Ankyra Sound twelve-hundred people dead or left to die

@bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok @bartok

With a cocky sway to her step the lithe Siren strode towards the forest, her jaws clutched tight around the full swell of a seal's bloated and dark kidney. It was a most precious meal she coveted -- and stealing away from her subordinates, she sought to dine alone.

Once sufficient distance was placed between her and the thrumming sea, she turned twice around a leviathan sequoia -- with an agile leap she fell between two outstretched roots and disappeared entirely from view. There, nestled between the tree's fold the waif ravenously set to work.

with a shrewd eye he had watched as her pack undertook the hard task – with most elaborate stratagem – of assassinating what he could only imagine was the most challenging of game: the bloated, putrefied carcass of a seal that had washed up on their winsome strand. yes yes. how challenging an affair it was! a spectacle. dinner and a show, really.

they fell upon their hard-won bounty like barbarians, writhing and screeching amongst themselves as gluttony engulfed them each and scythe-like teeth cubed tender flesh, snapping on bone like they were made of wet paper-mache.

of course, seafood was not bartok's most favoritest. it was tough, rubbery. squeaky. the only salvageable cuts relevant to his palate were the most coveted cuts of all... the ones that only a siren queen could be entrusted with.

the fretted figure of the alpha female stole away into the distance and as she made her way to the underpinning of a tree, he couldn't help but flake out on his exquisite vantage point from the cusp of an approximate sequoia and follow her into self-relegated isolation, lighting upon a branch not too far from the wolf.

the piece of shit bird watched discernibly, ruffling his feathers in preparation as she started in on her highly-valued portion. he tilted his head back and made a cackling racket before plunging from the limb and diving at her head, eager to startle her.

bird the bird the bird bird bird bird bird. the bird machine. check.

No sooner had the slender waif felt herself isolated enough to enjoy her meal, there sounded above the distinct ruffle of feathers. She looked upwards slowly -- the way a small child might realize a monster under the bed -- and quite explicitly she could feel the fur rising coarse along her spiny neck. With both alarm and outrage darkening her features, the waif sprung back like a started cat -- her hackles bristling fiercely as the dark-plumed form of a bird flew past her.

Regrettably, her second instinct was to shriek -- a rejoinder to the bird's cackle that was at once both nauseatingly high pitched and offensive. Perhaps more regrettable was the fact that in order to shriek, one's jaws had to part... It was with horror shading her features that she watched her visceral prize fall to the ground in rubbery bounces.

bartok held his successes near and dear to his gizzard. any day that he didn't end up imprisoned in the compromising and unforgiving cage of jaws was a day to rejoice, and luckily for him this wolf didn't appear to be gifted with the jaw-eye coordination to pull off a stunt such as plucking a bird mid-flight.

he crowed with delight as she shrieked, swooping upwards and through the tops of the behemoth trees, leaving the stunned wolf to briefly liquidize in her fear as he cackled.

peering down to ascertain where he had left her, the raven plummeted through the trees, coming up behind her once again and attempting to pull at the tufts on her nape, before sharply and dexterously trying to make off with a piece of the meat briefly forsaken from her possession.

wide eyed with the folly of her actions, Caiaphas froze -- her head held stiffly as her ears flapped and rotated wildly atop her narrow skull. The bird had alighted to the canopy beyond -- the remainder of his presence the upturned dust-motes and disturbed shubbery.

She thought herself safe from any further onslaught -- with a huff that announced her displeasure with his existence she strode back towards her abandoned meal, saliva pooling hungrily in the corners of her jowls. She was just about to seize the delicacy between her slavering jaws when behind her the bird barreled like a demon spat from a cannon -- already she felt herself hating this stupid shit of a bird.

She felt the sting of his beaked nip upon her rump -- with a howl she whirled upon him to find him gone, fluttering like a shade on the breeze out of her reach. She lept into the air wildly, jaws snapping in his wake -- only to find when she landed that the featherbrained dingus had made off with her prized meal.

