oh baby, you're so classic

Ravaryn awoke early for this trip. She knew it would take time with her damaged leg, but she needed to find something to help it. Something soothing. Plus, she hadn't passed the Nightwalkers borders for so long...surely she would be allowed to now. 

Ryn hobbled to the Nightwalkers borders, pausing - though not checking if she was being stalked, she wouldn't detect them anyway - then passing into the open landscape. Heat beat down on her back while the long grass swallowed her, bugs flying away from her as gophers chirped to one another, not having yet clocked her. She'd hunt if she could, but for now, exploring was good enough. 

Ryn didn't wander too far, just enough to feel like it really was just her and the local wildlife. She needed to not feel the trees bending in to scratch at her face and trip her to stop her from leaving. She slumped down, laying on her back and closing her eyes.
She felt like screaming, but no sound left her. Barely even a sigh.
She couldn't leave. She didn't...want to. Even after all Vengeance has done to her, she wouldn't just run. Maybe some deep part of her wanted revenge for what he's been doing, keeping her captive. But perhaps, she liked him. She enjoyed his company, but perhaps that was because he was the only company she got. 
No, he was better than that. 
Better than just her captive.

Ravaryn lay in the grass for a long, long time.
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The man had been out wandering, something that he did quite often when he wanted to relax or think in silence. This time though, the scent of another caught his attention. Moving closer, he spotted the woman, watching her silently from a distance. One might think he was a creep, or a psychopath but in reality, he was probably both. 

It wasn't like he was entirely try to hid himself, he was simply standing there, but he also wasn't outwardly telling anyone he was there either. So, instead he just stood there in the shadows of the trees, watching her to see what the woman would do.

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Ryn was an oblivious creature by nature. Sure, when the details were important, she could remember them. But picking them up in the first place? She was useless. The gophers stopped their usual chirps, some of them alerting to the presence of two wolves. The new scent on the wind. The pickling feeling of being watched never touched the young woman's skin.

Instead, after a long time in deep respite, Ryn rolled onto her front, softly panting from the day's heat. She blinked slowly, adjusting to the escaping brightness of the day. Soon it would be cool and dim, and she'd be able to return to the Reach. She felt at peace now, she felt as if she could be the wolf she was always meant to be, not the one Vengeance wanted to see. Though...those lines were becoming quite blurred. 

The Raven stood, pollen clinging to her fur, and she started off hobbling again - inadvertently away from her watcher - to investigate what these lands had to offer. She still had to find something to heal her leg. She passed shrubs of names she'd likely never know, and small, rough rocks of white and black. In the distance, the ground rose towards the sky, reaching fingers towards the sun and casting long shadows towards her woodlands. She's like to explore them one day; when she was better, of course. 
And still, she did not even glance in her watcher's direction. Perhaps it was fate not to, perhaps it was sheer luck for him. Maybe, her being so incompetent was not in his plans at all.
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The man watched her for a moment, quite shocked to see that she didn't even notice that he was there. Perhaps he could have a bit of fun with this. Of course, she was a wolf so he had no intentions on harming her, but scaring her a little might knock some sense into her. After all, who walks around like that with no idea what's going on around her? 

As she walked, he would move quietly, quickly found a mouse to kill, one that had been just as ignorant as the woman he was following. Silently, he ran forward, trying to get to where he was in front of her and waited. Lowering himself to the ground, he waited until she was moments from walking past before he threw the mouse out into the ground in front of her, quickly backing into the shadows.

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She walked aimlessly. Often stopping to sniff patches of scent left by other wolves and prey. One she didn't recognise at all, but something deep within her told her that she would not want to meet the creature that made that scent. She looked to the sky, watching a small flock of squawking, aquatic birds pass by. 
A soft mist was starting to envelop her, and she was considering turning away from these lands of dried shrubs and eldritch vegetation. Then a small object flew before her. Bloodied, the dead mouse lay a few paces from her. She started at it for a few moments, then looked up. Surely a bird dropped it. She searched the sky, completely exposing herself.

But there was no bird, and she realised this rather too late.
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The man watched her with an amused expression, noticing how she looked up as the mouse was tossed on her, landing perfectly in front of her. If he wasn't trying to stalk the woman, he might have chuckled at all of this. Instead though, he would tense his legs, getting ready as she looked up. With a simple push off of the ground, he would pounce towards her, aiming to use his own body to slam hers into the ground, jaws open in an attempt to wrap around her neck. He wasn't aiming to kill her, simply to pin her down, using his fangs to warn her. 

