this is not the time, the time to sign a lease

Black sand underfoot.

The impression left of paw prints trailed.

Gnarled, twisted, sea-beaten trees bent and bowed. Branches barren and bare. Dark angry pieces of driftwood washed ashore. The waves lapping and crashing. Foaming, frothing. White against dark grey.

Sea birds circled overhead.

Sparse and few in between.

---

“Moon-eyes!” He barked, at her, over the crashing and colliding of waves.

His paws and legs dark, wet, and damp.

Black sand clung to his lower legs.

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Something about this beach resounded with her, but not in a way that the Winterheart Forest did. Unnerving to say, something that settled her off. The way the sands were but a gray black, and the daunting way the birds cawed.. She could feel her spine shiver lightly, fur rising at the very step. The sea-breeze being inhaled, and the familiar sound of another. Although this place brought an unease, it was also the same place she met the Sandman.

A wolf who held no name, but she noticed a change as she smiled and moved toward. Her nose lowering lightly, a sniffing, "you have joined a pack?" she raised her head in surprise, blinking at him. He did not seem like a man who would join one so easily, especially as he still yet to even give a name — and she couldn't help but wonder, what made this happen?

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‘You have joined a pack?'

He huffed.

Annoyed.

Inpatient.

His ears matted back against his head.

“No.”

Why the fuck would she care about that?

He shook himself dry. Salt, sea water, and sand. His fur cold, dark, damp, and wet.

He bared his teeth. His wet hackles sticking to his back.

“The fuck are you doing.”

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She looked at him in light confusion, as she was sure his pelt vaguely smelled like another.. But as Miriam took a look around, there was no one besides the two, and no pack. She did not recognize the smell, it was not someone from the Elkshire land she knew, or the Nightwalker pungent musk. Ah, but he smelled so much like salt it was harder to determine anymore, and Miriam only cocked her head lightly.

She was used to his strange, stoicism, and lukewarm responses. Aggression was lightly new, but not something she was taking personally, "Something drew me here.. It's eerie, is it not?" Miriam said as she bent down and looked at the black sands that simmered through her toes.

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‘It's eerie, is it not?’

He huffed.

His right ear drawn back against his head.

It was the fucking beach. The fucking ocean itself or the fucking black sand was what probably drew her there, or probably one of the fucked up dark trees. Fuck, her own four fucking paws brought her there, the same as fucking him.

It wasn’t that special, or deep.

It was the fucking beach.

“Whatever.” He huffed, again.

He shook himself, and snapped at her front legs, biting the air.

 Clack!

  Clack!

   Clack!

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---

Oh, what a strange place.

But it was not the view that enticed her, what really brought her to the shores of volcanic ash was the wave of perfume from the girl she met in the forest not so long after she cascaded from the heavens -- Quite brutally. And she slithered closer when she spotted her with the man that would resemble the more aesthetically pleasing sands a little further north. 

She was close enough to hear the mutterings of a man unappealed by the grey doves' presence, and she saw how he bit toward the girl that had not provoked him. And this made Arius lurch forward, shoving herself between the two. 'You got a problem?'. The energy of warning hung in her words, but they were not loud to bear a threat - not yet anyway.

Icy blues stared judgementally at the devil reds, unwavering in a silent battle. 

---

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There was a light sweat within her paws, the minor wonder whether this was true aggression, but she saw no fur that ruffled, or but eyes that soaked in a blood-rage, and only a minor snapping. A chuckle, to lay it off as she backed up with a, "hey, that's not nice," there was a slight joke within her tone through her giggling, a hiding of what was a light wariness in the hope that it was truly just an imagination and guard — then but a betrayal.

Then in the distance hung another — she blended, with the raven rock. Her black fur entwining with the sands before, and the gold of what was a regular beach. It was like she owned this coast, for a blue eye would set like the sky itself — she was utterly the scene before that Miriam couldn't help but simply admire her beauty, as an eye looked back to the course sand as the waves swayed with her paws.. Before back at the other.

Star-struck, before shaking her head.

"He is a friend," Miriam would assure with a smile, that surely, there was no harm.

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‘Hey, that's not nice,’

He huffed.

Another open-and-shut clack of his teeth against open air. The beginning back and forth sway and wag of his tail against his hocks, until—

‘You got a problem?’

“Fuck off, sootie.”

It wasn’t fucking about her.

How about she went and fucking washed the shit dripping off the fucking ends of her fucking fur? She was black dipped in fucking brown, outlined and smeared and dripped around the edges.

The whole entire ocean was right fucking there for her to fucking drown herself in.

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---

She hadn't faltered in her cold stare to seek her cygnet's reassuring smile but heard the quiet plea in her words to encourage Arius to derail from her wrath. 
And she was about to relent, and persuade Miriam to depart with her, to leave the deranged blonde to his uncivilised behaviour. Until he snapped at her.

Displeased, the obsidian hairs running along her nape created a domino effect as one by a multitude did they rise as she did too to the bait and carrot he dangled in front of her.
She snorted at his choice of words, of the poorly conjured pet name. 'No', and she half-laughed in his face. Who did he think he was talking to?

'Baby, I think you can pick better friends'. She was yet to withdraw the dagger of her eyes from him, scrutinising his body language, scrutinising the way he had spoken to her dove prior. There was an edge to his mannerisms she did not trust, -- Labyrinthian or not.