The injustice and the indignities of the world consumed her -- with great vitriol she unleashed all manner of profanities into the wind as if they had the power to stay Bartok's wings and call him plummeting to the earth.

it was with suspicious ease that the bird found himself alone with the siren queen's riches, and he was not anticipating the weight of the ration in his beak. his missile-like form began to quaver a bit, impressive wingspan staggering and his self-confidence threatening to fall off like a gangrened limb should he have the misfortunate of the tenacity of the sea-wind to square up against.

her daggers of ire and the imprecations in which they plunged their silver must have reached some celestial entity, for no sooner had the ships of her ladylikeness sailed did the raven lose his grip on the rubbery bounty.

devastation iced over him as he watched it rain down from on high and dump into a small tidal pool, landing only a mere few hundred yards from the nook in which the female from whom he shanghaied it from slowly storm-clouded up, the disruption of her supper clearly making this one of those "straw that broke the camels back" situations, except more aptly, "the bird who pissed off the hoodoo mama, enjoy your screwed-on-backwards beak you unbelievable dick."

though she was free to collect her rancid picnic and go about her snack without further provocation – he did not find the risk worth the reward of braving her wrath to get a piece of meat he didn't even particularly care for – bartok, in an attempt at relative damage control, whisked under the tilde of the wind and perched a modest distance from caiaphas, his head canting back and forth and forth and back, disheveled weight shifting uneasily.

he glanced at the tide pool, and then tacked his gaze on the caldera with legs a few feet away.

"fetch."

fetch WOW

It was with immense hatred that Caiaphas stalked the bird's winging flight above the tree-line -- as if hoping against hope the fueled abhorrence in her gaze would thrust towards him in the manner of a spear and fell him. If only looks could kill.

It appeared the god(desses) had other plans in mind that day for her purloined supper -- for no sooner was she steadying herself to denounce her loss, she was overcome with joy to see the bird flipped in the wind like a chew-toy -- his clutch on her spongy fete eviscerated. With a victorious crow she lunged after the thing onto the open strand, a yawp of condescending joy evinced from her muzzle as she seized the pulpous meat in her jaws and swallowed it entire.

meehehehe

her willing participation in his game was made evident as she ploughed headlong onto the waterfront, merriment bursting from her like if you struck someone really hard in the face with your palm when they were blowing bubble yum. [size=x-small]fuck you eric i had to spread peanut butter in my hair[/size]

the raven unfolded his ebon plumage as the braggart's heels kicked up granules in his handsome face, not remiss of her disdain for him or the lofty manner she collected her gains.

"good dog! good dog! good dog!" he crowed excitedly, clacking his beak with amusement and taking clutch in a higher position in the trees were she to decide to follow up on her bygone indignation towards him. he was stupid enough to take meat from a voracious wolf but not quite stupid enough to turn himself into a clay disk for a loaded shotgun, whether or not she was an accurate shot (which he was certain she was not, considering he took so easily from her mehehe)

he took note of the area about him, hoping she was momentarily distracted enough for him to locate more things to stoke her ire for his entertainment.

hopping from his post he hurried over and landed on the bloated carcass – her packmates had more or less satiated themselves and paid the scavenger no mind, so tucking into the tough skin, from the exposed marrow he pulled a glob of tendon and flung strings of it over his beak like the wattle of a turkey.

taking wing to the skies overhead with her cuisine in tow, he glided low over the breadth between them, again doing his best to snatch the eggshell fur of her haunches with his talons while scanning her beneath with a commotion of delight. "like golden retriever!" he spoke, his motions of flight idling in a gust.

"but more ugly."

With a gulp the meal the two had vied over was gone -- and instantly, Caiaphas was flush with nausea. It had truly been too big an entree to swallow entire -- fitfully she lowered upon her stomach and dropped her head to mitigate the wave of nausea that overcame her.

She was too preoccupied feeling sorry for herself to realize the dumb bird had come back -- this time toting more of her pack's limited meat. As his talons raked her bare rump she shrieked aloud in both a yelp and a growl -- though it was silenced quickly by a rush of hot and reedy vomit.

