[Vtoleni]

The witching hour dyed the starless sky above Gemini inky black.

A lone coyote skulked quiet and unscrupulous on the earth beneath, searching hawk-eyed for weakness in the border between himself and the great wall as he crept. He did not advance until he knew it would not impede him to advance, did not noisily crush a stray twig or disturb a loose rock. It had taken hours to find the one sentry who’d fallen asleep on the job, a drooling heavy dozer who was none the wiser as Vito sniffed at his slack face and slipped right on through his post.

He’d been here a week. It had taken them less than that to murder Aiden. These backwards hicks must think him pretty stupid, to tell him that mildly useful idiot had shrieked so bloodcurdling because he’d escaped! They’d have to excuse the white animal if he opted not to stick around for interrogation number two. The waiting unsettled him.

Vito was a real bastard, the worst kind of bought-and-paid-for sadistic slimeball, but he was clever. Perceptive. He’d learned quickly that trying to leap from the pit trap was futile at anything but tiring you out. He’d also learned when the guards changed shifts, which ones left him alone to go eat some lunch or take a piss… how to dig diagonally, to work his small paws into the gaps between the filling meant to keep him in place…

He’d reached the wall. He was patchy head to toe with uprooted dirt. He smiled, exposing the sharp ends of those ghastly black teeth. Moonlight swirled faintly in one blue eye. Something had caught it, and slowly, the smile faded as he glanced upward, his lips closing, his left ear pinning back a little.

Gemini had mounted two skulls on the wall here. One enormous, the other more average, though its jaws seemed to take up the majority of its head. Had they done this to deter intruders? For some fruity ceremonial reason? It was rather morbid, and though the coyote was long past the days where dead bones would earn a second look, there was something… bothersome about these two. He was stricken with the irrational but very distinct feeling of judgment. It made his skin crawl.

Vito shivered almost imperceptibly and pulled his eyes away from the grim sight, dismissing it.

Freedom awaited.

[Gaven]

Fortune and wits freed Vtoleni from his prison as he easily slipped past the monstrous wolves of Gemini and towards his freedom. The coyote should bless his stars for their perfect alignment had certainly been necessary, the very epitome of luck. They watched distantly in cold silence, indifferent to the crawling of the insignificant beasts of this world, saying nothing of the injustice this did to the lives of others. It would be a pity if all the coyote’s efforts and patience were for naught. It would be unfortunate if he had only walked out of his cage and into the jaws of a monster infamous for its disrespect of the stars. Providence turned its gaze at the worst of times.

Vtoleni paused at the threshold to glance up at the deathly guards of the gate. When his pale eyes turned back to his path a mass of bristling shadow stood before him. If he listened closely he would hear the barely audible twang of a taut string flicked.

“You look lost,” the Starreaver’s voice was gentle. “Maybe I can help you, friend? Where is it you’re going? I could show you the way.”

[Vtoleni]

The starreaver and the mercenary crossed paths.

Vito turned from the wall and found a strange, tall, hairless creature in his way, materializing as if from thin air. It stood upon two legs, a human, only humans do that, and the startle he felt was sudden and powerful, raking his guts hollow with a clawed stroke. Another animal might have skittered back, snapping and snarling —

this one froze, one paw hovering above the ground, tail shooting straight up. The slow, threatening twang like the brandishing of killer fangs drove his mind into a whirling frenzy of

(it was waiting for me out here WHY pointing something at me WHY can’t fight too big have to talk it’s TALKING to me it’s TALKING it called me FRIEND)

and he knew with an old streetwisdom that something was wrong.

Men created legends from the beasts with which they shared the world. Someday, the coyote would become a trickster god, smooth as cream, no trap their match. Whoever penned that myth, well, maybe they were thinking of Vito. He steeled his nerves and even managed to wag his tail a little.

“You spoke to me,” said the slaver with awe that may or may not have been fabricated. “How are you doing zat...?”

Vito stepped forward, his ears held passively low, and licked his lips. He was used to having to look up at people and it showed.

“It is kind of you to ask. But you see, I am only a drifter of zis savage world. I have no roots... I am neither lost nor found.”

A nervous lick of his chops betrayed him, but that was all.

“Vat is it you have there, friend?”

