Wapun Meadow 고기를 먹고 싶어 샤샤샤

@Kierkegaard ♡ #teamgrumpygrandpa

Free rabbit if you come and play with Seelie!

The rabbit was taunting her.

Although the Groenendael cross was fleet-footed enough to snare her prey on a straightaway, the wiles of this rabbit seemed boundless. Granted, Coelacanth Corten had spent her formative years doing one of the following: a. eating a raw diet that came out of a human’s freezer, b. beachcombing for crustaceans or partially eaten carcasses that had washed ashore, c. fishing, or, very rarely, d. helping to herd the occasional deer or ram in a pack setting. Lagomorphs were out of her comfort zone to begin with — and this one, a rangy grandfather of a beast, had evaded wolves far more savvy than she. He was toying with her now — the earth was rebounding from its swarm of locusts and the plump and cottontailed codger was full of piss and vinegar.

She dropped back to a trot, her tufted ears swiveling as she lost sight of the tattered creature, a soft sigh spilling from her muzzle as she lowered her muzzle to drink from the deceptively inviting creek. When a soft rustling from the nearby foliage caught her attention, she kept her slender muzzle low, just barely brushing the water’s burbling surface with her lips, and fixed her oceanic eyes on a nearby blackberry bush. A flicker of creamy cotton bade those eyes to narrow with the promise of malice — she was hungry, and although she could far more easily glean a meal from one of the many waterways, her obsessive sheepdog’s nature had combined with the predatory instinct of her Corten blood to make the craving for fresh coney irresistible.

Her muscles tensed, gathering strength for her next maneuver, and as she whipped around and threw herself toward the lagomorph with a determined snap of her jaws, she was rewarded with the unpleasant sensation of fur between her incisors. Incensed, she flung herself forward, striking like a snake and clipping the edge of the rabbit’s haunch. He’d grown complacent, underestimating her ability to adapt, and a hellish shriek ripped from his flat-toothed mouth as he sped away, seeking every advantage. There weren’t many dips or hollows in this part of the valley, though, and the rabbit knew he was on borrowed time. He sped into threadbare meadow that had once housed a kaleidoscope of wildflowers —

— and crossed the borders into Rosings territory.

Defeated, Coelacanth skidded to a rough stop, sending a rippling spray of plant material and pebbles — and a wounded, fat, juicy old rabbit — into the forbidden forest. Slender sides heaved with a heavy sigh of disappointment, then fluttered as she caught her breath. The wolves here, she knew, needed the sustenance more than she or Amoxtli did — but she was too emotionally invested in this particular hunt to depart with her usual optimism. Too, the dark mood that had claimed her the day she met Marbas seemed keen on lingering; the hunt had distracted her, but she felt anew the sting of a lurking sorrow and turned to begin her incredibly long trek home.

While the ghostly figure had set out to trailing the borders of his pack, he found himself in a weary mindset. The forest was lush again, having come alive with the return of the foliage and subsequently the return of a vast majority of the prey animals. Kierkegaard had fed himself to strength once more, and had found that the twisting branches of Rosings did not suit him well enough. The brute had not anticipated that he would have found a home there – not forever – and he knew that his time was drawing to a close within their ranks. They were wolves who had built a culture unlike any he had ever taken part in, and he no longer wanted anything to do with them. Their minds could not be changed or molded, and even Pallas had fallen to one of the natives in her attempt to challenge rank.
 
Lengthy pale limbs carried him slowly along the borders, stopping every so often to mark the terrain with his scent and to listen for any signs of followers or passersby. The surroundings had been silent as of late, and so had the inner tangles of the pack. The wild wood had been alive with hushed whispers when he had first laid claim to their leader’s rank and pulled it from underneath him. They had spoken, he was certain, of rebellion and war. After some time, he had heard nothing.
 
Pallas had done well in her duty, and even the alpha female of the pack had seemed taken aback by the nature of the ghostly brute. He was, more than anything, a survivor of his time. He had taken what he needed, and since the food had returned to the wilds and the brute had begun to feet again, Kierkegaard was beginning to think that he no longer needed the woods. It was not in his nature to live among them, adopting their culture and their lifestyle; he was a man of force and thunder. His pallid form belonged to the jagged incline and drop of the cliffs. Every so often, when the woods were at their quietest, he found himself longing for the caverns by the sea. The dank seclusion was something he had not felt in quite some time.
 
