Ravensblood Forest Welcome To My Crib

Set directly after this thread!

@Colin

Donovan smiles back when the dark wolf does the same. Mouthing a polite thank you, and they’re off into the forest. They settle into a comfortable silence — or at least it’s comfortable to Donovan. They take the few steps it takes for them to reach the woods and the collection of sequoias are thick and daunting as they tower above them, casting a shadow that makes the night seem much darker. Practically hiding the forest floor from the moons attempt to light up the ground around them, only able to make it through the canopy in little sporadic spots on the ground.

Soon enough they walk until they reach a low tree, with a short trunk, much unlike the neighboring sequoias. It’s limbs scatter about in all directions like searching tendrils and are so low to the ground they're easy enough to climb on.

Donovan stops, eyes searching the tree and approaching it. Casually lifting himself into a low, thick limb. He glances back to Colin and his voice cuts in through the night. “I come to this tree often.” He hums absentmindedly. “Though I’m sad to say we’ll be leaving soon, so I won’t be seeing it any longer.” The interactions of the neighboring packs resurfacing in his mind. They came together and gave him little option but to leave the bleeding forest. With such small numbers and obvious concern for his pack, he fears he must. Then he answers any surely brewing questions. “The neighbors don’t take to kindly to me. They want me done. So, with little numbers and the want to avoid conflict. I must.” The words are casual, not irritated or toxic. For he knows he can’t change the outcome of the situation. Leaving the area is what has to be done.

It is pitch-black. Colin walks blindly behind Donovan, clutching at smells, noises, the feel of roots and forest loam under his feet. He stumbles once or twice, but manages to regain his footing. He ignores the sharp stabs of pain in his stomach.

The dark pulses with his heartbeat. Purple smears, amorphous and plodding, raise their heads and walk around him. He squints as if that's effective in any way (it isn't). When Donovan stops at a tree, squat and undoubtedly ugly, Colin leans on one of the thick roots. The bark is rough against his shoulder. "I'm sorry they don't like you much." He offers, trying to make sense of where Donovan's silhouette started and where it ended. 

"As soon as you and your people settle, they have to leave?" A sympathetic hmm. The furrow between his eyes deepens. "Where's the new place then?" The fractured light falls on both of them. Nature's excuse for a stained-glass window.

Donovan looks to his dark furred friend. A low snicker and he shakes his head in faux disappointment. “Yes it does have to be like that sometimes no? But I’m not sorry. It’s their loss and we won’t be the ones paying for it.” It’s a dark promise, the devious look in his eyes solidifying it.

Then he’s hopping down from the tree limb and sticking his nose to the ground, sniffing for any potential leads on a possible midnight snack as he answers him. “It’s a place not of red sap, but of red sands. A desert so to speak. I passed by it on my adventures southwest from here. It’s beautiful.” Then he thinks he might have caught the scent of something and Donovan raises an inquisitive circular brow at the raven furred wolf. “Hungry?” 

There is a clear promise of a threat in Donovan's voice, and Colin is vaguely thankful that he isn't in the crosshairs of it. Something about the man-- his stature, his appearance, his willingness to reach out for a goal and to grasp at it with white knuckles-- suggested that it was a terrible idea to cross him. 

He watches him move, sinuous, and he thinks about wolves, dogs, and apex predators. Their savagery was also his own. Whatever disconnect he felt couldn't free him from his biology.

"I've never seen a real desert before," he says, but something else has already captured Donovan's attention. He squints into the dark and raises an ear. More quietly, he murmurs, "No. But I'll still help with this. For your pack, maybe." 

He crouches, attentive. The artefacts of a thousand years of hunting and killing prey sweep through him. He's a live wire.

The brindled male grins at his statement, but continued in the direction of whatever has caught his nose. Giving a quick glance back to his company he speaks a polite, “Thank you.” at the offer to assist him in a hunt for his pack then he dares to take it a bit further. “Would it be too far fetched to say I’d love to give you the opportunity to the see a real desert?” He asks lowly, tentatively. An offer to join his family. An olive branch for Donovan’s services to the stranger wolf. A proposal of alliance for the two. “If not, then I understand and you will continue to be on good terms with myself and my family.” Would be rude of him not to give the other a way out.

