Hunter & Prey: The Challenge (Wolfy)

[talbot]

For the first time that the Wolf had only one thought on his mind…escape. He cursed himself for not paying attention to the signs that were all too obvious now that he looked back on them. Something had been telling him all along that this wasn’t a situation he wanted to be in. He saw all the signs now laid out before him from the second she had strolled up and kicked the chair out to sit with him in the mess hall.

He was angry and he felt trapped.

Because he was. No matter what he tried to do, he seemed unable to do anything but sit there and listen to her.

He actually saw the Titans in his head when she spoke. It wasn’t imagination, but it was like a vision. Giant and fearsome he watched as they devoured their children and he saw them overthrown. He saw the face of Zeus and felt immediately reduced to a speck of dirt.

Lawrence trembled as she finished and it took him a moment to realize he was no longer the wolf. Feeling naked in more ways than one, he stayed crouched on the ground and tried to think of a way to escape. “What…do you want from me?”

[Deleted]

Now that was more like it. Seeing him cower, watching that moment when he realised just what sort of mistake he'd made, that made her feel infinitely better. The question, too, was the right one - no more blustering or false arrogance, just simple acceptance of the fate he'd walked right into.
Well, maybe not acceptance, but he was at least reacting in a way that pleased her and that softened her wrath. Things weren't exactly going to go well for him, Artemis not being one to give up on a grudge lightly, but they at least gave her pause, and time to consider a slightly less fatal option for what reparation she required.

"I miss having hunting dogs." She mused after a long moment "And attendants. I just can't seem to keep them around while I'm here...and you, well you're practically both. Do you think you can manage that?" she asked disparagingly, as if being at her beck and call might be too difficult for him.

"I'll let you be the wolf again if you agree to serve me. Of course, if you don't like that idea I'll have to punish you some other way..." She said it quite calmly, trusting that he would know it wouldn't be pleasant.

[talbot]

Shaken to his core, Lawrence could not help but bow before the goddess. His eyes had been opened, in the momentary vision of the Titans he had seen his own undoing. It went far beyond mere death. Death only partially frightened the Wolf. There was a destruction buried in her wrath that seemed to make death seem like a reasonable alternative. And so he knelt before her, his head buried low, his naked body trembling.

The way she said hunting dogs seemed truthfully condescending. He would be like a pet to her, and though the thought was abhorrent to him he could scarcely manage to growl low under his breath. His one thought was that part of him had been torn away, the agony of its absence seemed unbearable. His one desire was that he get that part of himself back.

For that and other reasons he had no choice but to comply.

"Anything," he said to the dirt before him. His eyes looked up at her with an odd mixture of anguish and fury. "Anything. Just...stop..."

[Deleted]

Artemis smiled, and there was absolutely nothing pleasant in that smile. It was wild and cruel and rather smug, so just like her really.
With a snap of her fingers the wolf in him went rushing back, and she stood back to watch - half hoping it would cause him some pain, though she suspected it would be nothing but relief. Still, basking in that relief would be almost like worship, and she didn't get nearly enough of that these days.

"Have we learnt our lesson, puppy?" She asked degradingly - perhaps, as the days wore on, she would be a good mistress, or at least a kinder one, but for now her anger still lurked beneath the surface, and she still wanted to make him pay.

[talbot]

Lawrence closed his eyes and the wolf opened his. \

Standing once again before her he threw his head back and howled. It was a wretched and miserable sound, filled with anguish and conveying far more of his emotional condition than any hundred words could ever hope to.

He was trapped. He could feel the unseen lines that tied him to Artemis. It was like a leash on a cruel collar, choking and suffocating him...making him want to chew off an appendage to be free. In his whole life the wolf had never known hopelessness or fear or domination. The howl echoed through the great woods and carried his sorrow far and wide.

When he was out of breath he fell silent, looking up at the goddess with a small whimper. He felt linked to her now. He could tell she was still angry, and whatever it was that she had done to him...he did not want her to be angry.

Head bowed, he took a couple of steps closer to her. Tentatively he stretched his head toward her hand, and licked her fingers.

[Deleted]

She laughed delightedly, a tiny hint of her previous self shining through in her amusement - of course it was tainted, her laugh not a simple expression of delight, but of her amusement at how low he had fallen, at the power she held over him.

"I'm bored of you now," She said dismissively, after a moment "Perhaps we can hunt together another time," she was sure she would appreciate his hunting when it wasn't aimed at her, now that she had firmly proven how much better she was (at least, that was how she saw it).

"For now though, shoo." She smirked "Go back to wherever it is you stay here. Listen for my call - you'll know it when you hear it."

Turning her back on him - deliberately, almost an insult, to display that she had nothing to fear - she started to make her way through the woods. As she left, the wolf would have felt her hold on him lessen, allowing him freedom to do as he wished.
He would be a fool to think she couldn't take back that control on a moment's whim.