Oystercatcher Tide Pools A man with intent on his face

@Cry

Agape jaws snap close upon the frail wing of a sea-bird, just as it was attempting to flee heavenward away from the massive shadow. Unfortunately for it, the shrill squawks were not enough to free it from its prison, and the bird's family knew better than to intervene. With a thud, the Bull's forearms landed; the impact forced a wave of soft sand into the air. The bird struggled fruitlessly in his jaws, and with one shake, the beast heard a telltale snap... breakfast was served.

The constant hunting had him drained. The raven recluses himself from his Family for once, his favored place calling to him once more for rest. The ocean, powerful and restless, waves smashing into rocky boulders and cliffs further down, but lapping aggressively against the sandy border here, he drifted closer to the brine spray until screams of avians caught his aud. They weren’t the usual warning cries. They were upped in their pitch, more fearful. Turning to assess the situation, the Phantom locked his eyes across a much bulkier wolf snacking on one of the flapping things-
until it flapped no more.

Though the crunch wasn’t very loud over the waves passionate crush of waves, every predator knew that sound. A nod to the behemoth before he moved to dip his paws in the rushing salted waters.

The flock took flight, and the irritating noises now ceased. Left now with only the crashing of waves in the background, the Bull dropped the corpse to his feet. Apathetic gaze stared down the tip of his muzzle, but it was not directed at the prey he caught. Instead, he fixed his sights upon a black wolf; company the old man was undoubtedly aware of, yet saw no reason to address until the boy drew nearer.

An eyebrow arched slowly; voicing a question without the use of husky, harsh vocal cords in action. The Bull returned his nod. Subtle enough that it could be taken for him aligning his head to rest naturally at the height of his broad shoulders. He cared little about the sea-dweller dipping his toes; attention shifted to his meal, the Bull worked on shredding feathers from his snack.

Subtlety was a language the Ex-assassin knew all too well. He had been noticed, stared at, regarded, and silently noted. It had settled as it’s own flag on Cry’s mind, something he would too be aware of. There was more to this massive gradient woodsman than the regular talker ‘Raziel’ came across- it was almost much more appreciated to be simply Cry again.

His glacials moved to the chaos of the waters, eccentric blue reflective in his own cold azure gems. His aud caught the man enjoying the morsel of his success. Cry wouldn’t interrupt him. He had no right here for demanded conversation; he was out of pack lands. Here, he was just a regular wolf. A regular face, a regular man.
It was almost a breath of fresh saltine air as it was almost as though he had left his worries away, to fade behind him. His pregnant wife, his Family, his duties- he was running himself around doing what felt like everything. It was tiring. 

He needed this solace.  

Those artic jewels closed as a breathtaking breeze stooe the heat from heat from his lungs and washed away. 

He let it.

Feathers were pucked in clumps, leaving parts of the lifeless bird bare for the world to see. The Bull feasted, consuming what little meat there was with teeth snapping bone as if they were twigs. It would do little to fill the bottomless pit of his stomach. Yet the male was all too used to running on the minimum. His ears pointed casually towards the seaside, notably posed towards the basking wolf; an activity the royals tended to enjoy yet the Bull formed no option over. His time had been spent observing their careless spawn; one or two might have been claimed by the ocean itself and none cared much for the weak nor for the ugly. The "Knight" learned to look the other way.

The titan shifted; large paws spreading across the uneven terrain as he left behind bone and feather and approached. Merely a looming figure of scruffy, wind-swept fur. His heated gaze fixated on the black wolf just out of his grasp. The waves lapping at the tips of his toes, but he dare not enter the ocean's embrace.

The silence had come to doom many who had been too transfixed upon the sea, some menace ushering them into their suicide by tidal pull and drowning. But whatever that was had never lay siege upon Cry. If there was one to destroy him, it would be himself. He nearly had after hurting Gwendolyn- a lethal error he would never do again. 
Or so he had thought. 

The mind of the ethereal man surged forward only to be pulled back from the gravity of his meditation. His center, his command, was the calm eye amongst the calamity. 
The harmony faded away as shifting sand had called to him, a different rhythm from the suckle of the waves. It was near, and accompanied by the cologne of an unfamiliar. It was also accompanied but the absence of the crunch, the swallow, the breaks and chews. The company must have finished his meal.
Auds followed the quiet wander, ending on the final settle of the lupine who had come to join him before revolving back to the turbulent waters. 

