In Dire Straits

Quote:[trigger warning: gross stuff, eating dead bodies]


I'm meaner than my demons.

Running, always running, always making sure her feet were moving because she was always so tense always so anxious that there was some shadowy beast waiting to bite her. It was instinct, as natural as eating, and so it was something she had never questioned. It was who Rae was, in all her doubtful glory. She could never change that part about her. She was certain of that now, and it was something she'd never fully come to terms with. Why was she like this?

Rain wouldn't be too far off, she could smell it on the air, carried by an ominous wind. You can't keep that pace up for ever, baby doll. Heavy, heaving breaths escaping her as she came to a halt, thin limbs quaking under her weight.  Breath Rae, what the fuck are you doing, who the fuck are you running from? Everyone. Her brows furrowing together as she gasped out a choked hack, drool and spittle collecting on the ground as she looked on wide eyed. Gotta knock a little harder than that, her lips twisting into a tired smirk.

One moment she could be at odds with herself, and then in the same breath got about life like everything was at least 'normal'. Nothing was normal, nothing would ever be normal. Not in here, with these people, and this smell of rot- Speaking of which, head lifting to a decaying corpse that half lay draped on a rock. Carrion for the maggots that already feasted upon whatever or whoever it might have been. "Pathetic." Her voice sharp, cutting through the silence, tail raising behind her and fur bristling. For whatever reason he mouth watered, but she'd ignore... for now.

That corpse would never be her.

Quote:Violence was a constant impulse for her that was indistinguishable from ordinary instinct; her need to drink, breathe, eat, and sleep, but at times, when it was too overwhelming, so overwhelming that it surged past her skin and the very need tore her open, she drowned it out with the monotony of her patrols. Alteron's darkness smothered her and she let it crush every treacherous bone in her body that so conspired against her fabric.

It helped her feel contained. It kept her thoughts tranquil. Kept her teeth from itching. Shatter was fortunate in that her very profession allowed her to slake her restlessness, but on days like this, her appetite felt bigger than herself.

During these leisurely strolls, as Shatter started to refer to them as -- as leisurely as a woman who was constantly on alert could be -- she would happen upon the refuse of Alteron, and she claimed it as her own. Shatter was as much a vulture as she was a bird of prey, scavenging the remains of forgotten things when there was no prey available. Sometimes she would find pieces of kills left out to die, picked bare by the flies and maggots, or sometimes she would just find bones half-devoured by the earth.

Sometimes, if she was lucky, she would find whole carcasses -- wolves. Perhaps some dissidents that the Heralds couldn't convert, and that were dumped where no one could find them. The wolf that Rae found, Shatter hadn't had a hand in killing him.

Pretty Rae's lip was curled in contempt. "Pathetic," she uttered like a promise.

Shatter did not know Rae, but she wanted to make it clear to her - as she made it clear to everyone in Alteron - that she was someone to be feared.

The difference between her and other monsters was that she was discriminating in her victims. She embraced her urges as much as she actively resisted them. That crimson feeling was flowing through her chest, and her rib cage felt like a jail cell. There was a riot in her veins.

The padlock flicked open, and a cascade of monster's teeth gushed from her empty heart.

Every act that Shatter committed was a declaration. Everything had a reason. Today, this reason was that she wanted someone to fear her, and Rae was expendable. She wasn't Lilith, or Azuhel, or Antaeus. She wasn't someone who could be useful to her later. She was just a lowly Page. Shatter announced her presence through a low and foreboding growl, a sound like an engine roaring to life, vibrating in her throat. Should Rae turn to face her, she would materialize piece by piece: floating white fangs dripping in the darkness, orange eyes bright and hollow -- and she would lunge, like a shadow conjured to physical form.

Her target was not Rae. Shatter streaked past her and fell upon the rotting carrion. She attacked it as savagely as she would any Nava or Haras, teeth flinging ribbons of drool as she tore through decomposing tissue like newspaper. For the whole brutal process of her shredding the corpse to pieces, Rae seemed beneath her notice, until Shatter leaned back, letting out a shrill and draconic rasp to scatter the remaining flies that pecked at her skull. One lamplight eye fixed on Rae as an afterthought.

The teeth that flashed in greeting were not stained with blood, but a dried black substance. Shatter blinked, lowered her head, and set her paw on the corpse's leg, which was now severed from its body. She pushed it, and it rolled slowly towards Rae, stopping at her feet.

It was unclear what she wanted Rae to do with it. Maybe it was a warning.

