bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

 
The field had been both as interesting as he anticipated and anti-climatic. He had left with the potential of something to sink his teeth into but no clear direction—just the shadows of it. He had been glad to rid himself of the mare with clear intentions (and yet unclear to him) but had been slightly less enthused to lose the company of the bald mare so distantly related to him. There had been something about her that had promised, at the very least, interesting conversation, which was so hard to come by nowadays.

Still, he was not an overly sentimental man and he didn’t hesitate to peel off from the group, turning his heavy head toward the west where he knew that Loess lay nestled. It had been an interesting thought, this head of a kingdom for hire. He was not interested in pretending to be loyal to a specific cause, handing over his loyalty and obedience to be treated like a dog. But to be given tasks, something for him to sink his teeth into without strings attached? That was an interesting proposition indeed. 

So he made his way toward the kingdom, sticking to more traditional methods of transportation if only because it felt good to stretch his muscles after so many days standing still and watching the crowds mill about him. Thankfully, the travel was swift and it didn’t take long for the field to melt away and the forest of Taiga to thin and then the invisible border of Loess to come up on the horizon. 

When he was near enough, he paused, lifting a feathered hoof and then dropping it. Up above them, the mountains tower, keeping watch over the land where families and individuals alike seemed to gather and then separate in the simple patterns of life. For a moment, he considered calling for them, but that seemed too simple and too banal that he dismissed it entirely. Instead, he reached for the blood that still rolled down sticky on his shoulders and pulled light from deep within the earth—just as he had with Scorch.

This time though, the light doesn’t simply rise like a tree and then shower back on the earth.

Instead, he sent it shooting straight into the air like a comet, exploding it when it was high enough above him, sending constellations temporarily spinning out into the sky before fading slowly away. 

He was curious as to how they’d react to such an obvious showboat maneuver and who would approach him, but mostly, he was curious as to how useful a magician could be to their cause. 

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

It’s not long before someone finds him—before his gaudy display of light brings someone to his side.

The smile that splits his face is distinctively wolfish, lacking in the warmth typical of the expression but somehow perfectly fitting the harder edges of his smile. “My name’s Woolf,” he offers it without care. There was power in a name, but he doesn’t mind handing that little piece of power over to her. He doesn’t mind giving her the syllables that wrap around him, that could summon him, if she so wished.

Instead he merely reaches for her own, gripping it loosely.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lepis.”

Of course, pleasure is somewhat of a foreign concept to him. He has never truly found anything pleasurable sans the joy of traveling the cosmos, the joy of taking apart a situation and studying it from all angles, learning everything there was to learn—sucking the marrow out of each moment as best he could.

Still, it’s not quite acceptable to say such things so he offers the hallow pleasantry instead, his heavy face angling away from her briefly to look at the wild land behind her, marked by a diversity unique amongst Beqanna. “So what can you tell me of Loess?” A pause. “Scorch approached me in the field and told me some of it, but I’d like to hear more from a resident.” The least he could do is at least give the bald mare some credit for prompting him to visit here. His face turns wolfish again in amusement. “Although, of course, it does appear that you are not a regular resident here, after all. Queen, is it?”

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

“You have nothing to fear of me,” he answers her unspoken fears, quashed as they are, his scarred shoulder rolling in a casual dismal. “I am not like the wolves of your past.” He doesn’t dwell not them long, doesn’t even think anything of casually referencing a piece of her history as if he had lived there with her—as if she had already relinquished the information to him. And, of course, she could have something to fear of him, should he ever choose to be something deserving of fear.

But not now.

He has no need to be feared now.

His lips nearly purse at her next admission, thinking on the ways she has been tied to the stallion for so long but he doesn’t comment on it, letting that slide by unacknowledged. “Queen Lepis then,” his smile remains wolfish and if you didn’t know him, you may even think the quirk of lips was humor.

“I don’t have much experience within kingdoms or herds or whatever it is that the group is being called nowadays,” he admits, although there’s no real shame in the admission. “I simply want to know more about it so that I can properly weigh my options.” Casually, he dips his fingers into the inky blood that stains his mulberry shoulder, the ground beneath their feet blossoming with flowers by the prompting his magic. It grew thick and lush, crawling up his legs ever so slightly before bending away. He doesn’t look.

“I’m curious to know how I could be of use to a place such as this.”

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste

bitterness is thick like blood and cold as a wind sea breeze
if you must drink of me, take of me what you please

He understands the humor in Wolfbane’s joke but his face remains relatively passive, his features as neutral and difficult to read as the striped stallion’s own. “If you have no need of them...” his voice trails off and the plants shrivel by his side, curling inward into themselves, drawing their own poison in. The ground bubbles slightly as it spreads outward, the grass and foliage beneath each of them turned charred as he kills it off.

Soon, there is nothing of the lush vegetation.

Nothing of the garden that has sprouted around him.

Just the black scar where it had once been.

Again, Woolf doesn’t bother to look at it. It is petty, foolish magic and not worth much attention. Not worth anything more than the few drops of blood that he has to spill to even perform it.

“I am capable of much more than that,” he says coolly. He had been born into magic, molded from it. He was not someone who had slipped it on like a coat later in life. It was an intrinsic part of who he is, the very fabric of his being. He flares his nostrils, drinking in the air. His eyes turn white, fogged over and misted as the blood begins to flow more freely down his stained shoulder.

He pulls away the land around them, replacing it with the vision of his own design. He shows them, as long as they do not fight it, the world as it could be. He shows alien fire being lit on the borders of the kingdom, consuming everything in its path. He shows them craters opening up, drinking the blood of those nearby. He shows stats falling hard and fast, scarring the land with wherever it hit. He shows them creatures of mud and bone crawling out from the earth and forming armies. He shows them power.

The vision fades, and soon it is just the three of them standing there, the world once again mundane and quiet.

“Such magic requires sacrifice,” an obvious statement. His magic is tethered. It is anchored. “But we can find that easily enough.”

woolf

I am loathed to say it's the devil's taste