The pile she had upchucked sat in the snow and steamed -- with a doleful gaze Caiaphas turned back to the flitting bird, her expression contorted by bile and distaste alike. "And you're like my vomit.. only uglier." If she could have, she would have taken a rank dump too -- but she was feeling much too sorry for herself to entertain the idea of hunching over.

his taunts did not seem to phase her and disappointment shaded his pitch features as she lied down to temper her nausea. surprisingly, he did not anticipate her spew and as the haggard monarch retched all over the terrain, frame shuddering from the violence and trauma of the toxins purged from her body, the raven recoiled frantically. "bad dog! bad dog! bad dog!" he blared, winging upwards in a surfeit of revulsion.

her comment was discourteous. he gasped with offense and landed a few feet away from her drained sprawl. "don't go near the water, dog. you might caaaatch your re-fl-ecti-on." he spat the foodstuff into the imminent surf, his lopping skip-step drawing closer to her and his head tilting. "you might voooomit again. ick! ick! ick!" he snickered amusedly. "good dog. good trick. I laugh."

Caiaphas' jaws parted, if only to soften the sour bile that had stung her tongue. She scowled as the bird flew upwards, shrieking scurilities into the blanching wind. She didn't really care for his repetitive insults, yet she had no rejoinder.

She eyed the pile mournfully, and slowly licked her lips. It was such a waste of a kidney. As the black-fringed bird fluttered overhead she hunched downwards, her gaze tracking his trajectory along the wind. Sneakily, she tried to scoff down the portion she had already expelled from her body -- only to find that it was equally unpleasant going down as it was going up the first time.

With a hiccup, she sat backwards -- hoping the sudden motion would allay her queasiness. Yet the notion was unproductive -- and once more Caiaphas regurgitated the slimy and vomit-covered kidney into the frozen sand.

bartok danced from side to side, navigating around the waves as they tugged and released the sands. ruffling his iridescent pinions, he watched with horror as she proceeded to consume her own spit up. "stop it! stop it!" he scolded, bobbing his head with amazement and displeasure. "to feed your young?" he wondered, leaning in and slanting his head.

she slid tremblingly back to her haunches then, the paleness of her mien had not yet diminished and she neglected to give the weakness of her stomach time to abate. he was almost unsurprised when in an instant she expelled that which she had just washed down for god know's what reason. maybe her food had been poisoned, or she was just an idiot.

"taste good?" he asked, clicking his tongue. he lifted off the terrain and spread his wings, soaring upwards. "wait! wait here!" he instructed, fleeting into the nearby trees.

The raven's scolding was met with a scathing look as Caiaphas recovered from her unfortunate decision. She felt far queasier than she had in a long time -- hunched and rocking, it was all she could do to prevent more spewage from violently forcing its way onto the beach.

So concerned was she for her welfare that the imp did not see the raven's departure -- she only heard the flutter of his wings as he flew past. Mournfully she issued a piteous whine into her paws and elected to curl into a fetal position, shivering violently as she felt another wave of vomit threaten to surge through her.

knowing it was mostly his fault that the female caught her illness with his having worked her up in a tizzy of excitement and outrage, the shithead bird knew he had some manner of civic duty to relieve her of her indisposition. he was not a menace with the intent to inflict outright misery on the quarry of his mischief. not outright. subtle misery was a far more comfortable niche, possessing him of the advantage of moral rectitude.

having a small repertoire of herbal remedies, bartok knew roughly what ground to cover on his short errand and the time sensitivity it necessitated. he traveled in a low-hanging and searching manner for about a mile, sonic-ing through the backcountry and by way of a scudding arrow into the rural plains where their creeks were aplenty.

his beady eyes scoured down below until he spied what he was looking for – the flowering violet tops of raw peppermint, thriving under the shade and frost of a nearby stream. luckily for caiaphas they maintained through winter, and it's anti-anemic properties would help settle her gut. prising the plant by its root, he collected the leaves in his beak and off he went back in the direction of his code red patient.

he returned to her like a underachieving homing pigeon might return after mailing its letter addressed to canada, to the dunes of istanbul, defaulting to his idiosyncratic talent for a complete deficit of elegance as he came plunging down the airfield. acrobatics, mf: killed it.

his tousled wings enveloped his sides and he hop-skilled up the scrawny hinds of the balled-up queen, hiking to the crown of her head and holding himself steady there, his wings fanned out to balance himself knowing well she would reel back to scrutinize the twit that now claimed occupancy on her roof. he would have clung to her tiara… if she had one. he would have to throw something together for her later.

he peered down, cocking his head as he examined the bold canary yellow of her eyes. "hello sunshine! hello!" he gloried most pleasantly before leaping from his pedestal – a most grand dismount – and shifting on his lil twiggies to face her at a distance that promised him the most fail-safe immunity against the jowls that frothed and bubbled from the mucus of her expulsions. he delicately placed the beakful of greenery near her dainty flippers.

