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 Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2010 8:53 am
He often, now, took small trips out of his way when patrolling under the tenuous guise of seeing if there were others near their borders. Even when he was patrolling the upper reaches of the valley he was keen on finding every nook and cranny instead of just passing a fleeting glance over the land.
Thusly, when he got to a certain part of the patrol, which crossed the narrow, easily accessible part of the Aves territory, he turned towards the south east. Following a relatively well worn path the young male traipsed his way down the soft sloping river-cut valley towards the southern lands, wondering what he might find this time.
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Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:17 am
 Cascade wasn't bitten by the wanderlust so much as she was born with it.
Maybe it came from her mother, Tae, or maybe a wolf further down the line. Regardless, she had been keen on going everywhere and doing everything as soon as she could move her paws and wiggle out of the den. She had coerced her mother, with much wheedling, to be taken out to explore beyond pack lands and, now that she was an adult, she could do so when she wished.
Not that she planned on leaving, far from. She loved her pack dearly, with every fiber of her being, and would always return home. Despite this, though, she slowly began wandering further and further with each trip.
At the moment, she was paws deep in the shallows of the river, moving at a brisk and comfortable pace, her tail waiving like a banner behind her as she moved further up the river, further north, away from her southern home. A sloppy grin was plastered on her maw, remnants of a joyous afternoon. She finally caught her own fish! Albeit it was old and half way dead to begin with, it was still a live fish and she still caught it. She made a mental note to inform her brother of this victory later.
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Posted: Sun Jun 27, 2010 9:34 am
Orion continued to travel downstream, letting his feet take him where they wanted to go. Half the time, he left them splash into the river, cooling himself down in the process. Cora, his sister, might have noticed the she-wolf before he did. She was an adept tracker and had a knack for noticing 'things'. He, on the other hand, would have walked right into her, had it not been for his eyes chancing to catch the bright splash of yellow on her face. Instantly he crouched.
She was female, about his age, and with a pelt which he wasn't sure of the colour of - was it reflecting the water, or was her coat like that by itself? Either way, against the stream she wasn't that easy to see. Now that he looked, though, he caught more flashes of yellow and scented fish-blood. If he'd been paying more attention he'd have noticed that earlier and known something carnivorous was likely around. He berated himself, a little, telling himself that Jove would have been furious if he knew. Well, Jove didn't have to know, did he? Sometimes being out alone was great...
Trying not to be noticed as he rose, Orion got to his feet. He didn't want to seem like he had been spying on her, but he was curious as to how she'd come to be here, near the Aves border. It was his duty to find out really, he soothed himself. It was just chance that it happened to be a relatively friendly looking wolf. He'd have totally challenged a big scary brute, too. Honest.
"Hey?" he called out, a little shyly. He still wasn't terribly used to talking to outsiders.
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Posted: Mon Jun 28, 2010 9:23 am
She licked her lips as she reminisced about her recent catch, savoring the fishy flavor that still hung about her maw. Her sister would be pissed, had she known. Maybe she would tell Naiad later, maybe she wouldn't. Regardless, she was being completely oblivious to a good portion of her surroundings, being lost in thought, completely going against her upbringing when it came to border patrol or further.
She didn't exactly catch Orion's scent, as the wind was against her and carrying hers ahead of herself. But she did hear him when he spoke and it took every ounce of self control to keep from jumping in surprise.
Despite knowing she ought to be hesitant of strangers, the youngster couldn't stop her tail from wagging briskly on it's own accord. Besides, not all strangers could be bad, right? And this one sounded sort of... Shy. That could be cute. She had a hard time willing herself to fear him.
"Hello!" She called out in response, blue eyes settling on the silver and purple male, as a grin slid broadly across her maw.
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Posted: Tue Jun 29, 2010 10:28 am
His own disquiet at meeting a stranger was somewhat assuaged by her easy nature. Her friendly greeting could have been a lie - but the happy tail-wagging seemed to give credence to her words. His own lips twitched up in a small smile - he wasn't really the exuberant type but his smile reached his eyes and evinced a warmth at her cheerfulness. He had hardly met any wolves of his own age, as she looked to be, except for his siblings, and none of them were interested in the things he was, really.
