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 Posted: Tue Sep 14, 2010 10:23 am
 The sun was going down, and the twilight hours were Lungaia's favorite part of the day.
It was dark enough that she could slip unnoticed through the underbrush if she so wished, crouching and moving amongst the long shadows like the wind -- but light enough, yet, that she could relish the last dying rays of a bloody sun, and revel in the quiet before night took over entirely and travel became hard-going.
Despite the fact that her father had been dead for some time now, Lungaia still held to the strict training regimen she had established during his life. She could have afforded to skip a day or two -- she had a body that was like liquid steel, lithe and muscular and hard -- and very little had crossed her path that she was unable to dispatch with ease. Still, she had never taken a night off in her life, and did not intend to.
She glanced up at the sky, judging the sun's position upon the horizon, and then, suddenly as a startled jack rabbit, she bolted.
The evening run was one of many training exercises that had become ritual for the she-wolf, and in some way, she enjoyed it -- as much as she ever truly enjoyed anything, at any rate. She lowered her head and bolted head-long into the darkness, weaving through the underbrush, leaping over obstacles, footfalls thudding quietly against the earth and muscles shifting visibly beneath her silken pelt. The wing markings upon her shoulder seemed almost to flutter with the effort, and one looking at her would almost think she was flying. Some dark angel, or fairy-being, flitting through the night sky, with no direction or purpose but the simple joy of the run.
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2010 7:10 am
 The sun was going down, and Gaspard was beginning to fear the oncoming night.
Even in the dark he found it very difficult to hide. Every speck of light seemed to reflect off of his bright fur, and he cursed it silently as he creeped through the brush. There was no point continuing his search for food in the increasing shadows, so he forced himself to ignore the dull ache of hunger deep in his belly, though it was becoming more and more hard to put aside. He hadn't eaten since he had come across the carcass of a young squirrel, and that had just been a mouthful. He needed to find something filling, and soon.
If only his sister would come back! The pang of loneliness in his heart distracted him from the hunger. She had promised to take care of him... Promised that they would never leave each other! And yet, what did she do? She upped and left in the middle of the night. On top of that, he had taken the pups with her. Sure, he hadn't taken care of them much, even though they were his... But he loved them just the same. Gaspard still hoped, with every fiber of his being, that he would find them waiting just around the corner.
The omega rounded a bush. Well, no Laera there. Gaspard let out a deep sigh and huddled under the bush in submission to the night. Maybe it would be best if he just lay there and never moved again. No one would miss him, after all. He dwelled on the dark thoughts for a while, until a sound caught his attention. It sounded like... pawsteps! Fearfully he tried to cram his bright body under the bush. Then, he saw her. The she-wolf... Was she running this way? Gaspard held his breath and lay still.
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Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 4:13 pm
Lungaia caught the scent of another on the wind, and a slight smirk crossed her maw. She slowed, tattered ears pinned back tightly to her skull, and fell into a trot, sniffing at the sky with a vaguely interested expression glittering in her emerald eyes.
Male. Weak...afraid. Probably lost. She searched for him with her eyes, looking to match a form to the scent, and caught it -- a brilliant gleam caught in the moonlight, a cowering figure that hid from her like a baby rabbit in the dusk.
The thought amused her, and she closed the distance between them on swift, silent paws, dark-pelted body low to the ground as though stalking prey. "You cower like an abandoned newborn," she said, addressing the underbrush. She came to a stop a few feet from his hiding place, and paused, the tension in her muscles visible -- a wolf ready to spring into action at a moment's notice. "Tell me. What is it that you fear so much in the dark to hide yourself this way?"
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Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 12:14 pm
Uh oh... Despite the bush (though it gave him little protection, Gaspard was not about to leave it), the strange female caught sight of him, and started creeping towards him like she had found a tantalizing bit of prey. Wouldn't that be a wonderful end? Gaspard imagined being caught in her jaws, feeling her teeth rip into his thin flesh...
Instead of attacking him, she spoke to him. Well that was good, maybe he could delay for a while and find some way to escape. But he could still see tension in her body, and knowing that he couldn't outrun anything in his current state, gave up on that idea with a sigh.