[Gaven]

They were both frozen, the coyote in his uncertainty and the Starreaver a stalwart figure against the deep blue of the night skies. Amongst the wolves Gaven had always been small and vulnerable but they feared him the same. He thought it was unreasonable, he laughed about it, but here the coyote’s hesitation was appropriate. The coyote must have spent most of his life feeling small but Gaven didn’t have to ask if he had ever felt bigger than another. He knew the answer.

Gaven’s eyebrows quirked upward, “Oh, I’ve picked things up here and there. Clever trick, isn’t it? I hope you’re impressed.”

The beast took a submissive step forward and the Starreaver’s eyes tracked him in the dark, locked on him with frightening accuracy and intensity. A human would have never seen more than the blurred pale spine of the coyote but that was why it had to be Gaven here.

“Ahh, a traveler. I relate,” Gaven said. “Poetic but you will certainly get lost here. Really lost. This place can have a way of messing with your head, especially at night.”

The Starreaver tilted his head slightly as if he heard a faraway sound. Grass hissing as the night wind came off the ocean and an audience of crickets greeted them. Only incorporeal things whispered in his ear.

The coyote licked his lips and inquired on the slender thing the Starreaver held in his hands. Maybe as Vtoleni drew closer he would see curved wooden limbs, the grip resting against his palm with his fingers slightly parted. Between those fingers was a sharp point, the head of an arrow, resting with no indication of its threat. His other hand idly plucked at a string tied tight between the two limbs. It hummed beneath the ridges of his fingertips.

“A harp which only plays one note,” Gaven answered. “It’s a lovely little note. It’s very difficult to play, I save it for special occasions. What’s your name, anyway? I might dedicate my next song to you and I'd like to include it. Hmmm.”

He seemed to think for a moment, finger tapping the string.

“Your fur is so bright under this moonlight. Pale, silvery, ethereal. Maybe I’ll write a song about that,” Gaven mused. “You’re very lucky to be blessed with such a lovely coat. It’s much prettier than Aiden’s.”

[Irene]

Nighttime was a time that left the orphan girl caught in the grip of crippling loneliness. It was a shiver she could not shake, a cold wrap around her neck that allowed her to breathe, but only just so. Tremors from limbs that shook from latent anxiety, a mind riddled with nightmares deafened by the shrieks of dying kin, it was no wonder that Irene could not give way to sleep tonight. No, tonight she would succumb to a restlessness that brought her out into the open, in a land garnished with the title of a 'refuge' that still stood as a nameless territory filled with nameless strangers, despite their best efforts.          Her only solace in these countless days had been those tainted with stolen futures - her fellow orphans - but even they had disappeared into shadows. Or perhaps she wasn't looking in the right light. Regardless, she was alone. She was haunted. And even the stories of kin lost she recited to herself in hushed whispers day in and day out became hollow.          Small light paws waded through a sea of grasses, wandering without aim or thought, as she came closer to a wall of stone in the near distance. Some vague echoes in her mind reminded her of someone possibly telling her to stay clear of such a wall. And a lady would always heed such warnings. But tonight, the lady was tired. She was weary. She began to crumble beneath the weight of composure and inward censorship. A deep, weighed sigh broke the immediate silence, and while it came as a small relief to recognize the anguish that held her down, its confirmation seemed just as disheartening. Irene continued where her paws willed, venturing where a lady shouldn't - The Wall.          Senses were tuned out, the only sensation was the drone of the muscles in her legs as they pulled her forward, her torso swaying lightly, her tail shifting behind each step. The vivid, clean scents of the night were naught to her, the wonder of a cool shimmer of moonlight upon the darkened lands were lost upon her. The might of the wall closed in on her as she drew nearer, its shadows casting wide, its current company an unnoticed mystery to her.          "Vat is it you have there, friend?" Until she heard that.          Frozen. Her chest all but seized. He was so close. It was only then at the shattering moment his serpentine, slimy voice hit her ears, that his wretched scent crossed her nose. All at once she up-heaved empty gags, her limbs feeling as though boneless, her head dizzy, her body wanting to collapse in on itself. Ragged breaths shook her lungs as widened, hot eyes scanned desperately, erratically, for him. "N-no... no no no no".          Still locked in place, Irene turned her head to the left, seeing the glimmering white of her demon, clad with blackened fangs and a voice as slick as bile. An unknown creature, upright and intimidating, spoke with a calm that still unsettled her. Whether that was residual from Vtoleni or justly earned, she could not know. She did not need to know. The lady was gone. Irene was snugly cloaked in fear and desperation. So many thoughts, so many emotions, and all this within the split second of hearing that voice. The shock simmered, and gave way to reaction.          A shrill SHREIK, as loud and terrified as a creature that small could ever manage, sliced through the night. Tears burst from eyes sealed shut in horror, lips peeled back in preparation for horrible sobs. Civility was dead, the devil is real, and he is here. Right here. "No nO NO NO NO NO!!!" The girl screamed, she screeched, with every ounce of desperation she could muster into her single words, before she found the others, "YOU CANNOT LET HIM HE CANNOT GET AWAY WITH IT HE NEEDS TO BE STOPPED!" Everything spilled without hesitation, as though any thought of thinking through her choice of words was tossed away. Irene was no longer asking, requesting as though the lady would've, no, she was demanding.          "HE NEEDS TO BE STOPPED, HE NEEDS TO BE K---"          She stopped, caught on that syllable and choked, as though it were physically stuck in her throat. Terror-wrought eyes focused on Gaven. On Vito. As she heaved unsteady breaths, her limbs quivering beneath her, her jaw agape as it contemplated. Debated.          "he needs to be killed..." deep whispers, chained by tension, emboldened by certainty. The lady was gone.

