[ AW ] Welcome To The Playground

The odd jobs had been keeping him afloat, working hard for little pay out. It was honest work, at least...but, was it enough? Diaval has struggled with this since he'd gotten back onto his feet enough to contemplate it. Greed had been his undoing and yet was it so wrong to want more? He wanted to be able to take care of Sage in the most lavish of ways...has he still been a King, the his silver lover would have been on a pedestal. They would have never had to worry about a thing. If only he could have a fraction of that again...

As he headed home one evening, finishing a delivery to a small town in Perth, his ears had picked up an intriguing lead. The typical conversations he overheard were about Angus' new prized cow or how Tarla was selling eggs at half price. This one was different. The group had been keeping to themselves, speaking in low tones as he walked by, though he managed to pick up a time, a place, a code word, and the mention of winnings. That's all he needed to ensure he showed up per those exact instructions to a dimly lit space at the very edge of a group of villages.

Narrowing his eyes he approached a door and at his knocking, a small window slid open revealing a pair of eyes that glowed from the darkness. “Playground..." Diaval murmured and the window slid shut, the door opening to allow him enough space to squeeze in. Without a word to him, a gruff looking man led him down a series of tunnels that seemed to go on forever, deep into the earth. He started to hear the roaring sounds and the closer they ventured he started to realize it was a crowd.

The stranger finally gestured him down the last corner and an entire arena opened up before his widened eyes. He quickly joined the crowd, shuffling himself forward until he saw that at the center of it all were two wolves savagely going after one another, tearing at each other until one of them fell. The crowd erupted and he watched as they cleared the ring, welcoming some new fighters into it and the shouting began as he heard everyone placing their bets. This atmosphere was incredibly thrilling and he pulled himself away long enough to pull aside the ruffian that had led him down here and ask, “Where do I sign up?"

THREAD TITLE MUSE

table by Yahtzee-Penguiduck [da]. click for attributions.

The air was electric. The location was dark, clandestine in its existence, and filled with men. But the smell of their putrid sex was overpowered by the savagery of the arena: Blood and sweat, growls and yelps, all a feast for her sordid senses. She hasn’t felt this rush of adrenaline since the end of the war — conquest and defeat, victors and the fallen. Here it was in some strange microcosm of the battlefield.

An overweight male wolf, impeccably groomed, had discovered Rue prowling outside of the village. Or rather, she had discovered him and the coin he carried. Evidently, her display of might had intrigued the man, who promised the monster that she would have an abundance of coin – far more than he could carry – if she was interested in putting her skills to use. She had no other talents, nothing else to offer to the works but the violence she had embraced long ago. With some reluctance (and knowing full well she could destroy the maggot of a man if he had ulterior motives), she followed him to this place.

The Playground.

Her remaining ear flicked when the wolf asked what she thought, and Rue’s baritone vocals were gruff from disuse. ”What’s in it for me?” Beneath her cold glare, the man could sense that he was on the cusp of success. The investors would be pleased to find such a fighter had been pulled into their games of violence. The man did his best to convince the red-eyed brute to stay: ”You shall have an endless feast with bottomless libations.” Rue’s expression remained stoic. ”You shall have the esteem of your fellow warriors, admiration –” But none of these things were enough for Rue.

Her attention was fixed on the men that stood around to watch. One of them caught her attention like prey in a snare; rage flared in her eyes, and the wolf knew he had her sold. Ruby sights narrowed with disdain at the sight of him, lips curling back in a low snarl. ”You.” She didn’t forget the face of some bastards she fought, and this brute’s was among those familiar facades.

Her reaction earned a robust peal of laughter from the stout man who had brought her here, who remarked: ’Alright, hot shot. Save it for the ring.’ A savage glare cast from the brutish woman, and the laughter ceased. He was only here to make his wagers, not to fight. The beast didn’t like to be laughed at, and her fierce visage dared anyone else to try the same.



@Diaval

art and code by Yahtzee-Penguiduck

The rough old man led him to an area to the side where a few other wolves were gathered, one of them clearly pitching the way of the fighter's life so long as they are declared the victor. Diaval was entirely focused on the talk of endless feasts, libations, esteem, admiration and the like that he didn't notice the eyes on him until he was called out. Truthfully, it took him a moment to even realize that he was the one being spoken to until he took in the features of the hulking beast of a woman.

Diaval blinked a few times as he suddenly recalled a tussle over scraps back when he had first arrive in Rionnach. He had been in a right state then too...malnourished, filthy, and completely lost. Even so, he had still tossed the food right back to her after he'd won that particular fight, deciding that he would find food another way and it wasn't worth taking hers. By the way she was snarling at him, he was starting to think that she didn't quite remember it the same way he did.

The girl looked starkly different than she had before, several more scars mangling her coat. Even the spark within her blood red eyes was...different...he hated to imagine that she might've wound up in worse situations since their little encounter before. Diaval didn't speak, though he nodded his acknowledgement to her before turning to the man taking down more entrants. “I'm signing up. My name is Diaval."

