It was late into the evening when Strai finally slowed. Feeling weary and foot sore as he found a crevice to tuck into. The spot gave him the vantage point to discreetly look about him for a tail. But there was no sign of his cousin, or their mark. He stood at alert long after the last rays of sunlight had faded. Shivering at the wind that picked through the numerous cracks of his hiding spot, he hunkered down and tried to get a few hours of rest.

The moment his eyes drifted close, his vision filled with fire. The smoke was so familiar he could still taste it. Everything was burning, but that was the way his parents liked it. The vikings that had whelped him had not been the gentle sort. But they had taught him how to survive. When revenge had crept up on them and slit their throats, he had survived. He could still remember the way the life had left their eyes. Leaving him there alone, on foreign soil. He and his cousin had been the only wolves to survive the carnage. Now, now it was only Strai.

After a few hours of restless dozing, he got back to his paws heading upwards, into the mountain. The inhospitable, towering monument to the gods. There, perhaps he would find some peace. Instead, he found the scent markers of a new pack. It lacked the strength of repetition. Of markers that had been laid, and laid again over the years. New to this territory, then. Perhaps they wouldn't have the home advantage. He soaked his paws and body in weed from a river bank as his parents had taught him. Covering his scent before he slipped across the borders between two rocks. Silent, and with any luck near invisible in the night.

First, he snagged a coat recently made and drying on a rock. Pulling the dark fur over his damp and shivering body. Moving further in, he followed the scent of food. In and out, in and out. That was his goal. He found the body of a mountain goat, still cooling. It's hunter nowhere in sight. Working fast with his knife, he began to stripe the easiest bits to take away.

"Speech"

Gentle? Erik doesn’t know shit about gentle, at least, not if you ask him. Neither of his parents were to be faulted for it, in all doing as well as could be asked of them. A reclusive boy, a strange boy. A cursed boy. A boy that will live like a curse, believing he is one. He was a strange thing. Deeply, concerningly strange. Things that go bump in the night often were, after all.

Settling the mountain appeared to be work, work that his father had taken to expeditiously. Work that Erik had somehow been roped into assisting with, in his short time visiting. Where he had expected to spend time with the viking king, he would be rather disappointed. It was all work, no play. Winter was coming, settling over the mountain already. There was much to be done before things got worse, he could understand that. But they spent so little time with him… whatever. Erik begrudgingly did the work.

He’d been checking the remaining traps while his father went to retrieve sharper knives. Returning to the makeshift camp, Erik saw him. The intruder. The stranger, a scrawny kid, was trying to steal from them. A threatening, low, growl wrenched from his chest. It was accompanied by the faint, sickening rattle that often accompanied any vocalisation from the cursed child. His gaze flashed, bounding to close the gap between them. Though Erik did not speak, his intent shone clearly. This was a trespasser, and he planned to deal accordingly.

"Speech"

Working quickly, The white wolf cut through much of the flesh. Tying it into folds of the stolen coat he wore over his shoulders. The long shadows of the night added depth to the world around him, and he felt uneasy. This territory was unfamiliar to him, and every noise could be the approach of an enemy. His work was sloppy. So much so, that if his mother had been there she would have smacked him. Steady, boy. Hone your hands and your mind if you're to be of any use to us. The echo of her words chased him, and he found himself glancing upwards. Towards where she would have stood over him. But of course, there was no one there. She was dead, and gone. He had no doubts, he had seen her lifeblood mixed with the long threads of her intestines. She would chastise him no more.

He finished cutting through a hind leg, and was considering his retreat when a growl startled him. He whirled, fangs already bared. He moved partly over his prize. Protective and possessive of what he had stolen. He wouldn’t give it up. He couldn’t. “Back off, upstart” He growled, his gravelly voice low and cold. Barely above the timber of a growl. But it was too late, the dark, glow-toned wolf was already closing the distance. Zeroing in on Strai as if he would never back off. Strai took another step forward, bringing himself over the deer and into the wolf's pace. It was all he had time for before his enemy closed in. He felt the weight of the other wolf against him, and his own teeth aimed for the dark wolf's shoulder. Mouth open and ready to do some damage.

