Charax

She cannot help the pull of her flesh to swamp-land. She had been bred and raised amidst the bubble of decaying leaf-matter and the squelch of mud between knuckles. She had perfected her mire-walk, a silently executed stride that unfolded like clockwork, even when not consciously endeavoring to be stealthy.

She had followed hoofprints in moist loam, lithe physique creeping with an elegant ease of motion in the wake of warthogs. She had hoped to find a straggler, and yet as the marbled vixen drew nearer, the sound of jolly pig-chatter could be heard easily across the boggy terrain.

Eventually, she see's them - a large group - there are too many, one sure to sound the alarm of an attempted hunt. So she settles in instead; not sitting, but crouching atop mud, watching them jostle about noisily.

@amaroq

_.

they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace

THE BLOOD ON MY TEETH
BEGINS TO TASTE LIKE A POEM,
LIKE RELIGION -
LIKE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT ME

Winter would howl again, ravaging the earth, its electric shivers rattling against the thin, dense branches. Amaroq's lean, athletic mass would shift gracelessly against the mouldy, brown foliage; his heavily taloned paws sinking into the thick mud below. After living in the Mire for some time, he had grown accustomed to the dark, squelching muck, allowing its gummy sludge to coat his fur in its sable sheen. He appeared wickedly disheveled, with his rugged mane ruffling against the wind, half his body covered in grime.

Amaroq continues to slink silently through the bogged, murky, wasteland feeling the chilled dampness of the winter air caress his flesh. The mud would coat his forelimbs with every hulking stride, the mud feeling gelatinous, yet he pays no heed to the cool, slippery sensation, indifferent to everything but the scent of prey on the wind. He had tracked the noisy creatures this far, but upon the air glides a familiar fragrance, one that is sweet and delicate, triggering estranged memories. It reminds him of sticky eggs, blood and feminine flesh. A flesh that he had tasted.

His cold eyes will then ensnare her form, atlast, but for a moment he is wordless. She appeared to be stalking the same beasts, and yet she makes no predatory move towards them. Amaroq watches the smaller lioness move, her gracefulness evident with each calculative, effiminate step; her marbled fur, immaculately blending with her dark surroundings. She moved slyly upon the ground, with her daintier, lighter physique, holding herself rather impressive for all this godfosaken mud. She certainly perfected slinking through the mud.

"Charax." Amaroq would cuff, greeting her in a low, male tone, addressing the solitary maiden. "You look well." Their last meeting had ended in mutual violence, the air between them tense and foreshadowing, and although Amaroq is always alert and predatory in nature, he makes no further move towards her general direction. If anything, Charax had always evoked his genuine curiosity.

@Charax

Charax

He does not startle her as he had the first time they had met. He smells different, his presence almost as earthy-scented as their very surroundings, easily missed. Yet, Charax's senses are forever heightened, and she drops her jaw to taste the air as a gentle breeze passes through swampland and shivers up her muddy limbs.

@Amaroq.

Within her peripherals she sees him, red and hulking; a bristle forming across the ridge of her spine, chilling the back of sloped skull. Vaguely her maw turns towards him, casting the lion a sideward glance before her vision returns to the hooved creatures before them. Despite every effort to appear at ease, it is clear her senses are obsessively fixated upon him, her musculature taut and ready beneath umber skin.


"I am well," she confirms, an ear trained faithfully where he stood. "Who do you hunt today?" me or the pig? She recalls his claim to innocence the last time they had met, and yet she notes the restraint of his approach (or lack of) today. He was not yet oozing with the predatory impression she had come to expect.

_.

they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace

THE BLOOD ON MY TEETH
BEGINS TO TASTE LIKE A POEM,
LIKE RELIGION -
LIKE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT ME

Her sweet, feminine fragrance mingled with the earthen debris hits his senses first, and he welcomes the soft taste of her against his semi-parted jaws. Alert, vexatious, intense - those were the words Amaroq would choose to describe the dark-kissed female @Charax, fore the smaller lioness had always been an anxious maiden, constantly perceptive and wary, especially of him.

Today, beneath the dimmed rays of hazy light filtered through the tattered canopies up above, Amaroq watches her with an almost lazy, feline stare, his icy, stoic gaze fixating upon her location (although she is still not so easily detectable among the sodden loams, with her rich, chocolate fur and liver coloration). Still, he doesn't move, nor take a step towards her. Most of his focus is trained solely upon the hairy beasts up ahead, their antics vulgar, their attentions divided among their numbers, and his hunger now driving him on the verge of secret madness.

Charax's voice will draw his ears forward then, her words eliciting the curling of his darkened lips - a smirk wanting to form there, although the red titan says nothing more, and now drinks in both her scent and the prey's. "Hunt with me, Charax," It is all he would say, as Amaroq silently prowls forward, muscular, male physique rippling against the muddied terrain. He would stalk low to the earth, keeping downwind, his focus entirely feline - hungry blue eyes pinning against the movement of prey that played within the swampland's shadows.

