This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us

[Spiffy]

(( Tag S'yal/Open, because it wouldn't fit in the title :3 ))


The wherhandler's toes curled, a tingling rushing up her spine as the emotions from the rising opal hit her like a wave - a very warm, very lusty wave. She shivered. "Ooohhhhhhrrr, just like sex," she said, to no-one in particular, least of all the guard who was clutching the wall not far off. It took Bella a moment to realise that she was also leaning against a wall, though her wall was a buttery gold and made of pure muscle and sinew.

Iateth. She rises, the gold growled into her mind, the gold trembling herself, though whether from lust as Bella was feeling or some other emotion, she could not be sure. Both whers were looking up to the sky, eyes trained on the form of the opal above the weyr, occasionally looking away as other dragons rose into the air to chase her. Bella too turned to look. A staggering amount of dragons were taking to the air after the ghostly little dragonet, so strange in her colour. This would cause some controversy, she thought idly.

As the opal spoke and shot off into the night, another wave of lust and desire hit Bella, causing her to gasp. By Faranth she wanted someone. She looked up at the guard through hazy eyes, his own just as clouded as hers. Ugh, but not him, she thought, fighting the part of her that was driving her toward him, anyone, with a great effort turning in the other direction to stalk away from him. Dawn was coming, she'd be able to get out of their soon anyway, duty over.

Escape! Prisoner escaping! The frenzied voice run in her head, causing her to stop. Bellask. The green was now at the fence, growling savagely as a figure in red appeared from the prison, heading toward the stables. What was the door doing open.

It is time. At that, Bella's struggling brain managed to put two and two together. Prisoners + escaping = breakout.

The breakout.

Her lip curled up then, a predatory smile. She'd been told of this plan, one of the few guards who had, and one of the even fewer wherhandlers that had been let in on it. She didn't even know if there were any other handlers in on it. But, because of it, she had a job to do.

What luck that she was guarding the gate that lead to the stables.

She turned back to the guard them, still stumbling around in her general direction but holding back at the sight of the snarling green. Flight-addled he may be, but a wher was a wher, and Bellask had a reputation of sorts. Letting the lust get the better of her for a minute, she headed toward him, smiling invitingly. He needed little invitation once she had passed Bellask. Too easy, arms around him, behind his neck, back behind hers, grasp knife and swipe. Too easy. She pushed his gushing corpse away, shuddering, partly from the desire scorned and partly because he'd had the audacity to bleed on her. Not that he could have helped it, but still.

Keep an eye out for anyone coming, she said to the whers, looking around hazily herself out of instinct before heading toward the gate. Reaching for the lock she tried to open it, but her fingers would not obey her. This was cold steel, not what they wanted. She rattled the gate, frustrated, then pushed it in frustration. "Fucking open!" she shouted at it for good effect. She kicked it. but it still wouldn't budge. She cursed again, continuing in speech, "Princess, brake it down, please," she added, stepping away.

Needless to say the gold made short work of it, kicking the gate open, leaving the way open to the stables for any who should want to go thataway. Bella didn't need to. She would be going with them, yes, but she needed no runner. No, she'd be taking Bellatrisk, and Bellask. Going near the runners would only make it harder for the others.

[S'yal]

They were escaping, they were getting away and he had to kill all of them and make them stay and stop and clear his head and get Zalmask out of his brain and stop screaming. That was pretty much the only thing going through Z's head as he stumbled, a grimace on his features. Sharding Opal. He wanted to rip her apart and kill her and- No he didn't. That was Zalmask, the gold screaming and roaring in his head. He could feel her age, tangible as if someone was pushing on his shoulders and trying to wear him down. She was so angry, angry at her emotions being affected, angry about how the Opal was affecting her handler.

Sh was also angry about the break out, about the prisoners fleeing from her territory and killing her guards and injuring her pack. She was angry because Warden was angry. She was angry because her handler was in danger. She was angry because the entire world was crumbling into chaos around her and she could do nothing to stop it.

