Silvertip Mountain thestral

@Dragomir & @Astara. set for early tomorrow morning, before dawn. glass cave. light rain.

the pair were young and fueled by wariness of discovery, but going was still slow. merrick discovered quickly that carrying an unconscious child created a dense saddling that caused his muscles to cramp, his legs to ache.
however, they could not stop; they moved onward, along the outer edge of the coast. night fell and brought with it a wash of cold rain which followed the yearlings into the wee hours of morning. any attempts made by the boy to rouse himself under the deluge were checked, and sharply. 
a cave beckoned the sodden pair and their charge — merrick descended gratefully into the crystal-lit depths, splashing deliberately through the pools of water upon the floor. too tired to marvel at the eerieness of the place, merrick deposited the pup in the furthest corner and sat down with a weary sigh and a smattering of dark laughter.

Snatches of wakefulness were all Dragomir was afforded as he was snatched away from Ravensblood Forest; each time he stirred and uttered a noise, he was swiftly sent back into the inky blackness of unconsciousness by a dark shadow that stole along his kidnapper's side. The next time he woke and registered it was in the deep gloom of a cavern wherein echoed the sounds of Merrick's laughter. By now he had learned that giving in to his desire to groan was a good way to be knocked out again, so he fought against himself to keep his trap tightly shut as he blinked against the darkness.

He did his best to move slowly, sliding his cheek along the wet stone floor to try to get a glimpse of his assailants, but being of a young age, Dragomir's perception of how discreet he was differed vastly from reality. Either one of them would easily hear the scuffing of his face as he turned it, squinting into the gloom. Astara remained practically invisible, and Merrick stood out only because of how his fur lightened at his neck. Aurë, Vercingetorix and Isilmë were nowhere to be found. All at once the gravity of the situation settled down around him, followed closely by absolute fear, and his breathing rate increased to a very audible near-hyperventilation as his bladder released and he wet himself.

they stole covertly across the hinterlands, their speed buoyed by urgency. slipping fast into the dark yawning of a cave, the pair deposited dragomir in a shadowed corner and reconvened within eyesight of the downed cub.

 trepidation filled her chest, but the yearling pushed it aside. there were duties to be done; tracks to obscure. lookouts to discover. 

astara caught her breath as she inspected the cave carefully. a scent of urine lingered obscenely, no doubt released by the cub in the corner. her wind was slow to return, so astara spent that time mapping out the enclave.  merrick’s odd laughter dinged woefully down the stony corridor, prompting a stirring of astara’s ears. nudging him once, the shadow turned back towards the entry’s tunnel and ascended into the upper realm. once on loamy soil astara trekked back where they had come, traveling lengthwise along the trail — here she made many detours and loops, careful to listen for the sound of pursuers if any came.

it would not entirely mask their scent, but it should help delay any trackers. at the very least the incessant back and forth from pursuers would be audible enough that it would give the pair time to escape detection. satisfied she had done what little she could, astara made back for the shadowed egress and sought out merrick wherever he had gone.

the mother mentioned by the boy, merrick was most curious about her. after all, he was not fond of mothers, their clinging, their lies; it was enough for him to decide that all of them were like indra in the end: uncaring and untrustworthy. look how long she had been gone! not once had she come back!
but this was not about indra, the coywolf noted as the acrid sting of urine butted up against his nostrils. this was a celebration of self; what he had done; what he had wrought.
wanting to assure himself of the little one’s terror, merrick thrust his face down near the small wet features. ”you’re awake,” he crooned affably, snakelike and unblinking.
astara had returned from her tasks; he beckoned her closer, unsure whether or not the pup should yet be aware of her presence. but he wanted her near, this little spectre who had run before them, around them. 
”this is a cave of devils,” merrick whispered conspiratorially to his downed charge. ”there’s one here now. if you’re not good, she will come and take you into the water.”
tongue held between his teeth as not to allow the snickering passage, he pulled away from the pup and paced in a small semi circle, mind chorusing with a thousand desires at once.

