unzip my body, take my heart out [open]

[teethoftherisk]

Who: Siffleur and you
What: Catchall
When: Mid-end October
Where: Various
CW: Violence, maiming, death, possible cannibalism (opt-in only)



1. Fate's Design

Siffleur has gotten the impression that he's been brought on board at a strange time. There's blood everywhere, people avoiding one another, and nothing seems to be working. It reminds him too much of his brief time in the oil sands, though at least the scent is more pleasant, and there's fewer drugs lying around.

He's never seen a casino so empty in his life and he's enjoying it. The slot machines hold no real appeal after the first few times of using the infinite supply of chips to get fewer chips back. For now, he's settled on one of the tables with a deck of cards, playing solitaire while cross-legged.

When he spots motion, his head snaps up to see who else has come in here. Siffleur does not do this subtly - he stares openly and unabashedly at the person, the queen of diamonds in his hand.


2. Promenade

There's a cougar lounging up on one of the awnings of the faux-street's various businesses, one leg dangling over the edge. He's terribly bored. The sushi bar isn't working anymore and while he can get food from the buffet, it's not the same. There was something pleasing about having it go around on that little track. It didn't scratch the itch to hunt, but it served some other base desire he apparently had for a carousel of never-ending fish.

Which means that when he spots a human wander by, his ears perk up. Hmm. Giles said they can't die forever here, and the remains he's come across prove that the others aren't shy about exercising that ability. And while he's certain his prey of choice might be sore about their death, they will come back. So will he, if he's picked the wrong target.

He carefully draws his leg up and shifts into a pouncing position, taking a better look at the human walking down the promenade, trying to decide if they seem like good prey.


3. Spirit Halloween

He likes what's happened to the clothing store. It doesn't stink like perfume anymore, or play those awful songs. Someone trashed huge chunks of it when he was out, but it just made more hiding places for him to lurk in. The clothing monster is still here, slouching around to and fro with various costumes stuck to it's body, but it's easy enough to outrun it. He's also made a few good sleeping spots high up on the tallest displays.

Siffleur's marked his territory here and there, just on the off-chance there's more creatures on the ship like him. They can have other places to claim for their own he likes this one, so it's his now. The various hanging ghosts and skeletons provide him with plenty of camouflage. And he mostly has the trick to finding the exits when he wants to leave. Mostly.

There's a person stumbling around the store right now and it's woken him up from his nap. Siffleur watches them browse the various costumes and try some pieces on before he stretches out and yawns, emerging from the wig display he's been sleeping in. "Doesn't suit you." He offers the unsolicited criticism shamelessly.


4. Wildcard

Anything you'd like. He's always around somewhere.

Comments

[teethoftherisk]

Ah, so that's it. She's kept herself apart and now she's afraid, and it's easier to place the blame on him, on what he might do, then to blame herself for being unknown to them. Of course, if most of them don't know her, she could simply hide among them. But then she would have to hide, and Siffleur has done that all his life, and he knows intimately how exhausting and lonely and isolating it is to hide yourself.

"Will killing me make them like you?" He asks the wolf. "Will they see my blood on your hands and know you're fighting with them? Or will you wait until I eat one of them first, so they know I was a threat when you killed me?"

[actuallyawolf]

"If you try to kill them, I will stop you. That's all there is to it. You don't need to go complicating it. You're right that this place smells of blood and death, but I have no intention of facing it alone, like you apparently do."

She will make it simple in her head, as much as possible, even if it's not quite so simple in reality. She almost has to.

[teethoftherisk]

He lets out a soft huff, a sound just barely on the edge of a laugh. It's a wonderfully dramatic little statement, but she hasn't actually thought it through, and she doesn't want to either. Which is fine by him. He doesn't care about winning her over, and he certainly doesn't care if she's hurt by the consequences she's ignoring. Plus he's sure the humans will be happy to help her lick her wounds, since they like obedient dogs best of all.

"Then feel free to wait around for an opportunity to kill me." Siffleur smirks ever so slightly at her before he goes back to scanning the promenade, content to sit here for hours if he must.

[actuallyawolf]

For a moment Ylva paces, frustrated, not sure what she wants to do: storm off in a huff, just attack him anyway, yell more? All of these are terrible options.

A display, though, to show she's not someone to be trifled with. That strikes her as the right thing to do.

She runs up under the awning Siffleur is sitting on, muttering under her breath to produce a small wave of flame to set his perch on fire.

[teethoftherisk]

The shewolf keeps pacing back and forth and he pretends to ignore her, just to frustrate her more.

But instead of her attacking him, or storming off to fetch others to fight with her, she does something that was unthinkable a moment ago: she sets the awning on fire.

He lets out a guttural sound of surprise and above her comes the sound of cracking bones and tearing flesh as he changes. The moment his legs have their flex to them, he leaps off the awning, aiming for another across the way. This one isn't quite as good of perch, since it has decoration on the top of it, and he slams into it as his body finishes transforming.

