Read Between the Lines. [Willow]

[Erebos]

He had to be careful as he moved, but not because he feared the dangers that would inevitably result from pressing onward - no, it was company in the form of competing brothers and sisters that he sought to avoid. Thus far he had evaded crossing paths with another, often catching glimpse of a familiar, oversized paw print in the mud, a telltale sign that his gargantuan bloodline had been where he was at an inconveniently recent point in time. He would alter his path with an irritated exhale; he only needed to defeat one of the stupid birds that Goliath had deemed a worthy foe, and then he would be able to put the Agoge behind him.

He was expected to do so with physical force, to prove that he could put his special size to good use, but he had other plans: while the rest would undoubtedly seek out Sabaoth or Isaiah for instruction, he would be picking flowers.

He searched the ground with a critical eye as he walked, and when he found what he was looking for, his eyes brightened in an unusually intense showing of fondness. He was not a wolf of emotion, and had anyone been present to witness the way he grinned like an innocent puppy, surely they would've mistaken him for someone else entirely. He pulled from the base of the stem, and once extracted from the soil, he repeated this process with another, and then another after that - something this large would likely require a heavier dosage, and he wouldn't be unprepared when the time came to act by having too little physical force laced inside the flesh of the bird's meal.

Satisfied, he turned to leave, poison carefully positioned inside of his jaw, until his momentary bliss was cut short by the sudden thought that he was no longer alone. He cast a wary glance over a muscular shoulder, observing the brush with slits for eyes, lip pulling back in a silent snarl - he had went this far without running into one of his siblings, and the last thing he wanted was to find Lilith humorously disguised in the foliage when his mouth was filled with poison. She wouldn't understand, none of them would.

"You might as well come out." Although the way he said it, like there was quite literally anything else he wanted more, would perhaps make the intruder feel inclined to stay put. Despite that, the mammoth of a wolf didn't flinch, didn't even blink, as he anticipated the face of his watcher. His patience was wearing thin, but it was an invisible shift if not for the shudder of his eyelids, an unspoken displeasure for having finally been found among the many places to hide around Vor'asa.

@willow

[Deleted]

She breathed in the new smells, all of the foreign sights and scents enticing the tiny female further away from the solace of home. Today, she had not left to be intentionally willful. She was not the rebellious type of wolf. On the contrary, she felt some sense of guilt as she traveled toward the north, but her mind was made up and her purpose was clear. Willow would never be a great hunter. She couldn’t keep up with pups younger than her, let alone something that was fleeing for its very life. She would certainly never make an adept fighter, for her gentle spirit and stunted limbs made her ineligible for the task of violence.

No. Willow would be just like her mother, meant to save lives instead of taking them away. The life of a healer seemed so obvious now, thanks to her life-long interest in plants and her mother’s patient guidance. Athena would not be happy to know that one of her lessons had inspired her smallest daughter to stray, but Willow was determined to find plants that couldn’t be found in the territory claimed by the Valyn pack. Instead, the two-toned female happened upon a startling sight – A boy.

There were not many like him in Valyn. The majority of her natal pack was filled with females, with only a handful of brutes present in the jungle. There was something strangely familiar about the stranger, though Willow was certain she had never encountered the dark wolf before. He was undeniably an impressive specimen, inches taller than the femme who silently observed him. Even from a safe distance, she could see his immense shoulders move, sinew rippling beneath ink swirled pelt. The boys of Valyn were big, as well, and with no other experience to draw upon, Willow concluded that all males were similarly sized.

