raspberry pie

As sand shifted under paw, she wondered if it was perhaps cruel to test her poisons on such an unsuspecting creature. Mehalt did not take much time to wonder such, however, as she ultimately decided that it was not cruel and instead a necessity. She drug the rabbit, took the berries she had crushed with her paws and mixed them into the blood that seeped from the punctures on its neck. She placed it near the entrance to the strange temple. 

The sun had yet to set, and she smelled other wolves -- not many, but some. Mehalt lay in waiting, watching as one appeared over the horizon. Curiosity caught her gaze, and she watched as they wandered hungrily towards the entrance to the cavern. The rabbit caught the wolf's attention and Mehalt saw their path change, heading towards it, sniffing before the hunger pangs took over and the creature took a bite laced with berry. 

Mehalt waited. The wolf finished its free -- yet costly -- meal and sat down to groom away the blood from their paws. She flicked her tail, the sun slowly setting behind the dunes. The wolf began to convulse, breathing heavily, foaming at the mouth as poison took hold.

She emerged from her hiding place and watched, the wolf twisting on the sand beneath her paws. Mehalt waited patiently, wondering if there would -- in the future, perhaps -- be a way to hasten the effects of the poison.

A final, shuddering breath left the wolf's body and she prodded it with her paw, ensuring that it would not move, before turning to the rabbit and sniffing it. The berries were overpowered by the scent of blood -- one would only know they were there if they had been the one to place them. She gave a self-affirming nod and watched the sky darken, pondering the poison that she'd bred.
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 Andraste had seen, from the shadows. Watched as the brown wolf laid the trap, placed it for some unsuspecting fool. At first, she believed it a trap laid for those of hers who hid here. Had the man of the mist decided that she was to be done away with, sent some half-assed assassin?

 So she had quietly informed her followers of the present - not to be touched.

 She watched as a strange arrived and ate the meat, forcing herself to silence the growl that wished to rumble up her throat. She watched silently as the stranger ate the rabbit and then took a long moment until finally what she suspected happened: the wolf began to convulse. She inched closer, observing the way the creature writhed and wept silently, trying to evade death but finally being unable to.

 The villain was present again, hovering over the body to observe her work before vanishing again. A few moments later, the titan slipped from the shadows of the interior of the cavern, peering down at the body impassively before turning her eyes to the brown thing that had done it. She was sitting, staring towards the sunset from where the visage peeked out from the stone lids of the Eye. The witch looked back at the corpse for a moment, determining that it was wasted - eating it would surely poison anyone who took a bite. “If it had tasted the poison, it would have had time to attack before it fell.” she said simply, though she sniffed and gave a slight nod of approval at the woman who was by now looking at her.

 She would meet the stranger's eyes. “What was it?” And why did you steal a meal from my followers and I?

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Mehalt smelled the other wolf before she saw her. The white and cream woman, scarred and eyes glimmering like the berries that had poisoned her prey, emerging from the mouth of the cavern. Paler than the sand that surrounded them. The chocolate wolf looked to her as she approached the corpse and sniffed it. Mehalt narrowed venom-green eyes slightly. It was none of this woman's business what she did and did not do -- who she did and did not kill.

Mehalt shrugged. "It was well concealed." The wolf spoke in a low voice. "It was a mixture of different berries and herbs -- some of them I do not know the name of," she confessed. Mehalt hoped that she would not be questioned further about her kill. It was merely a test, the body to be left to the vultures. 

"It seems it worked well," she commented, praising herself for her mastery of the plants that were sprinkled across the desert. Of course, there was still more to learn about them -- but subjects were few and far between, precious lives hard to come across in the desert. And this woman already knew of her intentions, and Mehalt was not a master of trickery like she was of herbs.
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 Andraste listened, nodding thoughtfully, silently.

 It still pissed her off, this waste. A good meal - now poison to any who deemed to eat it. It sickened her and her eyes turned to the brown wolf, intensity rising in those berry-red irises. She wondered of her followers - were they waking? Would they rise and find the kill, thinking it a feast prepared for them? She pissed over the still warm corpse, marking it as defective. Even Scarecrow would not feed on a corpse that had been pissed on - she hoped. “A waste, if informative.” The world-eater, the god-eater, moved in slow, steady steps towards the woman.

 The sand shifted slightly under her paws as she walked, claws taking her now to sandstone where it drifted up towards the Lids - the stony outcrops - of the Eye.

 “For you see, you've destroyed a potential meal for my Children and I,” Her head tilted slightly as she spoke, from one side to the other, as she moved steadily towards the woman. “Wolf flesh is hard to come by in the desert and now that is poison.” She gave a smile that contrasted vibrantly against her dark words.

 “Had one of mine succumbed to your poison - even second hand - there would be hell to pay.” Her eyes moved to the side, as if to look back, but then returned, half lidded, to the woman before her. “What's your name, alchemist?”

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Mehalt did not understand the waste she spoke of, for it was a fruitful experiment that had told her many things. How long it took the poison to work, if at all, and how strong it was. Mehalt, however, did not have the patience to argue the point with a stranger.

Yet, the next words made her understand better. A meal.

Cannibals.

Mehalt had heard stories of wolf-eaters as a child, canines who ate their own kind. It drew her morbid curiosity, though she had never... partaken. 

That wasn't to say that she wouldn't ever try it, twisted being that she was. 

Mehalt looked to her victim and then back to the woman that stood before her, lowering her head slightly -- humbled, perhaps, by her mistake. "Lucky that it wasn't one of your Children, then," she said.

The chocolate wolf looked to her prey again and then back to the pale wolf before her. She asked for her name, and Mehalt obliged. "Mehalt," she introduced herself, lowering her tail. "I will move to other territories to ... hunt, I suppose, if you tell me one thing -- why is it that you eat the flesh of your own kind?" she asked, genuine curiosity fueling her words.
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 The white witch observed this tall thing, watched as her reaction to the knowledge of their feast tilted onto her face with her humility. Andraste's lips peeled in a slight smile. Lucky indeed.

 “Mehalt, why don't you stay for supper?” she mused, “You may see how we devour - for it is to consume both the strength of our foes and the sins they have committed. We defied death, so Death gave us a domain and a charge in this land.” A domain to do what they would, wherever they would. To become strong.

 To destroy the sinners who so offended them.

 She wondered if this brown woman would have joined that pack of deer fuckers if she had the chance. A poisoner in their enemy's hands? No, that wouldn't do. “We could always use someone with your... talents in our Family.” Her eyes glanced to the corpse, now deadly. “So long as you dispose of your waste securely.”

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Blackened lips peeled back into a smile. 

The pale wolf seemed powerful enough that Mehalt would have no quarrel with joining her Family, as Andraste had called it. The herbalist tipped her head to the pale one. "I will stay," she agreed, venom eyes trained on her. For a moment, they flickered to the body that still lingered nearby. 

"Your family seems like a worthy cause," Mehalt said, looking back to Andraste. "I will use other hunting grounds, if that suits you better. The desert will be yours and your Family's," the woman offered, hoping that such an agreement would be suitable to her.

Mehalt was flattered, slightly -- for her poisons to be referred to as a talent appealed to her self-involvement. She would more than willingly follow Andraste now.
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 Andraste smiled in return, watching as those venom eyes turned to the poisoned lump across the sand. “Then you shall be part of my Family, one of my Children. The whole world is our hunting grounds,” she said, smile twisting into a grin and eyes flashing with excitement.

 Ah yes, the world would be theirs.

 “I will love to see more of your skill in action,” she said.

---

We could end it hereish? Sorry it's so short

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