[PRP] At Your Mercy [No Mercy/Treacherous Snow]

[Ruriska]

It was some sort of rat. The buck had never paid much attention to the scurrying beasts before, but he was quickly learning that their agonized squeaks were really quite enjoyable. Like a cat with its prey, he continued to beat the creature back into the centre of the clearing, never letting it escape into the underbrush. Each time he let it get tantalizingly close, before a sweep of his hoof brought it right back again. And yet, his amusement was slowly dropping away and the battered rodent grew increasingly less interesting. Instead of running for cover, now it just crouched in the dirt and looked miserable. No Mercy stared down at his prey; his grin shifting into a dangerous glower.

Bored.

He ended it in one ruthless strike; the thought of letting the small rat go free never crossing his mind. Stepping away from the mess he had created, he paced irritably around the clearing. Where had his father gone? The older buck had been here earlier, and no doubt had slipped away while Mercy has been distracted. No matter. He was easy enough to track.  

[Amorpheous]

Tilting her head, Treacherous Snow listened calmly to the sounds of the increasingly despondent struggles. Some rodent of sort going by the sounds of it. Tossing her head, Cornice pulled herself up from her sitting position with Watch Your Step perfectly mirroring her actions. Turning to her familiar, gryphon and kimeti stared at each other, coming to an understanding. Their partnership was still new, Caution still more a hatchling than a full grown gryphon, but was now bigger than she was when Cornice had first acquired her. Sometimes Caution would hiss and flare her wings, but time had taught the gryphon to respect Cornice and they made a fine hunting pair, large prey felled by sharp beaks, claws, and fangs. One day, they would be one, today was not that such day, but each day they grew closer to reaching the equilibrium of hunting partners and farther away from the first day when it took a standoff of Caution to eat the prey Cornice had offered.

They headed towards the source of the terrified squeaking, following the scent of blood that had ended Cornice's source of entertainment. Though lacking in Cornice's undifferentiated sadism, Caution still enjoyed a good hunt and the thought of a meal was always enough to get the young gryphon moving.

The pair broke through into the clearing to find a tastelessly mangled bush rat. Cornice and Caution had more finesse than that artless bloody pile that lay on the floor. It was still food though and the buck seemed to be uninterested in it. With a shrug and the briefest glance to make sure Cornice had no objections, Caution went forward to prod at the bloody mess with her beak and talons, trying to decide if it was worth eating.  

[Ruriska]

The buck was just about stepped away from the clearing, heading in the opposite direction, when behind him two figures emerged. He pulled up short, turning and watching their arrival. He paid only scant attention to the female doe, instead his focus resting upon the very big… thing. He had never seen any creature of its like before. He was intrigued.

It was only when the beast moved forward to take a sample of his dead rodent, did the buck speak. “Did I say you could share?” No Mercy asked loudly, his voice low and mocking with a deadly undertone. He prances forward, circling around the gryphon and then moving towards Cornice.

“You should control your pet.”  

[Amorpheous]

"It would seem you do want the mess you left behind." Cornice shrugged, uncaring. She didn't bother smiling and making nice. It would seem there was no point. Not moving a scant step back, Cornice just stood there, impervious to the tactless stabs the buck was trying to take. He thought he was tough, scary, because he could make glib comments. The buck had another thing coming for him if he thought that Treacherous Snow ever backed down. She may not have his poisonous coloring, but that was part of her charm. Her name was Treacherous Snow for a reason. Deceptively normal, that's how she glided through life taking what she wanted, when she wanted, but if you didn't give in, then she was dangerous.

Chin down and eyes, cold and narrowed, Cornice advanced, the stance of a predator. A flick of a her tail and Caution was at her side, not a single scrap of dead rat eaten. Even if he had offered, Caution wouldn't have taken, disgusting as the meager mess was; a gryphon had standards. The pair stopped, invasive and unmoving at that point, the few breaths between buck and doe with gryphon only a formality. "If you want your kill, I suggest you take it with you instead of staining the swamp floor with your endeavors."  

[Ruriska]

No Mercy’s next comment died before he even uttered it. He met her cold gaze, his smile dropping as if it had never existed. A predator could always tell the difference between easy prey and the ones you did not want to mess with. Mercy in particular knew well how to spot that kind of kin. His mother was one of them.

“I don’t particularly want it.” He replied after a moment. “I just don’t want you to have it.” The buck set an amused smile back on his lips. “I don’t recall the swamp floor ever complaining about what I feed it before.” No Mercy stood still, except for the swishswish of his tail behind him, and his focus upon her was unwavering.  

