The Sunspire [m] carved teeth

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: backdated to june 26, receptive

cloud singer had not been a warrior at all. he and muskrat had met one another when his healing teachers asked for passage through the swamp panther lands.

scarcely grown, muskrat had just received her scar for battle exploits. cloud singer had been much the same, shy, almost exactly her age. where the swamp panther boys were boisterous and wrestled often to show their strength, cloud singer was devoted to his study of plants, of blossoms, bark, flowers. muskrat found herself with him often as the little group of plant-seekers traversed the nearby hills.

it was in that radiant forest they had loved one another for the first time. cloud singer told her that he would be a powerful healer one day, for healers were of no people and all. then, he laughed, he could stay in her village always, and be honored to do so. muskrat spoke of the war walk and how she would protect their home and children. such bliss in those times, pleasure, warmth. the discussions of a united future.

until gorseberry had told muskrat she would be leaving with six kills. of course she had fought! denied, refused! on the second night, the young warrior talked frog-voice into carrying her message to the lover who waited in the forest. a plan was made and she waited for the right time to evade six kills and his warriors.

hunting had brought muskrat down, pain kept her mired, and as the story of she and cloud singer replayed yet again, muskrat sent a defiant cry spiraling into the sky just now breaking with dawnlight.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Akavir wasn’t in the habit of forcing himself where he wasn’t wanted—at least, he liked to think he wasn’t. Perhaps, in life, he hadn’t been assertive enough when the moment had truly called for it—was that why, instead of embracing honesty and possible push back, he had instead swallowed his feelings for others, and opted an easier route.

Those feelings had been better guided, though—unlike the storm that brewed in his chest. His presence had been unwanted and now it was unwarranted. So why was he disgruntled? A cry echoed down the mountain—and he was not far from its owner, though certainly far enough that a stray rock would not be punted down upon his head this time.

Enough that the idle scent on the breeze was less tempting.

But not far enough that he still did not worry—and if Viinturuth was here, as had been spoken—why did the fiery swamp panther elicit such cries?

He paused—he wavered. He desisted his trajectory of tracking goat, a useless way to pretend he was busy, and tilted his muzzle up, calling for his brother—answering the call of the banshee as morning only now crept along the mountain crevices.

:o

akavir's call stilled muskrat, and she glanced back along her own sharp shoulder in incredulity. he had not left after all, he had remained. lurking. now he called for his brother, somewhere below the perch of her feet.

muskrat paced. her body cried for the virility of those creek men; her mind was dismayed. annoyed. half-amused, when only a handful of days ago another shadow wolf had come to seek her in this stone camp.

she pulled to her mind the tone of akavir's voice the last time they had spoken. how he had followed her here despite that. was he so interested in seeding her that he had forgotten?

her flesh ached. muskrat's muzzle curled and she turned to contemplate a higher path.

No answer.

His features turned grim. It wasn't like his brother--but perhaps he was... busy... at the moment.

The idea aroused something akin to jealousy in the swarthy man--something he disliked greatly when it came to his littermate.

Viinturuth's time for fatherhood should have come. Akavir could play the role of doting uncle. And he could do so well.

And did the eyes of other women not haunt him? Silvertongue? Eset?

But why, now, even with her scent from him, was it Muskrat and her fiestiness that flooded his mind?

To envision dark pups, suckling against, softened in motherhood and yet wildly fierce as a warrior still?

Could either be tamed to one another?

A chuff escaped him. The silence stretched--and then the only drawn conclusion of such... his brother was otherwise occupied with the flame and he shook his head--idle steps taken once more to continue to trail after the goat that had likely now long gone from his reach.

a stone came clacking down the mountain, hard enough to hurt should it strike the night man. she had aimed its trajectory away from him this time, the sound of it message enough.

he is not here, she chose to sing back. both brothers go home.

indignant; as if one should keep her here for the other. perhaps titillating in another time, she scalded herself with thoughts of denying akavir. of punishing him for his tone and then for following her here the first time.

she had not taken a higher path. her ears waited to listen.

She sung to him--yet where the fuck was Viinturuth?

He scowled in the direction if the call--eyes sharp, trying to seek out the flame-scorched hue of her pelt along the dull grey of the mountains.

Nothing.

Yet another rock--tumbling down, and stirring him to shift further along a ledge, his eyes emblazened now as he looked upward.

Throw one more fucking rock at me, little panther, and I swear, he hollered up through gritted teeth--claws clenching the earth as he searched for her above.

why both warriors so far from creek?

a deliberate cascade of sand and pebbles followed as muskrat giddily charged to her paws, emboldened by the passion in his shout.

this when i would make raid on camp.

her voice was a challenge, humming in the hot air, and one she gave because muskrat did not believe he would be able to reach the beyond the necklace of stone to her precipice, or into the thin air and the snow which fell even further.

Well—she didn’t throw another rock.

But dirt and pebbles rained down on him, and with grim features, the man hoisted himself up—his trajectory fast, his mood incensed. Muskrat was unlike anyone he had met—every step taken was a mistake, he could feel it. But the draw of her was what called him—the challenge of her gaze.