[Vtoleni]

Selling children like cattle, it turned out, involved a lot of travel. He was always so very greedy, for treasure and for experience alike, and so he’d spent all his life since he’d breached boyhood wandering this broad earth, talking to many creatures, visiting many packs, picking and discarding both allies and names, observing all manner of oddities. It was difficult to discern his age by face, voice, gait, pelt... why, surely he’d never stuck to one for very long. Who were you before you were Vtoleni?

A question wasted upon him, in all honesty. There was nothing worldly about the fawning submission adopted by an abusive son of a bitch who wanted to protect his own skin. “Oh, it’s very clever! I’ve met few humans, but all of zem, ahhh, zey are garbled und confusing. You speak so proudly... I find it interesting.”

The coyote simpered and giggled and kept on wagging his tail. Harmless. Friendly. Gaven knew better.

“Well, it’s beautiful. My name? Hmm...” He thought for some strange reason on poor fallen Rannoch, the cute little moniker he’d bestowed. “Vito. I’m Vito. I am, heh, unsure what zhere is to be sung about a little nobody like me, but I applaud ze effort.”

Gaven waxed poetry upon his lovely white pelt. It really was lovely, in fact, even dirty as it currently was. He would have to groom vigorously if he got past this man. When he got past this man. He was about to thank the starreaver graciously for his praise, still biding time, when —

“Aiden,” he echoed, tasting the name as though it were a puzzle he’d not yet figured out. His smile faded a little. There were eyes burning into the back of his head. The skulls, he thought, a little incoherently, and he’d have looked back at them in accusation had he felt he could afford turning his back on Gaven, but all at once it didn’t matter because —

The screams drove into him like a pickaxe.

Oh god, they’d drawn her here. Her and the un-man. He could not abandon the thought which was swiftly becoming a mad obsession, a contracted disease of the mind. His luck had been so grand before he’d stared into their black sockets. Before he’d tempted them with their mission and their eternal sentence. Protect Gemini. Guard it from harm. Guard it from creatures like us. He whirled, hackles raised and teeth bared to their roots at the traumatized young lady sounding the alarm, crying for him to be stopped, crying for him to be PUT DOWN.

He could have throttled the fucking brat. Instead he ran, as he always did when the jig was up. He simply bolted, springing off his back legs before the chaos of her arrival settled, darting around the elf, sprinting for cover that just wasn’t there...

He ran like hell, covering more land with every bound.

Nobody had ever told Vito to zigzag.

[Gaven]

Vito was so clever with his silver tongue, so charming and welcoming even when his paws were caked with dirt and his teeth were black, that had the Starreaver not known the truth perhaps he would have let him be on his way. There was a sliminess to it though, wasn’t there? He was so complimentary that he would certainly kill Gaven if he ever had the chance. The coyote giggled to himself and Gaven gently smiled at him. He supposed that went both ways, but Vito didn’t have the pleasure of knowing Gaven’s dark past, and so he assumed Gaven’s friendliness was genuine. Only for a moment. When the realization came crashing down on him, it would hurt.

