Sheepeater Cliff the earth spins, the world gets more crazy

two weeks it was since she left silvertip; four months since she had whelped her last litter; seven months since she had first noticed a sickness that lingered at the tip of her consciousness like an unspoken malaise.

just until they are born, she bid the cancer that grew under her skin and rippled outward in little veins to her brain. just until they are weaned, she begged as her skin revolted underneath her, howling for its due with a careless hunger not even she could satiate. and then they were born, and weaned, and living -- while their mother slept and wheezed and slowly came to peace with the fading of a body she had once believed was only her own.

so she had left.

she knew, in the way lesser beasts and primal, scurrying creatures of the underrealm knew, that her time on this earth had come to its close. let me die somewhere quiet and alone, where my scent might not attract wolves and my sickness might not infect others, she bargained with the ever-bolder disease that now laid siege to her lymph nodes, her stomach, her throat and eyes -- somewhere quiet and safe.

as if safety was a final right given to those on the terminal-end of life. and so, her consciousness went with her -- silvery and vestigial until she was simply a husk waiting to die, wandering along the lone razorbacked spines of grey shale and rubble.

once-astara had owned this grand notion when she found a spot quiet enough, she would simply lay her tumor-ridden bones down among the stilts of dying summer grass and the bear would come for her. she would close her eyes and he would be summoned, a form black and smoky and tinged the burnt-sienna color of the unknowable void come to claim his loyal servant to her eternal home.

three days hence, and the bear had yet to come.

gone were the hopes of the once-thief, gone were thoughts of her eldest children (how proud she was of both -- sorrowful that they should be split, but proud all the same), faded was that burning and once-neverending love for merrick.

and now, she was astara no longer -- just a rough shaped, monstrous beast straddled between the world of living and dying and cognizant of neither.

After grabbing @Nyra, Kyn leads her wordlessly back to where he’d smelt the woman’s scent. He doesn’t tell her who it is, only tells her to follow — it’s a surprise after all. When they get there, Kyn is the first to spot the midnight pelted wolf. He stills, looks to Nyra and doesn’t say one word. Only pulls her close by a pair of jaws on the side of her neck. His teeth are soft as he pulls her into view and his maw hovers next to her ear.

“Merrick’s blackbird. Alone. Ripe for the taking.” He purrs deeply — maliciously. 

He feels excitement for the hunt sink deep into his bones and with that he skulking forward with his head level with his shoulders. Only a few seconds later he’s moving into a full sprint, powerful limbs move him forward with surprising quickness until he reaches the Ursus wolf. He wouldn’t blindside her, he’s sure she’d hear him approaching, but he is the first to steal a bite. 

He hits her with the force of a thousand suns, massive body skidding into her own as his teeth find their way into the back of her neck. He crunches down, feels her blood bloom into his tongue and drip from his maw.

He plants his feet and his muscles flex beneath a chocolate pelt as he readies himself to shake. And shake he does. She’s too heavy to rag doll in his grip and she’s definitely skilled in battle, he’s prepared to gain some battle scars. He knows that he and Nyra together can take her down easily. She might as well be done for and he won’t give up untie her head is lopped off her shoulders.

Nyra follows her former co-lead with confusion written in the knit of her brows, but otherwise she's wordless.

Coming upon the rocks, she feels Kyn tug her closer and he points out the black shape of Astara. Though Nyra knew not the blackbird's name, a wicked grin curled up on her face as she moved in sync with Kynareth, step for step and pace for pace. 

The two sprint forward in a ruthless ambush, and as Kynareth takes up the back of the raven's neck and begins to shake her violently, Nyra comes in tow for Astara's face, snapping and snarling and hellbent on ripping her apart into gory, macabre confetti.

Game on.

Mature Content Warning

This thread has been marked as mature. By reading and/or participating in this thread, you acknowledge that you are of age or have permission from your parents to do so.

