Redtail Rise [M] Ah but working too hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack

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She returned to the Southwestern borders on a counterclockwise patrol, only to find herself picking up the scent of bear once more- only this time, it was stronger. She caught sight of them in the distance, and while they'd not crossed into the wolves' territory, they were lingering far too close. Foolish, Lilia thought, considering that the sow had a cub with her. She quickly realized that there were two cubs, when another rushed out of the tall swamp grass to tackle its sibling. 

She held her ground and woofed, to get the sow's attention, and she turned her head toward the wolf, obviously surprised. The cubs wrestled and growled on the ground at her feet, and for a moment, the two females simply stared at one another. They were a risk to each other, and to the families they both had. Lilia growled, and flagged her tail, uttering another loud bark. 

Having no claim to the swamp, and seeming to want no interaction with a pack of wolves, the mother bear rocked forward to her feet, and nudged her tumbling children so that they might begin to walk with her, away from the pack's borders. 

Wanting to make sure they did not circle back, Lilia continued to pursue them at a great distance- though it was a tough task. It seemed like every few feet, the cubs decided to wrestle or chew on something they found, or grab at their mother's ankles to slow her down. They were oblivious to the danger that they were in and their frustrated mother had to continuously stop to shake one of the cubs loose from her great, shaggy hind end and set him on his way again. 

Lilia couldn't help but smile faintly at their antics as she continued to peacefully shepherd the small family of black bears away.

Bear-scent was strong here, almost as strong as that of wolf, and Glawackus should've known to keep away because of it. Instead he trailed after the bear and her cubs as if they were a food truck and he was waiting for it to stop somewhere convenient. He kept ample space between them, and when the cubs began to roam or play, he kept aware of their location but did not show any interest in them. The last thing he wanted was an angry mother bear to chase him.

During his lurking session, he spotted the now-familiar silhouette of the dark wolf, one who had scored his hide with teeth weeks ago. His fur bristled across his spine, but he stayed planted where he was, and watched. Maybe she was foolish enough to hunt a bear cub? Maybe he'd get a good show of the mother chasing this other wolf, which would at least give him some entertainment after the panic of being chased away himself.

Alas, the girl seemed smart enough to keep her distance too. He rumbled a little note of annoyance, which prompted the swing of the mother bear's head his way, and so Glawackus ducked.

Lilia continued to hound the bear and her cubs, gently but firmly steering them further away from the Rise and out toward the swamp again. Thus far, they'd moved with very little argument. One of the cubs might roam in her direction, only to be redirected by its mother who seemed to have very little patience for tomfoolery. Lilia was grateful that such a powerful beast might care so much about its children, and could be warded off in a way that was better for all of them. 

Not all creatures were quite so considerate; and as soon as she caught the scent of the man who'd previously been caught intruding, she switched gears. He attracted the attention of the sow and the Bjern at the same time, and though the former took the hint and picked up her pace to leave the area, the dark wolf snarled and chose a new target. 

If he'd been trying to avoid conflict, he'd not done a very good job. Lilia sped toward him, every bit as angry as the mother bear might have been had he gotten too close- with the intention of giving him double the punishment for coming too close for a second time.

The bear appeared to think that both wolves were working together. No doubt it could not tell the difference between lone wolves of the wilderness, and those that belonged somewhere. That was fortunate; it took to herding its own cubs away with attention affixed to Glawackus, and Glawackus took to staring it down with an intensity he hadn't previously displayed. His tail was straight out behind himself, his ears front-facing, and body rigid.

From around the other side of the bear — as the mother dwindled in size and soon was a shadow upon the marsh — there came the livid expression of the dark wolf, all teeth and moving fast. Glawackus reacted with a prompt duck and weave maneuver (the same he had tried before, unsuccesfully that time) and with a snap of his own teeth to try and warn the stranger back, he was bristling and keeping his distance.

The muck was slick around him though, and he wasn't able to keep his footing as well as he predicted. He nearly went down in his shoulder and once compensated and upright, the stranger was too close. He snarled, snapping again.

