Stone Circle every little lie in this world comes from dividing

they came down the mountain side two abreast. a girl and her sister.

she'd followed the black doe the night before. a frequent visitor now, this black thing -- and it looked at her with long, flat eyes before its thin legs carried it through the wildwood.

follow me, came a voice at her ear unaccustomed to speaking.

the girl followed until the light waned and the hind brought her to a clearing with a plinth nestled at its heart.

there with her spine bent in conjuration sat @Anathema. ava's mouth parted with a quiet gasp, and then she was running as she had never run before: hugging, kissing, whining, pulling, nipping -- all while her sister laughed and pushed her gently down.

look, anathema instructed with pride in her voice, and ava's eyes turned to the plinth. set in the center of its blood darkened dais was the black doe's head, her flat eye staring skyward. her swollen tongue lounged obscenely upon the stone, cupped by bared teeth.

as ava came to grips with what she was witnessing the doe's eyes turned, leering as they held her in her gaze. 

blood seeped around the dial. the quiet whispers of the woods became a roar, demanding she account for this --

* * *

the girl woke with a deer's stripped femur bone between her paws. already the dream was fading, but as she picked at her teeth and lamented her empty stomach, the girl thought she saw the black silhouette of a deer rove between a band of aspen.

Her pungent scent makes his eyes water even as he slinks through the glade, keeping tabs on the glimpses of russet fur between the trees. He gradually closes the distance, muscles coiling beneath his swarthy fur as he prepares for the bum rush. Vermouth watches as the vixen crouches beside a small stream that winds through the snow like a silver ribbon. She drinks delicately. He makes a swift strike. When she attempts to flee, he springs upon her back and crushes her throat in his jaws.

He lets her carcass slide from his mouth, slumping to the ground as blood pools around the fox's ruined halse. More of it drips from his teeth, though Vermouth cleans his chops as he stands over his kill, catching his breath. As soon as his breathing returns to normal, he snatches the warm, limp body from the melting snow and begins loping toward a crop of boulders in the distance.

Before he reaches them, he grinds to an abrupt halt. He's approaching a claimed territory. Vermouth loiters, the dead fox dangling from his mouth for a moment before he sets it at his paws. He pins one against the cooling remains, the soft fur tickling his toes as he takes heavy whiffs of the wintry air.

blood on the wind.

the girl’s eyes clear of their fugue, a hungering knot unraveling in her stomach.

the black doe dematerialized, replaced by the rangy form of a dark wolf.

she sat upright, a voice snarling in her ear:

he does not belong here

but at his feet was a warm body.

the girl’s gaze measured the kindness in his eyes. his physique.

and then she lunged for the fox.

He smells her seconds before she appears, a lithe black figure darting right for his kill. Vermouth notes the livid patch covering half her face -- it matches the dead vixen -- as he bears down on the paw pinning the carcass in place. He feels it when her teeth snatch at it, trying to yank it. His other paw joins the first, brutally smashing the remains into the snowy earth.

At the same time, he bares his teeth and snarls. His fur raises as his faded yellow eyes bore into the dark she-wolf trying to thieve his hard-won prize. Vermouth snaps his teeth an inch from her face, a final warning. If she doesn't back off, he'll happily bloody her good side, make it match.

KILL HIM

came the booming imperative of the new tenant in her mind, fuming. 

but the girl was weakened by hunger.  the voice was only a voice; as the girl’s faculties waned, perhaps the voice would become something more — but for now, the girl’s strength over herself held, and the presence scuttled out of mindful periphery. 

she flinched instinctively under the flash of teeth in firm reprisal, her nearest eye squeezing shut as the report of teeth clicked too close for comfort. 

no use, then. she couldn’t overpower him, and his paws were firm upon the corpse. 

sinking fitfully to her belly, the girl’s ears folded and she whined.  she nosed the snow by the man’s paws and climbed forward on her belly, tongue scraping longingly over his toes as she licked at the meal held firmly in his paws.

She relents just as rapidly as she’d struck. Fighting his whiplash, Vermouth sheaths his fangs but remains bristling over where she’s sunk to the ground. His tail arches even more severely as the two of them fall into a familiar pattern: the stronger wolf asserts his dominance and the weaker wolf submits.

“Doesn’t your pack feed you?” demands Vermouth as she whines and licks at the bloodied carcass, her tongue tickling his toes where they clench. “Stop.”

If she obeys, he plans to relent a little himself. He can afford to share his kill with what appears to him to be a desperate yearling. Perhaps she’ll give him some information in return, Vermouth thinks as his pale golden gaze surreptitiously scans the empty meadow behind her.

so close she could taste it.

averting her eyes under vermouth’s display of dominance, the girl’s lapping tongue retracted as his toes clenched and he bid her to stop. 

it didn’t matter if the wolves here fed her. the better question was, would he?

he hadn’t outright said no. she licked at the snow around his feet where the blood had seeped, one ear attentive to the male’s postural display. 

giving a frustrated whine in return, the girl shoved forward and flipped over onto her belly, pawing at his lifted chin with one paw raised over her chest.

She does as he’s asked, albeit with obvious reluctance. He watches as she turns to lick the bloodied snow instead. Vermouth says nothing, glancing between the young she-wolf and the land behind her. He sniffs at the air again, ignoring her whine.

But he jerks when something touches his chin. He bristles again, stiffening, but relaxes when he sees her prostrating herself at his feet. With a slow intake of breath, he steps back from his kill. He imagines she’ll flip over and fall upon it swiftly.

“Where are your pack mates?” he wonders, mostly a rhetorical question.

