The Tangle I said somebody's been shot, somebody's been abused

"FUCK."

Dusty Rose paced at the top of the ravine, the perfect picture of towering fury despite his somewhat underwhelming stature. He made as if to jump, toes hanging off the ledge, claws curled inward to grip the crumbling dirt, but he knew instinctively that this wasn't a jump he could make. He'd have to go around.

"FUCKING — FUCK. AGAIN???"

It wasn't that he was ungrateful or anything. He had all four paws underneath him again, which he surely hadn't believed would be the case not too long ago. He should've trusted that Reverie would rescue him.

He should've known she'd run right off again.

And look, he understood. And he was glad for the help of her weird-ass cult and the hunky guard that'd gone with her and all the reverence with which they regarded her. His lady deserved that sort of respect. Deserved armies to rule over. Deserved loyal subject to boss around. Dusty Rose was all for it! For her. But this crusade was dragging him along, too, and he'd had to endure several long weeks of her extended family's hospitality after the much more dubious hospitality her other extended family had shown her. And it was all just a little confused in his head — who were these people? Why couldn't they leave well enough alone?

But he understood. Reverie was a fucken queen is what all this was about, and Dusty Rose would never, under any circumstance, want her to hide that light under a bushel. She was gonna set the fucking world on fire and he was gonna stand behind her and laugh.

As soon as he crossed this ravine.

As soon as he was sure he wasn't being followed.

As soon as he could fucken find her.

"FUCK," he shouted again, just to make himself feel better. His voice echoed strangely in the dense woodland, bouncing back to him from down below and almost seeming to murmur through the trees. Dusty Rose spun to face them, ears flat on either side of his head.

there was a man near their claim. a greyish man, a loud man, one who wore the stamp of wolf and coyote combined.
bearing in mind her talk with sobeille, chani was nevertheless annoyed to find him so close. a genetic frustration, or perhaps the feminine territoriality encouraged by her older relatives — whatever else drove chani out gave her an edge to the oxide eyes she carried, courtesy of grandmaman rosalyn.
behind him she moved, a wraith in the grapevine thornweald that guarded sapphique.
and when he whirled, chani held her breath, seeing a pretty shade of sea-blue in his face.
but it was chacal's expression she wore when she slithered gracefully from the briars, aloof with a gilded coolness.
and it was mireille's dry voice that spoke. "do you often be shoutin' swears into de void outside someone's door?" chani demanded, chin raised in haughty judgement.

Shadess was growing. She was learning and as she did so, rose her confidence and perhaps, arrogance. When she was but a puppy and toddler, she followed her mother's every step. When she could go to and from the den on her own, she began to shadow her elder sister Sobeille. Now, having traveled to lands far beyond their home, Shadess found sureness in herself to come and go from outside the border now, though never seemed to stray too far from the smell of the sea. 

Today, Shadess trailed a cousin, following her and the same loudness which drove her here. What would she do with him? Another lesson to learn. Quietly, she slid to Chani's side, a hard evergreen eye fixed on the coywolf. Yet when she spoke, it was not to him, but her cousin, not caring that he could hear all of it either. A strange man so close to 'ome. Should we eat 'im? From what Shadess had been told, she knew @Sobeille would.

two scents wove out of bluepeace and into the tangle beyond; one belonging to her cousin, and the other to sobeille’s most darling pupil — her sister.

sobeille did not possess the same fondness for the tangle her family harbored. it was thorny and difficult; game elusive and water tinged with brackish iron. but her family had decided to come here today and familial duty compelled her to follow.

all on account of a particularly loud stranger.

it was not his swears that earned the cool bite of his gaze (which he could control); it was his gender (which he could not). sobeille did not trust him.

rather than make it known she watched from the blackened vines, sobeille crouched — eyes trained in wait on the man that darkened their doorsteps by simply existing.

This was just what he needed! Great! Wonderful!

The coywolf tried for a fleeting moment to look on the bright side of things. But the bright side was still shit compared to where he wanted to be, and look: he'd had a bad day and a bad week and a bad month and last month wasn't great, either. His whole life had been really shitty, lately, and so he felt very sure that his current temperament had been earned.

So what if he wanted to throw himself a pity party?

Even so, he was prepared to excuse himself and go scream someplace else. Until a fiery little gremlin popped out of the woodwork and said something that left him extra peeved. Not that it showed on his placid features; he blinked his dark eyes at them — very cutesy, very demure.

He didn't look at the gremlin. He address the wolf that'd spoken to him. (She might still be a gremlin. He was withholding judgement, for now, unlike the guttersnipe.)

"Someone has got to do it," he said blithely, solemnly, dutifully. "I thought I'd do it here just in case no one'd done it yet today. Just for a little while. There's more SHITTY, ANNOYING FUCKING RAVINES to be shouted at elsewhere, y'know."

He kept his volume more polite this time and aimed his voice outward once more, just for the sake of their ears. He wasn't out here to damage anyone's hearing, arlight?

"You should try it," he told her. "It's cathartic."

And here, there was a little bit of bite to his words. Not directed at her, necessarily. He just wished it was a little more cathartic. And he wished he was feeling a little more fleet-footed, in case these wolves decided he did look like a meal. More power to them, he supposed — and he wished them all the joy of his diminished (skinny! the horror!) frame. He hoped they got his fur stuck in their teeth and maybe in their intestines, too.

