R Candycanes and spite

[Champion]

general content warning because it's champion lmao

Well this was fucking fantastic. The sleet was piercing her coat more than rain typically would. It seemed to pelt it's way straight between her guard hairs and irritate her. It wasn't enough to soak her to her skin, but it was plenty enough to have Champion wishing for cover. Lucky for her, the forests trees were just spiteful enough to keep dripping on her despite the canopy they formed overhead. Her blue eyes rolled sarcastically as if she'd shot a quip to her companions. Instead, she was pushing towards the alluring aroma of water. Something to refresh her. Plus, water often had shelter nearby if she was lucky.

It wouldn't take much to hide the small wolf. Delicately built, she was short and light. Her tan and white coat was not particularly flashy though it was appealing. She finally burst through some low-growing young pine saplings to see the tarn that stretched before her. It was red. Like the blood of her enemies red and she let out an audible gasp before blinking and inhaling deeply. It was most certainly not tainted with blood despite it's appearance.

Padding closer, her ears in 100% airplane mode, she squinted at the edge of the water where it gently shifted to lap the shore. Nothing suspicious yet. Her neck stretched out as she lowered her muzzle just enough to give a singular gulp of whatever liquid lay within. It was water. Fresh enough. Except it did taste slightly like blood. A metallic undertone that had her staring all the harder at it. This was fucked up. Was she in a pipe dream?

[Bird]

Red water, like blood. It tasted like the iron in death and Bird was put off and drawn to it in equal measure.

For two days, she lingered, hunting hare and one lone vixen that came to the water to drink. Nothing much to it-Solitude was like that. Bird didn't pay the bubble of aloneness she was living in much mind. It had always been there in some manner, sometimes more literally than not.

When the bubble was popped, encroached on, Bird didn't notice at first. Instead she lurked in the woods and considered trying to fish in the odd water. When her own thirst, like the fox before her, drew her back to the lake, she only then noticed her peace was intruded on. Not so rudely, though. Across the lake, Bird glimpsed a russet-tinged waif lapping at the pool. Her ears were nervous.

Politely, Bird let her own ears wilt backward, dipping her head to pull the water into her maw. Blue eyes didn't leave the little wolf but neither did she particularly want to move closer. She was as likely to make the wolf bolt as she was to get defensive hackles lifted and either way Bird didn't really want to bother with any of the politics of interaction. She'd come here to get away from panicked souls and flashing fangs.

Mostly failure was what she ran from, though.

[Champion]

Thirsty enough to quench the sensation, she drank until she was finished. The faintest hints of water on her muzzle, though it did not seem to stain. It was as her head lifted that she noticed the grey woman across the water from her. Champion kept her head low and leered back in much the same way, her ears perking forward now in a determined interest. Wary, but curious of who this one was.

She wanted to say something. Anything. Some smart ass comment that would make her look cool. Instead she leered like a tiny cat that was staring at an oversized rat. Something to play with but hardly something of enough interest to warrant expended energy. Imagine that.

[Bird]

She stared at the little wolf.

The woman stared back.

Bird stared back at her.

She didn't like that look on the woman's face, she decided eventually. Like she was a leaf shaped like a hare drifting by on the red water, a curiosity, more than a creature. Bird flicked her ears forward, subtly adjusted her expression to shift more stern. "What." She snipped, like a kid who was just about done with being poked at by a sibling.

[Champion]

Champion's expression faltered only enough to roll her eyes. She leered at the woman as she let out a short, sharp breath. "Didn't think I'd have someone else here stinking up the place," she shot back from across her spot of the water. Her eyes never left the other woman's. Grey. Tones of grey that were somewhat appealing. Different than what she was used to. Different than the firey tones of her sister and Zora, and the inky darkness of Vala the bear.

[Bird]

A lip lifted away from one fang almost as soon as the insult left the woman's mouth, and Bird took a step forward, a striding and sudden motion intended with no subtlety about it to be intimidating. A don't make me come over there motion that had worked on weak-willed bluffers before. Now, she supposed, to find out if there was real fire behind all the smoke the little auburn woman was blowing. She didn't shift her gaze from the other wolf's bright blue one, ears firmly tilted forward.

"If that's the case, why hasn't your prissy ass sauntered away? Instead you decided to stick around and make googly eyes at me like that isn't asking for something I don't think you can handle, princess."