Not discreet enough, it seemed. Sanguinus' face was suddenly looming over his, hot fetid breath in his nostrils as an acknowledgement was breathed over him. Dragomir's breath hitched in his throat and he felt his tail touch the inside of his thighs, as though to appease this monstrous wolf who had deceived his mother into believing he was a friend. The boy was right to be wary of being left with Sanguinus while Aurë left them to seek glory on her own; never would he trust another so-called friend of his dam's for as long as he lived. He didn't allow himself to wonder if he would live or not, and he still hadn't realized his mistake.

This is a cave of devils, hissed Sanguinus in his ear. Dragomir felt his cheeks grow wet with tears, his growing body suddenly feeling small and frail like when he was just a month old once more. Why are you doing this? he asked weakly, not bothering to try hiding the fear and despair that wavered in his voice. He couldn't pretend to be brave now even if he wanted to. Dragomir was no actor. Please, he pleaded, I wanna go home.

dragomir had become lucid by the time astara returned-- while he had been awake before, the dark shade had not taken much notice of his flickering hazel gaze. lingering still, astara did not approach the boy until she was beckoned over by her companion. in that moment astara moved with spidery purpose, alighting besides merrick's form like a furred and deranged shelob.

this is a cave of devils, merrick intoned. the devil lowered her head, shadows pulling across her skull as she fixed her chilling gaze upon dragomir, her lips pulled back in a bare-fanged grimace. once she had made her cruel impression on their charge (ignoring his pleads of terror), astara would pull back -- remaining on the fringes if called into action, but much preferring to spectate this delightfully new bloodsport.

he turned back as the boy began to cry, reveling in the terror of the plea to return home. astara lurked close; he cast her a desirous look, before his attention returned to their charge.
merrick, infected by the changing tone within the cave, stole back to the child’s side, an amiable expression attempting to cling to his features overtop the chilling madness that had emerged to wreak havoc.
”why didn’t mother come back for you?” merrick whispered, eyes burning into the fearful hazel gaze. ”perhaps she doesn’t want you to come home.”
indra indra indra 
i n d r a 
mommy
”call for her. go ahead. i want you to see if she’s going to come,” merrick invited, lapping feverishly at his dry lips as he peered down at the child. 
”NOW!” he thundered, snapping his jaws together just in front of his prisoner’s small face, saliva flying from the edge of his mouth.
to rend, to rip, to tear; yes yes yes yes but he must wait, wait, wait — the trembling returned while he hunched like a gargoyle next in front of the child, teeth bared, pupils dilated.

There appeared out of the darkness a moving shadow. Astara finally came into full view with a set of exposed fangs and Dragomir shrunk further in on himself, pulling every limb and appendage as close to his core as he possibly could and flattening himself to the wet floor. The water was soaking into his back and he was immensely uncomfortable, but in his head he kept telling himself that if he just made himself as small as possible and moved as little as he could, he would be okay. You're okay you'll be okay it's okay it's okay—

Meanwhile, everything that Merrick did only furthered Dragomir's illusion that this was Sanguinus. Only his mother's deceitful protector would ask him to call for her, he assumed. It's not true it's not true it's not true it's not true, he kept saying inside his head even as his muscles trembled and his eyes leaked hot tears at the notion that maybe it was true, maybe she didn't want him to come home. Sanguinus would know, wouldn't he? He was snapped out of his thoughts by Sanguinus' sudden shout and he cried out, pressing his muzzle down into the fur of his breast.

He managed to produce only a weak little howl for Aurëwen that was quickly choked off by uncontrolled sobbing; the echoes would barely leave the cave mouth, not easily heard by anyone that wasn't in close vicinity to the cave.

merrick scuttled here and back, his jack-o-lantern gaze seemingly illuminated by the fire of his excitement. a coldness had settled over the cave, but it was not the slow creep of winter that seeped into the flowstone; it was something charged and lightless, waiting there in the clouded corners like an unseen predator. 

astara looked from merrick’s mad pacing to the child. he was small — so impossibly small — would there be much fight to him, once the gibbering suspense turned to something more carnal? 

