Ankyra Sound dead woman walking

set on the cliffs above the beach <3

They were gone.

Hex, Crowell - perished in the hunt for the runaway girl, as far as Nox was concerned. Meredith too had vanished. Abandoners, the lot of them. Cowards.

Fury could not begin to describe the emotions that boiled beneath his skin at the realisation that the wenches too had been stolen from beneath his very nose. He'd found their trails soon enough. The sweet of whelps and the footfalls of many, only a few of which did Nox recognise.

Like a madman, he'd hunted the cliffwolves from the forest without pause. Spider's legs ate dust at a vicious lope and, in the absence of crew, the Captain had turned to muttering vile curses at the boychild he should have killed. At the witch who called herself @Sobeille, for it was she that he was sure brought the raiders to his door.

Bluefire raged in a simmering howl, like a flame atop spilled rum as he crested the cliffs and the sea foamed below. 

I am alive, and you are a dead woman walking. 

it would never be safe again. at least, not really.

sobeille grappled with more than loss; she grappled with change, and with the heavy hand of reality. sapphique faced a crisis never experienced before; it made her wonder if years from now, it would be her time that was passed down as a dark age.

an age of grief, and an age of war.

picking along the cliffs, sobeille froze abruptly as she caught wind of a scent. she winced at the pain instigated by this sudden movement, stiffening at the realization of who darkened their doorsteps.

and stupidly, rather than howl for backup or quickly retreat, sobeille charged right towards him with a belligerent roar.

He swayed in the growing breeze, ears swivelling to catch the deafening clap of near thunder though his focus remained on the distant horizon. The shouts of men, the screams of children and the sorrowful begging of women; had it all been worth it?

And then he saw her; a near mirror image of the red bitch that came before. She'd taken his bounty, his whelps, his dignity. The mad sealord blamed only her and met her arrival with a tense sinew of muscle, digging his heels into the dirt as he flew at her with all the rage and insanity of a man who had nothing else to lose.

it took only remembering he was the reason maman was dead for sobeille to lose all inhibition.

he had nothing to lose, and sobeille had lost everything.

meeting the burn of his molten stare she lunged straight for his face. she should care that her wounds with ephraim had yet to heal, but she didn’t.

her jaws parted in a silent snarl, driving straight for the bridge of his muzzle.

The Captain had known little else but violence in his short life upon this earth. Like a piece of clay, his mother had moulded him sharp and cut-throat, and now Nox had become hardened and brittle from the fires of his own making. 

Some had tried to leave their mark and in a way they had succeeded. As time seemed to slow, he pictured Meredith's soft features, Crowell's greasy grin, each flickering and fading until they gave way completely to Sobeille's furious teeth.

She was not easy to sidestep as his sanity began to wane. In a split second he was ducking, feeling the sting as his ear split and blood began to trickle down his forehead but from this angle he spied fresh wounds through the haze. The bitch was injured. Without a second thought, he surged straight for the near exposed flesh of her neck.

he ripped.

she tore.

an arcing of brilliant blood sped from them both as he pulled away, his ear freshly reduced to tatters.

sobeille grinned through the blood, dogged and hateful. this was the man that undid her family. she intended to avenge them.

as he drove for her throat sobeille attempted to side-step; but their footing on the cliffs was rough, and she had little freedom to move. his teeth raked down the barely-knitted wounds in her neck, prompting a scream of agony and rage from the emerald as she attempted to wrestle free.

but she remembered ephraim, and how it ended -- and she had learned a new trick fighting the sound's jackal.

her blood flowed freely now, matting her cheek and throat in slick red fluid.

sobeille dropped abruptly, plowing downwards towards nox's front limbs. she hoped her hard shoulder would deflect any scoring of teeth, but her real target was the thin vein that threaded through lower limb and around the pastern; and the bone there that had crunched satisfyingly between her teeth in her fight with ephraim.

should her jaws close around the limb, sobeille intended wholesale destruction of it.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: blood & gore & disturbing imagery. this one got away from me LOL

Contrary to popular belief, Nox had never taken the life of another. Sure, he'd sparred plenty. A few amongst them he'd won, the majority he'd lost, but this - this was different. 

Her shriek drew a triumphant laugh from the depths of the Captain's lungs as his teeth sank into raw flesh, tasting the slick of iron, feeling it ooze and coat his teeth and throat, and dribble down his chin in victorious rivulets. He could see it now; the slough of her organs, her blood flowing, spirting from severed arteries. Sobeille would lose, and Nox would be the one to spill her guts atop the precipice. 

Was this what it felt like to kill? 

This madness, this euphoria, flooded through his veins in shivering waves, waves that would soon see her throat torn by his teeth. Teeth that were dislodged as her weight disappeared in a sudden, downward thrust before Nox had realised what happened. She flickered again.

Pain, blinding pain.

Was he screaming? 

The bone was obliterated by Sobeille's jaws, the limb severed as the madman tore his leg from her grasp in one, sickening crack. Through the fog obscuring his vision, he saw only only red. His red. His blood. He was bleeding. He was - dying?

No, he was breathing. Gasping. Stumbling clumsily away as the roar in his ears grew deafening. 

Kill her. KILL HER.

And he obliged. Surging, unsteady on three limbs, he reached again for what he thought was her throat.

he laughed now, but would he laugh long? sobeille’s lunge for his limb had his wrist between her teeth in seconds. before she could twist, he did it for her — tearing his leg from between her jaws with an aching crack. rivulets of blood danced down the thin channel, pooling maliciously at his feet.

she tensed, remembering that he was the reason she’d lost so very much: and suddenly, self preservation didn’t matter so much. she lurched forward as he did, the grimace across her face turning steely with pain as his teeth tore into the side of her face.

but the pain would not slow her, not when she’d experienced spiritual death by grief these last two weeks — and truly, she’d endure a thousand of these if it meant her maman walked this earth again. staggering under his weight, sobeille dropped again, wincing under the battery of teeth piercing her nape and scruff. she feinted for his wounded limb, hoping he’d try to counter her by leaning down to seize her. in doing so, he’d briefly leave his throat vulnerable — sobeille intended to set free the bounding pulse under his jugular — to create the most magnificent crimson fountain ever seen.

* * *

that night sobeille crested the rise's stony face, blood crusting her pelt. a new scar tore from face to throat. a new limp hounded her step.

she would not speak of the things done at this hour.

her only goal was to bring marinette the pound of flesh seized between her bloodied teeth.