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Lain was more comparable to a kitten given cat nip, but the guy had still given his best feral go of things in the first round. Both had been tossed out on the second round, Eric literally, and it hadn't made anything about it easier to stomach with the thought of Valamir's final words resounding within their ears; that if the King won, he'd be sure Eric never stepped foot within Lupercal again. "Why not? I've survived worse than the alpha gauntlet," an aggrieved laugh still managed to escape the Exile as they continued to convey this attempt of playing it cool, shrugging, "We're a bit notorious for having nine lives, aren't we?" Eric was certain he'd seen Lain in places not even the Devil himself would venture, but that was only speculation, embellishing the truth; with Lain though, they had a hunch. "Maybe next year will be your year," a grin, albeit bittersweet, for if Valamir conquered then Eric would be long gone.

There was an odd sense of relief he felt from getting defeated, like this was now completely out of his control. But at least his endeavors weren’t a total loss. His own performance in the preliminary round drove home a point he wanted to prove: I’m crazy, don’t fuck with me. “Sure you did,” Lain nodded in agreement, smiling, “Was that before or after he sent you crowd surfing?” Eric certainly had the most stylish loss so far, getting flung into the stands was a real crowd pleaser. Reflecting on the other fights, he made a mental note to ask Adamo if the reason he was so skilled at wrangling oiled up guys had to do with his time spent working in the prison. Did his staff actively train for greased up inmate scenarios? “Seriously, what the fuck were we thinking? Neither one of us had any business being in the gauntlet,” He reached for his beer, taking a sip of the lukewarm liquid. “Deal, but I’m getting the round after that.” 

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end.

There's a genuine smile that flourishes; Eric would never understand the loss of magic she had to grapple with but everyone could understand that a witch's power was fundamental to their very being and Marcella had chosen the ultimate sacrifice to preserve herself. She'd lost this massive piece of her and would have to live with that, survive off of what remained, but not many would have her grit and courage; Marcella deserved this bashful happiness that came with the honeymoon feeling of a secured relationship. "It seems pretty serious to me," mirroring her tone, the Exile offers a mild grin, the overtone of their conversation is still staggeringly mournful, but they find comfort in the rare splices of happiness that pepper through. "Are they- were they.. -they're a witch?" Eric stumbled, it was hard not to gravitate towards reminding Marcella of what she'd lost, it'd always be this unwavering presence that crept up when she'd least expect it. "Nothing will ever be the same, but we'll get new chances, new comforts; there's light at the end of the tunnel," even if it feels so far away.

[ericxaquino]

a starter for @senatusstarters, open where: all fours where the beer is warm and the piss is hot

“Okay but I almost had him,” the Exile was obviously side-eyeing for Valamir after their very clear loss; sure, they’d once got the upper hand on Valamir but that was when the King hadn’t been expecting a lycan to come and bite the piss out of him. In a ring, the Exile was sorely not a match and though they’d slunk away from the match, they were trying to remain buoyantly unbothered about it all, grinning ear to ear. Where once, they likely would have moved to a different country and changed their name after such a clear loss; Eric was adapting, evolving, overcoming. “Next round on me out of the mere kindness of my loser heart, of course.”

[ericxaquino]

a starter for @marcellabelanades,

“I need a salve for my losses,” Valamir had unceremoniously, and much unkindly, tossed them around the ring. It’d been practically expected, but Eric had always held onto a shred of hope that they’d somehow win; maybe by divine intervention, or maybe because Valamir hadn’t been eating his wheaties, but alas, they’d been had. “Like that story you promised me, your love story,” the Exile wiggled their brows, comfortably seated despite the bruising and scrapes that were still slowly healing, a warm beer in one hand.

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"Well, last time we talked... you said you couldn't live within the fey realm, that you needed to explore everything with Octavian," Eric treaded carefully, they weren't sure if anything drastic had changed Raja's opinion or if he really was making a genuine sacrifice for their relationship. The Exile had made his mistakes, come back as though they had nine lives each and every time, but the lycan had long understood that his luck was wearing thin. If the elves could accept them both, comfortably, Eric had no problem with the idea of leaving the Lupo behind; whatever erupted between them and Damian wasn't perfect, but it had been on the mend and that was enough. "Did something happen?"

"Not well," he huffed, though the faintest hint of a smile hit his mouth anyway. Raja moved to rest his forehead against Eric's, humming even as the lycan moved away slightly to straightened up, "Why is that? You know she's my family. We'd be safe there. In her court. Away from the drama of everything else. I'd leave it behind for you." He'd leave the pyramid, sit amongst the elves. He was fascinated, but never one of them – no matter how much Aurora wished to keep him safe. But he was a druid, he could learn more magic – it was a tough decision, considering Eric would have place in his pack more than anywhere else. "It's just an option. I'd never not consider an option."

