THROWN TO THE WOLVES // open, joining

[Luciferr]

click click click went the claws against the stone, fluorescent light rebounding off the glowing tips to the obsidian sheen below - three sets of equally bright lights blinked in the low gloom.

A skull painted carapace lifted high a sound of guttural breath indrawn and then violently expelled - a disturbance, an intruder.

The clicking of claws once ponderous increased as the pace of the dark beast increased - a thousandfold spines laid across it once flat now rattled awake, flushed in darker colours and a ripple of blacklight.

Of course then what once was a leopard - though hard to tell - stopped, looming over the fallen form before it and a rattling booming voice caught in a deep hiss ground out ”speak while you still have breath too stranger, your answer might save your life - what would you swear in offer of aid?”

Resources were precious after all - if they didn’t get something out of it, what was the point of helping a weakened stranger that did nothing in return