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 Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 10:45 am
 A large starry male made his way through the underbrush sniffing at the ground on the trail a summer hare. At this time many of them were fat from gorging on the fruits that had finally come to fruition. His stomach gave a low grumble and he cringed slightly. He'd been having a little trouble hunting of late, but being a wolf with the sight of only one eye and a missing limb hunting was slightly more difficult. With one eye he had terrible depth perception and his leg was the least of his troubles as he had never had the limb to begin with.
He torn ear twitched listening for movement, nose twitching picking up the scent. He was getting close, so close that he began to salivate heavily, his first meal in about a week, the catch would be sweet. Sure enough just as he had predicted a brown hare shot out from beneath a tree root, he lunged at in, giving a small chace before finally catching it barely by the hind leg. The hare gave a struggle but Aki pinned it down and grabbed it and shook it, breaking its neck.
Settling in Aki got to work tearing away the fur and gorging himself on the sweet fatty meat of the rabbit. It was a welcome meal, filling his cramping stomach to a new ache, but a good one. His smokey muzzle stained with blood Aki relaxed, gnawing on the bones to get to the sweet marrow inside. A good day, a good day indeed for the strange wolf.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:28 am
 Ragged, thin, and with weary eyes, the black-backed female plodded through the forest, ignoring much of what was around her. She seemed old, haggard, and worn out - not what a wolf in her prime should look like at all. Too many hurts and too many losses had eaten away at the unhappy female.
Neira's only trouble was in her mind, her soul, but it had made it as difficult for her to hunt as had the male's more prominent disabilities - she had no will to hunt much, and even less to do much more than wander, avoiding others as best he could. She had had enough of others, male or female- it seemed as though every wolf she had known had hurt her in some way.
Still, deep down, was a kernel of anger, which showed only when her dull red eyes flicked towards some noise or irritant - as if it dare intrude on her self-pity.
It wasn't until the last moment, thus, that she realised there was another in front of her - having followed the scent of blood almost unconsciously - to the point where, had she come further, she might have tripped right over him.
Her hackled raised instantly, teeth bared, ready to defend or attack as need be.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 11:51 am
Aki snarled back, but only in his own defense, it was not over the food but rather in instinct at suddenly being surprised by the weary female. His pale eye watched the worn female for a moment, he could see the wear and tear on the dear, feeling a pang of hurt for her. There was still some of the meat left from the rabbit as well as bones full of marrow.
The male backed himself up to a sitting position moving away from the scraps. "You may have what is left. I have eaten my share. Many of the bones are still filled with marrow as well." he said scooting himself away a little.
The female seemed so fierce, almost cruel, as though the world had done her nothing but great injustice. His life had been no easy path, but he was also a very easy-going wolf.
"You need not worry about me, a cripple like myself is not much of a threat." he tried to laugh, it wasn't totally true, but he never liked to fight unless he absolutely had to.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 1:36 pm
'Neira's teeth gritted themselves when the male reacted as defensively as she herself had - she didn't really want to fight, no, but she'd never be bullied again. Especially not by this lumbering bru...
Then she noticed his leg - she'd never seen a wolf with such a lack - and wondered how he had lost it. She stared for a moment, rather rudely, though she never even considered that it might be. His voice brought her back, as did her belly: rumbling merrily at the sight of the small carcass in front of her.
"I don't need a legless male to hand me his scraps!" she said, her voice gravelly from lack of use. She tried to stand straight, hold her head high at least, keep any shred of pride intact. A loud, rolling rumble from her stomach spoiled the effect. 'Neira's eyes flicked off past the male, a small hint of her discomfort, but they were back almost as quickly as they'd wavered, staring right at him.
"I suppose you at least know the right sort of manners" she harrumphed, signalling in a small way her acceptance of his offer of the rabbit - with no sign of gratefulness, of course. She tried to swagger forth nonchalantly, but rather failed, and was perhaps a little to eager as she got to the small mound of bones and flesh, tearing what little was left and cracking the bones indiscriminately.
A year ago she might not have done more than turn tail and run at the sight of a male, or attack without thinking - now she could at least tolerate their presence, if not happily. She had her old alpha to thank for that - one of the few things she could thank that particular wolf for.
