Finch stared numbly out at the vast expanse of red. It was nothing like the peaceful meadows of Avalon, where the green grasses swayed pleasantly in the high summer heat. The orchard had bloomed and fruited early thanks to the high heat. Everyone would be preoccupied with the harvest. She should be home, dragging baskets beneath heavy tree boughs, joking with Jay and keeping a watchful eye on her father and mother while they dozed. Her heart seized in her chest. There it was again, she was forgetting herself. She didn't want to go home. If she did, she'd be left alone with her thoughts. At least in this strange land the dim, eerie light seemed to mirror what she felt inside: listless. Strange. No longer belonging to anywhere. Finch heaved a sigh and set her sights lower to the ground, keeping an eye out for any interesting vegetation as she ambled along between the spires that stretched with muted violence towards the heavens. Their tips looked sharp, but only a determined bird could reach them. Everything here was muted, she noticed - even those very birds seemed to avoid the skies here. All of the other animals knew better to keep away. So why am I still here?

Calliope could not explain why she was still there. In this land of desolation. A whispering breeze had picked up which brought relief from the stifling silence, but it was almost worse. With every shift of the wind, a new wail rose higher into the sky. Haunting symphonies of past lives that ached to be released. At least, that's what it sounded like to her. It didn't help that the creepy faces carved into the bottom of the crooked pillars kept following her around.

Prowling as she did, past each spire with barely a glance in their direction, Calliope searched. Wolves appeared to be drawn to this land for a reason. She had no answers, but maybe someone else did. Her pastel gaze flicks about, almost in a nervous reaction to the tremors below, but it's another feeling she can shove down beneath the surface with the rest of whatever this terror was around her. Finally, she spots a smaller female, roughly her age, maybe a little older. Definitely beautiful in her own way with that ivory coat and bone markings.

"My, my, what pretty little thing do we have here?" Calliope's roving gaze is predatory and hungry. Her lips twitch, stomach twisting with an eagerness that propels her closer to the stranger. Coming to a stop not more than foot or so away, she continues to look the girl over for another moment before allowing her eyes to stop on the girl's face, her tongue sliding out softly to lick gently at her lips as a smirk curls around the edges.

"Speech"

All manner of strangeness had happened to Finch since she'd arrived here. That was what she told herself, anyway: that these things happened to her, not that she had gone looking for them, which was dangerously close to the truth. She had felt so unmoored since her mother's passing that she had longed for something to happen. In fact, that strange heavy feeling that had plagued her since she'd slipped from her den in Avalon finally found its name: guilt. She felt guilty over this phenomenon, as if she had somehow conjured it herself as a lark to pass the time. Logically, she knew this couldn't be further from the truth. Just as the heavy weight of that feeling settled on her shoulders in full, another thing simply happened to her: Calliope appeared, nearly slavering as she looked Finch over with approval. That strange prickling sensation that had happened when she'd met Bjorn happened again, alighting down her spine as if someone stroked a path through her fur from the base of her skull to the tip of her tail. The skittering, fleeting thought that maybe she liked it when someone looked at her like that. But Calliope looked like she wanted to eat her alive. Finch gulped and shifted awkwardly on her paws. All of this red light was going straight to her head. Wasn't this what she wanted? Something different? This was nothing like Avalon. "Actually, I'm not little," she said, sharpening her gaze just a touch as she assessed Calliope's physique in full with a healer's practiced eye, "You're just unusually large, clinically speaking." That's rude, that's rude, that's rude. "A-and also pretty," Finch added, shifting her gaze quickly away to the pointed end of one of those spires high up in the sky.

Calliope stands there, ignoring the red aura that floats around them. Even though it begs to acknowledged, she could care less. Something, no someone, much more intriguing now stood before her. The clear awkwardness about the girl in front of her only stoked the fire in her belly. Calliope was more than delighted when others weakened beneath her gaze. This was the exact reaction she wanted whenever she entered an area. If they weren't ready to collapse from yearning to sleep with her, they would be cowering with fear.