“Vito—”

The calm of the night was sliced by a squealing screech, a child crying at the top of her lungs as every horrible thing she had suffered hit her in relentless waves. Gaven’s eyes widened, but he did not look at the source of the sound, only at Vito as the panic hit him with the realization that the jaws were closing on him. The beast didn’t spare the Starreaver a glance as he fled.

“Don’t,” Gaven warned in that small space when Vito was closest to him, just before the coyote became out of reach. He was going to make it worse, it was going to hurt more now. Vito couldn’t really want that, could he?

The Starreaver spun on his heel, eyes following Vito, and drew his bow. Fingers brushed his cheek and he felt the burn of all the potential energy building in his arm and the hand that held the grip. He had one shot and if he missed it he would never see Vito again; the slaver would have his freedom on a silver platter, with no consequences beyond a mild scare. The coyote ran in a straight line, the plains were open. A human could never make this shot under the cover of the night, but that was why it had to be Gaven. Gaven, who had spent his childhood wanting to be marked with the tattoos of the Huntress, only to barely be thwarted by the prowess of his sister. He was skilled enough. He calculated where Vito would be in the next second, how the arrow would arc in the breeze. Gaven was not given the Huntress’ mark, but the one of the goddess of justice and Gemini’s would be swift. He loosed the arrow.

Vito wouldn’t hear the twang of the bowstring for there was none when the bow was being used for its intended purpose. One note. Maybe the note was the thud of the arrow punching through his flesh and muscle and bone. The note could have been the sound of Gaven’s cruel, triumphant laugh. If Vito cried out in pain that could be the note. Gaven admitted it was a terrible song, not one he usually took pleasure in, though he had heard it hundreds of times before. He told Vito he would make one for him and he delivered.

Gaven quickly nocked another arrow knowing that Vito could continue running if he had only gotten him in the meat; he had hoped to catch him in the spine, even if he knew it would destroy that arrow, shattering against his bone. He shouldn’t have waited so long. If he had gotten Vito in the eye before the coyote knew what was coming he would have killed him much quicker. Neither Aiden or Vito deserved his mercy but causing so much pain was unnecessary.

“You shouldn’t have run, Vito. It didn’t have to be like this,” Gaven called. “I was going to come back after Aiden to clean up whoever was left, once the others stopped wondering what happened to him, but I never got the chance. If you stayed in your pit you would have faced the Queen’s justice and she is forgiving, but then you ran into me. I could have made it quick for you but then you ran.”

Now Vtoleni would know no matter how quick he was he would never be faster than an arrow. Gaven closed in on him, the next arrow at the ready, daring Vito to get up and try again.

[Irene]

