Mudminnow River fiend

whether he had been given permission to linger for now or not, the plague-dog stigmata loomed ominously in the distance; a jagged shadow on far outskirts behind even the backwoods that heralded the hollow's realm. he kept from sight - for the most part - and dedicated himself to hunting two territories out so that his presence wasn't pronounced in the surrounding areas. but he always returned near.

for @Indra.

on the first night he had called out - a deep and swaying monody dedicated to her name and his promise to her - but ever since then he had been silent, the mood to bid for her attention failing him each time failing him each time he remembered that she would always choose her sister. over her friends. over her mates. maybe even over her own son.

so he skulked; this time, away from the mudriver, aiming to piddle about the pack borders for a time, hoping to catch a glimpse of the august enchantress claiming his bitter soul.

that first night they rested under the eaves of a splintered oak, indra had heard the hound's call for her. it came quietly through the woods, a low note -- she listened, gathered her legs under her, and then drew her body tight.

she slept that night, though he visited her once more in the form of a dream she would not remember when she woke.

a few days passed, and while stigmata was out of sight, he was not out of mind. over and over she recounted the ugly rage in his gaze, the harshness of his outburst. he was dangerous.

was he dangerous to her?

finally finding it within herself to leave the hollow and subject herself to his irate presence, indra weaved along the trees that bordered the sleepy realm's claim. he was here -- she could detect his threading scent, which needled in and out of the woods like fine bands of roving mist.

and then, there he was: skulking along the borders with a bitterness to his dulled gaze. she held him in her sights a while, probing the mood between them with a flighty mien.

the way stigmata saw things: the wolves of bearclaw - a place he had served with duty and lasting intent - had rewarded his adamant loyalty and insistence that they try harder  to stand alone, with dissolution and abandonment. even when he had offered to remain near, pledging that his teeth would still snap in defense of their chosen homestead, they had scorned him; thought him foolish for standing up for his own legacy, as well as their own. 

but his rage over any blows to his pride had long subsided, leaving behind only ashes that stirred now at the sight of indra.

having seen her before the rest of his senses could catch up, at first the only thing he could do was look at her; stiff and unpredictable behind  his deep, caliginous stare - letting the rare moment of a predator meeting eyes with its prey pass between them.

when he didn't attack, and she didn't flee, stigmata spoke up over the middle-distance. "you lied to me," he blamed her. you said you needed me, his eyes accused her further.

indra saw things differently, though that often seemed to be the case between creatures of the opposite sex. as she stood alone between bare boughs of tired aspen, she suddenly felt as stripped as the trees that flanked her: he had seen her, and swung towards her at a prowl that evoked a climbing chill along her spine.

she kept her gaze on him, resentful and cold. it was a struggle, even for a she-wolf as proud as she, to meet those eyes that despite their dull color seemed alive with lambent fury. she did not like the brief emotion that slithered between those slate-rimmed pupils: something dark and malignant stared back.

the chill turned into a full cape of flared hackles: his accusation was only the straw that broke the stony camel's back.

me, a liar? she nearly spat at his feet in contempt. indra was many things - incorrigibly proud, bullhearted, stupid -- but she was not a liar. that conviction rose, tall and as lethally thin as a cobra's flared hood -- she was not a liar.

but he was. she did not hide the dissoluted convulsion that peered out from her mahogany eyes as she thought back to his words - words that could have condemned them to a life as loners if terance and rannoch (and by proxy, treason) had not overlooked it. he had put their family in jeopardy -- willing to sacrifice their safe egress all to buffer his foolhardy pride.

bit by bit, indra was realizing the folly of man -- and stigmata simply placed his own damnable bricks on that pile. "your pride lied to you." she shot back, wanting to raise her tail but finding nothing there to lift: "we needed you with us - and instead, you've cut your nose off to spite your face, and left us because you can't swallow your own stupid pride. you think i want to be lowest ranking again? you think giving that up was easy?" she was poised to say more, but suddenly it occurred to her the more she said, the more he would use those words against her.