Trying to fight her was like pushing a boulder up a hill... all the boulder did was get bigger and bigger while he got weaker and weaker. So he let the gold follow him, screaming into the minds of the whers that she passed and telling them to stop sitting around and staring and start suppressing the break out.

Z had managed to pull his mind together, had managed to force his wher into her own mind. The gold was following him now, her massive form shivering. They were going to the stables. That was where the prisoners would be heading, logic dictated. They needed to escape, and the best thing for that would be runners. But if Z got there first, Zalmask would slaughter all of the beasts and the escapees would arrive to the slavering jaws of Warden's senior queen wher. Z himself did not share his whers bloodlust- he wanted to control and suppress the break out and then find Bujare.

Sharding duties. He just wanted to drink and cry and fuck, damn it.

It was the yell that really pulled Z from his thoughts. Is that... Bellatrix? Hazy eyes narrowed with thought, an Z grit his teeth. Why is she-

TRAITOROUS BITCH. ZALMASK WILL- Z would have blushed at the things coming from his Wher, wide eyes darting towards the thick creature as she pushed herself forward, spittle dripping from her mouth as she barreled towards her golden daughter. SIT. NO MOVE. The command was hastily thrown at the Green wher, trying to ensure Bellask wouldn't come to the rescue of the gold. But with her addled mind and fury, it'd be easy for Bellatrisk to override the command.Zalmask see you! BELLATRISK DIE! An animalistic scream ripped itself from Zalmask's throat, the gold not even bothering to think that Bellatrisk might be on 'her' side. She knew her daughter. Or maybe she just didn't care.

"Heya, Bellatrix." Z cocked his head to one side, a tight grin on his features. Oh, he'd kill her even if she wasn't guilty of aiding the criminals. It'd been a desire deep inside him for a long time, hidden underneath duty and booze and anything else Z could get his hands on. Blue eyes, formerly dull and glazed with something a little more potent then lust, came alight with a savage fury. He'd tear her apart, let her watch her precious little 'princesses' bleed before her as he'd watched Zalsk. Zalmask screamed in his mind, urging him on even as Z twitched, gripping the knife in his hand tighter. "I've been looking forward to this." Looking forward to the revenge that had eluded him for so long. What he'd wanted since his wher had died in his arms, since Warden came to visit him in the infirmary. What had grown everyday as he watched the bitch who'd killed his Zalsk Impress, grow, be happy and healthy. Everything his green should have been.

Z hated them. Z hated them so much the feeling choked him, pressed down on his heart and made him drink all the pain away. He hated, hated, hated with a passion he hadn't had since he escaped his father.

Kill them, kill them. They took Zalsk, they betrayed us. Everything we did! They betrayed us! Zalmask will kill them! All of them! Zalmask screamed in the back of his mind, thrashing and raging even as she bore down on her daughter and tried to dig teeth into the taller golds foreleg. The thick collar around her neck rattled, screams of rage and fury coming from the gold.

It was clear. They didn't care about innocence.

Z and Zalmask just wanted an excuse to kill them.

"So kid. Let's see how much you remember about fighting from my lessons." Z laughed, a half maddened noise that showed just how much he'd broken. He'd hidden it all, shoved it down and far away where not even Zalmask could see. But now? He was going to kill Bellatrix and finally, finally he could have some peace. Finally the nightmares and guilt would end. A wide grin split Z's face, tears trailing down ashen cheeks as he continued to laugh.

He just wanted to be able to sleep at night. He just wanted the memories to stop. He just wanted to kill Bellatrix.

That wasn't so bad, was it?

"I want you to watch while Zalmask kills that gold of yours. I want you and that bitch to know what it feels like." He'd been bleeding for so long, wounded and broken and no one had noticed. But now all the anger, the desperation, the misery rushed up and engulfed him. He felt as if it wasn't blood running through his veins, but fire and ichor and the screams for vengeance. "But you won't die. You can sit and rot in this prison and every day, Zalmask will visit you and you can see the thing that killed Bellatrisk just like I had to see that monster every day. Every day." It felt so good to say.