she remained phlegmatic, the stygian counterpart to merrick’s ramping agitation. internally things were different, but astara remained in clinical control despite the whisperings of merrick’s infectious madness. 

dragomir howled — if it could be called that. astara would have likened it to a truncated mewl; certainly it was not a very impressive call, and it stirred no pity in the dark mutterings of astara’s gurgling heart.

the sound was disappointing, and the excitable rage died from merrick’s features. he glared coldly at his stolen plaything, appeased only by the sheer goatish stench of terror that wafted from the child. astara maintained her usual silence, but he could sense curiosity behind it, and presently turned his firelit stare on his companion.
the cries of the boy were beginning to unnerve merrick, dissolve his willpower; a pang of merciful pity bolted through him, and suddenly he was livid, enraged that a living creature should inspire in him what his own parents, what nunataq, had not felt for him.
with a wildling shriek, merrick dove for the boy, grasping him ‘round one hind leg and dragging him powerfully back toward the nearest pool of water.
he was unseeing, throat choked with suppressed screams of his own; a sob forced tears from his eyes even as he shoved the pup’s head down toward the surface. 
”i guess she didn’t hear you,” merrick grit out in a garbled voice, not yet decided as to whether or not he would force the small tear-stained face beneath the water. too quick, that.
punishments must be elongated; after all, did not the boy deserve to be punished? was that not what indra had chosen to do to him? 
why did you leave me
he drew a shuddering breath over the boy’s crying; the mewling of the pathetic child within his own soul was beginning to drown out his intentions. 
without warning he dug his teeth cruelly into the child’s nape, vicious snarls spurting out around his fierce mouthful of flesh.

Dragomir was naive to believe these two beasts from hell would not harm him if only he stayed still and small. That was a childish fancy born from stories of clever thieves who went unseen by crouching motionless in the shadows. He was not a clever thief in the shadows. He was a small, terrified boy held captive by demons, and his cooperation would not halt them.

A sharp pain in his hind leg wrenched a piercing scream from Dragomir, and finally adrenaline found a hold on his heart. His forepaws scrabbled against the wet floor as he fought to escape Sanguinus' hold, but the adult wolf was much stronger than him. He was dragged backward, his leg burning, and found his lips held a hair's breadth from the dirty water. No! shrieked Dragomir, struggling with all his might but failing. I guess she didn't hear you. NO! PLE-EASE!

He remained blind to the suffering of his assailant. He knew only his own pain, his own suffering; there was no empathy left for whatever ailed Sanguinus. Even if there was, the boy would never realize what was actually going on. He had branded these two wolves as evil, the most wicked of monsters, and that was all they could ever be to him. The back of his neck exploded with pain as Sanguinus bore down on him and he screamed again, snarling cries of NO! NO! LEMME GO! NOOO!

astara had known the game would take this wicked turn. dragomir's mewls did nothing to loosen the calloused casing around astara's heart -- but his begging awoke something foreign in the blackbird. his mewls had been pathetic, and stirred hatred in astara. his panicked pleading was something else.

a flitting shade of empathy budded under her rough beating heart as she saw dragomir dragged, pulled -- his cries wrenching loose a part of her she had not experienced before. 

she quelled the feeling when she saw merrick's feral gaze. immediately, all form of empathy was vanquished and replaced by something instinctual: a raw and ugly pack mentality. astara did not reach for her pound of flesh, but she stood with her tail arced in excitement -- meanwhile the harrowing cries of their innocent victim (and what victim, truly, wasn't innocent?) rebounded hauntingly down the desolate cave walls.

when he came away, the boy’s ruff was smeared with crimson, merrick’s jaws stained to match. the struggling had sated his desire to know whether or not he and the shadow standing near had chosen a hale and fitting spark of life on which to slake their bloodlust.
yanking the pup back from the pool’s edge, merrick finally paced toward astara with the gait of a conqueror, and set his bloodied lips against the bulb of one dark velvet ear.
the want that had curled in him, one without formal comprehension, was at last budding into something recognizable, though still merrick had no name for it. he knew only that the sensation had been enforced by the glut of fear emanating from the child, the feeling of power that the yearling had received during this time within the cave.
mind having calmed now, he swept his attentions back to the previously keening child, and stooped lower. ”i’m doing this because i can,” merrick whispered in a tone blossoming warmly, a friendliness that had not been there before, and perhaps would not be heard again.
”is there something you want to say?” the coywolf murmured, offering the boy a platform on which he might stand to voice any woes.

