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 Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 10:54 pm
 Tabea didn't like to brag, but on the whole, she was pretty talented at getting herself out of trouble. She could talk her way out of plenty (in her experience, her looks seemed to help with that -- apparently some wolves found her rather lovely). And what was left? There were few issues that couldn't be solved with a firm glare and I-mean-it snarl, or else the rapid application of paw-to-turf. That was her general rotation of self-defense: talk; fight; flee.
Unfortunately, none of those defenses did her a bit of good when the problem was of a non-sentient nature.
She'd brought it upon herself, really. She'd allowed herself to get swept up in the beauty of this place, all of its gorgeous greenery, the shape and texture of the rocks, the steam rising from the earth. It had caught her eye and caused that silly, romantic part of her heart to skip a few steps, and just like her daddy always told her, all that day-dreaming got her in trouble.
"Tabs," he always said, "You have to keep your paws on the ground, or you'll lose them."
All the times he'd told her that, she never thought he might mean it literally.
But now here she was, cowering some ways away from that smoking hole in the ground, a blistering burn climbing up her foreleg, and she was equal parts bemused and panicky about the situation. It hurt, stinging like someone was gnawing on it, but that wasn't the bigger problem. The bigger problem is that for a wolf like herself, a lady who lived on her own and survived by wits and instinct and all the life skills her old man could pass on, an injury like this is what made the difference between "comfortable eccentricity" and "a lone wolf is a dead wolf."
She could hardly get herself up off the ground to slink away from the offending geyser. How exactly did she expect to crawl back to shelter? Dig a den? Stalk prey? The fact of it was, all of those items were off-limits until this paw healed, and she hadn't a clue how long that might take.
It was quite a predicament indeed, and a little whine escaped her throat before she had a chance to stop it. Stop freaking out, she chided herself. You'll think of something.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:13 pm
 All of this - the chaos, the danger, the near-total reframing of his dull and frustrating life - it did not seem like anything other than a grand opportunity no matter how he looked at it. His life up until this point had felt strapped down, and now at last he had some excuse to fly outward in some unexpected and unchecked trajectory.
Mostly unchecked, anyway. Anatto was with him as he always was, but the great orange wolf had at some point decided that the lanky, lurking presence of his brother did not necessarily have to have any impact on how he chose to live his life..that life of circular roaming, of blunt-force conversations that left him no less hobbled than when he started. The life of being the son of a refugee, the son of a cowering, simpering giant. Some life.
But now, here was something new. A world made strange and dangerous once again, all bonds severed and his desire to roam unleashed. With only a stare back at his brother to acknowledge the same desire reflected back at him, he had left, sifting his way through a territory made alien by fire and ash. He had walked north for a very long time, picking through the blackened bones of forest to feast upon strange meat. And it had been some time since he came upon signs of wolves who had passed since the Happening, and it made him confront the situation as a wholly new creature. Was the wolf to be hunted? Terrorized? Taken into the fold?
Here his decision-making began to crumble. The hulking wolf turned his wide-gaunt face back to look for his brother, who surely could make sense of a thing like this.
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:26 pm
 If you asked him, Anatto would not have been able to give a straight answer as to why he'd chosen to follow his brother out into the unknown. Granted, it was unlikely that Anatto would come up with a straight answer for much of anything, but this was something he could not have articulated even to himself.
It was, in part, that he feared something might happen to Django on his own. And though the lanky wolf felt ill-equipped to deal with such danger, he felt he owed it to his brother to stand by and witness, at least. Witnesses were what kept wolves from fading away into the dust. They told stories that kept them alive. And everyone deserved to be kept alive, somehow.
But it was more than that. Really, if pressed, Anatto might have admitted that he simply could not think of anything better to do with himself. He had spent so long being Django's shadow, he hardly remembered how to do much else. Besides -- if Django weren't taking out his rage on his brother, what would he do with himself? And if Anatto weren't accepting his fate as punching bag with good humor and grace, what was left for him in life?
So he trailed after his brother and gave minimal thought to what they had left behind, suspecting perhaps that it might not be so far behind as his orange brother might have thought. Tabea's ears swept forward, brow furrowing. Had she heard something? It was hard to tell. All the hissing and gurgling of the landscape tended to send sounds away, and that underlying smell of sulphur made it hard to catch incoming scents. Still, some part of her suspected that she was not alone, and she struggled a moment with indecision before finally calling out, "Hello? Is there anyone out there?" She might regret this choice later, she mused. But then, she had a lot of things to regret already. "Can somebody help me?"
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Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2014 11:48 pm
Django stood over the track, fixing dull yellow eyes on a mirroring pair the exact same color. "There's another wolf here," he informed. "A female."
Before he could pursue the thought any further, a sound interrupted them, very like the sad, isolated calls of birds that interrupted the strange new silence that made up the world. A wolf's voice, dampened and disembodied, but clear enough to make certain words decipherable. Django's head tilted as he tried to place it in his new world order.
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:17 pm
"Sounds like she's in trouble," Anatto said, with his inflection flat. It was a statement, an observation, not a call to action.
