Haunted Wood every atom of my blood

the crunch is felt more than heard, tendons and bone giving way betwixt her fangs. the rodent pressed beneath a forepaw oozes red into the snow, the whelp hunched over her catch. it's cold—the damp kind that settles into her marrow, slows her blood and cuts against her throat. already, she's covered in a fine layer of snow, eyes half-shuttered against the winds as she worries at the creature's spine. 

the sharp cut of the cold brings forth a kind of restlessness she can not place; a few moment later, the scant remains of the rodent are buried and she's on the hunt for @Valour or @Clay, keen on inciting something with either of them, step quick and stiff.

It was freezing and snowing. Winter had come...or at least he thought so. Keen on figuring out exactly what Snow was he spent the day traipsing around In it, licking it, catching it on his nose, watching it melt. It didn't take too long to grow bored of it and he set off on a walk hoping to run into someone. After a few moments the sound of steps approaching had him pause and he spotted Hela, immediately losing all sign of being at peace as he noticed the way she walked. "Someone pissed you off?" he asked her curiously while moving to fall into step with her.

it is the former that falls into step alongside her; there is a flicker of pleasure at this that she does not allow to show. she only flicks her ears in response, snapping them back against her crown as the girl snaps at his shoulder, an action that could easily be read as irritation, were it not for the teasing cant of her brows. 

"you're it." she barks, exploding into a sudden sprint. it is surely an odd day, an odd playfulness the colds drawn out, for it's always been her doing the chasing.

His eyes went wide and his head jerked back as she snapped, flinching and peering at her hesitantly realizing after a moment of confusion that she was playing with him. His tail wagged at her words and as she took off he wasn't too far behind her his paws thudding lightly as he looked around trying to see any way he could get an advantage. He slowed and let her gain some distance swerving to the right and pushing himself to run faster until he was running beside her flashing her a wide grin. He had never seen anyone play like this, except for Clay of course and part of him wanted to catch her just to tease her about it. At the same time it was kind of nice to have a moment like this, where he wasn't on edge with her and she wasn't trying to eat him.

the simple joy that comes from the rhythmic pounding of her paws against the earth spurs her ever faster, until she reins in her pace slightly and Valour catches up. He pulls up alongside her, and for a moment, she smiles widely for perhaps the first time in recent history, gaze light and expression open. and then her forepaw darts out to the side in an attempt to hook around his own; an effective trip she'd only ever used on Scylla, months ago.

rolled for the trip and she succeeded!

It was pretty great for a moment there, when she smiled at him. She looked...radiant almost and he found his step slowing and growing less focused. Then she tripped him and the moment shattered as he hit the ground and flopped, paws pushing off the ground as he rolled so he sprang up clumsily to his paws. Regaining his balance and growling he pinned his ears back "Can we just...not for once?!" he snapped at her baring his fangs, tail shooting up over his back as he faced her eyes brimming with anger and body tense with anger.

he falls, and she laughs, short and quick and gone just as fast. she expects, for a moment, the game to continue, but then he speaks and she is reminded starkly that this is not blackfeather, valour is not her sister, and this is not the place to play games. her countenance tightens, darkens.

embarrassment is not the emotion she expects to feel, and she is starkly aware that she does not know how to proceed. for a long moment, she simply faces him. and then she surges forward, not really wanting to fight him but at a loss of what to do besides, attempting a messy tackle. 

LOL big mood @ valour

She stares at him blankly and then launches toward him and he gawks, scrambling to get away and sprinting in the opposite direction his tail lowered and eyes wide "What is your problem?!" he yelped as he ran, angry and confused and a bit disheartened in thinking that they could ever be done fighting.

he yells, and runs, and she does not follow. she watches him go, and when he is gone, makes herself small. she does not know where she went wrong. maybe it is her—maybe she is wrong. she wants the easy relationship she had with Scylla, with Cass. she pushes a paw into the snow, replaying again what had just occurred. this was not the place for games, or friends. she was not the type of person that had friends. she was wrong.

"shut up." she mumbled, under her breath. she couldn't be wrong, not when she was all she had. and so it was friends that were wrong, games and sisters and all the like. she was fine.

and yet that did not explain the shame that followed her when she drifted in the opposite direction he'd run.

Once he noticed that she did not follow he paused and hid himself behind a tree studying her from a distance as she curled into herself and then stood, turning and walking away. He felt a pang of guilt and flattened his ears shuffling at the leaves on the ground as he walked after her slowly at first. Why had he gotten so mad when he was planning on tackling her anyway? He frowned and growled sprinting to catch up fast "Hey! Wait up!" he called out before coming up beside her. He paused and looked at his paws "You didn't do anything wrong. I was gonna tackle you anyway. I was just...embarrassed okay?" he grumbled the words out but looked up, his ears pinning back and tail hanging low though wagging hopefully.

she pauses at the quick advance of footsteps, for a moment listening to the boy. but the damage is already done; that evasive feeling of playfulness is lost, and so too has she realized just how she'd been using him as a stand-in for her sister; it is perhaps why they exist on such easy terms, when she's attacked every other pup within the borders. "it's fine." is all she says, shame and self-resentment still heavy. "I need to go meet Black Hat." an easy lie; she needs a moment to sort through the dull hurt. and then she pulls away again, once out of eyeshot laying a deliberately evasive trail.

He stopped dead in his tracks, stiffening as she once again dropped interest and walked away from him like it was nothing. Valour had never apologized to anyone his age, anyone who did not completely beat him in some major way that he knew better than to try. Not only that but he had saved her life and brought her to a place where he had a chance at being damn close to a king and she...she kept trying to take that. Yet he liked her, he found her interesting and the competition was a challenge he thoroughly enjoyed. Being treated like an enemy at the weirdest times, that was something that threw him for a loop. He growled and turned walking the opposite direction tail hanging low and dejected between his legs.