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As simply as he had vanished, taken off from Bleeding Souls to lick the wounds inflicted upon him by Hybrid, he had returned; it had been a short hiatus, but time enough for his seething rage to dissipate into what it really was. He wouldn't dare admit it, of course, being the emotionless creature that he was, but it was all pathetic anyway; this place they lived in, the lust and the blood that drained through its very veins into its core, and all the despicable people that lived there. Perhaps it would've been better if he'd stayed away, like his good-for-nothing mother. The bitch had all she wanted, he guessed; maybe she'd gone off to rot in peace.
As simple as all that would have been, it was where that particular demon had been born. Across the sprawling expanses and mountains of Bleeding Souls was nestled Inferni, the place of his birth, the place he would one day storm through and take over. But for now, he had to work on it all. The young man had managed to get scraggly in fur, yet powerful in muscle tone and already was quite tall and overbearing, standing on two feet. For a coyote who was still growing, he was a big fellow. He had long since managed to cut his own mane into a mohawk and to pierce his own ear, and his hardened gaze was perhaps even more malevolent and resentful than it had been prior to the brief departure.
He bore scars from his fight with Gabriel, his fight with Rachias, his fight with Arkham, and his fight with Hybrid, thin and thick alike cutting webs through his cinnamon-dusted grey fur, but it was all without consequence; he glared out at the world, the dark marking her shared with his mother and father alike very evident on his muzzle, now, as he walked forward with one hand holding a blade that he'd found and one shoved into the pocket of his shorts, which now fit him.
And that marked the return of Kaena's most recent corruption.
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Hey, the name's Void, thought I'd go ahead and jump on in here. Don't worry about meeting the length, my posts stretch on a little sometimes.
The once-again Storm-wolf padded through the dreary territory of Ames de le Mort, a place where he had met many, and put many into the ground. The location of the old graves he'd dug was still fresh in his memory. Imlan, the three wolves pursuing Twilight, the rabid wolf that had attacked Satin, he had put them all in the ground, though he was responsible only for three of the five deaths. His defense of Storm was a serious business, and he had not suffered those threats to live. Imlan's death may not have been necessary, he had considered often since the killing, but what was done was done and there was no going back.
It was in the midst of these thoughts that he found a son of Kaena, standing armed in the middle of Ames de le Mort. The boy was cut up, almost as ragged as he'd looked back in his youth, when he had first tapped into HawkWind's gift, the blood rage, and entered fight after fight as a berserker in gold fur. Many of those scars still existed on him now, mostly on his arms, face, and back. Eight feet of sinewy werewolf, missing his left ear, with his scars a warning to all that he had fought many times before, and that he was dangerous. His human pack hung from his right hip by one extended strap, the handle of his axe stuck up out of it always ready to be drawn, his knife was tucked deeper into the bag but its hilt was positioned by one of the pockets for easy withdrawal. His shield/brace was tied to a deerskin kilt he'd fashioned and rested on his left hip, pitted and scarred itself from a dozen claws, knife slashes, and fang marks. The two seemed to fit together nicely.
"Pretty knife. I'm guessing you're not just carrying it around for show?" Ordinarily he'd guess that someone so young had a knife exactly for that reason: to scare people. He could tell from the boy's appearance, though, that he had done more than his share of fighting in his short life. That didn't guarantee that he was good in a fight, but it did mean that he wouldn't have any qualms with getting into one, which was half the battle for most people. The fact that he smelled like Kaena and Gabriel, two trouble-makers that Skoll himself had fought in recent history, did a lot of talking itself. Strange that he didn't smell like Inferni...nevertheless, Skoll wasn't interested in a fight with anyone today, even if he had the upper hand. "Why not put it away and we can chat a while? No need for hostilities." The kid looked like he'd known enough hostilities, and the bronze wolf was guessing that he felt he had something to prove. Skoll could take care of himself, but neither of them needed to get cut today.
~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.
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[ooc] and as you're falling down
[bic] could i hear you scream?
It may have been a mirage. Squinting, the hard-eyed Lykoi felt his lip lift in disgust at the golden furred shape: wolf.
He wanted nothing to do with them, but perhaps to eat them.