[Amorpheous]

The smile dropped and Cornice wasn't surprised at all. Predators, even the ones that lacked the tact and finesse like the buck before her, always recognized other predators. He wasn't like her though. She saw the predator, the lack of mercy, but she didn't see the cunning and charm that kept people trailing after you even after you had sucked them dry. Cornice didn't make any threatening moves and Caution was merely a focused presence next to her.

"Then we don't disagree." He didn't want her to have it, she didn't want to have it either. No matter. Her gaze went from the sharp focus of a predator who might have found some interesting prey to the disinterest of a hunter bored. So typical, tactlessly selfish and lacking the maturity to express himself in a way that didn't involve petty snipes. "I suppose something will eventually come to clean up the mess."

What did it matter to her. It was a matter of disrespect to the swamp though, something that seemed utterly pointless to her. Why would she bother wasting her prey? It didn't make her any useful "friends" to leave messes around. It wasn't that she respected the swamp, but she knew others did, and she was nothing if not somekin who could manipulate the social norms of others to her advantage. In order to do that, you had to understand them though and it seemed this buck had an absolute disregard for all the potential he was wasting being a child.  

[Ruriska]

No Mercy was testing; each word was like a prod, just waiting to see what sort of reaction she would give. Not much it would seem. The boredom that had suddenly clouded her gaze was an annoyance. She presumed he was nothing; no more than a petty nuisance. To her he was dull. Well, she would learn otherwise soon enough.

The buck gave the Kimeti equivalent of a shrug; no longer interested in discussing the bloody mess he had left behind for the swamp to claim. He didn’t care about insulting anyone who might come across it. In fact, he hoped they would find it disquieting. The horror on their faces was always priceless.

A new plan of attack was necessary. Mercy’s gaze shifted to the gryphon. No, threatening that one was off the cards. That beak looked too sharp. Looking back towards the doe, he moved in closer, closing the space between them until there was barely a breath between them.

“You can call me Mercy.” He told her merrily.  

[Amorpheous]

Cornice only stared disinterestedly as the buck as he moved closer. She had already made a pointed advance, it was ineffectual for him to do the same. Her gaze flickered to his ear for a second when he turned his gaze to Caution. Maybe she tear his ear off. Or not. He probably wouldn't taste any good and then she'd be left with a bloody, severed ear and a gryphon who would rebuke her offerings of a not so tasty snack.

The pair of hunters stood still, uninterested. If the buck wanted to interest them, he would have to do much better than that. Childish as he was, he probably thought he deserved to have all their attention, but what he didn't realize that all his recycled tricks and his merry ego only served to make it more obvious to Cornice and Caution that he wasn't worth their time. They would play this out, but they wouldn't be surprised if the buck never surprised them.

Cornice was disappointed, she had hoped from the sounds of the struggle that she would find another kin that had her taste for blood with the sophistication of a master, but instead, she had ended up with a buck who had the mentality of a child who had not yet learned his left hoof from his right was using it to attack. "I will, will I?"

Cornice didn't appreciate being told that she should call him what he wished. He didn't even give her his name, that she was sure of. "I rather think that you haven't given me your name. Mercy would be rather inappropriate wouldn't it?"

"In this case, I think I'll only tell you that you may call me Snow." Cornice said this in a perfectly genial tone while Caution stretched slightly, claws digging gouges into the ground.  

[Ruriska]

“Yes, you will.” The buck continued to smile and his ears pricked forward when she gave him an equally unfinished name. “How would you know if it was an inappropriate name or not? Do you know me?” She was infuriatingly fascinating and No Mercy longed to wipe the disinterest off her face. Eventually. Even if he had to do slowly, insidiously. Let her think him a failure.

He moved, stepping back and away from her. When there a good distance between them he stopped, watching her. “No…” He murmured, mostly to himself. “Not the same.” No Mercy had been looking similarities between this doe and his mother, and now he gave a very pleased little sigh. Mother was much more frightening.

“So tell me, Not-Snow, how do you hunt?”  

[Amorpheous]

"That... thing you've left behind. I assure you there's little mercy in being left as a pointless stain on the ground," Treacherous Snow spoke with little bite in her voice, like a mother chastising a child for doing something stupid, simple, amusing only because they didn't seem to know better. When he stepped back, she surveyed him impassively, not even blinking under his assessing gaze. No... Not the same. Comparisons. No-Mercy, that was what she would call him, was comparing her to somekin. How trite.