Z laughed and stared at Bellatrix and waited. "I hate you." The words felt like acid in his mouth, eating through his flesh and destroying his brain but it felt so good. "I hate you so much."

[Spiffy]

Bellask was the first to spot the gold and her handler in the distance, the green not having been called away from sentry duty for gate-breaking as Bellatrisk had been. Bellatrisk had not been watching, had not seen, but Bellask had, because Bellask was a good wher to her handler, her precious handler and a good wher for Bellatrisk, her beloved gold companion, no matter how much she scorned her. Because Bellask was a good wher, a loyal wher.

Zalmask! Zalmask's! the green shouted into her rider's mind, a little too forcefully, buzzed as she was with strange feelings from the flight, the ever-present anger, and a wild, building excitement that something big was going down. And she was a part of it! Coming, coming fast... she added, just as her vice was drowned out by Zalmask's, the gold's voice ripping through the heads of the three, weaker people likely would have cringed and run at the vehemence and words that came from her.

But they were not lesser minds.

Bella and Bellatrisk whirled simultaneously to face the prison, quickly locating the onrushing form of Zalmask. Then, from behind them, something large and green flashed past. Bellask.

The green had seen Zalmask and seen her running, heard her words and tone, and knew her intent. She was going after Bellatrisk! She wouldn't let that happen, not if it was the last thing she did. Mother or not, Zalmask was going down.

That was, at least, until the senior gold's command hit her like a tonne of bricks. She was so shocked that she obeyed, instantly plunking her butt to the ground and skidding about a dragonlength as she did, so much was her momentum. She looked back at Bellatrix, at Bellatrisk, as if for instructions, confused. No. Zalmask is Bellatrisk's now.

Bellatrisk, on the other hand, did not immediately rush after the other gold, she had more tact than that. Let Zalmask tire herself running all that way. She snarled viscously, teeth bared in a toothy snarl (ooh yes, this time she had teeth, unlike the last time she'd bared them at her mother), lowering herself into a crouch as a deep throated roar escaped her jaws in answer to Zalmasks challenge. Over your dead body! With that, she leapt forward into a sprint to meet her mother, colliding with the last word of what she said next:

THIS ENDS NOW!

She dodged Zalmask's snap at the last minute, her left toe catching Mama's teeth as she leapt upward and sideways. She aimed a spur of the moment slash at Zalmask's hindquarters as she came down onto them, landing heavily on the ground, spinning to again face her mother when the momentum of her stumble allowed her to. She didn't even notice the scratches on her chest where Zalmask's collar had caught her.

Bella, in the meantime, had run to join Bellask as her gold barrelled past. She was not stupid, she knew that she was vulnerable if Zalmask decided to go after her as Bellatrisk had once gone after Z and, much as she thought of her own fighting skills, she knew she stood no chance against a full-grown Zalmask alone.

Z on the other hand...

She smiled, really more of a smirk, when he greeted her. There was no love in his tone, no camaraderie, no respect, nothing, even it was said informally. Not even lust, strange when everyone she could see, including herself, was reeling from it. But his eyes explained it all. Oh he was feeling it, she was sure, but he had something else, an emotion that she was all too familiar with taking up the edge of her mind, suppressed and straining to be let go: wrath.

She knew full-well why, though she had never seen it quite this strong. It'd been in his manner, his attitude toward her since the day of the hatching, she'd seen that. Mostly it had been directed at Bellask, and to some extent Bellatrisk. What had transpired that fateful evening had been out of Bella's hands, and she knew it. But now she was the focus of Z's dispair, berevement, all-consuming anger, all that was pent up and controlled finally released.

Oh this was delicious.

