Kiko opened her maw. She snarled at him, the scent of his dead companions all over the hot breath. She grabbed him up by the hair on his head. His limbs flopped uselessly at his sides.
Personally, she did not give a damn about the amulets. She could taste the old wolf on his flesh. The fury ignited and she punched him right in the mouth. She busted teeth, lips, and broken bits flew out in a wide arc when her paws were yanked free.
She dropped him to the ground afterwards. Maybe she would get lucky and he would run. Oh, she was hoping he would run.
Grayell looked down at the man as he sat now, resting his hands on the dirt on either side of himself. He studied the man with disgust, but his expression was still all too reserved. He then tapped his own pendant... the great wolf tooth.
"You're going to die. I won't lie to you about that. As you might have guess, my lover and I have something of an affinity for wolves. A duty even.
So.
I'm going to head down this trail you lot have trampled in the mud. I'm going to find your camp. And I am betting that what I find there is going to upset me. I imagine my Chosen... well she's going to be very upset as well.
So. You can tell me now and we can end it, or you can delay the inevitable and make it much worse."
The man was confused, alarmed, wanting to plead for mercy in the face of death. But something in him was still holding back, something was so very ingrained in him that he did not want to tell them what he knew. His words were garbled now, broken teeth and flesh not helping in the slightest.
"No, I can't... we're like you... just like you...."
Grayell sighed and got to his feet.
"Right then. Time we found your camp. I have to say, I did tell you so..."
He clutched the pendant still and then headed in the direction the poachers had been, he knew it not to be far now.
Kiko did not seem to consider the man a prize. She dragged him down the path by his feet. And, if his head came into contact with trees, bushes, rocks, and other such things? Well, she was just taking the most expedient path.
One thing did occur as a consequence, though. She had to think. The threat was over. The men were dead. And she had killed them without a moment's pause. She had killed men before, up close and personal. She did not often dwell on it.
Kiko did not go looking for battle. That had been one of the first lessons. She twisted her head around to look back. Her brother had been a man trapped in an a monster's body. In the end he had chosen death instead of letting the monster win. Was she now letting that same monster free?
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
The wandered a ways until they found the camp, located in the thickest part of this region of the woods. A pox, a destroyed area used without any care and smelling of death. And Grayell was correct.
On a cart, spread on racks, piled and thrown about.... were wolf pelts. Wolf fur was not in demand, there was no reason for such slaughter. He looked back to Kiko and her victim at the edge of camp and now, his eyes screamed murder. His body now tense entirely, still a man but every part predator, he walked into the camp.
He stopped and he sniffed. There was something amiss. He knelt, pawed the dirt, looked about slowly... growling. He investigated, read the signs, followed his senses quietly until at last he paced into their ramshackle shelter. The man Kiko now held closed his eyes and swallowed, muttering that he wanted to die.
Grayell came out in a hurry, a pelt clasped in his hand. He was intensely irate now, teeth gnashed and eyes bright with rage; storming his way toward them. His free hand gripped the man's throat and lifted him bodily from the ground, shaking him. Kiko could smell something amiss on that pelt too now, it smelled foul, the underside smeared with some green ick that defied recognition.
"Tell me what the flarb this is! What witchery is this? What the hell did you mean?" Grayell tossed the fur down and the snatched him with both hands now, fully extending his arms and throttling the man.
"YOU GIVE ME A GODDAMNED NAME! A NAME FLARB YOU!"
The man choked and gasped, shaking and thrashing about as Grayell squeezed the life from him.
"...Ronan...."
Grayell threw him then, turning his back on the man and looking about as though something lurked here to kill. Infuriated. Completely, uncontrollably enraged.
How had she missed this? How had she not seen or noticed all the missing wolves? How had these… creatures gotten around her guardianship? Kiko did not just live in these woods. She patrolled them every single day she was here. She spent hours making sure all were safe in this wilderness. However, she did not upset the balance. She repaired what was broken by unnatural causes. She knew that death would come to the old, the sick, and the weak.
She should have been here.
Another roar of pain went off in her head. She dragged her eyes away from the pelts to focus on the man being strangled. She had heard no words of the conversation. She did not wish to talk. Her nose told her all she needed to know. This… thing was using wolf pelts for some arcane ritual.
He was using her family.
He was destroying the very place that she took comfort from.
His time polluting this ground had run out.
Kiko ripped him apart. Not his limbs, not his head, not his teeth, but his whole body. She broke his bones first; every single one. Then, she tore the flesh from his still moving body in strips. And when she was done removing the hide from the thing that called itself a man? She urinated on his corpse.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell paid no heed and no mine to her slaughtering the man... or what was a mockery of a man. He didn't need to, he would have visited far worse horrors upon him.
No. He was stuck, staring at the dirt and the countless half human-half wolf footprints scattered about this camp.
So did Kiko. Her brilliant amber eyes focused on the shelter. That was the first thing to go. She tore it apart, piece by piece, and if there was anything left of the building that had sheltered the murderers? It was possible a hawk might have seen the remnants, certainly nothing human would make use of it, ever again.
She could not bring herself to touch the contaminated pelts, though. She circled them over and over howling out what was left of her rage.
Grayell and Kiko left some time later. He saw to the work after consoling her. He dragged the cart and all of their bloody gains the whole way back to the corpse of the old wolf. The bodies of the men were left to rot, to feed nothing but the birds and the bugs... but the old wolf and every pelt from the campsite, were given a proper funeral.
It was a grim task. He stood silent beside her upon the beach, the pyre burning high into the night sky, embers wafting away like wolf spirits running together to new hunting grounds. There was not much to be said.
The Garou shape had been traded for the one that was purely animal. Kiko had paced beside him during the trek back to the old wolf. And she remained beside him while ushered the souls of the dead wolves to another hunting ground.
Her nose had been stuck into the air in preparation for the howl until he spoke. She spoke a few words then.
"We will make this right."
Then she howled. And she did not stop until she could howl no longer.
Eternity
“Put some clothes on, you weird, yellow-eyed, table-dancing, werewolf-training, cryptic, stare-me-right-in-the-eyes-and-don't-even-blink wench.”
Grayell watched her... then past her to the mother and her cubs, all baying in unison. Noses to the air, a song to the spirits, he stood there and simply watched, Tanto's fang clutched tightly in his hand.
(You are wonderful and I am glad you liked it. I am also excited to continue this story! There were some uber long posts in there and great writing so you are getting a bonus miss.
You get 8 acclaim and found a total of 50 gold in the poacher's camp.)