Dragoncrest Cliffs —i can't help but pull the earth around me,

Setting DCC border
Time Late evening, 1/13/2019
Summary Upon arrival from her second, final forage, Aure allows herself a rare moment a tranquility. Little does she know that the one she fears has finally come to make her haunts living.
Featuring Aure, @Rakk, @Natjuk
(Those paged aren't obligated to post, but feel free! <3 Jump in whenever/no order/anyone!)

Aure had planned to take respite once the Tanglewood embraced her, wry with weathered bark and the darkness that came with it. Fires, in all their fury, had guided her ferverous soul home ‒ for so long, she had mourned alongside the black between them. Yet, she came to glimpse at the hateful quiet between her hallowed constellations, nonetheless. Endless. It is these uncharted planes of the Celestium that had her rushing out of the Tangle and down the worn, sea-telling moor; herbalist or no.

It is this hushed hour, when stars unfurl from that endless, bleeding light of winter. And for a time, indeed, she did linger, struck as she always allowed herself to be. But when she decided it was finally time to gather her cache and pluck her kindred eyes from the skies, her lungs stuttered as they alit on the familiar hoard of sequoias. At the sight of it, her spirit flung itself out out out along with her breath in a surge of yearning, so much that it set her quivering.

She'd been gone for no longer than a day-and-half, but the thought of Dragoncrest and all who inhabited there still seized its way through the star-numbed chambers of her heart. Before she could recall if any Drakru would even recognize it, a coloratura of home-coming billowed from her, airy and eerie, but her.

Seeking Dragoncliff's quietest of refuges, the stag hid and healed. Forgoing (most) closeness in lieu of greater pursuits: rebuilding what he once had been. Skinny as he had been, with ribs pulling taut the skin - no. That was not the true him, and he'll be damned to appear so in front of his - his...comrades.

Two weeks in stasis, Natjuk had plenty of time to ruminate what he's signed on to. He is brana among them. Brand new as declared by Heda, who had been nothing more than the umbra at his heels along the coat. He puffs emphatically, tucking one forearm under him. Had he known her to be Issumatar, he would have conducted himself differently. As imperious and untamed as the very surges crashing against her cliffs. Too bad.

But he was here, unknowable as the sea depths. That needed to change. Ironically, a din travels across the ruggedest of stones to his waiting ear. Someone has come back. From a trip or mission. He knows not, slipping through rangy tree and bosk to answer in presence. He hesitates at her illumination shown through the brush. Worry roots in his chest. Speaking does not come easily to him. Notably sequestered away for a small eternity, he can see him fumbling in his mind's eye. And the awkward silences. Can't forget those!

Shit.

"I repent my sins, Mother. Take me into your arms once more and let me whisper my doings to the Void."

Quiet murmurings left his lips as he limped. He was begging, trying to salvage what was left of his sanity.
Hopeless and pathetic.
He'd spent a life causing fear until he felt it himself. In his soul. He was sick in mind and health; his entire right side ripped open bare, putrid. A forever reminder of his sins.

"Void, take me into your awaiting arms. Let me fall and fade to nothing."

Gone. Vacant was his eyes, once full of the malice and fury. His sickness that had now morphed into something other. The lives he'd taken flashed before him, the tastes of them tingling on his tongue once more before being discarded to the Void. Forgotten. Replaced by the pain.
The dull throbbing, an endless eternity.
He trundled along, the sand turning to grass and woodland, his right leg raised. Right stump, rather.
He'd taken the infected leg off at the elbow in his madness, yet he knew that he'd never feel it again. Infection set too deep in his flesh, his bone broken. Muscles severed. At least, when it healed, it wouldn't trouble him again.
Nothing would trouble him again. He expected the Mother to take him now.
His suffering had to end.

"Mother, lead me to the Void. Let it devour me and churn me out again in a new body that has been clean of sins."

A prayer.
The prayer of his family, one uttered by those when they knew their time was to come, crafted by warriors as a tribute to their roots; their family.
He was part of them, once. Fought for his family. He doesn't remember their faces, had cast them to the Void when they'd cast him out.
Chased him; erased him from them.
He vaguely remembered having two sisters and a brother. They were all so different from him. In looks, mind, and connection. He'd never meant to be part of them; his family.

Vacant eyes swung upward and beheld two wolves; he didn't recognise them. And yet, something about them called to him. He stopped his moving yet leered forward, threatening to fall flat on his face.
Sleep; it called to him a sweet melody that promised salvage and respite. How he wanted to follow the sweet calling. But it was the Void that called him, not that he cared. To sleep for hours or eternity; it didn't bother him anymore.

"Void, I greet you with open arms and give myself to you. My mind, body, and soul. I am yours forever." 
The prayer wound up, he let himself crumple onto the ground before the two he'd sinned, yet didn't remember. He didn't care.

those of you wanting to join, feel free to any time <3
sorry @ my posts being late af ;o;

By the time she'd levlled her gaze back onto the sequoias, she still hadn't noticed the first arrival. Well, not until she spied movement from the corner of her eye, and she peered into the Tanglewoods' threshold of winter foliage; but before she could even discern whom lurked there, her attention was snagged by the arrival of another. She felt the horror before she saw it; It, jostling towards her on three limbs, the once-fourth some raggled stump.

