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

In the timid moment of distance between them, he gathers himself readily, amusedly, bracing in the soft sands that slightly give beneath his paws. He would not intentionally hurt her, but he wouldn't make it easy for her, princess, Dieudonne, cannibal, or not. Another may crumble in the force of her regal palm, yield, dare not strike the mouth that teethes - Gauthier reels, stifling laughter that bubbles in the pit of his throat.

@Louve wastes no time, quick to reach her feet, if only her eyes are filled with a refreshed vigor, dire perseverance. She charges again - raging, turmoil a wile and senseless creature, and Gauthier swings the bulk of his hips away, flesh burning with the sting of her claws, spine tingled with the heat of her fangs.

Her teeth cut against the ridge of his shoulder and he aims to surge forward, collide with her, grapple against her weight with a great shift that intends to slam her back into the hard shore.

Art © Ryuu

If he had held back she would have raged. To think he would give her less than an honest spar only because a crown rests on her head -- it would have lessened him in her eyes. Louve thrives because he answers her rage with action, even if she is dimly aware that he could end her in a breath if he so chose. Much as she'd like to think it an even fight it was far from such; he had size and experienced weighted heavily on his side.

Her teeth find flesh and she aims to clench her jaw, to drive them deeper in to the heft of his shoulder. Even when he slams forward (and gods that would hurt tomorrow) and stirs a sharp ache in her jaw she does not let go. Her gums grow bloody from the force but still she seeks to hold tight, even when her balance shifts and she falls back against the froth-marked shore. Even then she seeks to hold tight, to pull him with her, or at least to tear a chunk from his shoulder and feed the yawning pit in her belly.

Image by Rabs

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 thing of feist and hunger, Louve relents nothing in the clamp of her teeth, the snarling retch of her voice hindered only by a mouthful of his flesh. He can't help but continue laughing - even if there is a searing undertone of pain - at the swelling crux of her regal fury, uncontained temper. It is spartan, savage, fiery, and thrilling; maybe he enjoyed women best when they were pissed. It brought out an aspect that he could relate best to, that untapped wrath, the unraveling contempt.

His shoulder ached with the weight and pressure, but he yielded none, and when she slams into the beach sands he is pulled with her. They collapse kicking, sputtering, her teeth dug deep and his grip thrust against the ground as she held, gnawing. The crash of a wave burst against them with a foam-laced plash, brine stinging in the cuts along his hips, soaking the wound she bore, receding waters drawing back rivulets of a deeper red.

"That's your teeth!" he half-laughed, half-yelled, and minding that his belly and softer bits were open to be minced by her hind claws, he tried to drop his body on @Louve like a deadweight. He reached to try and wrap his arms tight around her head, forcing his shoulder heavily against the vice of her jaws, constricting until she would be breathless or fatigued.

Art © Ryuu

In a second she is soaked to the bone, chilled and frozen if not for the bloodlust that heated her from the core. Success thrills as he falls with her, as blood pools in her mouth and she thinks for a second that she might well leave him with a nasty scar.

Until he drops, smothering her with his weight, her smaller frame having no chance against the bulk of his. Simultaneously her jaws are stretched and the ache grows more intense, until finally she is trying to escape, to retreat from the grip she had held on his shoulder.

Fighting to keep her head in the game she shifts enough to free her front paws, to aim her claws towards the skin stretched tight over his ribs. Attempting to slash at the flesh, to draw him back from her face before he can rob her off oxygen for too long.

Image by Rabs

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 ocean returns for more blood - his, leeched from the vicing bite Louve had planted relentlessly, her own flesh untouched. She delighted, sure, hungrily tearing as if shredding the hide of a hunted beast. And yet, beneath his weight there grows a shift of muscles and a suddenness in motion that hints to desperation. Gauthier revels in it for an ephemeral gap between her rushing breaths, the frenzy of enlightenment and the rush of instinct. For that small time even as he feels the clench of her jaws lighten, hot breath pouring gravely against its ground up cut of meat, he doesn't let off.

Even as her claws flay his flesh in ribbons, slicing the hardened brawn of his back, the stony roll of his shoulderblades, he merely bears down all the same, gritting his teeth against the crown of her skull. Adrenaline drowns the sting of pain, endorphins ride on through the ethereal shudders of complacent agony. Haply, he would see the roll of her eyes to glistening whites, the flush of her expression pale with terror, the realization of error that comes before the break of renewal - that moment he would let up, just at the edge of the blackness, and all the chill and the full, whooping crisp of the autumn air would come roaring back into her lungs.

