Swiftcurrent Creek We are not the same, with or without

Wylla knew she needed to return to Stjornuati soon and tell him what she and Stag had decided, but spending her days on aimless walking was so cathartic that she just couldn't bring herself to go back yet.

Her nights were plagued with dreams and nightmares—a proposal that swept her off her feet or a series of contracts that left her bereft of any love or comfort whatsoever. Her children dying in her arms while Nyx's looked on, laughing. Taikon chasing her through the woods, prepared to kill her in the name of Sagtannet. Falling from the cliffs while Mahler turned away from her. Every night it was something else, draining her of energy and emotions. When she awoke each day, she was more and more a husk of herself.

The feelings were still there, buried inside, tormenting her. She swung from fiercely missing Mahler to wishing he was dead. Pain and sorrow morphed into self-righteous anger which crumbled down into worthlessness, throwing her through a never-ending gauntlet of emotions in her waking hours. The only thing that seemed to help was keeping her legs moving to shut off her brain, hunting or wandering, it didn't matter which—as she did now, ghosting sightless through the territory where she'd delivered her first child.

She didn't recognize where she was. On the inside, she was numb. On the outside, she was worse. There was no alertness to her hazy yellow gaze, no thinking going on behind the neutral mask that was her face. She lost herself in the mechanical effort of moving her legs, one step at a time.

Kiwi shouldn't have been surprised when Sequoia didn't follow, but chose instead to go to whatever new pack she'd managed to snake her way into.  Just like Yami, her loyalty shifted.  Kiwi only had time for those who made time for her and clearly that meant she was made to run solo.

Her narrowed green gaze took in the landscape around her.  This place was fine, but too tame.  She needed a place that reflected her own wild strength, so the mountains in the distance drew her, carrying her through the creek and towards the flatlands beyond.  She was nearly quit of them when she spotted Wylla, though, and froze with a light sneer.  Her posture immediately stank of instability.

She never could resist a good pick me up, though, and an easy target usually only served to make her feel better about her own lousy situation.  You look like shit,  she stated with obvious satisfaction, remaining well back, but eyeing her scathingly.

A voice drifted into her fuzzy consciousness and drew Wylla's head up slowly, like it was being tugged on fishing wire rather than lifted by her neck. There stood a wolf in a coat of pure brown with brilliant green eyes that brought Thade to mind with a pang. Kiwi's were much brighter than her son's, but the mere shade was enough to stroke her heartstrings, at least until the bitch opened her big, fat mouth.

The Wylla of a few days ago would've reacted stupendously to being insulted in such a fashion. The Wylla of a few days ago was a highly self-conscious beast with a vain streak, but the Wylla of today was unable to rise to anger. The self-consciousness was all-consuming and had devoured nearly every last piece of her confidence and happiness, leaving her unable to even deny that she looked like shit or care at all. The Wylla of tomorrow would be worse off after seeing Mahler, so Kiwi was lucky to catch Wylla while she was still able to feel anything at all, even if it was muted.

And there was a reaction, albeit one that wasn't customary for the previous firebrand that was Wylla. Interesting that a wolf the colour of hot diarrhea would say such a thing. A grimace twisted her lips into a black squiggle, but her eyes remained flat and her tone deadpan as she replied, take you all day to come up with that?

She didn't rise to the words.  At one time, Kiwi might have been annoyed.  Right now, though, she'd been alone long enough that even this woman's misery brought her some measure of contentment.  If she was already broken, then she was worse off than Kiwi.  And any measure by which another came up short served to lift her further.

Something that obvious?  She lifted herself a bit taller, though their smaller statures were fairly well matched.  It was odd to come face to face with someone who she didn't need to look up to in some capacity.  Hardly.  She added a bit of a scoff to that.

She sensed weakness, and anytime Kiwi caught a whiff of it, she couldn't help but lunge for it.  It was a trait that had developed over the course of her time, and now that she was alone, it had increased exponentially.  Something was wrong with her and Kiwi couldn't fight the overwhelming desire to tear away, piece by piece, until she'd exposed it.  If physical comments weren't it, then she'd go for something else.  I'm not the one walking around with their nose in the ground.  If you're looking to get eaten, I could find you a bear or something.  I don't eat shit, but bears don't seem to mind.  

Kiwi would no doubt get bored pretty quickly if Wylla did not rejoin with an insult of her own, but punching down was so satisfying.  It showed through in her tone, just a tidge, and she waited with a glimmer of anticipation for the reaction she'd recieve.

