try not to worry about what's being missed

Geese passed by overhead.

Migratory, seasonal, annual movement over the tops of trees, learned and then guided and repeated, generation after generation.

They called and they honked.

Loud, messy, boisterous sound and loud, messy, boisterous noise.

He drank from the river.

The water cold and moving and trinkling—chiming—downstream.

His ears pressed back against his head.

He rankled and he leered.

No longer alone.

“The fuck you want, freak.”

Water dripped down to his chest and his feet.

the staff team luvs u

 

She'd abandoned the mountains, fed up with the reminder of where she'd been puked up.

 

The royal regretted it not long after, finding the temperate location to be dank and wet and fucking shitty, stinking of whatever fucked up things thrived in mush and rot; wolf, bug, microscopic organisms, all alike. Darcella intended to turn back but not before seeking out some source of water to quench her thirst before the trek.

 

Unluckily for her, she found some bastard lapping up water and dribbling like a pup left too long in its dam's guts or whatever and now it had fucking maladies everyone else had to deal with.

 

"Did I ask a thing of you, cunt?" she said, ears slicked back against her skull, hackles uncomfortably raised. "Well? Gonna say more shit or are you gonna shove your head back in there so I don't have to fucking look at you?" With a scoff, she slunk away from him, same side of the river still just with a few feet between them, to lap at the water. "Fucking hell..."

---

the staff team luvs u

His ears matted and pressed back against the back of his head.

His head carried low.

“Fucking bitch.” He muttered, under his breath.

He slunk away.

---

He had better fucking shit to do than deal with a fucking raging bitch so early in the fucking morning, like shoving his cold muzzle and paws under the old man.

the staff team luvs u

 

To be blunt, she should've let him fuck off. It'd be away from her, after all. The situation, however, was complex to the mind of a royal rejected in a land where such things did not exist and whatever status she held in the past was trampled twice over; she still held herself like she deserved to lap gold from the lips of pretty little things and gorge herself on the prey those pretty little things caught and, fuck, some mutt wouldn't utter shit at her like she deserved it.

 

"Takes one to know one, fuck," she snapped, water dripping from her bottom jaw. Darcella shot up then, ears pinned back, lip raised and muzzle ridged. Obnoxiously, she cut him off. "Wow, your balls have dropped, would've surprised me. For a minute, I thought you were another pretty little sod playing hard to get." Hackles raised. Teeth bared. Leaving little to no room between them. It was almost like she wanted the taller wolf to make some violent move.

---

the staff team luvs u

He snarled.

Wordless, vocalized challenge.

His tail arched and curved over his back. His hackles stood on edge.

If the stupid fucking bitch wanted a fucking fight—

She could fucking start it, but he would fucking end it.

the staff team luvs u

"What, too much of a pussy to bite?" Darcella snapped close to him without touching, muzzle in a perpetually ridged curl, voice bound to be fucked by the hoarse growl rolling constantly. Her ears flicked up then back then up again, her forepaws shifting weight, then the hind paws, too, as if she couldn't decide if she was the aggressor or the to-be victim. Punctuating this, she whined, and snarled. Hackles like porcupine spines. "Do something!" This time, she barked in his face, obnoxious and grating. Fuck, fuck, fuck! He needed to do something, why wasn't he doing anything, too much of a pussy to bite and too cunt to shut the fuck up? "You're a little bitch."

Anything, anything, anything. Darcella was trying anything that got him to snap, to curl and lunge and hit her and he just... fucking stood there, a silent taunt as her chest rapped heavy breaths; the only one making a sound. It itched. It itched and he was being a fuck and a bitch and a—

—another whine, ruptured this time by a guttural snarl that proceeded her lunging for his neck, a flurry of agitation and rage and shitshitshit if he wouldn't hit her she'd give him a reason to! That fucking bitch couldn't even touch her without a forced hand, that fuck.

the staff team luvs u

She huffed, and panted, and whimpered, and whined, and otherwise made a lot of really fucking embarrassing—and fucking gross, and fucking annoying—sounds, and then she snarled, stumbled, and lunged, and…

Missed.

She missed.

He stepped back.

Space and distance between them.

His hackles rose.

He made a face

His upper lip curled and peeled.

His ears pinned back against his head.

“The fucks your fucking problem, bitch.”

the staff team luvs u

Darcella yelped at the miss, having sworn her teeth would kiss flesh and tear him down

Inexperience showing, her body thunked hard against the earth, tasting copper and spitting thick crimson, her fur dirty. She moved to her stomach and then paws, body bowed in a weird manner that insinuated accusation—as if he'd done this. He reacted. Fucking barely.