Then a very angry cougar turns around, baring his teeth and snarling down at her. His first and obvious instinct is to attack her and fight her here and now. But Siffleur did not reach his age without having some sense, and while fighting a wolf is difficult enough, fighting a magical shewolf offers unknown dangers. He isn't afraid to be killed, but that doesn't mean he's eager to die.

[actuallyawolf]

She shifts as well, though it's a swift and easy transformation for her, clothes melting into her new shape. She could be anything in this moment, any number of powerful shapes, but right now? This is about making a point, and at least half the point is the superiority of being a wolf to being a dumb cat only out for himself. And being a wolf, a regular old timber wolf, has always felt particularly natural to her.

Besides, allosaurus versus cougar is not a fair fight.

Ylva launches herself at him, snarling.

[teethoftherisk]

For someone who wants the humans to approve of her, she's even more eager to fight than Siffleur is. He jumps again, this time forced to land on the floor. The moment his feet meet metal, he turns swiftly and lunges back at the timber wolf. She's big - and he's rarely fought a timber wolf, and never without the element of surprise on his side. But turning tail and running is more embarrassing than dying.

The shewolf's jaws are what he needs to worry about most, so he uses his claws to try keep her at arm's length, lashing out with three quick strikes to tear along her sides. Her hide is thick, and it doesn't cut her nearly as deep as he needs to. The scent of blood hits the open air, but it doesn't gush from her guts, and he tries to twist around. If he can get his legs under him, he can make some distance between them...

[actuallyawolf]

Ylva yelps, attempting to twist away from his claws, but his aim is unfortunately good. If it had been more, well, she might've involuntarily turned back, and then she'd have been in trouble. Possibly. She's been in tighter situations, but she's also had backup.

There's no time to withdraw and regroup, not in a fight like this. There's only instinct and reaction. She doubles back immediately, scrambling after him to sink her teeth into the meat of one of his hind legs, growling around the mouthful of cougar flesh.

[teethoftherisk]

He screams as her teeth sink into his hind leg, and the instinctive panic builds. A wounded leg can't run, can't hold his weight, takes time to heal. He needs to get her off of him, and he needs to get away from her. There are many shops here, if he stops her before she tears in too deeply, he can get up high and hide.

Siffleur twists in her jaws and he kicks with his free back leg, aiming for her throat to tear it up. But the angle isn't good - he rips at the thick hide along her chest with his back paw, sinking his claws in deep as he can get them, but there's bone in the way protecting all the really vital organs. Throat or guts would have ended it, but he's missed both, and all he can do now is hope that the pain is enough to make her jaw open involuntarily.

[actuallyawolf]

Honestly, a leg is not ideal, and this is part of the reason. She grunts at the impact, and she does, briefly, lose her grip, but she's closer now, and that gives her the option to grab in a way that's better for her and worse for him.

She will hurt later. She will hurt a lot later. Right now, there's only adrenaline.

Ylva lunges forward to grab the back of Siffleur's neck in her jaws, to hold and, if necessary, to bite down with all the force she has.

[teethoftherisk]

For a moment, her grip breaks and he scrambles to get his legs under him. The floor is smooth instead of rough earth, and his paws struggle to get a solid grip. That second of failure is all the shewolf needs to get her jaws on the back of his neck.

He screams again but the sound goes wet as her fangs puncture his neck and squeeze his spine. Blood drips into his throat and though he still spasms and struggles, the grip is unrelenting. He can't easily reach her either with the bulk of her body on his back. Siffleur lets out another wet sound, an awful desperate pant, and his paws reach up to try tear up her face. But reaching over his body while she has his neck in her grip is nearly impossible at this angle, and the best he can manage is to graze her with the very tips of his claws.

It's only a matter of time before she twists her jaws and snaps his neck.

[actuallyawolf]

For the length of a heartbeat she holds him in her jaws, tasting his blood on her tongue, caught between the urge to finish it, and the desire to have some sort of moral high ground. It had been easy. She hadn't even really tried.

Ylva squeezes, and gives him a shake, the way she'd shake a misbehaving pup, though more roughly, a reminder of who had won, and what she could do in this moment. She lets him go, and dances backwards out of the reach of his claws, panting and dripping blood.

"You're not worth it. Remember that, cat."

[teethoftherisk]

The shake is the worst part - the humiliation rather than a clean, brutal death. The fear twists and mixes with embarrassment and hate, both burning furiously in him. When she lets go and darts backwards, he doesn't follow, staying on his belly on the floor, ears pressed flat to his skull and tail curled close. He pants, a wet ugly sound as the blood keeps dripping into him and out of him.

His cold eyes say that yes, he will remember this. He will remember it for a very, very long time.

Siffleur does not move. He doesn't trust his leg not to slip when he stands, and he refuses to crawl on his belly in front of the shewolf. She's won though, and once she leaves, he'll crawl somewhere unpopulated to heal, and then retreat to the safety of the Spirit Halloween.

There will also be no revenge, not over the next few weeks anyway. He can feel that this will take a handful of days to fully heal, and by that point, he can't risk dying or he might disappoint Ava's child. So Ylva's lesson will stick... for now anyway.