Time no longer existed to the creature. More than a year of darkness had consumed him, light never falling upon the tri-toned beast that festered in the bowels of the grotto. Madness had driven him into the comfort of the shadows, receding from she who had held his constant obsession. In siring two litters on her he had become tethered to her, and that connection had been what had led him into his first defeat. It was something he had never suffered before, and he had been unable to comprehend it in the aftermath. Instinct had led him deep into the catacombs of Moladion. He was surrounded by the bones of those unfortunate enough to slip and fall to a devastating injury or their deaths before his arrival, and those he had pulled down into the darkness thereafter. For months he had operated like a trapdoor spider, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to wander too close before springing forth and dragging them to their doom. But those who wandered so deep into the fathomless pits were far and few between, and hunger became his constant companion. It was that very hunger that finally drove him forward, made him leave his pit of doom behind and venture towards the light his eyes had not seen in over a year.

Pupils constricted to tiny specks in his glaring green eyes as he approached an exit from the swirling depths that had so long kept him. Squinting against the offending radiance his behemoth form stepped out into the snow laden lands, a landscape his limbs should have formlessly melded with. But as he climbed up the rocky embankment of the crags the light of day revealed this not to be so. His pelt was stained, marred with the rusty remnants of meals he did not bother to clean himself of. Not only that, but with a lack of exposure to light his fur had grown dull and brittle, mussed up and raggedly hanging over a form that was far different from the brute that had battled for lands he gave little care for. His ribs protruded from his sides, and though he was still immense it was clear that his pursuit of only that which presented itself to him had sucked away some of his muscle tone. Along the left side of his neck was a prominent scar - without proper care it had festered and become infected, only healing by sheer luck, and not in a pretty way at all. Marks down his legs indicated that in his hunger he had turned even on himself, chewing at his own flesh. But the hunger would keep him no more.

She is lucky, then, that he caught the scent of fox before he breathed her perfume on the air. A flash of silvery white fur was all he needed to see before he lunged towards the vulpine, his mass still capable of such ferocities as he snuffed out the prey's life with a single snap of his jaws. Blood trickled out to stain the white of the arctic fox's pelt as Reaver lifted his catch from the ground and carried it with him. He continued onwards, teeth grinding further into the warm flesh, the hot ooze of blood over his tongue seeing his nostrils flare with pleasure. Beyond the sweet scent of death that was trapped within his jaws he picks up on another presence, and from the muddled confines of his mind he knows this scent is familiar. Unfortunately, it is tied to a faded memory of the white temptress, and ignites a malice in his mind as he climbs up and over a shelf of rock and into view of Lacuna.

He stops then, standing on the far side of the small pool which she gazed into, further grinding his teeth into the corpse of the fox until with a clicking snap both the fore and hindquarters of the animal fall away and he devours the midsection in seemingly one bite. A pink tongue stained with crimson slid between his lips before he bent down to grab hold of the hindquarters and pull them apart, tearing into the flesh and consuming each and every bit of the animal that was his first meal in daylight for over a year. But his maddened teal and green eyes never left Lacuna, watching her, for instinct and a hungry stomach demanded she be next. When nothing remained of the fox a mess of bones and blood and fur, he stepped forward and over it, leaving it behind as he plowed towards her. He skirted the edge of the pond until he stood directly beside her, towering over her form as his jaws pulled wide in a snarl of sorts, an indistinct, maniacal growl forming in his throat. Her scent is an indistinct memory, tainted by the perfume of winter's call. The fox had done more for him than he anticipated, and hunger for her flesh no longer clawed at his insides. Still, he hovers over her, body craving some form of domination, though his mind has not yet pointed him in the right direction to sate such needs.

Reaver

NINE - 42 IN/216 LBS - LONER