Ankyra Sound The huntress

The remnants of a coyote’s carcass lay before her, its bones stripped clean, a few shards of rib still clutched in her jaws. She gnawed at them with vicious precision, the sound of grinding bone cutting through the quiet of the cold evening.

Her stained teeth sank deep into the brittle marrow, savoring the hard, dry crunch as she tore at it.

Her ears twitched, hearing nothing but the wind and the distant crash of the sea. Her eyes, beady, red and unblinking, flickered to the horizon, though she had no need to watch for prey.

The hunt had already been claimed.

To Sivaak, this was the way of things—the bone, the blood, the endless chase. Her mind was a quiet lull of bloodlust as she continued her mindless chewing, staring off into the distant crashing of waves against the shore.

it was unusual to eat coyote. chase and kill, yes — but biological imperative often stopped wolves at that.

sobeille watched the grizzled she-wolf, listening to the smack of meat ripped from bone and the satisfying groan of tendon sheared from sinew. the huntress — if she could be called anything else — ate with the revelry of a killer.

intrigued by this, sobeille made herself known. her goldcoin eyes passing pointedly from the starkness of white fur to blooded chest; the flare of merlot riming the huntress’ gnarled muzzle.

it delighted her to find that same color outlined in the killer’s eyes.

Sivaak did not stop gnawing as Sobeille approached. Her jaws worked steadily, splitting the coyote bone with a sharp crack. She cast a sidelong glance at the golden-eyed onlooker, her gaze slow, like a blade dragged across stone.

The blood staining her muzzle darkened with each tug of teeth, streaking down to her chest where it matted her fur.

You stare at Sivaak, The beast of a woman rumbled, words barely more than a growl. Her voice was gruff with disuse. She had not seen another soul and let them live long enough to converse in… quite some time.

She spat out a shard of bone, the piece clattering to the ground at Sobeille’s feet. Rude to stare.

Her crimson stare locked on the stranger now, cold as the black sea she hunted. The hint of amusement that curled at the edges of her lip wasn’t kind—it was sadistic.

a gravelly voice slithered out between sects of sinew and blood; sobeille thought the guttural inflection suggested infrequent use.

the bone clattered at her feet. sobeille’s gaze pulled from the woman to the thrumming object, then back to some nebulous area between the killer’s blood-infused eyes and her flat forehead.

rude to stare; a custom sobeille did not understand and only begrudgingly accommodated. these societal expectations were unspoken conventions; their invisible strings the unbending thread-wire that often clotheslined sobeille with their insistent prevalence.

you be eatin’ coyote. sobeille observed, noting the shark’s smile lingering just out of perception. predatory.

it was not taboo to sobeille to eat such things; and it intrigued her to see another wolf consume something that she only indulged in private. most wolves don’t like dat.

Sivaak’s tongue slid over her teeth as she considered the wolf before her. A young one. The faintest huff of breath, something between a laugh and a scoff, escaped her bloodied snout.

"Aye, well," she tore another small, stringy chunk of flesh from the bone. After she swallowed it, she leaned forward, letting her weight settle comfortably, her narrowing.

"Soft things worry about what’s proper to eat. Sivaak eats what she kills." She let her eyes drop over the young one, before she stifled another laugh, this one grating, harsh.

Suddenly, she moved. Raising to her haunches, and then to her thick paws, she let her weight soften the sand beneath her feet, toes digging into the mush. "Always hungry. Sivaak not picky. Sivaak eat."

sobeille found herself reaching for the bone. she tensed as the she-wolf rose and it was then the killer’s true height became apparent. M a violent weight to that thing of strapping muscle and weaponized hunger. the body of one that has felled many and been nourished by this.

what else do you kill? sobeille felt the bone under her paw; the edges rough with slick gristle. a singeing in her nose as the acrid scent of blood and intestine mingled with the snow.

“Kill?” Sivaak rumbled. She sniffed the air, drawing in the scent of blood and gristle, the sharp tang of death that clung to the scene. "I kill what’s in front of me. What dares get in my way. What doesn’t serve me."

Her lips pulled back slightly, revealing a glimpse of sharpened teeth, the ghost of an old smile. “The land teaches you how to take. If strong, you take what’s yours. If not... you become the bone."

She gave a dismissive flick of her tail, a slow motion, before lowering her head to take another bite from the coyote's remains. Her sharp eyes stayed on Sobeille, though the gesture was casual.

Non-threatening. Yet. Of course, Sobeille was safe now. Sivaak had had her fill.