"this! herbivore, yaaas? down the hatch!" he advised. "do not reguuurgitate! none of that again!" he tsked and then continued to explain, "the pep-pep-peppermint will help! you will feel better." he smiled up at the coywof, canting his head expectantly. he squinted and stared at the twilit countenance before him and the glim disparity affixed there. he puffed up in a fuss of sudden marvel. "beauty! beauty! what eyes!" he paused in his roosing.. "comp-liments the greeeenish of face."

The entire of her body heaved as she silenced her stomach's discontent -- in a pathetic heap she curled, her head held between two slender paws. She heard the raven's return and her ears instantly pinned to her bony skull in apprehension; it was all she could do to sit straight upright and crow aloud as she felt his weight bop along her arched spine. Her eyes practically bulged with indignity as she felt him hop along her backside and land atop her lowered head.

Maybe if she played dead he would go away -- with a groan she slumped to the ground and her tongue lolled out limply. She even went so far as to flutter her eyes dramatically before she heaved a colossal sigh and slumped to the ground.

Her masquerade lacked longevity, for the acrid sting of peppermint caused her already-sensitive eyes to well with tears. Recoiling, the waif scuttled backwards and peered at the bird incautiously, her expression contorted by the harsh sting of the peppermint's fragrance. "Are you trying to kill me?" She hissed, swatting away his remedy before another hiccup of fowl bile caused her to lurch forwards without coordination. This caused her to reconsider her rejection, though true to her bullish nature she was not yet ready to redact her dismissal of the bird's antidote.

to her dismay his bid to correct his mistakes would not be interrupted by her (convincing) opossum performance, and as she melted into the earth with a histrionic sigh, he darted slightly forward and tilted his skull but didn't pay her shenanigans anymore mind.

the aroma of peppermint appeared to rouse her, though her reaction brought him brief confusion. he could not detect the plant but faintly, only able to identify its species by the tingle of it on his tongue.

when she expressed suspicion that he might be trying to kill her, he paused for a moment, and then cackled eerily. "no good for murder. no good at all!" he crowed, whisking his wings outwards with theatrical flair.

he began to re-gather the now diffuse sprouts, placing them once again near her shuddering, haggard frame. "peppermint not poisonous. soothes stomach!" he promised her with a quiet warble of approval. "bartok first. see?" he grabbed a peppermint stem in his beak, threw back his head and choked down the herb with a few fretful hacking noises as it worked its way down his gullet. hrk.

the waif watched in suspicion as the haggard bird tried to convince her the goodwill behind his efforts -- though she remarked quite clearly that the noises he made when he engulfed the plants were anything but appetizing.

But he hadn't died -- at least not yet. She squinted, waiting for any croaking noise to suggest he was about to die -- likely this was a fruitless endeavor, as every noise he made sounded not unlike the chatter of death.

She waited several moments, a paw held daintily in the air. Once a sufficient amount of time had passed in which she surmised was appropriate for poison to do its bidding she inched forwards on her stomach, crawling towards the small heap the bird had bundled. She was not judicious in which stalk she ate - with the voracity of a dog she mowed down on the plant, stiff branch and all.

"joke. it poison."

he reported gravely before falling to an ebon clump on the sand, the grubby state of his feathers lending towards a very compelling demonstration of extermination. he even took a cue from the coywolf and lolled his tongue, stilted black feet suspended in the air.

Caiaphas felt the cold embrace of horror consume her as she watched the bird slump -- she was either too sickly or too stupid to know it was a ploy (or maybe he was just that brilliant an enactor) -- and with a yelp she started to hack, and hack, and hack -- trying her best to encourage what she had just hustled into her craw back upwards.