Crystal gaze was once again revealed, taking to follow the turn of his ebony neck and land across the extreme counterpart. They had finally met the hellfire gaze of the man, two completely conflicting colors between the duo, before Cry finally released his baritones.

”That tiny bird can’t have filled you.” It was a knowing thing, and a man that large couldn’t have kept up such mass without extreme training, favorable genetics, and heart eating. How had he not ravaged the entire flock?

Oh, how he could assist you in the destruction of yourself.

All it would take was giving in; resistance ever fuitle when the reaper loomed so close. His eyes alone devoured all whom walked before his path. Icy blue eyes dared to meet the hungry beast, as if staring down the barrel of a gun was a challenge easy to meet. The Bull's mask cracked, amusement twisted in grim lips to display gruesome, stained teeth. Canines that would have been so keen to bite had the boy remained daydreaming.

You see, the Bull tended to march to his own beat, even underneath the command of his King. It was obvious in these lands there was no longer a collar around his neck. The damaging scar might remain, but his King unleashed him to these Wilds without care for its inhabitants. He shall do as he wished; such freedom granted to him only in their "crusades".

"That tiny bird can't have filled you."

Such astute observation; the Bull brought his tongue from parted jaws, licking his whitened muzzle.

'Are you offering?'

His words were met with a grinning man, teeth hued by the smitten bird all the way to the gumbase, a ragabond ruffian who’s silent aura simply existed. A simple creature who kept something that he wasn’t meant to touch just yet, veiled. This mount was no intricate safe, but a lockbox, seemingly rustless despite the wind revealing a plethora of scars over that mountainous body. 

‘That makes two of us’ his mind mulled over the scars, memorizing the different patches where they lay without him even needing to remember such a thing. His own back, though much more proportional to his athletic body than the topheavy company, bore its own patchwork of history in grim bands of greyed scar tissue. A forever reminder of how closely death watched him and grew ill with intent. 

Crystals stayed to the amberesque flames that bore into him, and he was unfazed by the ease of which this man could crush him. He was an ex-assassin; surely he could find some way out of it, some range to widdle the foe down and slay him. 
But he couldn’t think such thoughts now...for this company was no foe. In fact, he felt almost as close as kin, a near brother, a familiar, or even a Shadow Fang as he once had been. 

The man licked his jowls, a meaty slurp carelessly slurring birdmeat And blood clots across a reddened muzzle. 
Clearly he needed more, to give this man somewhere worthwhile to reside. Was it his kindness that began to debilitate him so?

The reminder of his home, the woods he fought hard to forge into a housing for a plenty brought back the burden, the memory of his wife and her impregnation, the other two, three, four! females whom too were afflicted with being with child. It was a taxing thing on the Keep’s Watcher, And with him hearing Phex and her injury, his imbitterment began to revisit. That fucking lynx, a nuisance who had robbed him. Morgan had assured him that the cat had been chased off, that Phex was tending to herself, well and Gwen being protected and pushed away before she too became maimed. 

Had that fucking cat touched his wife, he would invent fire,

and burn these woods to the ground with that fucking cat in them, alone, scared, pregnant, hurt, and tormented.

His eyes glazed over, a storm brewing a fierce wintry avalanche that swore to engulf legions, alone. But that was neither here, nor now, he gathered to himself. It was nothing. It hadn’t happened. Gwen was fine. 

Taking a deep breath, he blinked, bringing his full attention to the hidden devil before him. “Come, please, enjoy my home. Fill yourself, and live free...” his words caught in his throat, and he couldn’t exactly figure out why. What had ceased in him? Or rather...

What plagued him, now?

"Please"?

Reiner never had a mother, so manners were never minded. It's entertaining to think a wolf in his position pleads when offering the beast what he desires; not the full package, but food at least to fill his stomach more than salty sea birds. The Bull has been at this game for a long time, however, so he knows there is fine print in any contract. In a twisted way, he liked reading it; it tended to have hidden prizes waiting to be uncovered.