The fur along her spine bristles slightly. One paw creeps forward as her eyes linger on the girl's face. Mm, so she thought she had some attitude? Calliope cants her head slightly, a brow raised a fraction at the girl's statement. Her tongue clicks behind her teeth in a sharp 'tsk' noise. "Clinically, hm?" Calliope questions, encroaching further on Finch's personal space. She didn't come from a family of healers and everyone in her family were her height or only marginally shorter. Not... like the girl before her.

"It's rude to not look at someone when you speak to them," Calliope's words are sleek, lazy almost as they drip from her lips. Her head lifts, though it doesn't have to do so by much, her pastel gaze peering down through light colored lashes at the ivory vixen. "Do others not enjoy suitors to be of larger size? Think, sweet girl. I could hold you tight, close and warm through a cold night," slowly her muzzle lowers closer to the girl's cheek, nose hovering near her ear as she speaks softly in a low thrum. "Wouldn't that be nice?" The last syllable is nearly a hiss as she maintains close proximity.

"Speech"

"Yes, clinically," Finch repeated mechanically, trying to hold on to facts for dear life. Only facts would carry her through this. Whatever this was. "You may not think it's unusual, as those who have your stature often come from a family line of similarly built wolves. It's a heritable trait. But not a common one." Her words had a strange, halting cadence. It was all Finch could do to stay on her feet, although she swayed slightly when Calliope continued to press her advantage. She was tall. Calliope had a good foot of height or more on her. If Finch wanted to (did she want to?), she could tuck her head beneath this stranger's chin without having to move a muscle. She would just fit there perfectly. "It's rude not to look at someone when you speak to them." Her eyes flickered to meet those of the pastel stranger's without hesitation. Finch hated the thought of being rude, and this overrode any sense of self-preservation or fear. A ghost of warm breath skittered across the shell of her ear as Calliope spoke directly to her. They were frighteningly close now. It occurred to Finch that the only others who had shared this breadth of personal space with her was her family. A shiver raced down her spine. This was dizzying. Maddening. Electrifying. Terrifying? Yes, definitely that last one. "I'm Finch," she blurted out suddenly, her voice louder than she intended. Calliope was so close, she only had to whisper, but instead she spoke at a louder-than-conversational pitch. "My name, that is. Is Finch. What's yours?" They were still nearly cheek to cheek. As panicked as she was, she couldn't bring herself to back away.

Palpable emotions began to pour off of the girl that Calliope practically hover over. Well, actually, she pretty damn well was given their height difference. It was a fact that Calliope often used her stature to over power and domineer, but this time... Her eyes scanned Finch as the girl stuttered, the stilted words almost so mechanical that it made a chuckle bubble in her chest. She was a pretty, little thing. Maybe it was how she didn't back down, stayed on her feet despite the fear that was clear in her bright gaze. There was something about that that Calliope liked perhaps a little too much.

A brow raised in question as Finch introduces herself. "Mm, Finch," she tastes the name on her tongue, rolling it around and trying it out. To her, it felt delightful. "Well, pretty little bird, I am Calliope," her heart began to beat faster, saliva pooling in her mouth as the adrenaline began to spike. What she was about to do wasn't going to be exactly a nice thing, but Calliope wasn't exactly a nice wolf either.

"How about I call you mine instead?" The words barely left her mouth before her head snaps forward, jaws opening and aimed to grab onto Finch's scruff.

"Speech"

Calliope vs Finch for FORCE CLAIM
Round 1/?
Age: Over 1
Size: Dire wolf
Build: Balanced
Skills: Master Fighter & Master Intellectual

There was a string of tension pulled taut between them. Finch almost felt like she could see it with her naked eye, it felt so tangible and real. This stranger was still staring at her with bright, covetous eyes. While this was thrilling, she couldn't help but feel anxious. She was out of her depth and treading water in a vast, dark ocean. Any wrong move and her head would go under, no telling when she'd manage to the make her way to dry land. If she could even hold out that long. "Mm, Finch." The way she said her name did sound delicious. Did her name always sound like that? Not on any other tongue. "Nice to meet you, Callio - PE!" She shriek as the younger girl's jaws closed around the loose skin of her neck. Finch had never been a fighter and she didn't know the first thing about getting into or out of a skirmish. In fact, the closest thing she'd felt to Calliope's grasp had been her mother's firm grasp as a puppy. The mere thought of Twig, of her precious mother, made Finch boneless. Her legs collapsed beneath her and she fell heavy in Calliope's grasp, going limp like a child.

