[M] once upon a sinkhole

WARNING: This thread contains material exceeding the general board rating of PG-13. It may contain very strong language, drug usage, graphic violence, or graphic sexual content. Reader discretion is advised.

Thread Prompt: Some strangers are cutting across Inferni territory where it stretches into the mountains. They don't stop to hunt or cause trouble, but it's still trespassing, isn't it? Scare them away from using the shortcut, or perhaps "escort" them through -- after all, they wouldn't want to go missing, would they?

(304) Izual's planning on making the travelers go *poof* - will you deter him from his plan or help him? >:D

There were strange smells in the north of the pack lands. Smells none strange to Izual, but strange on Inferni lands because they didn’t smell like the pack at all. They smelled like the strangers Izual hunted in his free time; the strangers’ whose blood stained the forest floor ever few days; the strangers’ who screams echoed through the night – but if a tree falls when no one’s around, does it make a sound? If a Luperci screams when no one is around, do they really make a noise?

There were strange smells in the north, so Izual went to investigate.

With Izual’s tracking skills – honed in the many moons he went hunting for his own kind – it hadn’t taken him long to find them, nor long for them to feel an ever-lurking presence hiding among the trees, watching, waiting for them to make one wrong move.

Since they were trespassers, this was a kill he was allowed to make in the name of Inferni, right? He wouldn’t be reprimanded for spilling blood on the pack lands, right? They are in his territory, right?

Right. Because he said so, and because it was right. He counted. Two men and a woman. Two seasoned travelers and a woman that looked as if her eyeballs would pop out of her head. Every flutter of the leaves or every bird noise, she’d flinch, jump, gasp, while her counterparts would stop, listen, and then continue picking their way through the mountains. The two men led the way and the woman, adorned in a long skirt, followed.

She was a jumpy one, indeed.

Hanging back only for the moment, Izual hid in the trees, keeping somewhat of a distance as he planned his attack. They were on his lands, posing a danger, and he would like them removed. Permanently.

00+ I had my eye on this for a while. ;D

See galleries for credit.

Generally Vicira left matters of trespassing and war to the Bellum and Sciens beneath her. When she heard of the trespassers making shortcuts through Inferni lands, she avoided the mountains -- or seemed to. At first she didn't want to be bothered or risk getting injured when there were many warriors chomping at the bit to prove themselves for the clan, but her old duty as a scout called her, and she went to investigate.

She took her four-legged form for stealth and speed, knowing that like this she would be better able to outrun any wrongdoers. It allowed her to make her way up the mountain pass, agile and quick, leaping from rock to rock and squeezing through gaps in bush and stone that would have stymied her Optime form. Vicira stopped occasionally to lift her head to listen and sniff, but there was nothing for some ways.

Then she saw them, meandering down a path cautiously. Quickly, the grey coywolf loped up among the stone into the foliage -- where she spotted a reddish-grey shape crouched, like a predatory gargoyle. An odd smile crossed her face, and she sidled up close to him.

(311) oh man Vici and Izi come to cause trouble >:D

Orange eyes remained locked on the trespassers for some time until they began to disappear beyond the ridge of the mountain. From what he observed, he marked the jumpy woman for fun for later, and the seasoned travelers for death first. They would be the most difficult to deal with, he thought, and then he could chase the woman down in the woods later and torture her until he saw fit. Yes, that was a perfect plan in his small little world and seek and hide.

Izual had been so into his plans that he hadn’t noticed Vicira approach until she was right at his side – in which he started. He stopped himself just short of cursing and checked back at the empty ridge to make sure the travelers hadn’t heard him and come back. ”Don’t startle me like that!” he hissed, but waved her after him anyway. He turned back to her and held his finger to his mouth to inform her to be silent.

They crept along in the brush until the travelers were in view again. The female picked skittishly along the path, and her male counterparts seemed to be involved in a deep, interesting conversation. They weren’t paying any attention to her. Izual turned back to Vicira, amber eyes meeting those of cool blue.

”Have you come to kindly ask these trespassers to leave, or is your plan similar to mine?” he asked her in a low voice. ”I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind three extra skulls to decorate her border… but maybe we should carve trespasser into their bodies and leave them along the border for a stronger message…”

He wasn’t quite aware that his views of stronger message could also be viewed as extra psychotic. He was only thinking of a helpful way to keep trespassers out of Inferni, not how delicate Vicira’s imagination was.

OOC: winkwink

IC:

Izual Massacre came from bloodlines with dark names and darker pasts, bred from a history of violence that was written in scar tissue in his red-grey pelt. He had a reputation, but one that was entrenched in the unknown; elsewise he wouldn’t be permitted in the clan borders, Vici thought. She believed this as much as she believed in her own invulnerability—dangerously.

He drew her in, hypnotizing like a serpent. She didn’t know whether to milk his venom or crush him beneath her heel.

She’d always been entranced by dangerous men and their prospects. She was confident. She’d handled Liir; she could handle Izual. Marlowe was a ghost in the wilds, a branded traitor.