The beast shifts his weight, large paws sinking further into the wet sand beneath him. Eyes of fire stare upon the midnight black male with little revealed. "Live free" is a loaded lie he's positive many have fallen victim to. The old man exhales a snort through his nose.

Cost. Bass voice rasps; underused and far from kind to the ear—claws digging into a blackboard grating yet low in volume; the eerie moment an old radio clicks back to life on it's own in a dimly lit room.

Cry could almost feel himself falling away, back to a world, a timeframe where he had returned to the Nightmares. His sentence wasn’t done, and in this alternate dimension, he was fine with it. Slade was nowhere to be found- it seemed as though his legacy had come to ripen and decay at Cry’s bloody behest. The skull of the behemothian stayed within Cry’s quarters, cleaned, polished, sitting atop his own hide. 

What had he become?

His vision had come at the mere rupture of Reiner’s voice across the isolation between them. It was a foreboding hemorrhage that had hurt the Phantom, but it hadn’t wounded him, nor was it unpleasantly painful. 
His head was a fog as he couldn’t maintain whether to keep track of this implication or whether to figure out this awful sickness he wasn’t fighting off hard enough. 

“There is none,” he spoke to the reaper, his fluid voice much more civil and oiled than the demon he considered himself having a conversation with. 

What a boring life to live; to give yet not take. The Bull narrows his amber eyes, stained teeth snapping shut with an audible clap; as if the reaper worked mechanically. He urges the male to listen to the Devil on his shoulder, for taking advantage of such luxuries were of no interest to Reiner. If he wanted to sit lazy on a throne, the old man would have retired a year ago. Or perhaps he would have taken up a stronghold of his own; grown fat and happy with a slew of whelps.

Weak, the Bull rumbles. Muzzle scrunches, both head and tail raise to stand tall; displaying superior height and a dare for the boy to deny his claim.

It was what he needed. He hadn’t been challenged since-
what? Horosk? That situation where he was clearly needed to kill that stalking sister he had that jeopardized the safety of the pack. It was already clear the butch was crazy- but Horosk hadn’t allowed Cry to handle a situation that he clearly wasn’t meant to handle. 

Glacials reached temperatures of below zero, and finally the Watcher could meet the lethal gaze of his company without flinch. “But I am not. And I will not be tested.” He ha barely moved his lips, the brine air between the clear comparisons seeming quiet now as Cry made it known he was no pacifist. “Stand down.”

But could he truly push away such a similar soul? Let alone discipline or harness such a powerful creature? How could he dominate one so...seemingly indomitable? Maybe this was what he needed. A break from the free spirit, from the realm where smiles and laughs permeated so often. 
Perhaps he needed a reminder that he was a wolf foremost, and a good one.

He is a child yapping at his mother; "I'm not weak! See!" The Bull rolls his eyes. Fluff up all you want, boy. Reiner has seen worse. Death tried to take him, scythe curved around his throat. While Death left a permanent mark, Reiner won in the end. It is but a proof of his victory.

Prove. The Bull stands; a stone wall of muscle and teeth, ready to once more fell foolish youth with ease.

That was all it took. A blur of darkness shot across the lessened space between them as Cry seemed to release his corporeality and morph into a true Phantom. The only visage to break the blur was the pearlescent gleam of his ivories that sought the titanic demon’s napeside closest to his own. He would force this mountain to bow, to bend under his rage that had been clearly bottled entirely way too long.

A smirk twists across the Bull's lips as his taunting gives him what he wants; he'll get his pound of flesh. The ocean is their backdrop, waves crashing to and fro, and the accused weakling charges through. Reiner stands at the cusp of where water meets the sandy shores.

The goody two-shoes has courage, jaws agape and going for the right side of Reiner's neck. Too slow, he amuses. Thin hips pivot to the beast's left into the water's embrace. Cry's jaws clip through his thick mane, leaving scratches and irritation. It is then that Reiner attempts to snap his jaws around the right side of Cry's own neck, his left shoulder pushing into Cry's right side. Reiner is trying to take advantage of his weight and bend the boy to his knees.

Cry hadn’t been dodged so easily in- well- ever. Not sincehe had battled Slade. And that fight hadn’t gotten him anything other than nearly killed. Slade has considered it a spar! Him near dying was a fucking spar to that man. 

