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 Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:28 pm
 Things had been quiet. Too quiet. Raz was a restless young adult, not a trainee who could be given simple hunting or border patrol missions to keep pacified. No, this was a wolf whose family was large and whose goals were larger. The alphas might be lax (or perhaps were plotting something big, who knew?), but Raz could not sit still any longer. He needed to refresh his senses, practice something other than simply keeping in shape.
At the least he was finally, finally over his little ego burst when Regnad had turned him down. That was something. Whenever they were around each other there would sometimes be that moment of awkwardness, but it wasn't unbearable anymore - Raz could only guess what the she-wolf felt after that, the daughter of the crazy one ever strange in her motives and thoughts.
But enough about that. Today, the agenda was that there was no agenda. No ulterior motive, no mission parameters, no stealth-ing, no planned assassinations, no spying. Which all were fun in one way or another (save for maybe the assassination bits), but Raz was a pup at heart; and he still catered to it.
For instance, he was currently amusing himself by tracing drawings in the thin snow, grinning at his own carved smiley face. "I should quit my day job, become an artist~" he told himself. "Do cave paintings like in the alpha dens. That'd get me some nice attention."
And ah, did Raz like attention.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:44 pm
 Ransom yawned, arching her back as she clawed at the ground like a cat. The bone markings along her spine shifted as her real spine popped and cracked. The afternoon nap had been fun, she decided, but ultimately not very rewarding.
She was hungry. She'd hoped that sleeping would make the hunger go away. She'd recently heard about bears, and the way they could sleep all winter without ever being hungry. Unfortunately, that didn't seem to work for wolves. At least not for short naps on empty stomachs.
Didn't bears eat before they went for hibernation? Maybe that's what she'd done wrong.
Well, anyway. Sleeping wasn't helping and standing around wouldn't help either. There was only one thing for it: She'd have to go out and find herself some food.
Easier said than done, of course. She was beginning to wonder how her mother had ever managed to feed the three of them all by herself...but then, maybe that's why she hadn't been too sad to see Ransom go.
Lifting her nose to the sky, the grey wolf set off in search of something resembling sustenance, trying to ignore the rumbling in her belly.
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Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 11:55 pm
Smiley face became evil smiley face. Evil smiley face soon grew fangs. And then evil smiley face was forgotten altogether when he heard a distant snap of twigs.
If there was one thing his training had taught him, it was to be aware of one's surroundings constantly. While Raz's attention had been focused on his own entertainment, his ears had caught the sound instantly - the reaction had been honed after weeks of being cuffed for being slower. Immediately Raz's clear blue eyes began to scan the landscape before him, spotting not the source of the sound but noting several good places to hide himself should the perpetrator be more sinister than simply wandering folk.
Raz was cautious, not paranoid. "Barracuda" never did beat that part in.
Casually, the wolf tested the wind's direction with his tongue and, after a few seconds, adjusted his position accordingly to hide his scent. He might've left Tomkin thinking he would forget about being all assassin-y, but apparently old habits died hard. Maybe Barracuda would be proud of that.
Honestly, it was probably just a squirrel or something out to find a store of food meant for this season, but Raz couldn't help but investigate - his mind wanted stimulation, one way or another. Nostrils flared, he took up a crouched position between some brush and began to creep forward, taking care to slide his paws against the ground in a gingerly manner. Not something to do if being followed, but he had to muffle his sound somehow.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:22 am
If Raz was trying for stealth, it was largely unnecessary -- Ransom's stomach was grumbling so hard she could barely hear over it. And she wasn't particularly keen on her surroundings, anyway. She was the type of wolf who lived on luck more than skill, and had so far managed to be astonishingly lucky. She was, anyway, alive, which was more than anybody could reasonably expect.
Her nose worked, though, and she could swear she smelled something delicious and edible, somewhere. What was it? Was this some sort of nasal hallucination, or was there actually prey somewhere? Or, even better, something already dead? Other wolves might scoff at eating carrion, but Ransom was a bit fan of an easy meal.