She peeled dark lips back to reveal teeth still pearly with youth, mocking him for his jumpiness unbefitting of a warrior. Her Lupus body was small beside his hunched one, but it was a boon to stealth as they crept through the foliage, watching for the figures. The woman Vicira saw looked nervous, her companions less so; perhaps they had done this before. Her eyes narrowed.

Izual looked back at her, and she met his fiery gaze directly, cocking her head. She snorted and managed to look unperturbed at his suggestion.

“My mother,” she said, “would just want to scare them off.” She lowered her scornful voice and crouched in the foliage, thinking. “I didn’t take you as the kind of guy who could read,” she added, a barbed bon mot. “I’m afraid carving words into their bodies would be on lost on most folk.” That was a delicate rebuff, even if her own skin crawled at the thought. Then again, how was that better or worse than taking their heads? Surely he hadn’t meant cutting into them alive.

Surely not. It would make the word illegible. She bluffed her way through this internal, dry humor and ignored her stomach twisting.

She frowned thoughtfully and looked back over the group. “We kill one of the men. Maybe the other one we can hurt, and drive off along with the woman.” Her tail tip twitched like a restless cat’s. “That way she can spread the news that trespassing isn’t taken lightly here, and she’ll have a crippled friend as proof. We’ll keep the dead one for the border, of course.”

It was a compromise, she thought. The woman looked so scared that she couldn’t stomach murdering her. And it was murder, albeit one that Vici would use Izual as a tool to commit.

Better than killing someone over a joint. Her stomach protested.

(339) winkwink right back lol

Izual would be a predator off of his leash. All Vicira had to do was say attack and he’d burst forward, tearing at the stranger’s heels. He had to compromise, and that he didn’t like, but in the company of regular company he had to be careful. He had to behave. If Vicira was allowing him to kill at least one of them, then he needed to take the opportunity and run with it. Later, he just might run into the woman and her comrade anyway. Then he’d have some real fun.

”Well, I can’t,” he answered, in regards to her comment about his literacy. ”But I was hoping you could.” Though, she didn’t seem onboard with the idea anyway. Whether dead or alive, he’d need to know how to write and spell trespasser, and without Vicira’s approval, he’d be unable to carry it out. He knew some Satanic symbols from Belial’s rituals that he supposed he could use in place of the word.

”Ok, their heads on pikes then, instead of skinning and painting the skull. The skulls would be painted in their skin and blood for many days before they rotted away, and then you can paint them or whatever,” he pitched, still very excited for the morbidity. Vicira seemed to have a darker side than her mother, and he liked it. She was swayable – albeit not easily – and he briefly fantasized about her coming to see his way of thinking.

Waving Vicira along, Izual crept through the forest, getting a better vantage point on the wanderers. He would need to scout them out and he’d need to scout out the surrounding area, too. He’d hate to have to kill them all for acting stupidly or using something in the forest he hadn’t expected. ”Will you be joining me or are you just gonna watch?” he asked, and his voice took on a suggestive tone by the end of that sentence.

Vicira could lead the leash or let go - either way, the deed would be done.

Izual began to jabber on about heads and skulls and rot, and Vicira wrinkled her nose at him in disgust – albeit an almost playful sort. “One head,” she reminded him; she didn’t want to kill more wolves than they needed to, and she was still on edge about the woman. Whether it was because of her sex or because she seemed so jumpy and afraid, she didn’t know; maybe it was weakness that Izual could mock her for.

“We take one head and you can dump the body at the pass or whatever. And we let the others go, after scaring them to death and giving them some bites they'll remember, so we can tell their friends.” She repeated what she said before, but impressed some tone of authority into her words.

She trotted after him, slinking with her head low, and scrambled up a small slope so that she could stare down. She sniffed – she could only smell those three, at least – and peered down at the rust-accented man thoughtfully. Her dark ears swept back.

“Can you take on both of the men?” she asked. “I can’t – I’m not a fighter. But I’ll scare the girl, I can handle her.” Her fur prickled along her spine, a dark ridge, and her eyes gleamed with an odd excitement. She was nervous about being hurt, and about this whole situation blowing up out of her control, but she wanted to prove herself.

(242) >:D

Orange eyes watched the strangers amble along in the forest. The men were having their jolly conversation, while the female lagged behind. Vicira offered to scare her, but he didn’t quite see that as necessary now. It seemed anything could potentially scare the woman; it didn’t have to be direct.

”What about distracting one of the men?” he asked, gesturing to the two of them. She was a female; surely she had talent in distracting males. ”Can you do that? I don’t think we need to make effort to scare the woman. She’s already doing a fine job scaring herself down there. Yeah, nah. I need you to put on that seductive charm.”

That sounded perfect. Vicira would meet them first, ask them if they’re lost and aware that they tread on a borrowed path. She’d flirt, engage the men and make them believe she was there for them – or whatever – and perhaps ask about the woman they were with. Ask them if she was very important: their mate or something. Then Izual would come out… and eventually kill one of them. Then they’d surely run.