Dragomir's shrieking tore at his throat until it felt raw. It distracted him from the pain of his shredded nape, but only a little. The overwhelming instinct to do whatever was necessary to survive was shoving most of his other senses aside, causing him to thrash on the floor even though the struggle caused him to tear a nail and badly scuff up his legs in the process.

As soon as he was let go, Dragomir was on his feet, driven by adrenaline and fear and that overpowering will to live. He was running to the back of the cavern, desperate to find a tunnel he could escape through. There was only the wall of the cave at the end of his flight, though, studded with hundreds of quartz crystals that may have attracted his attention if not for the circumstances. Dragomir frantically searched the wall for an opening, but there was none to be had.

Heart racing and head swimming from the terrible pain of his injuries—made so much more dramatic by his youth and his inexperience with it—Dragomir whirled around to face his abductors. He could barely make them out. The cavern had a wide mouth that let light spill in, but with rain pouring from a darkened sky, there was no little light to reflect. Flattening his ears and puffing his blood-caked coat up as much as he possibly could, Dragomir bared his teeth at the darkness and growled low in his throat.

It was no use. He could not outrun two fully grown wolves, especially not injured as he was, even if he could get past them. That was incredibly unlikely. But his instincts would not let him go down without a fight, inexperience or no.

mercifully, the boy was released from merrick’s grasp — what followed was an almost sing-song query saccharine with counterfeit sweetness. astara did not believe it; the boy should not believe it — and it was very likely soon that gentle guide would break. 

the boy bolted. behind him the shadow stirred, moved into action and just as quickly halted as she saw the boy’s certain plight; the quartz hall here was enclosed, and his only egress between the two demons that assailed him. astara’s tail flicked leisurely, a bemused smile quirking the very corner of her lips. dragomir’s growling filled the cave, but it did not fill astara’s heart with trepidation. she had tasted the sweetness of the hunt, and hungered now with primal pack ambition that her species was often so woefully well known for.

she made no move further to block the exit; her gaze spoke on her behalf. it was challenging and full of blooded interest; the sharp gleam of a cunning hunter carefully watching her prey.

the only answer was the mad scrabble of the bloodstained boy, the scratch and click of his nails upon the stone floor, the heaviness of his terrified breathing. merrick did not immediately give chase; his eyes burnt like twin lanterns after his quarry, and only when the child’s growling had begun to ooze tarlike into the crystalled darkness did he advance.
the pup had made it easy then; no one could escape the punishment merrick intended to mete out, and refusal to bear what the yearling had decided was the child’s cross fired him with a great sense of lustful righteousness.
laughter, wildfire dry, rose in his throat — he regarded the fear-fueled ferocity of the boy’s stance with a bareboned furor twinkling madly upon his features.
and she, his devil; and she, his dark seraph; astara faced him across the path the boy must take to escape them both, and merrick gazed upon her for a long length of time with myriad emotions making themselves known.
the entrance to the cave lay ahead; he too made clear his intention that their little ward was not blocked from running there, only perhaps reaching the rainwashed air outside.
eyes glittering, merrick laughed once more, a mocking sound that drowned the boy’s faux bravery.

Dragomir knew when they made no move toward him that they wouldn't give him an opportunity to get away. His eyes darted between the two, twin black silhouettes against the dim daylight of the cave's mouth, and his heart stuttered in his chest. His options were limited and his mind was racing too much for him to think about what he should do. He tried, through the stinging pain of his nape, the ache of his foot where his nail bled, the scuffs on his elbows and knees from thrashing on the floor, to come up with a plan. Nothing came to mind.

