Amara drags the zebra's body across the borders, a trail of blood following them as they moved away from the kill site. Amara had taken the animal by surprise and the fight for life had ended quickly. She pulled it to their stores and dropped it among the rest. Her bloody body looking around to see if anyone might need a meal. She had eaten some before coming back, making it lighter to tow. There was some concern that her pride was growing smaller and not larger. Something that wouldn't go well if they needed to attack or if they were attacked. She sat down and started to clean herself as she worked the problem over in her mind. Her ranks were mostly full and yet, it seemed that only she was within the passage. Did the others not care? Did they not have a desire to go? Would she have to change that? She glanced at her kill for a moment before she went back to grooming herself. the lost art of murder

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hail to the king
kneel to the crown

royal flames will carve a path to chaos
bringing daylight to the night
let the water flow with shades of red
arrows black out the light

The smell of horseflesh beats the tide of dusk, the autumnal breeze that slips and sleeves the last glimmerings of day - an unexpected comfort, the break of monotony is slivers of curiosity trembling down the spine. Moved if only to greet the prospect of food and sate lesser intrigue, Gauthier pulled from a darkened niche, the ripple of his body striped in starlight and red dust. Below, the form of Amara is certain and welcome, possessing the object of natural wonder. Flesh. That of the sanguinary kind, red-boned and striking, tender beneath all the toughness of muscle. The zebra tends to be tasty as well, this part of the year.

He followed then, though his appetite lacked, if only for the surprise that the Sovereign was seemingly alone. A rarity of late. He would not move of an act of courtesy, no gentleman, to lighten her burden. Gauthier is not a creature of pity. She showed no disgruntlement for the zebra's weight - but no incredulity there lapsed over his mind in the least. A Queen should hold such power, as fitting, a beacon of strength unto the shade of the masses.

Their distance closed at the foot of the cache. There it, the pit of its belly still faintly steamed, rested full ribbed and handed on a silver platter. Before long he expected the pieces to be dealt, bellies filled, tongues satisfied with texture and taste. His own stead in his jaws as his eyes rolled over the carcass, and their icy fixings settled on @Amara. "A well bounty," rolled the warmth of his voice, its smoke and resonance. Her body lounged, ruffed and bloodied, that which told of laborious efforts. No accomplice tailed, no hunter surmised its skill by the integrity of the body's most flavorful cutlets. "Did you bring it down, yourself?"

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Amara lifted her gaze as a familiar and mostly welcomed sight arrived. She paused in her grooming to look him over. He seemed well and unharmed. His praise for her kill earned him a raised brow before his question followed. I did. It wasn't paying attention well enough. A simple enough answer she thought. She flicked her eyes toward the meat. Eat. There was plenty there and it wouldn't be long before the others caught the scent of a fresh kill. With the death of her husband, Amara was feeling even less open with things but with @Gauthier he had at least started to earn some of her trust which was a step. Have you thought about doing more in the pride? It was a blunt question she asked between grooming strokes as if it was a normal thing to ask. Amara wanted to know if he had plans, maybe he could help her with her current problem. the lost art of murder

code // art // do not use without permission

hail to the king
kneel to the crown

royal flames will carve a path to chaos
bringing daylight to the night
let the water flow with shades of red
arrows black out the light

A well fortune, indeed. The lack of a hunt made no difference to flavor, and so her admittance garners no more than the lift of a brow from Gauthier. Eat. Sovereign as ever. He looked to the striped beast but didn't move, knowing enough that soon the masses would be on it for the satiation of their own hungers. His own was pacified by hare and lesser gazelle for the moment, though a snack of zebra liver wouldn't leave him unsatisfied.

Lacking the regard of a demand, kind or not, he held his ground, tail curled at his heels. Have you thought about doing more in the pride? Casual and pointed, her question flaunts a many colors in his mind, though he leans to the less insistent of meanings.

His mind trailed to the recent challenge that devolved into another war spout with Andal, the one in which she sic'd him on a pregnant Scilla King while her husband wrenched open the throat of a weary Aidoneus. The line of his lips tightened to remember, his eyes darkening as they trailed back to @Amara's own. "Yes." lowly, a near-growl, though without its outright aggression. The steely shades of memory fall over the frigid trace of his gaze, clouded with intent and aspiration.