Adrenaline kicked her focus into high gear, and while the stranger made an effort to escape, Lilia's momentum drove her toward him, closing the gap considerably when he slipped. The footing would do neither of them a favour, and his attempt at dodging out of her trajectory had failed him. 

She didn't slow her approach- and only ploughed on the brakes when she felt confident she could slide the last few feet toward him, hoping to ram into him like a curling stone.

Ram him she did! Their bodies connected in a flurry, and there was the crack of bone on bone, as Glawackus was bowled off-kilter; but he was scrambling even then, digging his heels in to the muck and clawing at the more compacted soil where he could, to get somewhere solid. It hurt, and he would be bruised — but he snarled and snapped and moved, as quickly as gravity would allow.

He wasn't going to back down this time. Not when she was alone! Yes, he was skinny and desperate like before, but he was more desperate after numerous failures lately, and her goading, her snapping, and her now near-constant assault only served to rile him in to a real fight for survival. No he wouldn't be running this time - and she'd soon realize her own mistake by targeting him.

Both wolves scrambled in the wake of the hit, and Lilia coughed from the jarring impact. If she'd hit him just a bit harder, she might have risked knocking the wind out of herself. As it was, she'd put herself right into a pit of desperate rage- and there was nothing more contagious on the planet than that, when stuck in a pit with a bitey, feral animal. 

The clacking of teeth rose amid the sucking sounds of paws stuck in the mud, but once contact was made and the enraged stranger chomped his teeth into the fur of Lilia's shoulder, her snarls rose into a furious wail. Muck went flying as she pulled a foot free and sought to press her claws into the soft spot of his flank, gritting her teeth as she lowered her head and pushed into his grasp as much as she could to try and topple him over again.

The girl was relentless!

For every snap she cut through the air, or at his face, or near his body, he parried with his own. She knew precisely where to aim and Glawackus was doing his best to keep up, or at the very least thwart some of her jabs, but it was proving difficult. The only blessing was the mud, which worked in his favor more often than not. At one point she gave up trying to grab him and began to pester him with shoves of her claws, which amounted to a muddy slap-fight.

It was enough to make him wheel his hips away from her, and that was a boon too, in a way. Glawackus could duck his head to protect his throat and face her head-on, snapping at her flailing limbs in an effort to catch one and pull her off her feet, or block her own snaps with his thick skull (which wasn't smart). The more they jostled the deeper both became entrenched in the bog, which neither seemed to notice.

Lunging and snapping, they traded blows for blows, often missing each other's fangs by mere inches. At one point when she'd reached out to snap at his muzzle to fend him off, she thought for sure he was going to catch her by the tongue and clip the end of it clean off. She lost her footing when he smacked at her with one of his paws, and with an angry yowl, she took the smack to the jaw that was hard enough to make her see stars for a second.

He slipped his hips away from her, and put himself in a better position to keep himself upright. Glued to the spot in the thick mud, Lilia knew she wouldn't have her usual advantage of speed and would have to rely on sheer ferocity, though he seemed equally as married to the idea of committing to the frenzied match. 

One of her snaps glanced off the male's skull, where it would have been impossible for her to get a grip- but not far from that was his ear. She raised her shoulder to shield her jaw and neck, and reached out to grab it.

She clipped his head with her teeth and the glancing blow made him squint a second, the eye on that side glossing over, and when his vision cleared she was scything at his ear. He couldn't stop her - and in the next instance those teeth cut through the base of it, staining the top of his head with fresh blood and making him shriek a not-too-masculine sound.

He pulled back then, shoving off the deeper, more compacted dirt and feeling the muddy layer sag beneath the effort. A few more of those quick pushes, and he uprooted himself and backed away from her to a ledge (he couldn't tell if it was stone or dirt or roots, but it didn't matter, only that he wasn't slipping for a second). Feeling confident for that moment, Glawackus stood proudly there and stared imperiously down to where the girl was stuck —

— only to slip down the other side, stumbling back and going groin-first down against a pile of debris on the other side. The ground was much softer, as if the ledge had been a retaining wall for a slick patch of the swamp he had not counted on, so he plunged waist-deep in to the standing water and was left to scramble with his forelegs.

