|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 5:44 pm
 There was no recollection of how he had come to possess these strange objects upon his persona: 3 feathers clipped by a strange ring in his ear, a light-weight pendant with strange features carved into it bouncing against his chest to produce a separate heartbeat, and a peculiar metal jaw with no teeth set about his paw, tongue clicking with each step in an incessant nag. It made it sometimes near impossible to hunt with that sound to alert the wary prey of his presence, and it was not as though he needed more malnourishment. As a pup he had had the worst luck alone finding a meal, and his stomach was in want for the carcasses Blithra produced without fail for him - it had caused his shape to grow a bit dilapidated as soon he found himself a long-limbed adolescent; thick, sturdy legs, and yet with the fur drawn tight against his chest. He was not doing so well, and for some reason the dried taste of blood was in his mouth, though surely he would have remembered killing something? Or maybe his mind was losing itself slowly but surely . . .
It did not help that this area of the forest he was not so familiar with, even though Denzel was so very sure that he had traversed it before with his adopted mother, if not at least before she had arrived in his life like the great angel that she was. Ears tilted towards the sound of a gurgling brook and drew him near. He dipped his head down and drank greedily, blurred reflection broken by the ripples: his face had hardly changed a bit . . . It was a relief. He felt as though it were someone else's body he was using, not his own. More signs of his deteriorating mind. "Blithra . . ." he mumbled somberly to himself, green eyes tight with a semblance of worry. Was she beside herself with grief at his disappearance? He did not mean to cause her so much worry, not after what she had done for him already; it was a most distateful way to repay the kind she-wolf. "Blithra . . ."
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 6:07 pm
 The large three-legged male heard the faint call of the confused adolescent and moved a little faster through the wood. He heard the call again for a name he did not know. Blithra, whoever that was. The babble of the approaching brook caught his ears, his one good silver-blue eyes searched ahead for any sign of where the faint voice was coming from.
Denzel to Aki blended in quite well with the surrounding foliage of the forest, but his movement caught Aki's eye. He limped forward tilting his head to the side, perking forward his good ear and the badly torn one. His blue starry pelt littered with autumn leaves around his three paws moving forward slowly as not to scare the youth. The pentacle upon his head and smokey covered maw pointed forward as his soft voice called out as his slightly limped forward.
"Are you all right?" he asked praying the younger wolf wouldn't start and get defensive. He wasn't really much of a threat with three legs and a bad eye. But he wasn't just going to let the younger wolf wander about in confusion, maybe he could help him, seeing as he knew that would be the right thing to do, as long as it didn't get him killed in the end.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 8:05 pm
Yet indeed the adolescent found his hackles stiffening immediately at the sight of the strange-colored wolf: large size, tell-tale deformities of supposed violence, and a symbol upon his brow that had Denzel on edge for one particular reason or another. Dazzling as the wolf's coat was, it was the eyes that he most focused upon, one being sightless, the other trained upon him with what may have been pity - he heard pity in it, that is, and really it was all that mattered.
He wanted none of it and so turned his head away, the only response the other wolf recieved a flick of the naked ear to show that their words had not gone unheard, but rather ignored instead; Denzel was loathe to move the one with the strange feathers adorning it as though doing so would one day tug the ring out painfully and leave a hole where the items had once been; if it was on him, it had to be a reason, and he would not interfere consciously with them. Windy would know why he had these accessories upon him, but she rarely spoke to him these days, ever since he had been found by his adopted mother . . .
"Blithra . . ." Denzel mumbled again, and began to head opposite of the riverflow. Surely he would see a familiar sign soon? The thought of searching for her made him forget almost immediately about the elder wolf, so fixated upon finding the she-wolf as he was.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 6:24 am
Aki tilted his head in curiosity. He was aware that the youth had heard him, but had for one reason or another ignored him. He went back in forth in his mind considering if he should just leave the wolf alone and go about his own business or do as his instincts told him and try again.
He edged a little closer to the young male and spoke a little louder this time. "Searching for someone?" he asked instead this time. That's what it seemed, the name 'Blithra' he kept repeating. "Maybe I can help you out." he said again hoping for response. He was a good bit larger than Denzel being a Beta, but he had such a gentle nature about him he was not one to fight or cause problems and he just hoped the young wolf would not think of him as a threat.