Amaroq would seek to prowl forward and close the distance between him and Charax, only the motion of his downward tipping skull, and the flashing of great, pale fangs, would suggest his eagerness to hunt with her. He wanted to see her skill on the field, and although he did not really need assistance, two lions to one pig would prove less a tedious task over these heavily, muddied loams.

Art © Aurora

Charax

It feels like a lifetime of him standing there, and though he may exude an air of laziness there are deeper and more covert aspects of his demeanor that Charax is aware of. There is something wildly untamed and animal about the red male, as though every moment spent with him is a game of Russian roulette - or like wearing red in the company of a bull.

Perhaps, she imagines such sinister magnitude to his existence (though she is rarely an imaginative creature). Where he first meeting with the mystifying man was one of craved departure, tension that brewed into uneasy violence and a rapid escape. Today, her overwhelming angst begs her to stay.

Still he moves like scarlet liquid, as he had before. Somehow large and hulking, but seamlessly elegant. Her breaths are shallower, her ears flicking backward in suspense - but his request is one of honest intention, or so she may consider. Feminine face turns to him, fleetingly, blood-orange vision intense upon his crouching form, heavy beneath winged lashes, and she wordlessly concurs.

Charax is effortlessly at one with the land, a practiced scout yes, but primarily a devoted child of mother-nature. She moves onwards, charcoal unders brushing reaching foliage, silently; her awareness trained equally between @Amaroq and swine. She will read his movements with seamless ease, well practiced when it came to synergy, and begin the eloquent dance of The Hunt.

_.

they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace

THE BLOOD ON MY TEETH
BEGINS TO TASTE LIKE A POEM,
LIKE RELIGION -
LIKE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT ME

She moves with impossible grace - stealthy, elegant, bewitching - Amaroq watches the smaller lioness @Charax moving against the murky earth, his icy, grey-blue eyes following the voluptous lines of her svelte figure dip perfectly against the sodden loams. Up and down the woman slinks. His eyes drifting from her sloping shoulderblades, delicate in their refined sculpt, to her tantalizing hips, womanly and full, and then in that very moment with her dark body poised so low against the ground - a different kind of hunger suddenly stirs within him. One that is entirely male, ancient and far more intense.

He steels his nerves, raw and grating, allowing her to pass through, while his gaze falters from the collective swine to the sight of her moving in such a feline manner, and it is enough to elicit a silent snarl of carnal yearning to ghost along his lips. It is hushed and low, barely audible, his intentions not yet clear, although his muscles will shift wickedly beneath his thick, long fur in the involuntary thought of mounting her. And yet, despite the sudden masculine urge, his hunger to feast outweighs his hunger to mate, his stomach still famished and ravening. He clears his head of such raunchy thoughts, however, the hard muscles along his masculine physique shuddering with the anticipation of the hunt, completely dismissing the potential heat of her body pinned beneath his.

Cold, blue eyes would observe the pigs with a ravening, before he settles into his position, his haunches twitching in preparation for the final lunge. He would wait behind, asserting that Charax may move up ahead. Amaroq would lay back for the ambush, to flush out the prey, allowing Charax to do her stealthy slinking and take down. It's always new to him, the prospect of freshly spilled blood, his ideal past time that of hunting and killing the animals of the forests, and what better way to enjoy the gathering of a feast than in the sublime company of an attractive, able-bodied lioness. Although he does not voice his thoughts to her, she may notice the sudden warmth of his eyes, the smoulder of his stare, not entirely reserved for the intended prey. Indeed, his eyes would gravitate towards her figure with secret desire, both hidden and intense.

Art © Aurora

Charax

As she always was, Charax is wildly aware of the push and pull of his muscle; sensing, even when he crouched behind her, the shudder of something across his spine. It moves like electricity across damp terrain, sparking amidst footfalls and climbing her thighs; a bristle of marbled hair across her flanks or the tremble of umber skin.

One ear, rounded and charcoal-centered, trained to @Amaroq - the other to prey. Still, she does not wholly trust him, how can she? He is a beast of the night. Despite his flesh of cherry and eyes of winter blizzards, he is dark. Still, where his forwardness gave reason for chill prior, now she finds reason for warmth. At least, if nothing else, he is somewhat readable.

The pair move with a seamlessness, a scout and a hunter; a deadly duo, unmatched in their ability to navigate earth and anticipate movements. It works, in a way that is unsettling to Charax, her gaze never leaving the warthog's, and yet her other senses frequently straying to her company.

Amaroq flushes the beast, Charax emerging unseen at the very last moment - a collision, an audible thump as the woman attached to their feed. A forearm tossed over it's nape, her teeth sinking behind the jaw. It struggled of course, a young boar unlikely to succumb all too easily. It's tusks would turn amidst it's squeals, nosing desperately at her shoulder with pointed ends. A struggle that slowly eased.

_.