"Speech"

He catches the word. Upstart. Upstart? The fuck was that supposed to mean? Erik pushes the thought from his head, closing in, gaze burning. If looks could kill, the strange boy would have been vaporised damn near instantly. He does not speak. He does not need to speak. Erik’s intentions are clear. He won’t back off either. He can’t back off.

The boy feels teeth against his shoulder. Slamming forward, snarling from somewhere deep within his chest. It’s a wet sound, a rattling sound. A gross, wet sound, the edge of each note seeming to fray. Erik smashes into the smaller boy, teeth gleaming in the dappled light of the forest. He would bite. He would do his best to hold. He’d either drive the boy off or hold him until dad got back. Those were the only options.

Those teeth are vicious, looking for purchase anywhere he could find it. He wants to do damage. Erik longs for control, feeling his own tenuous as it slips through his fingers.

"Speech"

Strai grimaced at the odd wetness of the boy's breath. What was wrong with him, anyway? He could only hope it wasn’t anything contagious as the distance between them slammed shut with a few powerful movements of his legs. His shoulder rattled against the other boys with enough force to hurt his teeth. The fangs of the other wolf had already found his flesh as he recovered from the force of their collision.

He felt the pain in his shoulder, and the wetness of blood. With a strong desire to retaliate, and to do some damage of his own, he scraped a paw down the front of Erik’s leg, and aimed to dig his own teeth into the upstart's neck. He was going for skin, but if he found a vein he wasn’t going to complain. He wanted to smash this wolf down. To teach them a lesson. To prove himself. So far he had done so much running, so much cowering. He had lost so much that this deer was his line in the sand. He would not lose this kill, would not lose to this wolf. He had to win.


"Speech"

Erik could only wish that he was a contagion, that he was the plague itself. He would plague this boy, though-- if he was lucky, Erik would plague him for a good long time. The other child would come away bruised, broken, bloody... if he was lucky. The boy would feel him for days, for weeks, as he tried to heal. Fuck, he hoped.

Teeth find purchase at his neck, sinking into the already raw and tender flesh. Erik snarls, but the voice cracks at the end. He stumbled to the side, shaking, feeling pain bloom and flood his system. He pants, and throws himself at the stranger. Reckless, relentless. There was a good deal of blood now, and it streamed down his front. He wouldn't let the challenger see him falter, he wouldn't let him see that he'd caused real pain, but the child begins to falter. Not wanting to show weakness, he continues on trying to bite and trying to grab, but he was bleeding pretty seriously at this point. Fuck.
"Speech"

The metallic scent of blood flooded Víðarr's system. It wasn't blood from the prey they'd been processing, either. He'd only been gone for a few minutes, and something... something had happened. He picked up his pace as he headed down the mountain, head high, gaze burning. Víðarr had barely been gone, how the hell had something happened so quickly. Loping to the trapping camp on the edge of the Maw, there's fire in his gaze.

With a dramatic leap, the viking king put himself between his son and the assailant. A boy. A child. The child that had harmed his son. Still reeling from the incident with his granddaughter, this really had been the season for children getting into shit. A large, shadowed paw strikes at the pale boy. Víðarr wanted to pin him by the shoulder, wanted to slam the child to the ground. "You will explain to me what the fuck you are doing." His hackles rise across his back, and something burns darkly in his gaze.

"Víðarr"

Red stained the whiteness of his coat. Marring the tones with flashes of bright color. The pain only added to his anger, and he could feel the roar of the beast coiled inside of him. The helplessness, the frustration. From the first day he had arrived on this continent. From watching his parents die, to losing his cousin, and the colossal bear that chased him.

His own fangs pierced flesh, and he tasted blood. He had only a moment to hope there was nothing about this strange boy he could catch, and then suddenly he went flying. Pushed back by a larger, stronger force. He saw shadows as his vision tried to stabilise. A flash of darkness, and pain as a blow landed on his already injured shoulder. He felt the stickiness of blood driven into his coat. His vision cleared at last, and he found the great beast in front of him. For a moment, he thought the bear had found him. It took him another to realise it was a wolf. A large, and angry wolf. At the threat in this wolfs actions and words, Strai bared his own teeth. Rolling the skin past his fangs, and he drove himself upwards. If he could only get his teeth around the black wolf’s throat.

He never found his mark. He saw a flash of movement, felt a roaring pain, and then nothing. He collapsed to the ground with the fullness of a puppet with its strings cut.

"Speech"