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 Posted: Mon Jan 03, 2011 11:32 pm
In a world that was strangling many of her tenants, suffocating them with negativity after negativity until they were sure there was no goodness left, Farfalla was a breath of fresh air if they only dared to breathe deep. She didn't fear life poisoning her sense of innocence. She didn't worry over if her sense of self could be corrupted.
She didn't know she was supposed to.
Her mother recited the saying "you are what you eat." It was a shame she had not afforded the puppy more pragmatic advice. Farfalla was protected from all the darkness of the world -- her purity, the kind given all to the young, stayed with her longer. That came at a price, though. The higher one rose, the more it hurt when life at last dropped them on their rear end.
Farfalla had climbed high, indeed, into the ranks of the blissfully unaware.
The sun was blazing, the dirt torrid dirt of the forest hot against her paws, but she didn't mind. None of these elements slowed her run. She pursued nothing but her own enjoyment -- running, running, running. With no destination in mind, nowhere to go, she was as free as the butterfly. (Farfalla adored butterflies.)
Her lungs burned, but in a good way. When she saw a wolf ahead of her, she tilted her body so he moved around him, passing him at an impressive speed.
If she'd been born a deer, no one would ever catch her. Farfalla was sure of it!
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 12:48 am
 Dubhe always had a sort of nervous energy to him, even when he was sitting still. He was the sort of wolf whose body barely contained the boundless exuberance that lived in his heart, and at all times he fidgeted, twitched, and yearned toward motion.
When he was younger he had been a rowdy, over-exuberant puppy prone to starting fights with everyone he came across. He hadn't outgrown it. He had, however, honed his enthusiasm into more productive channels. Now rather than bouncing around biting the ears and tails of anyone who walked past, he had focused his attention 100% into becoming the best of everything.
To be fair, he had the makings of a great hunter -- not just competent, not just capable, but truly great. He liked to brag about it, but it was true. His body was lean and well-muscled, even in his gangling youth, and he had speed, skill and focus that was unusual for a pup his age. Indeed, the only time he ever felt truly calm, truly at ease with silence and stillness, was when he was stalking prey.
So it was very rare indeed for him to be lazing about in the sun, as he currently was.
He had wandered far from his home lands, made his way slowly south from pack territory, following a herd -- to practice stalking and see how long he could pursue their movements before they became aware of him, not from any hunger or desire to kill. Tired from his journey, he had flopped down in a patch of sunlight and allowed himself to laze, temporarily. The deer were grazing. There would be time enough to follow them, when the time came.
He was in the midst of contemplating this when he caught the scent of another wolf. Then, shortly, just as he was registering this, she came into his view -- a lilac-colored blur, rushing towards him and then, at the last moment, veering away and running past.
He stared after her for a split second, before leaping to his paws. There was something playful in the way she ran, he thought. This wasn't a wolf running for fear or necessity, this was a wolf running for the joy of it -- he could tell, from the way she carried her tail, from the way she smelled.
With her playfulness, with her flippant run past him, the stranger had suggested to him a challenge. And he was more than willing to take her up on it.
Coiled muscles sprung into action, long legs unfurling, ears tucked back and eyes narrowed against the wind, he put on a burst of speed to catch up with her.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:15 am
Farfalla lived a life of good intentions, never suspecting anything greater or less than that from her fellow wolf. She believed it was the thought that counted in the art of gift giving, and she believed giving your best effort made you a winner -- it was easy for her; she didn't care if she lost. The glass was half full. The sunset was beautiful. Puppies were cute.
Life was good.
As a puppy, she had been wronged, stolen away by a face she couldn't remember attached to a name she couldn't recall. Barely old enough to be weened, let alone hold tight onto a memory. Solan, her mother, would have smiled in knowing her daughter couldn't recite the very reason she had been sent from her pack to begin with. (This was an important milestone, for you see, Solan smiled only when the moon was blue.)
Farfalla had encountered many wolves -- her guardian, her parents, her brother. Through luck or fate or two very astute parental units (that worked well together to raise their children no matter their differences), no one had tarnished this precious little girl or her romantic views. She ran fast with nothing to weigh her down, never wanting more speed, for she was Farfalla, the wolf happy just to exist in her lovely world.
Dubhe changed her without trying to, causing a simple shift in her personality she didn't notice. Farfalla had never wanted for anything since there had never been a thing for her to want. Everyone loved her and she loved them. When she was hungry, Father fed her. When she was lonely, she found someone. The race awakened a side of desire she would have to quell on her own. She wanted to go faster.
