Redsand Canyon days of creation

morning, clear and sunny, territory #1 (Healer's Pass)

In a triangle of shadow: there is one eye, then two, then the flash of a white cheek. As if someone is pulling on the blinds, light throws itself across his face. He wilts in the incandescence. 

The first day: let there be light.

The trek to the north border is a walk he's made many times before. He has orbited the Canyons like an obsessive stacking up their CD collection in alphabetical order. Along the way he sees a bat clinging onto a cactus and it almost brings him to tears.

Outside is muggy and the horizon ripples with heat, so he retreats to the shade cast by the evergreen trees, lightly panting; the squirrels and birds complain overhead in the branches, and he thinks I don't want me to be here too, even though there's no feasible way for them to understand. 

The second day: let there be sky.

renard was never this used to sunlight before the canyon. there was little in the way of places to hide when the red sand and scrub brush stretched all the way to the horizon; the canyon walls all they had, not nearly enough to keep cool. a little shadow to melt away in, but flat sand and dirt wasn’t what their northern coat was made for. all the practice in the world wouldn’t change that.

the pass was the most comfortable. an overhang of red cliff and evergreen trees; there was plenty of cover down the canyon, even in the glare of the morning sun. they slipped down the passage to accompanying birdsong, the gentle bubble of water in the drying stream; plenty to mask the barely-there tread of paws on rock.

and then there was colin.

he appeared out of the corner of their eye, a black-and-white figure in the shade of the trees. barely noticeable. he was always barely noticeable; hovering in the background, watching. and was that on purpose? he could just as well be anxious as calculating. finley’s silence spoke of something behind it, something thoughtful, something well on its way to being dangerous. an entire conversation carried on the heels of metaphor and implication said something about the people it belonged to.

and what did colin’s speak of?

under cover of the trees, their gait shifted, slowed to a halt. the first question: how long would it take him to notice he wasn’t alone?

Another morning, another day without any trace of Donovan and Nemisis, and if Finley herself took one more trip outside the territory—as if that’d offer any answers—she might as well never come back. The previous day’s hunt had been a welcome respite, but it lasted long as a stationary tumbleweed. But she could afford to be less conspicuous. Already she wondered if Renard had noticed anything, masked as their conversation had been, and Finley would be damned if she got exiled on the basis of disloyalty.

If Colin had any similar qualms, his trail up north towards the Pass—the “meeting” site, of all places—gave no indication. Finley followed anyway, head high. She’d left their last meeting quite refreshed, despite the circumstances; perhaps he’d be up for another round. It did not remotely dawn on her that he might object to having his morning lounge interrupted by an unwanted invitation; warriors ought to be on guard, after all.

He came into view among the trees, and he was not alone. Finley had approached from a less secluded vantage, and across from her entered another familiar figure. Renard. Ah. The hell was he doing here. Perhaps he’d been wandering as well; from this distance Finley couldn’t read him, nor could she tell if he’d noticed her own presence.

Their positioning might have suggested the surrounding of prey, with Colin as their not-quite-cornered target. Whatever demand-masquerading-as-hello Finley had been about to offer, away it flew unspoken into the open air—replaced by an actual greeting, throwaway as it was. “Morning, Colin.” She was not hidden, and she did not take her eyes off Renard. The least she could offer was that she, for one, would not be stalking him. (Fighting, maybe. Later. As Finley did. But somehow it, among other troubles, had become the last thing on her mind.)

social distancing colin sandwich

Renard appeared to Colin in the same way Colin had appeared to Renard: an unassuming, quiet, before you weren't here, now you are sort of manner, the type of person to walk only within someone else's footsteps in the snow. He nods to them, too tired to speak.

They sit like that on the edges of each other's perception for a long time, or maybe only a few seconds. It's hard to tell.

Morning, Colin.

His head jerks up. Finley. If he wasn't sweating before, he's sweating now, and the back of his neck is cold. Good morning, he says in a voice that is half muscle memory and half croak, which leaves little to no room for anything impressive. Looking for a spar? 

