His words fell on resistant ears, and Sébastien reminded himself of the folly of youth. Such a young and eager thing, ready to throw himself to the claws of a much larger, older, more experienced opponent. There was no shift in the vampire's expression as @Roussel parroted him and refused to back down. Only a neutral hum and a glance between the two as the pale beast stepped back. Then may you learn whatever lesson is needed. It was nowhere close to an even match, so perhaps the boy would learn a necessary lesson about picking his battles.

And then the one he thought safe turned back, approached again in apparent support of her companion, only for their other Gentry to come charging forward in search of violence. Sébastien sighed, a weary sound, but offered only an apologetic glance toward the brown-and-white girl. There was nothing he could really do to stop these lions once they got the scent of blood, and he had no relationship with the visitors that would spur him to physically intervene where words failed.

Perhaps the brown-and-white woman would learn a lesson of her own about taking one's leave before the welcome had been well and truly worn out.

Sébastien would shake his head slightly, and retreat from the border, returning to a slight rise that would offer a better view of the more important fights still raging on.

@Levana @Kireena ♞ @Cassius ♔

code by daanyen || art by rabbit

The thrill of the fight had always charged Amara in the past and she wouldn't say that there wasn't a thrill with this one but this was different in many ways for her. This was protection as well as a chance to put this line in their place. Amara didn't care that they thought that the family thrived elsewhere, it hadn't been thriving here and she was firmly set that it would not have thrived without her. She knew how many had come and gone, they didn't stay, they didn't thrive. She held them together and brought through not one but two different lines. In many families, it would be she who was seen as the Matriarch but not this one. To her own young, her value was there but to these newcomers, they didn't care at all. Blood was all that mattered to them and Amara had to not only protect her own self but also those who carried the family name but not a touch of the blood. Something both Vermier and Ambro had left her with. Nothing is heard as she clashes with Léontine, pain is dull but spreads across her chest, her target is missed but flesh still finds its way under her teeth and she can taste the blood that is warm and a reminder of what this is all about. Leo's teeth sink into her lower shoulder and Amara can feel the age of her body but won't allow it to hinder her even as she feels claws slice into the same leg that was being bitten. She shifts her weight and lifts the leg away from the claws and attempts to claw at the tender area of Leo's left armpit as she attempts to grind her teeth deeper into the shoulder that she had a grip on. Amara vs. @Léontine Death Round 2 / 7 Hits: Rolling 6d20: 20 + 17 + 14 + 10 + 19 + 9 Dodges: Rolling 5d20: 8 + 4 + 13 + 15 + 1 Luck: Rolling 5d20: 1 + 10 + 7 + 19 + 16

Table by Ice. Graphic by Lars.

Palpatine ignored political business, but the scent of lion-death wafted into her nostrils and she picked her way back from her wanderings in the wild bluffs towards one of the familiar trails. Once there, bobbling at a curious walk, her stride accelerated to a quicker clip at the sharp alarm call of a female. The assurance in the female's voice suggested an affront to the pride.

On familiar paths she could stretch her muzzle out and ungape her jaws to breathe, her nostrils no slaves here to the scents of blind ground but rather servants to the rasp of high mountain air. Her chest burned. Down a battened rise, she saw swarming forms of their dark pride colors engaged in battle. Some scents old, established on the scene. Others newly rushed in like fools or angels.

Fangs bared and shoulders high and sharp over her churning shoulders, she paced the line of the rise and swung near a dark, lurking form. "Scout?" @Dysnomia "Which of them are enemies?? I'm gonna bite them! Bite them from under their fat spines!" She threw back her head and cackled. "Blood will spill and winter war will freeze and spring will bring new life for us." Determined, she squint and gazed over the battle field, hoping to spot the body language of interlopers before others could steal an opponent away from her.

Amara plays so sweetly into her paws. Both attacks land with relative ease but her opponent's grip tightens on the side of her neck. The pain pulsed through the adrenaline and she grimaces, hissing out her discomfort into her own mouthful of flesh. But the Wolfbron woman lifts the leg she's clawing at and, immediately, Léontine slams it back to the earth to stabilize herself. The claws of her right paw score into the tender flesh of the Firnen fighter's armpit and wet her fur with blood that pours abruptly from the wound.

Seeing an opportunity, Léontine lifts her right paw and slashes out to wrap it around the back of Amara's left paw this time, intending to try to sink claws into the back of her ankle and spear into tendons. Simultaneously she would attempt to pull towards herself with that limb and shove right with the grip she maintains on Amara's shoulder. With one leg lifted to claw her armpit and the other, hopefully, targeted - the Dieudonné hopes to topple the aging false matriarch and slamming her to the earth with Léontine perched on top of her. She's all but sure it won't be that easy - but the crooning death song in the back of her skull leaves little for logic. There is only the thrumming of blood in her ears as she reaches, doggedly, to see the life drain from this woman's eyes.