Wolf-eater. Rakk-Rakk-Rakk, her blood hissed. All of the fur from the crown of her skull to the boney jut of her hips shivered into living dread. Her doe's ears followed suite, tucked back along her wispy neck; she scampered away with an arched spine, coltish legs fluttering in terror and revulsion at the sight before her.

Aure's breath staggered and stumbled from her airless lungs, something rattling in the pit of her stomach as she looked daggers at the wyrm of stone before her, her ruff flickering. Voice hoarse, almost a plea towards wherever @Natjuk was, "D-don't go." Whether this fiend walked on three limbs or six, Aure knew that despite the logic-numbing of her nerves, another call needed to be sent up.

Putrid blood taints the air. Her star spun coat stands on direful end with a coarse demand. Natjuk converges hurriedly. The sight boggles. An argent wolf daubed in blood, reeking of infection. His right leg is missing from the elbow down with bone peeking out of gnarled sinew. It is Rakk. Unmistakably that fool.

Wrath builds at the base of his skull, exploding down his vertebrae and coming to rest at the very tip of his tail which now arches over his back. He is the burning fury to Aure's frozen terror. The beginning of a growl starts in his chest and climbs the column of his throat, slipping free of his fanged jaws. It is a feat that he restrains himself. Trespassers must be abolished and enemies slain. Drageda abides by these laws and he is ever willing to enforce them.

Rakk. Rakk is a grating stimulus that rouses him to infuriated silence. A glimpse of the female's wintry coat prevents him from doing anything rash. Her too-wide stare illustrates her relationship with their maimed intruder.

A tense silence falls between the trio.

The voices carried to him. Phantoms on the air. His hollow eyes swung up to look at the sources to find two he'd harassed. Yet he didn't know them. To the spider, they were not the same.
No longer prey, nor toys.
Executioners.
One radiated fear, though he couldn't smell it over his rotting stench. The male radiated anger. It was to him Rakk now pushed towards. Slithering an inch across the ground with the use of his back legs.
If he were to go, he'd want it to be swift. Easy. Painless.
He'd suffered enough, so he thought.

She kicked under his grunts and pressing. Forcing himself upon her, biting hard into her neck. Twisting his head cruelly to make it hurt. Again and again, he thrust into her. The poor dame he'd stolen. Barely into her first year and yet incented something deep within his sadistic, tainted core. Her screams and wails carried on until he was finished abusing the girl. He stepped back, looking at her broken body before sinking his teeth into her soft neck and crunched down on her. Snuffing out the life in her. And left.

No, he didn't deserve a swift ending. He deserves everything that has been, and will be, inflicted on his body. His eyes stared up at the earthen-man. The dragged to the snowflake, frozen in fear. He would've hurt her if not stopped, would've hurt the earthen-man if he were stronger.
Rakk struggled upwards then, trying to make his last stand. He would go down with tainted heart and all if it meant the pain. If it meant redemption to live freely in the land of shadows. The Void.
He stood, haggard. Sweating. Venomous glare pointed at the man.

Rakk snarled his last challenge to his executioner.

Aure’s paw-falls made to stumble after her mind, and she was moved by something archaic and effeminate where her reasoning wilted. Already molding herself behind the burnished, stalwart figure of the brana, she heard the name she’d never again speak fall from his lips.

For so long, she’d wondered how she may protect herself from Rakk’s bloodlust, should he have been unmarred. For so long, she’d believed the only other wolf she’d ever killed had been her brother. She’d dreamt up every possible scenario that would end with Rakk’s throat between her jaws. But now that her hunter was here, mangled and lame... Aure didn’t know how to exactly feel, besides terror.

Her own voice had dwindled in her throat when Natjuk first heeded her words—but she shook it soundly when the spider lurched forward, baring fangs. If the Mâncător had supposed the brana was his executioner, then Aure supposed she was nothing more than its herald to pass the sentence.

With that in mind, she sent up another peal; similar to the first she’d heralded Greyback to moons ago. But this time, she was in the protection of her own realm — and would protect, as she could.

Rakk scoots across the frozen soil, eliciting a louder snarl from the brana. Want he a swift end? To go out as painless as possible to beings he has wronged? Laughable! Natjuk punctuates this with a fevered snap, the force exerted sounding like a steel trap. No mercy.

Fur bristles and spit pools in the recesses of his mouth as Rakk's pale eyes stare up at him. There is an efficacious will within him, one Natjuk would have lauded had they met under different circumstances. As is, umbrage intensifies as his opponent struggles to stand. Good. I want a fight.

He rushes like the crack of a whip to Rakk's left, mindful of the bastard's teeth. He tries to force him off balance, bulldozing with his superior bulk. Rakk is missing a leg and Natjuk is not about to ignore that glaring weakness.

