tell me—how does it feel with my teeth in your heart?

Craaack!

The snap echoes through the woods, and Dreka leans in, ignoring the flames fanning her face and singeing the tips of her ears. The bone is completely shattered. She scowls, rolling her eyes, and kicks a pawful of dust and pebbles into the fire. "Allez vous faire foutre," ( go fuck yourselves ) Dreka mutters, stepping back and stretching her neck from one side to the other. Her gods are being infuriatingly ambiguous; after dragging her all the way out the middle of nowhere, they've gone silent.

She knows why, but she loathes it all the same. Mother had told her—they will not answer her during this year. Childishly, Drekavac had been hoping that she was wrong.

Mother is never wrong.

She is meant to make this journey alone, in every sense of the word. She cannot find her center if they hold her hand the entire way, but she is unused to the silence. Her survival is up to her now; if she comes out the other side of it intact, her faith will reward her. Or so Mother says, anyway. Right now, Dreka is too annoyed at being ignored to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Whatever.

At least the fire isn't for nothing—it's a balm against the frigid winter night. Sure, it lights up her location like a beacon, but she doesn't worry about the possibility of being found. She knows how to use her claws. With an irritable flick of her tail, Dreka flops on her belly onto the crumbling stone slab she'd built her fire upon, and drags the remnants of the deer carcass between her paws, swiping a spot of blood off her lips with her tongue. This was a building, at some point, but what's left of the walls only shelter one corner now; she's strategically put her back to said corner, but she is otherwise relaxed, and sets to casually crunching on her midnight snack.

Riptide