Sikeax,

If one was ever to ask her to explain Hobgoblin in one word, then it would simply be predator. It speaks volumes in one short way, and gives the impression that he is ruthless and violent, willing to crush the world beneath his weight at any chance. Anything that will fit in the three sets of jaws that he has is his. There will be no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
That is just what he is, a monster.
Black sands shift and mold against her hooves, the body made malleable by cold, frigid waves that roll in before her. She hasn’t gone there in some time. She even flew across the channel with the bridge when she left despite the uneasiness that it cost her. Fire is something that she loathes, even living in a place that seems to worship its very presence.
A body flies up into the air, followed by two splashes: one created by Hobgoblin as the upper half of his immense body slams the dark water, the second by the small, now long dead, animal that has pitifully become his meal. It’s probably another seal, one that wasn’t smart enough to get away in time, something that he could snatch and grab and then proceed to rip apart. He’s in one of those moods today, the kind where the predator in him takes the better of him and drives him into a state she isn’t quite sure she enjoys. They are far from one another today, and he doesn’t speak nor express a single thing to her.
Overcast clouds block out the sun. Mountains roll into their void-like bodies until they are no more, and snow does not litter the ground. Only black sand and black stones, the occasional dead animal, a ripped body part from the food that Hobgoblin effortlessly destroys.
She wishes he would come in land and hunt there. It’s much easier that way. His seal form could drag it through the waters and atop the sands with ease, and then he could shift to a Serva-
Something slams the ground. His meal.
Neither have cared to look at each other since his hunger took the best of him. Nothing has been exchanged, and it’s likely that it won’t be for some time. But now as his head raises from the depths, belly scraping the grasses lining the floor, their eyes become locked onto one another. Passion fills his, sadness overtakes her’s.
While she knows that he will never hurt her to the point of mutilation, instinct has control over both of them. He, as far as he is concerned, is at the peak of his performance. He has killed and will willingly do it again, maybe even violently. He likes, no, loves, possibly just lives for the thrill of the hunt, the outcry of pain and misery as the final breaths are taken as he takes them away.
It makes him feel like a motherfucking god.
She knows better than to run from him. The mangled corpse is missing chunks of its body now, resting no more than three feet from her. He is ready for another thrill, creeping, stalking her as she backs away from him. Had they been together, he would have felt the fear in her chest and attempted to control himself.
He lunges just as she turns to run, spraying sand and small stones into his face and eyes. Pain shouldn’t stop a well oiled killing machine just as himself, but it’s enough to bring him back into a dazed reality. Sikeax is not a meal, for now.
When he slithers back into the darkness, meal in tow, she is standing a good distance from the edge, nearly into the knee-high, ghostly dune grass, watching, mortified. Her tail is flowing in a cold breeze, her chest is heaving. There is a hint of white ringing her blue eyes.
For now.

OOC: Hobgoblin is in his leopard seal form.

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It was strange to be back in the Frostbreath steppe. Ashamin wasn’t sure he liked it, and found himself actually shocked by the cold for once, but he went deeper into its territory nonetheless. He operated on the faint hope that he might find a member of his family there—that Hotaru, Ru’in, or Romina might appear and return the love he gave them. His last encounter with Ru’in had felt stilted and awkward, and even Rein was becoming a boy that the Clovenheart no longer recognized.

He thought, for a moment, of the way his first son had so unhesitatingly cut himself open and laid his blood to bare, all to produce a sword. And for what, to combat just one raised voice? Ashamin wanted to wonder who had taught Rein that temper, who had taught him to fight, but in his deepest heart he knew. No father was innocent; Ashamin was complicit in the violence living inside his son, playing him like a puppet that parroted the war songs of rage and masculinity. Just as his father before him, he could surely be blamed.

Not wishing to dwell on it any longer, he found himself changing his mind and being almost thankful when he did not see anyone he knew. Ashamin had not served as a stellar example as of late, anyway.

Lochan and Rakt were happy to be back in the steppe, but even though the day was overcast they would have rather been sleeping through it. Life as an outcast and leading the Unbound had meant the trio’s nocturnal schedule had been somewhat overturned, much to the chagrin of the two companions. They moved sluggishly behind Ashamin, occasionally reaching over the dragged line of his tail to nibble each other’s ears and murmur their mild complaints. The Clovenheart might have turned to hush them, but the familiar sight of a mare up ahead caused his focus to change and his heart to freeze.

