Poking the Bear

ashe    Ashe didn't try to flee. The wolf yelped sharply when a massive paw slammed down on her neck, and the full weight of a black bear leaned down upon her. She let out a wheezing whine, and instinct had her paws scrabbling at the leaves beneath her to try and gain some kind of purchase and rip herself out from under the bear.. but it was entirely hopeless. Ashe was fast, she was a raised killer, but she would never match the strength of her father.    She stilled as he lowered a snarling maw towards her, and she panted heavily with feral eyes staring upwards as drool fell into her pelt. Breath was hard to draw under his weight, but she dared not move. His voice pulled a violent tremor from in her bones, and no matter how much she didn't want to, her lips pulled back to show her teeth in a snarl. The growl would not be quelled and fearful wildness gleamed in her eye.    At the pressure of his claws, her growl formed into a low whine. Something in her cracked beneath him. 'You are a liar...filth...broken, and there is nothing or no one that can save you, not even yourself.' Instinct demanded she dig her claws into the dirt again, to try and shove herself out from under the claws that dug painfully into her, to run and run and run -    She did believe that. It's what everyone should believe. But did she want that?    As soon as that massive paw let up from her neck, the black wolf scrambled to her paws with gasping breath, animalistic eyes wide as she regarded the bear. She didn't understand how he spoke to her, couldn't seem to form anything to communicate back, but she listened. He didn't kill her. She panted and kept her head low, and he began lumbering away with that word echoing in her: Coward. Her legs trembled as she watched him go.    Run and never come back, or follow after her father. The wolf turned her head to look over her shoulder, into the trees for a long moment, fractured eyes staring intently... and she turned to follow after the black bear, paws carrying her at a wary pace. The place he lead her to must have been what her mother had been telling her about, the home he was building. She paused at the edge of the trees as he shifted.    Within a moment, there was a raven haired young woman standing in place of the wolf. She pulled her blue cloak closer around herself, hood gathered around her neck and a disgruntled spider arranging itself within it. Fire blue eyes guttered as she forced her feet forwards and after the familiar form of Devrum.