Sequoia Coast but life is long my love is gone away

@bartok - set after she trails back from the Bay, after this thread

Punishing was the watery cold that embraced her, stunning her coat and stupefying her senses. The water she had struggled through since the Bay had been brutally icy -- sloughs of her skin she felt burning. Even her paws had become numb to the coarse sand beneath her and Caiaphas wondered if this is what the grave felt like.

Drawing forth from the ocean she shivered and issued a mighty shake, expelling quickly the water that accumulated in her coarse fur. She was pleased with her handiwork and it showed -- a cruel smile lanced her sharp muzzle as she reflected on her evening's 'duties'. She thought herself exceedingly clever -- not only had she planned her attack strategically in such a manner that the Duskfire wolves would immediately suspect Ragnar's keep rather than hers', but when they trailed her they would find her trail disintegrated into the sea's salty clutch.

Her mood was considerably lifted -- and with a titter, the wraith dove towards a flock of seagulls that had gathered about. Shrieking, the gaunt wretch fell upon them and sent them scattering into the greyladen skies.

bartok was naught but a dot in the sky as he sailed high above the sound, integrated imperceptibly in the firmament that spanned endless and blue before them. he had not followed caiaphas this time, but scoped her below his trajectory in what he would only dignify as a rash of searags, ones that bartok would be most delighted to wash the seaboard with.

he dove, tucking his wings to his sides and blasting through the turmoil of confused wingflaps, his pecker (u pervert) grabbing all manner of greasy, disgusting feather as he wrought utter grief upon them. second most favorite thing.

Like a pregnant stormcloud sharply punctured, the birds scattered -- their shrieking calls inflected calamitously upon the open skies. A dark dagger fell among them, a whirlwind of onyx plume and shadowburst -- and as Caiaphas watched the volitation besiege them she recognized the grim harbinger as Bartok.

"Bartok the Beak!" The gaunt hag chittered, haranguing the revolving sphere of birds with her sharp teeth. Nothing could elate her more than the prospect of torment after her insidious deed, and she carried with her a most darkly jovial aspect as she plucked a bird from the sky and sent it caterwauling in an undignified spiral upon the frozen sand.

indebted to his determination to lay waste he gave little more than a dry, grating caw in return to the coywolf's salut – the sluggish dither of his wings and the ruckusing of the seagulls' would be plenty to turn nearby eardrums into porridge.

caiaphas took to the grisly volley like a natural and he saw potential in it, one of his beady eyes, affluent with sadistic fondness, tracking her harrowing blows. he gave her gratified, gibbering feedback each time she connected her mark. rarely was there ever another who shared his affinity for seagull genocide.

catching one of the smaller gulls in the dragnet of his talons, he snapped both of its pinions and cast it unceremoniously to the beach-turned-feather-mattress. it thrashed incapably where it landed, dragging itself along the ground with no use to be had of its shattered wings and a wretched mewing noise scraped from its throat as bartok descended upon the contagion and tore what remained of it to pieces.

Their play, more of a slaughter to some, invigorated her wearied limbs. She pounced upon those that the streaking bird flung downwards when she could -- others who were unfortunate to flap too close to her flinging jaws were sent tumbling to the ground only to be slain.

However, the scatter was shortlived for her -- dutifully, she watched the raven ravage those in the sky. He looked not unlike a gloomy missile -- a stark black against whirling stormcloud grey. She lacked the graceful wings to carry herself upwards with him -- and instead witnessed the spectacle as a piteously earthbound derelict.

Perhaps Bartok would weary of his endeavors, and flutter down alongside her -- but for now, she delighted in the cacophonous chaos he delivered to the heavens above.

plucks of grimy, white feather poised in his bill til the wind tore them from his clamp and scattered them about the scene of their maritime massacre. and oh, what a pretty massacre it was. several of the gulls staggered about with maimed extremities, looking the better part of inebriated as they face-planted the sand and screeched with distress.

it was mostly caiaphas' effort that concluded the butchery, her teeth dealing blows which ferried them to their place in the underworld (every single one of the idiotic hellbirds a passenger – their existence was enough to reserve a coin on Charon's barge).

satisfied, the look of concentrated hatred immediately dismantled bartok's countenance and a boon, eye-crinkled smile swallowed it entire. dismounting from his Trojan-esque hilltop of expired seagulls, bartok hopped over to the lemon-eyed chimera. "hi dog!" he greeted brightly, shuffling his disheveled wings and pulling them to his sides as he waddled towards her.

Once Bartok had finished committing the last of their quarry to Charon's clutch, he merrily concluded his work by hailing the drudge-dog. Caiaphas watched him curiously as he gamboled over to her. It seemed there was nothing in the world that could unite two psychopaths so quick as the cheery slaughter of beachbound avians.

