Nobody knew and nobody knows

Day 4 of Heat

---

[narrow width=700]

 So. Her home was not the only stretch that had strange ruins, bricks impossible to form by the work of nature alone.

 This place had to be created by the same strange aliens as those that produced her home in the desert. She trailed about the buildings, claws clicking dangerously upon aged stone as the blood of her haul smeared behind her. He had been a pitiful attempt of a man, a wiry boy who had thought that her scent made her an easy target, despite her clearly superior height and weight.

 Her kill had been in the woods beyond but she had been too curious, the distant shapes of the architecture calling to her more strongly than even her hunger.

 She slowed to drop the body, licking her lips. Here, in the lengthening shadows, she could rest and finally make a meal out of him, where no creature could sneak up behind her. She took a moment to gaze across the land from where she nestled among the roots of a massive tree that curled about the building - and then dove into her meal, tearing into the once-man with vigor.

[/narrow]
the staff team luvs u

"Tender and sweet, or bitter and taunt?" his baritones poured themselves from a hellish grave in the absence of easy angles. He had watched her take a stroll about his home once he had returned from his own hunt, keeping to his own perch above the ruins on the ledge of root-bloom. The overcast had aided his stealth, humidity stopping sound from traveling as viciously, and softening his steps. Now, he watched her as she enjoyed herself in he and his Sons domain. It was unclaimed yet, but his scent rang well about. Surely she noticed the cologne as she roved about inside the ruins.

"Welcome. Enjoy yourself." He lie himself on the brim of the stalked roots, heaving forth a hunk of red from somewhere on the left of him. He wouldn't mind eating with her. A lovely dinner date with his random guest. "How was the hunt?" His hellish orbs glinted to her scarlets before his jaws latched to the thigh meat he had drug to waiting forelimbs. A gurgling rip tore the meat into a thick strand of sweet and savory goodness he readily scissored off with diligent molars. This was an elk who'd lickily perished in some weird accident not too long ago, but it was fresh, and he was hungry and thus he ate. @Makaro had had brought it to his attention, and stayed behind to butcher it. Peering at the meal she had, he couldn't discern who or where her kill had come from, but judging by her size, she would easily take on all of his members, him being an exception. Makaro had a range of lethality to him however, and he paired well with his athleticism. Fatally well. @Goliath was just a small thing, and would be inhaled by this woman. @Anton was no different. @Wren was a small and dainty thing, who's best weapon was her mouth. He was the only lupine here able to match this woman's heft with ease.
the staff team luvs u

[narrow width=700]

 Her tongue draped over her lips and teeth, cleaning away the boy's blood as a voice rang out, baritones rolling over her ears like a warm wash cloth. She smiled, eyes tracing the silhouette as her head tilted in curiosity of this delightfully savage looking man who approached.

 “Tender and sweet,” she mused aloud in answer, “Join me?”

 He seemed comfortable here and she recognized the scent billowing off of him as the one that permeated through here. Ah, so she had invaded his home? Too bad. At least this one didn't seem so disinterested in sharing as the man of the mist whose foul odor she avoided like the plague. “Too easy, he offered himself on a platter. Walked right up to me,” her eyes danced as she chuckled, then tore another piece from her prey, consuming it with a quick swallow. “Who do I have the pleasure of eating with, good sir?”

 She spoke and moved languidly, unafraid of this man who could do so much damage to her if he wished. Her heat gave her confidence, the warmth of her prey, energy. This man before her? Oh, he was handsome as well. Not nearly as brutally gorgeous as Caligula, but far more her taste than the pitiful man from Elkshire she had seduced and tormented with ease.

[/narrow]
the staff team luvs u

"Too easy-" she had remarked, narrating how the fool had merely walked right up to her. Formerly, she had offered him a place to join her in her meal, her glittering garnets offering a teasing wave to the spot just before her. "I will not make that same mistake, then. After all, surely there is some bite left in you, yet." He gave her a cheeky wink, while his ivories gripped the leg, laying the meat right over his forelimbs for him to invest in. "I am Slade," the rumble slid to the ivory warrior. "And the dame I humbly dine with is named...?" His gentlemanly tones inquired.