Kiwi was a persistent bitch. That might be the only thing the ruddy brown wolf had going for her.

On an ordinary day, Wylla was a perfect target for the sort of inflammatory comments Kiwi wanted to throw around, but this was far from an ordinary day in the life of Wylla. Her spirit was broken, and with it, any sense of worth. Without self-worth, there was nothing really for her to be offended about. Besides, Kiwi's insults were pretty weak. She'd heard better. Hell, she'd flung better, or so she told herself.

You are what you eat, she said blandly, expression hardly changing, and you look just like a huge pile of steaming shit to me. Kiwi was quick to proclaim that she didn't eat shit, and that only made her look more suspicious. Naturally a shit-eater would claim they don't eat shit out of the blue to try to keep it a secret. Shit-eater. What an occupation to be proud of.

You're either a complete loser with nothing better to do with your bum life, or so insecure that you have to put others down to feel better about how worthless you are, Wylla noted, wondering with some dawning horror if this was how others had always viewed her, because she wasn't so different from Kiwi, especially when she was younger but even now, and either way, it makes you pathetic. Is that how you wanna be seen? With nothing but a grimace, she began moving again, anticipating some kind of violent response and readying her muscles for it.

At first Kiwi easily sneered at Wylla's return.  More shit jokes, but she'd done it first, so that meant the woman had nothing better than to throw her own words at her.  At least I have some creativity, she thought haughtily.  But that only lasted until Wylla started in on her second phase.

There was enough truth in what she said to make her smile turn thin and cold.  While Kiwi refused to consciously acknowledge it, the crux of her problem was that she had nothing of her own.  She refused to accept the blame for this; Yami had left from disloyalty, Sequoia the same.  Her mother's legacy had been torn from her by the same ones who had stolen her life, and one day would pay for both.  All of these her own doing, all of them someone else's fault.

Her face twisted into an ugly snarl.  She'd be furious later that the words picked a scab she hadn't realized was festering.  I have myself, and that's all I'll ever need.  Fuck you.  She spat, tensing, the fur along her spine rising.  This woman had no right, not when she obviously couldn't even say the same.  If she wanted to die so bad, then maybe Kiwi could do her a favor.

That was all it took to flip her switch to violent.  Without any more warning Kiwi surged forward, her intention to grab Wylla by the side of the throat and force her down to the ground.  She ensured her eyes didn't guide her intentions... Artaax's training still ingrained, even after all of these years.

Unexpected! Since we've both had multiple threads since this one without mention of significant injuries from a fight, and since Kiwi is deceased now and I'm sure you wanna wrap her up, how would you feel about concluding this with your next post assuming that neither of them sustained significant injuries before parting?

Wylla snorted. If Kiwi was even halfway convinced that what she said was the truth, she was doing a terrible job of showing it. A wolf who needed nothing but themselves would laugh off digs about their self-worth, for one thing. Wylla suspected that Kiwi needed a lot more than herself, hence the veneer of stifling superiority. Once that was peeled away, it was painfully obvious why Kiwi was all alone.

Wylla saw herself in the other's twisted scowl, and she hated it. She was ready for the volatile reaction, because Kiwi seemed the sort who was unable to solve anything with words—it was something with which Wylla was intimately familiar. She was much the same, prone to insecurity and indignation, and quick to shoot. She didn't need signals to anticipate what Kiwi was going to try to do, because it was exactly what she would try to do if she was pissed off: get the upper hand immediately and end it quickly by going all in.

These days, she fought to protect, and she had a couple years on Kiwi, and probably some experience as well. Her life no longer felt worthwhile and it was tempting to let it happen, but she still had someone worth protecting. So she met Kiwi head-on, lowering her muzzle and thrusting her head toward the younger wolf's forelimb as she curved her body to take Kiwi's blow on the shoulder or flank rather than the neck.

perfect <3

The woman didn't go down easy, a fact that annoyed Kiwi but also tempered her fury to calculated battle.  Despite the insults that had been thrown, her fury at Wylla was not personal.  Therefore it was not enough to override the one mandate stronger; survive.  If she was injured in any significant way, there was no Yami... no Wraen... no Sequoia to back her up.  As she'd stated just before, she had only herself now.

She still tried.  They traded blows, and teeth met perhaps superficially, but after a while Kiwi broke off with a derisive snort.

You aren't worth it, she proclaimed with a snide huff.  She refused to acknowledge that she'd been matched and instead put the stalemate to her obviously higher standards.  She stalked away, attention behind, ready to counter should the woman attempt to follow and finish this further.