It's an attempt at a joke that doesn't quite get off the ground-- no, doesn't even get its engine started. It turns over and over inside a hood and chokes in its own fumes, which he imagines that its staining his lungs black from the inside, drifting in thin wisps from his eyes, mouth, and ears.

it was a long, slow few moments before colin acknowledged their presence with a nod of his head, and another long, slow few moments after. but renard had time. didn’t they all have time now, idling at the bottom of the canyon while donovan hung himself in front of the court like an injured deer before a crowd of hungry wolves?

there was still amusement to be found in their situation. they themselves were more amused than annoyed, even now. did it matter if the saints faltered and died in the dust? right here? hardly. but what interest could they pull out of a body motionless on the ground? what was left to build it into beyond a grave?

they heard finley only a moment before she spoke. the rustle of grass betrayed her; she was not trying to be quiet as she stood there, meeting their eyes when they turned in her direction. their locked gaze lingered – renard remembered their last conversation as surely as she did – even as the greeting left her mouth.

colin’s reply was a weak and dying thing. it faltered the moment it got off the ground, and with renard’s eyes on it, spun into a polite and hungry silence.

their gaze turned between colin and finley, finley and colin; there was something hiding there, just out of reach. renard wanted it; wanted to draw it out in the open, out of the shadows, where they could find the best place to sink their teeth in to the bone.

finley looked at them, and they looked, smiling, back. they inclined their head in colin's direction, a silent invitation to reply. their eyes did not leave hers.

Colin had noticed Renard, engaged him without a word but with just enough that Finley might have understood he didn’t regard the opposite visitor as a threat—except she’d missed the gesture, whether from late arrival or failure to look at the wolf she addressed.

She did, however, spare Colin a glance at his response. Had Finley really scared him? He sure hadn’t turned to Renard like that. She took his “joke” entirely seriously and heard little reason to the contrary. No enthusiasm; what a pity. Her compliment had been genuine. It seemed he still wasn’t used to sparring—all the more reason then, in Finley’s eyes, to have one.

But they were still being watched. As she approached Colin, head raised, Renard silently prompted a reply; Finley, assuming she still had Colin’s focus, gestured right back at Renard with a point of the snout. “You’ve got company.” Now she could make out his face, complete with that damn smile. Seemed Donovan had some competition. Finley found absolutely none of it amusing.

Whatever was going on in the upper echelons of the Saints was unknown to him as the dealings of shady Wall Street bankers. Donovan conducted his own version of diplomacy, the stock market numbers ticked in reams across a massive screen, the world's gears turned.

Renard stays intensely quiet, reclined back in an invisible chair. He might as well have been snubbing a cigar out in a porcelain ashtray with all the smoke he had around his face. Even politicians didn't smile like that. 

Are you going to... talk? If Renard's smile is incorrigible, Colin's smile is vaguely confused, brows pinched together in polite and restrained puzzlement. 

It strikes him that with Donovan's absence, the Canyons have been infinitely quieter. The loss of one man turned a whole city into a ghost town, complete with tumbleweeds and saloon doors swinging open to reveal nothing.

finley’s snout inclined right back to them, though her words remained directed at colin. fair was fair. renard’s smile widened a fraction, catlike as it already was; the focus of their shared gaze broke, and they turned their attention back over to the last member of their impromptu standoff.

the quiet stretched. finley on one side, renard on the other. if they were a kinder person they might have felt bad for colin, caught awkwardly in the middle of a fledgling (and thoroughly unnecessary) cold war. as it was, they barely knew the man; they turned to him with an appraising curiosity limning their violet gaze.

that was something that needed to change.

that thing still hovered between them, and renard could see no more of it than they had before. “if you want.” an amused looseness to their voice, but the following offer came slow and curious – dipping a toe into the water before diving in. “looking for a spar?”

casually ignores first paragraph about Nem being “missing;” if this is dated after that whole affair I’m just gonna assume Finley’s still, uh, processing. please hold while we validate the information entered.

Whether at Finley’s cue or not, Colin’s attention had turned to their interloper—a funny description, considering Renard had likely arrived first. Based on Colin’s words, none too surprised, Renard had lurked for quite some time. And, as Finley had com to expect of the hybrid, he took his savory time before responding in turn; his focus had shifted and still he hadn’t moved.

“Looking for a spar?” The echo’s direction lingered unclear; if not for their previous talk Finley might have assumed it unintentional, as if Renard had confused Colin’s words for his own perfunctory invitation. But she expected nothing less than double-speak from Renard, and already she rifted through his greeting for another meaning.