But nobody said there wasn't an advantage to be had. This put pause in him and, for a moment, Andrezej was not like himself; the bloodlust that almost permanently shifted through his veins like his own did to keep him alive, the hunger for killing that he could not satiate, disappeared almost momentarily as his scheming went to work. All his life he'd been planning, watching these things unfold before his eyes when they did not, in fact, happen at all. They would happen, of that he was certain, and he'd probably dreamt something akin to this, or been in a similar situation.
Oh, yes, he remembered. A Lykoi bitch and a golden furred male on a bridge. Momentarily, he mistook this approaching one, possible phantom notwithstanding, for Tamerlane.
He was close, though, after some time. Andre had been wrong; what he thought were tattoos were really countless lines of scars, and even though this wolf was equally as huge and equally as malicious looking, he definitely wasn't the aloof traveler. Andre was, in comparison, much stouter and smaller, not even fully grown yet but close, but even despite this obvious disadvantage, his eyes held nothing but murder.
Give me a good reason why I shouldn't stick it in your throat right now, wolf. A demand, not a question. Andre was probably going to be famous for those provocative requests of his, but he could care less what came of it; his sole purpose in life was to kill Gabriel, and all the Lykois that opposed that action, and turn Inferni on those who kept it from being a great clan.
They were like a tribe of coyotes biding their time, and he wanted to make a name for them. A true name, not one that dwindled into history as they stood around defending themselves.
Sometimes it was opposition that wrote the book.
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If Andre does try to fight, I can have Skoll use the blunt side of his axe so that we avoid serious damage?
Skoll sighed. He should have expected as much, blatant disregard for his own well-being, seeming blindness for anyone else's capacity to do him harm. His siblings had been exactly the same. Skoll had nearly killed one of them because Gabriel had been too irresponsible to get them out of there, nearly killed one of them because holding back was killing him. When the berserk rage had taken him, he might have killed them all and died himself had Gabriel's fangs not snapped him out of the madness he was frantically trying to escape. This adolescent didn't know of that, or if he did, he didn't know the details. From what he'd heard, the Lykois and their allies had told everyone that he'd come in and savaged a nursery or some such nonsense. The real story was known between him and Gabriel's littermate, but apparently he had never told any of his family the truth of the brawl he'd started.
"Because the attempt would kill you," he said simply, resting his hand on the bag on his right. He had ample time to draw either or both of his weapons before the younger male closed the distance. He might not...he knew how to disarm a weapon-wielding canine, but drawing weapons of his own would be more likely to get some sense through the stranger's skull, and it was lower risk. He would hold off on either until the hot-blooded youth made a move. "You look and smell like a Lykoi. The last Lykoi I fought needed to hide behind his little brother and sister to even make a mark on me. You don't have any younger siblings to shield you, and you aren't as big or as experienced as the last one. I don't doubt your ferocity, but you shouldn't be foolhardy." After his experiences with Kaena, he highly doubted that any rationality would get through to her son. Everyone in Inferni at that point in time had been similar, all fire and ire, no sense and no practicality, barring her son. Gabriel, liar though he was to Skoll, seemed to be the only one he had ever had a semi-intelligible conversation with.
From this distance, the other would be able to see the axe-handle sticking up from the bag, would understand that in the event that he did choose to fight, he'd be up against someone much more experienced who bore steel as well, and had longer reach. He knew that his public image would take a dive again if he hurt any more Lykoi spawn, somehow a good number of the denizens of Bleeding Souls forgot quickly about the sins of that group of people, to the point that they could even sympathize with them. Still, Skoll had his own moral compass, and knew that he had done nothing wrong, not then and not now. Nevertheless, troublesome as he might be in the future, Skoll didn't want to mutilate him, and that's exactly what his axe would probably do, if things got out of hand.
~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.
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[ooc] and as you're falling down
Sure thing; he'll definitely attack, but he'll probably back way off when he's hit, coward that he is.
[bic] could i hear you scream?
He didn't really comprehend anything that was said to him in that moment.
In fact, Skoll may well have been talking to a wall. He listened, but he didn't let any of the words mean anything to him.
Boy, bastard's got flyin' lips.