“Didn’t work well for you last time, did it,” he crooned out, his tone still echoing—and yet closer.

Closer he moved.

He dared believe he finally caught glimpse of her flame-lit eyes.

like fireflies they blinked out in the night as she turned her face from his large shadow pouring over the edge of the mountain.

not work because you there.

and now he was here, the creek unguarded. a fool's move for a man who had proclaimed to leave her behind. muskrat enjoyed her hold over him, but now she struck for that higher path.

she promised no reward and perhaps even the glut of her teeth instead. he would work either way, the glint of her eyes snapping in the dark as she rushed up the stone toward the cold atmosphere at the sunspire's summit.

A chase—perhaps. Retribution awaited him if he caught up to her—but was that not part of what he desired? Nothing about the woman before him was something he could estimate or contemplate. She was not only a complete enigma to him because of her vastly different culture but the fire within her was so fierce and bright it was impossible to not become a moth to it.

And surely he would burn for even trying to touch such a flame.

Pebbles tumbled—his gait as quiet as he could be as he continued the spiral up—her own lissome frame gone from view, and as such, he made to skirt away from where he thought she might be—his teeth prepared for the clash of her own if they found him.

his pursuit had been her aim almost from the beginning; the fact that he had not had her that evening when she lay in his den had perturbed and incensed muskrat, more for the remaining sense of humiliation left in its wake.

and so her teeth did clack against his, fighting downslope from her higher vantage point until both of them tasted blood, until she had given akavir some idea of the battle-honed fury which might have once seen her become a war chief.

when at last she saw fit to relent, akavir's face looked above her own, blotting the stars, and there was no hesitation as her claws sank into his shoulders, urging his muscular body into a descent upon her own.

Oblivious to the true purpose she had been found in his old den, it was still impossible to miss her ire—though he believed it could have stemmed from his comment at their last discussion an to why she remained in the creek or anywhere if she did not care if another died—on his list of mishaps, that was perhaps the highest suspect on his list.

Despite moving to skirt away from her edge and toward another side, she found him—unsurprising to the man, for she thrived on such tactics—her teeth meeting his as she lashed at him.

He maneuvered upward—no longer pressed upon a lower step than she—and while she scored him with her marks, his own ears fell back, his own rumble dark as he blocked some of her attacks—others, he remained unable to do so as she rained her fury upon him.

Only when she stopped—only when she pulled at him then in a different manner did he make to pull her roughly against him, a forelimb locked to her chest—ragged breath from their spar upon her ear. Who the fuck are you, Muskrat? Her scent was a blanket over him—a stark reminder that not only was she one of the most petite women he had saw or held, she was also the fiercest—

—and the most like a loose cannon.

her breath came in short hard pants, her sharp teeth glinting like the underbelly of a shark. "hungry," came the cold wash of her voice, boiling water poured over blocks of ice. "and angry."

her own voice singed his mouth, tongue flicking across his lips as she rolled her hips up into his.

why did he question when he could forget?

the hot yellow eyes pierced for his own as muskrat lay back between the black marble pillars of his forelegs. the time for words was over. akavir must answer her another way, or lose her to the night. muskrat would not be humiliated again by the tangle of her feelings for the night man.

Her fangs flash—her tongue snakes out in a demanding kiss as her hips roll—the analogy was more than accurate. He was a moth, and she the flame. The kisses he rained now upon the back of her nape and the curve of her slim shoulder was not feathered like lovers in the past—they were his own demand and his own punishment doled to her—a nip cast here and there, the graze of his teeth before his lips and tongue would seek to soothe flesh.

This was not a union of gentle lovers and whispered sweet nothings into the night—this was a devouring ache—barely tempered emotions as he ensured she quaked beneath him—that whatever scars he had left upon her in their battles—whether by word or physical—were far from memorable in comparison to this very moment between them.

her legs trembled, every word driven from her mind for now. the memory of cloud singer was almost sweet as muskrat lay beside akavir, catching her breath in silent heaves.

he had not been gentle. she had enjoyed this of him, the controlled lack of kindness in their interlude. and it did not occur to muskrat for a long moment that she might have conceived by him.

she twirled the thought. certainly he would give her mateship and the role of a leader. the taste of power was appealing, but her sense of freedom was moreso.

even as muskrat reached for akavir again, seeking to rouse him with small nips and low growls, she knew she would never bear his issue. theirs was this night only, something she needed, something she wanted to give and to have before the disconnection was complete.

To hold the flame for even a moment, rather than eternity, was something he knew would have to be enough. They lay tangled—and he felt a rumble of a chuckle in his throat as she reached for him again, still unsatiated—a wild tempest that he was all too willing to give in to.

He pulled her to him once more—a snap of teeth and hips to unite them as one again—and again. “Is tusa a’ ghrian,” he murmured to her, taking, for the moment, that this could be their life. Ignoring, that it would never be able to.