Léontine vs. @Amara
for death
Round 2 / 7
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 20 + 6 + 16 + 10 + 4 + 11 + 19 + 1

Dodges:

Rolling 5d20: 9 + 3 + 10 + 5 + 16

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 14 + 7 + 17 + 9 + 13

_{BG — ART — CODE}

Levana was on the retreat, and Kireena would have followed had the yearling from before not launched himself at her. After the verbiage she didn't understand towards the pale lion speaking against such a movement. Kireena flattened her ears against her skull, jaws parting as she snarled a warning against such an attempt.

His claws sank into her fur upon her neck, digging in, and out of the corner of her eye she spotted Levana being engaged in a fight of her own. For FUCKS sake! The red giant would attempt to sink her fangs into Russel's neck, his fangs slicing through the skin on the left side of her face.

The question had her wracking her memory and she found herself mentally shrugging. "No." Perhaps that would assuage the yearlings desire to rend flesh from bone, but she somehow doubted it. Still, Kireena would attempt to balance herself and lash one of her front paws towards his side - talons flashing from sheaths.

Kireena vs. @Roussel
Minor Maim
Round 1 of 4
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 8 + 11 + 6 + 15 + 1 + 13 + 14 + 18

Dodges:

Rolling 5d20: 14 + 16 + 2 + 13 + 1

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 10 + 18 + 12 + 7 + 5

*Edit to fix dodge dice code ok'd by Ice.

code by corvus, art by rabbit

Even in the insanity, even as his brain succumbed to rot, Ludivine’s infuriated, pained screech is like music to his ears. A symphony. It spurred his blood-thirst, teased the creature that now consumed him whole.

She shifts, and he allows his assaulting leg to fall down so it may continue to aid his balance. However, Ludivine’s talons sink even deeper into his elbow as a result, even going as far as to leave deep lacerations down his limb that drip red, burning as if flames lick his flesh. She harboured more strength than him, and therefore the pressure applied to his elbow manages to make him stumble, a mistake that easily distracts him considering his maddened state.

In that moment of distraction, Ludivine’s teeth land across his chest, catching a good amount of long hair on their way. Yet the hair does not save him – far from it. Her incisors bury painfully into the meaty right side, muscle torn and blood pouring generously. He snarls, a wretched sound, before he tucks his chin down and his jaws slacken open to try and grab onto Ludivine’s nose bridge in retaliation.

Apollinaire vs. @Ludivine
for Death
Round 3 / 7
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 7 + 3 + 11 + 2 + 9 + 10 + 15 + 12

Dodges:

Rolling 5d20: 4 + 1 + 16 + 3 + 15

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 5 + 11 + 1 + 14 + 2

she were the stoic wallflower: set to bloom amongst the shadows of familial chaos. ever-watchful as the ruddy crags that loomed above their keep, and equally as removed from the rising tensions of the dieudonné in all her disparaging silence. even the severed head of the damned elicits nothing more than a lingering glance as it skips across the dust and to a grieving widow, bypassing the covetous hands of their felled dog as it went. however gruesome a memento, it were the embodiment of their matriarch’s word — as much as it were symbolic of apollinaire’s shortcomings and ludivine’s efforts to rectify them.

she had done what he could not, and a flicker of reverence sparks from beneath cold, rigid flesh.
— efficace, indeed.

and just as swiftly as it had flared, so does the bleue’s admiration wither to naught but quiet condemnation: snuffed by the impassioned outburst of their murderous matriarch. from her vantage point, cyrène reflexively unfurls to the din of ludivine’s accusations, fueled only by the intrigue that arises from her ignorance of pre-existing feuds between branches of dieudonné. still, the child lingers upon the fringes of the gathering, casting an expectant glance to her elder sœur: a vulture to the belligerence known of her famille, and a proponent for the enduring apathy known to their maman, and to louve, in turn.

but it were not the wolf who would oblige ludivine’s requested fanfare; it were the hound.

the applause @Ludivine covets comes in the form of barreling footfalls across the tarp. good boy, if not for the snap! of leash that rendered his master, powerless to stop.

she does not know how or when she’d come to rest at the flank of @Delphine. she knows only the shock that sets her spine bristling and jaws gaping as she bears witness to the treason @Apollinaire commits. but nothing—nothing could prepare her for the strife of her maman.

in all her infantile glory, she pirouettes to the prattling @Léontine with all the foreboding composure borne unto her. the threats of the stranger do not fall on deaf ears; on the contrary, cyrène braces herself with unfounded resolve to settle this dispute the only way she deems necessary. what were words to a knife, after all? and a sweeping gaze surveys the taut sinew of her distant, elder relative while she sputters her meaningless venom — as if she, too, held the voice of a matriarch and not the clamoring snarls of a mad dog.

too late — and the image of @Amara, hurtling into battle finds the bleue’s practiced guise of apathy, shattered.

“non,” she mutters to none, to all. glassy eyes mirror the brutality inflicted upon her maman and blur the surrounding bedlam, forcing attention she’d sooner break for the sake of re-composure, for the sake of retained innocence. delphine were gone, now – removed from the space at her shoulder – and cyrène can only balk in the throes of ensuing panic and detachment. but through the pandemonium, she spies her, spies @Louve. the wolf she’d only ever scorned through a slew of endless critiques! and how she becomes a beacon of light in the midst of her uncertainty, her crippling fear. tell me what to do and how to feel, and i will follow.

