Come at me, Bro!

The vermillion boy was quite knowledgeable when it came to the territory his mother ruled over. Mostly the borders, and the fauna within – always doing some semblance of the patrols the adults did. It was compulsive, really, but it had allowed him the chance to do a few small hunts. Today should have been the same, until a noise caught his attention. It sounded familiar… trying to place the sound, he found it a match for the boisterous younger boy he had sparred with not long ago. Red’s lips crackled into a smile, heading towards where he thought the bark had come from. As he broke through the grasses and into an open  area, surrounded by tall grasses – he was immediately jolted by what he saw

It was a sight that terrified him. Not merely because he was faced with the horror of a pup even younger than himself about to face off with a coyote that would surely do him great harm.. But because it reminded him of what had happened to him. The coyote was the cougar in this instant, his heart stilled, stomach dropping into his gut as he froze in place. The gold of his eyes widened in fear and shock. Hundreds of little flashes of memory, spanning from the moment he had seen the tawny pelt in the tall grasses, until the blur of motion around him as he was thrown into a stone. His skull was assaulted with a searing pain, right where his scar was at the back of his head. His teeth gritted, breathing accelerating in panic. He didn’t want to recall it in such detail, didn’t want to be here at all; about to watch the pup be mauled…. be killed. Redrum’s eyes darted from the coyote’s predatory stare, to Cadaver’s determined one. And then his body lurched forward on hasty paws, before he could even think about what he was doing the boy charged into the fray – hoping to save the smaller pup from true harm.

He used his shoulder to knock into the coyote’s, snapping and snarling fiercely as he could in order to divert its attention away from the two-toned boy. Elongated ears were pinned back against his skull, his lips pulled back to reveal his fangs. Redrum had never displayed such aggression before, for any reason. The striped boy backed up as the coyote snapped back at him, its tail rising above its back as it advanced. Red had gained its attention as the greater thread, or perhaps meal, and in one swift motion the coyote surged forward and latched its jaws around Redrum’s side scruff, trying to throw him to the ground. The teeth dug deep into the boy’s pelt, but he did not cry out – instead his growls grew in volume. His own fangs, a child’s really, bit back; grabbing hold of one of the coyote’s forelegs to limit its movements.

[490]