His flame tipped tail raised slightly, he was the dominant of the two of them, but he wagged it a little showing he was of no threat. If it actually came down to it he would fight, he leg and eye had never stopped him from that before when he had to. In fact he was still a veritably good hunter despite it all.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 11:01 am
Even for as slow of a wolf as Denzel was, the time it took for the wolf to realize he was indeed on a search brought up for the first time in a long while the urge to roll his eyes; which he did not in the end for no particular reason other than having better things to do. "Come then," the adolescent spoke slowly, not turning his head as he padded somberly parallel to the river, watching the water murmur opposite his path with no secrets to tell him, no shortcuts to his home. "No help want. Just extra nose. Eyes. Ears." Just in case the slow-minded one didn't know what he meant, Denzel dipped his nose to the ground, futilely searching for the familiar scent.
"Purple. Big mane. Pink eyes."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 4:20 pm
The larger and older male scoffed a bit at Denzel. The younger male didn't seem to make the best of sense and his speaking in fragments was strange to him. But if he was looking for someone and allowing Aki to help that was nevertheless the right thing to do. The leaf patterned legs followed along after the younger male. "More like eye actually." he said with a slight shrug. But he didn't think the younger male actually cared by the seems of it.
With the description of the wolf Denzel was looking for Aki thought, never had he run across a wolf fitting that vague description and he'd remember that at the least. When he thought it over again it struck him that he had not introduced himself, he mulled it over if it was even worth it, but really it was the polite thing to do. "I am Akinobu." he said finally looking around keeping his ears perked and his nose scenting the wind, he wasn't picking up anything, just yet at least.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 6:43 pm
"Aki . . . nobu." Easy to break up, easy to put back together - an even syllable count of 4; well liked. "Ah . . . kinobu. Akinobu." Up close now Denzel coudl appreciate the odd whirling patterns about the male's pelt, like Sky had decided to capture movement in several still pictures. And it appeared that his tail was a fire and his muzzle was distant smoke: did this Akinobu perhaps eat fire? A most peculiar thought. But he was still a tad stiff working with this older wolf, the symbol upon the blue one's brow still undecipherable, the reason he walked upon only three legs and saw with only one eye inscrutable. It only now came to Denzel that perhaps he should ask -
And then he caught the first sign of Blithra's scent and all other musings went out the window. Immediately the adolescent was alert, and his glazed over eyes became bright once more with hope, speckled tail wagging slightly as he latched immediately upon the soft scent. Blithra had been here, not too old, her flank against this tree . . . "Here! Here!" Denzel cried, and stumbled his way deeper into the forest and away from the river, the c***k of the metal chains an easy sound to follow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 7:09 am
Aki nodded as Denzel mulled over his name. He'd never seen someone piece together his name before, but now that he thought about it; neither had he. He considered it for a moment and yes, he saw how it fit, Fall or Autumn Faith..but what the hell was that supposed to mean in the first place. He shrugged it off and figured he'd worry about it later when the younger male's yelp of excitement met his ears.
Aki scented the tree he'd seen Denzel at and caught the whiff of the older female. The scent was feral and pungent to him making him nearly sneeze, the scent wasn't old, but it wasn't very new either, it was probably no more than an hour or so old. Aki then started after the smaller male scenting the female along the way, he wondered what she was like and exactly why this young wolf was looking for her. Was she part of his pack, his mother maybe? The crippled male had little trouble keeping up with Denzel, having lived his entire life without his other back leg it never caused him much of a problem.
A way off the 'feral' female that was Blithra snarled through the trees. Since Denzel's disappearance she had become more aggressive than ever. She blamed everything around her, from the trees to the very earth under her paws itself. He'd only been gone a short while but it was long enough for her to believe him gone forever. She pined for her sweet little one to return to her, but her mind whirled back and forth with terrible ideas. In her constant rage she barely noticed how much she was not being her usual stealthy self but leaving her scent all over the place running against trees as she was.
Finally she reached back to her den where again the memories filler her and her anger boiled again. She stormed inside and dropped herself to the floor snarling at herself, muttering odd words under her breath that apparently only made sense to her. But when she had exhausted herself of the insane muttering and snapping and snarling at the nothingness she sunk back into a depressed state laying her massive head on her paws, the white markings under her eyes stained with tears, her pink eye watery with sorrow.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:00 am
The sour scent, the pure pungent smell of his mother - oh, it gladdened his heart for the reek of the wild! So much more preferred than the man-made scents he had been forced to endu -
Man? He had been near man? Queer . . . The word had wrested the beginnings of a far-off memory, but it had fallen back into obscurity before he could grasp it. Nevermind that, though! "Blithra!"
He barely took notice of how Akinobu kept up with him easily sans one leg, the forest but a blur at the corners of his vision, the river but a mindless mumble and insignificant drone in his ears. His nose, his nose was all that mattered! "Blithra! Blithra!" Denzel bleated, swiftly switching directions, zig-zagging along with the erratic path left behind by the adult wolf to a tee; he would not, could not miss her path for the life of him . . . His throat felt expended by all the shouting, it was so unused to the volume needed. Chains clinked together noisily.
At last, slowly but surely, the landscape began to grow more familiar, and the adolescent began to follow his feet more than any other sense, and he began to draw inches and inches mroe ahead of Akinobu, heart racing as fast as his paws could carry him. Many times he either slid into a tree, came close to, or stumbled on his paws to a perfect face-plant in the dirt, yet all the while he continued doggedly, pain or dirt in his eyes or snow and leaves grasping his pelt or not. The den! He could see the den ahead!
"Mom! Blithra!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 9:47 am
The larger male's tongue lolled from his mouth watching the younger gain in his lead in his frantic fiery to reach his destination. Never had Aki seen such determination in an adolescent to reach home, a pup maybe. Denzel's calls to the female that was still not in sight coming back to Aki. Poor guy, so desperate to get home that he stumbled and fell in his rush. He wanted to tell him to slow down, but he knew nothing would slow him down from getting to his destination.
Finally clearing the trees so thick around them Aki spotted the make-shift den within the rocks. The strong smell of the female fresh around him and something about the place made his spine shiver. His hackles raised slightly, he was on guard in an instant but he wasn't sure exactly why.
Blithra's ears perked at hearing the voice of Denzel call out to her. For a moment she ignore the bleets but when it called out to her again she scrambled to her paws and made for the entrance of the den. She could not be hearing things, it must be him, it had to be. The voice to clear, his paws hitting the forest floor and his clumsy footing.
"Denzel!" she called back her grizzled mane exiting the den, her pink eyes scanning every inch of the landscape for her beloved. When he came withing her sight she bounded forward nuzzling the youth licking at him, her tail raised high and wagging furiously with the joy that filled her heart. "Where did you go? What happened to you?" she asked sniffing him all over checking him for scars or wounds, but she found nothing.
The smell of humans still lingered on him, but just barely. The necklace upon his neck, the feathers dangling from her ear and the chain than was still clamped to his hind leg. "What is this?!" she yelped not sure of how to react to the strange items, most importantly the chain from his leg.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 10:19 am
But for the moment, Denzel was too overjoyed to get into the explanation, and he buried his head into her thick flank he had done on many different occassions, and for several seconds all he knew was purple, and root-like markings reaching out to touch his muzzle and hug him as well. He was panting heavily, body almost shuddering with the effort - or perhaps that too was also another form of his unspeakable relief, like celebrating some nightmare finally over and sulking back into the darkness for another day. Ah, how he had missed her contact . . .
At length he pulled back and allowed himself to be checked, to let Blithra's nose sniff him over carefully. At her question he took glanced backwards at the strange metal object with his own, perplexed gaze. "Not know . . . Not know a lot . . ." was his lame answer, and Denzel's ears drooped at the thought of not being able to provide his own mother with a proper reason. He wished he knew himself how he had come across these strange things . . .
And then he remembered at last the other wolf that had accompanied him and turned about, thoug hhsi back was stll firmly planted against Blithra's, standing before her protectively. Almost immediately the sight of the blue wolf's raised hackles made him stiffen as well, and the drooped ears began to drawn back flat against his head. Suspicion crossed Denzel's features. Why would this stranger be so wary of his own, sweet, poor grieving mother . . . unless he had other intentions?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 5:30 am
Blithra only shook her head nudging at Denzel again. "Oh it doesn't matter, you came back to me when I thought you were gone forever." she whined at him, returning to licking his face, cleaning the dirt off from his multiple face plants into the dirt. Her pink eyes still looking over Denzel, he had grown so much in his absense, but he still come home to her all the same.
The beta stood back watching the blissful couple that stood before him. But he was immediately taken back the the size of the female as well as the true realization that she was as feral as a wolf could be. Her grizzled mane, the never quite leaving her maw snarl, and the pink coloration to her eyes...all put together she was a very foreboding looking wolf.