She felt the satisfying slick of blood as it dribbled down her cheek and into her lips, mixed in with the boggish grit of mud. Ears hurt- and the sound he made when she ruined one of his perfect ears was music to her own. 

He pulled away and Lilia raked her tongue against her incisors to rid it of the fur and skin which she might otherwise choke on, and roared in frustration as he managed to pull himself from the bog, pushing mud toward her which subsequentially made it even harder for her to go after him. Each paw she pulled free simply sank in with the step she tried to take. 

She glowered at him as he perched for a moment, though she still felt that by giving up ground, he'd given up on a fight that she was winning- and lunged like an angry boar, bucking against the mud even though it strained her muscles to do so. She found firmer footing, but by the time she reached the ledge, he'd disappeared off the edge of it. 

The sound of a splash announced that he'd retreated- and when she looked down, she saw him flailing in the shallow water. 

She could have simply stayed there and shouted obscenities at him- but that was not the work of a Berserkr. This man had come by once before, and had pulled food from one of their caches; a second visit was basically a death sentence. A torn ear simply wasn't enough. 

Bracing her forelimbs, she began to slide down the side of the ditch, sending dirt, rocks and mud flying before her. Once she hit solid footing, she leapt into the air, and into the shallow water near him- hoping to use the splash to her advantage before renewing her attack once again.

Of course she would take the initiative of his blunder and launch an attack, which he couldn't exactly avoid. When she gathered herself and readied to leap, Glawackus tensed and fought against the shallows to try and find his own footing; he barely managed it as she came crashing nearby, snapping after him with a wave of bog water to supplement her assault. His mouth was open when the splash hit him square in the jaw, forcing grit and pond scum to the back of his throat and making him recoil. That tiny movement saved his eyes, but not his face — she caught him across the muzzle and with one scissor of her jaws, scored him deeply.

She was snapping and advancing in a flurry, while he recoiled from the pain; not quite aware of the red that now stained his face, as he was cold and wet from the bog, and thus numb. But he knew he had to get out from this position if he was going to survive. There was no chance he'd win on an attack — and his defense was crumbling as she pressed her advantage — so, like before, Glawackus' best move was to retreat.

He was coughing and staggered from the constant blows, feigning more injury than he felt for that moment, in an effort to bait her in a different direction and create an opening that he could maybe use to climb free of the ditch. If he managed, he'd climb to the first solid patch of earth and scurry off with his tail tucked, to nurse his wounds.

She charged through the water with the fervor of a salmon braving the wild current to go upstream. The man moved away, leaving a trail of blood staining the muddy water in his wake, but Lilia wasn't willing to see him flee without a bit of insurance that he would never go near the Rise again. 

As he scrambled toward the ledge, she hurried after him- and put herself directly behind him, aiming to use her lower position to her advantage- and tried to snake her jaws past his muddy tail and snatch him by the pride that dangled between his hind legs.

He managed to put a little distance between them as he scrambled up, but she was quick too - free of the mud, Glawackus remembered how quickly she could move when unimpeded, and she gained on him almost immediately. When she snapped at his hips and soon aimed for what his tail tucked to protect, he did what came naturally — not thinking, only reacting — and donkey-kicked with all his might, as he ran.

Maybe she'd catch a foot. Maybe he'd catch her face with it. All that mattered was that she be slowed down enough to give him that chance to escape; but even so, his path was erratic, as his ears were ringing and head throbbing from the fresh wounds that were beginning to grow tight with pain. Glawackus didn't care where he went, so long as it was to freedom.

If she'd managed to grab him there, she knew the fight would have been over. It was a graceless move, and fortunately it wasn't one she'd ever practiced before. He bucked, bringing his family jewels out of her reach, and raked his muddy claws through the fur of her shoulder, where the scars from a previous fight with a bobcat were reopened and bled anew. He scrambled away, lunging this way and that- and while she knew she would be inviting another clash if she caught up to him, she bolted after him anyway.