"You've been fishing?" he asked, realising that appearing from nowhere and standing staring at another wolf might seem just a tiny tad odd. He was curious as to where she had come from, of course, but he didn't want to ask outright - he didn't want to sound all... territorial and pushy. Afterall, he wasn't exactly in his own packlands, any more.
"I've never tried, though I've been told how it's done..." he added, lamely. He really felt a little lacking right now, thinking he should have maybe taken Jove up on those lessons.
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Posted: Thu Jul 01, 2010 8:58 pm
"Well, duh! What gave it away, me being all wet or the fact that I reek of it?" She laughed as she teased the other. If she was unnerved by her staring, she didn't show it. Truth was, she was a touch nervous. She really hadn't met many strangers, most of her contact being limited to her pack, siblings, and parents.
"I fish all the time. It's what my pack does! We fish! It's a lot of fun, but we gotta give some of what we catch to another pack." She wrinkled her nose, almost as if in disgust, but quickly went back to grinning. She was still young and unsure of all the pack politics between Akiiki and The Reign of Terror.
"Where d'you come from, anyways?" She might have seemed a bit blunt, but she was quite happy and glad to meet another about the same age as herself.
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Posted: Fri Jul 02, 2010 8:47 am
Her friendly banter reminded him a little of Sati, he thought, his own tail starting to softly wag, his smile widening. If he was to meet others from outside his pack, he certainly would prefer them to all be this friendly!
He wondered why they gave some of their catch away, but thought, perhaps, it might be for trade and didn't want to pry too much, not yet whilst he barely knew her. "I like to hunt, though bigger animals... though I think I spend mroe time patrolling now" he said, almost wistfully. He enjoyed the jaunts, but he did not enjoy missing the hunts.
"I'm one of the Aves, my pack lives a little north of here, in the mountains... is yours nearby? We'd heard there were wolves closer now than there used to be, but I didn't realise there was anyone this close" he smiled, not wanting her to think that he thought of this as anything bad.
The closer others were, the more he was likely to find something interesting on his travels... but all the same, his mother would probably like to know where the nearby packs were and he was was dutiful, if not entirely sticking to the routes of his supposed border patrols.
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Posted: Wed Jul 07, 2010 7:29 pm
Thankful that he had not asked for a demonstration, Cascade was thrilled to drop the conversation of fish. She wanted to impress, make him think she was wonderful at what she did, and thus avoided any further bragging, although her maw practically burned with the want to spout out a few bluffs.
"Ah, good at land hunting, too! Ain't gonna starve if you follow me around." She chuckled rather happily, wishing her sister had come with her on this outing. Naiad would probably have enjoyed it, though she had such a hard time lying when her lightly furred sister was around.
"Me? Naw, well, kinda. I live further south, down the river. Ain't super close, but it ain't too far. Could probably be back within a few days, if I go faster than I am. Your pack is close, then? That's pretty cool. You like it, there? Ain't much ever going on at mine, really. Pretty quiet, but it's nice."
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 3:32 am
The thought occurred to him that he had finally met someone more excitable than Aunt Sati. Apparently she had calmed down since her youth, or so he had overheard his mother saying. To the young male, his 'aunt' had almost seemed more like a slightly elder sibling, in a way, not a true 'adult' in the way that his parents were - especially since she and his sister Cora spent a lot of time together.
He decided he quite liked her candor, though - she reminded him a little bit of a more cheery Jove, though he didn't ever seem quite so pleased with himself. Still, it was disarming. His smile widened into a genuinely warm one, his tail wagging lazily back and forth.
"It's good to know we're not all alone up here, to be honest. Can get quite... dull at times when the only people around are those you've known since birth. It is pretty quiet though, isn't it? I guess maybe some time we could organise a meeting between packs or something, a gathering, like at a shrine?" he said, unthinking. Although the Aves pack didn't usually mention religion much to outsiders, Orion hadn't been around enough of them yet to have the automatic filter against mentioning anything.
It wasn't that they were ashamed or afraid of admitting it, it was just that it was a personal thing to most members of the pack and since 'everyone knew' no-one really had to go out and tell anyone.