She’d come here, on Colin’s trail, seeking another friendly fight. He, in first traveling to the border, very likely had not. Renard? Damned if Finley knew. If he was scoping Colin out for another audience to his indirect suggestions, he’d done a great job thus far, lurking in the trees and only speaking when prompted. What a (not-even-fully-)wolf.

“Are you?” To Colin, Finley might have offered a simple “absolutely;” there were no such binaries with Renard. Likewise her own statement’s audience was left ambiguous; she continued watching that cheshire smile, just as she had when greeting Colin. A three-wolf spar could be interesting.

Mechnical, his words were repeated back to him— looking for a spar?

Renard was exceedingly skilled at wiping all words of their meaning. Like non-citizens wiped from all public databases, fingerprint-less, this was a non-conversation, where the exchange of information was reversed and the conversants found themselves eating their own small talk and recycled air. Inhales became exhales, exhales became inhales, and so on. Your typical postmodern party.

During his time as a military chaplain, Colin had never seen real war. But here and now, it wasn't so difficult to imagine that someone had their finger poised over the button. All over the world, engineers designed underground bunkers and football-sized nuclear weapons that could wipe away entire cities.

Finley and Renard, in front of him like the most cynical rendition of American Gothic.

Who are you asking? As if it mattered. 

He struggled to grasp onto purpose. It evaded him in a twist of tulle, a flash of pale bare skin, an ankle that pulls him further into a heady backstage dark. A single vein in his temple pulses harder than the rest.

sjdhgksdg we are all processing…valid. sorry again for the wait!

the offer had been made; renard sat back, and watched everyone else eye it like they’d tossed a grenade into their midst. was the smart move to throw it back or run? they did not turn their gaze from colin – he’d been the one to offer, after all. for whatever reason, sincerity or joke…they couldn’t put the proverbial finger on it yet. they didn’t know enough of the man to tell.

what better way to learn?

renard laughed. finley’s question, as careful and probing as their own, an echo of their conversation back in the chalice – are you? – went briefly ignored.

“didn’t you offer?” they returned.

then, shifting, their muzzle dipped in finley’s direction. “i wouldn’t deny you, of course.” all that conversation, shifting little more than pawns on a chessboard; attack was just as important as defense, and they’d never quite gotten that far. they’d know something here today, no matter who they had to pick it out of.

If Colin understood the verbal pinball, he had little interest in continuing it. “Are you?” he asked Renard; “Didn’t you offer?” in response, less cryptic than it could have been. Then, to her: what she sought would not be denied, of course. It seemed Renard was just as eager to gauge Finley’s physical skill as she was theirs. There’d be no bluffing in a fight, nothing more long-term than a feint here, a gambit there.

Simple. Straightforward. She craved this on as primal a level as Colin had attacked her last round. There would be little room to think.

“Nor would I.” Invitation accepted. With a small spark of glee Finley realized she’d get what she’d come for, without ever needing to ask. Her head lifted, she strode forward—and stopped behind Colin, paws planted firmly in the dirt. Renard would be direct and meet her, if not halfway then at least further out of the trees, if he wanted this too. And if Colin didn’t want to fight, it’d be his loss—but Finley had no intention of letting him fade into the background.

With a sidelong glance to the grayscale male, flitting just as quickly back to Renard, Finley hoped to make her message clear: she cared little who, if anyone, he sparred for. What mattered to her was if he stood at all.

The air is electric.

Dizzy with some deep anticipation, he can already imagine the taste of blood in his mouth again. His mouth and the front of his shirt, all covered in blood. It rushes into the thin vessels in his brain like high tide and the deep sound of it fills his ears.

He hasn't noticed it yet but his biology has betrayed him and his hackles are flared up and out. His facial features, arranged tightly in the few seconds before a true snarl. 

Already, the contradiction rolls in his chest. A roughshod thing. Its black claws and black wings brush up against the walls of the cavity as it turns over and wakes. I'm no fighter.