---

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"The will of the Goddess is strange, how magic brings us together. Who am I, to deny such fates?" Although some would think her friendship with the sandman was strange.. It was nonetheless a bond that was formed by coincidences and the will of the heavens itself ; and Miriam was not such a wolf to deny the red strings that bonded them together, especially the one that kept enrapturing her to the night-queen of the other.

Then her nose twitched, the smell of something familiar as she looked at her, and back to Daighre, "you two are from the same pack?"

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'Baby, I think you can pick better friends.’

“Stay the fuck out of it, bitch.”

Who the fuck did she think she fucking was, her fucking keeper or owner or some other real fucked up, nasty, degrading, disgusting fucking shit? Fuck, Moon-eyes was fucking young, but she wasn’t that fucking young or that fucking stupid.

And even if she fucking was, he wasn’t going to let some fucking bitch like Shitsmear fuck her over. He wasn’t fucking evil.

His hackles bristled.

Moon-eyes spoke.

He ignored her.

“Fucking leave.”

He didn't give a fuck how far up the old man's ass she might have been or if they both hung off his fucking dick. She was being a fucking annoying bitch.

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---

Arius began to assume the worst, or rather he was already portraying a worst-case scenario. The blonde's body language evolved greater so into one of complete vexation, she being the instigator for it, but she didn't take to his persona before she intervened either. She rather hoped Miriam would see what the man was capable of, and had she not arrived, what may have boiled beneath his choice of game.

She was getting on his nerves and she fed from this. 

Stay the fuck out of it, bitch

Arius let a smile creep upon her lips, patronising him. And her tail reached over to stroke against Miriam's side, brushing her as if to soothe the woman everything would be okay, hoping to draw her in and keep her close. It was obvious what the obnoxious woman was doing, purposely taunting the blonde, but willing the soft kindred soul that was her cygnet to remain on her side and not his. 

At this point, Arius focussed entirely on the male now, Miriam's words but a whisper against the voice of his words.

Unaffected by his unaired threat, of his violent words, she shook her head slowly. 'Pass', her voice soothingly condescending.

---

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The intoxication of her was something that would draw any in a trance, feeling the way her tail brushed her leg and the way her smooth voice spoke ; contrasted though the anger of the other that had Miriam to snap out such a phrase, "please friends," she said, backing up sadly from the night mistress as a way to stance between them so. By the way the air tensioned, she would think a fight would even break out, but hoped not ; for their smells danced together so.

"Perhaps we should depart for the day, yes? The tides are growing." Miriam, young and innocent, did not know the proper way to break apart of this stalemate of aggression besides a returning, a departure from all within a cooling moment.

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"Whatever." He huffed.

Shitsmear could leave fucking first.

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---

Her cygnet became the barrier she didn't need. But nevertheless, Arius humoured them by not encouraging them to move, so as to remain in their good books. Her eyes were undeterred and still a magnet drawn to the flame of the deranged man's own. 
'You heard moon-eyes. Your lover may be missing you', a delicate cautionary lilt caressed the chocolatey smoothness of her voice. 

She'd seen them from afar, the cult's commander and the handsome blonde. She recognised the chemistry and charge between the two, but she often wondered if the blonde had a hidden agenda - and seeing him here with her Iris, she would ensure he didn't wrap her around their warped mentality either.

---

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He scowled.

“Me and the old man aren’t fucking shit.”

And even if they fucking were—and that was a massive fucking if—why the fuck would she even fucking care?

He wasn’t his fucking pet, and he wasn’t his fucking owner, or his fucking keeper, or any other fucked up, weird, nasty fucked up bullshit she had going on in her fucking mind.

He was the old man, and he was whatever the fuck he fucking wanted to be.

But maybe the stupid bitch was too fucking dumb and fucked up to be able to fucking understand that.

Fucking whatever.

“She told us all to fucking leave, shit-smear. Why don’t you fucking leave first if you’re so fucking worried about the old man and his fucking wellbeing.”

She could go fucking help him catch his fucking food and then fucking chew it and fucking regurgitate it back up for him or whatever other dumb fucking patronizing bullshit she thought he fucking needed or wanted.

Seriously, it was the fucking old man.

He didn't fucking need or want anything, why the fuck would he fucking miss any of them?

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She could feel her paws grow sweat and the warm behind her ears to the rising aggression, the black-tongued words of the night mistress and the aggression of the war devil was coming to bad terms, and Miriam was not adept enough to settle such a difeference, "y-" she stuttered, "yes, friends, let us depart.. As packmates, yes? We have many more times to meet again. Perhaps we can all have dinner on another night by an elk meal."

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---

Her eyes crackled and sparked with a secret smile. Me and the old man aren’t fucking shit, he had liberally told her. Enlightening her with ammo she could stow away in her barrel of manipulation. 

This guy was all words and hot air. Arius huffed humorously at him. 'I'll leave when Iris leads the way'. It was evident the viperess did not trust him. - The irony, considering no one could trust her.

Her suggestion was proded at Miriam and if they were to escort her and the shadow away.

---

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It seemed like it was on her paws, the way they stared each other down and the occasional glances at her, a rivalry that she didn't understand by the wish and desire they would get along. The motioning of one to leave first but neither wanted to, and it seemed now it was upon her to make the first move. She smiled at them both, paws going between the two as she started to move toward the inner temperate, hoping that maybe they would either follow, or start their separate ways. She looked back, flashing a smile in almost, 'please cease so,' with a begging of eyes.

Maybe this way they could end at a somewhat.. Okay note, before it what resulted into a brawl. Miriam could imagine it..

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Moon-eyes led the way.

He bared his teeth at fucking Shitsmear behind her back when he passed her.

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