The wind's next shift allotted the words of the woman to float up easier, along with the carry of her own happenstance. The only giveaway he had been unable to restrict was a raised brow, almost imperceptible on such a dark sculpted face. No wonder she roamed. She was feeling those familiar urges. And no wonder why the poor fellow she had snatched up walked so dumbly to her. Nodding to her meal, he offered a chuckle with his words. He even leaned forward over his cliff a bit, his little gossipy move something out of character to any who knew him. "The fucksnack tried to cassanova you, hm?"
the staff team luvs u

[narrow width=700]

 Andraste laughed at that, truly amused. It was probably a good thing that he kept his distance, allowing her her space when she had so clearly made her taste apparent. She pondered his, whether he too enjoyed the taste of their own flesh. Hm, probably not - she supposed the number of those were few and far in between.

 This area had a clear stench to it, one she had ignored as it was not that of the man of the mist nor of the deer fuckers. She supposed this was his spot, as casually as he lounged atop the strange stone. “They call me Andraste, currently.” That had not always been the case. Once, she had been Fen. Then, Faustina - a Saint to a god who vanished and left his domain wanting. She had been soft then, too soft.

 Her own desires had twisted that softness from her.

 Upon his face was a slight shift and he chuckled, indicating to the meal she was happily partaking in. “Yes, and a shame. He probably could have seduced some poor girl and had a proper fucksnack family,” she mused aloud, sounding almost sorry about it - though it was clear from her words and the way she turned to tear some meat from his soft throat that she truly wasn't. Her tongue drew across her face. She was still sore from her, ah, roamings two days prior and would have needed a much more powerful man to entice her enough to ignore it.

 She wondered of this one, though her meal was far more interesting than some wolf's dick. Perhaps he could be of use as entertainment, in the meantime.

 “Lovely to meet you, Slade - in your domain, I assume?” No apology - no desire to do so. “Hopefully not a friend of yours.” If he was, she was certain the man would have had a different reaction to her languid consumption.

[/narrow]
the staff team luvs u

Auds caught her name, watching flirt of lip over lip with the roll of her garnet tongue. It was a seemingly long name, and he mused over whether there was a reason for it, as she had so unsuspectingly added the 'currently' half of it. Rather than asking if she changed it with every guy she inhaled, he crafted it differently, leading to a two way sophistication of words, rather than bluntly addressing it. "Oh? Then it means something special?" his baritones bumped the space between them almost innocently. He followed it with "How did you acquire such a name?", interest harboring the hellish pyres of his eyes.

Another pause in their conversation as she took her time to reply, regarding the shredded soul in between her crimson stained limbs. As she had talked, he had been eating, but her phony care for the meal she was clearly enjoying forced a nasty snort from Slade as he had dived back into his own meal, visually spraying blood and probably snot all over the dinner. He snickered her way, her sarcasm blending well with his own. "More the merry to eat, my dear," he replied to her on the subject with a wink.

Pulling his teeth out of his lunch and snapping back another few pieces, she had asked if she had wandered into his domain. Tendon strings waggling from his teeth, he thoughtfully replied "Not yet. We are aiming to get official once we figure out whatever the shit we're on, then we'll go about claiming it. So far, no one's told me to stop pissing here, so until someone can make me, we've settled here." a roll of shoulder paired well with a cant of his massive crown, lack of empathy for anyone who'd try to stop him being what would show Andraste he wasn't an elk-only fellow. Pointedly she had chewed on some trachea with false hope that whoever she gnawed on wasn't an accomplice of his own. Before he went back to the leg, he'd laugh a clip before putting her ease. "My own are not that foolish, nor horny." Slade knew Makaro had learned well enough from him that love was a senseless pursuit. The youth had absorbed everything from him, and as a factor of his own intellect, acted on no urges. There was no love in that boys heart, and lust was something the Son was able to ignore. Slade had never been more proud of any of his prodigies, other than Cry, once upon a time. "And if they are," he decided to quell the possibility with the slam of the executioner's axe.

"Then they deserved to die."
the staff team luvs u

[narrow width=700]

 She smiled sweetly. “I was given it from a beast of both wolf and boar as I flew from the hellion's domain, shedding my old and taking on the new.” She recalled the beast, his pity for her. Watching as she birthed two innocent little freaks to that coward who had taken them there to be enslaved. What was the boar's name... Ravicae? Perhaps. She knew him as Warden.

