Blackfeather Woods Carrion, comfort me.

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all welcome

To what end could sickness be defined?

A sickness of the body, a cough, a fever, a cancer.

A sickness of the mind, alike that ravenous virus that indoctrinated its victims from rotten, foaming mouths and tore every remnant of who they once were asunder, leaving only the base desires of the virus itself; spread. Sickness could strip autonomy from a wolf.

So surely, if sickness was so broad, it was not limited only to mind and body. Surely, the soul too could be sick.

And what was the cure for such a malady? Envy had spent her life studying the intricacies of cures and treatments, she'd glimpsed the bodies of the zombified and picked at the brains of the carrion in the fields. Intimately, she had come to know the body.

While the cure for a cough was simple, the cure for rabies was death. Cures could be such drastic things, when the measure of the sickness far outweighed the capacity for life.

She had come to determine that the treatment for her own putrid soul, was also death. It was pain, too. It was open wounds and flayed skin.

Not her own, of course.

She was not possessed. She was not stripped of her autonomy. She was methodical and intentional. She could seperate herself from this fact, herself versus the urges that compelled her, because it was easier than to face the reality that everyone who came before had been right about her. She was good, and she was useful, she was smart and she was friendly. That was the real her, not whatever this ceaselessly hungering part was. Detachment like this kept the world from falling in on itself, kept her from believing that she was not a good person.

It kept her from embracing her true potential. To be torn was to never be complete.

Perhaps wolves like her were best snuffed in the nursing den. The fact remained that she hadn't been, she had instead grown and learned and crafted herself into the embodiment of every insult once levied against her. Was she wrong all along or was she a product of that upbringing? None could know now.

Coyotes. So close to wolves, yet just distant enough that it did not make her a murderer.

She was one already, but she kept her mind away from it. Dearest half-sister.

The wretched creature of silversmoke and snowfall made her way beyond borders, trailing the scent of what must've been a young coyote. She did not put to mind anything that would've humanized him. Was he bringing food home for his young siblings? Out on his first hunt without mother? Seeking the forbidden romance of a girl? No. To her, he was no better than a bison, or a deer, or a fox, or anything else wolves killed to sustain themselves.

Once quarry and killer met eyes, they would meet one-another in chase, and the gap would be closed quickly.

Erupted onto the smaller canine, a fury of teeth and hyena-like cackles filled the air. She would pin it and linger over.

She started first with incapacitation. Jaws crunched around hind limbs and shattered them unceremoniously; shaking, pulling, crushing. She left only one of the forelimbs unmarred, the rest were deflated and ridged, the bones beneath left merely as fractured splinters. She had brought things today. This excursion was more than just inferiority seeking somewhere to lash out, today would be the result of a spiralling desire to practice.

Laboured breaths fell from the half-cadaver. Alive, just as intended. Envy slipped away temporarily, and returned with wettened moss, which she placed just a hair's length out of the way. It was in this more special torment that she substituted the coyote for another. Delusion crept its way past the barriers grounded in reality.

She thought of the way that vile bitch had died, convulsing, her eyes wrought with so much malice beyond the acidic tears that spewed from them. She thought of how much she would've liked to have prolonged it, had time been afforded. Each part of her that lashed out did so in an effort to tip the scales back to balanced once more. Violence begets violence.

It was here that Envy began her trials. Teeth that once tore and crushed moved now delicately across the skin, the brushstrokes of madness painted with sanguine incisions into the flesh; and then were met with the soft, gentle caress of her tongue. She peeled back the skin, exposing the muscle beneath. She had a great many things she wished to test. A great many things she wished to discover all for herself.

She would not offer the privelege of numbing, though she very well could've. She had limits on what would be wasted on vermin. Adrenaline would have to suffice, and even then, with the longevity she had in mind, it would wear off all too soon. She'd given the coyote a paralytic, to keep it compliant, and keep it from filling the air with those ear-piercing screams. She would refresh it between the hours.

She would spend at least two days in this area, returning to check up on her subject; investigate the success of her efforts- tearing, stitching, tearing, stitching. She'd see which plants made the pitiful beast convulse and which soothed it. Again and again. She did not have the ultimate goal of 'helping' this one, but instead purely the goal of experiment. She applied poultices and removed them the next day to see their progress, offered pain-killers and returned within the hour to see that pained writhing would stop.