And she did.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:28 am
He grinned a little, though his eyes remained quite serious. Dubhe worked hard, and played even harder. One of many in a massive litter, part of an even larger family, he felt a constant pressure to prove himself -- even when he knew, logically, that he had already succeeded. That he was, undoubtedly, already a force to be reckoned with.
But Dubhe, for all his arrogance, was not a wolf to accept "good enough". "Second best" was not in his vocabulary.
So, when she ran faster, so did he.
He pulled from deep within him, finding the reserves of energy stored in his muscles as though reaching in to some greater truth, some well of power in his very soul. He ran hard, and wasn't even approaching exhaustion. Nothing could touch him. He was the wind. He was lightning. Invulnerable, deadly, powerful. He closed the gap between them, caught up from her head start, his jaw coming level with her haunch, and the first flicker of a smile caught up the corner of his maw.
His eyes, though -- shockingly violet, bright in his dusty features -- were still narrowed and serious. This was a game, but all games were matters of life and death for him.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 1:42 am
Farfalla was not from a large family; she had one brother, and out of four grandparents, only one had a heart that still beat and bled. (Aiko was such a softy, unlike Solan. Farfalla favored her grandmother in this way.) Her parents never considered competition important and so Farfalla never learned to value it. Solan had always been second to her sister and never seemed to care. Kaho knew no three-legged wolf would win much of anything except a staring contest if the goal was to get someone to stare at you.
They had given her every opportunity just to enjoy life. Farfalla seized it every day, oddly thankful for her peace in spite of knowing nothing else. All the hardships of the world felt so far away. So distant, to her, they felt just like stories and nothing more. No fairy tale went without a villain, as long as the goodness triumphed when all was said and done. That was how she thought things were.
In the end, everything was for the best. At the end of this race, she would be happy. Happily ever after.
Farfalla slowed her pace intentionally, finding herself more accelerated to have him run beside her. She had wanted to go faster, yes, but for the thrill of it. If she was ahead of him, he wouldn't see her grin at him; additionally, she could never have tackled someone behind her.
With a happy yip that could have been mistaken as a pup by the blind, she sprang off the ground, to the side, fully devoted to her attempt at pouncing on this playful stranger.
How was that for competition, Dubhe?
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 3:36 pm
He sensed her slowing, and maintained his speed, for a split second wondering what she was doing. Was she giving up so soon?
No. She was not!
He put the brakes on, ducking down, his muscles coiled, hoping for her to miss him mid-spring. He didn't know who this wolf was, and he didn't care; there was enough of the puppy left in him to take a playfight challenge without second thought.
Once her paws left the ground, he feinted to the side, coiled muscles springing into action. He was a hunter, not a fighter, and so his reflexes were not so sharp as one more accustomed to battle -- but his senses were good. Hoping that she missed his haunch, he tore off running again without a glance back at her, tail waving behind in an invitation to follow.
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Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:45 pm
Farfalla hadn't ever wondered what dirt tasted like, but at least if someone asked in the future, she would be able to help them by providing an experienced opinion. Her head shook from side to side to shake away the earth, throwing her balance off in her frantic chase. The gift of multitasking was a waste on a wolf that had nothing to do and therefore no use for it. Life wasn't always fair in its gift-giving.
She had always known the gift of life was the greatest one.
Yura didn't share that belief. Fairness? Oh, please. The only thing whimsical ideals got you was ripped apart. If the world didn't do it, someone else would -- the three of them were always a good substitute.
The trees surrounded them from every angle. They could block out some of the sight, but they couldn't silence the horrific sounds of bone and flesh ripping apart. Yuna had one leg, Yura another, and they pulled -- pulled with a growl -- until the corpse ripped. Blood was already painted on the ground; now, it was worse. If it were a deer, Farfalla would have just thought they were overly-aggressive hunters.
This was another wolf -- had been another wolf.
She caught up with Dubhe just seconds before. Standing, staring, she was too petrified to move anymore. They had green eyes, blue eyes and brown eyes. The third in the list was the first to notice them; Yula wasn't preoccupied with any savage shredding. She saw them and stood up.
"Yura? You're making too much noise."
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:12 pm
He chanced to glance over his shoulder, watching her catch up -- dirt flying -- and laughed. Life was good. He was winning, and life was good.
