Bleeding.

Pretty silver tufts were stained on the ends, the nape of her neck a mess; raked in teeth marks. She sobbed like a child as she ran, eventually slowing and just taking strained breaths as she stumbled around aimlessly, swaying as her vision blurred with tears and her wide, red gaze burned with hate. She choked through gasps, eventually collapsing to the ground. She curled by the bottom of a towering tree, cloaked in its shadow, a small vestige of comfort. Her legs ached and she held them closer, let her head rest on cold, uncompromising ground. She only calmed because she'd cried half her soul out at this point, she was running dry. All that was left to her now was a few hitched breaths, and silent contemplation as she stared at the ground, letting one pearly mitten trace idle circles in the dirt, unkempt nails dragged indents through the earth. What would she do? Whatwouldshedo? Whatwouldshedo? She bit at her paws, gnawing, gnawing.

Something wrong with her.

So wrong. All wrong. Everything was wrong. Here, she felt it all tenfold and it was all consuming. Felt like being drowned. Mama was right, and she'd proved it.

The forest was quiet, enough that it drove her mad. Once she'd had her fill of rest, she'd haul her scrawny form to her feet. She stumbled, bone-thin, near delirious from hunger and a mix of every other miserable thing that tormented her. Much as she could hardly conceive of it now, she needed to hunt something. Needed to patch herself up. Needed to wash the blood from her muzzle.

Needed to kill something. More than just for food. Tears still stained the space beneath her eyes, but she was silent now: contemplative and still.

Scent of coyote on the wind. Unlucky for you.

The impish girl trailed after it, tunnel visioned and eager for an outlet. When she did catch up, there was only seconds between the turn of coyish features and the lunging of desperate jaws. And how delightful it was when teeth met flesh, how delightful it was as she savaged and ripped and tore through that which once resembled a canine. No longer. Sinuous strands kept shredded limbs still attached while life ebbed away in rattling breaths, leaving only an empty husk in its wake. Envy dropped it, let it clatter to the ground limp and void. Her breathing calmer, the tastes in her mouth mangled and mixed, bitter and sweet. Two souls, reduced to liquid on her tongue. Easy to discard, just as she had been. Always been. How's it feel, little fucker?

There was some clarity there, in a brief moment; her breath materialized in the cold air, the afternoon chill rolling in. When she finally looked down, she drank the vision through softer eyes; feet finally back on solid ground. After all too long, she would stalk off and hunker down near the outskirts of the clearing she'd made into her own sacrificial alter. It felt good to hurt when she was hurting. It made it feel all the more tolerable.

She'd need to tend to her wounds before they festered... maybe soon... for now, she was being lulled into sleep by her exhaustion after her not so little episode. She would stare at the mess of fur and fluid just a little ways ahead.

For some reason, it comforted her.

---

The Silvercreek had lurked in the wisteria forest for a time. Getting his bearings in this new world, yes, but mostly enjoying his freedom.

No stinking breath of a tyrant in his ear, not anymore. Silvercreek had stolen his freedom, taken flight with it, the teeth of trolls snapping at his heels but winter's bite was never able to quite grasp him.

No, he danced now outside of all those cursed cycles - they would never imprison him again.

He had headed south when the impulse struck him, brushing his pale muzzle against the softness of wilting wisteria petals, red as droplets of blood as they drifted free of their stems and rained upon his face, crown, and spine. A goodbye without sorrow, as he parted ways with the mysterious forest that had served as refuge to the fugitive for a time.

Silver stood tall and confident, pawsteps light and stealthy as he trod. A lily-pad gaze skimmed across the man's surroundings. He was pleased with his freedom, but not so foolish as to forget the naivety that had gotten those iron chains clad around him, invisible to all but Silvercreek and his captors. A soft humming, melodies without meaning, rose and fell from his throat as he walked.

Above, clouds hovered heavy. Silvercreek paid them no mind, his frog friend perched idly amongst the fur draped across his shoulders.

Ahead, the scent of blood and offal made his ears swivel to alertness. Graceful motions, almost lazy in their effortless motion, brought the Silvercreek closer to the source until a once-coyote took shape before him in the yellowing grass. A brow arched - the canine cracked apart in a sinew-strewn mockery of wholeness had been...destroyed, but not devoured.

Mossy hazel eyes drifted upward, to a coiled lump of fur. The Silvercreek had not ceased his eerie, idle humming. The melody drifted and dipped, as his gaze skimmed over the wolf, curious without obtrusiveness...not yet.

Humming, coming from somewhere ♫

She thought she was hallucinating it honestly, but then it grew louder, closer, easier to pinpoint and soon enough footsteps accompanied the song. Oh what a mess she'd made of things, both the figurative and the literal. She was meant to clean up messes. Stitch up nasty wounds, halt the spread of sickness and disease. She was meant to mend, not to tear.

Much as it enthused her.

