Jade Fern Grove i wouldn't front the scene if you paid me

@Dawn

he doesn't know how long he's been laying next to the stranger— no, the stranger's body, he reminds himself. all he can do is stare at the motionless red form, shivers wracking his body periodically. at some point he'd eaten the rest of the poppy seeds; he needs wants more, but he can't move. he can only stare, as if any moment the other will take a breath or move again.
until his skin crawls too fiercely, and his limbs are forced into motion. he lifts himself robotically, taking the lifeless figure by the scruff once again. there's a horrible stiffness to the body now, and he can taste foul remnants of the blood he'd drawn during their struggle. he wants to gag. instead he lifts the body and starts walking, staring ahead without seeing. he doesn't know where he's going; somewhere to hide the body, he thinks, somewhere to hide himself, but he doesn't know where.

*crashes the party*

he needed an escape, after the reunion with engel. the encounter had given him both relief and pain, for while calling the man his friend again eased the weight on his heart that had been there for so long, he did so with the realization that grayday had thought engel not a good wolf. a lecher, an incorrigible flirt. and while he was almost certain that engel was telling the truth about sorrel, there was a sliver of doubt that still lingered. by accepting engel, even a little bit, he betrayed grayday's judgment.

the thought of it all sent his stomach twisting into serpentine knots. the air was hot and stifling on the plains, so aditya retreated into the maplewood, seeking peace. then finding none under those familiar boughs, he traveled further, into the grove where he had discovered dawn in amorous embrace with the stranger. bile rose in his throat as the mental image came suddenly to mind, and he was turning to leave when he caught wind of an unfamiliar scent, and movement in the brush.

a scraggly, brownish form staggered through the trees, eyes black and staring. and in his jaws. . . shocked revulsion rippled over aditya's pelt, lifting each and every hair and sending his hackles aloft. he stepped forward, legs stiff, face contorted in agony as his gaze raked over the lifeless russet form.

"what did you do?" he asked in awful tones, both horrified and incensed. then a snarl came to his lips, a growl in his throat, and he puffed himself up the largest he could, stalking toward the wretch with hatred set deep in his golden orbs.

she is drawn by aditya's voice, her own exploration of the grove tainted with a heaviness that almost makes it not the effort. she'd caught wind of a scent, faint and blowing, that taunted memories bunched up in the back of her mind. but now she moves with stiff purpose, hackles up as soon as mild shock at hearing him here too fades to alarm. 

they come into view suddenly, aditya and the stranger and the body. things click suddenly and violently, and without thought given to hows and whys, she moves towards the stranger's other side, hackles similarly raised and infused with contagious fire, the hate in her gaze a mirror image of aditya's. she accepts to facts as they are presented to her, and without fully understanding does she align herself smoothly with her comrade.

Like the shadow he is, he draws up behind his brother's more vibrant form. Absynthe can easily dismiss the body despite the clench in his gut. The dead are easier to deal with than the living. Especially the living that are around them currently.

Nos ire. His lips pull tightly together as he glances between the strangers. While Absynthe knows he is not an intimidating beast, he puffs up his inky coat and his lip pulls back defensively. He would do anything to protect his brother no matter what he has done to wind up in such situations.

Although this time the situation is almost deafeningly obvious.