suddenly, her jaw clapped shut. she would save her energy for refuting whatever ridiculous insult came next to assault her character.

here! have a novel :>

as stigmata expected - and perhaps serving as the thing he both hated and loved most about indra - she mightily rebuked and cut him immeasurably deep with only a look.

she seemed to swell before him, like a fire taken to kindling, and despite himself the warhound felt a need to go on the defensive with her...

he stood still instead; a wild-eye statue made to resemble the muted ferocity of some cavernous, long-dead god. and he took her serrated ire without a single flinch or waver. only when she had finished - with an ending that came abruptly by the soft and punctuating click of her teeth - did stigmata reanimate, lifting his chin to put emphasis behind what he said then.

"you are only half right, as usual," he scoffed, unable to restrict the lashing of his tail as a tendril of provocation clawed its way down his back. "my pride may be an issue, but the idea that i have refused to- to ingratiate myself with those wolves, simply because i do not want to be led, is absurd! and i will not apologize for believing in us more than you did."

the former dragoon narrowed his eyes and seemed to grit his fangs in a moment of restraint before slipping his grip and spiraling angrily into a tirade. "i will not stand underneath those wolves because this whole event has been a bad choice from conception, not because of some petty affectation you think i am beholden to. their leaders reek of mistakes and i was given no option but to heel to this choice without prior.. anything! i was told that i had no right to question any of this, when you, not long before, had assured me that i was needed - wanted even...

"it was the most delicious piece of baited lure i ever have had the displeasure of falling for, and i walked right madly into that wolftrap - eyes closed and throat exposed." a growl had bubbled up in his chest, taking on a life of its own until he was vibrating and the cracks in his stone facade began to distend, allowing his bitter basalt core to trickle out in bright threads.

"with that lie, you made me think it was safe to bind myself to you, and then you   forced me - unfairly, without discussion - into a position where i either must bow to strangers indefinitely, taking their consummate nicety for competence and strength while blindly forgoing my chances to court you, or - on the other paw - risk disrespecting the generosity they had so recklessly shown you by being myself, which they would have had every right to construe as threatening, because they do not know me and it too-fast approaches the season for me to compete." he took a breath, exasperated but wanting to douse her (unreasonably) in his virile perspective.

as well as a perspective not tainted by the typhlotic loyalty she felt towards laurel.

"those... kind wolves deserved better than to wonder  if i was coming for them or not - and i would have, do not have any doubts - but i wanted to avoid the misunderstanding that anything i did was personal, and newcomers do not have room to be misunderstood. so i did what i thought was right for your family," he continued, putting an unwitting emphasis on the wound delivered by the redleafs that had cut him deepest; "because i did not want my actions within the hollow to reflect badly on the rest of you, i chose what i thought was best to preserve my sanity, as well as honor your decision to show your belly and take shelter like a frightened pup.

"call it pride if you must, but your way seems just as absurd to me as mine might seem to you. and if having pride means that i must sometimes struggle - be cold or hungry - just to get the things that i want, then i accept the challenge, without question."

by now he had deflated somewhat, an icy hard glint returning to his countenance as he expelled all the things he had held tightly inside his chest - like a good soldier - but he seemed far from defeated. the opposite, in fact. he looked inflamed, even despite his carved, resolute posture. "i thought that until the season had passed, or i had amassed enough followers to lead us on our own again, that i would be able to linger nearby as your..." he didn't know what he wanted to say there, so he conceded the point. "but on top of everything else, you treated me like a derelict. too blinded by your sister's tarring of me to realize that i was trying to be respectful to them and still keep my promise to you."

there it was - a red barrage of hateful words, strung along by perilous emotional injury. indra might have withstood the force of the gale, but it was pained tremor in his tone that drew the russet she-wolf's contemptuous attention. he had no right to act hurt - to play the victim when it was she that had received the cruelest cut.