He threatens it with the ticking seconds that he does not release @Louve from beneath him, let her enjoy the succulence of flesh she desired so terribly to allow herself fallen to foolish whim. He dares it, lets it fall between them as if the longing of a dream and the manifestation of violent feasibility ---

But he would not let her slip into that grey haze of dread so entirely.

Gauthier pulled himself back against the drive of her claws, the raw lesion throbbing along the ridge of his shoulder, and threw himself onto the ground aside, laughing with amused relief.

The bullheads of seawater crashed again over the shore, its crest breaking itself against his shredded flesh, burning rapidly with salt and sweat and sand in the cuts, mars, lacerations, quickly turning his laugh to a restrained hiss of pain.

Art © Ryuu

If there is a saving grace it is that they are too shallow for her to drown. The water doesn't help, though, washing over them again and again, lending extra urgency to her claws. At first she is thrilled as they tear in to the skin of his sides, shredding the flesh and feeding his blood to the thirsty sea. It is short lived, however, as her attack does nothing to bring him to relent.

Instead the force grows heavy against her mouth, covering her nose and sealing any entrance for oxygen to reach her. Louve can taste nothing but fur and blood -- it trickles down her throat and where she had yearned for it now she finds it choking. Smothering.

True fear strikes at her heart as she can draw no breath nor swallow the thick liquid that runs down her esophagus, assisting in the slow suffocation of the Wolfbron heiress. Black spots swim in her vision, growing larger with each second and her struggles become weak. Louve bats helplessly against his sides and tries desperately to pull her head away, grinding it in to the sand as her sight is slowly consumed..

And then..

It takes a beat, two, and she is rolling to the side, coughing and hacking, spitting blood in to the sea. Gasping for breath and feeling a sharp burn as her lungs fill again. This pain is unlike any she has known before; it eats her from the inside out.

Long moments stretch as she recovers and the ringing in her ears fades away, and then -- then there is sheer rage that rises. Even having faced down death (and escaping it only thanks to him, a fact which she will rue for all time) she is blinded by her need for revenge, helpless to resist the desire to tear his fucking throat out for that.

Nevermind that he could have killed her -- nevermind that he still very easily might. Louve launches from the sea, stumbles, nearly goes down, then sinks her claws in to the sand and thrusts herself forward again. Racing towards the vicious beast, her jaws wet with blood and saltwater, a madness sparking in saffron eyes. Bared teeth aim recklessly for his throat, distantly aware that this is no less than a suicide mission.

code and art by Cloudy

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

Vicious. Absolutely reckless and vicious.

Should there be any other way?

Such is the way of the world, the means to survive in the cold, hardened grip of bedlam. Amaryllis was not immune to all reaches of violence, if by the furor of nature or the upheaval of their fellow lionship. Any who refused to live by the winter of their hearts was fooling themselves by the summer of their ignorance. Here, the winter-hearts reigned, crowned in blood and filth.

Though he expected some retaliation for his blatant barbarity, the full bore savagery that resulted was a thing of staggering splendor. He only has the grace of acknowledgement due to her sudden blunder - watching her stomp, stumble, and lunge out of stark viscosity. There's a new ire in her eyes, one of unabashed rage and contemptuous maleficia; oh, there was heat in her veins now, enough to rush the consecrated delect of a seraphic ichor. Appetance roves, tongue riding the sharpness of his teeth, welcome of it, a cadence to the wardirge of her singing blood.

Gauthier braced, laid back on the wet sands, their salt and grit stinging in his wounds, no matter! Pleasure found in the cradle of pain, the battering of bodies, the carving teeth, curling talon. Her smaller body is eclipsed by his own as she ravages with godless abandon, raking teeth against the lush of his thick mane, pulling hair and skin.

There would be no end to it. He had to admire her perseverance.

He could keep going, coil his legs like a trap, spring them out to throw her back against the abrasive sands, the crashing waves of the rapacious sea. But she would come again and again, to her very last breath, or his last drop of blood. Gauthier would give it, if only to win again and once more, watch the quiver of her rage pillage madly in the set of her eyes. Instead, he reached his broad arms to grab ahold of her, attempting to wrestle with the fervid struggle of her lithe shoulderblades, even allowing, for the first time in their berserk tussle, to do so with the curl of his claws.

He'd pull @Louve in tightly, no matter the munching clamp of her jaws that pulled and ripped and chomped full of fur. To wrap her in a smothering brace, tucked hard against him, tightened until she wouldn't move, or couldn't. "Ați câștigat!" he yelled, bubbling still with amusement for her resourceful rage, though his words began to become impatient, stern. "Vous gagnez!"

