This content might touch on topics that are sensitive or triggering for some readers. Trigger Warning for MENTIONS OF CANNIBALISM Septima scoffed. "Have you ever known it wise to tell a woman that she's being dramatic? You don't understand." He never would, either. No one would understand except maybe Leander, and she doubted even that on occasion. How would he understand what she was going through? He wasn't a Miroslav woman, nor was he the one that had just been literally consumed by the enemy. Septima laughed, but not in a humorous way. "No, Ryker did not eat my children. But the pride he came from? That he's allies with? Wolfbron Bluffs. There's this ugly speckled bitch around my age, a Dieudonne. She's the reason I'm missing this hunk out of my neck," and here she turned to show the other side of her body. She had bandaged it well enough, but it was obviously still there. "She attacked me for no reason. Said that because my family attacked hers, which is a lie, that she could attack me. Then she ate the piece she tore out of me. Right in front of me. Either it's just her or they're all fucking cannibalistic over there." Septima glowered up at him before turning back the other way to hide the wound. "So that's who you've shacked up with. Maybe Ryker is cannibalistic, too. If nothing else, he supports a pride full of them. Cannibals. They all need to be culled from the earth before they reproduce again." She paused. "And just for the record, I have never once been in a fight against any of them. I've never gone after them. I was a woman of peace before all of this." And now she wasn't so sure what she was anymore. "I hope the bitch has had explosive diarrhea since the fight. There's no way she's used to meat that's not rotten and filled with maggots," she snorted. "Miroslav blood is too rich for that ugly thing."

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Admittedly, she has a point, but so does he. Dragos just shrugs, but when it feels like he’s about to get the tea on this place, he knows better than to argue or speak up even in defence of himself. The girl laughs, and he takes the chance to sit, slouched and relaxed.

Only then, she turns, showing the side he’d not bothered to look at. The wound is ugly and obvious, even patched up. Dragos sucks in a breath between his teeth, grimacing. He’s no stranger to a fight, sure, but eating part of someone? Taking a bite-sized hunk of flesh? That’s… weird. Fucking weird.

In fact, Dragos is starting to think that maybe this whole gods damned place is fucking weird.

"Well then," the Savante says slowly, for once in his life actually stunned into silence, and forced to consider his words. "Somehow I doubt my family was told any of this before they joined." His father, while nowhere near perfect, did put the safety of the Savante first - before even his own wives, sometimes.

That said, it sounds as if this woman is somewhat alone in the world - her vendetta is hers alone, and no matter how angry and empowered she may be, one woman against several prides and families can do little. Especially one that has already lost a battle.

Dragos wouldn’t put it past his father to take the stronger hand offered, and keep its cannibalistic tendencies to himself.

His response was lackluster. Septima felt herself bristling at the nonchalant of it all, like seeing some woman with a piece taken out of her was no big deal. Like the fact she had been innocent and then brutally attacked was no big deal. There was no sympathy in his words or body language, only the indifference from someone who didn't exactly care one way or the other what happened to her. She was a stranger, so fair enough, but.. fuck, Septima just wanted someone on her side for once. It was getting too difficult to be alone. "And I'm sure he won't change his mind or opinion if you told him, just like I'm sure you'll keep following daddy blindly and work for a monster." Septima growled softly, feeling dangerously close to tears. "So those directions you wanted? If you go that way," she said, gesturing in the opposite direction she had been heading, "and keep going until you don't see me anymore, that's when you know you've found the lovely land of fucking right off."

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Fuck, she’s not gonna cry, is she?

He never knows how to deal with tears. He’d much rather deal with her insults, or assumed insults - Dragos doesn’t find it insulting to be told he blindly follows a monster because, well, he does. That’s what Alexander is, to him. The monster that pulls the rope around his neck. So another monster isn’t really anything new.

Still.

Something bites at some raw nerve when the girl hisses all that at him.

"He wouldn’t listen to me if I did." He interjects flatly, his voice no longer teasing or light.

Regardless; he is intimately familiar when his company is no longer tolerated, let alone wanted. The Savante’s ears fall flat into the thick mane around his head, and right before he turns, he adds; "That’s infected, by the way." But he does not linger, or even stop to see if the lioness listens. He walks in the direction he was told to go, and he does not look back.

Exit.

Septima was seconds away from just.. slapping. She didn't know at what or who, but she thought slapping the shit out of something would certainly help her woes. It was fortunate for @Dragos that he took the opportunity she gave him to leave, because he was quite a large target and likely difficult to miss. Not that he wouldn't just slap her right the fuck back, of course. She understood what it meant to have a father who wouldn't listen. How fortunate it was, then, that her father had never followed a cannibalistic usurper. All things considered, Seneca was an angel by comparison. He said her neck was infected. Septima clenched her teeth. "I can't exactly fucking reach it myself!" she shouted after him, ears pinned against her head. There wasn't anyone she knew and trusted to get so close, so infected it would remain until she managed to take care of it herself. Or it killed her, either way. exit

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