How did she hunt? Oh, she hunted like he did, without mercy, but she never turned her prey into a useless pile of innards and sinew nor would she ever hunt something so insignificant as a rat, something so inherently unchallenging. Hunting was an art, not a blundering mess. Rolling her shoulders, Cornice slunk forward, pressing up into No-Mercy's space and leaned forward to sigh into his ear. "Why don't you come see, No-Mercy?"

She pulled away and smiled gently, a perfect mimicry of the kindest does and slid past him, tail flicking to brush against his neck as she passed. Cornice led the way out of the clearing with Caution following close behind.  

[Ruriska]

“I gave it mercy. In death. If I desired, it would be alive right now and still a pointless stain.” No mercy answered just a tad petulantly, frowning at her tone. He enjoyed the easy prey, the ones that could fill up a bit of time with their terrified cries. He did not liking thinking she looked down on him because of today’s choice of victim. A rodent was a casual pastime. He would show her he was capable of much more than that.

Surprise flashed in eyes for the briefest moment. Thankfully it could easily be misread as surprise over her sudden change of demeanor, rather than the name she had chosen for him. His name. Well of course. It made sense for her to tack ‘no’ on the front of it. He was just grumpy she had his actual name, without even knowing it, and he stuck calling her ‘Not-Snow’. Her name probably didn’t even have anything to do with snow at all.

He turned to follow her with an annoyed little grunt. But the look slowly cleared as No Mercy inspected his ‘new’ playmate. How sweet and demure she seemed now. Moving up alongside the doe; he casually brushed his side against hers and gave a grin. He was looking forward to seeing how this played out.  

[Amorpheous]

She answered him as she wove between trees, steps light and soundless, voice light, "True, but there is very little of it when the creature is near death anyways."

Caution broke away from the pair who were walking step in step, trotting quickly, wings spread, going back and forth, sweeping the area. Treacherous Snow let her tail brush against No-Mercy’s side at times, her smile light and gentle. At nearly identical times, both master and familiar stopped and went still. Caution was scenting the air, beak open and Cornice had her nose high in the air and her ears were flicking and swiveling. The wind was still, but Cornice was cautious of the fact that the wind might pick up at any moment and she would have to react quickly to her prey picking up on her scent. Pinpointing the source of the scent, Cornice dropped into a low crouch and crept forward, shifting fluidly with every little change that she sensed.

Treacherous Snow eased into stillness as her prey came into view. It was a large snake, blissfully unaware of the kin that was watching it. Turning a critical eye on it, Cornice determined that it was poisonous and would make the hunt enjoyable. Good. She hadn’t had as much fun as she had thought she would the last time she had taken on a snake, non-poisonous. It just tried futilely to constrict her to death. Boring.

Cornice signaled minutely to Caution with her tail and the gryphon prowled forward, silent as both hunters stared at the snake. A careful silent conversation and an assenting blink later, Caution leapt up in to the air, wings unfurling and took a side swoop at the snake. It was merely a test to determine the snakes speed, Caution never going near enough to strike or to be struck. Cornice watched with a quelled excitement that she pushed out of her mind as the snake hissed and snapped out at Caution, fangs exposed. It was fast and it was willing to fight, even with something that could fly. This snake would make a worthy victim.

Landing lightly on a nearby tree, Caution watched with sharp eyes. Gryphon and kimeti not quite partners, but no longer strangers were still testing each other. Today the test would be Cornice’s to pass. Accepting the task silently, Caution remained absolutely still in the cover that the undergrowth provide as she watched the snake wave its large head menacingly at Caution before deciding that the gryphon was no longer a threat and began to slither away. At that moment, Cornice coiled the muscles in her back leg and launched herself over the snake to land in front of it, twisting the moment her front hooves hit to ground to face the snake. Almost immediately, the snake struck up at her. She dodged the fangs and twisted around easily to take her own jab at the snake, catching it along the spine and leave a dark gash. Cornice then danced away, ever moving and light shift, just waiting for the snake to strike again.

It was the rush of hunting the hunter, to know that she could die. When the snake came forward and hissed, Cornice responded in like with low crooning sound, half-growling, half-keening. Staring the snake right in the eyes, the doe sensed the next strike before she could see it and moved preemptively out of the way, the snake’s head rushing past her side to hit the air where she had been just a split second before. Stamping out with her hoof, Cornice clipped the snake as it moved out of the way right on the gash that she had created, opening it up further. Blood now stained the ground and it wasn’t hers.

