Dragoncrest Cliffs Close your eyes and sleep,

He didn't hesitate; once commanded, he turned and left, tail still tucked. He'd cast a look over his shoulder every now and again to make sure that the male hadn't had a change of heart, and would stalk off into the rain, made miserable by the agonizing splintered bone in his muzzle which would no doubt add to its already broken shape. As if he wasn't ugly enough already- but at least he hadn't taken a one way ticket over the edge of a cliff like the cowboy and the shadowy woman.

A second was all it took for Sunny to drink in the scene, but this was no cheery reunion around a friend's table. It was the opposite: it was the solemn collection of stern-faced warriors around a watery casket.

His casket.

A second, and then his head and body disappeared over the stone rim of the cliff.

Wind whirred past his ears and stomach. Sunhawk really didn't have a word for how his balls seemed to voluntarily, instinctively clench and leap up into his gut. The snarling sea was not so distant as it came flying up - or was he flying down - to meet him. Sunny felt his spine was being turned inside out, that alien feeling of your stomach ending up on your tongue

. He'd felt like this a few times when he closed his eyes and felt the world was falling away, but this was no hypnic jerk.

This was Sunhawk Endore, falling through the sky to his early, disgustingly watery grave.  

Damn. There were so many things he thought about in the next few seconds before he died.

Odd how out of all of the things he thought about, he was bothered the most by the fact he had never finished his breakfast that morning.

And then, the roar of the ocean came rising up to meet him. The waves like lapping jaws beneath his feet.

Sunhawk closed his eyes as terminal velocity became terminal collision. There was a smack of his body against the water, and then all went black.

Umbra had dived and made it alive. She could feel the singe and hiss from her wounds as the sea-salt touched her body. The urge to simply slip into abyssal slumber, but she carried on. Her concious almost gone, but she was determined. She had dived despite the wariness of death, to save a temporary comrade. He who had help, shall be saved.

Whether he liked it or not.

And then the Kraken will return for her revenge.

The last thing Umbra remembered, was gripping onto his neck.

He had been too far from the roaming Sunhawk to be immediately available to the man, but upon realizing his friend was not at his side (a very slow process as one might imagine of the gargoyle) Revui began to investigate where the hell he had run off to. The sounds of voices rose and fell on the wind so he remained oblivious to the chaos further ahead; but he did find Sunhawk's identifiable scent, a narrow trail thereafter, and followed it.

By the time Revui arrived upon the scene the trail had gotten messy, spiraling through the wilderness a little, and he was further confused. However, there was the smell of other wolves around and a brief pause to look at his surroundings brought the silhouettes of various beings in to his view. He saw Sunhawk in the distance, glimmering spine and all, just as he hit the dirt; rather, the water.

With a bestial roar more similar to a bear's eruption after being awoken early from hibernation, Revui charged forth towards those gathered: he did not see who he would face, he did not care, but he pushed himself to close the distance and defend his fallen friend, grimacing a nice set of teeth to all present and bristling all over, furious. He reached the edge of the cliff, not realizing that Sunhawk went over it until he stood there staring down at the sea.

If he did not rise, there would be blood. He vowed it to himself, pacing at the edge of the cliff and snorting up the scents gathered there like some kind of truffle pig; he had not noticed the dark shape dragging his friend over either, and upon finding the entwined scent of some foreigner he grew more fervent in his pacing; but he was alone, now, as far as he could tell. When the realization finally clicked in Revui's stupid brain he refused to budge from there, and planted himself on his haunches, fuming.

removed from the blind animal impulse, yunxu’s head swims. his heartbeat pulses all the way down to his shoulder as he struggles to stand, and the pain is so overwhelming he has to stop, curled in on himself, and take several slow breaths.

a shame to ruin all of aimi’s hard work, he thinks hysterically.

heavy footsteps fade into the rain. something else rises over him, a great shadow under the water, and yunxu is halfway to his feet, ignoring the searing ache that runs all the way down to his toes, before he remembers the second of conversation before all of this.

“是 –” yunxu’s voice catches in his throat. he swallows, staring at the gargoyle’s face; dripping blood from his lip, his brow, his ear, the ragged bite in his shoulder. “yes. did i –”

he turns his head. behind him, there is only empty sky.

cold realization rises in the back of his mind, and is immediately tamped down by the next figure to come charging in, roaring at the top of his lungs and nearly knocking yunxu over in his haste to reach the bluff’s edge.

the young shark’s hackles make a valiant effort to rise again, but the heavy throb in his shoulder reminds him of just what had happened before. discretion is the better part of valor and he has no valor to begin with, just…

…whatever it is that just drove someone off a cliff.

yunxu looks anxiously after the stone-grey leviathan pacing back and forth over the edge, waiting for him to find the body surely broken on the rocks below.

nausea curls in his the pit of his stomach. his mouth tastes overwhelmingly of blood.

a breath and the younger wolf stirred. mahler let out his breath in a relieved sigh, one sucked back into his nostrils as a howling juggernaut of a creature barreled just past them. the shadowpriest's saliva-stiffened hackles flared to life again, frustration warring with worry not only for his comrade, but the newly settled wolves he had led from the spire.
the woman had been dangerous, the second easily scorned. yet he did not trust the remainder of his strength for a third fight. what choice had he, however, in the face of such bullish wrath? 
perhaps he had known one of the fallen, this brute.
"go," he grunted for the ears of the wounded yearling, amethyst eyes finding the summerlit ocean blue of the other's gaze. in the next moment he swung his head away from the boy, stepped betwixt he and the mountain-wolf who sat bunched and furious upon the edge of the cliff. tattered ears swept forward; he held himself neutrally, offering no threat, glancing steadily toward the sea beyond the sharpstone wall.

