Bearclaw Valley corpseweave [m]

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: desc of SH

when merrick released his own paw, droplets of blood splattered steaming to the snow. he had bitten himself deeply enough to release the crimson; his lip curled at the sting.
merrick spread his toes and grit his teeth. a circlet of red melted into the snow.
"for you," he hissed through clenched fangs, single eye rolling skyward;
ursus. speak through me.

Ålesund smelled it before he saw the man.

irony, coppery muddled with the scent of something that symbolized life and death. blood. it almost made his empty stomach churn with hunger until he realized there was something unfamiliar about it. no prey scent.

predator.

so he poked around enough to find a man there who was surely the source. missed the mumbled words and so instead he blurted without care and much thought.

are you...okay?

hope this is okay!

all good!

a pale figure. a dark face. a trespasser. merrick grinned, mouth smeared in his own blood. "i'm perfect."
his voice held the grit of crushed gravel and shells; travelworn.
astara unfurled next to him, a vision only for merrick.
"careful, stranger. bears walk here."

Behind Ålesund came another on paws that hardly whispered even on snow. Aventus, too, was drawn by the smell of blood, but before he was able to attend his ailing father, along came the bold trespasser into the maw of the bears.

A low rumble began in the Bruin-jaw's throat as he crowded up behind Ålesund, raking silver gaze over matched silver fur on his shoulders. Merrick seemed positively unfazed by the intruder in their midst, but his father was hardly well these days. It fell to Aventus to be the dagger pressed up against the stranger's throat, an imminent threat.

No words. Only that building growl, which rose into a crescendo.

quick exit but still an interesting start for him, thank you guys! :D

Ålesund didn't really...have a fucking interest in whatever all this was.

bleeding dude talking about bears and suddenly a man was at his back with a growl that spoke deeper. it was a cue to his very instinct that he had walked into the wrong place at the wrong time.

uh, thanks...for the warning. and if he could get away without losing his hide, he aimed to slip right off and trek off far from this pair of scary dudes.

:D

"look. you've found one." aventus had appeared. the blackbird grinned against her husband's cheek. merrick licked blood from his jaws.
he snapped to attention like a ragged flag, intent upon sharing the chase with his son.
so long as the renegade kept going as fast as he was now, he might have a chance.
but only ursus knew this place so well.
eventually he stopped and looked back at the bruin-jaw with a lift of his scarred eyebrows.

The stranger barely had time to gather his muscles before Aventus launched after him, all clacking teeth and flying spittle. His sire's tongue tracing his dark lips was like the gunshot to start the races. His son obliged without hesitation.

He streaked after Ålesund, whose dark head and saddle looked a little like ghostly, disembodies apparitions floating over the snow. The rest of him blended in. He snapped at the intruder's heels and allowed himself a guttural roil of growling laughter, torn between allowing Ålesund to get away unscathed and lunging properly for the man. Merrick ran close by, spurring Aventus onward.

Until they came to a stop with heaving breath that wreathed their twin dark muzzles with coldsmoke.

"it gets the blood flowing." merrick was talkative. his foot throbbed from where he had pierced his own flesh and then run upon the torn skin. pressed into the snow it would dull to an ache. but he supposed he should see arielle at some point —
"no more fucking weaklings," he gritted abruptly to his son. "they are not worthy of being here."

The stranger fled up the hill to where Bearclaw Valley opened up into the meadow. The two wolves no longer pursued, but those silver eyes tracked the man with the same fervency up and out until he disappeared over a crest. A pity they had not spilled blood here today.

Aventus huffed and turned to Merrick, ears cupping over his slender brow. I agree, he said. No more Ashlars. No more Tuurs. No more cowards. It was an affront to the bear to allow such pitiful dogs to share their land. Ursus must be better than that. He thought momentarily about himself as a child — frightened of his father and what he must become, but bound to the faith no matter which way he turned — and then banished it. It did not matter. He had been forced to become stronger, and it was a good thing.

What were you doing? he asked, glancing at the streaks of red that brightly outlined every print his father left in the snow, at the ring of it cooling under his pad even as they spoke.

no more ashlars. no more tuurs. 
merrick smiled darkly, pleased that he and aventus had come to the same conclusion.
"blood sacrifice," came the rasp of his voice. the bearwitch lifted his paw for aventus to see.
"do you remember before, when the bear left the valley?" before they had gone to the mountain. his voice was hushed, earnest.
"the spirit needs to eat far more than ursus was feeding this land. i give my blood. but we must make sacrifices, and often."

The prey with it, Aventus confirmed. He was no longer so certain that leaving the valley was ever the right call. Nothing good had come of their time on Silvertip Mountain. The disappearance of Apophis, the death of Astara, the defection of Asperas, all precipitated by their relocation there. The mountain was sacred. He thought now it might be too sacred to host the bear wolves full time, and thus had their fortunes been dashed upon its slopes.

We will do as we must, he agreed. He didn't have to like it. These barbaric ways, they had never called to Aventus the way they had Avicus and even his mother, but there was naught to be done about it. Ursus prospered when blood was spilled on this earth and suffered in the absence of it. He thought of Arielle — he had said they would never leave her, and so they would not. They would feed the bear and live as the worthy.

I shall begin building altars at once.

merrick nodded. 
he would watch aventus go.
it had not occurred to him that their time at silvertip had been an overload; it had been a time of tests, which had cost astara and found both in their second litter wanting.
he supposed this was unfair, but the tall young wolf moving away from him had been the only truly dedicated one to ursus. and he did not even know that aventus cared nothing for the cost of blood.