Totally oblivious to the fact that she herself was being stalked, she started forward in search of dinner.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:41 am
He continued forward, shifting gears from play to work (with an inner sigh). Sure, these skills were enviable to the normal wolf, but sometimes it felt mechanical - a sign of true muscle memory, but also a source of reluctance. Hide and Go Seek had been corrupted into Find the Shiny or Get Caught and Yelled At, and Raz's body was in no hurry to forget it.
Soft rumbling. A growl? No, there wasn't an intonation or emotion he could pick up from it. Careful, careful . . . Raz inched forward, ears turning this way and that to triangulate the sound. He paused when he realized what it was: hunger. Judging from the volume, gnawing hunger. Baaad hunger.
More inches, more aching slowness, tense muscles ready for any sign that he could be walking in on something worse.
A snatch of splotched color. Several more inches ahead. Gray, brown, white. He paused and laid a little lower, his belly grazing the cold ground. Scent, female. Shown purpose, hunting?
No, too careless. Scavenging. The figure was thinner than a regular wolf's. Yikes . . . Must feel pretty bad, Raz thought with a tiny frown, not unused to seeing the body in malformed physique, but not able to empathize with the feeling. But what now?
Hmm. Further stalking? He could try to gather more information about this random stranger's purpose, or he could simply sneak away. But . . . what would be the fun in that?
On impulse, Raz curved his lips into a small, tight, but open circle, and whistled sharply, staying in cover. The sound was like a quick bird chirp, one of the multitude of noises he had been taught to help communicate wordlessly across longer distances. Would this female be able to pick him out?
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:49 am
Ahh, there it was. Definitely carrion. She heard something like a bird chirping, and her ears flicked backward toward the sound without giving it much thought. Maybe it was a vulture. Did vultures chirp? She hoped not. They did bite. She'd been bitten by one, once, and it sucked.
She was thin, although made thinner-looking by her odd markings. The bones seemed to accentuate the real bones underneath. Her fur, too, was looking a bit soiled and natty.
Ransom stopped, shoving her nose into a pile of promising leaves. Well...wasn't that strange. There was meat in there. A nice chunk of it, in fact. But it smelled strange, and she pulled away, staring down at it. That was...deeply unsettling. Why did the meat smell funny? And why was it so neatly hidden?
So caught up in the mystery of the befouled bait, she continued to ignore the presence of another wolf.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:55 am
Raz noted the smell of the meat as well, his nose wrinkling in response. Carrion was one thing, but this . . . was not the same smell for typical ones. Weird.
Now typically when an animal is eating, they grow touchy and defensive over their food - probably more so if a scavenger thought she could fend off others. Raz knew this, but had pouted a little that his little bird whistle had not produced a bigger reaction. So he took a big risk and stepped up to actual words.
"That smell funny to you?" he asked from cover, trying to project his voice. "I think it smells funny. Not in the good way either. But then, I'm not really hungry. You look pretty hungry though. Skin and bones even."
Heheheheheheh. |3
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:00 am
She jumped, wheeling around, teeth bared as her heart leapt into her throat.
Oh. It was just a wolf. Young, like her. And he had the most shockingly lovely bright blue eyes.
That was apparently enough to make her grow calmer, and she offered an uneasy smile. "I am really hungry," she admitted. "But I don't know if I'm that hungry." She looked back at the meat, longingly, and tried to think of what could go wrong if she ate it.
"Am I intruding on your territory? I'll go. I don't want to be a bother."
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:10 am
Raz didn't so much as flinch at the wolf's reaction, having had worse than the flash of teeth in his direction by now. All he did was grin a little, in that puppyish and mischievous way, until she calmed down a bit. "Nah, you're fine," he assured her, sitting up properly now that he'd blown his own cover in pursuit of lulz. "I don't really have a territory anyway - too much effort." He didn't know how alphas could do it, honestly. Raz was just fine with his personal goal of being the bestest assassin evar, that was hard enough.
