Silvertip Mountain Are you covered in leaves and gently shaking in the gentle breeze?

A swathe of blood marked a path up the rocky side of the mountain, headed up by black Aventus, who marched upward with a hapless coyote carcass clutched in his jaws. He had all but flayed the hide from it in a dozen places so that the muscle shone slickly through in the dim sunlight. The bottom jaw was dislocated grotesquely. His first blow, that. The rest had come easy.

And he had not hesitated, not even for a second, although killing a coyote was not the same as killing a wolf. Nevertheless, he had the blood of these spindly beasts in him, too, so it wasn't that much different, either.

He dragged the thing up to the heights of Silvertip in the early afternoon, cutting through the forest and away from the crystal cavern to a collection of vast, towering spires. What had created these things? Aventus lacked the imagination to grant them a story, but they rose out of the earth like bear's claws, and that was sign enough for him. He sought one of the shortest spires and clambered up the side until he was able to reach the sharp peak of it.

There, he flung down the coyote carcass and shoved his weight into it, effectively impaling it and letting the remaining blood drain in glinting rivulets down the sides.

blood. the scent drew the spiderling to the scene of the carnage her brother had wrought among the cluster of stony spires in ursus's new mountainous home. they observed in keen-eyed silence, their only movement a slow catlike flick of tail's tip.

a new quietude had settled over asperas since her time in the crystal cave with @Merrick. more and more, she began to forget the nature of herself; more and more, she simply was.

asperas drew closer, thin muzzle tilted and stretching to meet the tendrils of blood nearest the base of the craggy stonespear. tongue darted out, tasting the blood of the beast impaled upon it. then her gaze turned to aventus, alight with vague nameless anticipation.

The boy stepped back to admire his handiwork. He lacked the bloodlust that drove Merrick and Avicus, and could make little sense of the innate violence curdling within Asperas, but what Aventus was was unwaveringly loyal and dutiful. He would gladly shed blood and deceit in the name of Ursus, not because he hungered for it as the others did, but for the might of pack and family. More like his mother, that way.

He was surprised to find Asperas watching, but not surprised when she darted forward to taste the blood. He rumbled approvingly, baring his bloodied teeth at her in a wicked grin. Taste them, he encouraged. These ones are enemies of Ursus.

Coyotes were weak creatures, smaller and more delicate than wolves, but crafty, yes. Coyotes could steal from bears and wolves alike and get away. We shed their blood to mark our presence, he explained, stepping aside to give Asperas more room to investigate his work, and leave their bloodied corpses for the bear's favour. I think it looks good there, don't you?

not her first taste of blood, perhaps, but her first taste of approval from her older brother. asperas instantly took to the flavor of it, and warmed to the wickedness of his tone and his manner. his spiel appealed to the violence embedded into the marrow of her bones, and though she did not quite understand what made a this one or why the wolflike creature was an enemy of ursus, the unchild was not inclined to question. any cause for blood and death was a cause she would champion, young and impulsive as she was in her demonic disposition. she nodded eagerly to aventus's question, eyes trailing up the spire once again to admire his work. die, she commented softly, then turned her gaze back to aventus, suddenly alight with questioning. was he like her, then? surely the father they shared would have mentioned it if so, back in the crystal cave, but still... you hear bear?