"No, not at all." They continue in hushed tones. He strains to hear the snap of a broken twig, a soft gasp. His nostrils flare-- they search for pheromones, the sharp smell of fear and sweat, the sour smell of repulsion and anxiety. "Thank you, Donovan. I'll take you up on your offer." 

It could be true that Colin hasn't yet realised the magnitude of what he's agreed to: a new home, a new alliance, something else to tack onto his identity. He takes it with the same sense of detachment as a bank teller would cash in a check. In the dark, nothing seems real. 

If anything, he's a patient man. They continue, deeper into the woods, a pair of sharks that have just caught a faint taste of blood.

The surreality of the raven wolf’s quiet whispers have Donovan staring over to him. Almost perking up and giving him a grand smile. “I‘m honored to have you join my ranks then, Colin.” Then he goes quiet, hardly cutting off the ending of the other males name when he too hears something faded sounding out in the dark of the night. 

His ears swivel and he goes forward in a low crawl. He sees a glint of light off of its eyes first, following the vagueness of its outline, he realizes its a petite doe. The long legged animal has her own ears perked and head on a swivel. Just as they heard her, she probably heard them. With a look on finality to the dark wolf beside him he nods his head to the potential mean in front of them. A silent confirmation to attack.

He resurfaces for a tight smile, and then he’s back in, scoped, his eyes on their target: a doe. They make eye contact for a moment. This makes his skin prickle, and his heartbeat quicken. Hunting was what he and Donovan were evolved to do. And did you know that wolves aren't built to kill? That prey usually die from shock or blood loss? 

The gnashing of teeth, the tearing of flesh. Colin sees Donovan’s nod, and the tunnel vision sets in. The doe is jittery– with her long legs and nocturnal eyes, she should’ve been able to escape from both of them, but she is still young, motherless, and frightened. Fear kills. He leaps forward, and with the rattle of disturbed branches, the chase begins. He hopes to make it short.

Donovan sprints into action along side the other wolf. They both hurdle towards the poor animal, a surprised scream emits from the deer and her gangly legs clumsily try their best to run from the great predators. While she has lost her spots from infancy, one can tell she’s definitely not full grown, perhaps a sub adult at most. Therefore, she’s not as fast, or feisty, as a full grown deer.

So they’re able to close in on her relatively easy. His his muscles shift beautifully beneath his thinning coat as he speeds up beside her. Instantly he takes the opportunity to try and snatch up her right hind leg in his dangerous jaws. Shredding through her muscle and skin she’s definitely unable to run as accurately. She stumbling, then in a matter of seconds she’s tumbling to the ground a symphony of distressed noises ripping from her throat. A beg for mercy. It’s sad, for they have none to give.

Birds explode from the trees at her piercing scream. Donovan is close-- right next to him, matching him stride for stride, but he gets to her first. His teeth grind through her back leg. She's not screaming anymore. She's in shock. Blood beads and splatters over the forest floor. 

Colin rushes in as she stumbles, clamping his jaw like a vice around her nose and mouth. She bucks and whimpers, but all three of them know one certain truth: this was a kill of the Saints. He tightens his grip. Her breathing peeters out into wheezes, sporadic and shallow, before they disappear altogether. Now the only noise is the sound of his lungs, in-out, in-out.

They had tought him this, to cause the least pain possible. A hard jerk with the jaws could break the neck without having to break the skin. Covering the nose and mouth would quicken the process without shedding blood. He looks toward Donovan and nods, good work, before he bows his head and prays.

As his own teeth shredded flesh he watches as the onyx male rounds to the front of the doe. Snatching her face up and Donovan only stands there watching him fro a second before he too is snatching up a part of the deer. Before she dies he grabs leg of the kicking and flailing animal trying to still her more so Colin can finish the kill. Large paws step on and hold down her other hind leg so her insistent kicking quiets.

All soon soon she’s going still and a sound shifts through his ears. The sound of breaking bones as Colin twists her neck expertly. In that moment the brindled male stands up straight now releasing his deathly grip on the animal to nod back with a smile. Then as the other dips his head, Donovan tilts his. Confusion can be found on his expression, until he remembers that Colin is indeed a reverend. Such things are normal for them.

Respectfully waiting for him to lift his head, Donovan nods his chin to him. “Good job. Let’s get this to the cache.”

With that Donovan would help him pick her up and carry her on back to the cache. They’ll be saving her for their trip to the canyon.