Finch II vs Calliope for Force Claim
Round 1/2
Age: Over 1 year
Size: Medium
Build: Balanced
Skills: Advanced Healer & Advanced Intellectual

Words died on the air before it split with the shriek of Finch. Calliope's jaw closes around Finch's scruff, just tight enough that the smaller girl couldn't pull away without tearing skin. What came in that next moment surprised even Calliope. When Finch's body goes limp, as if all of her bones disappeared into nothing, Calliope's head jerked downward. The sudden force of Finch hanging limp in her mouth almost forced Calliope to let go.

A grunt of frustration rippled through her as she jerked her head back upward. She hadn't expected Finch to be so heavy. Not that she was fat, but she was definitely not as light as her puppy-like siblings were. "Schtand upth," Calliope grumbled around the mouthful of fur that was shoved into her mouth, insistent on not letting her pet go.

"Speech"

Calliope vs Finch for FORCE CLAIM
Round 2/2
Age: Over 1
Size: Dire wolf
Build: Balanced
Skills: Master Fighter & Master Intellectual

As she had never been in a single fight before, Finch had no idea how this was supposed to go. She knew distantly that she was supposed to struggle, but fighting simply wasn't in her nature. Usually she had the grace to talk herself out of sticky situations, but how many truly sticky situations had she ever been in? This was by far the stickiest. She felt the loose skin around her neck stretch painfully as Calliope struggled to hold her dead weight aloft and the burning sensation of that pain finally triggered a reaction. No, this was certainly not her mother's jaws around her. Twig had always been so gentle. Calliope's mouth was wide, hungry, greedy for more of her. Finch braced herself by her back paws on the ground, bearing some of her weight so that she didn't tear her own neck open by dangling dead weight from the taller girl's mouth. She floundered awkwardly with her front legs, but her heart wasn't in it. Each time she attempted to push Calliope away, her paws fumbled and her struggle began to look more and more like the world's most awkward embrace.

Finch II vs Calliope for Force Claim
Round 2/2
Age: Over 1 year
Size: Medium
Build: Balanced
Skills: Advanced Healer & Advanced Intellectual

And the winner is...

CALLIOPE

FINCH must give up by submitting, fleeing or passing out. Finch has been successfully claimed. Totals: CALLIOPE: PAttack Roll: 48 Defense Roll: 49 Agility Roll: 62 Perception Roll: 95 Total: 254 Attack[48] + 15% Bonus[7.20]: 55.20 Defense[49] + 0% Bonus[0.00]: 49.00 Agility[62] + 0% Bonus[0.00]: 62.00 Perception[95] + 25% Bonus[23.75]: 118.75 Total[284.95] + 25% Bonus[71.24]: 356.19 FINCH: Attack Roll: 56 Defense Roll: 26 Agility Roll: 32 Perception Roll: 67 Total: 181 Attack[56] + 10% Bonus[5.60]: 61.60 Defense[26] + 15% Bonus[3.90]: 29.90 Agility[32] + 0% Bonus[0.00]: 32.00 Perception[67] + 15% Bonus[10.05]: 77.05 Total[200.55] + 0% Bonus[0.00]: 200.55

Though Finch would struggle, it would appear to be useless. Calliope found the subtle strength to nearly lift Finch from the ground for a hesitating moment, really solidifying to the girl that she was no longer her own being, before placing her rather gently back onto the grass. Removing her aching jaw from the Finch's scruff, she stays close, not giving her too much space to run, her pastel eyes never leaving the sleek, ivory form of the smaller girl.

"You're going to have fun, I promise, Little Bird" Calliope murmurs, a sickly sweet edge to her lethal tones as she whispers in Finch's ear. "It's time for an adventure since you seem to be so smart," her nose and brows wrinkle in a mocking expression before letting loose a triumphant giggle.

Taking one more step back, Calliope rises to her full height, shining a grin at Finch. "Come, come, we need to inspect these spires," Calliope's face slides back into that neutral predatory look as she turns from Finch and heads closer to spire. In the middle of their commotion, the wind had picked up, causing the spires to wail louder than before. It did hurt her ears, the way they pierced into her ear drums, but she couldn't just ignore it either. If there was a chance they might something important here, she wasn't about to lose out on something.