As she presumably eats, he shifts past her. He smells at least a few other wolves, yet he sees no sign of them. He susses out information from their scents, eyes narrowing when one strikes him as vaguely familiar. He cannot place it, even after pondering for a solid sixty seconds.

He turns and walks back toward the young woman, asking, “What’s your name? And what’s the name of this place?”

seconds. mere seconds between when vermouth steps back from guarding his kill and the girl pounces upon it, a vulture frantically wolfing down the meat before his generosity could be redacted.

her life nearly ended there, choking on the handsome pelt of a fox — but after a few unappetizing noises, she managed to dislodge the obstruction from her gorge.

content, disturbed only by the quietest occasional hiccup, the girl turned back to her meal ticket. he’d taken several steps further into the territory, but now took sweeping steps back towards her.

she rose, one ear tilted as he spoke. having no way to answer, she brought herself before him with a placating whine and bow, licking at the corners of his lips in response.

There’s no sign of the kill, he realizes a second after speaking. Vermouth raises an eyebrow, impressed. He waits for her to answer, though she doesn’t speak. She merely noses at him again, her tongue swiping over his lower lip as if she’s a hungry pup.

“You don’t talk,” surmises Vermouth, lips pursing as he hums in contemplation.

While there’s something very puerile about her behavior, particularly her submission, he studies her closely for a moment. She looks fully mature to him. His eyes trace over the bright—scar?—on her face. He notes the two different colors of her lowered eyes. She’s very svart, marking aside.

That thought breeds another: is this where Leonore had come from? He sniffs again, trying to detect any trace of her scent, but he doesn’t catch it. He makes another thoughtful noise, then goes very still as he deliberates. One minute passes. Then another.

He glances at the she-wolf—Vixen, he decides, being partial to names beginning with that particular letter, and because you are what you eat—and motions at her. Vermouth then strides straight into the territory, ears up and tail arched as he asserts himself over this ghost town.

sensing from the far-away look of the male that things were under deep consideration, the girl stilled.

thus far he'd tolerated her many points of contact -- and even fed her -- this placed him in high esteem in the girl's dwindling world, which now only had ghosts to occupy the barren seats left by the deceased.

the moment his eyes snapped back she stood at attention, velveteen ears cupped in curiosity as he strode deeper into the circle. mimicking him, the girl's nose twitched as she drank deep of the scents around them; nothing flagging anything of interest to her.

at a hyenid slouch, she followed after.

For now, nobody comes forward to contest him. Vermouth thinks it’s only a matter of time before one of her comrades appears from the woodwork to defend the claim he can smell with every inhale.

He makes his way toward the looming boulders, wondering just how they ended up here. Vermouth sniffs around their bases, reading various tales, and then hikes a leg to take a hot and steaming piss right on the face of the biggest one.

As he leaves his mark, his faded yellow eyes find and fix on Vixen trawling in his wake. She slouches, he notices. He pinches off his stream and settles his leg back on the ground, still staring at her.

“I’m Vermouth,” he tells her, “and I’m going to call you Vixen.”

He waits to see if his words—or his pungent scent now wafting on the wintry air—prompts a reaction from her or anyone else who might be lurking in this meadow.

why is he going that way?

the girl tracks his movement with mismatched gaze, allowing enough space between them that he was free to do as he pleased. she may be a biased guardian, but her attentions could be bribed — and this man paid a handsome price for admit entry.

her ears flicked forward as he stopped and peed on the tallest stone in their circle. she was not the superstitious type, but something forbade her to ever approach those things — call it spiritual imperative. little did she know an ancestor’s unsettled spirit lingered under those stones.

she licked her lips apprehensively as he turned back, giving her yet another name to add to the bone pile. how many wolves that named her were still alive?

bobbing her head nervously, she kept herself low and watchful. his intent here was clear, but the girl — vixen — sensed no challenger would rise to meet him.

When minutes pass and still no one comes to confront him, Vermouth quickly grows bored. He wanders closer to Vixen again, idly sniffing at her. He wonders why she’s mute. Is it an affliction? Or a choice? Come to think of it, can she understand his speech?

“Nod if you can understand what I’m saying, Vixen.”

maybe no one would come. solitude was a given these days, and it was a rare hour she came upon another. sure, she brushed fur with them from time to time, but as her headaches grew she’d become more reclusive without ever knowing it. 

called back to attention by his close inspection of her and hanging question, the girl’s expression darkened. ava felt ashamed of this inadequacy. pakasqa didn’t care. and accipitra, perhaps the most volatile of the bunch, would argue utility in being silent. 

but it was that new voice that scuttled back to the forefront of her mind, outraged by the unspoken insinuation in those words. 

those eyes, a vessel to the occupant therein unnamed, narrowed in resentment. 

just as it seemed she might not respond at all, she dipped her head once — but it was as if a great cable held her spine rigid, and it cost her pride to do so.

Something shifts in her expression, which he watches in silent curiosity. Her eyes narrow and he feels his spine stiffen in automatic response. But then her head dips. Vermouth’s own eyes squint a little as he regards the stiff movement.

“I need to hunt again,” he announces, swiveling, “since someone ate my supper.”

He says nothing else. Vermouth tells himself not to bother with her further. Their exchange had been as brief and meaningless as any other. And she’s svart, for better or for worse. As this black word drifts through his mind, his own face darkens. He does not look back.

something between them tensed; the girl’s eyes averted until he spoke again.

leaving? already?

but he’d fed her.

she glanced around them. from the stones, to the ground laid with snow, back to his face — which was now out of sight and receding.

she swiveled too, head low. vermouth had two shadows now, both following as they matched the energy of his step.