"ALL OF THESE YEARS, YOU U S E D ME!"

Vocals howled themselves hoarse to careen through the wind of the storm. Trees groaned in painful song around her as the mangroves she had defended for so long threatened to uproot themselves. Rain pelted her with stinging bites and the wind screeched at her defiance, sheets of water cascading down upon her. "You fucking USED me!" The realization drove the tightness in her chest to pure and utter agony.

"SONG!" Banshee screech snatched itself away in the wind to god-knows-where. "MARVEL! ARIA! GERHARDT!" Jupiter called out the ghosts of her past. Some were dead while others still walked this earth in comfortable leisure, comfortable on their crowns without guilt or remorse. "And FUCK you all for doing it!"

Toes c l e n c h e d into the silt as the water tore at her paws, trying to tear them from her. The salt drove into her scars with bitterness unmatched, pain mixing into her snarls. The breakdown had been inevitable and now it churned down on her like the storm, threatening to rip her apart like the mangroves of Ludicael. Lover's Mangrove was not an apt place. Love lurked here no longer. Only hatred of a mother who had nearly lost all of her children, of an enforcer who had fought to the death for what was right, of a dethroned queen seeking retribution.

"Come and face me, you fucking cowards!" Lips were curled sharply upwards to reveal yellowed ivories, bared in defiance at the world that had betrayed her so.

TABLE + CODING BY TIFF

prone to violent reaction. ic actions have ic consequences and she lives and breathes it.

public enemy #1

crawl. crawl more. drag your hands and knees across the destruction left in my wake to the ends of the earth. there's a green light of a shining star in my sky and there will not be an obstacle i will not overcome until i cup that star in my palms. the void in my will has been filled with purpose. so crawl. crawl more, love.

because i like it when you're on your knees.

She got both feet on the ground

And she's burning it down

Through the storm the howling shriek ripped over the wind, screaming what seemed to her like names as she poked her head cautiously out of her somewhat-moist den in curiosity. Immediately she was rewarded with a face full of wind-driven rain and she shrank back, blinking her eyes rapidly to clear them. What the hell was that crazy banshee doing out there in weather like this? Was she in trouble? Was she looking for someone? For a long moment a healthy self-preservation instinct kept the girl curled in the bolt hole she'd taken to when the storm had begun, but in the end curiosity and the fact that she was already soaked and uncomfortable from her head's brief foray into the storm drove her to slither her way out into the wind.

Eyes narrowed against the wind and blunt claws gripping the ground to keep her from being buffeted over, Cascade Saxe made her slow way to where the woman yowled up to the sky. Had she not already been so close the wind may have torn the words away and she'd never have heard them at all, and it certainly tore away scent and the driving rain blurred her eyes. Yet... was there something familiar about this woman? They'd never met before, she was certain of it, but some some remnant of the scent that did reach her sensitive nose despite the storm sparked some memory... or did it? She just had a weird sense of deja vou. Ah, but it was silly to be so uneasy about a crazy woman screaming in the middle of a storm, wasn't it? The self-aimed cynicism made her grin and chuckle inwardly.

"Were you referring to some particular coward or will any coward at all do for you?" she asked as mildly as she could when she had to shout her words to even be heard over the sound of the wind.



""

She got her head in the clouds

And she's not backing down

Celestial optics and snarl-carved dial snapped instantly to the voice as it called to her over the wind, a moment passing before she managed to snatch the words back from the gales. The dark beast's presence seemed to light something briefly on fire within her but it was quickly extinguished by something that had grown rare in Jupiter's conscience as of late--the benefit of the doubt.

Pinned ears twitched against soaked fur. The driving rain had become but a dull, useless drone on her senses to the point where its sting no longer struck her as particularly painful or bothersome; she merely accepted its existence. Scoffing, more at herself than at the dark she-wolf, she turned and padded briskly several feet down the river, away from her, toes clenching into the sand, pads only an inch or so from the racing waters. Not too far ahead, the sand ended and the rapids were edged only by the roots of mangrove struggling for purchase on the shifting earth.

"My taste in cowards is very particular," she snarled over the din, the aggression in her tone focused on the distant point in the trees that celestial daggers bored into rather than the other. Head turned to glance behind her as something in the storm seemed to lessen, the rain becoming softer but nowhere near gentle. The eye of the storm?

"The ones who sit so comfortable on their thrones and preach like saints upon them." The addition was but an afterthought, cast out to the winds once more but to where the other could hear it. Mercury was holed up somewhere around the mangroves, for once not siding with her on her recklessness, but she knew he was near enough to call when she decided to leave or desired him.

TABLE + CODING BY TIFF

prone to violent reaction. ic actions have ic consequences and she lives and breathes it.

public enemy #1

crawl. crawl more. drag your hands and knees across the destruction left in my wake to the ends of the earth. there's a green light of a shining star in my sky and there will not be an obstacle i will not overcome until i cup that star in my palms. the void in my will has been filled with purpose. so crawl. crawl more, love.

because i like it when you're on your knees.

A faint smile continued to slide around the edges of her muzzle as Cascade watched the russet-hued woman, her expression and stance remaining casual and open despite the rage of the storm around them. The woman's words did pique some interest in the Saxe girl - what throne and what saintly cowards was she referring to? Whoever they were, the crazy storm-woman certainly seemed to dislike them. Cynically the teen considered it unlikely to have actually been something interesting... probably just didn't compliment her fur or something. Wolves always seemed to blow things way out of proportion. "Perhaps you'd care to tell me about it?" she shouted politely back through the wind. Although it probably wasn't, it might be something really interesting and - the thought kindled a spark of excitement - it could even have been something truly evil. How interesting that would be, to see how such an thing could turn someone's mind. Had this woman been a calm, collected individual before some horrific event changed her into this raging nutjob? Oh, she shivered happily to think of it. She had to know more.

Optics flicker back to the woman at her words and she offers a wry laugh. "And what would you be able to do about it?" she inquires neutrally, honestly, almost. "What would you do with knowing?" Curiosity lurks in those words that she shouts over the din as she fixes her twitching gaze upon the other. What did the girl want from a crazy old woman morphed by society's bastard ways? Her taste in cowards is very particular--yes, just as it always has been. Some tastes never truly change but how peculiar it is that her taste is the one that leaves the worst flavor in her mouth. Her struggles are beyond them, above them, and she is better than all of them. Idly, she wonders to herself why she still cares--why she seeks to thrive again in a world that has so thoroughly forsaken her. But she cannot fathom an answer. Perhaps it is her final drive, the only thing keeping her alive and with purpose. Maybe she will find it somewhere again, that purpose. Or maybe she will die unfulfilled and unsatisfied, like she always knew she would.