this is your kingdom, this is your crown; ruan, soldat

[woolf]

bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

He can practically feel the man’s anger as a tangible thing, pulsing around him. It should frighten him, if he was a normal man, but it excites him instead. It cuts through the armor of his indifference, piercing through his apathy to stir some fierce interest. Where Woolf felt things rarely, Ruan seemed to feel them all; the agony that the man was experiencing, the betrayal, the distrust—it was all so completely rare to Woolf. It felt alien in his hold, and he found himself drawn to it, wanting to dissect it and understand it.

His eagerness pours into his magic, the mage growing more intent on cracking the fortress that the winter wolf had resurrected. He can feel the other respond to his taunting commands and his belly tightens in anticipation as the magic begins to shift. Then, suddenly, everything happens all at once. He can feel the way that Ruan’s own powers redirect and then flow outward. The ice practically implodes in front of them and Woolf feels the ice crawl his legs, rooting him to the spot as the stallion emerges from the ice.

Ruan is all fury, all anger, all chaos. Armor snaps into place around him and he lunges.

For a second, Woolf is mesmerized by the scene, practically seeing it in slow motion, and he wonders what it would be like to simply remain where he stands, letting the ice remain locked around him.

But he is not done learning about this man yet and he feels his own tendrils of predatory hunger begin to unfurl like smoke within him. His wounds bleed once more and he reaches for Bright’s own magic, pulling the two streams of power together to shatter the ice shackles. As the stallion leaps for him, Woolf shifts into his namesake, turning into a mulberry dire wolf, hackles rising, lips pulling back on a snarl. Then, he does the same to Ruan, shifting the other into his own wolf form. Evenly matched, Woolf settles back onto his haunches and then launches forward, jaws snapping as he reaches for the other wolf.

If Ruan wanted a target, he’d find one.

If Ruan wanted a fight, he’d have it.

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

[bright]

with her sweetened breath and her tongue so mean
she's the angel of small death and the codeine scene

 

She does not notice it at first, misses the shift of magic released - too much and too fast and too dark, seeped into a land too ready to claim it. Too eager to let it mutate into something wild and destructive, to see it spread through those who had obeyed their strange summons, come to heed the command of a dark lord where he laid seeds of poison in their minds.

Nor does she feel it build within the land, thickening blow by blow as the crest-bearer is overcome. They were too focused on their own magic, buried too deep inside themselves and in one other, trapped in the rivulets of blood-magic where it mixed and spiderwebbed into veins against the hard earth.

She does not feel it until it is too late, does not pull back in time to prevent what she suddenly understands is to come. There has been too much magic expelled from her - first for the boy, then for Taiga, for Ruan. More magic after that to bring them all here, and still more to command her mate from his prison of cold and ice. She should have saved more, should have held something in her reserves for later, for this, for this thing they should have seen coming.

But she is blind when it hits, has only the impossible unraveling of seconds into hours to understand - and she does, in those few, shattering seconds, she understands. There is only one word on her lips when the dark comes to claim her, a hazy night swallowing the view of two glorious wolves united in their fury, their dominance. She sways, legs crumpling beneath her as though these bones have turned to ash inside her skin, as though they are nothing.

They are all nothing.

The man is dead, his magic unleashed, and in the last, unraveling second before her head hits hollowly against the dirt and rock, she whispers, “Plague.”

bright

[Soldat]

Soldat

soldier

Ruan emerged so quickly! So suddenly. He flew from Mom's fancy blue boulder straight at the new man, and the boy with purple spots tucked in closer to Bright in instinct, his brown eyes wide as he watched them.

There was ice frozen solid around the new man's legs, and then it wasn't there anymore. Shattered and he turned into a wolf just like Mom had been, just like Ruan had been. But his own color, of course. And sure enough, Ruan became wolf again, the very same that Soldat had first seen of him, when he'd first learned to grin at that sober face and win a secret smile from icy blue eyes.