The connection gave him a boost of adrenaline and for a second or two, Glawackus managed to pull away from the girl. She was wounded — had he done that with a single blow? His ego boosted tremendously! That brought with it a different curse: the bravado of someone young and ill-equipped for such a dire situation. Where before he had poised on the ledge and used a similar moment to pat himself on the back (so to speak), now he rebounded to face her and holler a sharp sound of pleasure for his success, which wasted his momentum, and meant whatever gap he had created was useless.

As she came careening close, Glawackus realized his mistake and had to choose a course of action: try to run (with only the slimmest chance to succeed) or fight (and probably, definitely lose); and there was no time to debate within himself what he should do!

Besides, she'd gained on him again, and was lunging for his face now that it was within reach — and all he could really do was brandish his own teeth to parry her attack, and earned himself some cuts across his lips in the process. Their teeth knocked and he felt one of his canines crack, and as he whipped his head around to snap at her pathetically, it fell away to be lost in the mud.

Lilia had no plan in mind for what she would do with him if he was finally subdued. A threat might not be enough- clearly, being chased off once hadn’t been enough, and she still felt there was no guarantee that he wouldn’t just continue to haunt their borders like a ghost. 

She recalled the way Augur had once let a trespasser go, only when the trespasser had been completely pinned as terrified. Fear was a powerful source of motivation. 

She felt the clack of teeth clanging against teeth, but didn’t notice the broken canine until she felt the rough edge of it pinch her cheek. Even without that one fang, each snap and bite punctured skin and drew blood, until the both of them had made a fair mess of each other’s cheeks, lips and jawline. 

She snapped and gritted her teeth together until she finally released an exaggerated snarl and made a devious strike for his jawline. The blood that ran down her muzzle wasn’t enough- she wanted to be painted in a spray of his.

There was no escape now.

She was practically on top of him, and he crumpled, hard, against the dirt. The bog was lined by trenches where their bodies had fought through, and now they were both free of it, except Glawackus wasn't free at all — he was exhausted, his vision was blurring and red, and he was beginning to lose the edge of his adrenaline.

She aimed a strike for his jaw and he couldn't deflect it, and honestly he hadn't seen it coming. It was an obvious choice but the man was oblivious because of his sapped energy, the dizzying effects of their fight, and his lack of resolve. He felt the pinch of her teeth against his neck and let out a strangled yelp - tense and struggling, but unable to stop whatever she did next.

Glawackus looked pitiful now, with his whale-eye look and curled body, painted in mud and blood and reeking of fear.

With a clump of fur and skin in her mouth and his weight sunk against the ground, she had him. Pitifully he begged, weakened. In the moment where they finally became still, she realized just how hard she was breathing, and how fast her heart was beating, but the adrenaline surge kept her wide-eyes and trembling with energy. 

She didn’t release him, but angled herself to stand over him, straddling his body beneath hers to make her point clear. She could take his life if she wanted; she could shake him and make him hurt and beg for mercy. She didn’t though. She knew she’d won, and he’d given up. She tightened her grip, and emptied her bladder as he shook beneath her. 

Point made, she released him and snapped her jaws together- hoping he might take that as a final clue, and never risk his life or his dignity by coming near the Rise ever again.

Exit!

She could easily snap his neck, peel apart his throat, eviscerate him — so many options rolled through his mind's eye at once; a riot of gore and justice he knew, deep down, he deserved. She knew this too — and for a precious moment as the thought linked them, Glawackus saw the end.

Then there was a release. He collapsed to the ground and curled at once, to a ball. Her snap caused a skittering from his thick body; transforming to a curled spider having been swatted, and something more livid, as he tumbled away, his tail plastered to his belly and entire body a sickle of doubt.

She snorted when he dug in his heels and fled, tail tucked. She panted as she watched him go, realizing finally in the wake of the adrenaline rush that she was overheated, exhausted, and bleeding. Still, she watched until he was out of sight, before she made her way back through the muck to the home she had defended, to lick her wounds and take a victory nap.