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Posted: Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:53 am
"Maybe~"
She grinned and then paused for a moment, seemingly slightly confused. She still appeared cheery, her tail whisked along leisurely behind her, but her pale, blue eyes lit up out of enhanced curiosity and she cocked her head to one side, as if that would help her to understand. What was he talking about? She wasn't quite sure and she didn't want to seem dumb for not knowing, but she couldn't help it.
"Yeah, a shrine! Er... What's a shrine?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 12:53 am
"Oh.... uhm..." Orion looked somewhat like a rabbit caught in a headlights. Realising his mistake, he cringed a little inside and attempted a neutral, halting explanation. "Well it's uh... a special place. You know, pretty? and it's where we meet and talk when the pack needs to get together..." That didn't really describe a shrine at all, but it was 'enough' information for a wolf who was not part of their pack.
He paused for a moment, wondering if there were proper 'rules of engagement' when it came to 'first contact' between packs. He didn't even know if it truly was a first contact - knowing Li, she had probably been down here talking to them for weeks.
Oh well... nothing came to mind, but he guessed he should find out more. "Who's your alpha?" he asked "and... d'you think they might want to meet my mothe... our alpha?" He had often been told that in the land where the Aves had come from the packs were all closely related and helped each other. To set up that kind of network here could be nice - especially since he knew his mentor, Jove, missed what he called 'the old land'.
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Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 11:33 pm
"Oh... So, like, where the pack meets, like before hunts and stuff?" She was really clueless, but from what he described, she thought she understood. It didn't sound all that different from her pack, but they didn't call it a shrine. She also didn't realize that information was being witheld and continued running on the naive assumption that others wouldn't possibly lie to her, because it was just the wrong thing to do.
"Uhm, Crunch! Crunch and Libernalas! Heard of 'em? We got a pretty awesome pack going on, sure do~" Yet another naive assumption. Truth was, he probably didn't. Most others she might run into probably wouldn't either. She just had it set in her mind that others naturally should know, for some reason. Why wouldn't they? Her pack, in her mind, was amazing.
"Uhm... Who's yours? And... Uh, maybe? I could try asking them to see if they are interested at all?"
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Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2010 2:46 am
"Yeah, that sort of thing" he said eagerly, happy to leave it at that.
Crunch and Libenalas. Unusual names but nothing so different as to be incomprehensible or unpronounceable. He did worry a little to say he hadn't heard of them - she was so keen and so sure he would. Was he wrong not to have known? Was it such common knowledge around here that he might have found out before now? Well, neither Jove nor Ely had, so he figured it was ok if he hadn't - they could tell him off for something they couldn't do better!
"We have only one alpha - Mu'sha" he knew it was common for a pair to be alphas but he couldn't, for even a minute, imagine calling his father an alpha. "She's my mother" he also admitted, sheepishly. "If you'd ask them I'd appreciate it. I mean, my pack would". He really wasn't doing very well at being an 'ambassador' for his pack.
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Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2010 11:24 pm
"Mu'sha..." She spoke the name and nodded, but admitted to herself that she had never heard it. Of course she hadn't, though. She knew of some of the other packs that were closer to Akiiki and with which they often had dealings, but this was farther than usual and more north than she had traveled before. Still, she made a note in her mind to remember where she was and she would remember to mention her meeting with Orion, as well, when she returned to her pack's territory. He seemed like such a nice fellow, so perhaps his pack was just the same.
"It's a ways walk back and I still have a ways to go before I am ready to return, but I most certainly will make mention of you and yours when I head back. Pack relations are always good and I hope something pleasant comes of it, eh?" She smirked broadly and bobbed her brightly splotched head in affirmation.
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Posted: Fri Oct 29, 2010 3:30 pm
Orion nodded. "I would appreciate it" he smiled, feeling that he'd finally done something useful without making a complete mess of it. He had a name for her pack, a vague direction and new that it wasn't very close by but that sometimes, at least in one case, they could wander close to the Aves territory.
"I should probably be heading back too - I'm not really supposed to be this far south and if I'm much later..." his eyes flicked upwards, as if to check the sunlight - his only measurement of the length of day. The canopy covered most of it, but the filtering light confirmed his gut feeling that he'd been out too long.
"It was good to meet you, Cascade, if you are looking towander a bit more north before going home I'm sure you'd be welcome to stay a while, hunt with us".
((Shall we leave it at that or after your reply? owo))
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