In Dire Straits - tooth & claw [crux]

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song inspo
And I believe that yeah, dad, maybe no one is perfect
But it seems that you were pushing your luck

Not all beasts can slumber forever, and from whatever hole things of his kind crawled out from, the beast known as Tatari would resurface. Cold nipping at him, but his thick fur did well in protecting him from it's harsh bite, he'd cross through the plains. Welcome home.

The male had never deeply devoted himself in the goings on of the valley after he disappeared. His home grew and adapted with or without him as it saw fit, green eyes scanning the vast plains. A light coating of frost covering the grounds and the sky a bleak, gray and overcast. Tatari simply existed when he so chose to. A page taken from his father's book, expect Crow only seemed to appear when things were about to go wrong for someone else.

Whatever had happened since then, Oukoku seemed stiller, as if there were less, and perhaps it didn't help that the male carried a bloodied head in his jaws. A tribute for his return, he'd need all the favor he could get, unless the Scions were feeling particularly generous in these trying times.

A crunch of the frozen grass and he'd turn his head slowly, green eyes narrowing for a moment upon the figure of a male, and he snorted with a flick of his tail and a shake of his slate coat. "What?" He croaked, his deep voice gravely and hoarse against the soft howls of the wind. It hadn't occurred to Tatari that his kin might still be around, that there was more than his own children, or random siblings.

Another snort and he'd drop the head with a loud thud, the blood still oozing from it to collect and seep into the cold, frozen ground. He'd spit out loose fur and smack tongue to teeth like a dog with peanut butter stuck to the roof of its mouth. "Hopefully no one you know?" He said crudely, a toothy, cryptic smile pulling at black lips as those venomous green eyes scanned over the younger male. Random heathens were a dime a dozen after all.

CRUX

thorn in your side

Large paws carried the male through the valley, cold morning air filtering into his nostrils, slowing, then blasting out in a cloud of steam. This was the weather he was born for - the blood from his father and his mother both came dripping from the North. His grandfather was the missing link, the male whose lineage linked him to so many others in this land, causing issues when thoughts turned to pairing and offspring.

When he saw the male, it took him a moment to process what he was seeing. He had only been given descriptors before, but some things stuck. Yellow diamond, yellow paws. As if he'd stepped in vomited bile and had wiped his face with it, giving his own daughter a blue version of the stroke. Crux examined the stranger from afar, noting the thick fur and black fur that rolled along the male's belly and face like billowing smoke.

Tatari and Crux hardly looked related, beyond the slate blue fur that turned to ashy black. The younger male had speckles of ivory along with the thick white areas and even the blue tint near his paws - all remnants from the side of the family that this older male was not from.. perhaps.

Who knows, perhaps some ancestor had speckles and stars like his own.

He looked to the head, scrutinizing it for a moment before turning his eyes back to the older male. Hardly. Fiery eyes met acid steadily, holding the gaze with an intensity inherited. The yellow paws were a marker that Nevada had explained to him, though there were two at least who shared the marking. This male was not the aging ravenous one-side-blind beast who his mother had warned him against. You are Tatari, yes? My ancestor, once Captain Yon. He did not mean it in a disrespectful or mocking manner by any means, simply stated it as fact.

He had already been taught to be careful in first meetings.