"Tell me. What do make of them?" Her nose turns upward, motioning to a leaning spire with its gaping holes and rusted edges.

"Speech"

Finch felt all four paws leave the ground again momentarily and she thought, oh. It's really over now. This was a mess that wasn't easily cleaned up. She'd seen some of her packmates herd sheep with the same predatory intensity that she now felt simmering in Calliope's gaze, and that was really what she felt like - a lost little sheep, cut from the herd by something with much sharper teeth than hers. Finch's neck burned, already bruised and sore. She knew there would be marks developing down on her skin, even if they were hidden by her fur. Physical evidence of Calliope's grip on her. The girl shivered. Why had she left Avalon this morning? What madness had called her here? "... since you seem to be so smart." At first she flinched away from her nasty words as if struck, but then she shook her head as if waking from a dream and snapped back: "Don't curl your lip like that, it shows off an imperfect overbite. It's ugly." Clinically speaking. If she'd had hands, they would have flown up to cover her mouth in shock of what had come out of it, but luckily the horrible wailing noise pealed through the spires and distracted her. Finch's head whipped up, her eyes scanning the spires for the source of the noise. When Calliope beckoned her closer, she supposed she had no room to object. She'd wanted her little adventure and now she was up to her neck in it. Finch stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the larger pale girl, even though the top of her back ended at Calliope's legs. She tried not to think too much about the size difference - at how just easily she could be overpowered again in an instant. The thought kept her more pliant and obedient, her snippy remark long forgotten. Around them, she heard the faint sounds of many paws digging. Finch sidled closer to the spire, walking slow circles around it. "It's old. No telling how old, and there seems to be..." She paused in her circuit of the spire, spying faint markings at the base. "Carvings?" Along with the rest of the wolves working tirelessly beneath the bleeding red sun, Finch began to dig at the base of the spire. What she uncovered depicted a strange creature, its face frozen in a mask of protean terror. Although she'd never seen this animal before, she knew that look. It couldn't be mistaken for anything else. Finch's chest hollowed out and she glanced nervously up at Calliope, covered in dirt. "I don't know what to make of that."

The moment the words leave Finch's lips, Calliope's fur bristles. Hanging in the precipice of that regretful silence, she knows she has a decision to make. Now that she's in charge of her new Little Bird, it would only make sense to keep the girl in line. A true master wouldn't allow their thrall to make such claims without punishment. Yet, a piece of her admired Finch for such a bold statement. The fact that she had the fucking audacity to insult her captor was astonishing. Calliope's true thoughts only revealed by the surprised raise of her eyebrows and piercing glare downward at Finch.

At first, she doesn't respond. Leading Finch closer to the spires for inspection. Once their paws stop, both of them shoulder to shoulder, Calliope reaches the paw closest to Finch out and in front of her to hold her back from walking forward. In the next second, Calliope curls her neck tightly so that Finch is encase by her larger form, her jaws snake toward Finch's outside cheek, her teeth clacking together loudly to drive the threat home. "The next time you think you have the balls to say rude shit like that to me again, you better have the fight to back it up," there is a warning in those words that Calliope knew Finch was smart enough to understand.

Releasing a disappointed huff from her nostrils, Calliope straightens back up. Her paw returns back to the softly churned dirt as her fur smooths back down along her spine. Rising back to her full height as a reminder to who's in charge, she watches as Finch moves closer and around the spire. Keeping her lips in a thin, unamused line, she doesn't speak her thoughts. Allowing Finch to explore, to observe, to investigate the peculiar shape that has broken through the earth to rise up toward the reddened sky.


Cocking a brow up as Finch digs, Calliope continues to watch with indifferent curiosity. Now that she had someone else to risk their life instead of her own, she wasn't as worried about what was happening. As the carving begins to reveal itself with more of Finch's digging, she takes a cautious step forward. "Carving seems about right," she says quietly, her tone a natural rumble as she meets Finch's nervous stare. "Little Bird, it's probably having its intended effect on you right now," a teasing smirk lights her lips as she leans down to also get a closer look. She too saw the horror that was etched into the expression of the unknown animal's face. Deep down, she's unsettled by it all, but it was far too early in this new relationship of theirs for her to allow Finch to see such an emotion.