"Though I serve myself, foremost." he breathed, calloused by undying assertion. "Nothing worthwhile comes easily. I expect nothing that isn't won in blood and toil. But I will achieve more than the stature of a Hound." The beaten hound, his father's voice chortled in the desolate dark of his mind.

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Amara's gaze was on him as she groomed herself. Something shifted and she watched him closely. She didn't know what it was about her question that could have caused the darkness in his eyes as they come back to her. She lifts a brow but his answer comes before she can question it. Her ears flick and she stops her grooming, the blood could dry in its place and fall off later. Her focus was on him. Don't we all serve ourselves in some way before others? Even herself, as much as she did everything for the family it was driven by her own fear of being tossed out if she didn't do enough. A fear that at any moment, it could all come down around her. That fear grew even more with the death of her direct link to the family. Her cubs held the blood but she was, once again, an outsider doing her best to stay inside. There is something to be said for hounds. I was one. Trained as one. Now, here I am. She didn't know that he would have a negative link to the word and it wasn't one that she used often herself. It didn't have a pleasant ring to it but if it was what he wished to use she would for now. Something bothers you? She asked, beyond the desire to not be a hound it seemed there was something else. She didn't want there to be discontent among her members if she could help figure things out. No, they weren't the lovey type but Amara did care about those she kept in the pride and would do what she could for them. He had earned some trust and so she would try to help him out the best that she could. the lost art of murder

code // art // do not use without permission

hail to the king
kneel to the crown

royal flames will carve a path to chaos
bringing daylight to the night
let the water flow with shades of red
arrows black out the light

There was no shame in his ever admittance to serving himself. Greed was beyond sin for him, beyond appetite, beyond guilt - Gauthier had been raised to rule, whether it was a kingdom of riches or ruin. He could not do that without a servitude to self that took precedence over any other living creature. Not Amara, not the Dieudonne, Vicario, even Devorre. He was a slave to hunger and desire - such overruling decadence that writ his bones.

@Amara's confession was not enough. He cannot know her struggles, her fears and trials, but that of a hound he has known too well, too bitterly.

Before he can answer, she calls upon him for another answer - sifting through the wading currents of his gaze. "Alizabeth," he began, his voice without apprehension. "Why did you send me after her, and not an Andal?" Something sparked, stoked, twisted in the ashes of his disdain. There is no loathing, but there is the leaning bull of an insistence.

There were no chains for him.

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Amara wasn't the most keen on things most days but she didn't mind trying to dig into her members a little to make sure that things weren't going to backfire on her at some point, to make sure that they weren't going to end up hating her to the point where an attack happens against here. She had seen it before and she didn't really care for the idea happening from her own. She had talked with the dark male in front of her before and he had spoken about wanting to be in the middle of things, to make her fights his own. Had she misunderstood him at that time? Had he not wished to make her enemies his own for the time he was here? Her ears fold back for a moment as she looks him over. She is the one who gave me this. She lifted her paws toward the large scar on her neck. She attacked me out of nowhere. I didn't even know who she was at the time. Amara didn't care to know who she was either. I had just been in a fight where that lioness was trying to rip my guts out when Alizabeth attacked. And then she had one of her members attack me in the passage, unprovoked. Amara hadn't seen Roarke since but the bitterness of that attack still soured her tongue. She and the Lagoon are as much of an enemy as Andal. So what was his issue with his attack against her? Amara wasn't going to sit and explain everything at the moment, either do or don't but don't ask for her to send you into things if you are going to wish you hadn't. Her tail flicked slightly as she tried not to allow the annoyance she was feeling to grow. This was likely a misunderstanding and Amara was over allowing them to turn into more than they should be. the lost art of murder

code // art // do not use without permission

hail to the king
kneel to the crown

royal flames will carve a path to chaos
bringing daylight to the night
let the water flow with shades of red
arrows black out the light

Had he a great apathy for the hierarchy of Wolfbron, he would not have even bothered with the question. Perhaps he would have left without word as his brother had done, perhaps he would have slandered Amara without a second thought, perhaps he would have even challenged her rule, her competency, her legacy. For all his recklessness and unholy appetite, an outright insubordination was beyond his modus operandi.