she had put her faith in him -- and he had taken it, chewed it around between the harsh glint of his snapping teeth, and spat its' shriveled form out on the ground for all the world to mock. here sits indra's faith, soggy and tattered like sheaves of rotted paper and woefully, woefully small.

she hated that for a moment she might have believed where she had done him wrong - just for a second she entertained his perspective: that she had shifted him and the rest of bearclaw around like little strategic wood-carved pieces on an admiral's carefully laid war-map. that she had pushed them to new places without considering their own opinions on the matter.... or worse yet, their feelings....

the horror of that realization slapped her like a cold crest of a wave. but she would not let him see it -- especially not in the heat of their derisive exchange. she had committed to the move for all the right reasons: they couldn't rely on xan anymore, the valley was not their own and their children would not truly grow there, they were slowly becoming rotted and rooted in place -- the move was an assurance for her children's futures, not her own private happiness.

a thorny glint remained in her eyes, even as he fumbled ineptly over his own designs - for him, for her. a flash of something cold rinsed through her expression -- did he truly think her just an object, some little piece to compete with and then hang up on some distant shelf, a relic of a past endeavor won -- and not a living, breathing thing to coexist right next to him for the rest of his life? not something with her own individual needs and wants, private pursuits or sighing hopes?

tadec would have never treated her this way -- a twinge of something rueful and bitter stirred within her that he was gone.

contempt bladed her, needling down into curled and cynic frown. she had a hot retort for every cutting flaw he pointed out in her -- but in the end, what was the point? they wouldn't see eye to eye, they wouldn't reconcile -- he would go on seeing her as some stupid hunk of meat useful to him only for her uterus -- and she would go on seeing him as a hot-tempered, insecure snake.

in the end, there was hurt too -- hurt that she had misinterpreted his original discomfiture with the valley, hurt and shame that she had not considered anyone else but her and laurel's children (oh god, was that really true?), that no matter how hard she tried to fix or assay the trickling flaws in her life, eventually they bulged wildly out of her control..

"just like you are forcing me -- without asking my own opinion on the matter -- whether or not i was willing to be.... yours?" the hurt spilled out into a grievous war-wound -- and something not unlike the turbulent rush of blood stemmed from the gaping wound. "i did it for their happiness - not mine. not yours. not laurel's. they are my future." and she would not apologize - not to him - for her devout belief that ensuring her children's (both adopted and blood) futures was somehow a nobler pursuit than her own personal happiness... consequences be damned, his judging eyes could go to hell.

something else slipped in her guarded heart besides the pangs of aching grief - something quiet and demure, content but restless -- the strange and buzzing realization that he... liked her?

of all the things that should have solicited a response from the autumn sylph, stigmata was beyond floored by the topic she thought most needed to be breached.

he was incredulous. stunned to silence, and now painfully aware of how emotionally spent he felt, as he numbly listened to her tack on some meaningless proclamation about the happiness of her children. if he hadn't worn himself thin already - quickly climbing towards maximum speech capacity - he would have laughed. as things stood, he couldn't bother to generate much more for her than a sneering deadpan.

at some point he had realized too, that trying to reach her was like trying to cross an unbridgeable canyon, and the longer he spent in her barb-riddled trenches, the more sure he was bound for crippling damage.

he was reminded of piper in that moment, and an unwanted chill sank deep beneath his fur: this entire redleaf line was afflicted. full of the damaged and wandering. poisoned early on by some blight before his time; hidden well enough that he had not noticed until it was too late. except, if he thought about it, he had seen the signs and ignored them all...

for indra.

"what a grave folly - believing you can forge or find anyone else's happiness but your own," he snaked in a cold voice, reviling the notion that she even try. his brumal eyes shrieked their contempt, and yet, he couldn't help the reservation with which he stood - the way his pelt could only bristle, and his teeth could only gleam, when the thought of bringing her physical harm came to question. mostly he just looked like an alarmed cat, too wary even to lash out.

he didn't realize that he was traumatized from the last time - from retaliating against her before without thinking.

the hound started to feel trapped inside his own body as it refused to respond to his rising emotion. he could feel himself shattering - spiderweb cracks creeping across his glass restraint - but he remained pinched to the spot; sedate for all intents and purposes. surely he looked irate, disheveled, and all other synonyms describing a tense, fractured man, but on superseding it all was his inability to move his feet. in any direction.

he wanted more than anything to get away from her.

and still...