He sat staring for what felt like ages, but really he had no patience at all. A minute, maybe. Then pacing again, trying to get a good view of the ledge or the sea below as it boomed against the cliffside. There was no body; nothing he could find as he prowled in his rage-fueled stupor, anyway. No chance of survival, he figured, upon seeing the sea spray and those massive stones below. To make one friend in all of this time only to lose them just as swiftly - it was not fair. It was maddening, unjust, and all Revui wanted was to find a target to pull apart and loose his rage.

All he saw was the yearling with the older wolf poised beside; he heard an order, at least the tone of an order, and affixed his attention upon the man who spoke it. Was this his doing? Had he set his hounds loose upon Sunhawk? Revui watched him obstinately and felt a terrible burdensome ache inside of himself. The man looked beaten already. More likely a victim of violence than the perpetrator of it. Why could fate not have spared Sunhawk? Let it take this old man instead, Revui thought as he fumed.

He was my friend. He called out as the waves boomed. There was no use in looking from up here; Revui would find a way to the beach below and scour it for clues and signs of life, resistant to the obvious truth of Sunhawk's demise. For now he watched the haggard man, wondering if it would make him feel any better to crush the remaining life from him - and then thought better of it, sighing a mournful little dirge as he partially deflated.

exit post! thank you for the thread <3

yunxu watches warily as the grey-cloaked leviathan approaches the bluff’s edge – and then, with relief as he continues past.

the sea has taken the bodies. not the cliffs. yunxu knows better than to comment. instead he tests his leg anxiously while the man stares out into the rain, hoping that it will hold long enough to make an escape. knowing full well that if the leviathan is uninclined to let him leave, he will have no difficulty chasing him down.

but the chiwen comes down before him, his pale lilac stare locking with yunxu’s sunlit blue.

he is not of 海龙泻湖. but his command wields all the authority of the emperor, and though he is still streaming blood from his shoulder and the rents across his muzzle – far worse off than yunxu – he finds himself powerless to argue.

the young seawolf puts all his weight down on his three good legs and gets to his feet. every movement hurts, but he sets his teeth against his tongue and resolutely refuses to let it show further on his face.

no matter how heavily he bites down, it does nothing for his shoulder. but it pulls enough lingering adrenaline back through him to limp at a steady pace through the rainsoaked grass, heading west.

he was my friend, the leviathan booms. his voice reaches over the waves.

yunxu drags himself down the slope of the cliffs until he can hear nothing but rain and wind and water. then, chin tucked and leg drawn up off the ground, salt stinging the freshly reopened bite wounds, he keeps walking, a slow march back to the bay.

<3

mahler dared not look behind himself to see if the younger man had gotten away; he only faced into the feral hunting glint of the seafoam gaze that rolled their way. refusing to falter beneath the weight of it, mahler lifted his torn muzzle at the other's words. "he fell from the cliff. ve vere not at odds. the voman i vas fighting leapt after him." regardless of why the yearling had come, mahler could not see the death of a potential enemy as a tragedy. "i am sorry."
but neither did he wish to inspire more wrath, for sagtannet beckoned, and mahler must remain alive if he hoped to return to his children.
a slight backstep, then another; wind rose from the sea to rake salt-laden fingers across the edges of his wound. a grunt, one the shadowpriest swallowed down. he would not turn his back upon the hale young warrior, now knowing what anger flowed beneath the surface as if the other were a mountain, his rage molten rock.
bear the brunt of his teeth mahler would, if it came to such — another step back — but beyond that, the eisen saw no positive outcome for himself.
he stared along the outcropping of sea-stone from which the hunter's friend had fallen, dizzied and fighting inwardly for strength. if the other did not speak, or rise with the intention of attacking, mahler would begin to turn away, blinking first in the direction the boy had gone before making his slow progression in the direction of the single distant mountain where his wolves waited.

The explanation was thin, straining, but sufficient. Revui turned away from the speaker and back towards the cliff, watching the rain sluice, letting his rage cool briefly beneath the torrent. He could hear the labored breathing of the injured youth and after, sensed the older man removing himself. There was no reason to pursue eirher of them; of he wanted to, he could chase them both down and pumish them for any lies spread in this moment. No, he would rather watch for signs of Sunhawk - peruse the lower beaches if possible, regardless of the terrible rain. He did not move from where he stood upon the cliff for some time, giving both wolves ample opportunity to escape.