SO much noise was heard from Saladin's den that he had no other choice but to investigate. The growing boy was a heavy sleeper, seemingly able to be conked out as soon as his eyes closed. It was both a blessing and a curse, the latter for this reason alone. If there was an ambush he would need someone to throttle him awake or there to be lots of noises - like now. Sleepily he'd rise to his paws, giving himself a stretch and a good shake before emerging out into the darkening sky. "What is going on?" He'd questioned himself in a mumble, and without any further time wasted he'd begin toward all the commotion.

It wouldn't take long for the Svend-Tollaire child to arrive at the challenge, catching the last bit of one that included their Heiress before eyes shifted to their King. He'd prowl closer, paws slipping over the sand with ease. With his father nowhere around and his mother seemingly withdrawn and keeping to herself (and not to mention he had no idea where any of his brothers went) Saladen felt as though he had to be more cautious since he was the only one really looking out for himself. And so he'd settle a bit a ways from the rest of the crowd, keen on watching the challenge without trying to draw too much attention to himself, taking in the moves they were using to inflict one another with damage (like how the small woman claws down the inside of Scorpius' leg).

to be claimed when he turns 1yr
(1/2) +5 Observe a fight (scorpius vs helah)
(1/2)+5 Learn a new fighting move

CODE / ART

(1/2) +10 Observe a fight (scorpius vs helah) (double xp from keligan)

The sounds of violence always attracted the Viking.

She moves past the border with ease and very little concern, because if it was a pride challenge there was bound to be a lot more than just him trespassing. Yellow eyes watch his surroundings as his ears guide him to the commotion. And even though he was used to walking on sand, desert sand always felt so different underneath his paws. Webbed toes helped keep the grittiness out from in between them, which in turn helped him focus on what was now before him.

Arkyn stays toward the back as he watches the Oasis King and another duke it out. A brow rises slightly as he observes, trying to figure out just which one would win today. He had no connection to Andal other than it was the pride Csitri lived in, and her safety was more important to the titan than the challenge itself. His gaze shifts and he now searches the crowd, seeing if he could spot the patched healer, only to see that she had not arrived. Brows know knit together as he wonders where she could be, hoping she wasn't anywhere in harms way.

comfortable in violence

art by wolfbea, table by ferus, modified by gunner
*do not use without permission!!*

In a moment of silence, Dragos scans the crowd - and his heart lurches when he sees familiar stripes, sitting off in the distance. A double take, a lurch of movement, before he freezes when he realises the small tiger isn’t his tiger. Whoever @Faye is, she isn’t @Leila. Dragos watches her for a moment longer as if to reassure himself, and then returns his attention to the group slowly gathering around.

His great-aunt had slipped in silently, radiating the same darkness that grips his own mind, his heart. Dragos hums lowly, a rough offering of support, recognising the bloodlust in @Teodora’s mannerisms.

"Yes." He whispers back to his father, spiteful and childish, but the heat in his murmur is nothing but the same as the word: fake, for the sake of argument, some sad attempt at saving his pride. He knows @Alexander ♔ is right, and they both know he knows it. That does not mean Dragos will ever like it.

Nearby, the Oasis king arrives and with a few orders, starts a battle in the spectators as well as his own. Dragos curses softly, growing more and more tense as fights break out. @Louve ♔ addresses him directly, and the Savante regards her with a dark, stormy gaze. His jaw clenches, and he swallows the retort he wants to give.

His father had decreed peace. No matter how bitter it tastes, Dragos obeys.

He does not stew on such thoughts for long; an unfamiliar voice joins the chorus, but when his gaze settles on the woman, Dragos goes cold. @Pyracantha is a familiar sight - the last time he’d seen her, she’d been grovelling at his paws. Begging, shrieking, for her child. The child he held in his claws, so very carefully, while Dragos bled out from his paw. While she does not look at him directly, the lion stares at her. His muscles coil as if expecting to attack, or run, but he makes no movement.

“Do not let them rile you. You are Dragos, above them.”

But he is not Dragos the first - he is not the great Savante king he was named for. That Dragos would not have had to stoop to holding a child from his mother -

A loud voice cuts into his spiralling thoughts, dragging him back out of his mind and into the brewing violence. @Léonie staggers toward the group - he’d not seen the end of her fight with @Amara, but he can see the result easily. Blood pours from her shoulder, and the beast instinctively shifts to her side when she nears, taking up her good side so she can rest against him. One afternoon flirting at a pride challenge made them friends, especially in this situation.

"Take it easy," he murmurs. He knows what the Bluffs lions claws and teeth feel like, and his paw stings in phantom pain as he automatically checks on the other Dieudonne lingering around, especially Apollinaire -

Only to see @Anthonius tearing toward the leashed dog.