”You can look as surprised as they will when I kill one of them, and then if anyone tries to hurt you, they’ll have me to answer to. Sound like a plan?” he asked, quirking his head a bit, but staring well past her to the trespassers beyond. They certainly didn’t want to answer to him.

Izual argued against her offer, gesturing to the males, and Vicira’s brow furrowed as she glanced down at them. “How do you think I’d do that?” she asked, before she could stop herself, and then shut her mouth. She didn’t want to appear inexperienced or hesitant to the rust-grey coyote, not when she need to cultivate a reputation of strength. “I got it,” she said. “I can do it.” She’d seduced Marlowe, after all—or maybe he’d seduced her—but Liir and the stranger Basilio had killed, they’d been so simple. She could do this.

The pumpkin-eyed male’s head tilted as he stared out at the path, but his question was direct. Vicira nodded again, and took a breath.

She could do this.

Vicira disappeared along part of the pass, fur rustling against leaves. She shifted, though it took some time; curves tantalized some men more than the simplistic shape of the Lupus form. She couldn’t understand the reluctance to couple with someone on four legs, but she did know that hands made some activities infinitely more rewarding. She needed every one of her assets now, and when she finally slipped off onto the path, she was tall and wiry and slender, soft-footed, and hopefully quite a sight.

At once the woman startled, but one of the men caught her arm with a laugh, while the other—a hybrid with frayed whiskers—stopped and eyed Vicira.

“Hey,” the coywolf said, and hoped her voice was low and inviting, even while she let a trademark smirk flash across her fire-blushed muzzle. “You folks know where you are, right?”

The man holding the woman looked skeptical and tense, but Whiskers laughed. He saw what she wanted him to see—a conspiratorial smile, an inviting cock of the hips like she would go nowhere. “Coyote land,” he said. “You’re not going to eat me, are ya? Mouth’s a little small for that, coyote.” He was brazen, contemptuous, and all the same enticed—she saw it. As much as he looked down on her, saw her as no threat, he was curious.

“I doubt my mouth is too small,” she sassed, and Whiskers guffawed, turning to exchange a look with his companion.

(000) we'll torture Vici one more round ~ I'll have Izual make his move in my next reply >:D

Izual studied them while Vicira studied him. The sounds of her breath touched his ears, but by the time he had decided to look back at her, he was staring at her back as she made her way down to the trespassers. A malicious grin crawled along his muzzle as he watched, but instead of staying stationary, he used the time that they were pleasantly distracted to creep closer to them. He remained hidden, obviously, and quiet so they did not hear him or suspect him. Luckily, both males seemed interested in Vicira’s banter.

See? She could do this.

Izual settled somewhat behind the man and his jumpy woman. The breeze still blew from behind the trespassers, so that was good; and if the conversation continued like this… Izual’s surprise would definitely send the frightened doe hurling herself through the woods. He didn’t know what Whiskers was going to do… but he was ready to kill them both, like his original plan anyway.

Amused orange eyes watched the tense man as Vicira sassed their visitors. He wanted the man to engage her and he wanted to see the woman’s reaction. He wanted to see the man do something before his untimely death… anything.

The trembling female’s eyes wandered about, eventually resting upon the bush that Izual hid behind. She couldn’t see him, but there was no doubt that she felt like she was being watched. She had felt that way the whole time.

“Well, feisty coyote,” Whiskers continued, advancing a step. “What are you gonna do about us?”

Vicira met his gaze, hoping that her disgust didn’t show. He was certainly brazen; these were no innocent folk skirting the borders, though any fool who crossed the line of skulls was too stupid to be truly innocent. She wasn’t certain about the woman, but the men seemed to act like they had the right to trample through the mountain path.

There was hatred, and there was absolute dismissal. At least some of the wolves that hated coyotes and Inferni thought of them as threats. Here, she might as well have been a fierce-eyed rabbit.

She wasn’t entirely sure how to play this, and it took a lot of effort not to search the foliage for Izual; he was taking his sweet time, for certain. She could spring the trap on them immediately, or act sultry and confident, or perhaps play into the man’s apparent beliefs that she wasn’t a threat.

“We can keep this quiet,” she suggested, and he was nodding along like this was a good plan, until his face was inches from hers. “You’d have to convince me not to rat you out, though. You don’t want a pack of coyotes on your heels.”

“Mm,” he said dismissively. He slid a hand to her hip, the other lifting to touch her hair. She pressed her cheek against his palm, peering up through dark lashes. She purred, and his careless expression shifted; nostrils flared, pupils widened.

“We don’t wanna waste time either,” the second man reminded Whiskers, hushing the nervous woman as she stared at the undergrowth.

“You won’t last too long though, will you?” Vicira asked, and her fingers danced down the line of the wolf hybrid’s pale belly. He shivered.

“Nah,” he said, and then huffed when his friend laughed. “You’re sly,” he chastised, and the frazzled whiskers brushed her own. “You coyotes like your tricks.” His hand dropped from her cheek and seized pale, soft flesh.