Romanian: You win ; french is the same

Art © Ryuu

Louve has learned through the years that rage can be blinding. Such a strong emotion consumes everything else in its path, and even when she is calm it is never truly gone. It simmers always in the background, deadly fuel waiting for the right spark. The young heiress has yet to learn how to completely control her temper and she is quick to rise; once enraged she is almost impossible to stop.

This determination and ferocity would come to serve her well in many cases, but her recklessness may well being her eventual undoing. Louve would fight and attack until she had nothing left — she would never give in, not while there was still life in her body. Eventually this would spell her death, but she would not go easily in to that dark night.

Her viciousness is equal parts inspiring and disturbing, dependant entirely on who was watching. Forgotten is the fact that he is on her side, a pride member; Louve thinks only of his flesh between her teeth and his blood in her mouth. When she might lighten up she remembers the black spots and renews her frenzy, oblivious to the sharp of his claws on her shoulders. If anything his grip only heightens her fury and she snarls and spits and becomes messy and desperate. Seeking with teeth, with claws, struggling for triumph until….

… until she can no longer move. Gauthier is larger and stronger and he holds her tight, snatching her breath and stilling her by necessity. More fierce grow her snarls — “ laissez-moi!” — though they are muffled by the thick of his mane and the tufts of it that stick to her teeth.

His sharp tone is what finally breaks through. Eyes blazing she gives up her struggle and falls still against his chest, panting heavily, bloodied and bruised and a l i v e.

Image by Rabs

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

Furious and foolish, the writhe of her wracks the heaving throe of his ribs, the strain of his arms as he tucks her tight, tighter, the soft form of her body given to chaos. Her rage is rampant, unhinged brutality one does applaud, even if it may one day be her ending rattle of recklessness. The matter of her undoing is no matter to him - if one dies such a bloody, violent death then may it be a sublime display of utter voraciousness that shivers the gods in their sweet naivete. Such is the closing prayer of a true warrior's heart, that final pulse of rippling viscosity and snapping hunger, the ultimate quench of eternal thirst before the river of immortality.

It is not his death, after all, that he would fear beneath the clasping, clapping jaws that tangle and ensnare in the thick of his mane. Her teeth catch fiber and fur, superficial peels of thick skin and the occasional pinch therein that draws a miniscule offering of blood. She is relentless regardless, until at last the cold air breaks that temper between them, cosmic collision of vehemence and ravening.

Laissez-moi-- and everything in him longs to challenge once more. It is a scarce win; though while he can endure the crashing blows of rash lunacy, he preferred the future Sovereign of Wolfbron well intact. For civic basis, he deems, but he also assumed she looked much better alive than bruised, battered, or lifeless.

So he let her, unclenching his claws from the lissom roll of her shoulders, releasing @Louve from the pythonian wrestle of his arms. He wouldn't shove her off - not only because he had the presumption that the slightest nuance of violence would only provoke more of a reckless onslaught. Gauthier would let her catch her breath, harrowing gasp by gasp, collapsed against the swell of his own ribs. Sand and sweat crusted the bronzed line of his back pressed against the hard plate of beach, salt stinging in cuts, punctures.

"Satisfait?" smoothed the rumble of amusement, the dark timbre of sardonic allure, a taste of francois an odd spice on the roll of his tongue. But he knows the answer as true as his monstrous heart knows hers -- his glacial eyes are pervaded by draconic heat, the carmine spill at their ragged centers, searching for the same unrest that resides in her own gaze. You will never be satisfied, will you?

Art © Ryuu

His grip loosens and at first she wants to scramble away. To launch from where she has come to rest and spin to face him with fury and rage and all of the things that make her feel alive. Louve wants to take advantage of his mercy and show him why he should never let her go, why any who did would come to rue the day. Mercy would not be met with the same, and inevitably they would call her a monster because of it.

Now she is still young and though she rolls with emotion she does not immediately burst from his chest. Exhaustion saps her strength and she decides that she is quite content to linger, to catch her breath while dreaming of the day that she would steal his. It is only when dark tones lay heavy on her ears that she curls a lip and pulls away, bothered by the implication of his question. The amusement that told her he found this all quite funny; a solid blow to her ego, if nothing else.

"Non," she hissed as she extricated herself from him, clumsily (or perhaps intentionally) pressing her claws against his flesh as she did so. A final dig, a last jab, and then she sets herself upon the sand just out of reach of the sucking saltwater.

Saffron eyes burned fire-bright as they settled on him, saying not a word as she licked the blood from her jowls. Then, delicately and with intention, she lifted her paw and began to clean what blood still lingered there, all while keeping her gaze leveled on him.

Image by Rabs