Maybe it was an invitation.

Quote:Coyotes were always cautious, it was in their nature, but whatever creature skimped on the mold in what made Rae, well, Rae. Ears turning on a swivel to that damned growl. Her own hackles raised, her body looking to shrink back, but she wouldn't allow herself to do such a thing. She'd seen eyes and teeth and that's all she needed. She was after all some terrible beast that had been dragged into this forest by the scruff of her neck, threatened and forced. She wasn't above fighting, in fact she wanted to sink her teeth into something. Anything. The page's tail rose slightly and she bristled once more as her surprise guest took shape.

A lunge, so fast that Rae barely had time to react, her body whipping to the side half bracing the impact that would never meet her. A low growl escaping her, as she felt her paws slip and regain stability on the wet loose dirt. But, she wasn't met with a fight like she had intended, the shadowy dark female attacking the rotting corpse like a hungry tiger; tearing into the old, foul flesh. Fur, sinew, and spittle flying this way and that, Rae'd settled only for moment watching silently. Those eyes set upon her once more, and Rae's own gaze hardened. Her face poker material, but within her.. it was like she was an autoclave. There was a primal understanding between the two of them, a pecking order was to be established. Fear needed to take root.

She burned and boiled, stewing angrily under Shatter's gaze, a twitch of her lips, but.. Her vivid, venous gaze fell upon the leg that was rolled so nonchalantly at her. The coyote stared at it for a moment before looking back up to Shatter, her face etching every detail of the same one emotion, anger. It was rabid, it was without warning. A bestial snarl rumbling in her small chest as she dug her teeth into the rancid flesh. The foulness coating her mouth, but she was too invested to care. She thought of that big bitch that had dragged her ass in here, ripping into her throat like she was ripping into this leg, swallowing flesh in revoltingly slobbish gulps. Stopping only when she had stripped a small portion to the bone.

With black tarry blood, staining her teeth, tongue, and parts of her face; she'd gaze up to the shadowy woman. Claws hooking into the discarded limb beneath her. Rae'd give her a shallow pant. "Rae." Even if Shatter didn't ask for her name, the two of them brooding over who was more deserving of respect, and Shatter had earned her name at least.

Quote:Shatter's eyes seemed to seethe in the dark, lustrous with vapor. The flies that she had dispelled with her territorial roar now orbited uncertainly, the drone of their combined wingflutters humming low. Rae apparently bristled at her challenge, the balled-up anxiety swelling past her body, but instead of retreating like Shatter had expected, she held her ground. If Shatter's audacity so enraged her, then Shatter invited Rae to act upon it. Teeth encrusted in maggotblood and mildewed marrow were exposed in a skin-curdling sneer. Seconds slithered by, with the coyote's attentions nervously jumping between the discarded limb and Shatter herself, who observed with brooding detachment.

After that moment of hesitation - was Rae wrestling with her better judgment? was she setting aside her appetite? - Rae approached the fallen gauntlet, focus shifting again to Shatter. They locked eyes. Rae's narrow, pointed face tightened, the rage and apprehension that simmered under the padlock surging to the surface, and that coyote countenance was metamorphosed into Shatter's image, a reflection of her bestial savagery and focus, if only for a firefly flicker of a moment.

Wet, gooey slabs of rotted meat were easily diced into ribbons by Rae's teeth. If Shatter had wanted Rae to eat the decomposing limb, then she would have forced her to do so. Rae devoured the putrefied meat unflinchingly, of her own volition, operating on nothing but a subliminal suggestion from a complete stranger. Shatter had proffered the leg, yes, but that invitation could have been for anything -- to throw it back at her, to ignore it, to tear it apart. Instead, Rae chose to eat it.

Gaze still trained on Rae, Shatter plunged her muzzle into the carcass's innards, her face crinkling, but otherwise reflecting no outward signs of disgust as a hot blast of fluid erupted from the corpse's bloated bowels. Wolves were not humans, and so without any semblance of surgical precision, she carved out the exsanguinated, hollowed-out stomach, throwing it on the ground like a deflated balloon, and began to peel apart the membrane. Vestiges of acid that had not leaked from the ruptured stomach and into the body scorched her tongue. 

The kill that she forced down her throat tasted of disease. It would almost lead one to speculate why Shatter had subjected herself to such a thing, if she derived no enjoyment from it.

"Rae," the coyote said.

"Why didn't you leave, Rae?" Shatter asked, swatting aside her introduction like one of the many bothersome flies that swarmed the corpse. Rae would receive her name once Shatter decided that she was worthy of knowing it. "What made you think you were safe here?"

