His periodic night watch of the desert stretches had gone well enough - he chased a black-footed cat from the edges of the Bluffs, covered his scent with desert flowers and sparse barberry, and tracked a strange group of kudu that had mingled with a small herd of gazelle. Their migratory pattern had differed from the average. They were not toeing the warmer stretches of what should have been the spring-touched grasses of the soon-to-be verdant fields, much farther out into the dunes than they would have been in this season.

Instead, the anomalous disaster that befell the whole of the headland had chased them far, to hidden waterholes fed by seemingly misplaced rains, ephemeral pools bedded by what sparse vegetation they could find between sandhills. He had followed them in this new traveling pattern to what trickled from the river between the red walls of the gorge as they moved to anything they could find in the way of edible sources of greenery.

Irregular enough as everything had been, the vexing nature of prey groups was nowhere near the strange dark cloud that headed his way. Nor the noises that impended the horizon, the buzzing and the clicking. It shifted wildly, there and through, wound around and about much more peculiarly than any storm cloud he had seen before. And as it darkened its approach upon the small watering holes, even the horned crowns of the antelopes and gazelles raised, their beady eyes trained on its swarming mass - and high-tailed back to the east. One terrified gazelle even leapt over Gauthier's head as he rocked back on his heels, watching the cloud's onset.

Cue Obi-Wan voice, That's no cloud.

@Astarte

--+5 - BWP-related exp
+1 - Make a BWP-related post
+2 - Study one of the natural phenomena occurring
+2 - Assess the impacts of the weather on herds and prey
+2 - Analyze the changes being made to the land
+5 - Complete a BWP-related thread (with 10+ posts)
+5 - Complete a thread with a character you've never threaded with before
+10 - Complete a thread with a member you've never threaded with before_{BG — ART — CODE}

Astarte was barely paying any bit of attention to the landscape before her, her body lay onto of a small rock structure, barely a tails length jump in height, one law hung limp and lazy, dangling off the side, while she uses the other to bathe herself, the crimson lioness yawned and flicked an ear as an eerie hum filled the earth around her, she noticed nothing of alarm yet though, so she continued her hygiene routine. Thunder.. no, hoofsteps beat the ground somewhere in the distance, this made the lioness pause and look up, prey was always a good thing, right? The thought of a juicy antelope made her maw begin to salivate and she licked her jaws, flashing fangs with a patient smirk. Only then did she realize the the gazelle, the antelopes, the prey ran towards her. Strange as it was, she knew better than to be caught under the beating hooves of scared prey, so she began to move, quick on her paws, she raced fast away from the terrified prey. How . ironic, predator chased by prey. She let out a dark humorous chuckle before urging her paws to move quicker.

What in the hell..."

The lioness leaped for a rocky overhang, grappling the rocks with her claws, she effortlessly, well, almost effortlessly threw herself over the edge, sliding only a few times, she panted and whirled around to glare at the incoming stampede. Then she noticed the cloud speeding over the herd, the sky was darkening as the cloud took large amounts of light, swallowing more and more skies, "Oh fuck. Paws slipped on pebbles as the lioness took to running again, where exactly, she didn't have the brightest idea, but away from whatever pissed off that vibrating mass.

@Gauthier
+1 - Make a BWP-related post
+2 - Study one of the natural phenomena occurring
+2 - Assess the impacts of the weather on herds and prey
+2 - Analyze the changes being made to the land
+5 - Complete a BWP-related thread (with 10+ posts)

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He steeled as hooves clattered overhead, the gruff snorts of kudu woven between the groaning of gazelle, they trailing water and treading what sparse grasses were left behind in the chill. Dust and rock kicked up behind them, framing the onset of the buzzing cloud as it passed and swarmed, sinking lower to the ground and feasting on anything in its path. Gauthier rolled back on his haunches after the last gazelle, his eyes too stead on the whirring mass to be concerned with the herded prey.

