Summer School

[≈ Sky ≈]

Lilith

A fraying mane telltale of her infamous lineage was shaken casually from her face, deceptively powerful chops smacked in barely contained excitement, saliva forming in frothy beads at the corners of dry lips. The sweet-sour reek of terror and pain in the suffocating air swirling around her coupled with the remaining youth, no longer disproportionate sacks of lard but nearly full-grown to resemble the holy warriors they'd someday become assuming no monsters snatched them away before then, it was stimulating in a way that might have felt most naughty and immoral to a child with any manner of righteous compass, of a conscience spawning devil and angel upon either shoulder. Lilith, girl with the volcanic eyes and temperament, possessed neither, born missing that integral piece or simply having been robbed of it through months of violence inflicted by a depressingly dysfunctional "family," if what a warhound, a sadist, and their untamed sons provided for her could be called that at all. Little pants of excitement, roving gaze acknowledging each youth in turn, namely her brothers who with the exception of Tatari elicited smiles. Abaddon (accompanied by Vetis) in particular was a pleasant surprise, discovering the brat before she could perk up and yip for him sit with her. Immediately Lilith would sidle close to Don, aiming to nuzzle the crook of his throat, teeth nipping in playfully flippant greeting at his lower jaw, looking like a young girl might flirting with a handsome boy... which was cute until one realized they were brother and sister; cue the awkward stares.

"It'll be good, I think..." said she to black and slate siblings alike, leaning against the latter as an eerie, vacant grin would curl across her muzzle. "I heard sometimes this happens to bad wolves to make them good. Or make them dead if they won't be good. My friend Alaraas was telling me that... Anyway, shhh, let's watch."

And so commenced the presentation, propaganda fluttering from the General's tongue like sand from a shoe, voice mysteriously accented with some jingling dialect foreign to the girl's tapering ears. Enix was her name, and she was here to teach them about heathens in the way a human mother might teach her children how to tie their shoes or recite the alphabet. Lilith listened as best she could without blurting out something inane as she was prone to doing or even cackling every time the crippled lump beneath the scarred wolf's ass would wriggle and twitch just like a fishie, the subtleties of course flying over her head as expected, but she was not a stupid lunatic and would retain the big picture. The hurt wolf did look pretty dumb like that, she supposed... pretty weak... Lil determined idly, with childish ease, that she would be pretty when she died, an attractive corpse, not ugly and silly and moaning.

When the White Rose summoned them to come and smell the heathen, the mutt obeyed, shuffling around various multicolored bodies in her way to end up near this nameless wolf's back, shoving her nose unceremoniously into the sea of trembling fur to inhale. As the other kids pressed closer, she could feel him shift, hear the broken bones crinkle and pop as he was involuntarily moved, the suffering on his skin, but more than that she could smell something familiar only to her, eyes widening and nostrils flaring at the memory. He smelled like... yes, like the outside! Like the slaaaaver mission! Why was Enix using bad words like "terrible" for such a fun place with lakes and crab meat and strange lands she could scarcely banish from her chaotic dreams?

Such a train of thought was swiftly forgotten as the Rosa concluded her manipulative monologue, this particular slice of it affecting Lilith more... profoundly. She listened to Enix's words with a chilly expression growing more and more troubled as each sentence desisted to began anew, her thoughts beginning gradually to cyclone into a mild fever, unwittingly upset by the conviction in that hissing voice. There was something wrong here; Lil didn't like this part and wanted to make the demigod shut up somehow, trouble turning to something approaching crevasse. The heathen had lied to her with his enticing smells that meant fun and freedom, it had been a farce intended to deceive her? So that he could do all those mean things? She imagined her little brothers all dead, her food and prized cub skull pilfered, and perhaps the hellion didn't even believe Heaven all that thoroughly, but by god she was becoming hideously angry at this shit-eating nothing still lying there trying to bite her friends like that was okay. Maybe it was another motivation entirely she had for the outrage, something feral and cruel, but it was obvious any way the coin was flipped that the stranger really didn't care. As if anything could care regardless of how much they thought they were capable of it; fear, always fear, they were all dumb animals wedded to fear and mindless compassion for their own flesh.

Rocketing forward with a frenzied canine scream slicing the air like a gunshot, Lilith darted in past the smaller juveniles, deaf to Jezebeth's distant pleas as forepaws were thrown forth to brace the form behind them for a full-force landing, every scrappy pound of her slamming into his disabled body while fangs akin to yellowed fence spikes would aim for the heathen's soft abdomen, hooking them past the resistance of fuzzy flesh. There, she would start the mauling with face half strain and half manic, frozen grin, goring and ripping with frantic brutality, her intent to reach the red slop of viscera and thrust her snout into the gaping hole to pull out whatever she could clutch and disconnect with a deft squish. Blood filling her throat and running down her front, heavy bodies full of anger crowding and shoving her own, another creature may have felt scared, claustrophobic, threatened... coerced... degraded. A child from another pack may have cried and begged for this to stop.

Not Lilith.

Slaughtering this villain felt nothing short of surreal and incredible.

[≈ Sky ≈]

Acetone

These silly antics of the children around him, that would not do, not at all. All that noise and nonsense, when clearly reverence was the appropriate attire for the ball they were so graciously invited to attend. The boy did his best to ignore the boisterous entrance of his sister, but found it difficult when she took the liberty to shove her body against him, and jam her loud mouth practically into his sensitive little ear drum. Some other, vaguely familiar female answered Render's inquiry, if useless babbling counted as an answer, before he had time to respond himself. But of course, he wasn't in the clear then, either. Moments later, Evie jumped into the scene, with her own questions. Why couldn't they just... stop for a second? Obviously this was an important meeting. They should be waiting to hear the information, not guessing and acting unruly. This was serious business. You had to listen, or you might turn into a heathen, like the seat cushion before his eyes.

And, true to his nature, the child was absolutely enthralled by the speech of his goddess, the epitome of the pack, the bringer of truth to all straying souls, this beloved White Rose. She was his, for she had said so, and he was hers in the ways of worship and obedience. Now understanding whose company he kept, Acetone could be nothing less than ecstatic. But all the same, his posture remained steady and his eyes spoke only of attentive reception, because it was in poise that worth was communicated from a distance. Enix had to know he was a good Oukoku wolf, had to see it in his eyes just how much he loved his pack, wanted to obey, and his vow: he would destroy all stupid heathens, these lamed mules, who could do no service to the great cause, which all of Oukoku yearned to fulfill.

Acetone rushed in at the command to receive his blessing. He was right! This wolf, it was a bad one, a real filthy one, who wanted to eat puppies and take his freedom away. It was a coward, too, and Acetone hated that... Punishment. This slime was going to know he did wrong, so he could repent later, just like Enix said. The male dug his claws into the eye balls of the captive, right at the feet of his White Rose. The contents squished out inaudibly, but the same could not be spoken of the victim, whose agony turned vocal between the action and that of the other children.

Make it gone, make it suffer, make it blind. Our voices are too good for your ears, and our faces are too good for your eyes. When you repent, then maybe you'll be able to see again.