The Bracken Woods oh, black lung, you're back
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#1
All Welcome 
the rain kept up as they journeyed. a day's distance and they were through the valley, arriving at the edge of the forbidding woods just after nightfall.
colt paused; he shook out his coat and glanced with a good deal more warmth toward @Indra III. "fan out. see what yew can find. meet back here in an hour."
his eyes sought her own.
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#2
She kept up with him as best she could, slogging through the rain. It gave her some strange relief where it touched upon her neck, while also reminding her with every drop that she had tried to do things her way only to fail.

Obeisance was safer; she knew that, it had been drilled in to her by others before. Indra had thought Colt to be different in some way - he wasn't.

He loosened her proverbial leash with his next order. The girl said nothing as she did as he bade, slipping in to a longer stride so that she could pace between the trees, see what could be seen.
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#3
an hours time lended the rogue a single sodden pheasant. he carried it back whole to their rendezvous point.
along with a piece of deer jawbone he had found. briggs was not the apologizing sort. but she'd lost the rabbit head and her other trinkets.
he wanted gratitude from her, after all.
colt waited, scarlet eyes cutting through the downpour as he waited tensely for indra to return.
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#4
She'd found something decaying in the shadows. It was small. It was intact enough to feed them both, too. Instead of bringing a piece back to Colt or alerting him of it, Indra chose petulance.

He wasn't there to stop her or deny her this: so she ate, tearing apart what once was a large skunk. Its rotted blood stained her face and front. She didn't think about that until after she'd filled her own belly, then a spike of anxiety writhed through her.

She grabbed what remained (a bolt of black fur, a crooked tail, and broken hind feet without much meat left) and carried it with her to wherever he'd set up their camp.
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#5
indra returned, bloodstained and reeking. colt grunted at her offering. the gore coating her was fresh; she had not shared.
another rebellion. another tenet broken.
colt did not think she deserves the jawbone anymore. he cut into his pheasant, spitting downfeathers into the air. the meat was fresh, and blood gushed between his teeth. 
he offered her none of it, working each bit of flesh from the delicate ribcage.
"gonna need t'clean that pelt before it's useful." colt did not offer to teach indra.
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#6
She thought she'd gotten away with it. He ate alone, supping on the warm flesh of the bird he'd caught himself. It was a better meal than the one she'd pilfered for herself.

The pelt had no use so far as she could tell. What good was the skin of a dead animal? Indra had never heard of such a thing. Colt was trying to egg her on, she presumed. What for? She didn't expect an answer.

A small huff comes from her. Seeing as he's got his own food, these remains are useless to her. She throws them aside and settles, to clean herself. There is a certain limited bravado to her now; prideful over her assumed power.
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#7
"might oughta be a good pillow fer one, once it don't stink to high heaven no more." he ate the bird's head with relish. "as it is, yer stink gonna turn the whole forest upside down."
colt worked gristle out from between two teeth with the tip of his tongue. his eyes remained on her. "why don't yew go on'n warsh up? we can get some shut eye, then tomorrow yew can decide which direction we go."
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#8
A pillow? That didn't track with what she knew of Colt. This man lived wild; slept beneath the stars, coerced strangers, enjoyed the sport of hunting food and friend.

He ordered her about again. Wanted her at a distance now - not close like before, where he'd wedge himself close to her or be possessive when she slept. The gore might've pushed him away - she made note of that, and felt all the stronger for it.

For now, she'd obey. Slinking back along the wood's edge to where the path converged with a creek bed, low and cool, barely enough water to soak her feet. It would be enough to seep the blackness from her.

Indra almost didn't want to give up the grime, with the effect it had on him.
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#9
colt patrolled while indra complied. he checked the short borders and then returned to the flared trunk of the largest tree. 
a pillow, as if she needed luxury. was he going soft? the thought made his jaw tense. he watched for her return, always with tension lining his spine.
colt wasn't sure if he would go after indra if she did choose to leave. she could pick starving or freezing; he'd get on as he always did.
but because the rogue had begun to think of her in terms of his, the very idea rankled him.
she would find him expectant next, ready to lie down with her tucked close.
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#10
As she finished, she found a patch of moss and rolled repeatedly against it and worked herself dry, and the strong masculine scent of Colt wore away with each roll.

Indra ambled her way back to camp soon after that - cleansed of grime, and of Colt for the most part, but sulking all the same. Her fur wild. Threads of moss stuck in the longer furs of her aching neck.

She saw how he had bedded down for the night, and the look in his eye. Indra moved partway to where she was expected to. Her attention drawn towards the ruined bit of skunk - then wordlessly, she wedged herself in the crook of Colt's larger body.

It was warm here. The proximity to another living body was a comfort regardless of who it was.
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#11
she fit herself against him and he crooked a sinewy forearm over her hip. his muzzle pushed into the nape his teeth had only recently hurt.
the man made a low and pleasant sound, but he was not yet ready to sleep, even as the neverending tension in his body ebbed away.
"mebbe tomorrow we go'n getcha another rabbit head." his voice was a raspy croon, tending toward sleepy. "how would yew feel about that, indra?"
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#12
He moved to press his muzzle against her and she couldn't help but tense. There were bruises all along her nape. Slowly he eased to something comfortable. Indra wanted to move, wanted to adjust or maybe even lash out at him when he was most vulnerable - and then he spoke, which curbed the impulse.

She knew better. He could do much worse if he wanted.

If we're lucky I'll get you breakfast, she offered. The girl settled her head upon the ground and closed her eyes a moment, but she was not tired despite all that she had been through. She thought of the rabbit skull and the way he'd grabbed her neck. She felt the throbbing of where her face had burned across the dirt.
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#13
colt laughed softly, ruffling her red fur. "look forward to seein' what yew bring." he was not a fool; he knew that she did not enjoy this closeness. he knew it. and still he held her close, their warmth melding around the pair.
it was a certain pleasure not to lie alone, he decided, jaws splitting in another yawn. "yer not mad at me, are yew? about before?" his voice was starting to fade; he lay his cheek against the leaf litter beneath the tree.
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#14
He was fading. She could've lied in answer, he was drifting away even before she spoke, so he was not likely to lash out.

Naw, was a lesson. Indra murmured. As he drifted she'd think long in to the night about it; the rabbit had been precious and yet she knew it was a gambit, making that altar, having a prize of any kind within his reach. He'd taken and destroyed it.

It was a lesson for the both of them.

Indra nosed in to his fur despite the gooseflesh that she came away with. G'night, she drawled with her voice going quiet. She'd feign sleep until she knew he was deep in his own - but Indra would be staring and awake for a while yet.
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#15
feel free to start a new one or fade, or we can continue here! <3

"g'night."
colt was a man who did not sleep heavy, and yet his slumber next to her was sound. in many ways it was the only extension of his touch-starved nature that was apparent. his general demeanour did not invite it.
and so his sleep would be black and soft and velveteen, his arm tightening around her in the darkness and ears flickering at each change in her breath, each swoop of owlwing, each thing that went bump in the night.
perhaps including colt briggs after all.