WARNING: Descriptions of fighting, blood, injuries, and death

Lockheed was right. He’d been right about the risk of this all blowing up in their faces, of turning deadly before they could fully realize they’d been hit. Ariadne had chosen to tune out the risk, to ignore the looming threat that would come in favor of how this would help instead. A naive, stupid thing to do.

Their plan had gone so smoothly at first. Her, Lockheed, and the others were stained dark to provide some form of cover as they approached. It was only ever for food, nothing more. Things that would be easily replaced with the luck this other clan had. But at some point, an altercation happened. She didn’t see who, but she heard the shouts and the following sounds of a fight. 

It just devolved from there into an onslaught. The target clan was on high alert, and whoever hadn’t scurried off at the first sound of trouble was busy defending themselves.

“LOCKHEED!” Ariadne shouted as she sprinted past a larger pair of haedians. The pair tearing at each other, vicious snaps of teeth just missing flesh filling the air past their deafening snarls and growls. The vay had just barely weaved out of the way in time to avoid a lashing tail. Many fights just like it were happening around her, blocking her path or almost getting her caught up in it instead.

Which is how she almost missed one of the injured. It was one of the Forgotten; a younger member who’d gotten rather roughed up and was cowering against a fallen over residence of some kind. They were busy staring at a fight happening behind her to even acknowledge her existence. A relative of some kind, if she remembered right. 

“C’mon- you can’t stay here,” She urged, her anxiety through the roof as she shouldered the smaller haedian onto her back to take off. She wanted to find Lockheed first and foremost, before anything else, but… she couldn’t just turn a blind eye. The kid would’ve been killed, if the ferocity around her was anything to go off of. 

Running back the way their group came was a nightmare now that she had to keep more than just herself safe. The sobbing young hae on her back didn’t help the stress much either, and she didn’t have the mental capacity to try to soothe them and keep them both safe and intact.

“I need you to hang on- really hang on, use your claws some even. I don’t want you to drop when I make a run for the cavern,” Ariadne instructed as she caught her breath for a moment, her body crouched and posed to take off as she eyed their surroundings. 

Ariadne didn’t hear the approach.

The impact threw her off balance, both her and the kid shouting in surprise. And pain, in her case as she felt claws and fang pierce her hide. There was no telling where the kid went after a few tubles, Ariadne’s sole focus on keeping her insides inside as she started fighting for her life. She wasn’t a fighter… never had been. She was tanky, yes, but she’d never been one to resort to drawing blood. So this? A personal hell, a nightmare come true.

A deeper set of growls erupted near them, and Ariadne was certain that she was doomed then. But… no, the haedian all but through her away. It felt as if she were in a fog, barely able to realize she’d been tossed. Hardly noticed the dirt and grit that’d filled her wounds, or the scared urging of the young hae as they tried to nudge her up. 

Shock, really. Tunnel vision and adrenaline both as well. It was her turn to be nudged in the right direction, so she could also be treated.

Lockheed, meanwhile, had seen red. 

The male hadn’t been able to shake his bad feeling from the moment Ariadne mentioned a second plan. It didn’t sit right- everything felt off. He was never the type to say “I told you so” in a situation like this, but he knew this would happen eventually.

He’d split off from her at the start, against his better judgment. So they could have two sides to increase their odds of success. More like increase their odds of being swarmed. The initial conflict happened with his group. One of them was caught, and their hunger got the best of them. Instead of talking it out, they’d resorted to bared teeth and a too closely placed snap, then… well, it devolved from there. 

Honestly, he doubted that one was even alive anymore. His first and foremost concern was getting to Ariadne and getting the hell out of dodge. The rest of them could sort themselves out by themselves. Unlike Ariadne, he used his claws and fangs when necessary in order to put a respectable distance between himself and the other clan’s members. Until their focus was forced away to the Forgotten again, that is. 

Lockheed kept subconsciously looking for her signature stark white, but had to remind himself periodically that she would be the color of the stone around them. Definitely didn’t help matters when it came to finding her, but it would hopefully buy her more time.

It was her shouts of pain that clued him in to where she was, Lockheed having to skid to a stop in order for him to change direction and sprint to where he could hear another fight. The sounds of chaos and pain, of fear, were all around them right now. He knew this one though. And it boiled his blood, made him feel an anger and hatred he hadn’t been aware he could even reach.

Lockheed launched himself at the haedian’s back the moment he was close enough, using his momentum and weight to all but tackle them himself. Sinking his claws into their hide was satisfying, and tasting their blood on his tongue the moment he sank his teeth into them? It was rather cathartic. It only fed the flame, their shrieks and snarls of pain at they flung Ariadne’s bloody body away just told him he needed to do more.

The puller coiled his thick tail around their body at he made it his life’s goal to shred them to ribbons. Every rake of his claws filled the air with the metallic, heavy scent of their blood. He would only release his bite when he’d torn a chunk off of the haedian, relishing in the continued sounds of pain and agony he was causing them. The fear he could all but taste alongside the blood on his tongue when their attempts at attacking him in return elicited no sounds of pain.

He simply growled in anger at the sensation of their teeth in his thigh, Lockheed releasing his grip to readjust and clamp down on their throat instead. He shook his head with a vengeance, used their own body as leverage to pull back as they flailed about to try to dislodge him. A pointless effort; he could feel the crush, could basically hear the tearing of tissue before he claimed his prize.

Lockheed released them then, deciding to spit the chunk of gore out as he avoided their continued flailing. The sounds of their garbled, choked off sounds of pain and panic weren’t anything for him to stand by and watch. He didn’t care enough to stick around to watch them let out their final death rattle.

No, his focus was now on finding Ariadne. He only saw blood where she had landed, so he followed the trail of sorts. It didn’t smell like just hers either, so he was hoping someone else helped her. All the while, his own blood was running down from his wounds, sticky and irritating when he would finally acknowledge it. 

Lockheed ran for the tunnel, bristling and on edge as he approached it, expecting another fight- but all he saw were some of the injured and those who’d gotten away.

Ariadne amongst them.

“Lockheed-” Ariadne started, tears running down her face as she started to break down again. “I’m sorry- y-you were right-”

“Shh… this isn’t your fault.” Lockheed soothed as he approached, sweet, soft rumbles escaping him as he pressed his head to hers. “I shouldn’t have split off, but that would not have changed what happened here. We didn’t instigate the attack. But we are done here. I know they are suffering, but this? I will not have your life on the line over it.”

No… they were done here. Based off of Ariadne’s sobbed agreements, she was in the same boat. She was done. They’d wash the blood from their bodies, patch themselves up, and move on to somewhere else.