The laughter was short-lived, though, as he found his paws carrying him further than he had expected to. He came to a skidding halt, narrowly avoiding sliding face-first into a tree. He'd heard a sound, a sharp sound, a sound that he -- hunter that he was -- was altogether familiar with. Smelled a smell, too, that he knew. But it was different, as well.
He smelled blood. Not deer blood. Not rabbit. Something else, and it put him immediately on-edge.
He was in the process of turning, to tell the purple female to turn back, but he knew it was too late. He felt eyes on his back, smelled -- above the stench of death and blood -- the odor of three strangers.
Heart thudding, the youngster wheeled about to face whatever evil lurked in the forest. Reflexively, he found himself standing between the female he'd been racing with and the tree line, as though his young body could shield her.
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Posted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:38 pm
What made Yura the most dangerous of the three wasn't that she was the strongest wolf in the forest; it wasn't that she had the most weight to throw around or an army of mindless slaves -- her sisters had their own, independent personalities whether she liked it or not. She was strategist, viciously unsympathetic and although arrogant at her core, she would not fly into a blind rage like some of the wolves she had worked with; namely, Tekka and Porphyria (the b***h).
She had no honor to speak of and would have gladly ganged up on either of them with both sisters just to make the kill faster. They were interrupting her life, barging up like this. She waited just a moment, partially to let them stew in the horrific silence and also to see if they had more friends on the way. The male didn't look full grown, and the female...
Purple. Butterflies.
"Seer child," Yura chirped. Oh, she had a special place in her heart for this girl, daughter of her mother; daughter of Solan, whom Yura rightfully detested. Her and that sister of hers, her children -- all of them deserved the worst. "Here I thought you wouldn't last long with your mother dead."
Farfalla's legs were shaking. She tried to find her voice, but would have had better luck tracking a grain of salt in a pile of sand.
"Kill the younger one first. Make sure she watches." Yura would have accepted the duty as her own, but she had to see the look on Farfalla's face. She hoped she'd give a better performance than her statue of a mother, who had been all but tortured to death before her expression so much as cracked.
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Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2011 12:16 am
Dubhe's mind was, to put it simply, blown.
He had grown up in a sheltered environment: training. hunting. a big loving family. friendly competition. Those had been the cornerstones of his life and, until this very moment, it had never really occurred to him that there was wickedness in this world. He was young, he was exuberant, but he was naive.
Oh, what he wouldn't have given to have Jove there just then. Jove, and Grandmother, and all the rest of the pack. Even the girls.
His eyes ticked to the others, and then down to the remains of a wolf at their paws, and then back up to Yura. It was incomprehensible. He could barely register the possibility that a wolf could kill and eat a fellow wolf. The realization that the murderer in question was female made it even more mind-boggling. Indeed, it was something he hardly noticed.
Dubhe was, as noted, a hunter -- not a fighter. He knew perfectly well that he was outnumbered and almost certainly outskilled. He wasn't an idiot. He knew precisely one strength, one advantage he could push: he was fast. And, judging by the race he had been running with butterfly-eyes, she was too.
All of this ran through his mind in the expanse of a few seconds. By the time the order had been given to kill him, Dubhe already had a plan, as meager and futile as it may have been. It was better than trembling, anyway.
"RUN!" He yelped, whirling around, nudging hard into the other's shoulder as he took off for open ground. Some distance away, and currently oblivious to everything, another wolf was -- quite literally -- stopping to smell the flowers.
Life hadn't exactly been going in Adonai's favor, of late. He'd always been a rather fun-loving wolf, always eager to enjoy the finer things in life. Women. Food. Sleep. Freedom. And he was still free to enjoy all of these, of course, but somehow the knowledge that the prime of his life had quietly slipped past him had left an uncharacteristic bitterness in him.
The middle-aged wolf -- who still considered himself to be very much in his best years, thank you very much -- sighed and stretched, curling his tail over his back and yawning tremendously. He stood, withdrew from the patch of wildflowers he had been lazing within, shook himself, and sighed.
Well, best to head back to the pack, he thought, before his daughter decided he'd abandoned her again. Not that she'd really care. Really, she'd be overjoyed at the thought -- and that was precisely what Adonai was most eager to avoid.
The calico-eared wolf made his way slowly, languidly, back toward home territory, blissfully unaware for the moment of just how much chaos he was about to get wrapped up in.
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