She watched, a gentle smile toying her lips as she watched the brute picking blossoms from the earth. He was blissfully unaware that he had company, so engrossed in his task that her scent had not caught his attention yet. The brute seemed… excited? Content? Willow was not entirely certain what the odd smile he wore could mean, but any wolf who could appreciate the beauty of a flower could only be good, by her estimation. He had plucked them so gently…

Willow was pulled from her thoughts by an unsettling snarl. The male had realized that someone else was nearby, and the promise of a visitor seemed to anger the beast. Something inside of Willow told her to run away now. But she stayed. Instead of trying to escape the wolf’s icy glare, the female slipped from the plants that had concealed her to reveal her presence, ears crumpled in sheepish embarrassment for being caught staring. ”I – I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to intrude,” she stammered, unnatural yellow gaze falling quickly to the dust beneath her shadow. Even her own pack mates teased her about her looks – the too-short legs, out of proportion and strange – so she did not expect a stranger to be kind. Still, she was too curious to walk away now. He was taboo back home. ”You’re a healer,” she said carefully as her eyes moved, slowly, to meet his stare. ”Aren’t you?”


words: 564
tag: Erebos

[Erebos]

When she emerged from the bushes, the lethality inscribed within his curled lip and gritted teeth quivered, unsure of what to do with such a small and assumably weak creature - he had been expecting one of his siblings, but the sheer size (or lack thereof) that she possessed was enough to numb his former hostility. He examined her, a thoughtful look crossing his face, doing nothing to hide the fact that he was blatantly staring. Eventually his snarl had faded, too caught up in the unlikely appearance of the intruder to notice; it would be easy for her to see that his focus was directed towards her rather short and unapparent limbs, and though the permanent grimace etched into his lips would be no indication of kindness, if anything representing a foreboding verbal or physical attack yet to occur, he didn't act upon the impulses he felt.

This was the first wolf he had come across that wasn't of Kairos, and that meant she knew nothing about him.

She inquired about his rank; it was humorous that she thought a healer would be tasked with the Agoge, but again he needed to remind himself that, as an outsider, she didn't know his purpose for being here. He suppressed the chuckle that built in the base of his throat, gathering a strange means of entertainment from her oblivion. "How very bold of you." He took a step closer, then, because she clearly needed to be reminded of the situation: here she was, asking for information about who he was and what he did like it was her right, when at any moment he could very well end her life with a swift bite. Pale blue eyes narrowed as they took in the sight of her once more, finished with pressing his advantage upon her - for now.

Instead he smiled, a rare thing for him to do indeed, looking towards the poisons now sprawled across the ground nearest his large paws. "You could say that," he lifted his shoulders in the motioning of a shrug as though to express his lack of concern for what title she wished to brand him with, "but healing is among the last of what these would do." Erebos didn't lift his eyes to her, ignoring the intrigue he felt towards how she'd react to this information - it was scary, she was meant to be scared of it, and even more scary was what he'd do if she wasn't scared of it.

"I'm going to use it to render an animal of impressive size and strength utterly useless, so a higher dosage is required." Now he was openly stating his thoughts, his hypothesis, because it didn't seem overly worrisome to share such things with someone uninvolved and, for the sake of continuing to be open about his thoughts, unimportant. Finally he looked at her, he really looked at her, and it made his smile more excessive than it had ever been. "I can't help imagining what a dosage like this would do to you."

@willow

[Deleted]

It required little intuition to instantly realize what a mistake she had made – in coming to this place, in venturing away from her sisters and the jungle, ever thinking that she should look for something or someone new. He stared brazenly at her ill-formed legs, and Willow’s expression sagged further, her tail disappearing beneath her rump as she seemed to melt beneath his gaze. If her own pack couldn’t keep themselves from stealing long glances at her, why should a stranger be any different? But there was something different in his eyes, something far more sinister than Willow had expected. His voice was unsettling as he took a step closer, causing Willow to take her own (much smaller) step backward. The smell of him was powerful, and she had never felt as small as she did in that moment.

Here he was, a stranger who was bigger than a boulder, collecting specimens instead of pushing his considerable weight around. He hinted that he was collecting poisons, and Willow suppressed her growing terror. You couldn’t have good without bad, or health without illness. It was a balance. Still, it was something that Athena had carefully guarded from her daughters. Willow knew one or two plants that, when administered incorrectly, could have negative affects, but she wasn’t certain which ones were powerful enough to do greater damage – it had never occurred to the young female that she would ever use her knowledge to harm another wolf.