“Well, well! Diablo, it is, then!" Irritation twinged at his temple, but he decided not to correct the fellow. He then turned to the crimson-eyed warrior woman and gestured for her to stake her claim to the ring as well. “What better way to start off a fighting career than with a rematch. What do you say?" He encouraged in a friendly manner, although he hardly betrayed a smile, feeling it might be wasted on a wolfess that had already decided his fate.

@Rue

table by Yahtzee-Penguiduck [da]. click for attributions.

The stranger acknowledged her with a nod and a name – Diaval. Or, rather, Diablo. Crimson sights never left the male. Many feelings were in competition within her skull for dominance: Fury. Determination. Disgust for him, as well as every other repulsive male that had gathered in the underground arena for violent gratification – a savagery they themselves politely declined. But Rue didn’t fear pain, nor death. She had taken a life during the war, an act for which she held no semblance of remorse or guilt. She hadn’t cared who the fallen wolf was, or who would be impacted by his death. That was the price one paid for being a soldier. And the dark brute before her was no different than any other. Worthless. Contemptible. Expendable.

He was the same hulking size as Rue – rather impressive, as most wolves couldn’t rival her soaring height and her massive weight. She recalled their first interaction and bristled at the memory – she didn’t want pity, not then, not now. She wanted vengeance. She wanted others to suffer how she had.

No mercy. Not then, not now, not ever.

The plump, privileged wolf who had discovered her watched all of this unfolding eagerly, waiting for the perfect moment to suggest that the disfigured wolfess sign up for the next brawl. A male asked in a gruff voice: ”Name?” Rue has gone by many names, both given and invented: Riot. Bitch. Ruby. But only one she would claim as her own now, a moniker that summed up her entire existence up until this very moment: ”Ruin.”

“What better way to start off a fighting career than with a rematch. What do you say?" There was a hint of congeniality in the man’s low tones, which seemed only to add fuel to the fury within the angry she-wolf. What did she say? A dark smile appeared on her muzzle. ”I say… Fuck you, Diablo.” She emphasized the name he had been given with mocking in her baritone vocal tones, venom dripping from her tongue. Her head was low, lip curled back in a growl as she made her way to the pit where the battle would soon begin. Ruby eyes never left the loathsome brute she was destined to fight… again.

Wolves of questionable reputations gathered round in a circle, drunken and disorderly and ready for blood. A voice echoed through the dim cavern: ”Gentlemen, welcome to The Playground! We have our distinguished fighters! In this corner, the devil from the depths, Diablo! And in this corner, the demon of destruction, Ruin! Place your bets now! Which of these warriors will reign triumphant?”



@Diaval

art and code by Yahtzee-Penguiduck

[AFTER HIS BATTLE IS LOST]

As expected, Diaval's opponent went for his face and there was the briefest glimpse of jaws, then pain, then nothing. He had barely been holding on and so quickly went limp while his face was mangled to remove his body from her. He was tossed aside like a broken toy, a pool of blood forming from various wounds where he lay.

There was silence and then an eruption of cheering when the crowd saw that ‘Diablo’ did not rise again. Instead a couple of smaller wolves came to cart him haphazardly off the main floor of the arena to dump him elsewhere so that another match could begin following the final announcements of this one.

The battered and broken brute was in and out of consciousness, dragged down a dark hall and away from the noise of the arena. Words above him were muffled and meaningless, faces lost to Diaval in the dark as he felt himself hoisted upward and then dropped carelessly back outside. He had lost...he knew for certain. That...and that out here in the open...it was raining...

[Exit Diaval via complete unconsciousness]

@Rue

table by Yahtzee-Penguiduck [da]. click for attributions.

[After her battle is won…]

Blow for blow, the match within the ominous cavern was bloody and decisive. The crowd was lost in the background, no sounds but the vicious growls and pained yelps as the two fighters tore into each other. A roar of approval rose up from the crowd as one warrior was left standing after a brutal and bloody battle. An announcement reverberated against the stone walls of arena: ”Our victor today – the incomparable Ruin!” The triumphant wolfess glared down at her opponent’s fallen form. This time, she was victorious, dark pelt splashed with both her own blood and that of her foe. She stood seething until strangers came to remove the unconscious male from sight.

With a final snarl, the black wolf turned away. Grown men moved aside with fear in their eyes as she found her way through the crowd and away from the arena. No one attempted to follow her, which was for the best, for she was in no mood to make nice or chat with these fools. Her reward lay bleeding in some ditch where he belonged. Now, she would have to take the time to slow down, to begin to heal. But once she was well enough to return…

Ruin would be ready for her next battle at The Playground soon. Hers was an aggression that had not been sated by war. This was where she belonged.



@Diaval

art and code by Yahtzee-Penguiduck