"I... I... I..." he started weakly, refusing to emerge from the bush. He closed his mouth, gulped, and smiled sheepishly. "There's danger in the dark, miss. I can't fight, so I hide instead..." He sighed again, closing his eyes briefly. If only Laera were here! She'd know what to do.
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Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:06 pm
"You hide poorly," she said, simply. Her emerald eyes glittered with amusement, though he could likely not see them in the dim light.
She slunk forward, slowly circling the bush. Her muscles rippled beneath her pelt, which glinted occasionally as it caught the moonlight. After a moment, she paused, settling to her haunches near to the brightly-colored wolf. "There are many dangerous things in the night, myself included. If this is the extent of your hiding abilities, I don't expect you to last long."
Her tattered ears flicked, and she glanced over her shoulder in a manner that suggested there was someone standing just behind her -- except, of course, there was not. She glared at a patch of nothing for a moment, before returning her attention to the rainbow wolf.
Was she friend, or foe? Hard to tell, at this juncture, and she liked to keep it that way.
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Posted: Wed Sep 29, 2010 7:42 am
Suddenly, Lungaia was the least of his problems.
"D-danger?" Gaspard squeaked through a throat tightened with fear. "What kind of things?" He knew that bears and cougars and wolves and birds were all dangerous and frightening, but could there be something even more nasty, even more terrible lurking in these shadows? His imagination started to get the better of him. He imagined that the bush suddenly shifted, and with a yelp, he bolted as if it had bit him, and almost ran right smack into Lungaia.
"I know I don't hide well... This fur..." He gasped, breathing hard in panic. "I need... help." Gaspard lowered himself in front of the darker female as a show of complete submission. "Have you seen my sister, Laera? She has purple fur like mine, but all over... and she wears beads," he asked, looking hopefully up at her. Maybe she had seen the pups, too.
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Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2010 11:46 am
"You're pathetic," she said, with a raised brow. The scorn in her voice was biting.
She backed away from his groveling, surveying him. Her tattered ears gave another flick, and she shook her head vigorously, growling beneath her breath. He reminded her of someone, forcibly, but she couldn't think of who it would be. She'd never met anyone like him, she didn't think; it had been an oddly sheltered life, her childhood -- and, unless the wolf in question had been one of her father's victims, she doubted she had ever seen anything like this before.
Father's victims...the thought brought a rueful smile to her maw. "Stop groveling and stand up," she said, sternly. "Perhaps, in whatever life you led before, you could get your way with such shows of weakness...but here, it will only earn you scorn and disdain."
Why was she still bothering to speak with him? What did she care what befell this pathetic excuse for a wolf?
Perhaps her loneliness in Kaeerah's absence was more bitter than she had first thought. Perhaps she, too, was mourning the loss of a sister...no matter how much they hated each other.
"I have seen no one else in the forest for two days hence, and for that I think you should be grateful."
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Posted: Thu Oct 07, 2010 7:39 am
Alas, his sister was still eluding him! If only Gaspard was a better tracker. He could have followed their scent... But Laera must've known he would panic and forget how to do such a simple thing!
Gaspard cringed when Lungaia spoke. She was right; he was pathetic. Laera had always said he was practically good-for-nothing... Even when they still had a close relationship. All he had ever been good for was cleaning up the bones of Laera's kills. If it hadn't been for Laera's abilities, he would have starved a long, long time ago...
He gulped, eyes filling up with tears. But he listened and stood up straight at Lungaia's command. "Y-yes ma'am," he said in a wavering voice, nodding his head slightly. He watched Lungaia intently, warily, wondering what she planned to do next. She spoke harshly, and what was that smile all about?
"T-thank you for the help," he said, unsure of what to to do or how to hold himself. Distractedly, he dragged a forepaw through the dirt.
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Posted: Fri Oct 08, 2010 10:52 am
Her smile deepened; it wasn't exactly a happy expression, but she was to some degree pleased. He was obedient, and she liked that in a wolf. If he had been one of those ungrateful types that wallowed in their self-pity even while rejecting sensible advice, she would have killed him.