ART & CODE

How adorable he thinks as she squares off to face him. She rears up as he does, the downward trajectory of his head for her head now landing into her shoulder. And he feels her skin pop and give way to both his bite and his claws. Her blood splashes over his tongue as well as warms against his paws. His hum of pleasure ripping into a snarl of pain and annoyance as her own teeth seek purchase in his face. He had nearly lost an eyes once and he wasn't about to tempt fate on it again.

Cassius tries to shove away from the woman, her teeth skinning a small portion of his upper cheek in the process. He moves forward again, attempting to smash the bony part of his shoulder in her chest in hopes of knocking her off balance. While at the same time his right paw swings upward to try and punch claws across her ribs.

Cassius v @Levana
Minor Maim
Round 2 / 4
Hits:

Rolling 8d20: 20 + 15 + 18 + 3 + 5 + 13 + 8 + 19

Dodges:

Rolling 3d20: 4 + 5 + 19

Luck:

Rolling 6d20: 16 + 14 + 6 + 13 + 3 + 9

+1 luck from Lead Scout present

Art by Rabbit, Code by Minxy

The force of her rolling her weight to the side does the trick, forcing the beast to lower his paw before his claws do any further damage to her limb. Still the wounds bleed openly, even if the pain is mitigated for the time by adrenaline — should she survive, it would no doubt be on fire. Her own claws sink deep into his elbow, but finally she allows her own grip to relax and drop to the earth as well, bracing herself once again.

Meat, it fills her ravenous jowls and she snarls viciously in victory. The taste of blood drives her wild, like a shark scenting blood in the water for the first time. But the slobbering hound rages from her insult and his jaws dip down towards her skull, even if she can barely see the movement out of the side of her vision. His teeth don't land where he aims, due to their position. Instead, they lands further up. Once more cutting through thin skin and tufts of her half-mane — and catching on her right ear.

Teeth snag, they grip, they tear.

She can't tell yet the full extent of the damage to her ear — all she can feel is the hot splatter of blood — but if he is to have a piece of her, then she would have a piece of him. She violently swings her head back and forth like a dog gnawing a bone, attempting to chew and tear a chunk of flesh from his chest.

Ludivine vs @Apollinaire
Death — III of VII

Hits

Rolling 6d20: 19 + 16 + 1 + 18 + 12 + 10

Dodges

Rolling 7d20: 19 + 11 + 4 + 7 + 8 + 18 + 17

Luck

Rolling 5d20: 18 + 7 + 19 + 5 + 12

Hellfire. Hellfire.

Ain't no chariots of fire, come to take me home I'm lost in the woods, and I wander alone

Elaine's attempt to stop him went unheard and by the time she neared him, he was already attached to Ludivine. There was nothing she could do. She wouldn't step into a fight that a matriarch was involved in, even more so since this was a crime that would end in his death. She stood with her icy gaze attached to the fight, her sides heaving as she tried to wrap her mind around why he would do this. She didn't have much time as @Léontine's words floated above the sounds and she snapped her head to look at her. @Louve speaks up but it doesn't matter as their mother's words rise before she launches into an attack of her own. Elaine stands in the middle of two clashing parts of her family and her mind is torn. She had every desire to get to know the others, to learn, to have a better understanding of the blood that ran through her veins but they always seemed to be so against her mother. It was a sore spot because truthfully, without her, where would they have ended up? They would have known nothing. She had been willing to let it go, to learn but it didn't seem to matter. Elaine no longer knew what she wanted.

Her icy gaze snapped around as more fights broke out for reasons she didn't understand. She had told the others to leave and thought they had been but now they were under attack. She snapped her gaze to her sister with a pleading look for her to get things under control. This is what she is supposed to do. Control things. Elaine didn't know what to do with all of this. She didn't have a target, she didn't have a goal, she was stuck watching family attack family and having enough respect and control not to get in their way. She knew her younger siblings and Louve's cubs were here but if her mother hadn't sent them away, she wouldn't either. With a grunt of annoyance, she moved away from the fights and went to stand near Louve. Que voulez-vous que je fasse? What do you want me to do? She asked her sister, hoping for some direction as they watched their very stable life move onto a rocky unknown.

There was no good outcome. Even if Amara and Apollinaire won, things wouldn't be that simple. Ludivine's mate was in the rainforest along with cubs. She had smelled both when she arrived at the rainforest. She doubted that they would just slip away like their other enemies had. If Apollinaire falls but Amara wins, Elaine doubts that Amara will be allowed to live much longer. If Amara falls and Apollinaire wins, Louve would be put in an impossible position to either allow another to kill her husband, to do it herself, or allow him to live knowing that he had attacked another with no firm reason. Words weren't enough of a reason, not when he hadn't been told to. While she had always respected the male, this was a line that he should not have crossed. They were all Louve's and Ludivine's to command. He had acted alone. There was no good outcome. Today marked a huge change in their family and for the first time, Elaine found herself scared to know the outcome.

Take My Soul

Burn in an alleyway through a dead end street Murdering promises that I just can't keep

code by corvus|Image