The certainty that had given her the sheer strength to speak only moments ago slipped away as soon as those unholy eyes turned to meet hers. It slipped and left her feeling cold, exposed, more fragile than she ever could have imagined. Shackles of ice and iron clasped around her throat, her ankles, her chest and her heart as she stared back in a dumbfounded stupor, her voice lost and her will shattered. She could do nothing.          Nothing as the coyote turned some more before ultimately bolting off in the opposite direction - toward a freedom he did not deserve. A freedom that would spell out a lifetime of terror and not knowing, of always fearing, for the broken little lady. Nothing as his legs carried him far, as the abnormal creature of stilted legs murmured something that fell upon her ears but she did not hear. Nothing as hollowed eyes watched a pathetic mass of a creature beeline for escape, jaw agape as though wishing some words could find their way out. But they didn't. They couldn't. Not with the shackles of terror clutching tight against her throat.          A short exhale and Irene was brought out of her trance only by the movements of the creature beside her. With its nimble limbs it drew wood against carved wood, and while she couldn't comprehend what he was doing, she felt a tickle of dread against her spine - that thing was a weapon. In a hurried gasp the young girl turned to watch an invisible stick fly into the air, her eyes trailing towards Vtoleni. Her heart praying. Her chest frozen in mid-breath. Waiting as those mere seconds ticked by, her sanity at stake..          She didn't see him get struck, but she saw its effect. A wave of heat, of sweet warm release, welled up in her gut as Irene found her breath, and it was the most precious gulp of air she'd ever taken. Before she even knew what was happening she felt her legs dash out, sprinting towards her ex-captor, her tormentor, her demon, so she could watch him die. Gargled words from the marksman echoed behind her, speaking of missed chances for forgiveness, for something easier. But as those tiny legs brought her closer, she felt her throat choking on tears, on a swollen heat, an inner conflict. "No..."          Skidding to a shaky halt ten feet or so to the coyote's right rear, seeing the damage to his leg, she expected to feel closure. Some justice. But while it was there on the surface, the mask of a lady wistfully saying it was enough, that this was all she needed, the roar of a fire deep in her chest screamed for more. Screeched that this was not enough, that nothing could ever be enough. So she circled up to his right, sniffles and tears intermittent but a new mask settled heavy on her face - a white-hot cold. "Y-you..." she couldn't say his name, not ever, never again, "You don't deserve forgiveness!" she spat, fiercely, finding a bit of stifled courage.          Everyone wore a mask of sorts. Cloaks wrapped around themselves to be one thing to others while another to themselves. It was the game of civility, of being ladies and proper men. It was a game, a way of life, that had been instilled for so long. Her cloak had been dignity, her mask of calm temperance. Inside was a broken girl. But this... this beast here. He needn't any cloak, no mask. He was a monster, through and through.          As she rounded about enough to see his face, her breath was stolen back. Cold shivered down her limbs, and tears fell more freely as she took some steps back, shaky and vulnerable. "no... no." The conviction was gone. Was the 'no' for her? or for him? Dipping her head, squinting hot eyes shut, she tried desperately to exit this terror, this reality. And failed.          "You deserve to fucking die." Her limbs smoldered, singed, shook.          She wanted to be the one to do it...

[Witch.]

(you guys are MONSTERS)

[Vtoleni]

The coyote heard Gaven’s warning, somewhere in the back of his mind, and did not so much as think to heed it.

He was small, his cruelty and choice of victims casting a looming illusion. He was as fast as that suggested, bolting across the open plains, abandoning his justice once again, like a child tying the sheets together and climbing from the window. A crucial part of being a passable thief was knowing when to cut one’s losses. Irene had come and tripped the alarms. The un-man made him nervous. More and more about this place made him nervous, in retrospect.

He would change his name again. Skip back over the fringe. All of his partners were dead. There was nobody left to point him out to his employers as a runaway. For all they knew, for all the evidence left behind, a roaming band had killed them all and taken the children themselves. Outrun the un-man, outrun the lost goods, like an arrow himself as he cleared the plains — it was fine, he would live on, he was too clever to die, too crafty, too swift —

Skink-blue tongue lolled, his forming grin all maniacal relief.

The arrow punched into his right hind and burst through the front of his thigh.

It all took less than ten seconds; it happened before he could make sense of it. A fierce pull of air was sucked from his lungs in a terrible, high-pitched mix between a gasp and a squeal. The coyote, struck down, fell and rolled to an excruciating stop. Immediately, instinctively, he tried to get up on all fours. His impaled leg gave out from under him, squirting bright arterial blood, and he couldn’t help it, he shrieked and he writhed, snapping the air, clawing at the plowed up dirt.

The un-man's head eclipsed the risen moon. The child followed him like a vengeful fury.

"Wait a minute, w-wait a minute, I-I — I can b-be reasonable —” The downed coyote was wheezing as Gaven advanced, choking on the pain. Never had he been kicked so hard with the other boot. He shook and he bled and he held up one of his front paws in a feeble attempt at defense. “Let’s, let’s talk, you don’t need —”

He gave a hoarse wail, blue eyes unfocused and streaming. Agony crushed his smugness like a roach. Lost him whatever sense of audacity that might have prevented him from begging mercy of one of his traumatized victims. “Irene, mausi, I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry, I really am — tell him, you tell him it's not true, tell him zis won’t make it right — ze things I did — es tut mir leid, it hurts, I’m sorry —”

He looked up to Gaven’s face and saw him thinking beyond him. Beyond Vito. Beyond his life and death, after the story of him was over, and it filled him with desperate terror.

“Please, don’t kill me...”