Warily, she glanced up every few moments - it might be some trick, afterall - and noticed his eye. "S'wrong with your eye, three legs" she said through a mouthful of gristle - at least if he was talking she could hear him and wouldn't have to watch him so close.
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Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2009 6:02 pm
The male shrugged off her hardness, many wolves who traveled alone were hard and anti-social in more than one way. Some willing to attack at the first sight of another, he was grateful that she was not like that. He blinked his eye at her, only seeing with one, his tattered ear flipping back and forth in curiosity.
He kept himself as passive as possible, not wanting to female to think him a threat. He was merely a passerby on his way through life, still not quite sure where he was headed. He watched the female attack the meat, wishing the rabbit had been bigger, that way she could have had at least a little more.
"I may be at a loss of a limb, but yes, I do withhold some manners, especially to a female. That is how I was raised in my pack family." he said holding up his head. He prized his politeness, though he knew it wouldn't always be looked at in a good way, but rather for weakness.
At the female question of his eyes he licked at him maw and sighing a little. "A group of Lynx got to me. I believe they were acting out of revenge for killing what I assume was family." Aki shrugged. It had been a long time ago when we was in his youth. Ever since he had refused to even consider hunting down a lynx.
"Please forgive me, I have not introduced myself." he bowed his head. "My name is Akinobu."
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:28 pm
Her tongue traced the last vestiges of what had once been a rabbit from her lips - there had not been much left of it when she had started and there was even less, now -just a small mass of bony splinters and some stringy sinew. Still, it had filled a small hole - quieting her rumbling insides to a murmur.
Done, her eyes raised again towards the dark-blue male, taking in more details. Missing leg, missing ear, 'missing' eye. He really was a bit of a mess, wasn't he? She wondered how he had managed even to catch the rabbit and felt the tiniest pang of guilt that she had scoffed what was left of it. That little urge was quickly pushed from her mind, though. He was probably being fed by some poor female who did his work for him - the pack he mentioned maybe, she decided, not willing to give him credit for anything more than sharing.
Still, he hadn't had to share, she supposed, and she didn't want to seem like an ungrateful male would. "Thank you for letting me have some Aki...nobu" she grumbled.
"Why did you kill a lynx anyway in the first place? Not like they're even good for eating." She was a little interested, in spite of herself. Probably it was some foolish masculine bravado (fat lot of good it had done him) but maybe there was something more interesting in it.
Besides, it gave her an excuse to sit a bit longer - with some food in her, and because she had come out of her almost somnambulent state, she had begun to feel the ache of her body for a rest. She plopped down on her rump, eyeing the male and not bothering to give her own name.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:07 pm
Still watching the female Aki he shook his head with a smile. "It is no problem at all. It is good for us on occasion to accept the kindness of a stranger." he said looking down at the small mass that had once been a fat hare but was no longer.
At her asking of his lynx encounter he laughed in spite of himself. "I was a fool when I was younger, as a youth I liked to prove to others that despite my 'disability' I could hunt just as good as any other wolf with four legs." he shrugged. "I got the lynx and brought it back to show off to the male who had dared me. But a moon later I was ambushed in the night by a small group of Lynx. I was lucky all they took was my eye." he sighed. "I was so set of making something more of myself when I left my pack family. I was the first to leave really. I was raised to forget my loss and work just as hard as everyone else." he said remembering his puppy-hood days of romping with his siblings.
"Lost me ear to an old she wolf who thought I was trying to steal her den. Got on my blind side and tore off a good part of my ear. Least I didn't lose my hearing, I'd have been in real trouble then!" he laughed. He never looked at his problem areas with disdain it would only bring him down and he knew it. He never really considered females to look at him as anything more than a cripple who could just get by. But he did well for himself, having learned to just cope with his disabilities and adapt.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 5:41 pm
Well, he certainly seemed a little flowery-worded and it seemed she had guessed right about his injuries being the fault of foolish male pride. Hmph, typical. Still, he said he'd done it to prove his leg didn't hold him back... he had be born that way? The rest of his words seemed to confirm that. It couldn't have been easy, she thought, but there was no need for such bravado.
Still, leaving your family... that was a hard thing to do - even if you'd been forced to go, as she herself knew. Her eyes were downcast momentarily with sadness as she remembered back then, having to leave those she had loved and cared for... ashamed. Why would anyone choose to, really? "How do you make more of yourself when there's no-one to see you do it? and, even then, it sounds like you just caused yourself more trouble".