Do you really want me dead
or alive to torture for my sins

His heart surges with feline excitement, and with the promise of blood, the phantom taste of meat clenched between his jaws, his senses were driven to a goading frenzy. The marbled lioness is impressive in her stealthy demeanour, her voluptuous body slinking hotly against the earth, her every muscle and contour devoured by the red titan's cold, blue eyes until she all but artfully blends into their surroundings.

When Amaroq finally unfurls, he too becomes seamless liquid against the earth. The adrenaline unleashed feels explosive, his toned male muscles rippling forward as the red hunter rapidly relinquishes his hiding spot, and lunges into a swift chase. Together, Amaroq and @Charax work as a vicious team - him to snap and drive fervently at the swine's heels and her to finally ambush, delivering the killing bite.

How rapid their attacks had been, how strategic their movements; stride by stride, breath by bated breath, as they fall in swift and deadly synergy - the hunter and the scout - their bodies twisting against the loams, striking towards their intended target with all the voracity of lusting predators. Soon, blood washes the lioness' mouth, Charax locking onto their target and the prey falls to its untimely demise within her jaws.

Amaroq is there beside her, both his powerful forelimbs gripping into the tight, rotund haunches of the fallen beast; his talons drawing thick, gaping lacerations through the sable hide. His fangs would sink into the meaty hide then, tugging voraciously at the plump flesh, consuming the barely concious animal even as it had taken its last gasps of air.


Art © Aurora

Charax

As if the pair had more than impulse between them, the kill is executed with perfection. Only minor struggles follow the final squeals of the warthogs demise, Charax's tongue feeling the pulse of it's jugular weakening beneath her grasp. There is forever a respect for the beasts she will fell; never greedy, never ungrateful. Yet, @Amaroq is hardly the same.

Through her peripherals she can see the tearing motion of his blocky skull, hear the stretch of sinew beneath his powerful jaws. Whilst the woman still clung to the dying beast, Amaroq fed. Her pulse quickened, heart thumping beneath the springs of her ribcage; overcome with a wildly animal sense of thrill. He was a beast of nightmarish wonder.

And he was frighteningly beautiful.

She is delayed to relinquish her grasp; hooked on the buzz of his intoxicating barbarity. Eventually however, the creature thuds to her feet. Lifeless. Already half consumed. With the quiver of her marbled flesh Amaroq pulls her closer, wordlessly, the lioness slinking with taut musculature to rest immediately by his side. Her shoulder barely millimeters from his own; prickling from his warmth.

Charax reaches to consume, tearing at the broken surfaces where the red male had already begun.

_.

I know I've only felt religion
when I've lied with you

There is something primal, something absolutely intoxicating and addictive, about their silent interactions together; something raw, untamed and animalistic in both the red hunter and his marbled huntress. While the female's every movement is laced in the epitome of feminine grace and elegant ruination, Amaroq's demeanour is barbaric, primitive and mannish. Charax moved with calculative finesse, her soul's essence like liquid silk gliding against the earth; while Amaroq exuded power and virility, his focus, astute and cunningly criminal.

Thus, the red soldier's hunger unfurls like a greedy dragon, the blood sliding from his flesh, thick and substantial; dripping down, down, down his rugged jaws in heavy rivulets of vermillion. It'd slosh around his sharp mouth, his fangs gnashing against the rotund haunches of the barely-alive swine. He'd tear and rend, his massive paw pinning the creature's backside down, flicking drops of blood against his burly chest, streaking his muzzle in a deeper, wetter crimson. He'd feast, unabashed, unapologetically male, studying Charax even from the corner of his ice-blue gaze; observing the way she'd seem to be fallen into a subtle trance, before eventually relinquishing her hold to settle aside him.

He'd feel it then, the distance between them closed, the gap but a mere whisker away from one another. The sudden nearness of her, the warmth of her, smoothing like a satin nightgown down the hard flesh of his muscular shoulder. Tantalizing, feminine, subtle, oh so secretive. Amaroq would pull back then, snapping his fangs once to swallow a meaty mouthful down, allowing her room to reach in and feed. She moved in ways that mystified the heathen, his eyes would now swim with the hidden intrigue, his attentions diverted by her close, close proximity. "You don't talk much, do you?" His husky voice sounds almost guttural as he swallows down another piece of swine-flesh, his blue gaze now pinned down upon her slender form.

His eyes would involuntarilly trace the lithe lines of her sloping backside, those delicate shoulders so finely carved in their marbled contours, her finely shaped skull that dipped for the flesh and blood that pooled in its meaty confines between them. Amaroq would watch her intensely, and a hidden want would suddenly snarl beneath his gaze, his thoughts vivid with the male imagination. Another hunger takes over him, although he remainds outwardly steely, reserved, before another question blatantly leaves his lips. He wanted to know more about @Charax, this mysteriously beautiful woman, who barely spoke, who barely revealed any emotion.

"Do you have a mate?"


Art © Aurora