"Bácsi, állj meg!" Uncle, stop! Unable to move or risk tipping Léonie over, Dragos shouts the warning - or is it an order? - in their native tongue. What is the man doing? He glances down at the heiress, apologetic despite the growing panic crawling up his throat. "I’m sorry, I have to -"

"Call him off now. None of my family or members have been the first to attack."

Dragos’s skull snaps toward Amara, recognising her as the one who’d called her horde down on his unsuspecting kin that day at the Hollows. The Savante watches her warily, but it isn't until her threat that something snaps in the back of his head.

"Call him off or you and I will end this now."

No. You will not touch him.

"First time for everything. Hypocrite." He snaps loudly, trying to draw attention as he stands to his full height and prys himself from the Andal heiress, hoping one of his family will step in to help her while her pride cannot. Dragos does not let Amara leave his sight as he moves to stand right in front of her, blocking her path to Alexander with his mass. His skull cranes and his chin tips, and he looks down on her.

"You go through me first."

If his heart is racing, it doesn't show under the arrogant expression he carries.

ART BY DRIFTY, CODE BY LARS

Her eyes stayed glued on the fight with Leonie until Scorpius finally arrived. She watched with her breath held as he spoke before charging toward his challenger. Oriana wasn't sure what she would do if he lost here today; her mom had taken time to herself and knew her kids were capable to start making their own decisions, but to decide where to live if her home was taken from her? It sent a shiver down her spine, making her lower even closer to the sand and now having her underbelly brush it. Her one straight ear twists back and a deep sigh escapes her as she catches the end of the Heiress' fight which ended in a loss before becoming glued once more to the pride challenge.

to claim when she turns 1yr.
(2/2) +5 Observe a fight (leonie vs amara)
(1/2) +5 Observe a fight (leonie vs amara)

ART BY ERA, CODE BY LARS, MODIFIED BY GUNNER
**DO NOT USE WITHOUT PERMISSION!**

Leila presses herself against the sand, burrowing her toes into it as she watches the tense moment with pinned ears. There were fights breaking out, her pride mates attacked. Leila felt a coil of fear in her chest, leaden. It kept her crouched, cowering. Louve, Elaine, and Amara too - who comes out victorious from her fight with the striped Oasis woman but bloodied.

The air felt as if a claw could pierce it.

It is then something happens. A tawny, piebald lion smelling of the Savante - the Hollow - charges forward with a vicious assault for Louve’s husband. Leila knows how this song and dance goes - she has seen Apollinaire fight before. It is never, ever, pretty. Leila remembers the first hollows challenge now. As much as she had tried to forget. She looks for @Dragos on instinct, hearing the growled threat from the steely Dieudonne woman and bluffs high sovereign. Not again.

She sees Dragos step forward from his assistance of the Miroslav woman, knowing how he must feel from the way his pale face, emerald eyes, snap to @Amara.

”You will go through me first.”

“No!” Leila cries out. They had hurt him before, at the hollow she had only been able to watch. She had seen it’s aftermath, seen the fury and pain within him. That is something the woman never wanted to see again, even if it meant doing something very foolish - for her and the cubs she carried.

It is some mighty feat that the tigress finds her paws at all, scrambling from her hiding place to sprint breathlessly over sand so she could try thrust herself before @Dragos and between him and @Amara. Barring his path. Shielding him. It was laughable, how little her small, striped flank protected him, but there she stood all the same. Quivering. “Please. Please don’t fight!”

The world is cruel to offer her a glint of hope from her overhearings. Now, she feels that hope dissolving, clutching it’s last dregs with every fibre of her being. Panicked tears swim her brown eyes, and her voice is a thin, strained thing. She begs. “Don’t hurt him!”

art © xintoii

The sounds of battle are too enticing not to follow, especially when the caller is someone she had briefly known during her time in Wolfbron, the lioness would depart after speaking to her husband and going to ask if @Rainhart would join her. The queen was smart enough not to travel to enemy lines alone. Levana creeps to Andal, eyes scanning the edges of the border, she finds Wolfbron already locked in battle with others. With Savante.

A scowl disrupts her lips but she shakes her fur out, aiming to find another familiar face to seek companionship in while the show continued on.

The Firnen queen goes to sit back on her haunches, her shoulders tense, her green eyes taking in detail, taking in the battles, and watching the lions she'd once seen so high on pedestals only make themselves more enemies. That was until she sees @Amara make a move and she is quick to step up beside her, standing just a little bit back so that the Bluff queen was forward by a few steps. Her lips pulling back into a snarl as Dragos thrusts himself in front of the Bluffs queen.

THough she had not had a lot of interactions with Amara herself, but when she had came to Wolfbron with Ryker, who introduced her to the starry coated woman, ""Végre hazajöttem, hogy apa ismét tökéletes katona legyek, Dragos?"" She hissed, though she did not move, this was Amara's battle, but she would not let her family's supposed golden boy make this an unfair fight, should father and son decided to attack.