The stormcloud swung wild teeth towards the earthen man, pointedly failing and crashing down. He rolled, arching his back to kick up at him, should the man fall upon Rakk's broken body. But his pale gaze swung to Aure -- that stark angel that had invigorated his mind's sickness and drove him to this.
He felt she was responsible for his downfall, for making him drop his guard, for making him want so badly that he had to try and take.
He hated her, yet loved her. And all he wanted to do was kill her.

He rolled away from Natjuk after a slip second decision and forced his body up, up and forward. Leering towards Aure. Towards the pale angel that, to him, had a black soul.
But never as black as his own.
"You," he uttered "Aure."
Those may be his last ever words.

'Aure.' There had only been one time where her name had sounded so revolting, so odious. Wrathful and ruinous and eyes unseeing — overflowing with memoirs of red water — it was this mere rasp that sent her hurtling towards Rakk like a spear of frost. Some wispy, shearing noise pierced the air, all intent and unnatural, as if she'd never shrieked in fury before.

But before she lost her mind to her madness, she wrenched an old maneuver from the recesses of her fraying mind: 'down, up, snap-muzzle' as she used every bit of her momentum to ram herself into Rakk's lame shoulder.

Whether she toppled him or not mattered little to her; all her fevered conscience (or lack thereof) knew was that she wanted to maim him. Wanted to taste his blood and the pain within it. Never before had the Rhaesuian harmed another. But Aure would take back what was stolen from her — from Tux, from all those Rakk had inflicted upon — with a blight of blood that she'd never exacted on another soul before.[/narrow]

He hits his mark but his opponent is not about to roll over and die. Not quite yet. Natjuk is assailed by kicks. Issuing an annoyed growl and several snaps of his teeth, he senses Rakk's undivided focus shift to the female. He even goes so far as to trill (what he assumes is) his pack mate's name. Aure. It's enough to bewilder as the unsound wolf comes to a stand.

Aure hastens like a bullet, bellowing all the way. Natjuk fathoms her anguish and moves to aid her, trying to take Rakk's ruff into his jaws; restrict him as Aure exacts retribution. She can inflict however much she wants should he be successful.

Goodbye world.

He realised his mistake seconds too late. The picturesque woman came roaring and bellowing to him.
He saw the fury, the cruelty and hatred that filled her eyes.
A sharp pain cut into his neck as the earthen-man latched onto him, and realised what was happening.
He was an eel snared in a hook awaiting the final hit that would send him to the void.

 He twisted, but to no avail. The spider was caught in his own web; caught up finally by his wrongdoings. He let out a frightened whimper and every mark of pain inflicted on his body came flooding back. His leg, face, ear, his neck.
Now his life.
The woman forced into him, pushing him to lay against the ground and submit to the pair of them. Ivories fell upon his exposed neck, his own maw opening to meet her but her aim was placed well. He took a mouthful of her fur before her teeth sunk into him. The sharp pain made him screech before the crunch.

He felt it, the tightening grasp as it severed him. He felt the thread on dark light that fueled him tug; stretch; pull away.
Ripped away. It left him gasping yet no air filled his lungs. Warmth filled him inside as his blood trickled down into his lungs instead. His eyes strained to keep that light he saw, strained to keep them open.

Before him lay a small, brown wolf with two even smaller ones. One looked so innocent, brown like her mother yet the white coated her chest and ran up her face. He dove for that body and became it. Became the small, living, breathing thing without sight. Warmth flooded his body and lived. 

He fought until the dark shroud he'd cloaked himself in time and time again blanketed him.
 Smothered him.
All until his limbs fell still and his body fell silent.

Upon the ocean breath of wind that blew in, his thread of darkness was pulled away. Folded away into nothing. Saved for later use. Ready to find that spirit, the new and freshly born to infect.

Winter's fury still nuzzled at her quivering limbs as she rose to her full height, petite or no. That somnolent, weightless madness that'd overwhelmed her still remained. It was there, as evident on the congealed blood that daubbed her from throat to breast. And all that she'd meant to prevent from happening had... happened.

Nonwithstanding the brana's aid, she had slain a soul. In death, she'd believed for so long that Rakk would continue to haunt her, and that his gore that warmed her heart would forever be some spectrecal reminder of his reign. But, no ; although vengence hadn't brought her any such peace, she was as blameless as Natjuk, in this. Rakk was dead, and dead will out. This had been borne out of defense of property and person alone — hadn't it?

After a century, she lifted her unseeing eyes to Natjuk. Blank, lovely eyes. Mad eyes. A mad girl. Austere and aureate and unfeeling, once again the self-made, wrathful child that she'd made herself become entire eons ago. The skayona had turned as white as cold wax, and went about the now-carrion like a silent phantasm, like the poor pale women in old ballads who fade away until they are nothing more than greyed bodements to the living. As it stood, she didn't care if she became just that.

Like the maimed girl she'd once woken as, she was mute, they eventually cast the wolf-eater's remains far from both the cliffs and the Tangled-wood. And then, with the light shining right through her red body, she returned to the sequoias like an abandoned ship drifting on a sea without horizon. 

It would be hours before she finally washed the blood from herself; and maybe an eternity before she became 'Aure' again.