The nameless beast wouldn’t be able to eat anything that he poisoned, Willow though, but as he elucidated, she began to piece together his intentions. He wasn’t doing it because he was hungry. When the wolf’s pale eyes moved back to the tiny femme, the breath was stolen from her lungs. "I can't help imagining what a dosage like this would do to you."

The girl’s feline eyes darted to the left in an attempt to find a way to make a fast escape, but her dainty paws felt glued to the spot. Though her legs were shorter than the brute’s, she would have some advantage, able to squeeze through small spaces that a giant could never access. But she had to get away from him first. She swiveled her form away from him without another word uttered, moving as quickly as she was capable. In her ears, she could hear the sound of her mother’s voice, accompanied by the rapid beating of her heart within her chest, and for a second, she thought that the silvery femme would be there to save her – even if Athena was smaller and walked with a limp, her mother would save her. Her hope was short-lived, for she was miles away from another soul who knew her name or gave a damn whether she lived or died.

tag: Erebos

[Erebos]

His eyes had followed hers to the left almost lazily, for if the thought of running had crossed her mind she was more foolish than he imagined possible; with legs like that, she wouldn't be able to go anywhere that he wouldn't be able to find her. Lips curled back, a warning, one that didn't need a noise to enunciate its lethality, but it seemed she wasn't looking for anymore signs that would predict what happened if she took off - when she turned away from him, her quickness serving as a brief shock to the giant who underestimated her so, he was more than ready to go after her.

As if he would've followed through with his threat. It was more of a curiosity than it was an opportunity where he'd dare to waste his poisons. What he had was strictly for the Giant Moa's, and though he was far from being above doing the same to a wolf, that would come later when he wasn't quite so tied up in a situation he had no intention of staying in. The she-wolf, however, knew nothing of his intentions, and could only go off of what had been said - and what had been said hadn't given her much reason to stick around. That hardly meant he wouldn't chase her, though. He wanted her, and whether that was because she had ran or, even more likely, she had such an interesting and unusual physique... it amounted to the same end result. Surely what he wanted would be his in due time.

He pounced, his leap averaging the same distance as a few of her frantic strides, and when she fell to the ground beneath him with the same ease as a fragile fawn, he smiled despite the impulse to end her life as though she and the fawn in question were but one in the same. "Surely you know that running away has a tendency to trigger a predator's most primal instinct." His breath brushed against her ear, doing everything in his power to make her feel like this was it, like this is how she would meet her end. She was mesmerizing to him, but only because she was different, exciting even, and eyes that had once blatantly stared at her legs with judgement were now filled with intrigue and wonder.

He couldn't risk her getting away from him... ever. There were still some important matters that required his attention, but he would tend to those matters knowing that she would still be here, exactly where he left her, waiting whether it was with fear or hope heavy in her heart. A row of teeth touched either side of her leg, grip slowly intensifying, giving her plenty of time to prepare herself for the pain that would rocket through her entire body at any second. There was already so much less she could do with her stumpy legs, and with one broken, she would have no choice but to rely on him for survival. She could happen upon someone else, of course, someone far more kind than him, but he would kill anyone who interfered without hesitation. The plan was already formulated in his mind, solidified into perfection, and that meant terrible, terrible things for the poor Valyn girl.

"If that broken leg of yours doesn't keep you contained until I can return, there will be far worse for next time. Keep that in mind." He had to find somewhere more secure to keep her, perhaps catch her something to eat so she wouldn't starve, and then of course there was the matter of going back for his poisons. Being both the one to harm her and the one to care for her wasn't ideal, but injuries would keep her with him, would keep her from running - from being able to - and if that was what it'd take than that's what he'd do. Grabbing her around the neck, he proceeded to haul her somewhere away from prying eyes.

@willow
ooc: it can be assumed he found somewhere to stash her and caught her something to eat. I was running out of muse and didn't really want to make the post much longer. cx Had permission to powerplay the injuries and the capture, just so any admins don't come after me in my sleep. xD END THREAD.