Otter Creek [m]una vez más, con sentimiento

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When Sangre awakens, he’s waiting.

In the night, he’d dragged her unconscious body to a small watershed. Now it chilled in the shadow of the cold mountain.

“Lavarse,” hound commands.

He stands still.
Watching.

The first thing she realized, when Tierra woke up, was that her head was killing her. It took her a longer, groggy moment to recognize that she wasn’t anywhere familiar.

Tierra groaned, but cut off abruptly when she realized she wasn’t alone. Are you serious? What the actual fuck do you want!? He’d said something she didn’t understand but she hadn’t bothered to try parsing it out.

There was something absolutely menacing about him and the way he stood there. But she wasn’t willing to accept yet that she couldn’t have this be on her terms. She didn’t remember what he’d done to her or how she got here, wherever here was. She just needed to figure out what his whole deal was. Then she’d know what to do.

No one was looking for her.
They’d have already come.
She was all alone.
He had her in his possession.

She was going to make it another fight. He would remind her how well that worked last time.
The hound remained, barring her escape from the narrow gorge. His hackles stood where it wasn’t matted with dried blood from their tangle the night before.
She would bathe, by her hand, or his. Niño took a step forward and reared his tail, shepherding her towards the water. His lips lifted for a rumbling messaged they'd both understand.

He was unbearable. First refusing to recognize that he was speaking nonsense and now threatening her again. Tierra wobbled as she stood and the world wavered a bit in front of her. Luckily she wasn’t interested in standing up straight anyway.

Instead she remained hunkered and gave a low snarl back, already irritated into making things more difficult than they needed to be. Tierra was a lot of things but a quick learner was not one of them.

She was going to make his life as difficult as she could until he showed her some respect. It didn’t matter that she’d had no success so far with following up on those threats. Just the hope that this time would be different was enough.

Hate wells in her fire-eyes. A pocked smirk muddles the hound’s twisted snout. “Los jefes no les gusta que sus perras estén manchados,” he grunts, paws pooling on the gravel in a stalk towards her.

He likes the resistance.
Means using his teeth.
But they’d done a number on one another last night, and he wasn’t about to pull up to Luneshale looking like a filthy dingo.

“Ser una buena poco perra, ser recompensado,” a full yellow grin. His shoulders round, tail flexed, nostrils flaring out like the moment before a viper’s strike. Then he makes a grab for the thick fur of her neck, using his body as a buffer against escape and attempting to drag them both into the cold water.

She didn’t have a clue what he was saying, so her only response as he approached was to growl and tense. When she realized that he was aiming to grab her she lunged, but of course, Tierra was too slow. If she cared about making excuses for herself she had plenty. Right now she was too angry to bother.

No! She scrabbled at the ground as he dragged her but couldn’t find any purchase in the loose gravel beneath them. What was he going to do, drown her?! What was the fuckin point of that?!

What’s yo- She didn’t get to finish that question before being unceremoniously dragged into the water. It was cold. But it didn’t feel awful.

More hapless threshing. It earns her a solid shake. They’re both submerged in a shock of ice, softening the crust of blood that binds them.

“Lavarse,” he warns again, preening at his own chest whilst holding her soaking gaze.
Have her cleaned up, presentable to the Jefes down in Luneshale.

The hound sloshes over to Sangre’s withers, teeth exploring freely there.
Anticipating her bolt, or retaliation.
He’d take pleasure in tonguing the areas she couldn’t reach.

That word again.  What, is that your name? Lavarse.  She said it in a clear mockery of his accent and hoped that would piss him off.  Anything to wipe the smug smile off his face.

The only language she had experience with was her mom’s ptero. At least she could be pretty sure he wouldn’t know that, which meant the instant she ran into anyone familiar she’d be able to get a message off. The thought gave her a bit of hope, even if she knew the chances were pretty ridiculous.

He wanted her to clean up, obviously.  She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction and considered stubbornly shoving for the edge. The water felt too good and her pelt was a mess that she could feel. She wasn’t about to leave it, not even for stubbornness. And, like, who knows where his teeth have been. She drank, then began meticulously combing the ick from her fur.

The water was too deep to really whirl around in, but she rounded on him as quickly as she could when he approached. You had your chance, fuckface.  She growled, keeping her back to him. Movement here wouldn’t just be a problem for her at least. Maybe she could give him a good dunk.

And still a part of her, one she was ashamed of, loved the attention. He was ugly but he was also dangerous, and the combination of those two things made the ugly more of a quirk than a problem. Of course he was ugly. Ruthless criminals were almost always ugly. And this one, for some reason, wanted to keep her around. He stared at her like she was something he wanted.

She didn’t want to enjoy it, both because she was ashamed and because she knew, if she made it too easy, that interest could easily disappear. But she did enjoy it, and some toxic need in her reveled in being worth this kind of trouble.

Her words are meaningless smoke. He doesn’t bother trying to understand. What she has to say doesn’t matter.
He reads only the whirl in her body as she recoils from his neaness.
Hound snaps up his head, but remains close.
Towering.

“Cuidadosa, Sangre. O joderé el fuego de ti,” comes his growl.

He’d been too lenient with her last night.
Now it got to her head.
But he had to admit.
He liked a scowl on her.

And she was bathing.
Good girl.

Niño did the same, smoothing out the half-shed coat and taking long, thirsty gulps of their filthy bathwater.
When he was good and clean and pulled himself from the pond and shook off the excess.
Found himself a nice little patch of dappled light beneath the roots of some dead tree to dry.

Whistles for Sangre.
Come here, girl.

He produced the green, then, from its safekeeping. Laid it out precisely in its wrappings.

Time to show Sangre her new purpose.
Time to show her what the world was really about.