"unlike you, i would never have forced you into anything," he hissed, anger and hurt milling about in equal parts across his expression. she had never known him at all - she had never actually cared. "it just never occurred to me that i would fail to impress you. that i would fail to earn the right to claim you as mine. i had no reason to think my abilities - my hunting, my scouting, my patrolling - used for your livelihood, would not be enough for you to favor me." emotion didn't seem to be anywhere in the equation, but by the way the devil-leaf could so blatantly rile him, anyone else could see that it was. "i did not even consider you might ever look elsewhere, away from me, for your home..."

he felt the sting of betrayal most, when he imagined her coming to the scarred alpha male(s) of lost creek, and relaying to them the need for more capable bodies. it hadn't been about that at all, one would logically presume, but logic had long since fled stigmata - perhaps months ago, when he first met her.

even though the hound remained still, indra could see a rift beneath his skin; the turbulence in his eyes all but struck her down with their roving contempt, and she felt a chill climb the back of her neck to be regarded in such a cold way.

if he thought her poisoned (a thing that might well be true -- it was possible indra came from an entire line of blighted individuals; a barren, black orchard in which nothing but slow decay was sown) she thought him mad; the way he looked at her, the way he stood -- moving, but not.. even his fur seemed to take on the roving of some hidden current, as if governed by the stormy tempest that brewed in his skull.

she wanted to defend herself further, but nothing came. if he shut down physically, she had shut down mentally. bit by bit her arguments deconstructed; seconds passed and the fabrications of her justifications melted away, meted into obscurity by inevitable exhaustion.

she could fight him -- but she would fight no more.

her shoulders sagged and defeat simmered resentful behind her eyes. she had just been trying to do what was right -- but trying wasn't doing, and maybe she had failed him that day. but she wasn't going to admit it on the heels of such a personal attack. she was every bit a redleaf, and that line would cut its nose of to spite its face into all eternity if destiny so demanded it.

indra knew what stigmata wanted - yet she could not deliver it. the sting of her failure was not unfelt - it pooled like a black well around her, deep and stygian and threatening to fill to the brim.

she too felt betrayal, though a different brand of it. it brought her a savage sense of vindication to see the man before her and know he was leaving - same as every other man had -- perhaps a little too much vindication.. to the point where a little to late indra wondered if perhaps the reason men kept leaving in her life was somehow because she was looking for it; in some way perhaps she was a self-perpetuating ouroboros that whirled and milled and spun and crushed everything underfoot with the significant weight of its enormous mental burden.

had she caused all of this?

it was hurt more than anything that stole across her features, but in that moment she quickly turned away. with too much to say and so little ways in which to articulate it, indra felt ultimately defeated -- and conceded into crawling away before his tongue scorched her again.

stigmata could withstand teeth. he could withstand claws. and words.

there was no torch of emotion that could burn him; no sea of vitriol he could not swim. 

he had overcome plague, and famine, and seen death a thousand times over.

and yet.

he was not prepared to be felled by a pair of eyes.

a common burnished bister -  unremarkable. unmistakable.

anguished. and then gone.

he lurched forward without meaning to, regret propelling him even as cruelly stubborn tendrils of pride caused his limbs seize up and forced all the air out of his lungs so that he could not call out to her.

his eyes swelled - wider, and wider, until his eyelids would go back no further - and all she had to do was turn around, and she would see how badly he wanted to amend it all. how desperate he was to return to her, no matter the rift driven between them.

but she spared him no look, leaving the mania to slowly drain from him as she drew further from sight, until he was standing completely alone; feeling like his entire body was an open wound that would heal only if he... just stood there.