Bloodied fangs glistened. The curl of lips better showed his emotion than their inevitable lacquer or the fatigued wag of his tongue. He was displeased, but displeasure on a grey rusted tank was of little account. His sympathy for her rapidly dissolved as she refused to keep fighting. The Mire lion's words were stronger than either of them and Aurochs had already dipped too much of a toe in other people's business to grant more than a black ear flicker. "Keep her then," as though by agreeing he could somehow claim some agency in the outcome. He was ready to get out of here and hope Violarum could bring home a prisoner somehow? A spicy cute one? Some consolation prize for his stinging face would be nice. He trudged out half disoriented but eventually returning to the Plains somehow, if only by the intuitive guidance of his stomach.

-exit

Oh, how quickly the tides of battle changed. Just one little slip-up is all it takes, a simple swing and a miss leaving Rainer unbalanced and scrambled to refocus, offering the shadow beneath his paws just the opportunity he'd needed to escape the Rike's grasp. Scheiße. The raven barks orders into the dark, a curious detail that Rainer cannot be bothered to think about in this moment, for what would it matter if @Fissure thought himself someone important once he was lying broken in the mud. Snarling jaws give chase, gleaming fangs reaching, reaching...and then Rainer is sent reeling back with a pained yelp, stumbling back from his attempted assault within the blink of an eye. Literally, for it is only one icy eye that flutters desperately back open to glare at the slippery creature before him - his left eye remains closed, glued shut by blood and fire pouring from the wounds gouged around and over the too-thin eyelid, untold pain swirling around the injury in a fiery blaze that threatened to consume his skull entirely. Half of his vision has been struck into a strange darkness, thicker than even the shadows of this wretched bog. There is something wrong. He needs to leave. Now. "I vill remember you." He snarls coldly, coating his voice with the finality of steel. As if his next breath wasn't to be used to turn tail and retreat. In a dignified manner, naturally. /exit Rainer

code by shaz | art by eightysichs

Ultimately, there was no one else for her to fight and her eyes came to rest on Emory during his battle with an unknown male. Though she is yet to understand what exactly has happened here, she waits to watch her... acquaintance battle, and when he emerges the winner- and exits she looks around her to the war that is basically over, and sighs softly. Odette aches, and decides that is time for her own wounds to be tended too- and she had witnessed so many wounds... well, she needed to think about those and how best to help the healers of the pride. Most of all? She just wanted to sleep for a season or two.

-exit-

ART BY KIM, CODE BY LARS

She cannot see the clash of armies that blaze before her, but Hadiya can sense their might all the same. In her world of darkness and distant starlight, she can feel the shake of the damp earth beneath her feet, the orchestra of rage pounding so loudly in her ears that she's compelled to pin them to block out the overwhelming noise, the sticky smell of copper thickening so much that it is like a physical thing reaching out to choke her.

Too much. It is all too much.

The seeress stumbles back, paws clumsily seeking for clear footholds until she feels the bump of cold bark against her rump. There is safety in the tree line, she thinks, foggy irises turning up once more to the sky in silent prayer, for that is all that is left for her to do. She cannot fight and she will not flee, and so here she will remain to bear sightless witness to the blazing fires of war.

It all comes to an end eventually, as all hardships were fated to do.

"لقد تقرر مصيرنا. لقد تم الحكم على جدارة دمك - احتقاره وتنقيته تحت ضوء النجوم." She intones in the hollowness of the silence that follows, raising her voice to allow the the foregin syllables to ring across the blood-stained battlefield. "لقد كشف الكون عن رغبته من خلال التضحية بجسدك. Long live the King." A grey is stomped into the muddy ground to aid the finality of the seeress's declaration, freeing her form at long last, to slip away between the trees.

A temporary disappearance, naturally.

It's clear to her senses that she will be patching up her pridemates' injuries for quite some time before the resounding pain of this night would begin to fade into memory. Her medicines are sorely needed, and she returns to her stores only briefly to gather up all that she can carry, swiftly tossing the frostbitten leaves over her shoulder as she went.

But who to tend to first?

/exit Hadiya

Medic:
+5 Attend a challenge to assess the wounds (x2)
+5 Clean out your herb stores (x2)
Cleric:
+10 Cast a curse or blessing on a character/group (x2)

---

1. Our fates have been decided. The worthiness of your blood has been judged - scorned and purified beneath the light of the stars.
2. The universe has revealed its desire through the sacrifice of your flesh.

ART COPYRIGHT ERA / CODE COPYRIGHT ANALESE

Like she'd expected, but was still disappointed by, the little girl runs off, back into the fray. Ianthe's sisters are still there too, battling small teeth and claws - and for what, their home? Home was wherever the three of them were, why did it matter what happened to the mire? The three of them were more important than their brothers' frivolous war, why should they care about hostages like they were mere soldiers?

So many questions, but Ianthe doesn't know if she even cares about the answers. She looks over her shoulder, to see the little plum take Arsinoë's hit. What's done is done, there can only be excuses now.

Their faces, identical to her own, Ianthe finds that she can't read what they're thinking. Perhaps Arsinoë and Hekate understand each other right now in a way she simply can't. They don't even seem to notice that she'd left, if they'd even noticed that she was there at all.

A molten anger simmers in her stomach, and Ianthe knows that soon, it will erupt.
She leaves all of them to their fight, her sisters and the cubs, though doing so feels like she's a stranger in her own skin. The Ianthe she knows wouldn't act this way, but the Hekate and Arsinoë she knows wouldn't act like that either. There's still differences in them, after all.

/exit

Caught in dusk, heartstrings out of tune

from the abyss I pirouette my way back to you

code by corvus

Maybe they would think of her as a coward. Maybe they would chase her away for failing to defend a home that she had always lived in. But Giulia was different. She could hardly bring it in her to raise a tooth or claw at another, and this was not her fight to partake in. She didn't know these strangers, didn't know their transgressions against the Mire. She had been gone for too long, had missed too much to be able to fit the puzzle pieces together. But Bruno, he was strong. He defended the Mire with ease before slipping into another fight shortly after and Luther, well he was a coward. She watched him escape through the fog, but she was no better than him. She watched. She did not move to stop him. Not your battle. That odd voice echoed in her mind and she would let out a soft sigh before rising, slipping back across the land just as quiet as she had come. She would return, when she was ready. Now was not that time.

exit.

assassin exp
+5 - Practice stealth
+10 - Successfully stay hidden for the duration of a thread
+10 - Sneak into a pride's territory without getting caught (Ecrosia Mire)

ART BY YUMPY