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Manny Jacinto in Brand New Cherry Flavor

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Somewhat parallel paths had grouped the two together; where Alek was an oblivious bystander thrust into this world, each day a once mortal Eric had begged for it. Each piece of them felt instinctively different than the mortal creature they'd been reduced to and despite their former pack devising the Exile as some calculated mistake, Eric had somewhat, haphazardly, finally, found their groove in this life. "So, it's all about learning to live with it," and clearly Alek had tried to endure it, had walked the path expected, or deviant, to him until the Harbinger could no longer take it. How many Alpha's had merely stepped down? Eric was certain the end for the majority of lycans in such leadership role was a violent overthrowing or death. Perhaps some would look upon Alek with scorn, but Eric owed a lot to the Harbinger and could see that, while he was being selfish to his own desires, that stepping down was genuinely selfless when it came to the pack. Eric could only hope the next leader, if it couldn't be them, was selfless enough to consider the lycans as a whole. The Exile finally chucked a rock down the slope of the hill, dirt kicking up from where any point of impact from the pebble, "I respect what you did. I know you're not looking for that, or care about it, but I think you did the right thing." Not many had the balls to step down from something which no longer served them.

There was a brief pause as Alek reared the stone back; he hadn't thrown this one, yet. Instead, the former alpha stood for a second beside the Exile that had spent so long looking for somewhere they belonged. Somewhere to call home, a pack and a family. Alek understood them better than most people could. The Harbinger hadn't been born into this life; he'd been dragged into it. He loved it, past tense and present, even when it was as hard as now. "It doesn't matter what you say or do; there's always going to be someone waiting to tell you what you did was wrong. There's always going to be someone that wants you dead, or who'll want your pack dead. That council will give you five different opinions, and every one of them will think they're right. The alpha has to be someone who can make the hard decisions and live with the consequences." Alek chucked the rock he'd been holding. "That's just not me anymore."

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There's a genuine smile that flourishes; Eric would never understand the loss of magic she had to grapple with but everyone could understand that a witch's power was fundamental to their very being and Marcella had chosen the ultimate sacrifice to preserve herself. She'd lost this massive piece of her and would have to live with that, survive off of what remained, but not many would have her grit and courage; Marcella deserved this bashful happiness that came with the honeymoon feeling of a secured relationship. "It seems pretty serious to me," mirroring her tone, the Exile offers a mild grin, the overtone of their conversation is still staggeringly mournful, but they find comfort in the rare splices of happiness that pepper through. "Are they- were they.. -they're a witch?" Eric stumbled, it was hard not to gravitate towards reminding Marcella of what she'd lost, it'd always be this unwavering presence that crept up when she'd least expect it. "Nothing will ever be the same, but we'll get new chances, new comforts; there's light at the end of the tunnel," even if it feels so far away.

She thinks she gets it fully, being a little uncomfortable just about anywhere. It's not something easily shakeable and perhaps it comes from a long time of feeling uncomfortable in her skin, in her power. Marcella had always thought she would be something more. Had always wanted to be something more. And for what? To appease a mother that had poisoned her father and failed to bring him back? She'd already done circles around the woman, what did she have to gain showing her up now? Perhaps there really was something to all of that 'living well is the best revenge' sentiment. "I am seeing someone and it might be serious." There's something vaguely playful about her tone and she's still happy that her cheeks can't color anymore. There's no ring on her finger, not yet, but there would be eventually. "But that aside, I'm dedicated to helping Hakan just kind of....Adjust." Her smile turns to a thin line and her shoulders raise in a light shrug.

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Eric was more dodgy and cunning than others would give him credit for, more cat-coded than dog-coded, they often tended to get away with it. Valamir, however, was more brash and even if Eric liked to believe that the King couldn't see right through them, it was evident Valamir wasn't letting them slide in any sense of accountability. "I wasn't going to hurt him and don't call him that," sometimes even the Exile could bark and their brows knit together as Valamir seemed to gravitate towards a more serious threat, "It didn't sound like you were running for Alpha before, did I change your mind?" Shit, but the Exile stood firm as though he could even try to appear menacing to the other.

"You snuck into a teenager's camp and bit him while he was still half asleep. You call that a win?" Valamir would hand it to Eric's confidence, it took a lot of gall to have the physicality of a sickly milkmaid and still be willing to throw in. "Even when you were a volatile you got your ass handed to you by the pack bicycle." His eyes glinted as he pushed at the other's chest with two fingers, "I'll do you one better, when I win, I'll throw you out on your ass. Everyone else can stay, but not you."

