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 Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2011 5:48 pm
Rolling her eyes, Dia concentrated on what she was actually out to do. She'd been sent to have a look and see if the herds were coming back yet. It was a hard winter, and the pack relied on the various beasts passing through the narrow mountain range to the good grazing to keep them well fed. Someone was sent at least once a day, if not more often, to have a look-see and today it was her turn.
Her father had drawn some more attention, the longer this dearth of prey went on, but Dia wasn't taken with her fathers plant-loving ways and dismissed them as temporary. Besides, she had more important things to worry about - once the herds came back it meant the passage was clear and she could go and visit her aunts and uncles! Aunty Iris was going to take her and Juno'd come along too. Why wasn't Juno her sister instead of Kuri? That'd be pretty cool... maybe they could pretend that they were when they got to their great-grandfather's pack. Yeah! She'd totally need to remember that.
On auto-pilot, she continued south-east towards the entrance to the pass.
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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2011 1:05 pm
 Dubhe was -- as usual -- practicing tracking. He knew better than to hunt unnecessarily, with the herd as badly dwindling as it was, and he spent most of his time now taking out his latent energies on smaller game. Nevertheless, he spent most of his days out here, away from the bustle and hubbub of the pack, focusing all of his attention on the herds. The sight of them, the smell. He could taste them in memory, and he could remember the feel of their rough bristly hides and their bulging muscles.
He crouched in the long grass, muscles quivering in stillness, and did something akin to meditation. He wouldn't have called it that, exactly -- that seemed too soft of a word, too spiritual -- but it was essentially what he did. He crouched and felt the world around him, opened every sense available, soaked in the sights and scents and feeling of the earth and the prey. Nearby a grasshopper was sawing down blades of grass with its crunching mandibles. A gopher was in the mouth of its hole, waiting for a safe time to come out.
And...a wolf was coming.
Dubhe blinked. He wasn't expecting company and -- aw, damn. From the smell of it, it was Dia. Not who he wanted to see at all, if there had been anyone he could have wanted to see. His ears flattened and he lowered himself even closer to the ground, hoping perhaps the grass would conceal him and she'd walk on by. Not very good chances of that.
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 4:04 am
She almost didn't notice him. Almost. In her hurry to get where she was going, moaning at the unfairness of life in her mind, she nearly didn't notice that darker patch laying on the ground, almost didn't notice the faint scent of where he'd passed by and the broken stems of the grass at her feet. She'd been trained by the same wolf as Dubhe, had the same drive at it as he had and a similarly bad attitude, when the mood took her. Not that she'd ever admit to being anything like him.
If she hadn't noticed him she'd have never lived it down. She was determined, thus, that he was embarrassed to lessen her own feeling of it at not having realised sooner that her darling brother was nearby.
She feigned walking past, but wandered slowly closer to where he lay, nonchalantly, and yawned as she passed by. "Man, what an utterly lame hiding place - the herds will see you for miles away. Better move before your smell scares them off" she snorted.
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2011 12:02 pm
He groaned when he saw her veer her course toward him. He had been almost certain he was safe, too! Curses. "Like your voice won't do the same thing?" he shot back, rising up to his paws and shaking loose strands of grass from him. He wasn't sure if he was more agitated about being interrupted from his meditation, or from his sister's barbs. "You squawk like a dying crow."
He gave her a long, careful look, regarding her critically. "What are you doing out here, anyway?"
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 4:04 am
"Yeah right, as IF" she said, though she had lowered her voice to an angry whisper, realising he was probably right - not that she'd ever admit it. Her voice, though, in her own estimation, was a rather good one. "I can howl nicer than you, frog-breath" she snarked back.
"And I'm here on official business. I was asked to come check and see if the herds were coming yet. Not like some lazy wolves who're just sitting around in the grass like a dumb rabbit!". You trying to hunt grass, now? It'd totally be at your level", she snickered.
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 9:43 am
It took every ounce of his ability to resist challenging her to a howling contest -- because it would be dumb, and also because he would probably lose, and Dubhe didn't like to lose at anything. His ears folded back and he placed an even glare at his sister. "Well, what's stopping you then?" He said, choosing to ignore everything that she'd said -- although he ruffled in indignation at the notion of stalking grass, he certainly didn't think he could defend himself by trying to explain his meditation -- and rising up to stare at her full-on. "Let's go check the herd."
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Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:06 pm
Dia grinned, considering herself superior to her brother in arguing skills as well as all others. He just can't think of a good comeback, she thought, gleefully. "I suppose you can tag along beside me" she smiled, sweetly "perhaps you can learn a thing or two". Her voice mimicked that which Jove used when he was teaching him and she ended the sentence with a snort of laughter - but a relatively quiet one for they were coming closer to the area where they could overlook the entrance to the largest meadowland in the Aves territory.
Suddenly serious, Dia began to go into a crouching posture, flattening herself to the ground whilst still giving herself as good a view over the growing grass as she could. As a white wolf, she found prey could often see her a good deal further off than those of duller colours so she wasn't going to take any chances.
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2011 3:00 am
He snorted. Yeah, right. They had the same teacher, and he knew he was a way better student. As if she could teach him anything he didn't already know.