Another spiral begins when he senses the trickle of something like impatience in her tone, her subtle gestures - droplets of blood in the water. He narrowed his eyes as she raised her chin to reveal her scars, those scars he had witnessed rendered for his own. It wasn't as though he hadn't been present to see the scuffle, but war was war and the world's unique devolutions into lesser troubles never came as any great surprise or matter. He remembered his conversation with Saoirse at edges of the same skirmish: This family hated that family, this pride loathed that pride, and Gauthier hated all of them equally.

The spectrum of that hate wouldn't even spare the Dieudonne. Would it spare Amara, who also teetered on their bloody scale?

She and the Lagoon are as much of an enemy as Andal.

And yet, never had it ever felt to the same intensity - the same billowing hatred and rivalry he had tasted on the battlefields wherein those Miroslavs and their loyalists roamed. "You called her a cub killer." he responded evenly, more a question than an accusation. "One could have assumed, given the vitriol, that it was personal. I was unaware of any other slights. She was pregnant when I attacked her, did you know that?" The irony. Still void of accusation, he shrugged and grinned wide with the further thought. She probably hadn't known any better than he did at the time. "The chances we take on the battlefield."

He remembered her lingering threat as he turned to seek Aidoneus in the rubble, though her voice was distant, muffled, as if he had been underwater. She hadn't come to rain hell upon him or Wolfbron, so the birth had gone well enough, surely.

Still, something challenging roamed her gaze. Gauthier looked to @Amara, resolute but not entirely defiant. "I don't regret it, if that is your concern." Nor did he expect her to run a monologue at the start of each war, to explain the clear divides. "Just preferred the taste of oasis." If she hated being questioned, she would live a long life of disappointment.

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Cub killer. Amara vaguely remembered but before she could explain @Gauthier continued on. Her ears flicked and folded back. I wasn't aware that she was pregnant. Cubs are well protected in a mother's womb. I was talking about her assumed alliance with the Sigrun. Who toss their cubs into the ocean and wait to see which ones live and which ones die. She couldn't remember if Gauthier had been around when she shared this bit of news with the pride or not but she was willing to share it again and again. The Sigrun are among the first enemies that were gained here. His grin was a bit unsettling but Amara's features didn't change. He seemed to know that she was unsure about the meaning behind his words before as he followed it up with the fact that he didn't regret it and that he preferred the taste of those from the Oasis. It is good to know that you don't regret it. It seemed as though there was something you disagreed with about it. Amara saw the moment as a window to try and open up a little with the male. He had earned it, even if it was only a small amount. I will keep in mind that you have a preference. She wasn't above giving him what he wanted if that was indeed all he would want. She went back to grooming herself to finish pulling the blood of the zebra from her pelt. Her gaze lingered on him as she waited to see what he might have to add. the lost art of murder

code // art // do not use without permission

hail to the king
kneel to the crown

royal flames will carve a path to chaos
bringing daylight to the night
let the water flow with shades of red
arrows black out the light

The Sigrun toss their cubs to the ocean, testing their will to live. There is passionate conviction to it, a trial against the hardships of the ruthless world. Were the Devorre any better, releasing their children to the wilds of tundra wastes alone, young and foolish, starving and vulnerable? Some were gored on a beast's horns, stolen by enemies and returned to the clan lifeless and brutalized, famished and relent to a death of too many failed hunts whether by famine or a lack of skill. The ocean was a swifter, less violent death. There would be those grueling moments as saltwater stung wildly in your chest, the current dragging you asunder. And then, nothing. Otherwise, Devorre cubs were found by death shivering, wracked with the terror of starvation, weak and frostbitten. He had seen it for his own eyes. Had left his weak cousins behind, knowing their sacrifice was anything but glorious.

And he was shameless. Crueller things waited for them yet in the world. Their death was mercy.

He bit his tongue, feeling the comparison hardly worth an acknowledgement. What good would it do but petition that the Devorre were no better than the Sigrun? What would she say, then?

Gauthier ripped a loin from the zebra carcass as she spoke of regrets and preferences, a tidbit to carry back with him before it was descended upon by the masses. For all he knew there could be little left but meager scraps when he'd return hungry, and he was presented the better opportunity now rather than the chance later. With it he turned back to the direction of his sunning spot, ignoring the crawl of @Amara's watch over his spine.

exit.

Art © Ryuu