"Really, I just saw your coat and thought it'd be a good story to start on for my boring afternoon. Don't see bones all that often unless it's leftovers, y'know? 'Course, if you'd rather go find food first, I'll tag along for that too."
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:54 am
Well, he was certainly friendly! That was an encouraging sign. She'd met lots of wolves lately who were not friendly at all. "They're not so exciting," she said, glancing back at her splotchy pelt. "Just a gift from my mother. One of the only ones, to tell you the truth."
As if to accentuate the point, her stomach gave a rather loud, somewhat angry gurgle, and she looked down out of embarrassment. She was still sorely tempted to gnaw down on the foul-smelling meat.
"My name's Ransom, by the way."
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:26 am
Raz nodded at her name but did not offer in kind - at least, not yet. "Mothers, am I right? Entitled just 'cause they gave birth to you," he joked. "Mine wasn't generous either. Or my dad. Or really most of my family. Always wrapped in their own little worlds, or breeding like rabbits. Or both maybe, I never knew."
He then stood up and gestured with his head for her to follow. "I'll be the black sheep: got a small cache from my last hunt around here I need to collect on. It'll smell a lot better than that thing, or at least smell right. Can't complain about life on an empty stomach, eh?"
The longer he stood there, the more Raz was beginning to puzzle out what the meat used to be - and the more he wanted to get away.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:33 am
"You know, I'm starting to forget what she was like," she said, as much to herself as to the splotched wolf. Her brow furrowed, and she shrugged, pulling away from the meat and smiling at him. "If you don't mind sharing. I don't want to be a bother."
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 11:49 am
You'd know if you were a bother, Raz thought, though his expression remained light, if not happy, that he was going to have some company for at least a part of the afternoon. Once Ransom began to follow, he spoke again. "I can tell you that my mother had an extra bit go funny hair on her head, didn't take care of herself unless it was to have sex, and had a thing for pushing out more pups almost every time her previous litter hit their late teens." What had once been an exciting prospect for new siblings had simply turned into Raz's idle thought wanderings about how his mother hadn't expelled some guts while she was at it by now.
One shouldn't be so disrespectful, he knew, but Raz's family was so far gone to him by now that not even his bothersome brother Aloysius's bantering would make him want to rekindle the relationship. He was his own wolf at this point, linked barely to a pack so quiet he was desperate enough to entertain a random stranger with his own food stores.
"Come t'think of it, that last part ran in the family. I was an uncle in my mid teen months. That was a weird experience." And even weirder that he never got to interact with his younger nieces and nephews.
One of the few things Raz truly cared enough to be bitter about.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:24 pm
The bitterness shocked her. To be fair, she had little enough love lost with her own family, but she had never been so angry about...well, much of anything actually. Things tended to roll off her like water off a duck. "As far as I know, it was just me and my brother," she said, in an attempt to keep up with conversation.
"Although, I guess there might be more now. I don't know who my dad was. But there was kind of a rumor that he might have been part...um...dog." Do you admit that out loud? Is that something wolves were sensitive about? She didn't even know.
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Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 1:30 pm
"Wish I had only one sibling. Or something as simple." Did he really? Then again, anything sounded better than being one of so many. Was he ranting a bit too much? Yeah probably . . . He just hadn't been able to really talk about things with others; Tomkin had been secluded in more ways than one. It was like a small village: speak one thing and be certain it will somehow spread.
"Part dog, huh?" Raz passed her an amused look as he led her past several barren trees, occasionally sniffing the ground and looking for minor details to make sure they were on the right path. "Dogs are those pets humans have, right? The ones that sorta look like us, only less handsome. How'd he get away?"
It might have sounded strange, calling them humans as opposed to two-leggers or some foul insult.
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