lupei
What the truth is, I can't say anymore
The right thing isn’t always the best thing. That’s why Lupei is out here scrounging over a dead body, rather than being back at home in the Chamber (where he should be) chasing rabbits. At first, the hunger for meat hadn’t really been all that hard to ignore. Eat some grass here - forget about it. Chew on some bark there - forget about it. But then, it was a progressive thing that gnawed on his insides and kept him awake at night. He’d spend hours staring at the ground underneath him, contemplating the real efficiency of grass at all, and then he’d gobble up some insect or other because, well, the body wants what the body wants. The wavering crescendo of his strange appetite had come to it’s peak when he and Astri had been together and naturally they’d been bickering. His attitude had gone sour the longer he’d had to deal with the curdling stomachaches, and her constant bitching wasn’t doing much to help it out, so he’d let his anger get the better of him and in a moment of fury he’d shifted his mouth and bit her on the shoulder.
In shock, she’d told him about his trait. The wolf-shifting, and how he’d probably gotten it from his father, a nameless magician. As pissed as he’d been about that, it hadn’t stopped how incredibly … satisfying the tang of her raw blood had been. He’d taken his time to roll his tongue over his teeth and the roof his mouth to savor every last drop. In that moment, they both knew they couldn’t deny the real animal that lurked somewhere deep within him - and so it had been her suggestion to head to the beach and scrounge over a carcass so that he could pacify the creature for a while.
So I guess, if you really wanted to lay the blame, you could put it on the little green chamber mare.
That’s not to say that Lupei isn’t responsible for what happened, because he completely is, it’s just that after everything was said and done, he’d rather place the blame on his mother’s shoulders than his own. Either way, he’d gone to the beach and he’d wandered around a bit, trying his best to catch one of those annoying gulls in his snapping jaws, and then he’d come across the corpse.
It wasn’t really much of a body anymore. No true face or discerning features. Just a hunk of rotting meat, lying there nearly frozen in the sand. He’d stood over it for a while, thought about what he was doing, and then decided that it was the lesser of two evils and began to heartily chow down. At first - it had been hard, gnawing through the icy muscle with his ill-equipped teeth, but then instinct took over and he felt his whole body tremble before making his first ever complete shift. The creature that had been growing inside of him this whole time was a wolf, black as sin and filled with hunger. He’d engorged himself, and then like all things that eat far too much when presented with a proper meal, he’d shifted back from being sick and began to attempt to hack up the dead flesh he’d already consumed.
That was almost more of a nightmare than eating the dead horse had been.
When Tiberios made his appearance (one that Lupei hadn’t even noticed because he’d been so preoccupied with voiding his stomach) the greenish stallion was almost through with the ordeal, and still hungry. Off his guard and completely unaware of what was about to occur, Lupei was almost as shocked by what happened as Tiberios was. The nip came down hard, an electric jolt shot through Lupei’s body, and in the blink of an eye he was wolf again, yelping and twisting and then on top of the older stallion, jaws clamped frighteningly hard around the throat of the sabino.
Now, to be fair, Lupei had no idea who he was. The two had never seen each other before and they’d certainly never heard of each other. So how was he supposed to know that what he was doing was wrong? It was almost entirely the fault of the attacker. You see one horse eating another, you don’t sneak up on them, common sense, right? But what happened, happened and as soon as it was over it was almost completely wiped from Lupei’s mind. One second he was standing over a rotted corpse, the next second, a fresh one. He heaves from the exertion of his act, lumbers back a few steps on bloody paws, and surveys his work. The limp body of the spotted stallion is lathered in his own sweat, mixed with the still-warm blood that’s pouring in sickening amounts from the garish, open wound in his neck.
Despite the situation, Lupei is proud. It’d been a quick death. Skillful almost. He smiles a wolfish grin and circles the kill, sniffing here, licking there. A noise, some rustle in the distance, causes his head to snap up and suddenly he thinks of what the others will see.
Not good.
With a surprising burst of energy, Lupei dives at the upturned belly, ripping into the horse and consuming what he can. The hunger that had so long maddened him grew quiet. He feasted his way past the ribs, gripping on to something fleshy and rendering it free. It’s the stallion’s heart, and with the tactless manner of a victor he swallows it - every last bit. His mouth felt like it was on fire and his gut twisted in agonizing pain, but he whined and shuddered and continued past the feelings to finish his work.
When he was done, the stallion was nothing more than tattered ribbons and spilled innards, nothing left to identify him by besides the glittering bits of his face that were scattered in the sand. Lupei was exhausted, and this exhaustion shifted him back to the horse he was known by. Night had begun to creep just over the edge of the sea when the newly-born killer turned his back on the scene of the crime and weakly began his journey home.