But he does not leave.

posted this in the discord but the best way i could think to handle this was HP spar. link here! lmk if you guys have any questions.

renard’s curiosity had initially been for colin, of course. he was the one they hadn’t spoken to at length, even seen beyond those brief glimpses in the pass and with riley. but what they knew about finley was more enticing than what they didn’t know about colin.

she stopped behind him. head lifted, eyes meeting theirs. and in front of her, colin bristled to life: the strange reticence of earlier gone as though it had never been, replaced with raised hackles and curled lips. renard smiled. so he was hiding something under there after all.

their tail did not curl higher; their fur laid flat on their back. displays were a waste of time, a direct indication of intentions they preferred to avoid. instead, they looked from finley to colin and back, as quiet as they had been moving through the trees before.

when they struck, stepping around to the side not guarded by colin, it was with the sharp and sudden uncoiling of a snake; no growl, only lips peeling back from teeth, open jaws aimed directly for the join of finley’s neck and shoulder.

thank you! Finley at 13/20 HP, if I’m understanding it right (&correct me if not); roll here. what the fuck honestly

And so Colin rose; a familiar thrill swelled in Finley’s chest. Renard’s response was less obvious; projection compelled her to read what smile he betrayed as a mirrored excitement.

Three against one it was, then. This would be absolutely chaotic—a breed of it Finley welcomed.

Without warning the hybrid charged; her sidestep was futile, Colin in the way or she too aware he might be in the way and thus clumsy or just because she was not a dodging sort. Fangs hooked into her lower neck oh come ON, did she wear a neon collar flashing “please attack me here”?

She’d had no time to display before the fight; now Finley’s own hackles pricked under Renard’s teeth, and with a spitting snarl her head twisted, careless of how deeply he bit. If she wrenched free she’d aim for the face, but target mattered less than finding any purchase at all.

roll here! i have absolutely no idea what im doing so apologies in advance

Renard lunges, soundless, and Colin braces himself, unsure of whether to lash out or retreat... less than one second to impact—

the hair on his shoulder rises as the wolfdog careens not at him, but past him. Colin freezes, wide-eyed, a man standing on the white dotted line of a highway, fluttering in the slipstream of a pickup truck doing eighty, eight-five miles per hour—

Finley snarls, guttural, the noise no more than an extension of herself, blood is shed and fur flies out into the air in fine tufts, she and Renard kick up dirt like fighting conjoined twins, some perverse dance—

He doesn't remember how he got there, suspended briefly in the air as he runs. By chance, Renard is in front of him. The front of Colin's head is vacant. He lets muscle memory and anger guide his teeth towards the wolfdog's back legs as Finley attacks his face.

tallied everyones new totals as well as my roll here :)

renard’s teeth hooked into finley’s neck. dug in maybe more tightly than they should have – it was all for fun, wasn’t it. but – and maybe it was just on the heels of their last conversation – they needed to know what she’d do.

which was to snarl, spitting and furious, and round on them. she twisted furiously out of their grip – renard let her go, both to see what she’d do and to keep from slicing her shoulder open in the grip of their teeth, they might need her yet, not just for the mob donovan had summoned when it finally showed its face – and came down at them.

she caught them just below the eye, punching through the skin. the instinct was there to pull away before she could get a grip, to lower their muzzle and go for her throat –

but it was a test. not a real fight. if it was, they would have been more concerned about colin’s lingering presence, the exposed flank they’d practically presented to him – but just as with finley, they wanted to see what he’d do. if the bristling was all a show in the end.

it wasn’t.

another set of teeth came down, scraping across their flank. somewhat more gently than finley’s. or more poorly aimed.

just as she’d done, renard went to wrench their head free of her grip – whether she’d let them go willingly or draw blood with it, her choice, and they privately hoped for the latter – jaws open to the other side of her neck, hoping to grip hold and yank her into colin’s path instead.

roll here

She was free, maybe too easy but it didn’t matter when teeth gripped flesh, thin and bony. Monochrome blur, Colin, at Renard’s back; head wrenched back, Finley kept hold, iron across her lips. Bite in the other side, still in the neck, the hybrid was not holding back; she let go, roaring wordless protest—new target forced.

With a second’s thought Finley might have released her hold on Renard’s face sooner; she knew very well what kind of scars such a tear could leave. But reflection had no place in battle, only instinct, and instinct said her neck was best away from Renard and she’d been swung at Colin. There were no allies here.

