[open] what walks on four legs in the morning and two in the afternoon?

Wessex

some turn to dust or to gold, but you will remember me

Sporting four legs, a single tail, and clad only in fur, kitsune!Wessex creeps about the dark, LongNight-shadowed Citadel with an impish mischief in her eyes. Her snout and ears are hard at work, furtively glancing this way and that for Halovians who might be out far later than usual. The dead Ningo in her mouth is half-frozen, awkward to handle but thus far not leaking any bodily fluids that might give them away, other than the stray feather two.

When it seems the coast is clear, kitsune!Wessex darts across the muted street and towards the shrine. She sticks to the sides of buildings, the undersides of stairs. Behind trash bins and through the flickering shadows of fire pits she leaves her pawprints, but ah, she might just be a small dog, or a large cat, or anything other than her demigod self, really. When the coast seems clear, she crosses the threshold into the shrine and darts right up to the altar, where she lays the dead bird down and begins to tear it apart.

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Soleil

Whether it is her father being Abandoned or the general populace of Halo also being Abandoned, Soleil has no ingrained fealty to the Gods. The Shrines are pretty, but the little cub has never seen any of the Gods in Caido, and they did not exist where she came from before either - so what are they, really, but fixtures to climb?

As she's scampering up the steps in her winter dress from Maeve, the girl pauses when she crests the stairs and finds a different figure already occupying the area. For a moment she pouts to herself (though she conceals it well, kindhearted as she is) but then she brightens when her still unfamiliar humanity clicks in and realizes this is no human, but a lovely canine-adjacent being. A fox perhaps, she thinks to herself as she bounces up the next step. Difficult to tell when the animal is savaging its meal, but Soleil has the heart of a wolf and the surety of safety that only children can have even in the face of danger. So she approaches.

"Hi! Can I help?" she asks brightly, assuming the fox can understand her the way Lilly does, or the other Attuned. Whatever one she is, even if she cannot speak back they can still interact enough for Soleil's desires. Wrinkling her nose at the ningo on the shrine steps, she idly plucks a torn-off feather to play with. "Ningos are gross, they're so small and loud. Is that why you're playing with it instead of eating it?"

let us live like flowers, darling
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun

Wessex

some turn to dust or to gold, but you will remember me

The high-pitched voice of a child grinds her savaging to a halt. Which is a shame, because fox!Wessex has just gotten past the feathers and to the good part - breaking the skin to get to the blood and guts underneath. The stuff that’ll truly make a mess.

For an instant, she curls her lips in a snarl, ready to charge and drive the girl away. But then Sah’s scent hits her - it’s strong on this one. But that… doesn’t make any sense. When did Sah have kids? Clearly, any and all previous conversations about his past have gone out the window. And it doesn’t matter. She’d never really hurt the kid, Sah’s or otherwise. So after a moment, she lets herself relax and her hackles come down. As if to answer the girl’s question, her takes the frozen Ningo in her mouth and shakes it violently before trying to pin a wing down under a paw and rip the rest of the bird's body from it.

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Soleil

Oblivious to the gymnastics of confusion Wessex goes through in the span of a few moments, the girl merely giggles as the fox pauses only to freshly savage the ningo in its jaws. The blood doesn’t spread the same half-frozen, but it’s practically confetti for the wolf-child. Picking up a feather torn off in the frenzy, she twirls it by the nib in her fingertips, watching its details blur in the darkness.

“Can I help do it?” Then she pauses and tilts her head, then bites her lip self-consciously. “Oh. I asked that already.” So instead she plops down in a sprawl of legs, happy to watch the show if nothing else. “Are you gonna eat it or are you just playing?” she converses brightly, wholly unbothered by the lack of responses, chattering away the same way she does to her father’s companion.

let us live like flowers, darling
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun

Wessex

some turn to dust or to gold, but you will remember me

The offending wing eventually tears off - but there’s still a head and the tail. The girl’s second request to help makes her pause again, pulling her crimson stained muzzle away from the bird to look at her curiously. So intent on helping. On playing. Poor thing - maybe she’s lonely.