He kept this to himself, however, as he had no intention of scaring off the prey with an argument -- and because he was not a wolf who was very good at getting his point across with words. He didn't talk pretty, and he was easily confused and flabbergasted when forced to defend himself verbally. He'd much rather have his actions define him.
He crouched alongside her. His dusty pelt faded more naturally into the earth, and he fell still, allowing the earth once more to wash over him, sound and scent and the presence of the herd. He took a deep, steadying breath, and crept forward, paw over paw.
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 1:45 am
If he had said it, she'd have never admitted it, but Dia truly wasn't as good a student - she was too headstrong and liked to get her own way too much to take well to instruction - at least directly. She didn't apply herself as much as Dubhe though a few words from her Grandmother has made her realise she should probably 'try harder'.
Belly near to the still winter-damp and chilly ground she crept forward with Dubhe, rivalry forgotten at the moment in favour of letting her senses do their things. As she did, like Dubhe, she caught a rangy whiff on the air - a faint touch of scent which was only barely remembered - they'd been pups before winter had come and hadn't had that much time to study the scents of their summer prey much.
As they moved further towards the passage, though, scent became unnecessary - a straggling line of creatures were making their way up the hill. It was only a trickle for now, sure, but they were the vanguard of the vast herds.
"Dubhe!" she whispered excitedly "they're here!". Rivalry was forgotten for a brief moment as she stared upon the spectacle, stomach grumbling in remembrance of sweet grass-fattened meat.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 10:38 pm
His eyes widened slightly, pupils dilating, ears sweeping forward. It was magnificent! They were so...alive, so virile. He could see the muscles shifting below their hides, could smell the enticing scent. His limbs quivered. He took another half-step forward. "They're magnificent," he said, breathlessly.
His heart thudded in anticipation in his chest and his muscles burned with the force it took to keep him in one place. Focused though he was, Dubhe had never been very good at sitting still...especially when a challenge was before him.
Would anyone notice if just one was missing?
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 4:43 am
One thing Dia could not be accused of was having much more sense than her brother. His wide-eyed admiration of the great beasts before them was mirrored in her own face, her own jagged, excited breaths. Their shared love of hunting would likely make them a team to be reckoned with when they were older if they didn't end up completely hating each other before then...
"Totally" she said in quiet, gleeful agreement with her brother's sentiment, not for a minute imagining he might be about to try something very, very stupid. She couldn't wait to tell everyone that she'd found this year's first herd - but she also was transfixed by the spectacle. A few more minutes wouldn't make a difference, right?
Creeping, she moved up alongside her brother. "It'd be totally awesome to make the first kill of the year... maybe they'll let us go on the first hunt?" she whispered, half-hoping her brother would agree that they'd be allowed. She wasn't sure - it was an important hunt, spiritually, and they might not want 'kids' around even if Dia was better than some of the adults in her opinion! Dubhe wasn't too bad either, she conceded, mentally, since she was in such a good mood at seeing the herd.
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Posted: Thu May 12, 2011 10:55 am
"Totally awesome," he echoed, still creeping forward at a snail's pace. Something gleamed in his eyes, and he shot his sister a sidelong glance, a grin rising up on side of his maw. "...So why wait?"
For all his care during lessons, Dubhe was -- in his heart -- a reckless wolf, and when the energy became too much to contain, it burst out of him like a solar flare.
On faith that she would rise to the challenge...knowing that Dia was not the weak sort of wolf who would run away to tell on him...and feeling the inexorable desire to chase, to attack...Dubhe started forward at a quicker pace, crawling closer to his prey...close enough that he might be able to bolt out and catch one.
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Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 3:11 am
Dia knew, in her heart, that this was Not-A-Good-Idea(tm) but she couldn't help but be caught up by the enthusiasm of her brother and her innate unwillingness to be shown as not up to anything that he was willing to do.
She was at an age where sense was sometimes overruled by ideals and where she'd not tempered the enthusiasm of her pursuits with reason or caution. Slinking fast behind her brother, a grin on her lips and a sparkle in her eyes, she followed.
Theirs would be the glory!
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Posted: Tue May 24, 2011 10:50 pm
As soon as he knew she was following, he put on the speed. He crept forward as quickly as possible, halting once of twice when the prey seemed to look up, but otherwise he seemed to be in the clear.
They were fat and lazy from all this time, he thought. They had forgotten what it was like to fear for their life. It'd be good for them.
He was close enough that he could make out the white rims of their eyes, and that was close enough.
Leaping forward with a surge of power in his haunch, he arched through the air and hit the ground running, bolting dead ahead at the individual he had chosen: a yearling doe.
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Posted: Sun Jun 12, 2011 4:22 am
Dia kept back a bit - with prey this big and only two of them it'd be best to run them downa bit, tire them out so as not to be facing an angry, fearful, young deer with enough energy to do some harm. She sped up a little, keeping herself in an arc away from where Dubhe had started chasing towards the deer, ready to head it off and start her portion of the work once Dubhe began to flag.
That was his idea, right? She wasn't sure, they hadn't really discussed it like they might normally before a lesson. Concerned, Dia kept her eyes fixed on her brother, watching for his intentions with every muscle taught, ready to leap or chase or spring as and when she figured out what the hell she would need to do.
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