Jerking forward, surging to escape Renard’s maw, Finley dove for Colin’s flank. If he twisted to counter, all the better if he wound up between her and the Blade.

roll

 

Again, he finds himself with hair prickling the back of his mouth, his teeth catching on someone else's skin. Hhah, Colin in a voiceless roar looking down to his nose like he's looking at a gun barrel, feeling all the muscle and bone just a few centimetres under the surface. 

When Finley suddenly blows up in his field of vision (how could someone so far away in one second be so close the next?) it isn't to hurtle past him as Renard did. Her teeth slip and slide then snag at his ribs. Without much fat to cushion the impact, it is unbearable, and he stifles a scream.

He lets go of the wolfdog and twists, almost shaking with rage, looking at the world through a thick haze of adrenaline and something so close to vertigo, dizzying— but his gaze feels pinpoint, a macro lens that picks up all the pores on Finley's dark nose, a camera held by a young grip on an astronomical sugar high— and just like that their positions are switched, and just like that Colin is twisting to snap at her face.

roll here!

finley and colin roared and screamed and snarled – a neatly laid out guide to action and reaction, places to strike. they’d pulled finley into colin’s path and she went willingly, a snarling blur of brown sweeping after colin’s flank. the teeth in their back lifted free; something black and white roared past like a storm.

if pressed – because few gut judgments survived first contact – renard would have put money on colin having either no clue what he was doing or too much of a clue. donovan’s judgment meant it could go either way. he hardly put up a difficult spar.

it wasn’t the latter. and they weren’t sure about the former. all that caution and quiet and this had been hiding under it the whole time, this snarling thing that, presented with finley as the option whose teeth lanced across his ribs, turned to her without hesitation, snapping furiously after her face.

they would never have guessed it of him. there was some restraint to learn, sure, but something satisfied coiled back in their chest nonetheless. that thing they’d seen, just out of reach –

– here it was after all.

they’d forgotten renard already. crashed together, all snarls and teeth. for a long few moments renard let them, a vulture circling a dying animal, watching it pull itself along until it could pull no more – then, darting forward, they came after colin instead, jaws opening to his hind leg to grip, bite down and pull. hoping just as he’d done for finley, whatever had come out to pick up his skin would come after its most immediate threat – one renard was glad to provide.

finley was still there. there were still so many things renard wanted to pick at until they bled. but more than anything now, they wanted to know what exactly colin would do when they got their teeth around his neck.

rollin, sorry bout the delay!

Teeth made contact by ribs—gaunt, unguarded. ’Round Colin twisted for the rebuttal; at the slightest lift of her head he took hold of her muzzle. Another snarl escaped Finley; such grabs had uses her fellow Specialist had no right to bear. (Her own unwarranted use of the tactic, again, scarcely came to mind. Nothing did but the chaos of the fight—as it should be. Her own weariness had just as little right to steal center stage, much as it loomed with every move.)

Back Finley threw her head, seeking release; a flash of brown and in Renard surged for Colin, just as planned. That one would be dealt with in short order, but Finley’s own retort demanded release; sidestepping, hoping to dodge the brunt of Colin’s pushback, she lunged at the black-and-white wolf again, aiming for the center of mass. In the fray there was no time for specific targets—a bite anywhere, anything, would satisfy her.

wrapping this for trade purposes as colin's inactive and the last post was a month ago <3 lmk if either of you would like any changes.

finley came for colin again, snapping, teeth raking at his ribs. teeth sunk into his hind leg, renard could see and feel little but the movement, pulling up and away as they bit at each other, as their teeth slid through the thin veil of skin atop bone.

they didn't get the chance to feel colin's neck in their teeth, much as they wanted. 

he was erratic in an entirely different way from donovan, one more fascinating because it concealed something under it, something that wasn't flirtatious words and curled-lip smiles. donovan put on the talk. and what did it conceal? nothing as fascinating as either colin or finley, even as their spar broke apart and renard drew away, licking blood from their lips above a cheshire grin.

the quiet echoed. might have been a little impatient of them, but it was disappointing, not to get to see it. whether he'd go still, whether he'd fight back even more furiously, whether he'd do something else altogether. instead he turned, slunk back into the brush, and with a last glance given to finley renard followed.

it only made them more intrigued. he wasn't finley. wouldn't be, fighting like that. a disaster waiting to happen, running on instinct. not smart for him.

but that was fine. they had always enjoyed watching.