A noise pulled the man from the inner workings of his mind, and his ears were thrusted forward at the sound of something crashing through the brush. Pebbles seemed to bounce and scatter from not too far away, and the brute’s nostrils flared with the scent of rabbit. Lowering his skull toward the earth and darting forward, he caught the creature just as it was attempting to insert itself into the thick of the trees. His grizzled maw parted and he clasped his fangs around the throat of the creature before shaking it violently to an end.
 
Turning his skull in the direction of the ocean-eyed shadow, the ghost huffed greatly through his nares and his tail lifted upwards. The creature before him was not full wolf, but painted in the blood of another breed – one he was not familiar with. The fire of his optics roamed over her smaller figure and his breathing evened in the time that it took to approach her. Though she seemed to have turned to depart – not wanting to risk the borders of the pack – he released a quiet chuff to pull her back in his direction. Brows were knitted tightly over his gaze as he crossed the marking for the pack and tossed the hare into the dirt unceremoniously.
 
The woods were alive with prey and the rabbit, though welcome to their caches, was not a necessity. This dark female was not claimed, though, and Kierkegaard knew better than most the trials of living without the ranks of a pack behind him. Though she was not skeletal in appearance, the famine could not have been easy on the hybrid. So the rabbit would be hers, if she would take it. The ragged man had more pressing needs than a small catch.

The racing of Coelacanth’s heart bade the hybrid blood in her veins to throb hotly — its stuttered beat grew so loud, in fact, that she did not hear the heavy crack of the tall male’s jaws as he granted the old codger of a rabbit a quick and merciful death. Her sides fluttered as her breathing slowed and she composed herself, delicately stretching her slender head forward as she shook out her inky fur. The low, guttural chuff gave her pause — she turned mid-shake, feathery fur settling in a haphazard state of scruffiness that was somehow still comely, and surprise widened briefly her shadowed seablue eyes before she remembered her manners and dipped her muzzle low in a respectful greeting. The rabbit fell to the earth with a soft thump but was forgotten in the face of the wolf who had so captured her attention.

He was taller than any of the wolves in her family, being crafted of leaner, rangier stock, and the pale ash of his fur brought to mind the spirit bears of her father’s home territory. He, too, was handsome in his disarray — the uneven lengths of pallid fur, peppered through with eldritch strands of charcoal and soot, accentuated the broadness of his shoulders and the length of his neck. There was something serpentine about the line of that neck and Coelacanth’s body curved itself into natural, easy submission despite the fact that they were on neutral ground. Of the scents surrounding the darkened wood, his was the strongest — but even if that were not the case, Seelie was a submissive creature and naturally eager to please.

Somewhat timorously — for, although he had given her the rabbit, she was hesitant to eat before the ghostly male — Coelacanth tore into the rabbit’s flesh and sequestered a good-sized piece for herself before nosing the rest of it toward Kierkegaard. A low whine, more air than tone, slipped from her lips in an enticing whisper as she invited him to dine with her. Distracted out of her blue mood — which was much improved now that the rabbit had been bested — she licked the blood from her muzzle and “barked” — a soft rush of air and a click of her slim jaws — as her inky tail wavered entreatingly behind her. Without meeting his fiery citrine eyes directly, she stretched out on her trim stomach and rested her muzzle on her paws, allowing her gaze to fix in a neutral place upon his boxy chest.

Though Kierkegaard had spent a great many days traveling with his sister, he had not come across a creature quite like this one. She was dainty and lovely in a sense that there were few who could resemble her; tufts of fur rose from the tips of her ears like feathers, and her eyes shone with a strange oceanic intensity. He could assume that she was something of a hybrid – two different creatures fused together into one inky little feather. Part of him found it appealing, though he had always been a man who found himself drawn to those who were of smaller build than he. Many of the women he had come across in his many wanderings had been made of small-bone and their wiry frames had complimented his own. The girl before him was something of a vision, and he did not dare allow her to escape without her catch.
 