With a couple of low grunts and a whine, she takes partially dismembered Ningo in her mouth and offers it to Soleil, tail low and brushing back and forth. As soon as its taken, her sounds turn into a high-pitched fox laughter. Which, if you’ve never heard a fox laugh, is a very happy, infectious sound. She tugs on her end of the bird, inviting some very messy play.

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bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones, bones.

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You've encountered the OG random event! This allows you to skip one levelling requirement with the character in this thread. (Unfortunately does not count for characters over level 10, how sad.)

Soleil

Lonely, yes. Halo is so quiet and still in the winter. Like a hibernating thing, half dead and dreaming. Soleil doesn’t like it, doesn’t like how it reminds her of the bears in their caves that her parents warned her away from. There are so few children, and even Luka can’t entertain her always. So when the vixen presents the ningo like a peace offering in the guise of bloody brutality, Soleil brightens like her namesake and doesn’t hesitate to grab for the crooked, half-plucked wing with her little hands. Her own laughter nearly as high as the fox’s, harmonizing strangely over the snow and brick.

It feels strange to tug with limbs instead of teeth, but Soleil plants her knees to the altar and tugs and wriggles as best she can between giggles that make her arms feel like overcooked noodles. Feathers cascade around them, cold congealed blood smearing on her brown hands and the vixen’s muzzle in pretty shades of crimson. When the wingbone snaps Soleil gets jolted back into her butt with the force of it, and stares down at it clutched in her hand, surprised. Laughing immediately after, she plucks the feathers further and scatters them around. Only to pause and consider the dull, uninteresting flight feathers. These she plucks and places in her hair like a crown, and walks on her knees to offer the same for the fox’s thicker fur around her neck. “Hold still, I can make you pretty,” she insists brightly, clueless to how the macabre display would unnerve so many others.

let us live like flowers, darling
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun

Wessex

some turn to dust or to gold, but you will remember me

Everything seems to stop as the girl tumbles to the hard, cold ground. Wessex freezes, waiting for what she’s sure will be a surprised wail that will call adults or guards or anyone else in the vicinity. And yet - it doesn’t come. Peals of laughter shoot out of the child instead, and a lolling grin and curious head tilts precede her cautious steps forward, making tiny little paw prints in the slushy mess they’ve made.

Who is she to deny that kind of request? Fox!Wessex dutifully permits a few feathers to be thrust into her thick scruff of fur before she twists away - not in an unkind way, but in the manner of an animal that is tired of holding still. Maybe it’s the fox’s inherent nature, a nervous spark suddenly has her feeling like she’s let her guard down and lingered here for too long.

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Soleil

Soleil is made of tougher stuff than most young girls her age, if that wasn’t readily apparent already. The slushy mess at their feet - and then her knees, as she moves to them to decorate the scruff of her new friend - is more uncomfortable a sensation in its clinging, wet-cold state than the hard base of the shrine could hope to be. And though her friend doesn’t linger long enough for Soleil to be fully satisfied with the makeover, it’s still very humorous for the child to see the small necklace of protruding flight feathers in the predator’s fur.

There’s an unease or perhaps a restlessness that’s Soleil reads easily in the fox’s body, the girl’s first language, and while she’s sad to feel their game coming to a close she doesn’t let it stop her from sitting back on her butt to signal she’s okay with the imminent departure. “Thank you for letting me play with you,” she makes sure to say, lest she forget her manners in the ensuing goodbyes. “Come visit and see me again soon though!” Summoning a smile to hide her slight disappointment, blood and viscera still spotted over her pretty face.

let us live like flowers, darling
wild and beautiful and drenched in sun

Wessex

some turn to dust or to gold, but you will remember me

Frozen for a moment, the fox stares out at the quietness around them, ears swiveling at will to locate the various sounds - people? Tiny furry creatures? Heralds come to make them rue their sacrilegious “play?” She refocuses on each utterly dark corner with tiny jerks, until she’s able to determine that nothing in out there. Not yet, at least. And so with a regretful whine, the inky black vixen turns in a tight circle to face the lonely little girl again. Her words are kind, and in another form, the Wraith might have promised to come again even if she knew it to be a potential lie. Only time will tell if fate throws them together again.

Slinking forward, she gives a little parting lick to a particularly gory, drippy spot on Soleil’s face before heading back out into the cold, dark Deepfrost night, mischief thoroughly managed.

{Fin}

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