The bird, upon its back in a convincing display of death's descent, was eyed with fueled animosity. It then occurred to her that the clacking avian was not the wittiest if he too had indulged in the poisonous plant .. Though she was still sure he was dead, this did not discourage the roar of fury that bubbled in her throat as she flew upon him -- if she was going to die in the next few moments, she better die whilst exacting her anger upon the bird's corpse.

dis could b us but u playin

now, bartok didn't fancy himself much of an actor – an amateur, a junior high theatrical flunkee at best – but this caiaphas was doing a fantastic job of building up his confidence about some of his supposed buried talents. actually, in general, she was just doing a fantastic job at sustaining him with an ample narcissistic supply.

what he figured would be transparent artifice turned out to be in fact, climactic genius, and he pried an eye open upon hearing the rustling and subsequent convulsions wrought in clammy desperation coming from the scarily gullible wolf.

he wasn't exactly sure what she was doing in that moment, maybe some sort of voodoo witchdoctor sacrament towards cthulu, forking over accolades for his delivering unto her the bird of tremendous... inviolability? yes, that. please be that exactly.

there were three simple guidelines for a raven's existence: 1. don't bully things bigger than you, especially if they have really impressive dental work 2. don't get comfortable about bullying that specific thing 3. definitely don't pretend to be dead in front of the thing you like to bully you unbelievable moron

in the next instant a swift movement found her slavering jowls closing in around him and ever in the manner of a berserker did he thresh and flap to remove himself as far as possible from the stomach acid-incrusted portal to his bleak and wildly inconvenient ruination. "HEY! NO! BAD DOG!" he screeched offendedly, socking her spring-ready jowls with the forceful influence of a precise pinion.

The scurvish waif's rage did froth over -- as she envisioned her last minutes on earth it only further flared her indignity -- in such that she was swift to clamp down on her tormenter's limp body. What damage she could to his offensive corpse before she perished -- what little vengeance she could exact before death took ahold of her -- it would be enough to ease her transition into the afterlife.

Yet it appeared her tormenter was not dead, and upon clutching his pinions in her jaws she was promptly assuaged by flapping feathers and shrieks. She had every intention of killing him then and now -- every fiber of her frame lustily wished to splash his (sparse) brain-matter upon the uncomprehending sand -- and it was unfortunate that at that particular moment her nausea returned with newfound gusto.

With a dry heave Caiaphas lurched forwards and spewed wet remnants of her last meal onto the earth, the slime of which slicked her muzzle and shot forth like rotted phlegm on the sand. It was gruesome noise that accompanied her hurling -- and no sooner had she involuntarily parted her jaws did she allow her aggressor means of escape -- between fits of hiccups and strings of ropy drool she watched him frantically ascend to the sky.

one more from you missus *-* edit: swear to god if i have to edit one more post for grammatical armageddon

near death experience: the archangel of petite terrors; the solemn toll of death that rapped the door of its cretinous sucker drawn to the dog-ear of its holy chapter; the saliva glazed, fury whelmed, friendship potential death-rattling struggle between canine and playwright over peppermint and a state-of-the-art curtain call.

amidst the flurry of contrasting shades, quoth the raven, boisterously: "RUDE! RUDE! RUDE!" he continued to smack at her with his powerful wings as she set tirelessly upon him like she had upon the liver that would ultimately be her undoing. she was rabid – hysteria beset her and just as well maddened her.

and maybe, just maybe, the bird was finding himself at cross-purposes with a beautiful phenomenon called "karmic reckoning."

just as quickly as she had attacked him, caiaphas withdrew from her homicidal ambitions, propelled backwards by yet another disabling washover of digestive grief. bartok didn't have to poison her, she had effectively completed that task on her very own – slopping down the tainted organs of a mammal she had chanced upon with no knowledge to call upon of its condition of health prior to its death. the gamble that she had taken was sizable and here she was, paying for it.

and here bartok was, paying for it, in a roundabout way. slicked with sputum, he dredged himself into airspace with mutterings of chagrin floundering on his tongue. "don't play with dogs. don't play with dogs." was his mantra as he flew awkwardly back into sequoia colonnades.

Underwhelmed by the relentless disquiet that humbled her, Caiaphas slunk into a dejected heap once the bird had pried itself free of her (feeble) grasp.

It wasn't evident if it was digestive upset that colored her muzzle or if it was scorn, yet all the same the slender coywolf watched the winged pestilence as it flitted through the treetops, carried aloft by a buoyant and generous briny wind.

She looked to her paws, which still had the remnants of her bile upon them. She withdrew a deep breath and rose, carrying herself unsteadily towards the shoreline. Her distraught fur needed a bath in the most urgent fashion -- with the practiced ease of a coastal wolf the imp slid into the saltwater, a vague silhouette in the stormy sea.