[M] - fragile autumn

Vesper · 11-22-2011, 02:05 PM

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So the mongrel was angry. Vesper knew that her own actions were nearly as childish as the crown-wearing girl, and they were definitely prideful and stupid, but the coywolf lived by the philosophy of pride before life. She had practically raised herself after the first few critical months, and with a sister that was too dependent and a mother too apathetic to have pride, the young hybrid had craved a reason to be proud of herself. And she’d worked too hard to deserve her dignity to have it thrown away by submissively offering a piece of meat to some whelp.

Proud, stupid, and dangerous. But Vesper wasn’t pretending to be perfect.

The snarls did not bother her, but the moment that the pale hand tightened around the knife to throw it, she realized that she couldn’t turn back. A blade flew at her face, and Ves jerked to the side to avoid it—but too late. The sharp edge ran along her shoulder, and she snarled as blood welled from the cut. She had never been cut by metal before; it was a cleaner wound than one etched by canine fangs, cleaner and deeper—and it made her nervous.

The cream merle teenager growled at her, insulting her for the grey splotches in her patchwork pelt, and the loner stared in disbelief. Hating someone for their coat color was more laughable than hating someone for their species—having a black or tawny or purple pelt dictated what someone was less than being a coyote did.

But Vesper wasn’t laughing as the young bitch rushed toward her, the knife plunging down across her shoulders. She let out a hiss of pain, squirming, trying to dislodge the blade before it was forced too deep. The non-luperci quickly lunged for whatever was in her range, jaws wrapping around the girl’s thigh in a nasty bite. Had she a pure wolf’s gnashing jaws, she might have been able to do lasting muscle damage, but she had always been coyote in her muzzle.

Still, the blood poured, staining her white chest and splattering on the forest floor below them. There was a scream that made her ears flatten, and the wolfdog’s jaws came down on her neck. She braced herself, rolling her shoulders forward to push up her scruff so that the teeth would bite down on loose skin rather than anything important. Her pelt was striped by this point with the crimson running down, and her vision became briefly fuzzy from the loss of the precious fluid. Still, she hoped for an opening, perhaps a bite at the girl’s stomach if she could twist her scruff free—

She had forgotten about the man. Soon a different set of claws were tearing into her, and she screeched, writhing, as they dug deep. Fur and skin parted until she was covered in gashes. She managed to nip the man when he came in close with his teeth, but it was soon clear to her that she was losing this fight, and if they did not personally end her life with a twisted blade or a severed artery, the blood loss would take care of her.

It had been easy for Vesper, her pride bruised and her temperament dark, to decide to take a stand and save face rather than skulking away like a poltroon. However, as she could feel her energy sapped, feel the blood oozing down onto the forest floor, her mindset changed to a more feral one—one that craved survival rather than silly ideals about dignity.

So she went limp, whimpering to appease her assailants. Her torn body crumpled to the forest floor, her open wounds stinging as they came in contact with the grass and dirt that was splattered with the blood of all three canines, luperci and non-luperci. There was nothing else, really, that she could do—she felt mute, frozen. She was not broken yet, but she might as well have been dead for the way she sprawled out on the ground, her breathing weak, her grey-splattered tawny fur absolutely saturated with blood.

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