What was he doing? Taking some fucking moral high ground? That shitheel. that bastard.

She just needed him to react. To fucking hit her! Was that so fucking much to ask, little bitch. Her nostrils flared, she snap... then lunged again. No warning. No words. Just the desire to piss him off enough to bite, to snap, to do anything if it meant...

the staff team luvs u

Another attempt at fucking biting him.

Another step backwards away from the aforementioned crazy fucking biting and fucking missing bitch.

He bristled and he huffed.

His ears pressed back against his head.

“You’re fucking weird, and annoying.”

Seriously, shit was fucking pathetic.

"Fucking go and kill yourself, already."

the staff team luvs u

Again.

Again!

This time, at least, Darcella hit the earth with her paws and stayed upright, circling back around, head low, ears vanished against her head. She licked her lips, awkwardly stanced. "Go fucking kill yourself, there's the river! I'll fucking help you!" And it was with this that she abandoned her prior attack to slam right into his chest dead-on. Not caring if she went with him into the waters or if it could have been her alone.

the staff team luvs u

She lunged, again.

And this time—

This time, she hit her mark.

He reached and grabbed and snagged her fur. His muzzle and jaws and teeth clamped shut.

And together, they rolled and plunged into the river, backwards and forwards.

the staff team luvs u

They collided, she yelped and snarled and frothed as teeth clamped around the tender space between neck and shoulder, fierce and maddening—painful, tasting blood. Darcella, though, didn't fight once she felt teeth pierce her flesh; in fact, the surge of hurt brought a quiet to her mind, made her gasp.

Her heart seized.

Her eyes closed.

For two and a half seconds Darcella found in the violence a repose, lips twitching into the faintest ghost of a wolf relieved.

And then the pair hit the water.

the staff team luvs u

He splashed, struggled, and flailed.

The water only knee deep. The river fucking shallow and cold as fucking shit at its fucking edges. Dead and dying river grass lined its corners. Riverbed sediment kicked and rolled and disturbed. The water murky brown.

He emerged.

Panted.

Cold and wet and fucking waterlogged.

He tried to hold her down, scrambled, to get on top of her.

the staff team luvs u

Water engulfed them as one.

Then one became two as the freak fucking released his grip and lifted.

Stunned, sore, bleeding into the water... Darcella didn't try to resurface, mind a blur and thoughts swirling.

The weight which came to press her down didn't earn a struggle.

Eyes cut to slits, Darcella wheezed on water, saw the sunlight turning nasty the ugly sight of the freak's face in the water.

And yet... yet...

Nothing.

A relief. The tension in her head, the pressure in her chest promising to pop her lungs; it felt as familiar as some would consider gentle touch, something to soothe the frantic waves of her brain she couldn't argue against.

It wasn't like this mattered, anyway, did it? She'd died before. She still woke up.

This was her curse, probably, she'd always wake up.

the staff team luvs u

His front paws on her body. His body weight bearing and pressing down. His back paws placed on either side of her. Mud and sand and sediment and pebbles beneath his paw pads.

He panted.

He heaved.

His chest rising and falling with every breath.

Water dropped and rolled from his muzzle. Dribbled, from his wet and soaked fur.

The only sound beside his wheezing breath.

---

He got off her, when she finally seemed still.

the staff team luvs u

Sediment caught in her throat, her stomach curdled with the water spilling into it with every frantic swallow; her lungs done cruelly, water reaching them. He was a heavy motherfucker, where he placed his paws surely fucked her organs, turning them into patties that'd kill her before the water did.

When the darkness began to encroach in the corners of her vision, Darcella anticipated some vanishing...

...and only saw him, moving away.

It took every shred of strength she harbored to fight against the desire to lay there, float, succumb.

Her only saving grace was the flush of water that shoved at her, goading her, and like a shark from the water she burst. Gasping, water spraying. Hunched over and heaving, she sensed the water sloshing around inside of her was moment from emerging. That bitch. He should've just hit her, they wouldn't be here right now.

the staff team luvs u

A second of loud silence.

And then another.

Interrupted, by when she emerged, sputtering and splashing and coughing from below the water’s surface.

---

He kept fucking walking.

the staff team luvs u

Darcella hauled herself to the river bank, cussing and dripping and sopping herself onto the dirt as the prick waltzed in the other direction. "Keep... Keep walking you piece of shit!" she hollered, half-heartedly, tired and ragged and still trying to surge up to no avail—just to get one last bite in. "You better hope you don't see me again!"

With a shake of her body... fuck him!

the staff team luvs u