"Hello Zalman," she said, purposefully using his full name to taunt him further. "I can see you have. It must have been torturous for you, Zalman, to have her die in your arms like that. And it's finally got the better of you, hasn't it?" she said, taunting him in a sickly-sweet voice, her eyes cold and calculating. But she didn't stop there. "Poor, crippled little green, gone, just like that," she continued, raising her hands and flashing her fingers outward to emphasise her words, the blooded knife that was grasped in them replaced a while ago. She had stepped away from Bellask now, two steps closer to Z, the green still sitting on the floor, but now growling menacingly at him. She was unarmed, but that mattered little to her. Z was far enough away from her still that if he made a move she'd have her twin daggers in her hands quicker than you could say 'boo'.

She laughed at his question, as maniacally as Z was laughing and, had she not been lust-ridden and on guard, she'd've dissolved into fits of giggles. His lessons? She remembered nothing she'd learned in them. No, because she'd learned nothing in them. They were useless, Z was useless, he'd taught her nothing she didn't already known.

"Oh Zalman," she said, her voice full with patronising scorn, "you think you're so big, so bad, so broken. Bellatrisk will not die, Zalmask will not kill her. She's Mama's daughter. Bellatrisk... well, we all know Bellatrisk now, don't we? She has no such compunctions. It will be such a shame for you to loose another wher, Zalman, your precious Mama. I wonder how much of your mind will be left after that. She chose more of your name than the cripple, didn't she? All the more to lose."

"Really Zalman, I thought you had it in you. Seems I was wrong," she said when he next spoke. Wouldn't kill her? Hah, she'd just see about that. Her thoughts echoed that of her wher's: over my dead body. She'd rather die that be locked away in a prison. But that mattered not, for it was not going to happen. "You'll not take me alive, Zalman, that I can promise you. You won't let yourself. Let's say that you'd get that far, that close to killing me, would you really stay your hand? Would you really stop yourself from doing what you want to do, so, so badly? No. You won't resist it. You don't have the will."

With that she stopped, another four paces closer to Z and further from Bellask. Hated her, did he? She gave Z a wicked smile. "My pleasure," she said, dipping into a light curtsy, hands conveniently close to her daggers, her eyes never leaving his, waiting, just waiting, for him to come at her.

[Lesa]

She’d taken them out. She’d taken them out on a walk, on her one “day” break, because she couldn’t deal with Z anymore. Bujare breathed deeply of the cool night air, enjoying its play through the flyaways at her brow. She just… couldn’t deal with Z anymore. She’d tried, she’d tried to get him to talk, to speak to her, to let out the emotions roiling below the surface, the sadness he kept bottled up… nothing. Nothing, nothing but kisses and smiles and laughter. More serious methods were needed.

Hadn’t been there when he needed her the most, directly after the Hatching, but she had Bask. She couldn’t. Would’ve hurt just as much for her to be there with the brown, trying to comfort. Bask hissed to himself as he stepped on a twig. The Traderclanwoman smiled, he was learning quite well. Not up to her own or Busk’s level of wood-walk, but close, for his few months, and no need to move through such forests silently. He would not shame her as a “younger brother”, were she to face her Vatti with him; he was not a “twin” yet, but near there. Nearly there, just as the sun was nearly risen. Time to go back, to cuddle up to Z and sleep the morning away.

Sweat and skin and blood and tears swamped her, causing the wood-wise woman to near knock herself out on a tree. Scarred hands braced on it instead, one slipping down to her stomach, feeling her womb quivering, quickening within her. Oh, Faranth, two minds pressed against her, claws flexing in the damp detritus of the forest, full of lust, full of worry. Buju? the question hung in her mind.
Something is wrong, khoya, we must go back, quickly. Bujare breathed deeply, holding the lust-love-pleasure-pain-need away by sheer will. Alsamt, she snapped as the young brown went to barrel ahead, pulling him back to the quick-quiet pace she and Busk had perfected in the bronze’s first two Turns of life.