(1. Finally came home to be daddys perfect soldier again Dragos?)

Rainhart is slowly learning the ways of this land an it's culture. There was tension here, far more than even that of the homeland he had been banished from. There, it had been minor power squabbles against a higher, dominating force. Here, they united against nothing as one and each group were vying for that top position.

He didn't blame them.

So upon his queen's command the chartreux beast follows to the sands - a place he had not yet visited. He doesn't know the story behind the fights already in progress here or the discomfort amongst the two distinct sides but he remembers Ryker's warning well. Piebald lions that smelt of earth were not to be trusted - and here they were. A whole gang of them. Rainhart doesn't leave Levana's proximity upon such a discovery.

He watches with a vaguely amused expression as Levana steps up to the defence of a taller, dark lioness - she has sharp words in a language he doesn't recognise for a furious-looking, strawberry beast. Rainhart hovers a protective, massive presence for the firnen queen and fascinated observer.

@Levana @Amara @Dragos

code © hinter

Later, she might admit it was a clever move. In the moment, Minerva was not seeing any such virtue in that mossy she-devil. Instinct alone urged that she close her eyes when something dark came hurdling toward them, which at least saved her from getting blinded by the gritty stuff, but her face was caked in the powdery litter and the scent of it was utterly dizzying. She snarled as fury welled up and bubbled in her chest. What a perfectly good border marking gone to waste!

Her shoulder collided with the cat so it throbbed and bruised, though she did manage to make the Wolfbron lion stumble backward, and her teeth clipped at her furry chin with minimal satisfaction. Minerva blinked furiously to try and clear the stuff away from her sight, only for her opponent to smack her with a claw-sandwich. She tore thin ribbons of scarlet against that ivory countenance that stung like hell, and Minerva wanted her to pay for it.

She threw her head to her right, trying to smack it into that of the Wolfbron lioness so she might rub that sandy, caky substance onto the already-wounded cheek of her counterpart. I'm marking you as my bitch!

---

MINERVA vs. @Louve ♔
2 of 4
For Minor Maim/Ejection
Hits:

Rolling 5d20: 3 + 8 + 1 + 17 + 7

Dodges:

Rolling 4d20: 11 + 12 + 17 + 5

Luck:

Rolling 5d20: 9 + 13 + 16 + 4 + 20

Things escalated, the king arrived - fights broke out... and Amandil remained. A silent observer to the battles that waged. Fur, blood and spittle flew, but it wasn't something the silver being was unaccustomed to. His gaze of lavender landed upon the lions gathered, noting the words thrown in snarled tones with the flicking of an ear.

Information was flying at a great rate of speed in this challenge and he would remain - watchful and observant. Though he endeavored to reunite with his family - he was also not unaware of the chance to branch out and explore more of the land. Little did the oldest son of the Casales know his sister was the ruler here - perhaps, had he spent some time asking questions, he might have thrown his lot in - to help her defend her pride.

However - as she had yet to make an appearance, these lions were all but strangers to him. So he would become like the gargoyle - watchful, masked and shadowed eyes ever moving to catch all that happened.

//Amandil is still watchin, not trespassing but is open for fights if someone so desires. :)//"SPEECH."

coded by flea

positively unattached
naive and unattracted to the buzz
curse the sand, but bless the drama – barring the inclusion of the oasis’ sunflower. for she is a rare blossom amongst this lifeless and sun-scarred earth, and one olive had seen trampled one too many times to chance this intended uprooting. and though concern is the primary motive for her attendance, still, she clings to the peripheral shadows of the arena with a careful traipse: a silent sentinel amongst the devolving chaos.

but how easily her attention wavers as age-old vendettas ascend from shallow graves, slaking her need for entertainment with mounting tensions. and for a moment, her purpose is forgotten as the miroslav spitfire – leonie, as she recalls – offers context on venomous tones in the aftermath of a battle, most-cruel. pupils trace the blood that drips from the bodies of dieudonne and miroslav alike, and it is then that olive understands the burdens that accompany a surname. perhaps mother had done her a favor, after all, and being just olive were not as horrid as she’d once believed.

jaw grits with the information she pockets, and internal panic flares as she acknowledges the target placed upon hali’s spine – courtesy of an absentee husband. battles wage and olive’s stomach lurches as she glimpses a tabby participant, as her hinds instinctively coil in preparation for the charge from her hidden perch. but it is only child’s play (quite literally) and slowly, olive sinks back into the warmth of desert sand with an attentive stare, now locked upon @Halimede.

dare the situation worsen; and perhaps olive would have, after all.


ooc! olive is attempting to hide!



Art © Ryuu