? she asked next, forcing herself to keep it together and try to manage the situation.