Again. and again.

Until the still-living corpse would outweigh its usefulness and cross that point of no return- that point which stood as a contest to her abilities. She was not one for mercy. When she was done she would simply leave it. Leave it with that fear that she would come back, as she had done many times. It would naturally succumb, but it would do so with terror in its last moments.

She had an angry heart, and others suffered for it. For now, Envy sat idly nearby, red eyes affixed and watching the coyotes chest rise and fall, slower now than it had ever been.

She found some form of content in this macabre dance.

The doe was growing closer to her destination - she could feel it in the air and in her soul. Tail waving, little would be able to interrupt her journey.

Lifting her head she took in the surrounding scents, the smell of blood hitting her rather quickly. A hunting predator, most likely, but if she was lucky they would leave something for her to pick at.

While scavenging was not something looked upon fondly by most, Waawaashkeshi preferred it. Less prey killed meant more after their breeding season.

She followed the scent meticulously, not allowing herself to be mislead - however once the source was found she couldn't help but pause.

A wolf, and a mangled canine of some sort. She could not decipher what it was in its state. Unwilling to believe that the other could be a suspect just yet, she called out. "Are they alive?"

Slowing her pace, she began to make her way towards the two.

She had slung herself over a nearby rock to watch it die, let one white limb drape down lazily; her head rest on the other. Ideally, she'd have enjoyed the show alone, but the world had other plans. Her ear twitched to an inquiring voice, to which she'd raise her head and peer over at the stranger who had wandered over.

Hardly.. She answered idly, as if it were merely a discussion of the weather. Her eyes trailed this gold-dust wolf as she stopped her pace at the edge of the brush.

What did she want?

Envy was curious. She perked up and tilted her head, owlish.

The statement put a frown on her face. How sad it was to watch another die.

When the other did not immediately show hostility she inched forward to get a better look at the soon-to-be corpse. A careful sniff, the lowering of her head. The scents of herbs that she did not understand filled her head, along with the obvious blood and coyote. How confusing this was; had the canine been treated and then attacked? Or had someone attempted to treat him and failed?

She looked back to the other, assuming they may be able to answer her questions. "Did you find him like this?"

Envy rose from her ledge, now curiously peering down at the other girl. Oh yes—poor thing. I tried to giv' it something to help, but—well you see how it is. He's not looong for this world She hung her head, and let out a huff.

The wretch struggled to contain the grin this little lie spawned, but boy did she contain it—her actor's spirit spared no opportunity. It was fun, to walk like this on thin ice, just daring it to break.

..Now I'm just letting nature take its course.

"Well, it's only a coyote. No reason to mourn." The cold words left her lips with little hesitation. She believed each creature had a purpose, but to her the coyote's purpose was to eat her scraps and later on her puppies too. The coyote's lived in a way that risked attack, and to her it appeared that this had been the fate of the mangled corpse.

But why was the other waiting? Now she was curious.

"You're still here, but you're no coyote."

Well no, but I can still take pity on the poor thing, can't I? She moved closer, without a lick of hesitance to her step, like how one would approach a face they saw every day. Her fur was unkempt and wild upon a close glance, which Envy was making sure the other girl would get a face full of as the gap was quickly closed. She stepped over the coyote, one foot in front of the other, eyes straight ahead.

Eyes could lie, actions not so much.

She sniffed at her curiously, ogled her piece by piece.

Why'd you come out here anyway? Must've smelled it. Didja' come to do something bad to it?

She had the unblinking stare of a barn owl, and a challenging undertone to her voice. God it was hard to keep a straight face.

She returned the friendly gesture of the other, sniffing at her muzzle. The temptation to lick the unkempt fur flat was certainly present, but she wished to respond first. "I could smell blood and assumed a hunt, but I was wrong."

"My scavenging will have to be moved elsewhere." The idea of eating a coyote did not appeal to her. Her stomach was not demanding an immediate meal, she was not desperate.

Having spoken she now lapped at the fur surrounding her muzzle with a waving tail - potentially bothersome but a show of kind intentions nonetheless.

Admittedly, she was excited. It had been some time since she had interacted with another woman. Men were much less interesting.