I'll have the knife in my teeth

The impossible had become possible. 

Clay traced the scent back to its source, and now he stood bare before the reach, a mere ant shrunken before the glaring darkness of the Blackwood. Before him, his past stood. There was no denying it. It was in the flesh before him, bare and righteous. The stench was glaring and blinded him, and though it was repulsive, Clay could not bring himself to react. He simply stared into the barren shadows of the woodland, gawking as if he'd just seen a ghost. 

There was no explanation for it, at least, not one Clay could grasp physically. Mentally, he struggled even there. A fish out of water, tossed from his element. He knew not what compelled him to sink his paw into the mushy soil and cross into the border, to trail further into the dense woods; he only did. Possessed by something dark, impulsive, and destructive. His heart had been darkened at the surface and now Clay's pretty green eyes had hardened with a callousness becoming of him. 

He spoke into the darkness, teeth gritting. “I know you're out there.” He bit his tongue hard enough it drew blood, furious with the way his voice wavered with pup-like fear. Even now, Vengeance elicited such a pathetic reaction from him. Even when he tried to be strong, he could not be. 

@Vengeance

 

the staff team luvs u

A familiar scent drew him from the heart of the woods and into the outskirts. Where his scent was weakest but still strong for anyone to know that this place was his kingdom, and he, their Emperor sitting on a throne of bones and rotting flesh. A ghost from his past come to greet him wandered into the mist.

A pup he had once taken in. A pathetic thing that managed to escape him.

With a slow saunter he stalked after the scent. They were drawn to one another. Like opposite ends of a magnet. Vengeance didn't have to rush - and the boy's voice called out to him, assuring him that the assumption was true.

He didn't respond.

Silence followed after the young boy, now a man, called out to the bogeyman. He only grinned. Yellowed and tattered teeth, worn from use glimmered in the miasma that was the Blackwoods.

In time he was circling the grey ghost. Two specters that haunted one another from a life prior to this. He remained silent still for now. A distant elk bellowed its haunting call that echoed through the bare trees. “The boy has returned to the wasp nest.” Baritones slipped the thick, stained and scared lips of his. Deep, smooth and only audible for Clay as he continued to move. Using the trees and mist as cover even if he was certain his thundering paws with his healthy, fat weight crunching the leaves and twigs beneath him easily giving away his position. Only a shadow looming beyond the line of sight.

This was his haunt.

---

Stalker skill

the staff team luvs u

Clay despised him. He could not put into words just how much he loathed Vengeance; it was a hate that was physical, one that choked him, and threatened to burn him until he was nothing but ashes. It hadn't been long before the bogeyman descended upon him, crawling from the depths of his hellwoods, and the wolf fought to maintain his composure. He fought harshly against his instincts to tuck tail and run. 

Clay had aged but he still felt as if he were that insecure boy fighting against chains of cruelty. 

“How are we here?” He couldn't see him and so Clay spoke mindlessly into the darkness of the Blackwood. He anchored himself to the ground beneath him, squinting through the rain that poured from the skies above. It drenched him, glistening in long trails across his coat, a teary embrace that caused him to shake softly. He didn't know if it was from fear or cold. “W-where are we?” He wanted so badly to utter his next question, and yet couldn't, fearing the answer he might get. Is Valour here?

He grew increasingly frustrated with Vengeance's games and he couldn't choke down the snarl that ripped itself free of his chest, green eyes blazing as they whipped around the trees, frantically searching for the dark wolf. “Stop fucking around and come out!” His teeth snapped, echoing through the trees and sending birds flying from their shelter within the branches. 

warrior

---

the staff team luvs u

“How are we here?”

No answer.

“W-where are we?”

The deafening silence grew.

Even if Vengeance did have the answered for these, he wouldn't share it with anyone, let alone with Clay.

The silence continued, only the crackling of leaves cutting through every once in a while as he moved. Shoulders rolling under thick flesh as he stalked around the Easthollowian.

He observed him. Studied the boy posing as a man. A moment longer with silence before a chuckle oozed from his chest. Deep. Booming. Low like distant thunder. “Those scars.” A pause longer than necessary. Purposely letting the words linger. “You wear my mark well.” A cacophony of snickering rodents laughed with him from within the branches and roots they hid themselves in. Their eyes reflecting the dim light like wretched fireflies.

the staff team luvs u

The bastard didn't even have the decency to respond to Clay, to give him the answers that he desperately searched for, the ones he needed. He fell further and further into self inflicted insanity; he felt as if he was a boy trapped in a cage of manhood, desperately rattling the bars of his prison, shouting and begging to be freed. Clay could've fallen right there to his haunches in defeat, allowing the rain to wash away his tears of defeat. 

Those scars. 

Clay's blood ran cold, washing through him like a roaring river. Suddenly, all he could hear was the rush of his own blood within his ears and the sudden frantic thumping of his heart within his chest. It tore at his ribcage, a frantic bird bashing itself against its cage, terrified and eager to escape. Clay's head hesitantly turned over his muscled shoulder, his emerald eyes dulled by dark emotion washing over his back end. He traced the thick edges of the dark scars that ran like grooves across his back legs and underbelly. 

You wear my mark well. 

He saw shadows flickering like visions across his mind, his eyes widening in realization. He saw the gnashing of Vengeance's yellowed teeth and he heard his cries of agony, his begging for the predator to leave him be, to let him go. He had been used for his carnal pleasure and his sick, twisted desires -- left battered and bruised, bleeding and dying. And what was worse? They laughed at him; him and his minions who were just as sick and twisted as he, laughed at Clay's suffering. The wolf heaved and his lips curled backwards into a thick, low growl that pulled itself from behind the clenched cage of his bared bridgework. 