Dragomir worked his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth, trying to keep his breathing even, but they would surely hear the hitch and heightened tempo before he moved. What would Isi do, he tried to think. He knew exactly what she would do. Be like Isi. Isi is fierce, Isi wouldn't allow this to happen to her. With his pupils blown wide, Dragomir watched them both, and when Merrick glanced over to Astara, he bolted straight toward them, toward the light outside.

If he did nothing they would surely kill him. Running would probably get him killed, too, Dragomir knew that... but at least he made an effort. He didn't realize his lips were parted in a savage screech as he flew for the cave entryway, pleading in his mind please please please please let me be fast enough please let me go as he attempted to slip between the yearlings.

laughter rolled down the hall, garbled and perhaps more chilling than dragomir’s sad howl had ever been. astara caught the flash in merrick’s gaze, the raptor poise — she too was ready. waiting. 

dragomir made his bid for the exit, fear fueled by adrenaline and determination for survival. alongside astara merrick tittered; the little wraith exchanged with him a knowing glance... but she made no attempt to stop the terrified boy as he sped past. 

too often those that were sinister had cruel plans devised for those they tormented. too often, the tormented found nothing but dehumanizing and wretched ends. astara watched for that glimmer of hope in dragomir’s eyes — he might think he had escaped if he did indeed make it to that rainy threshold.. but for astara the thrill was not in denying dragomir’s exit — it was in the profane and dogged hunt that followed. 

she would take that hope and steal it; live it, breathe it — she would be the panther that stalked quietly, present long after her quarry believed himself free of her watchful and waiting gaze.

true to his word, merrick held back. the boy seemed hesitant at first, then all at once was hurtling with a scream between the murderous stares of the pair who had held him captive thus far. merrick's head spun with the dizy exhilaration of it all; his heart shouted that he simply must pursue, for his own sake, and that of the devil before him, that he must sate and sate and sate and 
comfort
himself with the child's blood, rushing crimson and hot and inexorable between his teeth yes yes yes
he had not astara's control, nor did he wish it; merrick leapt after their quarry as soon as the small paws were upon the cave's threshhold, a skulking pumpkin-eyed bedlamite who could no longer be contained even by the weakened constraints of his own mind. it was time, time timetimetime — merrick thought madly of the rabbits once more, how they had come to pieces beneath his fangs, the screaming, the awful screaming that still woke him in the night with a hot flush of desire darting down to his loins.
would a wolf flay like a smaller beast? the question beat round his ears uncomfortably as his teeth flashed in the gloom and he sought to grab the boy's hindquarters in his jaws, eyes mocking
a challenge
strike me if you dare
for what had the child to lose but his mortal soul, and even that already promised to the demons at his back?

As they knew he would, Dragomir dared let himself feel a glimmer of hope when he careened past Astara and Sanguinus. It grew into a swell of triumph as his paws splashed through the water collected at the den's mouth and then he was free, free to the open air and the falling rain. He felt like he could fly in that moment, felt his paws slapping on the wet ground as he tried to escape the nightmare he found himself in. He could imagine himself running back to the forest, outpacing the yearlings despite the impossibility of it, and returning to his father and his mother and his sister.

The hope died when teeth rent his hide and agony pierced down into his hips, threatening to drag him to the ground. Sanguinus' hold was true. Dragomir could go no further with the larger male clinging to him, and the feeling of serrated jaws closing on him would have driven him to stop even if he fought to go on. He was not a wolf who could blindly charge through his pain, nor one for whom adrenaline was a numbing drug; he was one who squealed and sought to make it stop when his body screamed with it. Adrenaline did not render him immune... but it did seize the reins and turn him around.