The snake didn’t give up and so long as it kept fighting she would keep the hunt going. The moment it tried to run or hide or simply gave up, it would be over. She would never make it incapable of fighting like No-Mercy had made the rat incapable of running. She didn’t want fear in her victim, she wanted a fight.

The dance between kin and snake continued, each taking stabbing blows at each other until the snake tired of both striking and through the gradual blood loss from the trickling, shallow slashes that Cornice made in its scaled skin. It did not simply lay there though, even in its weakened state, it was determined to live. It slithered backwards, head raised, but for Cornice will to live was not enough. She was looking for a hunter and now the snake was no longer hunting, it was running. Caution screeched a long high cry and Cornice sighed disappointedly, the hunter was no more. A hunter that did not hunt had no right to live. Feinting a strike to the left, Cornice lured the snakes bite to the left then snapped over to the right to bring her fangs down on the snake at the base of its head. She crushed the spine between her jaws and held still until the snake went fully limp and she was sure it was dead.

Cornice then dropped the snake and severed the head with her hoof. Caution dropped to the ground from the high vantage point and looked at the snake. Again, gryphon and kimeti had quick silent conversation. Treacherous Snow severed the snake with her hoof again, this time splitting the large snake in half. It was good sized meal, even for a growing gryphon. Taking the other half delicately in her jaws, Cornice turned to No-Mercy and stepped daintily up to him. She set the half of the snake down in front of the buck, she looked up at him, her already dark muzzle stained even darker with blood, and when she smiled, ever gentle and sweet, her teeth were red. “For you, No-Mercy.”  

[Ruriska]

No Mercy followed at Cornice’s side, always watching her face and waiting for that pleasant smile to drop. He was always slow to respond to their stop and would come to a clumsy pause before quickly having to start moving again to keep up. When it appeared the doe had located her prey, he dropped back. The male flexed his muscles, wishing he could join in the hunt, but this was her show. So he stood back, nostrils flared and ears pressing forward, watching. And boy did she give a good show.

He had never seen such a glorious hunt. His kills were always quick and violent; the splatter of blood and the crunch of bones. There was no skill to it, merely brute force and crushing hooves.

Mercy watched, rapt. He swayed as she moved, following the dance, but never shifting from the spot where he stood lest he intrude upon the hunt. He saw the moment when the snake gave up the fight, when it chose flight over fight. Then it was done. Death dealt in a second, and he blinked at her approach, as if woken from a wonderful dream.

The buck looked quite smitten with her as she dropped half of the snake down in front of him, and for once in his life, he was completely lost of words.  

[Amorpheous]

When she approached, the buck blinked and seemed a bit dazed, as if he had just awoken. The enraptured look on his face as she came with her kill and then the look of infatuation pleased Cornice and if she were the type to let everything show on her face, she would be smirking, but she wasn't and instead she settled on a fawning, sweet smile. She hadn't started with charm, but it was still fun to see this No-Mercy react to her after seeing her openly predatory side directed at him.

She leaned forward and gently nudged him. "You should eat. I promise that snakes are delicious."

And they were. Past the scales was the tender flesh of a creature that relied on sinewy flexibility to survive. Snakes were always good meals, especially fresh. Pulling away slightly, Cornice smiled before turning to the snake. She brought her hoof down in a careful slashing movement, slicing through the snake's skin halfway down the piece she had set down and in another, split it all the way down the middle. She bent her head down and used her teeth to pull away the skin, revealing the pink flesh beneath it.

Behind her, Caution was simply cutting pieces off of the snake then tossing them into the air before raising up onto her hind paws to snap the piece out the air and swallow it whole. If she wanted, Caution could have just taken the half and began swallowing down the snake, but this way, the kill was savored. Cornice ignored the gryphon in favor of the buck before her. It would be fun to see how far the game would go. She crooned softly, "No-Mercy, No-Mercy."  

[Ruriska]

The buck obediently bent his head to the prepared snake meat; inelegantly tearing off a piece, chewing and swallowing. It had never occurred to No Mercy that snake would be a tasty meal, and he wasn’t sure if it was new infatuation that made it taste so delicious now or if it truly was that nice. He was tempted to devour the rest but he fought the urge, instead moving forward to see if she would allow him closer.

No Mercy attempted to press his nose against her cheek in a show of clumsy affection. He wasn’t used to the art of ‘love’ and certainly wasn’t sure how best to woo someone, but he did his best with the gentle nudge and then stepped back. He grinned, tail swishing behind him.

“You can go back now.” He told her; presuming she would know what he meant. No Mercy was of course referring to her personality switch. This one was thoroughly fascinating, but he wanted the cold, hunter back.