It was a little harsh, maybe, but 'Neira had not had to worry for a long time about others feelings and she wasn't going to spare any males her sharp words, even if they were crippled and had shared their food.
Neira had held tightly to the idea that all males were loutish, idiotic, self-aggrandising womanisers for a long time - it was a prejudice which was not easy to lose.
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Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:11 pm
The starry pelted male shifted himself to laydown, a much more comfortbale position for him. She had a point, what was there in pushing himself when there was no one there to praise him, to see him and see how hard he worked. But when he really thought about it, it was simple really.
"Well, I do it for myself. My goal isn't to be stronger than everyone else, to show off to others when they are around. I do it because I have to to survive. Maybe I do sometimes, go to more trouble than things are worth, but I can't let these things get me down. living life is something we only do once and I want to live it to the fullest that I can. I search for the meaning of life through the stars and the moon, praying one day that I will understand their hidden messages explaining why things happen." he finished with a sigh.
Maybe Aki had a rose-tinted set of glasses he looked through and saw the world, distorting the harshness of the realities around him. No one would ever truly look at him as normal, he was disfigured, disabled, and yet the way he spoke something you would have thought he never knew anything was different about him from one wolf to another.
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Posted: Sat Jul 04, 2009 3:25 am
'Neira's left ear twitched lightly, shooing away a fly attracted to the scent of blood as she watched Akinobu, trying to figure him out. He wasn't the usual type or male: he didn't seem to be self aggrandising - though his ideals did seem rather a tad lofty for the wary female.
"What can the stars and the moon tell you?" she looked upwards, almost without thinking, though the stars and moon would not be out for a while yet. "They just... stare down at you" she finished lamely. Truth was, she'd never given much of a thought to what the stars and moon did - in her youth she hadn't cared and she'd come out of that adolescence too quickly, with responsibilities she didn't want... If Aki had rose-tinted glasses, then 'Neira had blackened ones - everything in her world was a menace to her - a possible cause of trouble - and she averted that trouble by biting first, as it were.
Her eyes came back down to meet his. "I don't care about being the best, or the strongest or any of that nonsense. All I want is a home, a pack, a place I can rest..." she added. She hadn't meant to say even that much, to give away any part of herself, as she saw it, but she felt a little awkward around the seemingly self-assured male.
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Posted: Sun Jul 05, 2009 7:25 am
Aki gave a small chuckle, "I believe that the stars and the moon hold the mysteries of the past, present and future. To understand them and be able to see them is to know. Why things happen the way they do and what will come of the changes later in our lives." he said looking up to the sky. The fly that had been pestering Neira flew across Aki's nose and he snapped at it playfully.
The male lowered his head to look at the female again. "A perfectly acceptable want from any wolf. I may have left my own pack family but I so hope to join one again eventually. I myself and searching for my sister who was lost to us when she was very young. I believe she is still alive even though it has been so long." he nodded. He believed she was still out there holding strong, maybe with a pack of her own, a mother even with a loving mate. He felt sorry for the female, he to this point had not pursued joining a pack at all, but he figured the female may have been searching for a while.
"You'll find what you are looking for." he assured her with a toothy grin. He felt it, it may not be an immediate find, but she would find that comfort of a pack, and a home.
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Posted: Mon Jul 06, 2009 8:34 am
"All that from lights in the sky?" she felt a slight shiver inside, thinking of something so remote from her could hold the knowledge of her life as it had been a would be. Mysticism was not something 'Neira was keen on.
She felt a small amount of sympathy for him now - knowing he was, in fact, on his own - maybe he wasn't as reprehensible as she had thought - hunting on his own, taking care of himself? Unusual for any male she had known. Maybe he was... one of those types.
"It's hard to lose family..." she said, trying to sound vaguely sympathetic. "What is your sister like, maybe if I happen to run into her..?" It was to Aki's credit that 'Neira would even think of making such an offer - to a male anyway, even if 'Neira wasn't likely to 'run into' many wolves.
Realising she had just offered to 'help' a male, her hind brain kicked her a little too strongly towards snappish: "But what would you know about my future with your stars and moon gazing?" she muttered, mulishly, "It's not like anything so far has shown my life will be anything but miserable" the sentence dragged into a sigh, a deep, ragged one. It had been a slightly short, cathartic outburst, for all its ferocity.
