Neverwinter Forest and I know that when the flood comes, honey,

For @Seastorm

As promised, he brought the girl food upon his return. Something from a cache just to quickly fulfill his end of the bargain — but then he'd quickly departed, needing to refill what he'd taken to keep his bargain with Solharr. It was a long hunt to find some turkey, and then a long patrol, and then a long trip to the river to find something fresher to eat, and to bring to his razor-sharp prisoner.

He had been gone a little under a day when he trudged back to the place he'd left her, a fat trout gripped tight between his teeth. It was large enough to be unwieldy, and his jaws ached when he dropped it on the forest floor.

So did the rest of him. Catamaran stretched languidly before flopping down on the dirt. A humongous yawn made his jaws crack.

She still didn't understand what her end of the deal was, exactly. Ever an impatient creature, Seastorm tested these terms by the hour; she showed him self-sufficiency in her own small kills, strong scent markings and marred trees in the area she haunted, a vague but persistent attentiveness to his presence. Did he want a servant? Protector? Companion?

Seastorm wasn't any of these things. If he wanted more than a weapon, she'd decided, he would have to teach her. Drawn to his presence not by hunger but by the restless fury of uncertainty, the assassin leapt for the bounty hunter with teeth bared.

But there was no fire behind it; Catamaran was handed a flashy show with no substance, her bites perfunctory, meant only to express many things that Seastorm felt could not be said.

Conditioning warred with instinct. Muscle memory turned him easily onto his back when faced with a bristling woman, but it kept him from leaving his throat unguarded, too. And he did not have to think to defend himself, meeting her teeth with his own where he could and twisting away when he couldn't.

For a moment, it was a noisy altercation. The bounty hunter's protests, however, were just as perfunctory as the initial attack. Her presence here had already been cemented in his mind, and so the showy violence could only be read as amorous — until, at least, one of them dealt a wound that could not be easily healed.

He fought to wrangle her between his long forelegs, carding his teeth through whatever fur he could reach in pinching bites. He wanted her throat, but for the moment, he was willing to settle.

In the clashing of their teeth and the bounty hunter's attempts to subdue her, Seastorm sought her answer — or at least sensed that it was somehow near. It was not in her nature to yield, however; whether he wanted it or not, he wouldn't have that from her. Never.

Still: there was no denying that in a battle of brute force, Seastorm was outmatched. She'd been trained better than this, of course; always a slippery thing in a true fight to the death, because to be caught would be the final act for her. Or, it was meant to be.

There was no training for this, no script to follow for girls who ought to be corpses.

So she went ungracefully to her loss, snippy and growly and whiny, because that was what she felt like doing. Seastorm aimed mean little nips for his chin and jaw, turning her attentions to punishing him for his victory.

Euphoria rushed through his veins at the first signs of surrender. The level of force he used subsided accordingly, though, like her, never quite all the way. But Catamaran reveled in the feel of her teeth in his skin. It thrilled him, way that they left only impressions of her instead of tearing away pieces of him. He shut his eyes and held her tighter, allowing her just a moment to exact revenge.

He was very aware of her broken leg between them. It was the thing that kept him from taking all that he wanted from her, and the reason he twisted one way instead of the other when he rolled to dump her on her back.

"You are going to hurt yourself," he told her, wondering if she might hear, I am going to hurt you, instead. The idea did not concern him. It did not matter what sort of tension she felt in her body; only that he could feel it, too. "What is your name?" he asked her, his face positioned to accept more of her violent ministrations.

Storm Rising on the Eastern Sea, Seastorm snapped back with an air of serrated superiority to her words and the toss of her head. What she wanted to say was I'm already hurt; what she wanted to say was I'm fine. She couldn't place her anger, and it frightened her.

Seastorm, if you can't be bothered. Now she moved to slip away from Catamaran, pulling herself up with every intention of ignoring him for the fish he'd brought. Maybe she was hungry after all.

The girl's tone went uncorrected, though when she failed to deliver the desired attention, he went back to his own rough grooming of her chest and throat.

Predictably, this was not long tolerated. His claws curled in to cling to her as she wriggled away, but Catamaran did not keep her from escaping. He sprawled once more, his eyes following her as she found the meal he'd brought. It was not seafare, but he wondered if a girl called Seastorm might appreciate having fish available to her. Already, he made plans to provide more.

"You were born by the sea?" he asked her. "In the east?"

Seastorm quickly found that she wasn't hungry at all. This didn't stop her from picking the fish apart, meticulous but markedly slow as she separated the larger bones for later use and ate the rest.

Catamaran's demands for attention frustrated her halfway through the fish. She didn't begrudge him this insistence, though; it was informative. Seastorm abandoned her reluctant meal in favor of rolling back toward him onto her side, aiming another series of nips at his face.

