This content might touch on topics that are sensitive or triggering for some readers. Trigger Warning for mentions of cannibalism, gore, violence.
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Traitor. Deserter.
Non.

Worshiper of the great divide. The inky space between what is, and what was, and what will be again.
Mais oui.

A corporeal specter. A bramble among lilies. A lover of cold; for cold is dead and uncaring, just as he has grown to be. It has shredded his flesh into ribbons of deathly grey - parched and gnarled from the frozen winter of his past. It has chewed up his boyish coat, till naught but frayed bone remains, sticking from sinewy skin in scarred, matted clumps. Purity lives here no longer.

Monstrosity... Monstrosity exists instead.

He is a drifter, roaming aimlessly with eyes full of yellow lust. Now he is alone, so very alone - left to endure the aftermath of his curiosity, save for the self-imposed company of his thoughts. He smiled. Or he thought he did. But when he licked at the bloated wound of his lips with a once pink tongue, it came away slick and salty. Rivulets of puss gushed from where his smile had cracked - the pink mucous coursing through the orange pores of his thickened skin.

There is a malediction on his head. A beautiful, tortured love, glowing hot with anger. An unanswered yearning for forgiveness, thwarted by the desecration of what he loved most. And there are glimpses of her, this illusive Queen. She lives in his head. No longer is she the tiny sparrow that raised him as a cub. Now she is monstrous; an archangel of beauty and ruin, rusted blades held in each slender paw.

His wretched soul lays bare for her to feast upon.

As she twists from his mind, he runs his paw over the sharp points of his muzzle, feeling the hardness of bone beneath them. The ridge above his eyes is no longer the soft silk of cubhood, but has become a sprouting lump of fur and gristle. The vermillion sunset clings to the land, drips upon it, gushes into its hidden folds and crevices. It stifles the earth, suffocates it, twists it in its bloody grasp till nothing but mangled rock and beaten dirt remains.

It is as beautiful as he remembers. The place of his birth; the seat of his lineage. The walls that guard his people shine like bloodied bone, silhouetted against a dying sky. His body tenses, every muscle, sinew and vein pulled tight like a bowstring.

They will know he is here now. There is no point in hiding any longer.

He stalks to the edge of the rocky overhang and crouches, haunches in the air and head bent low, tail snaking around his back legs. A growl rumbles deep within his chest, vibrating through him like the dull thud of war drums. It spills from his throat, full-bodied and bitter, saturated with love and the taste of memory. The sound of a kindred soul; tortured by both the splinter of time and the absence of Her love.

@Louve ♔ + family

_{art by aurora}

despite how her family's presence seems to ebb and flow, manon tries her best to keep herself busy. her littermates pass through amaryllis here and there - but she has learned to be alone these days and finds the silence that brings to be peaceful. though that doesn't mean she doesn't greet them with great fanfare each time they return to wolfbron's borders.

previously it had been vedette that had returned and manon's heart had soared seeing glimpses of her sister once again, edged with a certain edge that had not been there before. then there had been that gathering - family that spent so much of their time apart, conquering their own little corners of amaryllis - all pulled back together to address what had been the elephant in the room. vedette had spoken up where manon did not, and she had been so very intrigued by what her sister had learned out there. all it had taken was one night, under the light of the waning moon, for the sisters to meet and for vedette to pass down all that she had learned.

manon is eager to know what christien, too, has learned.

he calls out and she comes running, brows pinched together in an expression that borders concern for her brother's well-being. "frère -" brother, manon breathes, once she's close enough to @Christien that he might hear her properly. "comment s'est passé le voyage de retour?" how was the journey back? there is a certain level of awkwardness in the way manon's question spills out on the heels of her greeting. though they may have once inhabited a womb together, they have not lived together in some time and manon finds herself afraid to eventually find that her brother has changed and become entirely unrecognizable. still, she presses forward, aiming to affectionately glue herself against christien, side-by-side.

coding by daanyen | art by rabbit

Louve has never been an overbearing mother. Though she has doted on her children in their infancy she has also loosened the reins as they've grown, giving them space to roam wherever their paths may take them. There are corners of this world that even she yearns to explore -- were she not shouldered with purpose and duty she may well have wandered as so many of them have.

Set out to find more of their blood, perhaps, to see what she might learn in order to serve them better. Rise higher and stronger, uncover the truths long lost and untaught to the branch of Dieudonne sequestered in Amaryllis.

His call sends flutters of nerves through the often unphased queen; ever since the quarrels between long lost cousins and the information vedette brought back she was uneasy about what beliefs her children might adopt out there. While she trusted her own influence to have some weight she still was uneasy, and perhaps this is why she is not the first to greet him. This is why @Manon comes first, and when Louve arrives it is to find her glued to her brother's side.

Louve breathes his name -- "@Christien" -- with a soft sort of relief, a breath that she can finally exhale now that he is home. Drawing near with no hesitance, thinking not of the news she must share with him and only of the embrace she seeks to share, coming up opposite of Manon and aiming to rub her cheek against his.

coded by flea + art by rabbit