Mother fell, though, and Soldat scrambled out of the way only to dive back into her side with a soft wail of concern. His little inky-black nose nudged all over her shoulder, the soft of her belly. Still, she wouldn't budge. He wiggled closer, poking around at her purple cheek, grunting and baby-talking soft nonsense at her to encourage her to listen and maybe turn one of those soft smiles at him. She didn't move.

There were instant tears welling up in his eyes and he looked over at the other two adults for help, squawking with anxiety to call for their attention. Then he tried again on his own, scooted up nearer her nose to see if she'd blow on his face. And she did! Sort of. Because she was breathing. So maybe Mom just needed a nap. He scrubbed a tear from his eye and grinned sheepishly at them in case they looked. It's fine. Mom's just napping. They like naps.

[Ruan]

the taigan

 
He shifted.

The transformation was profound. Divine. This shape was beyond his own magic, and yet he'd spent most of his life in it, loping through their Taiga on paws and guarding their people. It was like coming home. Like half his soul was so close, just at the edge where he couldn't reach. Locked away from him. Caged. But over the years, he'd become this wolf. It had changed him. And secretly, it was devastating to him that he couldn't be himself anymore. This beast was more Ruan than even Ruan was.

This body was his heart, his soul manifested into something real and tangible.

It was too much of a blessing not to feel it rush through him, fill the winter wolf with a radiating warmth. It didn't change that he was near enough to feral now, flying through the air with fur and paws, his fangs bared to attack the other wolf. His eyes shined like blue steel, gleaming with an eager joy. He craved this fight. He craved to sink his teeth into flesh and taste blood on his tongue again. He craved feeling the dull ache of bruises over his body, lick his wounds clean and feel them burn when he stood again.

Had he known this man, had they been familiar, it could've been rough play. It could've been a battle between brothers for fun, to stay sharp.

He didn't know him though. He only knew that the mulberry wolf still stood as Bright went down. Ruan's eyes were wide with threat, lips pulled as far away from his teeth as they could go. A snarl rippled in his throat, and saliva gathered at his jaws. The other coiled back and lunged for him, and Ruan rose up to meet him, tucking his chin to his throat to guard his vitals and putting those bone-bladed fangs forward. He felt sharp teeth clip his lip, bleeding instantly. 

With a twist, he dove forward and to the side, reaching to clamp his teeth into the wound already claiming the man's shoulder, needing the blood to coat his mouth and make him feel again. He might have taken on a bite of his own, perhaps a deep one with his armor melted and left behind from the shift to wolf, but his adrenaline was high and he hadn't really felt it yet. He'd enjoy feeling it later.

The winter wolf was too far gone to register that fatal word she'd murmured or the soft distressed cries of her child. Or to even be aware of his precious daughter he'd left in a half-formed shelter. 

There was only hunger.

 

I'm still alive

[woolf]

bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

He almost misses it.

He is so focused on the fight before him, the widening of jaws and the gleam of teeth in the dark. He almost doesn’t feel the powerful exhale of magic throughout Beqanna, the way it billows outward, the darkness of it all consuming everything in its path. It’s enough to give him pause, his mind splintered as it expands to take everything in. He continues to tangle with Ruan, continues to feel the way that they clash together, but he also feels when Bright’s magic fails her, when she finally falls crumpled to the ground.

He roars then, feeling the ripples of her exhaustion fly through him like shrapnel.

His eyes glitter and all compassion for the man before him are lost, dissolved to dust.

Pulling on his magic once more, he throws Ruan back, widening the space between them. He angles his wolfish head toward Bright and then he looks back to the stallion. Without another word, without any sort of command or instruction, he throws the net of his power over Ruan and the baby boy and the girl trapped in ice, catapulting them through time and space to a place he plucked from the wolf’s memory, to the land of forests and pain.

Then, without hesitation, he turns back to his sister, gathering her close in his mind and getting ready to do the same to them. Snarling with frustration, he grits his teeth and sends them through a rip in reality toward a volcanic land with several of their family members huddled together.

He had no particular affinity for Tephra, but it was safe, and warm, and with enough relatives to suffice.

He would figure out what he needed to do next later.

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste