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((I hope its ok to post, I was eyeing your boy up before. XD ))



There was no way that the dusty dark mound a short distance in front of the male could have been a frog, it couldn't even have been some kind of small game. Black fur greyed out with the layer of dust that had settled over it, almost completely hiding the white bone markings. Giving the appearance of some kind of strange skeletal mound.

Yet it was moving.

The she-wolf snorted dust from her muzzle where it was pressed against the ground between her front paws. Body crouched low, belly pressed flat to the ground she was intent on her work. The pale movement of her twin white tails behind her was slow and habitual, as if there were few moments when they were still. Suddenly she launched to her feet and resumed scrabbling at the hard packed earth with her forepaws, sharp nails racking at the solid earth. Yet she was determined and had already created a small crater about half a feet deep.

She paused to scent the earth again, snorting dust from her completely grey muzzle. Keeping her muzzle low she scuttled sideways around the small hole, belly brushing along the ground. Pausing, now facing more or less in the direction the male was in, she rose and dug furiously again. Dust raising from her mattered coat in little eddies from her efforts.

Stopping once more she shoved her nose in the hole again, ears pricked forwards, straining to hear, though plants made no sound. What she did catch however, was the faint sounds of movement. Dark head snapped up, icy blue eyes squinting against the sting of the dust that had found its way into them. Sneezing she growled low in her throat, irritated that she could scent nothing but dust on the wind. Since most of it was clogging her nose.

((Hee thank you! Your boy is stunning as well. Love your post bty. heart ))

Pale eyes narrowed, struggling to make out the shape that was padding towards her. Damn dust had ruined her vision momentarily, just when something interesting had finally turned up on this god forsaken dirt bowl.

White tails curled behind the dusty body, their movements faster than before, flicking against the hard packed ground in a swift beat as if playing the earth like a drum, though the movements were as silent as the grave. Pale eyes, now clear of grit, roamed over the male as if judging him on some unearthly scale. Mayhaps judging his actions from his life?

Her top lip lifted at his words, revealing the very real fangs behind her markings. "Everybody says that.." She replied, her tone shockingly silken, coming from such a starkly coloured form. Raising up from her crouch she narrowed her eyes at the male, fangs once more hidden though the ghostly markings remained. A reminder to those that would anger the voodoo priestess perhaps. Shaking her head, dislodging a cloud of dust, she stepped away from the hole she had been working on and padded round the stranger, stopping to one side of him. Head lowered she rolled her pale eyes up at the taller male, white-bared ears flicking back. "Why did you come here...." She asked in that silken voice, though its very softness had sent fur ruffling with unease and tails tucking low in fear.

His words caused the same two-toned ear to flicker once more, her head shifting from side to side slowly almost in a manner akin to a hunting snake. Though the female's body remained still, only those incessantly moving tails remained unaffected by the conversation, such as it was. Preventing the illusion that she might simply vanish into the dusty winds from completely enclosing her.

No one 'just passed through' the hellish landscape that surrounded them. There was something about the male... something different from the regular wolves that had the misfortune to encounter her. The slow hypnotising sway of her head stilled as she lifted it, muzzle raised as she peered at him with narrowed eyes. The circular marking on her forehead seeming to suddenly glow in the moonlight, almost like an omen.

There... She sensed it again. An aura that drifted round the male like a long stale scent. A ghost of some experience or memory. Or maybe simply the weight of one mortal life span. Either way it intrigued her. He seemed.. resigned? Mayhaps, but that left her with a rather delicious dilemma. Should she leave him to wander along his road towards what ever the fates had in store for him. Or could she borrow what was left of his existence? She hated leaving anything to waste and this interesting male would be wasted... of that she was sure.

Her upper lip drew back, baring razor sharp fangs in an expression close to a smirk. Pale eyes roaming the area around them as if watching things only she could see before returning that eerily luminescent gaze back to the male. "Even one such as I can not escape certain.. necessary activities." She replied in that fur-ruffling voice, like ghostly fingers drifting through a wolf's pelt. Ever so soft but far from innocent.

Dark head tilted as she studied him from the corner of one eye, as if she was seeing not the male's earthly body, but something else. Something that interested her... possibly something that would not lead to a healthy future for the large stranger.

She watched what only she could see, and smiled slowly.

His reaction to her was nothing like what she had come to expect in these chance encounters. She could scent his unease, nay, near fear at times. And yet still he stood, waiting before her as if for some final judgment.

Not far from it.. she mused to herself, pale eyes resting on the big male, simply watching him, actually looking at him and not through him as was her habit. The tightness in his body sang sweetly to her, the scent that rose stronger from him made her want to rub against him, to wrap herself in that wondrous flavour. She let a shiver roll through her body, eyes closing briefly, claws digging into the hard packed earth under them.

It was a rare thing for another of her kind to catch her attention, but this one had. Whether or not that was healthy for the male, who knew. But she enjoyed the way he stood, fearful and yet resigned with a strength behind him that spoke of harsh years and a weary existence.

Turning her head fully back to him, pale gaze lifting from its exploration to study the male's expression.

" ....Or is there an end to this road, after all?"

She let a dark smile curl her lips, pale eyes glinting with amusement, perhaps at some hidden knowledge.

"There is always an end to the road." She purred, her voice like the moonlight, soft yet chilling. "But yours does not end in this place, wolf." No... she would see to that. This one was too interesting, too amusing, to let him die so soon after he had found her. Her smile widened into a smirk as she lowered her head again, fur ruffling in the wind the motion of the white markings giving her the appearance of movement. As if she might simply dissolve into the air itself.

Perhaps she could borrow him... she doubted Fate would mind very much.

Her ears swept forwards as the male stepped towards her, wandering pale eyes slowly making their way back to him. Reaper... the name made her purr softly in the back of her throat. Was that what he thought she was? Though she guessed it was as good as any of the other names she had been given over time. And, when it came to others of her species... not that far from the truth.

Pale tails twisted behind her as she studied him, head turned to one side slightly. "A little of your time, the use of your body. A small section of your life. Is that too much to ask for? I fair trade, I would suggest, for the rest of it."

Turning away from him, seeming to know that he posed no threat to her, she padded silently to circle round the hole she had been working on when he found her. Her movements, at odds with her patterning, were smooth and graceful, almost as if she was treading not on the hard packed earth, but glided just above it. The illusion woven perhaps by the skeletal markings on her paws, the white gleaming softly in the silver moon light, while her dark fur blended into the shadows cast all around them.

Pausing on the far side of the shallow hole she stepped round to face him. Head held up, sleek body relaxed, graceful even in that perfect stillness. The soft light reflected in her eyes, dark shadows of the clouds above chasing themselves across her gaze like the long lost souls of the damned.

She watched him, this way his powerful muscles tensed at her words, the slight squint of his eyes as his mind told him things she couldn't read, but could guess at. Loosing control of ones existence, even for a short time and good reason, was a bitter pill to swallow. No matter that it was for something beyond what most wolves would understand.

She remained still, waiting, her pale gaze watching the male opposite her with an infinite calm. As if time had no meaning to her. The wind ruffled through her fur, the soft moonlight slid over the two wolves, out in the vastness of the badlands. Alone in a place few dare enter let alone cross as he had, and who knew how often the she-wolf visited.

Not a single flicker of the male's body escaped her attention, pale eyes passive, completely unworried. Everything was up to him, so it seemed, yet all could have been simply an illusion. A test perhaps.

His words, coming at long last into the shadowed night, drew her lips into a wide smile. As if had just picked the right road to walk. Motioning with her forepaw, she indicated the hole in front of her. "There is a root, it is required for my work but it only grows out here, under the first layer of the earth. I desire to borrow your strength, for you have very much of it."

((Its fine!!! XD Its a great post too. *hugs* Man I love Ruy, he is such a dude. heart ))

The pure effort that the male had to expand in order to deepen the hole made one wonder just how long the bone-marked female had been out here, digging, in order to have created the shallow bowl in the earth.

Despite the dust that swirled around them, the she-wolf stayed in her place, standing part way round the hole from where the male worked. Dust billowed around them from his efforts, far thicker and copious than when she had been working. But the hole was growing swiftly now and despite the dust that swirled around them like a mini whirlwind, the female was smiling.

Grey coated her body, dulling out the stark black and white of her fur for once again, turning her ghostly in the moonlight. The darkness of her fur under the dust seemed as if it were part of the night, leaving the skeletal markings floating in the shadows, partly hidden under the faint glowing cover of dust, like a ghost's ephemeral body. Yet the irregular sneezes that escaped her proved that she was still among the living.

At his words she stepped forwards, slipping along side him into the hole, her slender muzzle tracing along the freshly exposed earth. Her body was warm despite the chill of the night, muscles sleek under her thick pelt. White-edged ears flicked as she concentrated on something at the bottom of the hole. Nudging his muzzle slightly to one side with her own she then drew her head back, pale gaze flicking to his, so close now that it was possible to make out the several shadows of blue in her gaze.

"There.. just a little bit more. It is a thick root of the Buraghgarar plant." She held his gaze momentarily before stepping away, slim body slinking back up out of the hole then turning, standing close to him as if not caring that the dust he kicked up was coating her body and clinging to her nose. She certainly wasn't a female that was afraid of getting dirty.