Those thoughts were unwelcome. She did not mean to do anything at all. She was not guilty of anything. She did not want to do... any of it, but she did, but she didn't, but she did-

The girl shook her head, shake up those thoughts, let em rattle around in there til' they start doin' something productive. Plus, there was some stranger lingering overhead; to which she'd remove a paw from over her eyes, look at him with thinly veiled disdain. "Creep." She huffed as she sat up, crooked tail swishing against the grass. She matched his gaze with one unwavering, owlish and wide; much as her undereyes were tear stained, she held onto a wicked glare. Even still she wanted to hurt. "Do you usually watch people in silence or am I special?"

---

The girl shook, sat up with a look of lurid displeasure levelled at the Silvercreek.

He was unperturbed, taking in the sight of her bloodstained fur at his leisure. She'd not escaped her brawl with the coyote unscathed, it seemed.

He chose to ignore the insult of her responses, but stopped humming at least. He eyes were red as the autumn wisteria forest to the north of here - red as the corpse she seemed to nap not too far from. Red as the gore smeared on her starkly monochrome pelt.

Silvercreek tilted his head slightly. I mistook you for a corpse, that's all. He knew better now than to offer apologies, and so only procured an explanation and a keen expression. He glanced meaningfully at the coyote. A friend of yours?

Envy reluctantly peeled herself from the spot she'd made her own. Tried to muster some semblence of normalcy, though there wasn't much of it left to her and even less in the fact that she was smeared in blood of all origins, it was hard to tell where hers started and ended. Make no mistake, the majority of it was not her own, though it didn't help her case much. She did look like a corpse, probably smelled like one too, honestly. He was hardly to be blamed for his curiosity but she was too swallowed up in emotions to care. Her neck hurt from the puncture of canines and even that was an idle thought at the back of her mind.

He might've been joking, and if he was it passed over her head seamlessly. whoosh "No."

Toy. Tool. She reduced that pile of coyote to these basest of terms. Friend was outrageous!

She had no reason to kill it, not really, not one accepted by civilized social standards. She'd done it because she was a cruel, awful beast without reason. The devil her sire, the way this one's passions burned, uncontrolled and spurred to the spillage of blood; indiscriminate. She'd ripped it apart because she needed to put that hurt somewhere else, needed to replace the image of teeth in the throat of her kin with the image of a simple

Tool.

Tool of her using. Tool to exercise her grievances, see; it had fulfilled its purpose. There was no crime in this wonderful mercy she gave. Already the weight felt lighter. "I thought I might eat some of it." She murmurs with a shrug, undaunted in the face of this stranger. She could not distinguish his intent, much as wide, owlish eyes attempted to pluck it from his soul. Now it was her that was curious.

---

No, she said, as if such a suggestion offended.

The Silvercreek seemed to think that was funny, and flashed a needle-fanged smile quick as a blink at the blood-spattered she-wolf. He didn't care about the stains marring her fur, clumping the strands into thick mats. He'd seen his fair share of fights, although he held himself with the silky-soft, cold expression of nobility. Equal parts welcoming, and chilly as the steel of a dagger's blade.

She thought to eat it, and the Silvercreek wrinkled his nose delicately at the notion. Eating a canine so like himself...was not his idea of a delicacy. He flicked his ear, dismissing his own reaction. It's not my place to judge. Although he left open whether he intended to do so anyway.

He'd never been any good at knowing his place in life and staying there. From a failure of a brother to a traitor of the crown - what role would he taint next, he wondered?

Silvercreek sat down, dry gold and orange leaves shuffling beneath his weight as he settled. You're hurt. Do you...require help?

She did not necessarily want to eat coyote, gamey and foul as it was, though that thought of canid resemblance didn't tickle the same place in her head. Food was food. Perhaps that was the urchin speaking. She would've eaten a great many unconventional things if it meant she'd get to stifle the ache of hunger. Right now, it felt like there were few other things she could catch, and the carrion sat wasted in the clearing... She hadn't eaten in a while.

The stranger asked her a question she was unused to. Sat down casually across. She matched that same nonchalance, let out a brief sniff, catching up on the breaths she'd deprived herself of in her meltdown. "...Do you.. offer it?" She asks with a crook of her head, once pearly paws shuffled against the dirt, unable to still. Why would he offer anything to her? She did not have anything to offer him.

Still. Stranger or not, the wretch was strangely comforted by the presence of another, even if he hadn't said all that much, she was prone to easy trust. She always had been, to be alone was to be in that terrible, clouded place. Unfocused and scattered.

Even if it felt so good to sate it. It overpowered. She detested it.

---

She was clever - or at least, taught to be cautious by some experience or another. The reasoning for it didn't matter; the question returned to him did, though.

