He limped sullenly through the twilit forest, his amber eyes clouded and ringed with red. The bitch and her pup had gotten away, slipping away into the shifting dreamscape as his body failed him. His mighty frame had crashed to the earth and there he had lain, for days on end, while the world shifted and danced wildly around him. Whether or not he slept he couldn’t say. When he woke, only on thought remained. A sinister, unthinkable command, issued to those who wished to return to the monster’s kingdom. A vile act, one no wolf in his right mind would commit. An act of evil, a sick perversion of the hunter’s instinct. To make a kill and skin the head, returning with it as some sort of bloody offering. It was something he could never do. Something he wouldn’t do.

But what choice did he have? The world around him no longer made sense. The forest was no longer his home. The trees amidst which he had once built his kingdom now held in their shadows nothing but ghosts. They danced at the edges of his vision, mocking him, but darting away into nothingness if ever he gathered the courage to face them head on. Lands once familiar now held nothing but terror for the old king. The smell of loam had become cloying; the trees crowded too close. Walking beneath them he wanted nothing but to return to the bright, sun-baked stone of the monster’s domain…and to the monster himself. If anyone could understand what had happened to him, could help him to harness the senseless rage that forked through his fevered mind like lightning, it was that leather-lipped beast.

And that meant he had to kill.

No sooner had the realization struck him than he tasted blood in his mouth. Dumbstruck he looked down and stared in horror at the mangled carcass that lay at his feet. It might have been a deer once, a young buck identifiable only by the regal antlered head. It was, mercifully, untouched; the rest of the body was in ribbons, gore strewn over the forest floor and caught amidst the branches of the low-growing brush. He had no memory of even spotting the animal, no recollection of stalking it nor of bringing it down, certainly not with the violence to produce a scene like this. But a nausea-producing glance down at himself confirmed that he had, in fact, done this. He was covered in the animal, his long chocolate coat matted close to the skin by its lifeblood. Ribbons of its flesh clung between his teeth, beneath the talons of both his front and hind feet. He had, apparently, taken the deer down and ripped its innards out with his hind legs as he had too often seen the large hunting cats of the mountains do.

His stomach twisted and he had to clamp his jaws together to keep it from emptying itself. He turned his head to the side, squeezing his eyes shut, and focused on his breathing. This was not the way a wolf hunted. Wolves killed for sustenance, and did so with a certain grace. A certain of honour. This was just … slaughter. This had been violence for the sake of violence, and with or without the memory of making the kill, the creature’s blood was on him. He had become a thing of nightmares himself, something less than the real wolves who called Blossom home.

But then he remembered the monster, the certain feverish light that had danced behind his eyes. The understanding that he had felt as they locked eyes over the she-wolf at Crith Thalmhainn. He knew. He understood. He could help. He could harness.

Opening his eyes again he looked back to the mangled body with a new appreciation. Yes, the monster would approve of this. The monster would be proud, would praise him for this. Some of the cloudiness left his amber eyes as a small smirk tugged at the corners of his bloodstained mouth. Oh yes, the monster would approve. And once he brought him back his token, maybe the monster would even accept him and he could start to build a new life. A life that made sense.

He stepped over the body, careless of the carnage that seeped up between his toes, and closed his powerful jaws around the neck. The first bite broke the bones, the second shattered them completely. A sawing of the jaws, a few vigorous shakes of the head to rip the hide, and the skull was free, dangling almost daintily from his maw. Skinning his prize took time. Each elastic strip had to be taken between his teeth with exaggerated care, and pulled back carefully so as not to mar the flesh beneath. Night had completely fallen by the time the task was completed. Standing, he looked with satisfaction down at his work. Every trace of the deer’s soft summer hide had been stripped away, leaving behind eyes that stared out in stark contrast from the red flesh and teeth that gleamed as pearls in the moonlight. He felt sick, he felt proud, but none of that mattered. What would the monster think? Was this what he wanted? Would it be enough?

And then, as if in answer to his unspoken question, came the voice. The acrid, biting voice of the monster, slicing through the night air. Calling him, pulling him, leading him from the shadow forest back to the warmth of stones. Seizing the trophy by one antler, he took off at a breakneck speed, heedlessly crashing through the underbrush to chase the fading notes of the summons.

Desperation, fear, and a fierce, burning need for the monster’s approval spurring him endlessly onward. Miles disappeared beneath his bounding frame, and the moon was just reaching her zenith as the soft forest soil began to give way to smooth stone, still warm from the day’s sun. He slowed to a walk and looked carefully around, though it was difficult to see in the dimness and his nose was full of the scent of the buck’s blood. The skull swung from the antler clamped firmly between his teeth as he swung his great head slowly from side to side, searching.

There. Finally.

He moved carefully toward where the monster sat, waiting, trying to hide the eagerness in his step and keep it from his face. Moonlight bathed the area, glinting off the beast’s eyes and giving him even more the appearance of a nightmare creature awaiting the careless passerby. But Riuk was anything but careless. He had come here with purpose, for a reason. He said nothing as he approached the other wolf, and stopped several feet away. He stood directly in front of the monster, deer head dangling from his mouth, waiting for the beast to acknowledge him.

| . | . | Khett | . | . |