The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: gore, death

astara sat miserably between the world of those who clung terribly to life and those who might rid themselves of it -- unaware of the fissures of dying cells which flared like clusters of supernovas in her brain, and unfeeling of the audience of two which gathered to hasten her demise.

she felt a thunderous coming. looking up, astara saw not donovan, but the flame-engulfed shadow of the bear as it moved in a streak of livid fire towards her. great bursts of calamity -- followed by scrivening shades of smoke -- emanated from that godbruin form with every awful thudding footfall; her bear -- her god ! astara gasped as she beheld its savage beauty, its formless features black save for the livid sunwhite of each hateful burning eye.

astara made a noise straddled between a whimper of joy and sorrow -- a noise which died in her throat when her delirious gaze slid to the creature loping alongside her bear-god.

she saw not the white of nyra's features, but something scarlet and rippling.

fur red as fire; fur which clung to tattered remnants of skin and tissue -- even in death, that pelt was unmistakable.

not her, once-astara quailed, an inkblack feeling of betrayal rising from her throat. her lips curled back as she beheld indra alongside the great and terrible form of the sunfire bear. astara looked to the bruin-god questioningly, lurching carelessly to the side -- was this some test by her bruin-god, some final crucible before her soul was carried to the world beyond the clearing?

no matter -- for now the bear and indra were coming, they were coming quick and savagely and without compunction -- coming to bury her beneath their teeth and claws and rotting bodies -- coming to take her from the land of the living and put her in the dirt where her soul would rot and fester blacker than any bloated corpse.

she snarled and lunged for both, content that her final lot in life would be bloodshed. merrick, aventus, avicus, apophis, asperas -- may the might of the bear guide you. i will see you on the other side. then, the raven flung herself headlong towards the slavering jaws of her beargod, teeth seizing whatever they could as great fangs and claws punctured her flesh and took their pound of flesh, too.

she was fighting -- she had always been fighting -- teeth came for her face and her neck and raked great gouts of subcutaneous tissue back, exposing hostile plains of pulsing red tissue. the bear and its supplicant swam out of astara's vision, replaced by bright constellations of pain which erupted from the back of her eyes and blinded her.

yet still she snapped and fought while she was picked apart like carrion -- they might rid the world of her presence today, but she would leave her mark upon them both for the rest of their lifetime.

and then, before astara knew it her throat had been plucked from her blackened pelt like some world-prized fruit; a violent arc of blood splattered the thrashing forms of her destroyers, whetting the grass a sickly dark sheen.

astara reeled, gurgling and white-eyed as blood flooded her senses, trickling down into her throat as tissue wheezed and sucked and splattered. stilled by the teeth of her enemies, astara went limp and slid into the unfeeling grass while underneath her a pool of malicious burgundy grew.

she heard distantly the murmur of wardrums, unaware it was the final rallying cry of cell death beneath her skin, unaware it was thousands -- billions -- of signals sent and lost as the countdown for her own bodily demise began.

for every signal received another receptor died --a firework of fading synapses fired into infinite blackness.

for a brief moment astara's indigo eyes flickered bright with cognizance as they beheld the fisheye view of an open blue sky above.

and then they too found no signal, and were stilled forever.

they'd released Karst, but not told her when, or where. she's picked up pieces of his scent, moving away from that circular mountain, through glen and glade and finally, onto the vast plains. here on the golden ground, she feels at ease; the sky is bigger than she's ever seen it, and the air is crisp with the promise of coming winter.

nostrils flared, she tries to capture Karst's aroma once more, having lost it somewhere behind her. in front of her, the mountains rise up, and she is loath to cross them. this journey cannot take too long—she had promised Erzulie and Rosalyn that she would return.

so it's to her surprise that she finds another scent trailing toward the cliffs. what is she doing so far from home? she wonders. her mother did not look well the last time she'd seen her, and besides, she had the children to tend to, a pack to care for.

a distant snarling floats upon the breeze, and she lifts her chin, brow knitted in concern as she tries to suss out the source.

two giants, one dark, one bright, the latter stained with vibrant crimson. and between them—

no. 

she releases a horrific scream, the kind of sound that splits the sky and sends a tremor down spines. she rushes forward in a desperate effort, but she is so far, and they are so high, and—

oh, god, so much blood! and the limpness of her mother's body fills her with anger and terror alike, 

and she begins to sob because she knows she cannot help.

that it is too late.

tears cascading down her cheeks, she turns tail and heads the way she'd came, gaze fixed upon the peak that Ursus now claimed. to rally the troops. to. . .do. . .something. anything.

even though nothing at all now matters.