The large grizzled female finally spotted the beta and stiffened up, was he the reason that her Denzel had disappeared? "You..." she snarled up at him showing her teeth. He had to be at a disadvantage, the missing leg, she was unaware of his near blindness. "You must be the reason Denzel disappeared, you took him didn't you?" she snapped angrily.
Aki snapped back at this crouching a little. "I had nothing to do with his disappearance!" he snarled showing his own teeth back at the female. "I only came across him and offered to help him find you." Aki growled.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 11:16 am
And as he was enveloped within his mother's voice, not the growls but the soft cooes that echoed still in his ears, he seemed to go into a trance of his own, her cooing but a soft undercurrent in the darkness of her fur. Warmth, love, care . . . what he had missed in those days he had been gone to . . . where? Had he really been gone? But last he recalled, it was a hunting trip - a hunting trip to humans? Wait, two-legger's abode? What? That made no sense, and yet his mind couldn't agree with him. Denzel, for a moment, found himself sputtering in the mental department at the sound of her jarring accusations, memories twisting unto themselves as they scrambled to fill the gaping hole that tore his head open further, falling in that black abyss that was his amnesia of the past . . .
Where? No, he knew where: home. His true home. What? With Blithra of course, who else? Why? Why! Why was he here? Why did he feel his hackles stiffening at the sight of the three-legged one before them? Why was his mother going on about -
- he was he disappeared? Never mind thought or reason; Blithra's safety was above all. He fell in with his mother's decision and began to growl as well, detatching himself from Blithra's warm pink fur and advancing slowly upon the stranger, the utter nameless stranger who had no business bothering them like this. "Leave," he warned the male through his teeth. "Leave. Now."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Mon May 25, 2009 5:35 pm
Aki made a warning snap at Denzel. "Some way to thank a stranger you fool!" he snarled baring him white teeth menacingly.
At this Blithra lunged at the Beta snapping at him. "Dare you snap at him, I'll rip you to shreds cripple!" she growled taking a snap at one of his fore legs.
Akinobu snarled backing up. "Witch you touch me and you will pay. I may be crippled but that don't mean I can't fight you old fool." he spat. The starry male back away, the last thing he wanted to do was fight. But he wasn't just going to turn tail and leave. He had too much pride in him for that, and turning his back on these two just might be the last thing he would do.
Filled with rage the female gave a jerk to try and startle the male but it was to no avail, crippled or not he held no fear in him. This worried the old female a little, if he had survived this long with three legs he wasn't weak and she couldn't chance Denzel getting into a fight with the male, no, that could not happen. "Just leave, leave us alone and go!" she snarled, for one not wanting a confrontation, for the sake of Denzel. What was more important to her was having him back.
The beta's pale eye narrowed in disgusted and he backed away, daring them to come at him. He turned only just slighting and made his way in an arch passed the two, keeping his good eye on them, if they dare to come after him he'd make the pay. All he'd try to be was a friend and help. This might well be one of the last times he did that.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Wed May 27, 2009 2:23 pm
And yet even as the stranger made to leave them alone, Denzel found his temper continuing to rise regardless. Memories half-formed before him, real, intangible, vague, whispers in his mind's ears: something grasping his fur, pain through his leg, a yank of his tail, dull pats upon his head as though he were tamed, jeers he could not understand that his mind filled for him, the voices of a past further than even those memories:
"Where is your ma, huh, mute? Think you're so tough just 'cuz you're bigger?"
"Snaggletooth!"
"Think you're the better pup by just turning around and walking like that? Coward! You damn coward!"
"Freak!"
"Your dad was a manwhore and you know it; you're not even gonna talk and stand up for the nobody, are you?"
"Speckled son of no-one!"
"You want food, y'gotta fight for it, punk. C'mon. Fight me, lowlife."
Voices, a collection of shadowy voices he could not discern the names for, the faces, why or where or what for they jeered and sneered. Another life, a first chance at family lost with those not of his blood - why? And yet the moment he heard his mother's snarling pleads towards the male, he was consumed with indomitable, inexplicable fury that swam scarlet before his eyes, and reason lost him.
Flying past Blithra, Denzel's fierce growl ripped through his mouth as he barrelled past and leapt recklessly towards the scarred blue wolf. Defense was no longer the agenda. Pain, harm, assertion, vindiction - these notions were upon what little mind left he had for the moment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