Still, a thoughtful gleam shone in his eyes, a certain curiosity. What sort of trouble could a wolf get herself into out here, in this empty place? With all of the noise and ash and chaos of their journey away from home still fresh in his mind, nothing here seemed capable of comparing. "I'm going to go check it out."
Tabea grimaced as the pain seared up her paw once more. She gave it a tentative lick, and the dampness of her tongue gave only the most temporary of relief: as soon as it was removed, the pain set in again. Worse, she noted, there were angry boils and blisters along the paw pad and creeping up the leg. This was beyond agitating.
Another sound, and this time she was certain that it truly was a wolf. Her ears swept forward. "Hello?" She reiterated, not quite able to make out whoever was looming behind the rock formation and brush.
Whoever it was, she really hoped they were the helpful, heroic type, and not the murderous lunatic type. Although, if they were the latter, she was already beginning to formulate a plan that involved shoving the attacker into that same steam spout that had gotten her in this position to begin with.
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:24 pm
Django had given a nod emphasized by furrowed brows. Though he never thought about it, the leadership that passed between himself and his brother really was a beautifully effortless thing, perhaps the one area of interpersonal relationships in which Django could receive any credit. He loomed after Anatto, taking this followship as an opportunity to imagine, vividly, the smoky forest as an amnesiac plain, and himself as something larger, darker.
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Posted: Tue Sep 09, 2014 10:46 pm
As the pair came into view, Tabea glanced swiftly between them, sizing them up. She'd learned to be rather good at summing others up in a glance -- it was a necessary survival skill, after all, and spending time as an outsider made it easier to do. So much easier to be objective.
What she saw: A pair of kids, one looking angry, the other looking disinterested. It was curious that she thought of them that way, as kids; they weren't so much younger than she was, in truth. But she could practically smell the inexperience on them.
As rescuers went, she could think of a better option, but at least they didn't seem particularly threatening. "Careful of your paws," she said, with a slight smile. She lifted up her own injured limb to illustrate. "If you step on the wrong spot, you'll have to join me in the cowering-and-waiting-for-help, and I don't think any of us want that."
Thoughts that crossed Anatto's mind: This wolf was beautiful; she was funny; she was injured; Django would probably hate her.
Well. That gave him a reasonable idea of how he should proceed.
Moving deftly -- and taking care to watch where he stepped, as she suggested -- he crept forward curiously. "How can the ground burn your feet?"
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Posted: Wed Sep 10, 2014 12:19 am
Naturally, at the first word of maternal caution, Django had stopped to represent a pillar of offended young maleness. Some young scrap was sitting out in front of him, and within a few moments of yowling for help had turned to calling advice down at his brother and himself. He felt his hackles raise, his spirit shrill to turn around and never look back. But there Anatto went, with his usual disregard for the character of wolves. Ad he went on speaking to her as if she were worth his time. Hulking moodily on the hill that separated them, the orange wolf scowled meaningfully.
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Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2014 9:31 pm
Tabea's eyes rolled up curiously to Django, intrigued by his reaction. "It's probably safer up there," she agreed, good-naturedly. "And warn me if you see any vultures circling in to finish me off."
Anatto's head tilted, and he looked her over, eyes dropping to the damage done to her paw, then slipping away to peer at the steam rising up from the ground. She hadn't answered his question, and so he relied on his senses to fill in the gaps. Ah. So here, the ground could burn. That was interesting. Back home, the ground had burned in places too, but that fire had come from the sky. This seemed to be a different matter entirely.
But why would a wolf come here? Didn't she notice the danger? Was she foolish? Or simply inexperienced? He considered whether he would've made a similar mistake on his own and decided it was unlikely. But perhaps if he hadn't been paying attention -- if he were storming about in a rage, like Django sometimes did -- he could have stumbled into this.
Was that her reasoning? Or something else? So much to consider.
"Can you put weight on it at all?"
He looked from the female up to his brother, apologetically. Let's help her, his eyes said. I think she's interesting. Don't take this away from me yet.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:26 pm
Django, always sensitive to the possibility that someone was throwing shade, had glowered in opaque and silent dislike at the female from his position on the hill. No need to be polite to garbage like this. But ugh, brothers...he scowled and squinted in response to Anatto's silent plea, lurching forward onto all fours and bounding manfully through the interceding space. He was old enough and smart enough, however, to follow Anatto's path exactly; the wolf was genuinely hurt, after all, and to lame himself after being warned would be a scene of unbearable humiliation.
Testosterone-fueled gallop to his brother completed, Django turned to a stop and made himself busy looking casually from wolf to ground to underbrush, as if everything besides his brother deserved the same low quality of attention.
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Posted: Sat Sep 13, 2014 9:52 pm
"I can, a little, but not for long," she admitted. "I'm sure it'll be fine in a day or two, but..." she looked again at the chapped, peeling skin. In truth, that frightened her more than anything; having never done this, she wasn't at all sure what would happen if she kept walking on it. Might more skin flake off? Might her whole leg unravel? She shuddered at the thought, though knew it was unlikely.