Not that he thought it would serve them right or anything. A meal was a meal. That was just the kind of mood he was in today, and the level of compassion he currently held for his fellow wolf.

chani, daughter of reactive coastal beauties, took it quite as a slight. the rust-red eyes hardened above a small curve now blooming on her mouth. not a bit of contrition in him; she marvelled at that, nudging shadess.
"eating dis one would make you stupid i fear," the cliff-hunter purred, though there was danger in it.
she felt a great presence in the air, an observant shade. and though chani knew it could be any sapphique wolf or no one at all, she felt —
she meant to handle this meet as sobeille might.
"but if you be wantin' a trophy off him, cousin, take dat voicebox." gentle, wisping laughter that was not amused at all.
chani moved languidly to block a tiny space amid the yawning thorns, stretching one hindleg as she exchanged a long glance with shadess. a man so close and so loud should be — groveling. yes; heart beginning to race.

He was a very loud one indeed. Not that Shadess was particularly quiet herself, but she found herself also not quite fully understanding exactly what the fuck he was talking about. 

Shout at de ravines? But why though? Maybe he was just having a bad day, is what he was meaning. Maybe he just needed to get it out with a scream 'n shout. Well, Shadess just wanted to get it out too, and she would be getting it out and taking it out on him. 

With her cousin's approval in mind, Shadess charged forth, seeking the voicebox of the coywolf as directed.

noisy, this man of thin angles and outlandishly lengthy ears. he screamed again; three wrens nearby fluttered off in hasty strokes of silvery wings.

sobeille watched him hungrily from the thicket, branches pressing into her brow as she leaned forward to hear the dangerous tones of her cousin.

friendly, in a siren way. chani’s laugh lacks dulcet tones of amusement.

shadess made the first move. sobeille watched in savage approval, breaking cover to inching towards the trio.

for now she played spectator, yet the coil of her muscles suggested she was only waiting for the moment her darker sensibilities would be required.

He did not understand it. He would never understand it, he decided. The way that some wolves just saw a guy and decided they wanted to hurt them. It hardly even sounded like they wanted to eat him, and suddenly, he was offended by the whole interaction. What was the purpose of all this? What was the goal?

Well — he hoped that others were exactly as nice to them as they'd been to him. And he hoped the little one fell off the fucking cliff when he, at the last moment, charged forward himself and made to barrel past her. He was heedless of any teeth that sliced into him, and would not be stopped unless he was somehow pinned down.

I am not really looking for a fight thread, but thank you all for joining! Feel free to rough him up a little more while he flees.

thank u for the thread <333

now she truly was amused, and even shocked! to see shadess cut so smoothly for the man. as if she had been born to hunting; as if she had internalized the things sobeille said before chani had come to such conclusions herself.
sobeille! was that the flash of her eyes? pulse pounding, chani swept after the man, jaws shut not to harry him with teeth but with shouting, threats flung into the air overhead.
to drive off, to protect what peace belonged to the women of their cliffs.
one day — would lafayette run like that?
she hoped not; she hoped he would become a val or an etienne, but nature often had different aims for boys and for men.
and so thoughtful beneath her banshee cries, chani flew out into the taiga, slowing as the land swept to openness around her figure; she glanced for the others, panting.

She charged for him and he charged back and for a moment Shadess had an 'Oh fuck!' slip into her mind. She was going to have her first fight. Her first real fight with someone outside of her family pack. Yet even as her teeth sliced at his side, he flew past, yanking whatever flesh she held from her mouth as he darted away. 

'Ey! You fuck! She yelled out in protest, as now Chani's banshee cries filled the air. If anyone were to rouse the dead, it would be them. On their lands. 

And so Shadess chased after too, her tongue rolling in awkward ways as she tried to get the tuft of coy-fur from her mouth. 

She'd stop persuit when her elder sister's did, youthfully prancing around them, with tail wagging and all grins as she yearned for approval of her elders.

understood! thank u for the thread. i left any contact vague <3

here it was! her entire life's hopes arriving to this singular conclusion! how often had she wished for the excuse to kill openly -- to let the incubus settled within her bones its first shuddering breath.

the moment the stranger moved to shadess sobeille burst from the thicket. honed and hungry, beyond recall of chani's whoops or chacal's reining stare. now was the moment she could kill and it would not be questioned.

for she was only doing what came naturally for wolves and monsters.

she lunged for his shoulders just as shadess did -- and it was sobeille's own tunnel-vision that cost her everything. suddenly, her sister's body was in her way, and any part of her fangs raked against dusty rose would not find purchase.

she snarled as she twisted free of shadess, taking after the galloping man in a flurry of flying paws. but he was rangy, and he was long traveled -- his stride eating ground in a way sobeille's did not know how.

as the tangle sped out into lonesome tiaga sobeille's steps slowed alongside her sister's. she panted, barely able to contain the budding anger she felt to let so rare an opportunity slip through her teeth.

to her sisters, she might have appeared alive with chaotic adrenaline. inside, sobeille was systematically ripping herself apart from limb to limb, for making such an amateur mistake. one that cost her the drunken sensation of warm blood between her teeth which she longed for most above all else.