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 8:51 am
He nodded, "That is what I believe at least. I spent a lot of time at on point living next to a two-legger camp and over heard them speaking about reading the signs within the stars. Since then I've been fascinated with them." he said closing his eyes seeing the beautiful night sky in his mind, the pale moon lighting the ground around him in a silvery-blue glow.
"Yes it is.." he sighed thinking about his half-sister. "Her name is Larka, though whether she still goes by the name I do not know. She has a beige colored pelt with blue and blue legs, Silvery eyes and blue wing markings around her eyes." he said nodding to himself remember the girl as spunky little pup who could never get her head out of the clouds.
Aki blinked at the female, so she wanted to know what he could tell from the stars. Well he was still working on it, but he was starting to notice things little by little. Minor fortune telling was easy enough he thought, nothing enough to consider him Seer or Shaman status, no, he was nothing compared to them, just won with a decent understanding of the world around him. "Sometimes life is unkind to us, but that which does not kill us, makes us stronger." he said nodding his head a little, hell he was a good example of that. "When you look at life as though is strides against you, it will, but when you accept it, and take in the small glories that are around us things will start to get better. It's not an immediate effect, but rather a process of accepting things. Many things in life are inevitable, others we make happen. Happiest does not stumble upon us, we have to stumble upon it." he smiled.
He had belief in his words, these were lessons he'd had to learn because he at one point he despised the world for the life it had given him, but he had grown to accept who he was for all his differences and it had made him strong for it.
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 11:36 am
Two-leggers, eh? She hadn't really come into contact with them much in her life - oh they'd been around when she was young but... far away, not part her life as much. Others might have odd views on them or dislikthem greatly but they just didn't mean much to 'Neira. If he had learned something from them, thus, she didn't instantly feel it was either 'bad' or 'good', just unusual.
Neira's mind tidied away the information about Aki's sister, despite her crabby attitude on the outside - she'd be helping a female, afterall, if his sister wanted to be found... She'd never, so far, come across a female with those looks but you never knew who you'd bump into, it seemed, eyeing the male she was talking to.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger? She'd never heard that turn of phrase before but it resonated with her. For sure, so many times she'd come close to death or be hurt and had survived but had she gotten stronger? She hoped so but a tiny voice deep in her soul said she'd been made harder, not stronger, and that that was not necessarily a good thing. Life against her? Absolutely.
But what small glories had she to accept? She had nothing, she figured. That thought hit her like a tonne of bricks. She really did have noting to show for her life so far, didn't she? Had she caused it herself, as this male was suggesting, by railing against her hardship, by complaining about her lot?
Th grey-and-black female shook her head, as if to get rid of a buzzing nuisance, but it did little good since said distraction was inside her head - a fizz of new ideas and possibilities. She wasn't sure she liked that one bit.
She could see how a wolf with his... disabilities might come up with such a philosophy.
Her eyes met his straight on, as if judging his words carefully. "You really believe that? If someone just... accepts things and makes the best what they have then they'll have a better time in life?" it wasn't as eloquently as he had put it, but she was at least trying to understand and had at least reduced her snappiness.
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Posted: Tue Jul 07, 2009 12:55 pm
The male nodded his head. "Yes. When one no longer dwells on hardship and imperfections, but rather sees the smaller things in life. Life itself, to be able to walk among the trees, and breathe the fresh, clean air after it rains, the catch of a hunt, not matter how small. You appriciate these tiny things in life so much more. Rather than dwelling on the loss of a hunt, or how one dislikes getting rained on and soaked." he said with a slight chuckle.
He was full of philosophies and words of wisdom. "Even just this meeting here between the two of us, I find joy in it. I do not come across many wolves, even more so those who are willing to speak with a cripple such as myself. I am looked down upon for my differences, yet my size and abilities true surpass what they consider to be possible."
He could see the female was thinking over the things he was saying, if he could make even a dent of difference in her life towards finding happiness then he would have succeed tremendously in his opinion. His fire dipped tail waved over the ground, scattering leaves.
"No life is filled with pure bliss, we all must hurt at one point or another in life. Just as we must all endure some happiness, for life is not an eternal hell that we must walk because we have no choice. If life were so bad would we all not just lay down and die early on in our lives?" He asked smiling at the female.
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