I was raised by the sea in the east, She corrected him between attempting to chew his face off. I earned my name there.

He was kissed; liquid fire bloomed where her teeth sunk into him. He licked it from his chops and felt it burn through his veins. This time he did not bask in it, but hinged his own jaws wide as if he might take her whole face in his mouth. He never did snap, though — only wielded his teeth like a spiked collar.

The answer was absorbed with a quiet sound of acknowledgement. He tried to recall all the packs he'd come across on the eastern coast. Was hers among them? Perhaps if they employed their own assassins, they had no need for mercenaries.

"Who will come looking for you?" he asked next. And then, spurred by the idea that someone else might come to claim her, he rolled to his paws and stood over her, intending to rub his face against her until she smelled freshly of him once more.

There was an answer here, Seastorm thought, though she only turned to mouth at his forelegs for a moment. She disliked it when he stood over her — but her foreleg ached, so her protests faded quickly. She settled with a snort, rolling onto her back to be difficult though she didn't know his intentions.

My brothers and sisters. I'll have to kill them, I guess, Such a shame, her tone said, and nothing more. But she nipped again at his legs, sharper this time. They'll come from Glass Cove.

Brothers and sisters? Catamaran was faintly puzzled by the idea. Brothers and sisters held a tenuously positive connotation for him, but he could not imagine any of his siblings seeking him out for any reason. How would they know to come for him, even if they were inclined to help?

It had been a long time since he'd last seen any of them. He and Coachwhip had traveled together for a time, but eventually, his brother had grown tired of his company. Catamaran did not know where he was now, and when the storm wolf expanded on her own situation, it immediately made more sense. And then, of course, she spoke a familiar name.

"I know this place," he said, lifting a paw out of her reach, only to lower it again so that he could yank away the other. "I hunted with a boy called Dash. Wave that Dashes Skulls Into the Reef. He ran from them."

And they'd caught him. Catamaran had never regretted stepping aside and saving his own life, but today, he found himself making different plans.

"We will need to keep you hidden while you heal," he said.

Dash. Seastorm never quite stopped nipping at his legs while she listened, but her teeth turned gentle. She wondered only briefly how the boy had died, whether they'd dashed his skull against a rock. More likely his throat had been torn out.

Storms don't hide, The assassin pointed out, but her displeasure was mild. He was right, after all. In this state even the least of her brothers would find her an easy target. She bristled slightly to imagine it.

He did not mind being bitten. It had almost always been a source of pain in the past, but hadn't every touch? These bites were kinder than most. The scrapes and punctures scabbed over within hours, and then they were only reminders that he had been close to her and come away without anything worse.

He liked when she was lost in thought; when she forgot to moderate herself and, instead of dealing more pain, seemed almost to gentle. It drew him down toward her in a mockery of a collapse as he pretended not to be careful of her broken foreleg.

"Assassins do," he replied, flattening himself over her. He wanted to feel her teeth on his face again. Maybe, if he kept talking, she would forget to make him bleed for it. "Assassins with broken legs. We should move deeper into the forest."

The idea did not please him, but he was intent on hiding her away.

The only touch Seastorm truly knew was pain. There'd been times in her youth, of course, when she'd crept into a brother or sister's sleeping place so that neither of them would need to cry alone. Those times had been fleeting, sacred, separated in a way from the rest of her reality. If they'd left a mark on her at all, she didn't feel it here.

But it wasn't entirely unpleasant. Predictably she returned to gnawing on Catamaran's face, but Seastorm was careful with her teeth now; exploratory, almost. She licked his whiskers and made a face, then decided to nibble them. His words went ignored. If he wanted to move her, then he would; she wouldn't pretend to have any input on the matter.

There had been a time not so far into the past when Catamaran had traveled with a partner. They'd made decisions as equal, neither holding authority over the other. But that spirit of collaboration had melted away like candyfloss in the rain almost as soon as his brother peeled off.

He did not need her to answer him. He would move her in the coming days.

For now, the bounty hunter had run out of words. He shut his eyes and enjoyed her attentions a while longer, occasionally turning his head this way or that, or pinching his own teeth into her shoulder or her cheek. But, when her patience wore thin, Catamaran would allow her to escape once more.

He was tired, anyway.

Perhaps sensing his weariness, Seastorm lingered. Her attention eventually drifted, as it often did, but the assassin remained remarkably still for a time. She only watched the happenings of the forest with ears tall, eyes bright and alert, tail held semi-upright.

It called to her, of course. Seastorm only stayed as long as Catamaran remained conscious. The moment she sensed him starting to drift away, she slipped off in silence; he would wake alone. But she left him a gift — a single bright red feather by his paws.