The briefest of smiles passed over Anatto's freckled maw at his brother's presence. "Help me get her over to the shade," he said, in a low voice -- an unspoken finale hanging after And I won't ask you for anything else.
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 9:21 am
With a yellow-eyed look that said you are a dumb wolf and a thorn in my side, Django lumbered past his brother and over to the injured side of the gray female. He leaned meaningfully, offering his broad shoulder for support while still gazing boredly, pointedly, in the opposite direction. One would describe Django's current behavior as A-grade bitchiness if it wasn't so incongruous with his hulking size and frightening face. In the meantime, Casimir had been on a private adventure, one that started very predictably as a search for the rest of his pack, and then morphed into a reverse-tracking situation when he realized that his sons had lit off without him, without so much as a goodbye. This had struck him not only as unnecessarily rude, but also extremely unwise, and so he left behind the trail of YMCA in order to follow the familiar scent of those life-ruiners who would apparently remain adolescent forever. He snuffed and lumbered through the brush until a sound gave him pause halfway up a hill: a female's voice, and Anatto's? Hmm.
The big wolf sat for a moment, his orange paws braced against the hillside, curious to listen in.
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 7:55 pm
Tabea knew better than to politely protest the help. In some circles, she'd discovered, making a show of turning down assistance was an expected social protocol. In others, it was an invitation for your would-be helpers to drop you on your a** and walk away. She very much suspected this was the latter type of situation.
She leaned up against Django's broad, bony side, her injured paw drawn up against her chest. The thought occurred to her, briefly, that he could just turn that gaunt muzzle around and snap her face off if he wanted to. But she hoped that he would continue on with the bitchy act instead. Perhaps the other wolf -- his brother? -- could keep him in line.
...And what a strange relationship they had, she mused, as Anatto took her other flank and she took her first uneasy steps forward. What it must be like to have siblings. "Thank you," she said, finally, puzzling out in her head the best way to proceed with minimal risks. It was hard to gauge; these weren't exactly the chattiest of wolves.
Anatto didn't miss much. His coppery eyes and constantly-working nose took in a lot of the world around him, and he'd spent a lifetime making sense of that information.
And so as the trio of them made their way clumsily, awkwardly, away from the stones and the geysers and toward the shady scrub, he caught his father's scent immediately. His ears went flat. Oh, Django was going to be pissed when he caught on.
"Here," he said, stepping aside to allow the female to slip from his grasp. "Rest here."
And then what? Leave her in the shade? Stick around to dote on her every whim? Go find help? It wasn't exactly that Anatto hadn't thought this his options, it's just that all of them were terrible and that was, to his mind, not a good enough excuse to do nothing.
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:38 pm
As it happened, Django was staring coldly over the female's neck (which probably didn't feel reassuring) at his brother when the latter caught wind of their father, and Django's finely-tuned brotherdar swiftly picked up the twisted-back ears and connected it to his scenting nose a moment before. He turned his own sharp nose to the wind and huffed, and puffed, and made a noise of disgust as he caught the odor of his father drifting by. More than anything else so far, this ratcheted the spotted wolf's spite and anger up into what approached the danger zone; Django was no fan of his father.
But it didn't matter! If Cas had given up on his kids when they started pushing him away, they probably would have starved to death as teenagers. And since eavesdropping was proving to be unexpectedly boring, the great shaggy wolf rolled to his feet and padded deftly up and over the crest of the hill, tail wagging and mane buffeting in a sudden gust of wind. "Boys!" He shouted in his usual jovial fashion, "Is this what you ran off to do?" He skipped down the hill, gallumphing carelessly until his weight propelled a jet of steam outwards just in front of his nose. Arrgh! He made a noise that contained elements of both squeal and bellow, recoiling backwards and mis-stepping into a jumbled sideways roll. But he was up again, laughing and shaking dirt out of his coat, smiling crazily at the trio across the way. "I don't know how anything works anymore!"
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Posted: Sun Sep 14, 2014 11:04 pm
Tabea caught the shift in attitude in both wolves, and she fell back to her haunches, still holding her stinging, blistered paw to her chest. It occurred to her that perhaps she should start hobbling out of here. The winds seemed to have changed in a very unfriendly direction, and suddenly the fear of her paw unravelling from the bone was less of a concern than her fear of being mauled.
But then....what in the world...
She blinked as Casimir rolled -- quite literally -- into the scene, staring in bemusement. What was even happening right now? And who was this strange clown of a wolf, and why did the air around her seem to get immediately colder when he arrived?
The thought of digging a hole and burying himself in it seemed suddenly appealing.
It was bad enough that Anatto had grown up motherless, knowing from his first awareness that he lacked half the parental love that was owed to him. But surely not even that was as bad as having a father who was so, so embarrassing. It was an adolescent fear, but it never left him, and he stared with something akin to horror in the depths of his copper eyes.
"Keep walking," he said, deadpan, by way of greeting. "Over to where that steaming hole is in the ground. Then go ahead and jump in it. That should bring you up to speed."
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