If he was able to succeed in his attack, he would hold her there until she stopped fighting, not saying a word and not doing anything but that. She was interesting to him and he wanted to claim her, though he had a feeling that, because of the pack scent that he caught on her, doing so wouldn't be so easy. Instead, he wanted to toy with her for now, something that he found quite fun to do. 

For the most part, he enjoyed toying with mice and rabbits, but today, he wanted to try his cruel games with another of his kind, just to see what happened. It wasn't his fault that she made herself a perfect target.

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The fast movement startled her, eyes widening with fear as the man leapt for her. She tried to scramble away, but pushing weight on her mauled hind leg did her no favours, though, and started falling before his jaws even clasped around her neck.
The raven screeched. Maybe someone would hear. Save her. Unlikely.

She thrashed, yelping and struggling. She didn't know how to fight so she didn't know to try kicking him, or try laying still and calculating. No, her body screamed rurunrun.
Teeth pressed into her neck though, and she slowed her movements. She didn't want to die like a silly rabbit, she'd die staring her killer in the eye so she may find him in the next life. If there was such a thing.
His smell enveloped her nose. Herby and uplifting, which surprised her. She knew she reeked like Vengeance; dead and stale whatever mingled with natural hormones. He was the only wolf she'd spent time with, or allowed to see until recently. 
Then she started thinking - did this man know she was Nightwalker? Did he know she was Boss' play thing? Unlikely...but maybe he had something against her pack, she was told there were some who would be like that. 

Ravaryn growled low, lips wrinkling. Her heart thundered like it would break her chest. She wasn't ready to die, not for the Nightwalkers, but she might.
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The man smiled to himself as his fangs wrapped around her neck, pinning her body to the ground beneath him. She was making this way too easy, to the point where Mel actually wondered for a moment if she was really a wolf. No self respecting wolf should be this weak. 

It wasn't until she stopped wiggling around that he would release her, pulling away only to stare down at her. "I never knew a wolf could be this pathetic." He spoke low, his voice deep but smooth, almost breathy in how he spoke. It seemed like he was more so talking to himself rather than her. 

However, he just stared down at her, waiting to see what she would do. This was all a game to him, a trial for her.

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Ryn's chest rose and fell in panicked heaves. Every gasp was an effort against the coil of fear that clogged her throat. 
A bug flew across the sky above her attacker's head. Funny how you notice everything even when your focus is on one place.

She could feel his teeth were gone. His words thudded into the ground around her, like the stakes of a pyre. Her pyre. She'd die here she was sure of it. Either by his teeth or because her heart exploded. Being caught by the Nightwalkers was different; she knew what was happening.
No retort could be formulated, there was too much blood rushing in her head and not enough oxygen.

Ravaryn looked at the man for a long moment, unmoving save for her sides. She pushed up, mangled leg forgotten in the adrenaline haze, and she pushed off towards home, tail tucked, ears back. She tried to move as fast as possible, pushing up and sprinting. 

Home jarred through her thoughts. It was a prison she realised she could now never leave. Even if she were allowed to.
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He watched her with curiosity and something else that he couldn't really place. It intrigued him how she scrambled to get away from him, something he saw mice and voles do all the time. But this was supposed to be a wolf, a superior creature to others. How could one of his own kind cower and run like that? It confused him more than it probably should. 

Nonetheless, he watched her leave, cocking his head to the side slightly. With a long sniff of the air, he caught her scent, something that he made sure to lock away in his mind for later. He could tell she was from a pack, but he could also catch her own scent, one that he wasn't going to forget any time soon. 

Watching her run made him chuckle slightly before he turned to leave. He had made plans to go meet the pack that she was from, to learn more about them and, in exchange, learn about her as well.

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Ryn ran until her legs burnt and her lungs were a living inferno. She ran until the woods swallowed her again, closing their spindly fingers around her. She didn't stop until she'd tucked herself away in her small hole, heaving for breath as pain blinded the rest of her senses. 
It wasn't long until she rose again to heave her stomach out. 

Blood dripped from her leg. The sprint had opened the healing mutilation again. The bones would never be right in it again.
Ravaryn crawled back inside and slept for a long, long time.
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