"Hi bird!" The wretch cawed in reply, her expression devoid of its usual dour charm. She eyed the carcasses that littered the shore, their ruffled feathers swirling in the gentle beach breeze. She was proud of their handiwork.. you know, in that sad and scary sociopathic sort of way. "Hungry?"

he looked about them as she did, pivoting his head from side to side as he assimilated the full extent of their "gene pool cleansing" (you know, for the greater good of the world). never before had the raven feasted his eyes upon such lovely oceanfront property. were he capable he would have bought a beach house and parked it smack where they stood.

bonnie and clyde once again reconvened in the nucleus of gore and morbid recreation, her cawing return inspiring him to puff merrily, and in response to her question he picked at a feather stuck in the sand, breathed to life on the tail of a seafaring current. "bartok would be delighted! de-lighted!" he hooted with an affirmative nod of his head, his gizzard spasming with sudden hunger.

Caiaphas watched with a wry expression upon her muzzle as the blackfiend jubilantly hopped after an abandoned plume carried by the wind, his gargling cry reaching the heavens in a most raucous and offensive tone. They were not so different, despite one being borne of the air's variety and the other being tethered to the dull earth -- both were imps, in their own delightful way.

She picked hungrily at a bird tucked between her claws, crunching easily the brittle bones between her triangular jaws. Once she had stuffed her craw to its fill she spread across the sand, her gut swollen and eyes shut with devious enjoyment. She would wait until Bartok finished his fill before speaking, content to nap in the pale sunlight as the bird beside her ate his fill.

following suit the grimy cretin tucked into the tender victuals of one of the seagulls, tossing back slivers of meat with an abrasive, albeit pleased, squawk. it took little to slate his hunger and soon after caiaphas had settled back with repletion tiring her, he bounded through the sand and revolved her recumbent figure like a new york pigeon dumbly chaperoning its stoop. "bartok not seen dog for days," he said with a tone of meddlesome interest and slight dismay.

the thrum of the ocean followed by bartok's greedy gobbles was enough to lull caiaphas -- for a moment, the siren queen almost slipped off into refreshing sleep. she was disturbed when the bird bounded about her -- she pried a singular and nearly disapproving eye upon him until he spoke.

the tone of his dry voice caught her unawares and she shifted to gaze upon him. it was hard to read the countenance of a bird -- it wasn't soft, like a doe's -- nor did it possess the complexity of a fox's. it was simply black eye and black beak and black feathers, all black and all inscrutable.

"dog has been busy devising schemes. many enemies to kill, many babes to slay." she replied in the clipped semblance bartok was well-known for.

bartok perked up, the nonchalant mentioning of machiavellian designs making his gullet bleat with enthusiasm. he could be very resourceful, a useful implement in her institution.. wolf politics rarely piqued his interest, but bamboozlement with his best-loved mongrel hardly qualified. he skirted about her feet and beaked at the spaces between her toes. why was he not notified of this plotting? more importantly, why was he not allowed to participate?! "dog leave bartok out. bad dog!" he chided, his feelings scalded by her obvious lapse in judgment.

she had not expected the volley of indignity in which spat forth from bartok's clawed beak -- she blinked, clearly taken aback -- a double chin forming beneath her angular muzzle as she squinted and arched from the verbal blow.

oops. a slight she probably couldn't ever be forgiven for. she hadn't considered bartok one to partake in the affairs of dumb dogs, but she wondered if the excitement had more to do with the prospect of torment than personal loyalty. "oh, how stupid of me." she chided, though she was insincere in the term stupid. she thought herself extremely intelligent, actually. "we're fighting duskfire glacier. they stole a puppy of mine." as if those sordid details would interest the bird.

bartok demonstrated his best scowl (which, considering resting bitchy face syndrome, barely scraped by as making any difference) to express his blatant animus towards her inconsideration, ruffling his feathers and sulking for all of the ten seconds of buffer time it took for caiaphas to pick up her oopsie daisy.

her stint of self-deprecation neglected, bartok tilted his head towards her and looked up her wan snout with a cocked and leery eye as she filled in the details of her conspiracy. there was truth in her suspicion – the structure of the story-line was just a shoestring in the grand scheme of his interest. the raven, like most, was an entirely self-serving little pisshead, and his commitment to the plot only went to the extent of the relevance of emotional disintegration.

though he was touched by imperceptible intrigue to learn (in this case assume) that some chap had managed to, uh, scrutinize that impossible curve long enough for a tax refund. a mislaid puppy, of all things to throw the siren queen into an enormous tantrum. unnerving, but also admirable. what an achievement. where was the body buried, he wondered?

bartok parted his bill and spiritedly whooped, trotting uncomfortably into her personal space and bore into the glim of her eyes. "they steal puppy, we steal life! ha ha ha hahaha!" he cackled, and then straightened up. "bartok joke. no death. maim, maybe." he gave a thoughtful, and affirmative, nod.