The idle way in which Shatter pitched her questions was simultaneously conversational and interrogative; probing, but with no true answer.

---

ooc: i'm so rusty orz

Quote:A creature so obsessed with the idea of perfection and throwing around her weight, it'd be strange to find Shatter willingly eating something that could weaken her body. This corpse had been here for god knows how long, and yet, here they were eating and ripping into a bloated corpse.  It was apparent that neither took enjoyment from it, the acrid taste causing Rae to wrinkle her nose, but still she was fueled to press on, shove her way in and snap and rip away at the decay. Teeth clamping down on intestines, shaking her head and pulling back until the weakened tissues gear a satisfying tear and oozed bodily fluid that soaked the ground with a foul odor.

Ears flicking forward when she heard Shatter's raspy toned question, the coyote's gaze resting upon the organ that she had wrestled free before snapping up to glare at the other. Should she have left? A smarter person might have, but Rae had nothing to gain and nothing to lose from this, and Shatter? Well if she had been unlucky when it came to this corpse, she could fall ill, it could cripple her, possibly even kill her. Shatter had more to lose than Rae, and in a way that made her smile inwardly.

"No point in it, this place is probably full a lot of people. just. like. you. I thought I'd introduce myself." Set the record straight, Rae wouldn't be some easy kill. If that was something that Shatter had been expecting, well she'd be sorely mistaken. She'd smirk, huffing out air and rolling her shoulders, her face slicked with fluid and dried blood. "What the fuck kind of question is that? You're not safe anywhere. Here you have your fancy little rules, and your structure, but out there? Out there that flowery shit doesn't matter. You're as good as dead anywhere." Her lips curled as she spoke, eyes like super heated daggers, vicious... venomous.

Ranks were about as much importance to Rae, as she was to Shatter, places like these would come and go, and with people like these spearheading them? Well, they weren't known to last long either. "What makes you think you're safe? What? You got a big cushy rank or something? People kill people all the time, who knows, you're probably in someone's way." She spoke flatly, claws sinking into the intestine. If Shatter really believed that she was above everyone because of whatever little sway she had, Rae'd be here to say 'Oh honey'. There were places that ripped apart their members for far less, not even royalty was safe. Nothing protected you from anything or anyone, it was fact.

It was life.

Quote:While Shatter picked and pried at the jutting, open ribcage, gnawing on the curving bones, Rae attacked the corpse's scattered entrails, popping the discarded large intestine like a firecracker, exploding the stomach like a water balloon stuffed with sewage. The acid stench mushroomed in the air like a miasma of waste. If Rae observed her behavior closely she would find that Shatter consumed very little of the carcass; though accepting any portion of rotting flesh into her body was too much. She was instead using the dead body as a chew toy, mangling it as though she would a wad of newspaper. 

Rae had given Shatter her name, but that was all the courtesy that a coyote of her nature was willing to afford. If she was not easily frightened, then, of course, she would regard Shatter dismissively. Nevertheless, Shatter was displeased. Where she had once harbored a promising kernel of respect for the coyote, her coarse tone and disrespect sabotaged her standing. She did not have Tanith's age or experience. She was just a scrawny rebel.

Shatter could admire that, certainly, but only when she deemed it to be an advantage. And currently, she did not find Rae's belligerence to be endearing. Between Rosewood and Seir, Shatter was willing to tolerate only so much. As she had when she made her grand entrance, Shatter made another pointed, deliberate decision. Rae's words implied that Alteron was familiar to her-- that Alteron was the latest in a pattern established by a cruel world. Shatter did not like to be predicted.

Wise men would call this conversation entrapment; to ask Rae for her honest opinion, because Shatter indeed was interested, and then to attack her for it because she was disappointed with the answer.

In reality, Rae was right: nowhere was safe. She still wasn't safe.

A blink was all that Rae received by way of a warning, the gesture and her brooding manner doing nothing to broadcast her next move. Shatter launched herself at Rae, a short lunge that could easily be dodged, if Rae was swift enough or had anticipated it, and snapped at her face, trying to wrap her mouth around Rae's neck. The purpose was not to hurt her, but to gain control-- and once Shatter had seized control, she would then wrestle her head towards the dismembered corpse, plunging her face into the gaping chest cavity. Into all the pulpy rotten organs, the pigpen smell, and the parasite colonies. A baptism in blood and guts.

And then she'd hold her there.