The Silvercreek found the woman intriguing, the way one found a bug under a looking glass intriguing - he enjoyed watching the precise motions the cogs in her skull turned with. Mostly, though, he lavished in the knowledge that to her, he was nothing and nobody. That to her, he could be anyone. That she held no power over him, and that he could stand and walk away without a care. There were no longer any bonds holding him back, no chains to make him bend to another's whims.

He could offer help, he could bargain for it, or he could retract it. And it wasn't exactly a situation that was a very obvious or overt power trip, but for Silver, the moment was delicious all the same. His freedom was euphoric, even though a corner of his mind quietly lamented all it had cost and all he had lost to get here.

He was here, and that was enough.

I do, but not without price. He didn't know why he said that. He didn't know why he required that. She had nothing to offer him beyond the companionship she had already provided, and he didn't actually want to take anything she might find valuable to herself.

He was in the midst of it now, though.

The frog on his shoulders croaked, a high, thin sound.

I will search for any useful herbs nearby. You can consider what cost suits you. Or she couldn't. He didn't know if she could walk, but if he returned and she had nothing more than a shrug for him, the Silvercreek wasn't sure he'd take issue with that.

He was no healer, but he knew what herbs were good for injuries. He'd learned through experience. The wolf rose to his feet, arching his spine in a small stretch before turning toward the forest and meandering out of view - his word was his bond, and he did what he said.

---

oooo I like him, he is interesting...

Nothing in this world was free. Well, maybe the birds.

But nothing else. For the rest, it was give and gain. Envy did not mind this, it made a perfect sense in her mind. At the bottom of the pyramid, with no authority to simply take, this was the way of life she had grown used to. The metaphorical scratching of backs, looped back around and around. She had always prepared her bargains accordingly, used to anyways. Here, she had nothing to bargain with beyond herself, and even then, what could've been offered? He was not injured, she was a lousy hunter and she would've been too inclined to keep any food for herself. To talk, this was all she had left to her.

She was a skilled enough healer, if he returned with the herbs she required, she could've tried to mend it herself, though the placement was not exactly going to make that easy. Even now, she felt the teeth sliding into the back of her neck, cold like ice and burning like fire in her flesh, they ripped and ripped and her breath grew shorter, laboured, squeezed.

She let in another breath, quiet. Blood trickled down her neck and dripped into tiny pools in the dirt. She craned her head to look down at them. What a strange place she found herself in. Even here, when her neck dripped her vitality in droplet after droplet, curiosity tempted her. Her eyes followed his form into the woods.

As he disappeared into the undergrowth, he let his words linger. What cost suited her? Courteous, but she did not know. She would mull over it again and again. What must she do? grovel? degrade herself? Whatever it was it would be done, she dismissed it and diminished all meaning with a swish across the ground of her crooked tail. She could be an actress, a performer, whatever was called for, and yet first, she had to put her head back on her shoulders. She shook her head with vigour, scattered her thoughts in the most physical of ways and took in a soft breath. The pain had begun to set in, adrenaline far away now. She lowered herself to her stomach and let her head rest on outstretched paws while she waited.

---

---

so is envy!! loving this thread so far <3

She didn't erupt into indignant swearing at him, so that went well, Silver decided.

He shook his head, dispelling his thoughts of confusion with a derisive snort as he stepped deeper into the forest. The frog ribbited once more, and Silvercreek rolled his eyes dramatically. Oh, hush. The man chided, dipping his head to shoulder past a couple of bushes on his hunt for herbs. Frederick was his most cherished companion, but terribly judgmental and not a great conversationalist. Kind of one-note, Silver thought with an inward chuckle that felt forced even in the confines of his mind.

Silvercreek, too, was used to a transactional world - but he was used to being the one bargaining for what he wanted, or needed. He'd forsaken the kindness in him to help others out of the goodness of his heart. There was nothing in his chest now but the blackened husk of something determined not to thrive but merely survive. He was not used to the position of not knowing what he needed to scrape out of another's grasp for his own survival; he was in such a wealth of free will that he only asked for payment out of habit and greed, it seemed. And was that so wrong, or was it another freedom afforded to him he'd be a fool not to make the most of?

A sensation that was both thrilling and frightening, and he teetering on the cusp of both emotions as he gathered in his jaws frost-touched sprigs of chamomile, comfrey and coneflower. The bitter taste of the potent herbs filled his mouth unpleasantly, but Silver had schooled his features into a charming, confident veneer by the time he re-emerged into the woman's clearing. He dropped the herbs at his paws, having stopped outside her reach unless she moved toward him.

Whatever doubts he'd had about his instinctive deal he'd tried to strike with the pearlescent wolf had been hidden away or shed at some point in his journey, spring-green eyes glinting with mirth at her. He knew what he wanted: entertainment, and this was sure to be so no matter her answer, no matter their deal.

Have you a reply? Silver murmured, reverently quiet amidst the tension and falling dusk. He had an idea for what he wanted, now, but he'd agreed to allow her the chance to set her terms first.