Bearclaw Valley hello rainbow [m]

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: desc of torture/gore

merrick dragged the vixen along the crushed scarlet path, back into the valley.
she kicked weakly, teeth bared in her gaping jaws. a trail of blood evinced where the bearwolf had broken something inside her.
he dropped her along the borders. she yipped and curled her plume over her gently thickened flanks, carrying new lives into the springtime.
merrick summoned @Val, keeping one paw across the spine of the doomed creature as he waited for the supplicant to come along.

he'd gone to the river when he heard the call. val shook riverwater from his pelt and turned towards the borders where the call sprung.

val came across merrick with one paw pressed against the figure of a fox. instinctively, val knew this little creature to be a competitor and therefore enemy -- yet even he was not so cold as to be oblivious to the great suffering she had already endured; will endure.

he looked to merrick questioningly, tail and head held low.

merrick grinned. it was not a warm look. "val."
he gestured down toward his living target, trapped beneath his hard paw. "i caught her nosing around a cache."
there was no reason for what came next, however; but merrick did not think in terms of ethics. right. wrong. there was only blood and there was only darkness.
he let her go, but the fox could not creep away. she only panted.
"when you asked me how i addressed my fear, it was to give pain."
he circled val, pushed him closer to the fox. "we are sending this one to the bear," he said with a grating purr.

merrick's single eye was orange. the color of a soft sunset, of autumn, of fox fur, of warmth. and yet no warmth was communicated in that glaring orb -- just a swallowing malice val was not acclimated to.

he steeled himself against shrinking back. he recognized this for what it was: him or the fox. of course, he'd pick himself -- but his heart was not so cold that he did not feel pity as merrick's paw was lifted. run, he urged the struggling creature, run before i--

val's gaze lifted; merrick circling him now, as if he were the ill-fated fox. sending this one to the bear, merrick purled. that val could do, though his stomach unfurled uncomfortably to think of it. he stepped towards the fox in grim silence, waiting then for merrick to either kill it himself, or bid him to do so.

but there would not be killing yet.
"bring hurt first."
screaming. blood. he wanted to see val as the perpetuator of both. only then would merrick know for certain. "she stole from ursus," he growled, stepping onto the bruised spine of the fox. "make an example out of her."
it would be a better sound to use, but merrick wanted to see the vixen reflected in val's eye, and to use this bloodsport as an antidote against weakness.

val sensed trouble looming on the horizon. not just for the fox, but him.

he could do as he was told, despite some great part of him recoiling against it: he could hurt, and bleed, and bend, until the vixen begged for life and he relished in taking it --

or he could refuse. he could stand up for what he believed was right, prove his colors and his spine were his own and his own alone. to show bravery in the face of great peril - to be exactly as his mothers had raised him.

and he so desperately wanted to be that wolf that stood tall for what was right and just, but he couldn't. not when his stomach was under threat of constant starvation, not when his only home he knew was merrick's, not when his color was not black but yellow. deep undercurrent yellow like a fouled river.

he stepped towards the fox. coward. all hope in her eyes was lost, but even she knew -- she knew she would die strong, and val would die weak. that val had already died, not in body but in some other way irretrievable.

he placed his paw upon her spine. don't do it. and he did it anyway. he tried to convince himself he was doing it because she had threatened the caches. but he knew. he knew he was as weakwilled as willow strands -- pulled and tugged in every direction but their own.

val pushed down harder, teeth grit. he felt the crackle of rib, the squelch of organs suddenly met. and he heard through every fiery nerve the scream that followed and threatened to make him undone too.

and merrick watched;
shimmering with pleasure. glowing with pride. a father watching his son triumph, truly so, for the first time.
the vixen wept and pleaded.
"more," the bearwolf exhorted.
until there was no more breath
val in first graduation inside ursus; merrick waited on the edge of his own breath to see if the boy would press on or break.

the screams flooded his senses; could he tell, were they hers or his own?

he pushed harder still -- merrick, black phantom, conjuring to mind the specter that loomed his dreams. goading. encouraging.

and still the high screams keened over the ruinwood. val became angry: why won't you die? he had no appetite for this, no imagination yet for the ways to be cruel: he felt skin disrupt and bones splinter. were all bodies this fragile?

he could take it no longer. with a heave he seized her screaming face between his teeth and swung her to the ground, waiting for the knowing snap that foretold death indisputable.

it was done. finished. merrick rocked back upon his haunches and closed his single eye;
as the smell of blood rose heavy and thick and metallic around them, he looked to val, smeared with red, jaws flecked with skin and tissue and fur.
"you are ready to be before the eye of the bear himself," he gritted lightly, pride burning in all aspects of him. they would leave the fox here, to slowly moulder to bones.
"you have done well, val. know pain. when you know it, there is no more fear."

when you know it, there is no more fear. and yet, something curled around his heart gurgling. not pride, not relief -- something darker still.

shame.

he could not bring himself to look at the mangled creature. just minutes ago she had been -- and now she was was. he focused on the pride glittering in merrick's single eye. managed a smile in response he could hardly believe.

he left the fox -- and his shame -- to fester.

fading! they can have a new one post everything >D

and merrick led away their new supplicant;
from bloodstained earth to bloodstained earth;
the vixen left to turn to flecks and rot and then ivory where she had fallen, a warning to her fellows and a testament to the molding the bear had seen fit to bring to val.