[Gaven]

Vito squealed and floundered in the grass, blood streaked across his flank where the arrow stuck proudly in his flesh, and Gaven watched with an unreadable expression; he could have loomed over the dying animal and commented on how pathetic his pain was to drive his insignificance in his last moments, but that wasn’t how the Starreaver felt. He was an old hand at killing. The bawling writhing struggle wasn’t anything new to him, he would probably even piss and shit on himself before he went out. The child raced ahead of Gaven to indulge in Vito’s suffering herself, uselessly clawing for comfort in vengeance. She was young, she didn’t know better. The coyote began to cry and beg for his life and Gaven looked away with profound discomfort. He couldn’t let Vito live, but he took no pleasure in his agony.

“Go back to the Highlands,” he directed his voice at the young wolf, talking over Vito’s screaming. “You don’t need to be here for this. Revenge is empty, it won’t bring you satisfaction to watch this. You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

Killing Vito would never undo all his damage, it wasn’t going to bring anyone’s parents back from their graves. It would prevent him from doing it again, from causing more harm, which he would if he was given the chance. Aiden would have too, which is why Gaven put his bones to sleep in his fire where he would never hurt another child again. Soon Vito would join his friend in their eternal slumber and all things would forget them. It was an inevitable end for the villain and he saw that as clearly as Gaven had.

Gaven put his arrow back in its quiver and slung his bow over his shoulder before unsheathing his dagger. The blade had gotten little use since he had come to Gemini, once it had kissed the hearts of men, but wolves were creatures he did not want to be close enough to have to stab. Akira called it a Long Tooth and it was a fitting description. He stooped down next to Vito and snatched up a handful of his scruff, pinning him to the ground to prevent him from biting. He would hold him there for a long moment until he ceased whatever potential struggle he might put up in sheer panic.

“Shh, Vito, it’s alright. It will be okay. Don’t you see?” Gaven’s voice was gentle again. “The wound in your leg has already killed you, friend, your lifeblood is spilling all over the ground, but I’m not going to let you suffer. I’m not you, after all. All that time you and Aiden spent running around tearing families apart and killing parents and one would think you would have learned a thing or two about how this goes. Everything after this is easy.”

He released the coyote to brush his fur down with his hand, smoothing his cheek, and as he petted him his other hand angled the blade for his heart. This one he wouldn’t botch; he had was better with his dagger than with the bow or polearm, he had felt so many men die against the tension in his hand before he arrived in Gemini. Between the ribs, he had one shot. It would still hurt, but it had to be preferable to slowly bleeding out, and it was much better than whatever the wolves would do to him as inelegant in their killing as they were. He leaned in on one side so the shadow of his body would block the light of the moon glinting off the dagger before he brought it down on Vito, shielding him from the terror of last moments in a manner the child slaver had never deserved in his tiny, sordid life. This was the Starreaver’s kindness.

The blade pierced Vito’s skin, his lung, hopefully his heart, as Gaven drove it between his ribs with swift accuracy. He cupped his free hand against the coyote’s face and pressed him into the ground again to keep his following struggle, his spasms of death, from complicated his death. Blood sprayed and bubbled hot against Gaven’s as he pressed the blade deeper, burying it in his chest. He held Vito there until he relinquished his ego; his body would eventually become still and cool and Gaven would let it lie in the grass while he yanked the steaming blade out of the coyote’s corpse and let the beast sleep.

“Rest well, Vito,” Gaven muttered as he pulled back the blade and wiped in on the grass. “You don’t deserve it, but the grave comes for us all in the end, doesn’t it?”

[Irene]