And curiously enough, he winced as a whizzing brown bug collided hard with his nose. And another, and another smacking into his cheek. A fourth tangled itself in his mane, and a fifth buzzed wildly in his ear. Like the threat of rain, like hail, the bulk of each hissing hopper at once came one by one then in fours and tens, sticking in his furs and the grasses, threading the round shore of the pool.

The swarm followed, uncountable.

Gauthier spun on his heels and made for the gorge, still pelted by insects, his ears filled with the hum of them and his back stinging with their every thrash. Ahead, a scarlet form scurried and scraped the rocky face, though unfamiliar in the rush and of little consequence to his escape. He rushed up the slope and pulled himself along the ledges, but the locusts would not stop their buzzing madness as they bathed all green in their writhing bodies, thudding against he and she and the rocks around them.

He made to throw himself into a hall carved into the face of the gorge - wherein caves made their routes throughout, deep and dark and unscathed by bug except for their entrances. There he shook his body and made to rip the locusts from him, though they made no attempt to take bites of him. He occupied himself this way for a while, the dim light of dawn outside peppered by the swarm, but its glow ambled along the smooth walls and dulled itself to reveal him well enough: the earthy, muscled form of him vexed by what bugs tangled in his mane and crept along his flesh, drawing shudders down his spine.

@Astarte
+1 - Make a BWP-related post_{BG — ART — CODE}

The gorge. She could make out the rocks on the side of her vision and she spun, her paws quickly carrying her across the earth, the buzzing sound getting louder in her ears and she roared, in pain and anger as bugs collided against her side, but she did not stop. She snarled and dove into the rocky overhang, grunting as she tumbled and rolled like a bowling ball straight for the pins, or in this case, @Gauthier. (Cue Nala and Simba) She felt the warmth of another, cursing herself for not paying more attention.

Sorry, fuck, shit.

She landed on top of him, and her face was at first a mix of surprise, then realization hit and she gave a small growl, " Gauthier." The lioness stared down at him, had it been anyone else and she may have stepped off of them, but at this time, she only wanted to keep him pinned, and maybe let him tell his story.

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There was a flurry of buzzing, muttering, vulgarities, and a ringing in his ears as he was thrust from his place at the perch of the cavern tunnel - then a vision of the dim outside, the dark, the outside, dark. The weight on his chest outmeasured his care for the locusts singing in his ears, and while the woman's voice comes only as a heady mumble to him he is far more concerned about the sensation of feeling trapped, suddenly. Trapped in the dark, trapped beneath the annoyance of bugs tangled in his mane, trapped beneath the weight of a blundering stranger.

He snagged a locust as it wandered across his scar-sprawling cheek, crunching it vindictively as he writhed beneath the body. But then, oh then -- Gauthier. A wince and a snarl, and he swung a massive paw in the direction of the weight holding him to the cold ground. A good heavy smack to whoever dared.

And sorely, gruffly, he rolled himself over in the dark, a glance cast to the trilling that carried on outside, shaking the last few hoppers out of his pelt. To the silhouette cut in the blissless shade of the canyon hollow, he strained his eyes, rolling his shoulders. Few knew him beyond Wolfbron - and it was as he preferred, what scraps of privacy he could cherish. This one did not smell of sandstone, desert oases, or mire silt. Instead, she smelled of something far more nostalgic - hints of tundra dust, wasteland spice.

He composed himself, flicking his tail, and braced. It was not Cezara, nor the other sister. So who, and hopefully none of the wild curs of their cousins that would surely strip him of his flesh than see any sense of the day, was this? Cine eşti? a growling demand as what light filtering from the world outside relented all too little more than the slight of shade.

@Astarte
romanian: who are you?
+1 - Make a BWP-related post_{BG — ART — CODE}

The lioness felt her chest swell, tight like a coiled rope, not out of love, maybe out of familiarity, of finding someone who she'd known, her reunion was short lived as was the pride she'd taken in pinning the male, after squashing a locust in his palm, his other palm swung, catching the crimson woman across the face, she roared and hissed, falling away from him before scrambling up. "The audacity of this prick!


nu o recunoști pe sora ta mai mică

Words flung at him, mixed with taunts, pleads, questions, her voice was a beacon, begging for some kind of answer. She panted, head hung low, watching him carefully, eyes trailing over his body, her brother, and yet he did not recognize her.