With his attack effectively not effective, Cry was sent scrabbling near face first into oncoming waves. He couldn’t turn around fast enough- Reiner’s body a hellish wall that blocked any bodily escape. Only option was snatched away from him as bearish jaws patched atop the back of his own neck. Nothing but heavy weight lay behind the hurl of muscle and Cry was bested just that quickly. His resilience forced him to squirm, his thoughts being of Gwen never finding his body, or his children never knowing who their father was. 

Was this what his own targets had felt felt before he had ended them what seems eons ago?

The Bull has no desire to cull. Jaws find their target, wrapping snug around the dark wolf's nape like a cozy blanket. All it would take to grant the fool a watery grave is additional pressure on his jaws. Reiner just holds him, pressing down with his weight in attempts for Cry to become well acquainted with the ground. Resistence would do the leader little good. The Bull lifts his left arm, trying to place it across Cry's back to aid in his descend.

His mortality was held just as firmly as he was, both threatened against the cold lapping of the saline waves. One had run hungrily over his jaw in a frigid lap, teasing harshly his belly and underside. The chill hadn’t bothered him- but he knew how awful it was to drown. He was forced to relive the fate that he had condemned two others to?

He could only twist his neck so far to avoid the torment. To try and snap at anything- but a morbidly weighed limb pushed him closer to that awful water. 
The salt stung the inside of his nose as he had to lower himself further to try working free of the titanic weight atop him- but he wasn’t going anywhere. He only dig himself deeper in the frigid sand beneath. 
Ceasing the struggle, he could only resort to pulling his face back up, shaking the water free as best he could, and trying to pant over the wake.

”I yield.”

Left limb succeeds in its mission to press the fool further. Must taste salty. Despite the pressure he gives with both his leg and mouth, the Bull makes no move to puncture his neck. Instead, he holds him there; letting the waves inflict more merciless damage than his teeth. Now Cry has to make his decision; continue the fruitless struggle or surrender. Either choice weighs different consequences, but for all the shadow knew, it could end the same. Nonetheless, the struggle ceases. Reiner tightens the hold he has on Cry's neck, a warning to make the male think twice, before abruptly he releases his hold. His left limb falls back to the ground. Still, the Bull looms.

Too many visions had sickly skittered through Cry’s mind, forcing him to relive his entire life just that quickly. His trainings with Slade, how he had been tortured, his near death so many times before, and clearly so many times after. It swirled a rancid sickness in him that Reiner unknowingly injected easily into the man who was deemed ‘unbreakable’ by Slade’s belief. Apparently the Nightmare King hadn’t tried hard enough, or perhaps Cry was too stubborn to break so easily then. But age, duty to his family, obligations, all forced him into this role.

Finally he was released, and with haste he clawed to shore, clearly baptized in an entirely new perspective as his wheezes came forth, his choking gasps and snorts making it obvious he knew nothing about holding his breath. 
He finally turned a vehement stare of broken ice to the smug hellfires above, the draconic icon near god in height to his sopping wet crumple. 

“Teach me...” 

He follows with his eyes only, remaining anchored to the plot of sea and sand where he stood. Amusement glinting in the fiery depths of his eyes, the Bull suspects the fool to scramble further away. When he halts—gasping in precious breaths—Reiner masks his surprise. He could not lie, the boy has potential. Not to the heights of his King, but perhaps the Bull would not be bored conquering these Wilds alone now. Icy blue eyes turn to meet the Bull's amber, and he thinks the boy has not learnt his lesson until the demand is uttered.

"Teach me."

A shiver runs up the Bull's spine, eyes narrowing to peer down upon the shadow. Finally, bones creek alive and Reiner approaches with heavy steps. His answer is given with a mere nod. Pay, the Bull croaks, With food and land.

His heart and lungs fought hard to free themselves of the brine, but even through his snorting and coughing, that damnation made vocal rose through with eerie arrangement. Food? Land? That was easy, simple, toys compared to lessons. 

“I can show you-“ was all he managed up and out in the dried out throat of his. Striking a wobble to get on his fours, he began to lead the brute back home, leaning up against a tree every now and then to regain some semblance of strength. He couldn’t tell Gwen about him- nor anyone else. No one could know about him, just yet.