Lykoi. Of course. He was less of a coward than the rest of them. At least as far as his mind was concerned.
That guarantees anything? It wasn't much of a true question, but the deep sarcasm in his voice surely tipped off his lack of belief. I don't care if the rest of my fucking family turned tail and ran at the sight of you. Would suit 'em just as well. I'm not like them. I'm better.
So he believed.
His feet launched him before the thought of striking even crossed his mind. Even cunning as he was, he didn't have any fight experience in that form, and it led to complications. He didn't strike from the sides, but went head on, knife raised for the throat which he would, guaranteed, not even get close to hitting.
But at least he wouldn't have hidden like whatever cowardly sibling Skoll was referring to had.
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Hope this is alright, tried to leave it relatively open for you to decide if Andre only gets grazed/hit dead center/is moving too fast and gets missed entirely or whatever you feel like.
Skoll's experiences throughout life had been many and varied. In his earliest battles he had fought on four legs, depending on his berserker fury to carry the day. When he had been mandhandled by Gronnor a few months after beginning his life of battle, he accepted the tutelage of the eight year old, and learned for half a year all his master could teach of hand-to-hand fighting. After leaving Gronnor's pack, Skoll became a traveling warrior who defended the weak, before taking on a protege to pass on his newfound knowledge. The two of them had gone into the Four Pack war, and in the interests of staying alive in a conflict where human weaponry came into play for almost half of the combatants, Skoll had taken up the first weapon he'd found, a human lumber axe, and become proficient with it over the following months past that war and into the next. The Raven Feud had followed, and that had been the last major chapter in his life before Bleeding Souls.
Naturally gifted on four legs, trained thoroughly on two, and having learned to use axes and knives on his feet in the last four major excursions (including two since coming to Bleeding Souls), Skoll had done everything in his power to become the best warrior he could be. He had chosen a marketable skill, and it had gotten him by this far, though the tribulations of the work were written in volumes across his flesh.
As Andre took off to close the distance, Skoll's right hand that he'd lain across his weapon-bag wrapped around the axe handle, withdrawing it out and around in one fluid motion. He jumped backward and to the side at the same moment as he adjusted his grip, turning the axe head away from the oncoming youth. His eyes were focused, but there was no fire there, he did the maneuver in one clinical motion over the moment it took for the gray coyote to close the gap. The arc of the axe coming up and around into a raised position paused for a fraction of a second as synapses fired off in the old wolf's brain, and a minute twist in his arm and wrist lined up the blow, before the flat metal portion at the back of the axe's head came flying down toward Andre...
~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.
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[ooc] and as you're falling down
[bic] could i hear you scream?
He could've sworn it took hours.
Crack.
His vision blurred and pain split his world apart. Andre yowled as the force of the blow shoved him brutally to his knees, and he bit his tongue to keep from crying out. The growl rumbling furiously in his chest told enough about how much that hard hurt.
But he couldn't help but to feel his heart accelerate.
It felt good to be hit that hard.
He opened one bleary eye and glared up at the male, tail thumping the ground behind him as he slumped back from knees to ass, pressing the heels of his feet against the ground. His head where the back of the axe had smacked him continued to smart, and when he moved the world spun, but it wasn't too serious. He wasn't dying, at least.
He waited for the world to settle back down, one hand upon the spot where he'd been struck, and one pressed against the ground.
Fuck! came the yell, finally, as lemon turned to fire under his gaze. That fucking hurt!
Like that would make it better.
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"Well, that is sort of the point of a fight." He wasn't really amused, but he was glad to be the one to deliver this lesson, even if it was to an unwilling and possibly unlearning student. Skoll stood back far enough for the coyote youth to understand that he didn't plan to capitalize on the situation. Resting his weight mostly on one leg, he rested the axe against his shoulder; it would be a two-handed weapon for a human, and possibly for a small werewolf, but it was a perfectly functional single-hand implement for someone of his size. At rest though it was, he would be able to ready it again in short order if necessary. As it stood, the grey male was sitting on the ground, the fight appeared to be over.
