#hrgh finally

Voices echoed across the forest floor, two trolls calling out as they traversed the brush and fallen logs like it was nothing.

Kani had advised Teagan to leave Wolfdad back at hive just in case worse came to worse. As much as she didn’t want to think about it, with how long wolfmom had been missing they were going to find her alive..

..Or aliven’t.

And she didn’t want to subject Wolfdad to such sudden heartbreak as it would be a mixture of horrifying as well as dangerous for everyone involved. Wolf lusii while smart as hell were still apex predators and therefore unpredictable. 

At least that’s what her knowledge of them was.

“Anything..?”

Teagan scanned the horizon, nostrils flaring as he tried to catch anything; sound, scent, sight.

“noThing yet. you sure you didn’T find anyThing aT The hive? no hinTs?”

Kanisa’s brows twitched as she turned her attention to her fellow cerulean-blood. Part of her wanted to snap back with sarcasm and bite out of frustration and worry, but she held back; wanting to focus on the hunt.

“Nothin’... It ain’t like her but at the same time that whole ordeal prior was some unusual circumstances..”

Kani felt like going back to punch Lloric again just for this. Not that it would help but it’d make her feel slightly better. Maybe.

As the two pressed further into the forest, a slight rustle gave the wolf-trolls pause. Peering over a particularly large bush they could see nothing but white. 

And then they saw nothing but teeth.

Kani laid out in the grass with the giant wolf that was her Lusus looming over her, hackles raised and teeth bared and snarling. It was a shock to both trolls as Kani laid completely still as to not set her off even as thick rivulets of anxiety-induced saliva fell on her face.

The giant wolfess looked confused, scared, and nearly frenzied. This looked like her charge but it didn’t smell like her charge. It smelled like an enemy. It smelled like what she was trained to protect her charge from.

Instinct won over the battle between it and reasoning and Kani found herself getting swiftly dragged out from under Wolfmom with a yelp just as she snapped her jaws down on the air that was once where Kani’s throat had been. The two ceruleans only had time to give each other panicked looks before they begun the dance of trying to avoid a nine-foot wolf lunging for them in a bid to protect.

“Kani you need To calm her down!”

“That’s the thing I can’t! She’s doing what she was trained to do..!”

Realization hit her harder than the long tail that threw her into a boulder. There was no stopping her lusus. At the time Kanisa was at peace with, if she was bitten that she’d let her lusus put her down.

But that was before she made peace with herself.

She and Teagan shared another look amidst their frantic dodging of claws and teeth. Before Teagan could even chastise her for even thinking about it, flesh and cloth erupted into fur as Kani shifted mid-lunge. She knew her naginata wouldn’t be enough. It was a gamble if even her own claws and teeth would be enough.

Cerulean was never a hue the pair came across in their werebeast eradications. And Kani’s blood was a touch higher.

The whirlwind of fur and claws and gnashing, ripping jaws was a sight to behold. When one wolf would throw the other across the forest floor, the other would sprint to do the same. It was almost too dangerous for Teagan to stay but he wanted to see this to the end and if worse came to absolutely worse he’d try to step in.

There was a sickening crunch.

The giant white wolf quit moving, falling to its side as a pool of cerulean blood began to form around its head. The victor was Kani, looming over its corpse with cerulean dripping from her teeth and snout. She let out a piercing howl to the sky before making a run back for her hive with enough speed that Teagan would have issues keeping up.

Part of Teagan knew the reason she chose to leave swiftly. Adrenalin was still high and he likely would’ve been another target in her frenzy. He was going to give her space; he was a kismesis not a moirail anyway.