The death of her parents had left the small child dreaming of wild realities, a fantasy where everything was peaceful, happy and filled with her loved ones. It was her escape from the grief that neither she nor her grandparents could ever properly process. And when they were stolen from her too, those dreams transformed into a deep yearning for nothingness, for a chill calm to overwhelm the anguish she harbored deep within. For those memories and those pains to become nothing, for them to disappear and a cold cloak to rest firmly around her, protecting her from the rest of the evils this world had. For thoughts to be silenced, fears to be eased, for her to evaporate from existence and into a new life with no memories from before. Or to simply not exist.          Needless to say, when she watched her demon writhe and wriggle, crippled and bleeding, the yearnings of her past dissipated, quickly replaced by a new one. One that was as wild as her first, and as cold as her second. She needed to see him suffer. That wistful mask of courtesy and manners from days past had held the girl back from taking any charge in her life, and in doing so she'd stood by and watched her family be stolen. Now she donned a frozen blackness, ice on the outside and fire within, and its heat gave her a will she'd never felt before.          Irene would do what she needed.          She would see her demon die by her own doing.          “Go back to the Highlands. You don’t need to be here for this. Revenge is empty, it won’t bring you satisfaction to watch this. You shouldn’t be here anyway.”  The dangerous, subdued ferocity behind her eyes glared deep at Gaven, carrying over from Vito and not giving the creature the courtesy of gentling itself. No.  The audacity of his words, of his commands, left her chest simmering, boiling, as she stared at him, incredulous. He had no place, no place, to tell her what she needed, what Vito deserved, or what may be best. He was a stranger to the red threads that tied the girl so cruelly to this pathetic, dying coyote in front of them. To the tortures she'd endured, the questions that haunted her, the answers she was due. No.          She watched as the creature then moved forward, leaning down to her demon as whimpered, whined, and begged. She watched as he rolled in a shameless attempt to garner some sympathy, but his voice scratched at her ears, claws streaking down uneven stone. Her heart quickened, her chest grew hotter, heavier, uncomfortable, as though standing by and doing nothing were making it worse. As though the only relief would be to do something. Something. But she couldn't comprehend what until he spoke.          “Irene, mausi, I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry, I really am — tell him, you tell him it's not true, tell him zis won’t make it right — ze things I did — es tut mir leid, it hurts, I’m sorry —”          "NO!" High-pitched and defiant, the little bird finally finding her wings to fly, her legs to stand up for herself, "You don't get to say my name! You don't get ANYTHING from me!" Hot tears fell on flushed cheeks, her gentle eyes now hollow, narrow, seeing anew. "You took everything from me, EVERYTHING." Choking on sobs. "And n-now... now I have nothing left! Nothing for me... for anyone..." A moment to breathe, broken by shuddering cries, before her glare found a way to turn even colder, "and not for YOU! Shuddered breaths. "And now... y-you... you've killed me."          Irene was gone, lost in a past that seemed untouchable, begging for a warning about its fatal future. But she couldn't reach it. Everything was gone. Everything, and her. Tonight she felt the embrace of a new mask, a new cloak, and she feared it suited her better than the civility she'd hid behind before. The civility that had let her die. Her parents. Her grandparents. No...          As Gaven moved in, a sharpened blade in his hand, Irene yelped in a furious last-ditch effort, "NO!" But the blade sunk in as Gaven held Vito back. The child leapt forward, lips peeled over fangs that had only ever pierced the flesh of the dead, of prey designated for meals. Now, unleashed and desperate, they sought to inflict pain, as though she could transfer it from herself back to her demon, or to Gaven if he were in the way. Limbs swung and kicked wildly, claws hoping to scratch and tear where they could, whatever they could.          With the coyote's scruff grabbed, his head immobilized, that's where Irene targeted with her needle-sharp teeth. Hysterical sobs echoed, joined with grieved growls, gurgles. She'd tear into those evil eyes, the ones that'd always narrow every time he saw her. She'd try to rip open his lips, caring not if those devilish teeth chomped at her, to take away that twisted grin he always wore as he called her his fraulein. She'd aim to disfigure the very face that haunted every waking moment, every attempt at sleep, every fleeting dream she'd had since that fateful night. She'd kick and claw and scream and sob and bite and shred, trying to eliminate every piece of her torment, as though doing so could physically erase him and everything he'd done. And she did so blindly.          The blackness cloaked her snugly, uneasy but at home, now.

[Vtoleni]

Pain was a light behind his eyes so bright it hurt to stare. The feathers of the arrow that had struck the child trafficker down were soaked red and the shaft was slick when it was pulled from his thigh — impassively, like a butcher carving his five hundredth pig. The coyote tried again to get up before Gaven descended upon him, with the last-ditch fervor of a wild animal who can’t and won’t accept that it’s already dead, and of course failed, dragging himself a few inches at best.

The un-man held him still, kept his black teeth from biting. It was a familiar sight to the skulls watching over this hunt with their eyeless sockets. Leash him to this moment. Shove his nose in it. Look at the mess you’ve made. Vito refused, he refused, but it no longer mattered what he didn’t want.

