blood meets blood

This will be a self-rp thread between Crux and Andraste, since I want them to canonically meet. Timed before the Harper/Crux/Valeska thread.

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 The starlit man's heart was full.

 He had spent the night and morning curled up against his new mate, the excitement of the previous day finally catching up to them. Today would only be more exciting, for he was to meet Harper's sister and maybe other pack members. She said she had things to take care of, so he wandered on his own, determined to find some prey beast worthwhile to bring back as a present.

 This land that Harper called home really was something. Vates Revite, she'd called it, though he still wondered about the name. His new lover's voice was thick with accent so he worried that he had caught the name wrong, but regardless, it was a beautiful place. A calm lake lay in the center of the territory, nestled in the foothills not unlike those he had met the lady in.

 He slowed to a stop at the lake and leaned down, lapping at the water. He'd catch a drink here before heading on to look for some deer or goats or something that would fill the bellies of his mate and her sister.

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 She'd decided to stick around for a bit.

 Regardless of what she thought about this pack and their optimistic ideals, if it meant a place she could lie low for a little bit to get her bearings, she'd take what she could get and split whenever she felt they might be getting a little too interested in her presence.

 Moving through some sparse trees and heading towards the azure lake, she found herself pausing. There, at the water, was a sparkly thing. She smirked to herself, striding towards him with mind alight with dark thoughts. He seemed to vibrate with some internal energy and she held back a laugh. For a moment she might have confused him with a child, but no. This man was grown.

 Perfect, for either use she might have out of him.

 She lay beside a tree, eyes on the stranger.

 With a smirk on her lips, she lifted her head and let out a mournful sound, a cry for help. She twisted around waited in the shadow of the pine tree for her call to either frighten the man off... or bring him to her. “Come on, morsel,” she whispered under her breath.

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 A call startled him up from the water and he looked over towards the woodlands. Harper? No. No, that wasn't Harper's song, this was someone else. A cry for help? He frowned, glancing up the way he'd come - towards where he'd left Harper to go find her family.

 Was it a member of her kin?

 If that was the case, he couldn't dally. He turned from the water, licking droplets away from his face as he leaped into a run towards the woods.

 There, a flash of light fur. He squinted into the shadows, calling an “Are you alright?” before he saw that the form in the shadows was very... very large. Almost as large as himself. Very, very scarred also. He blinked at her, forcing himself not to take a step back even when he saw her lips were peeled into a grin. “Uh, miss?”

 The fur along his spine rose but he held his ground.

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 The bait was successful.

 The stranger looked over at her and barely a moment later was running towards her. A fool, either too confident in himself or too trusting that anyone who would be calling for him truly needed help. He found her tree and stood staring into it, asking if she was alright. After a moment, he seemed to realize something was wrong, and that was when she pounced.

 She slid out of the shadows, bringing herself up to her full height and pacing towards him, red eyes hungry. “Oh, you can help me...” she smirked, tattered lips barely covering sharp teeth.

 Something stopped her in her tracks, though.

 The slope of his face, the point of his ears, they were familiar. But even more familiar was the heft of his paws. Five thick toes, bearlike, mirrored hers almost exactly. The coincidences were too close and a certain hunger in her died away with surprising speed, replaced by a fierce curiosity and an overwhelming desire to laugh. “You're a fellow five-toes, aren't ya?” she murred, striding towards him and circling the shocked man. “Run away from home like me, hmm?”

 A joke. They were all far, far from home, and even if her suspicions were true, she never had been a part of the old pack. She'd been stolen as a child, thrown into a torture that somehow saved her life, as she had learned after the fact from a chance encounter with her uncle. “What did you do to end up in hell?”

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 The white beast rose out of the shadows and charged towards him and he froze, previous emotions knocking him off-guard, though he knew he shouldn't have been. He shook his head clear just as she slowed to stare at him. She said something that cause him pause and he blinked at her, following as she circled him and examined him from all angles.

 A nervous mix of pity and disgust sat in the pit of his stomach and he shook it away with a hard swallow.

 “What are you talking about?” he said after he regained his clarity of mind, stepping back and away from her. Fellow five-toes? He frowned at her but was unable to stop his eyes from flashing to her paws where, yes, she had paws that resembled his own. Her face... it resembled his own, though closer to the boxy form of someone else. In fact, if it weren't for her missing ears and nub of a tail, or the scars that riddled her body, he might have confused her for someone back home.

 Besides, of course, the sex and white pelt that fought so far to escape her scars.

 “You're like me?” he said, blinking hard, still grappling with her sudden, shocking appearance.

 But Hell? He was at a loss for a moment before a sickening realization threatened to topple him. Was this hell? No. It couldn't be, he could he have found joy in a place meant for torture? Did that mean... he glanced the way he'd come before turning back to the white hound, pointedly ignoring her question as he spoke, his voice stronger now. “Who and what are you?”

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 She smirked, razor-sharp teeth gleaming back at him. “What am I?” Oh, she was so many things. “I'm a devil, laid in this hellscape to torture the damned.” So, which one are you, pretty boy? Devil or damned?

 “But also,” she said, low growl rippling from shattered lips, “I'm a Bacchus, and you're at least a mixed-blood.” She'd press up bodily against him, shoving her shoulder into his. “That means we're kin, pretty boy.”

 Her jaws opened and she grasped at the side of his neck before dancing away, out of reach, with a laugh. She was toying with him, at least for now - until she found out what kind of a man he was. If he was like her father, he'd be damned by her own jaws. If he wasn't... he had a chance of survival.  “So, what, were you raised in the Motherland before it fell? Nah, you've got outside blood in you, they weren't that desperate... were they?” It was half a question for him, half a babbled statement to herself.  “Maybe you were one of their last ditch efforts, or maybe you're just the result of someone horny and sad.” Oh, she was sure some of the wolves of Bacchus had fled and fucked their way across the land. He didn't look like it, but it was all too possible that this man was one of her own sire's lost brood.

 “So, which is it?”

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 A devil? To torture? He looked at her evenly, figuring that if any were devils to torture, she was one of them. She looked like she'd been through the ringer and had faced a lot of torture, herself. Nevertheless, he said nothing, listened on as she said something that he hadn't expected.

 They were kin?

 Well. He figured, with his weird shape and attributes, and how close they were to hers. “My mother had none of our shared features and I never met my father.” Why was he telling her this? This wolf who looked ready to eat him just moments before? He frowned and shook his head. “So I'm sorry but I don't know what you're talking about, personally. Bacchus?” Half blood? He knew nothing of this.

 Perhaps... perhaps it was like the wolves who had two names. A surname? If they were kin, was that what their family was called?

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 Her eyes traced his facial features and she smirked. “Mommy didn't tell you everything, then, did she?” She went on to explain the family line - her hunger forgotten. Time passed and their conversation ended swiftly as a noise alerted her to the presence of some other wolf. Not wanting to bother with any of that, she bid him farewell and escaped into the mountains.

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I just got bored of writing this thread with myself, so pretend she told him everything lol

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