Warning: This story contain blood, violence and gore.
Under cut. (:


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It was a silent day. Sunny - as always - but unusually empty at the pond. Illrose had just taken a few sips of the water and was now heading back toward the trees. Her ears flicked, taking in the different sounds of the forest, when she suddenly head something that made her froze in the middle of her steps and perk her ears, alert. A pale creature stepped out from behind a few trees in front of her. A walking skeleton with glowing red eyes. The creature froze just like Illrose did when it noticed her, seemingly just as surprised as she was.

Seeing a walking skeleton was nothing new to her, but what made Illrose wonder, was that this was not the skeleton of a deer but of a predator. Wolf, perhaps? For several seconds they both stood motionless, just staring at each other.



"And who are you, if I may ask?" Illrose asked, but without getting any reply at all. She stood a few more seconds in silence before she - with a snort - lost interest in the weird creature. She was about to continue her walk, when the air suddenly was filled with rattling bones and a high growl as the skeleton wolf attacked.

Illrose immediately tried to dodge it, but it was too late. The wolf's fangs sunk deep into the flesh of her side, and the pain made her roar in anger before she jumped forward, kicking around like a rodeo bull. The movements made the wolf lose it's grip on her, but at the same time it was able to tear off a huge chunk of flesh as well. The pain made Illrose gasp, and for a moment the world went black around her as she was at the brick of fainting. But she managed to stay conscious, panting in pain while blood poured from the wound, down her belly and hind leg. But there was also a black, strange substance that seemed to be crawling from her wound, through her fur.

Illrose didn't pay much attention to this though, because the wolf was back on it's feet, it's snout cowered in blood as it crouched down to the ground, readying a new attack. The sight made Illrose absolutely furious. How dared this creature attack her like that?! She reared, and with a battle-cry she kicked out with her front legs, her hooves hitting the wolf with full strength. The skeleton beast fell to the ground, it's bones cracking and crushing for every blow Illrose delivered with her hooves. When it finally lay motionless, she stepped back, shaking in anger and pain. Then, more sounds of rattling bones as the wolf suddenly rose to it's feet and then jumped toward Illrose, it's jaws open and ready to aim at her throat.

This time she managed to dodge the attack, rearing up to keep her throat out of reach as she jumped to the side, despite how the movements made her wound sting and the blood pour even more. She stomped down again, staring at her opponent, snorting and growling. The wolf glared back at her with it's red eyes. For a moment they circled each other, the wolf seemed unharmed by her hooves, but Illrose on the other hand was losing more and more blood, and the black substance seemed to grow, taking more and more of her body.
The wound was hurting like hell, like someone stabbed a knife into her side repeatedly, but Illrose struggled to stay on her feet, staring at the wolf.
"Come on." She whispered.
"Come on, bastard. Attack!" The part she hated the most was the waiting, waiting for the unavoidable.

And as if the wolf understood her words, it stopped it's circling, and crouched back to the ground, ready to jump at her. Illrose stopped as well, waiting. The wolf jumped again, and Illrose reared. But this time she didn't dodge the attack. She crooked her neck, brought the remaining of her antlers down to meet the leaping wolf. It bones hit her skull, and she used all her weight to crash the beast back to the ground, bringing herself down to her knees with the wolf underneath her. But when Illrose was about to stand up again, she seemed to be stuck. The wolf was still stuck underneath her body, but it seemed it had managed to catch one of her antlers in it's jaws. What Illrose didn't know - because she couldn't see it - was that one of the 'spikes' on her skull had penetrated through the eye socket of the wolf, and was now caught in the black substance within.She placed her front feet back to the ground and stood up, the wolf still holding on to her antler and it's legs kicking in the air, trying to get down. Illrose bent down, tightening every muscle in her body, especially in the neck and back.

And with all force she could master, Illrose threw her body up and managed to toss the wolf skeleton through the air. It smashed to the ground several meters away, and Illrose immediately noticed something missing - the upper part of it's skull.



But the wolf was still moving, trying to get back up. Black substance was leaking from the skeleton, moving like a snake toward Illrose, toward the skull. Illrose shook her head forcefully, and the wolf skull finaly fell off the spike in her own skull. When the skull fell down to the ground, Illrose noticed something in the black substance that filled it. A red, glowing stone. She bent down, held the skull down with one of her hooves and bit down in the rock with the tip of her skull. With a yank of her head she managed to pull the rock loose from the skull. The eye sockets immediately stopped glowing red, and the wolf - that had just gotten to it's feet - fell down in a pile of bones. The black substance seemed to melt away, both from the wolf skeleton and from Illrose's body.

The stone didn't glow red anymore either, it had turned black after a moment. Illrose still held it in her mouth, not sure what to make of everything that had just happened. Slowly, she walked away from the wolf skeleton, leaving bloody tracks as she went. She carried the rock with her, unsure what to do with it - at least for now.



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Moose vs. Wolf 2.

It was the smell of blood that had caught Illrose's attention, and she was now searching for the one that was obviously bleeding. In the old days, Illrose would have searched for the bleeding creature in case it was something she could eat, but now she was searching to see if it was someone she could help.

She slowed down when the smell of blood grew stronger, and in the same second the smell was mixed with something else; the smell of black infection. The picture of a skeleton wolf with glowing red eyes appeared in Illrose's head in a flash, only seconds before it appeared on the path in front of her. Illrose glared at the skeleton wolf, not believing what she saw.
"You got to be kidding me. I thought I killed you!" She snarled at the wolf, before she lowered her antlers, that was beginning to grow back. Her wound had just healed from her last encounter with a creature like this, and she had no wish to get injured again.

But Illrose soon noticed something different about this wolf. It' eyes were glowing in yellow, not red.
"So you are not the same one." She muttered. That didn't exactly make it better, cause that meant there was more of these creatures here. How many could it be, and why had they come in the first place? Illrose shook her head, staring at the wolf that was now coming closer. She noticed it had blood around it's jaws, so clearly it had already encountered someone else. Another deer? Illrose got the answer when she lifted her head and looked in the direction the wolf came from. Her blood froze when she saw the fawn lying there, it's stomach ripped open and blood everywhere.

Illrose turned to the wolf again, a spark of pure rage in her eyes.
"You killed a fawn, you bloody bastard." She whispered, before she charged at the wolf, driven by the anger that filled her. The wolf was quick in it's movements, but this time it simply wasn't quick enough for the enraged doe. It tried to jump to the side as Illrose hit it with all her force, sending it straight down to the ground.



She was over it immediately, her hooves pressing down on it's skull, trying to bend it's jaws open. The wolf made gagging noises, and it even seemed it tried to spit the black infection on her while it wiggled it's body on the ground, attempting to get away from the large deer.

But then a large crack-sound filled the air as Illrose broke it's jaws open, and she quickly bent down and grabbed the yellow stone with the tip of her skull. She ripped it out from the black infection, and the wolf immediately stopped struggling while the stone turned black, just as the last one had. It was time to take them both to the Twin Gods, as she had been thinking earlier. But first...Illrose stepped away from the skeleton, and slowly made her way toward the dead fawn. The wolf had really ripped the poor creature apart, almost turned it inside out.
"I'm sorry I came to late." Illrose bent down and carefully touched the fawn's cold muzzle with the tip of her skull.
"May you rest in peace, little one."

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Yes, this fight will effect her in-game. It is a rather seriously injury she has gotten there, I'm just not very good at drawing wounds. xD

Second story added 04/03, after reading Dinamo's rock hound story.
Also updated the drawings a bit. x)