Returning her face back to indifferent boredom, she steps back and lifts her head back up. Glancing around a moment before settling back on Finch, Calliope takes a moment to ponder before speaking. "Well, is there anything else?" Her tone is almost impatient as she nods her muzzle toward the base of the spire where Finch revealed the carving. If the spires came from underground and there were carvings to be revealed, perhaps there was more?

"Speech"

Cold washed through her veins when Calliope curled her neck around her, serpent-like and just as dangerous in her embrace. "... you better have the fight to back it up." In that moment, with her stomach's contents threatening to come up and show itself to the world once more, Finch knew she didn't have any "fight" in her at all. A snide comment or two, certainly. But she wouldn't be winning any tussles with Calliope, and she had a feeling if she tested her limits again, more than just vomit would be left on the field by the time Calliope was finished with her. Finch gulped, audibly, almost cartoonishly loud and averted her gaze in what she hoped was an appropriate sign of deference. "Understood, Calliope." Her words were back to being stiff and formal again, but that razor wire of tension they danced along kept her blood rushing in her ears. It was almost enough to make her nauseous again. "I'm certain there's more. Things like this don't usually happen without reason, and some might attribute it to divine intervention... but in my experience, time and nature rule all," she murmured, quite profound for someone held captive and covered in loose soil and dirt clods. "We can try and uncover more, but it would go faster with help." All around them they could hear the sounds of soft earth being turned over. Everyone who had come to this place seemed preoccupied with the carvings. "Your help. You're much stronger than I am," she said idly, eyes flicking quickly to Calliope and then away again. Time to experiment how a compliment might land instead of an insult. There had to be some angle she could work to get herself out of this unscathed - or at least only bruised and battered, not maimed or dead.

Divine intervention? Calliope couldn't say she particularly agreed with that. Though Jael had supposedly birthed that litter with her own mother as the other half of the equation. Isn't that what someone would call divine intervention? Or a cruel joke? She clicks her tongue behind her teeth, thinking closely about what Finch says. Things like this don't usually happen without reason. So what was the reason? Why did she even care? It had to be something with these damn spires. A pull, a draw to them that made it impossible to ignore. Divine intervention.

Help? Mm, she could. The compliment was nice, but it wasn't anything she didn't already know. Look at her. Calliope was a sleek beast compared to the other mongrels that roamed the world around them. A soft huff through her nose as she looks from Finch to the carvings at the bottom of the spire. They were wasting time with just one of them digging, weren't they? It only made sense...

"I'm not doing this because you said I was strong," Calliope snaps, a growl rumbling deep in her chest as she steps forward. Keeping one eye on Finch at all times, she begins to dig the dirt away from the spire. Her paws burying in deep and pulling the pliable dirt quickly between her legs and backward.

"Speech"

For better or worse, her compliment seemed to have worked. Finch couldn't tell if it would be a reliable trick, but she deposited this information carefully to return to it later. She was much more at home analyzing properties of plants rather than trying to figure out what makes other wolves tick. There was something... icky about trying to outsmart someone else. Is that what she was doing? Well, she certainly couldn't out run or out fight Calliope. She had to out-something her if she was going to survive this. Calliope got down to work beside her and Finch became aware, again, of her closeness. The size of her. Her particular smell. All of it she catalogued and filed away for later perusal. She made quicker progress than Finch could, and Finch focused on the finer aspects of the dig rather than the brute strength of it: she moved dirt out of Calliope's way so she could get a better angle and widened their field of work, careful to keep any dirt from caving in on top of them. Silence stretched between them and all that could be heard were the sounds of their breath and exertion. As she dug, Finch finally broke the quiet: "You're a pack wolf, I can smell that - which one?" Or rather, where are you taking me after this? Certainly not The Hallows, she knew their particular smell and they weren't ones to take prisoners. Finch knew precious little of the various packs. It wasn't that Avalon was insular, necessarily, but they didn't exactly involve themselves in the larger political landscape of Boreas. Small and quiet. She had liked that, hadn't she?