"Have you killed yet? Felt crunch of bone and gristle of flesh between teeth?"

what culture did this one come from to speak so openly? sobeille thought deep: to kill was a wolf’s covenant, but certain kills must not be committed. sapphique’s laws were made to preserve the continuity of their line; some acts — such as killing your peers — did this great disservice.

the killer took another bite of warm blood and meat. the sweet tinge of offal and harsh bite of digestive fluid: carnivore digesta had a different smell to them than herbivores.

a different taste, too.

yes. sobeille answered without flinching. there was no accounting here to be feared; killer to killer, what pull did societal convention or decency have?

do you t’ink de souls of dem you kill stay wit’ you?

Sivaak paused mid-bite, the sinewy chunk of meat dangling from her teeth before she let it fall to the snow with a wet thud. Her crimson eyes, sharp as fractured ice, locked onto Sobeille with renewed intensity.

The question hung in the air, twisting in its simplicity.

Her muzzle wrinkled slightly, not in distaste but in thought, her expression darkening. “Sivaak not waste time thinkin’ about souls.”

She leaned down again, snapping off another piece of bone, rolling it lazily between her teeth as she spoke, her words muffled by the crunch. “When you kill, they gone. Nothing but meat and marrow.”

the killer continued eating; chunks of red stripping from marbled juts of pinkish bone. a forbidden color, that creamy pink that signified a wound too deep to mend.

sobeille came to the conclusion this one’s kills were practical affairs; she just had no qualms about species. this was very different than sobeille’s approach, and that fragile budding of hope snapped.

did souls clamor around her? she tried to think if she ever felt it. her mind went back to maleah and the day she tried to explain death; sobeille’s first kill slumped before them. a playmate turned plaything that moved no longer.

and now, had been dead sometime. was he gone? just meat and marrow turned to earth? he’d died before sobeille began eating them — and there were some sobeille did not eat at all. where you be from? she asked suddenly, wondering if anyone would come looking for sivaak; killer to killer, there was something intriguing about soulbinding a killer’s energy to her.

Sivaak watched her, something in waiting just behind the glossy sheen of her crimson stare. It enraptured Sobeille, chewed her up, crushed her like big jaws and big teeth waiting to consume. Only the faintest twitch of Sivaak's features; short, round ears and a large, bold nose gave way that she was even sentient.

She simply chewed. Chewed. Tore more, chewed more, then swallowed. A large paw had taken to holding down the carcass as she ravaged it, stringy flesh squelching betwixt molars.

The question was sudden, but no less unexpected. Sivaak finished chewing, finished eating, a rather unclimactic close to a morbid meal. She lifted a foreleg to wipe inky, sticky blood from her maw and smacked her teeth together.

"Sivaak hail from distant shores. Sea is black, sands are black. Wolves strong. Wolves kill. Hunt is the way, nothing more, nothing less." Her pink, fleshy tongue swiped across her mouth and she then made to close the distant between her and the strange girl.

Beady eyes of malice bore through her. Sivaak was not hungry. She was sated. Yet, still, she looked at her as if she were something to be hunted. Hunted, or kept. It had been some time since Sivaak had a slave. Once, when she was bloodchief, she had many. Many weaklings, runts, to heed her. Hm.

This one was no weakling. Runt, maybe. But not weak. Sivaak could sense that. "Sivaak of the Muradoii."

Sivaak did not care enough to ask the strange girl where she came from.

things were fine while the predator hunched over her kill; sobeille had no interest in it, and so made no move for it.

but when the muradoii’s insectile gaze roved over her sobeille got the distinct sensation of being pinned, her limbs spread out and tacked to stone; a needling of malice withering in that red stare.

now she moved for sobeille, and sobeille had two choices. or possibly three — but the last was not how sobeille typically operated.

if the killer hadn’t said distant shores sobeille might have assumed she was from the blackened belt of seaside just south of them; but her accent and her mannerism did not align with her impression of the locals.

towering well over sobeille, the killer’s musculature spoke of a life lived by violence. not for the first time did sobeille marvel how bodies worked; how they were a reflection of the environment they lived in. how they were biological machines of wonder, their skin and flesh a map of every place they’d experienced.

this one had experienced many things. sobeille got the sense that many things experienced their last breath with her, too.

it would do no good to show fear in the face of a killer. sobeille stood her ground, though instinct warned her she was in danger. and where will you be goin’?

Her lips parted as if she might speak, but then she paused, chewing the silence instead.

The low growl that emerged from her throat wasn’t quite a response—a growl that could have been an answer, could have been a warning. She took a step closer, the soft crunch of snowed upon sand beneath her paws muffled by the constant gnaw of the cold wind.

Her thick, messied pelt ruffled.

“So many question. Why strange girl question Sivaak?” Her shoulders moved in an almost readying manner.

Her lips curled in the barest of sneers, eyes narrowing. Recognition of something flared in her eyes, and then Sivaak took a step back, almost as if appalled. “You not afraid of me.”

Then, a smile. A devious, gnarled smile of teeth still stained with blood of her coyote dinner. "Sivaak like you. Sivaak want to keep you, but stink." She then made to shove her nose rather viciously into Sobeille's pelt, if allowed. "Smell like pack. No good."

all this menace balled up into a body whose single purpose was to kill. sobeille admired it; sivaak wore who she was proudly.

sobeille had to hide that nature.

she nearly answered the first question, but she got the sense it may be rhetorical; a statement to stop her needling. her answer would have been simple anyway: you can’t kill which you don’t understand.

not in the spiritual sense, anyway.

she did not flinch as the killer leered close, but her blood answered in a hastened song as it pounded along her head and spine. this was dangerous — sivaak was mortal peril given snowdowned form.

then the killer took one step back; not out of fear but some other imperative. the cheshire smile that split her pale face showed an arsenal of well-worn teeth; weapons set in an armory of ruthless steel.

chani was leaving. ajei did not love her back. the trial for sobeille’s crimes in the swiftcurrent camp loomed overhead; a guillotine waiting for its arcing moment. sobeille had many reasons to find the unspoken invitation attractive. as the killer’s cold nose pressed to her fur a chill raked sobeille’s topline.

an’ where would you be takin’ me? sobeille had no illusion that she could overpower this woman.

The she-wolf grunted softly, amused by the inquiry.

She pulled back just enough to let her red gaze sweep over Sobeille again, a predator appraising a prize. “To sea. To cold. To blood. Then, find caribou hunters.” Sivaak rumbled, her voice an uneven, half-growl, half-thought.

Her nose twitched as if scenting more than just Sobeille’s pack-stained fur, her crooked grin never faltering. “Sivaak show you hunt. Show you kill.” She cocked her head, eyes gleaming with distant hunger. A depraved, black shadow crossed her face.

“Strong wolf follows.”

Her smile spread wider, crude and dangerous. “Unless strange girl dislike what Sivaak teach.” A pause, then, to step closer once more.

To close the distance again. “Do you dislike?”

feel free to kidnap or take her! lol

an arachnid malice simmered in sivaak's carnelian gaze. sobeille thought she could easily be pulled into that crimson depth; drowned underwater in a sea of frothing merlot.

the killer came closer. something dark winged across her scar littered face; though sobeille could not name it, she knew it. and though her blood pounded in her ears and instinct clawed to life under her skin, she remained still -- a calm and black water in the face of inferno.

unless strange girl dislike what sivaak teach. do you dislike? it only took a few seconds for sobeille to get a taste of what might be in store. adrenaline sung in her ears. no.

rubs hands together evilly

Sivaak’s movements were swift, almost too quick to follow. In one fluid motion, she closed the distance between them, her jaws snapping around the scruff of Sobeille’s neck. The pressure was firm, unyielding—no threat of harm, but an unmistakable command.

With a grunt, Sivaak jerked her head, pulling Sobeille toward her, urging her forward. Teeth curled through the fur along Sobeille's scruff. She had no care for who would miss strange girl. Strange girl belonged to Sivaak now.

“Move,” Sivaak growled out, a noise shattering within the cage of her bridgework.

Her grip tightened momentarily, a warning, before she released, nudging Sobeille onward with a shove of her muzzle. The bloodstains on her fur were already drying, leaving nothing but matted, crimson fur that was desperate for a wash.

"We take ground fast. Before pack come looking." She trudged after Sobeille, making up her flank. "When you become one of hunt, you take Muradoii name. When you ready."

at last came the moment sobeille had sensed underneath her skin. sivaak was far faster. far stronger. sobeille had no choice but to bend under the press of her fangs -- truthfully, what other alternative was there?

when the swiftwater man's teeth seized her spine she had been filled with boiling hatred. feeling her inalienable agency thwarted had incensed her. now, she could not name the emotion that spilled out from her.

it did not matter. sivaak's teeth released, but there was no clemency. she ordered her to march, coming along her flank where her teeth could disembowel at a moment's notice. the imagery of her intestines glittering in the snow enthralled sobeille; what would it feel like as her life's blood seeped into a parched earth?

no time for daydreaming. sobeille gave one last glance to the sundered coyote before she turned her gaze forward -- towards a horizon that sivaak controlled.