(Don't you recognize your baby sister?)
@Gauthier
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Baby sister. A plot, a ploy - he reeled, his teeth bared, their ivory sheen glistening slick by the shifting light drifting through the bare hollow. His face pulled in shade, shrouded and veining by dark, molten virility; his mind lingers upon the face of mewling cubs peeked out from behind their mother's arm. His mother's arm, their mother's face fraught not with fear or anger or anything at all - perhaps the simmering delight, a flickering pride as she watched her bastard husband's blood seep across the den's floor.

And their eyes, shining and dark, welled and watchful and terrified. But Gauthier hadn't harmed a single hair on their heads.

Her eyes stared back to him now, dark and shimmering with a spite - but not the menace of Damascus, the distrust or the volatility. His tail flicked, curling idly, and he mirrored her stance - wolfish, tenderly tense. @Astarte? his tongue clicked a query against the back of his teeth. Had she, too, come for him? Come for judgement? For peace? For war? The knot loosened, his shoulder twitched.

He had never had penance, after all.

Did you follow Damascus? asked the dark, the cloak of the cavern's shadow wrapped neatly beneath his chin. His eyes glowed, flashed, their cold depths abated._{BG — ART — CODE}

Astarte stared at her brother with an accusatory glare, she lashed her tail, she gave not a damn for their father at this moment, the lioness was a mix of emotions, she let out a shaky breath and pinned her ears back.

I had to. I followed as best as I could but I haven't seen him. You both left me! Everyone left me!

She snarled, her voice cracking, her legs were shaky, her lip trembled as she spoke, she couldn't even begin to find all the things she'd wanted to say to @Gauthier , she'd been transported back to being a cub, shaky and scared .



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In a way, he had still been pinned. He was held hostage by the way her eyes roved and reaped of him its every last warmth, tunneled to and through his every wile, rendering her place in his vision one cradled with demure. Not without its shame - her reflection grows sullen, shrunk back against the shadows, and he feels the cool drip, drip, drip of memory like every resounding echo cast against the deep chambers of the canyon's heart.

You both left. A truth, he had. His mother had ordered it - run. She knew what waited for him had he not. The others wouldn't listen to her, not when she had been ruined by madness and depravity, not when his sisters would be just as direly accused. Run he did. And so the rest had followed like the shadows of scythes at the corner of his every glance - everyone left.

They came here, like some promised land. They didn't come for its crowns or blood or bounty, they came for him. For his blood. Was it not owed?

There @Astarte shook before him, and here he stood, unsure of how to comfort her, a beast too lost in his own mind to know how to carry burdens. I'm sorry, he should have said. Perhaps embraced her, assured her. But his heart is steel and stone, even as it quivered in its place to see her so delicate. Again. I had to. he reasoned, so sure of it that the sound didn't tremble with a doubt. We are here now, Damascus, Cezara, Amaroq... their broken family, what shards still glistened in the dark. He plucked them from the dust, gathered each piece in unsteady hands - and cut himself with the pressure._{BG — ART — CODE}

The Young lioness took a shaky breath, eyes were tightly closed, she was not a cub anymore, she had no need to fear anything, she was a Devorre, a Vicario, a force to be reckoned with. Her paws seemed to steady themselves as she came back to reality, she knew he'd left to escape the trial, and her brothers had went after him, their older sister had fled because she watched, and did nothing, and so on her lips, finally the question between them that hung like a storm cloud overhead burst and her voice cracked like lighting, sharp and aimed directly at him.

De ce l-ai ucis pe tatăl nostru? De ce în fața noastră?

She wasn't throwing accusations, she was grasping, scrambling for any reason to make sense of it all, because she couldn't understand, she'd only saw Thorn when he was home and she'd never saw the side of him that her older siblings did, not that she remembers.

(Translation: Why did you kill our father? Why in front of us?)

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