“I-I-I’ll never come here again, I’ll do anything, please —” He was shaking, his voice thin and reedy, a coward in the face of life and death alike as he continued to ramble meaningless pleas even while Gaven shushed him and bid him his ill-deserved farewells. This wasn’t happening this couldn’t be happening this was impossible —

Irene loomed close. There was a strange, mad look in her eyes. The child was gone; here was the harpy with its talons spread. He’d never have suspected, not once, that his treatment of her, his fawning abuse, would ever come back to hurt him. He’d been there, he’d always been there, a charming stranger welcomed by an aging couple with use for good company. He’d entertained, he’d wagged his tail, he’d smiled at the child watching him from between grandpa’s legs. He’d brought some friends. He’d taken everything. And here she was. Here they were. She took their red thread and broke it between her teeth.

A hand smoothed his cheek. A shadow fell over his body. He was still looking at Irene when it happened. Nobody looks evil when they’re terrified. She’d learn that today. He reached out to her, just a little, with one paw.

“Mausi —”

A stab. A violent seizing. A harsh, tickling cough that spluttered blood from the gasping mouth. His heart fluttered erratically, arresting and failing. Wide blue eyes didn’t blink, but within moments, dulled like an old coin and began to glaze. His tongue lolled limp from open jaws.

He was already dead by the time Irene, screaming and sobbing, began to tear him into pieces.

[Gaven]

The young wolf shrieked with such ferocity it encompassed all other sound; a violent omen of pain. She leapt with careless teeth bared at the Starreaver, seeking to seize her wholeness from the tormentor that writhed in the grass. Animalistic fear clawed at Gaven’s heart and his grip tightened around the hilt of his dagger, prepared to slash at the youth in self-defense. He reigned in the hint of terror and instead flung his arm out to block her jaw from Vito’s scalp, but he was too slow One cuspid clamped harmlessly into the leather gauntlet and the other punched through the flesh just below his wrist, into the back of his hand. He only needed to be bit once despite failing to process the pain that followed. He drew back, bone scraping along his hand, and let the yearling direct her wild, ruthless strikes on her intended target.  Gaven slid on his rump across the ground, kicking to get away from her, unsure if it was frenetic hatred that gripped the girl or something as odious as the Fury.

Irene bit and thrashed at Vito’s face until it was an unrecognizable black mass of coagulating blood and black bone shimmering wet in the uncaring white moonlight. Gaven sheathed his dagger and clutched his bow in his oozing fist, arrow nocked but pointed at the  harmlessly at the ground, waiting to see if the young wolf would evolve into a real danger for him; she was a child, but he wouldn’t just let her kill him. Somewhere in his peripheral vision he sensed a familiar, ethereal black shape stretch across the horizon to watch him with its ever cold and curious red gaze. Pain in his hand began to seep into his nerves, a small throb where his own blood dribbled down his fingers; his pain was surely nothing compared to Irene’s and Vito’s, but that did nothing to lessen it. Eventually Irene must tire or turn her attentions to him and hopefully it would be the former.

“Fenedhis!” he barked at her in his own alien tongue before returning to the sounds she understood best. “Stop! He’s dead, girl. His face is mush. Get control of yourself.”

The coyote’s body was small and broken, a wet smear for a head, and was still in the grass. An outsider to the situation would never believe the damage the piteous creature had caused in his life, only see the scattered remnants of his terrified death. Gaven spared the corpse the briefest of glances before his eyes darted back to Irene with a hard expression on his face.

She knows what happened to Aiden.

Irene might have fastened her misery to Vito, but in that moment her fate was tied to the Starreaver’s and she hadn’t the slightest clue what a precarious position that put her in. Nothing about the last few minutes should instill a sense of trust in her about Gaven’s nature and the sooner she realized this the better off she would be.

He threw his arm out to point back towards the stone wall, his own fresh blood flicking from his fingertips to land somewhere in the grass.

“Go back to the Highlands, as I told you to,” Gaven admonished her in a soft tone. “With all the screaming you just did half of Gemini is about to be on us in a moment. You need to find a river and wash your face, you’re coated in blood. They don’t need to know your role in this. You’ve not even gone on your first proper hunt, you’re not ready to kill, and you’re not ready for this life. Go. Now.”