It was clear as they got closer that something was terribly wrong, more than just Bujare having to stop twice mid-stride, foot upraised as she fought her own mind, shoving down the desire to run to Z and find a flat surface and just screw. They’d taken out two prisoners. Prisoners, why the shards were there prisoners out? Well, they were now good and hamstrung. Only the Healers would save them being able to walk. Not that she was going to drag their sorry carcasses to the Infirmary. Not now, not with them out, and that seeming only the beginning. The last half-mile was at a barely composed sprint, swift and nearly silent, but for the hamstringing (and Bask tripping over his own feet twice). Both whers bore bloody muzzles proudly, eyes awash in the dim (and, she thought with worry, brightening) light swirled red and orange and purple. They would get to the bottom of this.

Shadow in shadow they entered the main area, viewing the chaos inside with thinly veiled disgust. Sloppy, Busk commented gruffly on a guard’s swing at a prisoner’s head. The three prepared to enter the fray when a roar was heard. A familiar roar. MAMA, three minds growled as one, staying in the shadows as they moved to the noise of mother, near-mate and lover’s wher. Where Mama was, Z was. Where Z was, Bujare wanted to be. Gruffly she shoved away the lust-love-need-want that rose in her, the skin-blood-sex-tears, shoving away a prisoner who came to close with a dagger-point, uncaring as he crumpled at her feet, stepping over the sluggishly bleeding man.

Keen ears picked up and relayed the words of Z as the trio made their way to the gate and confrontation. One tear, two, graced Bujare’s face, until they slipped away, face a resolute mask. He hadn’t told her. He had told her nothing! Rage took over sadness, took over lust and need and everything but for a moment, until sadness wormed its way back in, like Bask trying to get her to hug him, stubborn and unstoppable. Fool man! Foolish man, oh, that foolish, stupid, stupid man! It – she – they – la-i-m! The Traderclanwoman raged. He was going to get himself killed, for not controlling himself, for not admitting to anyone, for not opening up. For her not pushing. For her not prodding. For her not making him open. She was a charrira, he wasn’t a la-i-m, not at all. Or not for this. He was the wounded one. Oh Faranth, if she had just made him talk to her, this wouldn’t have happened.

Her shirt ruffled at her stomach as she skidded to a stop, the boys going where they would without her direction. This was worse than she thought, worse than she could have imagined – and it was all her fault. All her fault.
No my daughter, Busk said coldly, keeping out of the golds’ fight for the moment, but ready at the slightest opening to join in. That much he had gathered from Bellatrisk’s human. Mama might not do things to her daughters. But these were not the bronze’s clutch. He had no compunction, if they were attacking Pack. He may not have the gold’s size, either of them, but this little one had not the life of either elder.

Bask stared down his smaller sister. No move, Bellask, please. It was an order, not a request, brown teetering on the edge of madness only glimpsed in his golden sister. She was beautiful, was Bellask…to twine with her…but she hurt Busk in actions. She hurt Bajuaer, she hurt Mama. Not Pack. Tail lashing, eyes whirling maroon, so mixed was lust and anger, he waited. If she moved, he would hurt her. He would kill her, if able.

The human of the three paused, breathing in the scene, drinking in the blood in the air, the words screamed through it bathing her skin. Seeing Z pushed the skin-blood-love-sex-tears-need at her, but she shoved it down, down and away and out. No time, no time for that now, no time for the accusations, the tears, the slamming of body against body against ground she so craved. No.
She was cold inside, in that cold dark place where nothing hurt, where nothing mattered. Just the hunt. Just the kill. “Jaraba ana,” she said simply, knowing where all her knives were on her body, and the weapons not knives available to her, “I can do it, come on. Jar-ah-bah a-nah.” Knees bent, arms held loose and at her sides.

((Jaraba ana – Trader (Arabic) – Try me.))

[S'yal]

He hated her. He hated her, he hated her so much.