For the first time in his life, Dragomir wielded his fangs as a weapon against his fellow wolf; he twisted, tears streaming from his eyes and stomach clenching with nausea as he felt his flesh tear in the beast's jaws, and drove his own youthful muzzle toward Sanguinus' face in a ferocious show of self-defense.

escape, if it could be called that, was woefully cut short. astara checked herself as merrick lunged and sank teeth into dragomir, a flash of excitement flush in her features as the boy turned round, awakened into something feral.

her tail arced high above her hips, and a current of electric excitement rifled like river water under her hackles. she skulked after the yearling and his victim with her head bobbing; the awful guard-dog to merrick’s hellish whims.

the taste of blood again touched merrick’s tongue — his heart began to pound faster, for in the crying twist of the boy’s body had engendered a deep need for it to go on and on and on and on and 
merrick screamed
a high thin keening that rose into a shriek of boyish confusion and agony as his right eye exploded into a mass of blood and viscous droplets that clung in a tight ooze to his cheek.
the yearling wrenched away from their quarry, stumbling blindly as rage and anguish radiated through his skull in short, knifelike bursts. where was she where was 
”please,” merrick seethed from behind clenched teeth, tears weeping in a thick rivulet of saltwater from his unaffected eye. where had she gone he needed her now please please please 
overcome, a roar rushed in jagged shards from merrick’s throat; he leapt for the last place the boy had been, intending finally to rend the flesh from the bone, rip the small spine from the unyielding ribcage breath rattling in his throat blood pattering to the stone floor.

He wasn't expecting to hit any part of Sanguinus at all, let alone something soft and yielding. The man's scream made Dragomir's ears ring and his stomach flipped uncomfortably. All the pain coursing through his body was catching up to him and sickening him so that when he looked up and saw blood where Sanguinus' eye was, and tasted that same blood on his teeth, his belly clenched with abrupt nausea and bile rushed up his throat. He vomited, swaying on the spot, dazed and dizzy. Sanguinus was preoccupied. Please, the man pleaded, making Dragomir's heart skip a beat. He could run. He had a chance. But he could barely keep himself steady on his own feet, and his mouth filled with acid and he vomited again.

His sick had barely left his throat when Sanguinus roared and descended on him, all fury where there had been amusement and deceit before. Dragomir's mouth parted in a last desperate shriek of PLEASE! as the man bore down on him, seizing him easily and slamming him into the stone floor. His nose was pressed into his own vomit. Pain wracked every nerve in his body—whether from existing injuries and exertion or from new ones flayed into his flesh by Sanguinus' wroth teeth—until he was overcome by a sensation of spinning and floating, which was blessedly numb in comparison. His consciousness flitted to the edges of his mind, threatening to make him black out again; it was all too much, and he was unaware that he continued to scream and scream for help even as he fought to keep from going under.

everything was fine until merrick’s scream mixed with the high note of dragomir’s anguish. astara lurched into action, a demonic snarl hung against her lips.

where before her interest had been piqued and her feral instinct aroused, now a new emotion came into the fray — a fierce wrath that carried her in heated steps to dragomir’s side, unflinching. her teeth exposed, astara swung her head down and attempted to wrench the boy’s neck and send him flinging — a brutal act of retribution meant to immobilize him so that she might tend to her shadow, and later deliver inexplicable suffering upon the little cub that dare harm her companion.

rage compelled him, drove out the throbbing pain of his grisly wound, and soon merrick turned his attention from savaging the boy to gathering him up again, staggering beneath the screaming, flailing weight.
astara’s teeth too clipped their ward’s flesh, but the coywolf swept himself between his shadow and the boy swiftly, hoping to arrest the majority of her downward momentum. 
in this moment, a great, glossy sense of clarity was blossoming in merrick’s awareness, and the path he must now take became completely brightened with his own desires. why had he not before thought of such a thing?
the hapless little dragon was dragged from the cave onto the wet rock outside, and merrick’s throat constricted with a merry laugh from around his grim mouthful of fur and flesh. the end the end the end the 
beginning
yes yes the blood he had shed tonight had brought with its metallic flavour the necessity of keeping that vague inner eye open to the possibility that only one more need ever succumb; the beginning.
without another word, merrick gave a great wrench of his neck and thrust the boy over the cliffside into the damp darkness of the rainsoaked early morning.
not scarcely waiting a moment before turning to his companion, merrick sought to caress her ears with his crimson-hued muzzle, an ugly croak of speech spewing forth.
”i want you to meet my mother.”