 No such beasts had she seen here and she wondered if they had gone extinct.

 “Ah, I should have waited!” she said with a laugh, “I wonder how tender they might be.” Had she ever eaten a pup? Her insane husband of years past had devoured their secondborn, she assumed, so long ago she couldn't recall the tiny thing's face. Would she have any moral objections? Well, no. Would this man?

 Her eyes peeled up towards him and she pondered him as he continued, speaking of his claim, not yet made but in the future. “What will you call yourselves?” she asked before taking another bite, ripping a chord of tendon from its bone and, with it, the muscle it was attached to. “You and your followers who are neither foolish nor horny?” Her lips curled into a laugh, wondering if he were to only accept the castrated or those born without the desire. Her wondering was not deep, only surface level in that she put no further energy into it.

 Still, the man had a delightfully savage air that she wondered about.

[/narrow]
the staff team luvs u

His surprise was a swift reminder to him that even he hadn't heard every tale in the world. Volcanic golds rose into a wider spectrum as she tossed her brief explanation to him. An interested 'ehmmm' heavily crossed their dead-man zone, and he thought to spend more time with her on the subject should she desire. "That is a story I'd love to hear." Why even was a boar involved. It was very perplexing, and the Nightmare King loved knowledge. To learn, whether it be about foolish allies, or keen enemies.

He almost resumed his meal, but waited as she had exclaimed her coy dismay. Smart move, as she had ripped another laugh out of him. "Time waits for none; you have plenty of seconds to choose from, dear." Other's had made families abroad, going above and beyond with their lineages and roots. Andraste would have her fill, should she know who and where and when. Fuck a why. How was flexible. He might even join in on the 'how' should he be so inclined. He hadn't had fun in a while, after all.

"As we had been years past, we shall be again. The Nightmares will return and settle at this place, and make friends." He winked at her, already pointing out he was doing a good job at it, so far. The distance helped a lot. Before returning back to the other half of leg, he threw a ponder her way. "Surely a lovely maiden like yourself is not not alone in such severe and barbarianistic lands - Who backs you?" His question was much more curious than how innocent she sounded. If she screamed, would any come to her aid? Her being so large, there was no way she was lonely.
the staff team luvs u

[narrow width=700]

 Ah, he wished to hear the tale she weaved? She smiled through bloodied maw up at the man. “In the lands of my youth, monsters - hellhounds - roamed. Their blood held close to wolvenkind yet their bodies twisted and morphed.” She should know, she had borne young of hellion blood with a man she watched die. No remorse had come from her heart, even as he suffocated on his own blood before her very eyes. “The hellhounds held me captive upon their great stone. Tied and bound, they stripped from me my name and my innocence.” No, they had not done what he might consider first. Yet, she had entered the lands of hell with hope, optimism in her heart.

 She had left it only bitter.

 Reborn.

 “My warden, a beast who looked more boar than wolf, his savage tusks and bleeding eyes - he broke my bonds and sent me free to fly. He granted me my name, even as I burst forth and was born anew.” Perhaps, if she had never gone to the hellions, she would have been happier. More... docile? She would have stayed with her husband, the wretched man, and at least she would have been loved.

 Instead, she had followed the whims of her loins and had been broken, taped together in a new form with no gold to hold those bonds.

 Her story complete, she consumed more of her prey as he spoke of his people - the Nightmares. “My Children - those bonded by my own hand - back me. We are Sanatorium and we live in the west, where night grants us respite from the sun.”

 After all, what better place to create strong, resistant soldiers. The desert was a horrid place but those who could not survive it were simply weak, too weak to follow her call. Her tongue dragged over the bones of her meal. She was satisfied. “Perhaps my Children and those of yours shall meet again and shall be friends.”

[/narrow]
the staff team luvs u

gonna wrap this one up to make our future pretty <3

---

Her tale had brindled many more questions from the embers she'd evoked back from ash, yet his discipline remained. He merely nodded after her promise had been made, and glee threatened to broaden a smile that would have piked souls where they mourned. She was so perfect. 

"I will be expecting it." 

She had relieved herself nearby once her meal had been finished, signing her callback number across one of the gnarled roots of tree that hung from the many walls of this place, and kindly left a mess for the host to clean up after. He didn't mind.  They would be acquainted once more, real soon.
the staff team luvs u