Zalmask didn’t think as she moved. Inside her mind there was only a golden wher and hate that the gold felt as if she was drowning underneath. Maybe she’d loved Bellatrisk once, but there was such a faint line between hate and love that Z had pushed her past at the very second they saw that they’d been betrayed. She had to die and scream and suffer so that the nightmares wold stop and they’d be happy again.

Zalmask didn’t bother to stop her daughter from moving out of the way. Instead she waited for her spikes to scratch golden hide, and then shoved upwards as far as she could, aiming to drive the spikes on her collar into her daughter. The spikes couldn’t reach and damage any organs or kill the gold, but they could leave deep and nasty gashes and that would definitely make moving painful for the gold. Of course, Bellatrisk was a quick and agile wher.

Zalmask hated her so much.

She lunged again, aiming yet again for the golds forelegs. There was no break to catch her breath, the second Bellatrisk was facing her Zalmask was trying to drive her fangs into her legs and break the bones there. If she could just slow the bitch down she could win. She knew that. She was strong and she had far more stamina then the more slender gold. Zalmask could win she had to win she had to. If she didn’t, she’d be betraying her handler far worse then the Bella trio had.


Z’s blurry eyes narrowed as he heard his name, head raising sluggishly as he looked over Bellatrix with all the calculating hunger of a predator. Not with lust, no, but with the need for blood and death and tearing her apart. Lust, even with that shining form in the sky, was the farthest thing from Z’s mind. But it was there, swirling around and making it impossible for what was left of Z’s mind to seize control and stop him from murdering Bellatrix. “Shut up.” His voice came out strained and hoarse. “Stop it. Stop it! Stop talking! Stop talking about her! I hate you! I hate you and I need you to die NOW!” But he wasn’t moving. Not yet.

("Really Zalman, I thought you had it in you. Seems I was wrong," she said when he next spoke. Wouldn't kill her? Hah, she'd just see about that. Her thoughts echoed that of her wher's: over my dead body. She'd rather die that be locked away in a prison. But that mattered not, for it was not going to happen. "You'll not take me alive, Zalman, that I can promise you. You won't let yourself. Let's say that you'd get that far, that close to killing me, would you really stay your hand? Would you really stop yourself from doing what you want to do, so, so badly? No. You won't resist it. You don't have the will.")

“Shut up! I told you to stop talking!” Z seemed distressed by the fact his enemy was merely breathing, let alone talking to him. “It doesn’t matter, then. You’re going to die no matter what. If you manage to escape me, if you manage to live...” Broken laughter from a broken man. “you’ll die in that jungle. But I promise you something no Wher will give you. I’ll make it slow.”

Then he lunged, the knife he had in his hand clutched tight enough that it wouldhave been painful to someone in his right mind. He didn’t care that she had weapons. He didn’t care that she could stab him as he tried to slash at her face or whatever was closest to him. He had to kill her, because if he didn’t those dreams would never stop. He’d never stop being plagued by Zalsk.

If not for the Opals flight, Z would have been at least slightly sane. He would have been able to control himself. He wouldn’t lunging at Bellatrix and trying to stab her and make her deader then dead. But with lust roaring through his mind and twining with wrath and grief, Z had no chance.

He didn’t even notice Bujare arriving. He was too busy with the need to stab Bellatrix.

(It's crap, but I owed it and I didn't have the heart to make you guys wait. Next will be better)

[Spiffy]

Ha, he was pleading with her! Big bad Z was actually pleading! If only Pern had ways to record a moment in time, Bella would have gone to the ends of the earth to preserve this one. This was precious. Too precious. She was enjoying this far too much.

Can't you tell?

She did exactly what Z was asking her not to do. She continued, insults, patronisations, and the ever present references to Zalsk. She could see clearly that those were what got him the most, boiled his bloody and deadened his heart, all the better to get a rise out of him. Come on, you just come at me. Rage, rage, rage all you want.