It occurred to him then that he did not even know her name; he knew only the callous way she had treated him in a time of grief, and the way that he had shut down in the face of confrontation. He wasn’t sure he felt the same now. The wound of his father’s passing was not so fresh, and he’d caused death, of gods and an unborn child. Though on stubborn principle Ashamin might not have listened to this mare before (and still might not now) he fought the urges to turn from her entirely or approach with hostility.

Luckily for all involved, Ashamin did not see her until after the seal’s attack, and as a result made no connection between the mare and the rotund creature on the shore. Her hostile companion was not forgotten, but was for now out of his mind, and Lochan and Rakt had no fear of the beast, for though it was clearly a predator they were significantly faster on land than any seal. As if to confront whatever strange feelings (animosity, regret?) Ashamin felt for the mare they’d never met and prove their quickness, the two cerndyr suddenly burst forth with renewed energy, barreling towards the mare before splitting off and circling her, their wide eyes curious.

Given the attention his two bonded had brought to him, Ashamin had no choice to follow. But he did so more slowly, more hesitantly. Considering the strange way he had treated this mare before when to all others he offered kindness. Could it all be boiled down to being caught on a bad day, or had she really been right back then?

Hadn’t he been forcing himself into isolation, seeing misery where there was none? Ashamin was a scholar, and though he suffered from the failings impressed upon all stallions he did not have so much pride that he would deny the mere existence of an alternate argument, not anymore. All this in mind, he approached the unicorn mare with a completely different attitude and the intent to, well… clear the slate.

"It’s been a long time, stranger," Ashamin called out to her as he drew closer. It occurred to him then that she might not even recognize him, for now he was grown out of adolescence, and he was strong, and he was scarred, and was marked, and he was adorned, and he was bloodied and filled with magic and love he had not ever possessed before, and from his heart was a glow so brilliant that it burst through his chest in a mixture of blue and gold. But for all this, he was still in so many ways a failure of the things he championed. And for the black pits of his eyes, the gnarled pumice of his horn, and the limp snake of his tail, she would perhaps know who he was.

"I never should have left the way I did all that time ago," he said, his voice earnest, his tone warm as he could make it. And he knew that he was right to humble himself now, but half of him hoped she might do the same. "I am Ashamin the Clovenheart."

And though the title was pregnant with meaning, perhaps even something she had heard before, it still felt strange to say.

""