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"I didn't say that," stated almost glumly as they watched Alek toss rock after rock, the stones soaring through the air and tumbling down the slope. Eric, instead, rolled the one Alek had held out to them in their palm, letting it fall into each divot of his palm and dig into each ridge. Their feet lazily dragged across the ground, dirt rising around them with each nudge of the gravelly floor, "It's just hard to accept that sometimes you'll be the bad guy." Alek hadn't seemed to mind, but maybe the Harbinger stepping down had been the very accountability that Eric was currently harping on.

"Intel." Alek couldn't find some humor in that; all that intel had just gotten him and everyone else killed. That's what he remembered; he'd heard more, all that fire. Days of hunting, pillaging, killing, and enjoying every moment of it. Possession. Every decision Alek had made turned out to be wrong; he'd been so sure, so arrogant in his own strength, that he refused to see the writing on the wall. People spoke up, but Alek shut them up, and he was just charismatic enough that everyone wanted to listen. He understood their anger, and he used it against them. Alek chucked another rock. "What? You don't think you can do it?" Alek had all eight months of experience as a lycan when he'd become alpha, then again, he'd only gotten it because he'd been too strong to be stopped.

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Oh, now the witch was sitting; Eric almost sighed but they offered some sense of restraint because the Exile knew, that they too, could be equally as insisting. "This place is overrun with lycans, I'd like to believe I'm no longer some outsider," it was a very ignorant hope considering the side eyes Eric had often gotten since and back then the only salve had been the fact that Alek, the one who had pushed for them to be apart of the Lupo, had currently been Alpha. "So you're a rule follower?" Toying jest presented the question; Eric had enough unsavory experiences with witches as of late and he'd like to not add to that tally, attempting to feel out this witch as subtly as they attempted to feel Eric out, it seemed.

^*^

Alder has become accustomed to the occasional bouts of aggression directed towards him. It just came with the territory of being surrounded by wolves. But that’s not why he’s unfazed by the other’s bristly demeanor. Once Alder set his mind on something it was impossible to derail him no matter the obstacle, and he decided that he liked the volatiles a lot. “Hey, that’s the spirit! You do belong here the same as anyone else. Rumors be damned.” Of course, Alder hadn’t heard any specifically, but disarmament was his chosen first step to get closer to someone. “Even though I’ll probably feel like an outsider until the alpha rises, I don’t want to treat any resident like one. My magic in service to Lupercal extends to everyone,” he says earnestly, taking a seat despite not getting that official invitation he was hoping for.

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"Well I bested you once, didn't I?" They put on their best farce of smiling boastfully, standing a little taller as if it'd help them in the face of a tower like the King. Valamir would likely point out it was a lucky bite, and it had been; but the Exile was just going to derogatorily take the piss on this subject and Valamir could laugh all he pleased. "In a few weeks, we'll see who you'll have to call Alpha and you can't jump ship if it happens to be me," they smiled with a final shrug.

"I'm not trying to talk you out of it. You asked; I just think it's hilarious." Valamir boasted the truth was that the other didn't have a shot at making it past the first round, but it'd be interesting to see who beat and pissed on who: Eric or Lain. "Not like you're the only scrawny bag of bones that's going to be fighting; crowds need an appetizer." Valamir gave Eric a hard pat on the shoulder, it took a lot of guts to face down a pack of lycans that would sooner run a train on them than acknowledge them as an alpha.

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For someone who pretended to relish in burning bridges and setting friendships ablaze, Eric was actually fairly compassionate and obnoxiously sensitive deep down; they probably thought they'd masked it fairly well, but as each day went on it was evident most looked upon them with some strange twist of pity. "Bitching, giving you necessary intel, it's the same thing when you're Alpha, right?" Alek certainly never radiated compassionate vibes, but Eric always relished in disrespect from somebody; it was their own pitiful complex where they tended not to favor themself too highly. "And you're just saying that because you gave up the job after helping me get the in, but thanks."

"Benefits? I just remember people bitching." Alek made a lewd gesture with his hand before he picked another rock out of the bag and lobbed it towards the other. "You should go for it; you'd make a good alpha." Eric seemed like the type of person who could listen to people whining all day about how things should or ought to be. Alek being over it didn't even begin to cover it; so much do this and do that, he missed the lycan that had been content to with just beating people up for money to buy smokes. He chucked another rock.