"Me, die in the jungle? Really, Zalman. Do you really think I've not..." lived in hardship before? But she didn't get to finish what she was saying, because Z finally made a move on her.

She was ready for him though, eyes focussed utterly on the man in case he more than twitched, hands held, fingers not quite tensed, near to the twin daggers she wore at her belt for guard duty. That was not to say that they were her only weapons, no, Bella was a fan of knives; she had at least one with her wherever she went, tucked into her boot, and since she'd gotten word of the breakout, she'd been wearing one behind her shoulder too, for an occasion such as this. It was this knife that she'd used on the guard. Z had no idea what he was up against...

His lunge was clumsy, dulled by rage and unclear thinking, and by the fierce grip by which he held onto his knife. Stepping forward, she knocked his hand out of the way, across his own body, spun and slashed at his now unprotected side, skipping away from him as she did so. She could easily have buried the knife straight into him, but she'd already decided to play with him first. If he continued lunging at her like that she'd be cutting him to ribbons for hours - if she didn't get bored first, that is.

"We're dancing Zalman, you and I! Dancing under the opal moon. Can you feel it? The beauty, the power, the lust..." she said as he turned back to face her as any fighter would, and on the end she jumped toward him, close, so close, she resisted the urge to fall into him, daggers working in unison to slash at arms and chest.


Bellatrisk, on the other hand, was having a little more difficulty than her handler. First blood had gone to Zalmask, and if Bellatrisk wasn't having to act quickly to avoid Mama's next more she would've been outraged that her own slash had missed it's mark.

But the damage had been done, and now the haze settled on Bellatrisk's mind, bright and beautiful and deadly. And now she had her target.

The gold knew that if she was to have much of a chance at getting to Zalmask's throat then she'd need to get rid of that evil spiked collar, the one that had cost her her wound, which would soon begin to throb dully if she had a moment to stop and think about it. As it was, it was all she could do to sidestep her mother's lunge for her forelegs, but then she barrled down onto Zalmask's, teeth snapping at Mama's headknobs for purchase while she lifted her claws to scrabble at the leather that held the collar in place, doing her best to snatch at it at an angle to avoid the sharp tips of the spikes.


As it was, only Bellask noted the arrival of the two other whers and their handler, skidding in from the sidelines but not actually joining the fray. If she'd had a better grasp on human expressions, she'd've noted the look of horror on Bujare's face, even so close as to say despair. But she could not. All she knew of this handler was that she was a threat to Bellask's and her whers a threat to Bellatrisk, and she would stand for neither.

When the three approached she jumped up, placing herself between them and her handler/Bellatrisk, head down and growling threateningly. No closer, she warned, though of course her voice held little weight for the bronze and brown. Bask was staring down at her, telling her not to move. She hissed, and almost yowling sound much alike to a very pissed-off feline. She looked from one to the other. Busk was ignoring her, his attention focussed on the two golds battling it out behind her. He was also older and much bigger than her, and as much as the angry little green would like to have at him, she knew that she stood little chance on her own. Bask, on the other hand, was looking at her. He was her clutchsibling, no more experienced than she, and softer, even if he had a size advantage on her.

Bottle anger. Make potent, release best, she said to herself, drawing on the things Bella had been telling her, of how not to react to everything, how to control her anger, to keep it safe, to make others think they were safe and then to release it all in a deadly strike.

If one could ever call a knobbly, ugly wher feline, then that is what Bellask became. She hadn't missed the purple tinge to his eyes and, for the first time in the young green's life, she was laying on the charm.

Of course Bask. Anything Bask say. Bellask no hurt, no hurt Busk, not Bask's, not big, strong Bask, she said, voice crooning as she took a couple of steps closer to the brown, tail swaying enticingly behind her as she stepped around the side of Bask, beginning to circle him.

This was an outright lie, of course. If Bujare, Busk or even Bask made a move toward either Bella or Bellatrisk there would be hell to pay.