Sikeax,

Fear etches its way into the heart, soul and mind into everything that classifies as prey. It tells them with instinct’s fierceness and pungency that this what you’re supposed to always be, that regardless of how you may try to change it, you are doomed to fall into the jaws of whatever ails you. You are not meant to be on top.
Hobgoblin is a constant reminder of this, teeth snarling as black lips coil, locked into powerful jaws that taunt her. Hunger is fleeing as he takes his kills and shreds them, clings onto them with his teeth til his thrashing of their possibly, but hopefully not barely living bodies gives him a chunk of them that he desires. This has gone on for an hour now, and the abundance is pleasuring, but sport is taking him over.
If there is anything that one must know about Leopard Seals is that they are more than willing to take sport in guiltless, woundless hunting of things they discover, and Hobgoblin takes the nature of each of his form in strife.
Deep heaves fill her lungs and chest to capacity, the smallest ghosts of steam vaping out of her nostrils as the whites showcasing themselves around her eyes from her panic slowly begin their work into hiding. He knows that she knows that he wants her. He wants to harass and destroy her because that’s what instinct tells him to do, because that’s what’s supposed to be entertaining for a Leopard Seal. The fear that she’s feeling drives him on like gasoline in an inferno.
Luck plays her a welcome hand, but not without its double-edged sword. The presence of the deer overwhelm him. He is outnumbered, unable to make his actions into plans, his body feeling stiff when it is typically fluid and easily molded by his will. Maybe she plays a part in this too. Her feelings ease him backwards, snaking away as the nose on his snout rolls upwards into a range of mountains, stacked against one another.
He’ll get them soon enough.
Sikeax is not free from the feelings that constrict her. Her brain is in a panic, telling her a thousand different things, and as she is stormed by a pair of antlers and small bodies, bounding forward to be so close to her when she needs a vast, empty void to bring herself down in. They shrink her with their actions. Her hind legs tuck in like she intends to rear but her front legs lock as their knees push bolts into them, ears sweeping backwards as a nearly inaudible gasp bursts free without constraints.
She can’t bring herself to hurt them. That lesson has been learned in the past, but Hobgoblin on the other hand, he could destroy without mercy and never think a second thought about it, even when the repercussions meet him head on. He’s bold like that, in that he doesn’t give a single damn about what’s going to happen as long as it doesn’t affect his aggressive, warlord-esque bliss.
She wishes he was there, that he would rise out of the sea and save her, but all he can think of right now is how to maul her.
In her singularity, she hunts for bravery, reaching in and coming out with something.
The fish is actually fairly small in comparison to everyone to everyone else here, but it makes a large presence in how it offers a splash of colour into the bleak, snapping sparks with vibrant blues. She threatens them with it, proving to them that if her magic wounds them that suddenly it is their doing, and not her own.
They bare her a voice. It has touch of familiarity to it, made of memories that she’s tried to get rid of because that was another bad day and bad time, when Hobgoblin was more of a beast and near demon from some other realm, her a piece of silk that torn with ease against the slaughter brought forth by his bloodstained talons. Both of them have grown, and maybe the owner of the voice has to and is worth second chances.
Her life has been filled with them, and she knows well to let them happen if they seem to have worth and change.
He addresses her as ‘Stranger,’ another reminder that they’ve come to know each other other than foul beasts who lashed out upon one another whether it was intentional or not, pushed along by emotions and things they had no real power over.
She collects herself enough to turn to him, watching with gathered brows full of distaste as the deer move about as they please. Are they his?
If Hobgoblin is listening, he makes no sign.
What she discovers following the turn of her gaze is a man, shaped out of that awkward, ugly adolescence that she had previously seen him be plagued by. He’s filled himself out, scarred now, decorated and stained, dark, ugly horn still there. She hates how it looks on his face but can’t bring herself to imagine what its appearance would have been like if it hadn’t grown so weirdly. It wouldn’t suit him. He’s ugly, but in a way that suits him. He makes a man with bad looks but wears them like he’s accepted it, and for that, she respects him.
He pours her a glass of strong words that taste of truth. She sips but doesn’t swallow, nor spits it free, instead holding onto them so that she may run them through the stressed wiring of her brain and process them through.
To him, she builds herself a mountain, all stone and ice and height, born of the north but cultured in the south. He has hurt her, wounded her, but assisted her, and quite possibly she can get herself over this.
She swallows that glass with a nod of the head, a silent “okay.” that is more of a “whatever it takes to clear the air.”
His name is nearly nothing to her. Names barely have meaning these days, glued to faces and personalities that make more of a mark that anything that he can spew from his lips. She decides over short thoughts that Ashamin does not deserve her name. If he wants it so dearly, he can win it from her.
“What can I do for you, Ashamin?” Her voice is gravel and stone, storm clouds and rolling thunder, a lingering ghost trying to tell him that she wants a genuine apology instead of him spilling his wrongs like someone has split his brain open for her to look into.

OOC: Please do tag me!
And I apologize for the abrupt ending of this post without a good fade. It just sorta ended up her side right then.

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Normally he wouldn't care about names, wouldn't bother to ask. He'd spent hours with Ryouta, led him to safety and brought him to a healer, and had only learned the stag's name shortly before they parted ways. But this time Ashamin had bit his tongue, and bowed his head, and though he knew he was meant to be gracious he felt his mouth starting to bleed.

What did he want? What could she do for him? "How about we begin with names? Starting in the middle did us no favors last time," Ashamin said, remembering how he had mistaken the mare for Lena and how, assuming he'd been speaking with one of a sweet nature, he had misspoken for the situation.

Then again, one could also argue she shouldn't have been snooping in that cave. But Ashamin was trying to be good--to not argue but compromise, and listen, and all of the things that one is meant to do when faced with the reality of their own past mistakes. Ashamin found this to be a common occurrence as of late, and even now he felt his most recent introduction to be odd.

The way she had dropped his title... was it meant to suggest she didn't respect it, or couldn't imagine how he'd earned it? Ashamin wasn't sure of that himself, he knew only that it was something he'd heard before he'd said, and heard enough times to take as truth. The Clovenheart did, after all, seem apt given his typical mannerisms. Even a half stranger like this one could see where it came from, right?

Or maybe it was the way he approached, too casual and friendly, as if already assuming bygones were bygones. Her subtle nod could have meant that he was correct, and that they were, but it could have also meant that she was content to let him say whatever she meant, but that she might still not be willing to listen. The two cerndyr that were his companions moved about on anxious feet, wanting to stretch their legs and leave this awkward cloud behind. Ashamin's brow furrowed beneath the shadow of his horn, even as he tried not to give too much thought or fear to it all.

But with Ashamin, that was always a bit of a lost cause, wasn't it?
""