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Eric's head leaned into the subtle touch, Raj's thumb finding a comforting pattern along the plane of their jaw. "And how did that go for you?" A small smile as the exile poised the question, where once Eric was so closed in upon themself, they now relaxed within Raj's proximity, seemingly unphased by what they'd both witnessed. "Really?" Eric sat a bit straighter though they'd not wish to leave the familiar chill of the other anytime soon, "I'd have thought you'd never consider it." It hurt to wonder upon all the things both could not say and he realized now how quickly the other had aged from the End.

Raja moved a little closer, if that was at all possible. The druid was impossibly cold at all times, but the lycan ran hot – it was a win win. He placed his hand on the other's jaw, brushing his thumb over it, "Is there? I've seen crazy up close, you know." The memories of what had happened were mostly fading, he was hoping that eventually it'd be a bad dream that perhaps he could escape once and a while. Either way, they were both here, and he wasn't sure what would happen. "We all make it through the way we can, you know. And I'm here." He hesitated for a second, "Aurora would have me in her court, you know. We'd be safe there."

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"Killed?" Eric blinked, they'd endured countless years, years that spanned on until the Exile completely lost count stuck in his lycan form. Perhaps death would have been a mercy for Eric and the other Lupo's who tore apart the other survivors as though it was a sick competition; survival of the fittest, or craziest in this sense. "I didn't know that," sullen, they understood KJ had presented the truth when they were ready but it still wounded the Exile to hear; no matter the fact that they'd all been saved from such timeline. A small laugh, "I don't know how far you would get starting some fight but, I would like to see you try," Eric still related to such disastrous ideas, no matter how far they'd come, such a thought was entertaining.

Their shoulders slackened at the sight of Yasemin, a rare and appreciated appearance, "I figured you'd like the idea."

"Relatively unscathed?"they were about to say something crazy, but decided against that. Eric's safety was of utmost importance to the Lamb, to the Wolf, too, but more so for the Lamb. If KJ had their way, Yasemin would never get to talk to Eric, knowing the Wolf usually had bad intentions, even with friends. Still, the time would come in which Wolf pushed themselves forward to front. "Lucky you. I feel like I had so much fun before getting killed," they shrugged. Udaeus had done such a good job at making sure they got cut down, to make sure the Dopple would not return again. KJ rolled their eyes as a response. "They don't like either of us, we don't taste good," they thought of Emir then, how their little arrangement had really been more or less an eye-opening experience. They didn't have to taste good, they just had to be available, emotionally and otherwise, to form a healthy relationship. Something still so strange to the Dopple. "I mean, we can go, but I'll just get drunk and probably start a fight or two, I mean if you're about that we can go. 'been some time since our last real brawl together."

KJ sighed in disbelief before turning as they got shorter, straight, black hair turned brunette and curly. "I think that's more my job, right?"

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Eric smiled, partly amused and another piece of them genuinely happy for the other, even if it was over something as ridiculous as tossing rocks. "So this was better than reaping the rewards of Alpha?" The smile grew the more they looked at Alek, through everything endured the Harbinger seemed lighter, less shrouded by the responsibilities he once had to uphold. "Hell yeah, I'll take a rock," they shook their head humorously though they extended a hand to snag one.

"Crazy like a fox," Alek said with a smile before he chucked a rock over the side with an insane amount of accuracy; he wasn't actually aiming at anything, so he managed to get it through a window at the bottom of the hill and beam someone in the side of the head was some crazy luck. "You want a rock? I got a bunch of them. I'm just chucking them at stuff until someone calls the cops; I got through almost the whole bag last week. They're good ones too, see?" Alek showed off how smooth they were, aerodynamic.

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Eric understood that Valamir could squeeze their brains out of their head as effortlessly as he could pinch toothpaste from the tube but that didn't temper the Exile's chatty and sarcastic demeanor. Eric resonated more as a cat that had several lives and they'd continue to test how many lives they were truly granted, even with their towering 'progeny'. "Okay, and what about it?" Their arms were crossed, smirking; the King was crotchety in the way that computers and technology were bad but Valamir still had the capacity to blend into society if someone didn't look too closely at him. "What if this is just the next part of my Sims simulation? Get over it." Mhm, that should baffle Valamir enough to get him off the Exile's back; Eric never really went with the flow of anything that was to be expected of them, gunning for Alpha was no different.

Valamir scoffed at that; the roll of his eyes was abstained. Instead, the King just stepped forward. A tower and a mountain wrapped into one as he looked down at the scrappy outcast. "That's exactly what it means. You only want it because it's worth something to you now; you didn't fight for it or do anything for it. You're riding someone else's coattails and starting to piece together that we actually have something here. It's a joke, but if you want to get beat and pissed on, then by all means, fight for it." Valamir decided then that he'd compete, too, not because he wanted it, but because he wanted to humiliate the prick that had bitten him and ruined his life. Now that would be funny.