Big Salmon Lake Blood stutter

not in any imagining could lasher have expected the revelation peregrine provided. the man listened with shock blanching his face beneath the dark fur. while he was wholly surprised that junior had tried to kill one of her younger siblings, he was more perturbed by the utter lack of emotion the devil displayed as he spoke of executing junior -- his own child.

tears slid unbidden down his cheeks suddenly, tracing the tension of his clenched jaw. whatever affection he still held for peregrine had been burned away with a fiery flare of pure rage. this monster had abandoned his children, made no effort in his eyes to maintain a relationship with their vulnerable souls, and ultimately slew one of them.

junior's foray into the caldera had ensured she would be surrounded by fox's own -- to punish her, perhaps, would have been warranted. even a mauling. but death outright, knowing how affected junior had been by her father's actions.

and to let fox throw him below her -- lasher was sickened, and his lips twisted with vehement rage. this had been her vision, he fervently believed, to remove the remnants of peregrine's seed until only her own remained.

"may all of your children be scattered, peregrine, and may you die alone and blind," lasher hissed, his mouth trembling with leashed weeping. "you are unfit and have no worth; you deserve only hatred and death. no," he sobbed breathlessly, "death is much too kind."

he backed from the man then, and wept unabashedly for junior and the tormented short life she had experienced before an untimely demise at the hands of her own father. but upon the heels of his tears came further anger.

"i will tell saena and tytonidae and pura of junior's murder. they must know that the man they once called father is no more; a weak and wicked creature has sprung up in his place."

he desired to wound peregrine, to tear him, to shed his blood. he was cut off from the plateau indelibly now. "i will not stop what occurs now, and i will not move to speak on your behalf if vengeance comes for junior. she was one of our own, and you have murdered her."

he met the other's eyes with heaving sides; the spine; tonravik knew him, and fitzdutiful. he would seek to trap the caldera wolves here. and the plains enemies massing -- lasher would lead them to fox's very throat.

let peregrine speak now. he would be bereft of his sisters, his children, and eventually fox herself would tire of his weakness. the devil would be left alone, as was fated.