But, he seemed willing enough to please, and that amused her. As much as she hated to admit it, she was lonely now without her family; it had been many long moons since she had made the acquaintance of anyone. And he was so weak...so childlike and obedient...it was alien to her, and yet, in her heart, oddly familiar.
Almost as though she had done this before, in a different life. As though she were fated to meet such a beast here, now, as a revival of some long-dead memory of a dream she'd once had. "What's your name?" She asked, head tilted curiously. She remained seated, her pose relaxed but carrying the promise of violence at any moment -- like a loosely-coiled serpent. "And how did you come to be here?"
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Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2010 10:20 am
That smile, that smile... What did it mean? It wasn't happy or friendly, but Gaspard couldn't help but feel that it was because he had done something that pleased her. He stood up a little straighter, and his ears perked up from their flattened position on his head.
"My name is Gaspard..." He offered with little hesitation. "I am from far away from here... My sister and I came to this forest when we were forced to leave our dying pack..." He paused, considering the details, and decided that it wouldn't hurt to continue. "But she abandoned me and took my pups. They were accidents, the pups, and she was angry..." Then a thought occurred to him, and he spoke as if he just had a brand new realization. "She left because she was tired of taking care of me, too."
He looked solemnly at the ground. Until now, he had no idea why she would leave, but that made perfect sense. After a moment, he looked back at Lungaia. "I've been wandering alone ever since."
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Posted: Sun Oct 10, 2010 11:01 am
She had expected a tale of woe, and she was not disappointed by his answer. She suspected he was the type to wallow in misery. So many were.
Pups, though. That gave her pause.
Her head tilted, considering. "Your pups?" She asked, and eyes narrowed. "And what of the pup's mother, that your sister would get by with such a thing?"
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 7:38 am
Gaspard tried to look anywhere but at Lungaia, his cheeks feeling hot under his fur. "The mother... " What could he say? That he met her one night and that was that? He couldn't even remember what he was thinking at the time. Perhaps he had been looking for a bit of comfort, a bit of an escape from his life... Instead, he had just made life harder for himself.
"The mother," he repeated, "Put them in my care. I don't know why she didn't stay. And I... I didn't know what to do. Laera did." Truthfully he had been too much of a coward to step up and be a father. He was such a screw-up, how could he have taken care of pups, too?
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 3:53 pm
The tattered remnants of her ears swept back against her skull, eyes narrowing. Something stirred in her chest. Not her heart, surely; Lungaia had no heart to speak of.
But...something else. A memory, from a long-distant past. Or an instinctual impulse. Or....well, something. Lungaia didn't like to think too much. It made her head hurt, and made her agitated.
And an agitated Lungaia was, as a rule, not something to behold.
"I see," she said, and then, because she felt compelled to say something, "My father raised myself and my sister on his own for a long while."
Was that intended to be comforting? hard to tell. The cold recesses of her green eyes gave no quarter, and her expression remained impassive. "Are you hungry?"
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Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2010 11:58 am
Lungaia's expression alarmed Gaspard, so he had to resist very hard against returning to the cowering position he so often found himself in. Instead, he chose to stand very still, holding his breath, waiting for her next move.
"Yes!" He answered her question a little too enthusiastically, both out of desire for food, and to change the subject quickly. When was the last time he had had a good meal? It might have been the time Laera took a young fawn down by herself... No wait, the pups had next to eaten it all before he had gotten anything...
As if it felt the need to announce itself, Gaspard's stomach growled loudly. "S-sorry," he said sheepishly.
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Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2010 11:53 pm
Her eyes lingered upon him one long, uncomfortable minute, and then she nodded to herself. "Wait here, then," she said, and without any further comment, disappeared entirely into the shadows.
She was gone just long enough that it seemed she wouldn't be coming back. There was no noise, no sign of her -- only the ever-darkening sky and a long, lonesome wait.
But then she was back, maw and chest stained with blood, the mangled body of some or another poor beast -- deer, hopefully, though it was a bit small...fawn, perhaps -- thrown over her shoulder. The kill was messier than it needed to be, and a cool glint in her eye hinted at something inside of her that was....satiated.
She dropped the beast -- bloody, torn, but with plenty of good meat intact -- at Gaspard's paws, and then withdrew to lay some distance away, primly licking her forepaws.
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