"You know, you're brave, but fighting takes brains too. If I had taken you as seriously as you wanted me to, I'd have hit you with the business-end of this axe. That blow would have killed you if it had been facing the other way." He looked critically down at the strange coyote, whose tail wagged at the pain, but if it was out of consternation or excitement he couldn't tell. The bunch of them were crazy enough, that was for sure.
"So, what now? We could talk, like I originally proposed, or you could attack me again and I could finish what I started. Alternatively, you could just walk away." He didn't know what exactly Andre would do, if he'd learned anything from his experiences with the Lykois it was that they were unpredictable. He also wasn't sure exactly what he wanted the kid to do. If they talked he could learn something about him, read into him. If he attacked again, Skoll could take him out...but that wouldn't accomplish much. If he just walked away...well, Skoll would at least be rid of him and free to return to his musings.
~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.
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[ooc] and as you're falling down
[bic] could i hear you scream?
He didn't like any of this talk.
You don't know what you're doing, Lykoi.
Maybe you should crawl back to Inferni and beg forgiveness.
No, he answered his thoughts, struggling to his feet and gripping the blade tightly. He didn't clarify himself, however, simply composed himself to stare frostily at the wolf.
Wolves were scum, but nobody said they weren't respectable.
That was the assumption he'd made the day Hybrid had told him of the wolves. That was the assumption he'd made at Tamerlane's level-headedness: he'd named it stupidity. That was the assumption he'd made at Legacy's inability to fight back against him.
But she had dragged out in him a softer part, which was dangerous to him should he ever see her again.
Teach me to do that, he commanded, not even making it into a question.
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"No." he said with a tone of finality, almost the instant of Andre's demand. "You found a knife and lunged for the kill at the very first provocation. You wouldn't be responsible with anything I had to teach you." There was no venom in his words, no hatred; Skoll didn't have these things for the young Lykoi. As far as he knew, this one had never taken a life before at his young age, but he could tell that his family had turned him into the same monster the rest of them were. He seemed almost like a duplicate of his mother...all hostility, no diplomacy.
He wouldn't be responsible for making this hot-head Lykoi any more potent than he was already going to be. To someone like Skoll, his danger came from his knife alone, and the big wolf considered taking them from him. Ultimately he decided against it. More of them could be found in the Concrete Jungle, taking this one wouldn't do much in the long run, only make the kid want to come back to Storm for revenge. Hell, he might be planning to do that already, supposing he hadn't figured out that the discrepancy in their capabilities.
Wordlessly he studied the youth, wondering what would come next. Another attack? Cursing like he'd known the day he went to speak with the Inferni leader about her children? Steely silence at the rejection of his 'proposal'? It was hard to tell with someone who had been raised to think in such insane patterns. Skoll's eyes could anticipate movements, but other things were harder, and he didn't have a whole lot of experience in conversing with people like the Lykois.
~The lyrics are from the best song ever written.
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[ooc] and as you're falling down
[bic] could i hear you scream?
The boy's lips twisted up in a smirk.
The wolf wasn't as stupid as he might have wanted to think. The Lykoi could appreciate intelligence in any other situation.
But this intelligence caused him to not get his own way. That, in itself, was unacceptable; he was a fucking prince, after all, even if his mother wasn't anywhere around any longer. He didn't say anything in response to the golden-haired wolf, and the murderous intent from before was gone.
He would, someday, seek out someone who would teach him to fight. He simply had not yet come across the means of requesting such a thing. Perhaps he would have to pretend like he was simply an innocent apprentice.
Yes. I am training to be a Guardian of sorts for when I join a pack. Would you be so kind as to help me?
Something along those lines.
Fine, was all he said, bitterness lacing his words though vengeance wasn't anywhere to be found. The boy would come for Skoll someday, but not today. He would come for him and show him how he would have been spared if he'd been a bit smarter about it all.
It was smart to not aid Andrezej Lykoi into being more of a killer at heart than he was.
But it was smarter, still, to not be in the way of that heart.
He swayed gently on his feet, shook his head, and spun about. Without another word, or another glance, the boy stormed off to somewhere else, where someone else would be willing to assist him. When he could fight, and fight unlike any Lykoi knew how, he would go for Gabriel.
And then he'd go for those who'd denied him.
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