“You...” Tears of rage welled up in his eyes, hidden by the rain that streaked down his pretty face. He inhaled the cool autumn air and exhaled nothing but anger and betrayal, turning his seething face onto the boogeyman who'd finally revealed himself. “sick... fuck!” The word came out in a gurgled cry as the wolf jumped forwards, raising a muscled foreleg to slap Vengeance across his thick face, his own jaws agape and looking to find hold somewhere, anywhere, on Vengeance's meaty frame. 

the staff team luvs u

Words.

That was all he needed now. The damage so deep in the young man's psyche that it was all it needed to snap that frail cloth of his.

The Bogeyman watched his work at play from the shadows of the trees, the mist shrouding his presence but the tapetum of his eyes reflecting the dim light behind pupils in a feral stare. The chorus of rodents only seemingly louder now with the boy's reaction, and a proud Vengeance soaked in the mockery and pain he had caused. His best work.

His masterpiece. Come home to finish the song and dance they had begun a lifetime ago.

In moments his beautiful, artful experiment lunged. First with a paw that slashed against his cheek, opening thick, leathery skin beneath the greying and small bald patches on his face from scars. But just like a crocodilian, within a flash he had snapped at the limp that was offered so kindly. While his shoulder and torso took the brunt of teeth, Vengeance had his golden ticket tightly gripped in his jaws. Held in the yellow vicegrip of his teeth while the visciously shook his front half left and right, planting his hind legs into the sodden soil with claws securing his place.

The motion was loose. Aimed to tear limb from socket if allowed to continue t'ill completion.

the staff team luvs u

Everything blurred into one; the gnashing of teeth, the raucous and grating sound of abashed snarling, the thud of body upon body. Clay heard nothing but the thump of his heart pumping blood through his veins, the roar of his adrenaline secreting into every inch of his agile frame. Against the odds of the murderous titan before him, Clay was a mad man for thinking he stood a scrap of a chance. But there was no rationalizing behind the blind rage that consumed him wholly, swathing his mind in a nuclear insanity. 

“Haven't you taken enough from me?!” A cry of blooming rage and sorrow. Vengeance was the Bogeyman who walked the paths of Clay's nightmares, the maker of all that he loathed and longed to crush. He hated him, oh, how he hated him. His loathing consumed him and drenched him in its bitter malice, fueling him, spurring him onwards in the assault he launched on the crooked tyrant. 

A teeth-snapping whine jerked itself free of Clay's throat whenever Vengeance's jaws crunched down around his arm, his infectious incisors slicing through skin and flesh, threatening to scrape against his bone and dig into his marrow. But just as he clamped his jaws around his foreleg, Clay's teeth found gold against the brute's meaty shoulder, canines burrowing through his thick, matted fur. He nearly wretched in response to the fumes that immediately wafted up his nose, ears flicking wildly at the flies that attacked his ears, attempting to lay claim to him. A sound of violence gurgled in the gray man's throat, a rolling thunderstorm brought forth from the baritones of his chest. 

He couldn't ignore the shooting pain that rioted up his leg, though, and Clay was forced to relinquish his grip upon Vengeance's shoulders in favor to drop in retaliation. His weight was sent flying to the ground, shoulder crashing heavily into the forest floor and he writhed, rolling onto his back and twisting so that he could deliver a hefty kick to the underneath of Vengeance's jaw, his back paws colliding violently into his chin and throat. Prying his leg free, Clay rolled out from beneath the brute and took the moment to drag himself back up to his paws, barely avoiding slipping in the muddy mess that'd begun to sud to life beneath their fighting. 

Clay spat out the blood that'd mixed into the saliva in his mouth, baring his bloodied teeth in a gurgling snarl. “I'll kill you, prick.” He seethed, emerald green eyes darting downwards. Still lithe and spry, he slid to his stomach and used the muddy terrain to his advantage to slide beneath Vengeance's towering form, jaws snapping open and aiming for the brute's fatty underbelly. 

the staff team luvs u

Never enough.

Vengeance was never the type to give in once he had taken his fill. There was always more to take. Always. Resources, loved ones, land, members, the idea of bodily autonomy.

Whatever the mist touched was his. A truth that rang true to this day, and in the life prior to this. And Clay had returned to the mist. To his domain and would suffer the consequences once more for this transgression. To become the newest, shiny toy for him to play with and discard as soon as he was bored.

Clay was quick. The nimble and small were always harder to catch but none the less he worked with it. They could scratch and nip all they want, he was covered in a thick layer of fat. Scars thickened his leathery skin and muscles armored the areas most vulnerable. All he needed was one good blow. A leg to rip off. An artery to puncture. And for their sake, they better pray to whatever pathetic God they believed was on their side to prevent a fatal strike.

“You might have escaped me once before, but I'll take you now.” He growled. “Be it dead or alive.” He'd reassure through gnashing teeth. “I'll fuck your corpse for as long as I can.” He'd mock. Finding humor in the sick declaration of his.

Teeth tore at his underbelly, an action that deserved a reaction. With full force Vengeance would try to stomp down on the younger man like some feral stallion. Aiming to break ribs and claw at the flesh all the while twisting his own less flexible form to try and grab at the boy once more.

the staff team luvs u