The ink-child seemed to whirl around and put herself into a position of submission before him. They were both on neutral territory, but he did not let the action go unnoticed and nodded his head to the flighty creature. The fire in his gaze roamed over her figure once more before he found himself intrigued by the breathless sounds that had erupted from her slender muzzle. There was a choke in her throat, almost as if someone had removed the ability to speak altogether. Even the attempt at a whine that she offered was nothing more than a short gust of air that passed between her leathery lips.
 
Furrowing his brows thoughtfully and canting his head to left, he neared her on towering pallid legs and lowered his skull so that his gaze had settled directly across from her own. The halfling nudged her rabbit toward him and he parted his jaws to wrap them around the hide of the hare, ripping away pieces of flesh and swallowing them whole. His sharp smoldering optics beckoned her own oceanic eyes to meet his, as if he were saying ’you do not have to look away, little one.’

The serpent wolf bent his noble muzzle in gracious acceptance of Coelacanth’s submissiveness, and her long tail sketched a signature of shyness that beat against the medial aspect of her slim hocks as her tufted ears skimmed back against her finely-sculpted skull. His fiery gaze enchanted her; reminiscent of Corten’s eyes and the eyes of his descendents — reminiscent of her beloved Amoxtli’s eyes — it somehow remained different, wholly Kierkegaard’s own, lit from a different fire. He closed the distance, drawing near to her on legs that dwarfed her own, and lowered his head to level a quiet, intense gaze at her. It was an inviting gaze, but her breath caught nervously in her throat as she regarded him bashfully; her seablue eyes crept upward by degrees — the tip of his nose, the bridge of his muzzle, and finally with a few darting false starts his smoldering eyes. She held his piercing stare for only a few seconds before turning her attention then to her meal, dispatching it with ladylike delicacy.

Licking the blood from her lips, she looked upon the wolf before her with wide and innocent eyes. She was curious about him, but lacked the wherewithal to ask him for his story. Her tall, feathery ears pressed forward upon her velveteen crown as she watched him without fear — he had given her no sign that he was a threat, and thus in her naïveté she believed him to be trustworthy straight out of the gate. Tilting her head first to one side, then the other, in a decidedly doggish manner, she purred at him — a soft fluttering of sound without any particular tone, like the whirring wings of a seabird as it flies against the wind — and dipped her muzzle low in gratitude, nosing at the brittle bones of the pesky rabbit who had eluded her most of the day. Her eyes slid from his ruggedly handsome features to the territory border that stood just behind him, and she danced her forepaws entreatingly — remembering from her meeting with Marbas that touching might be a mistake — with another quizzical tilt of her head and an airy whine that carried just the faintest whisper of an upward inflection. Were they his borders?

The inky female did not seem as though she fit into their surroundings. The scent on her pelt was reminiscent of the time that Kierkegaard had spent on the shore so that he could be near to Caiaphas. Seeing the wispy hybrid so near to his own pack was an oddity when she carried the scents of the ocean. The ashen brute was not one to press, though, and he swiftly tucked the thoughts away for a later time. As they stood, it appeared as though the stranger could not speak to him in the same voice that he was capable of. For a moment, he found a shred of sympathy in his heart, but it soon vanished with the premise that she did not have to endure the prolonged conversations with uninteresting parties. The ghost had seen his fair share of many, and he was not eager to think of the others he would be subject to. Though he had traveled a great distance in his life, the pallid brute could not recall having come across another beast so peculiar. There was relief in her presence; should he not wish to speak, he did not have to. But he did feel – for the first time in his life – that he should say something.
 
From the back of her throat, there rose a wispy purr that struck the air a way a birdsong would. Drawing the length of his ears forward to capture the sound, Kierkegaard blinked softly. It was not a sound that he was familiar with, and so he could not register it to any particular emotion. Instead, he darted his vision to the remains of the hare and frowned; it could have been used to stock the cache within the pack. The very idea of the wolves of the thick wood brought a twist into his gut. The pale brute could not understand how he had come to detest them so. They were all so false, and he could not take the sight of their complacent submission any longer. Kierkegaard had cooped himself up inside of the pack since his arrival, and the soul of a vagabond was humming inside of him once more. He could not remain inside the forest forever. The world beyond was far more breathtaking than anything he had seen inside of the Rosings pack.
 
Motioning with his muzzle, the ghost prompted the woman to follow him as they walked. If he could put a great deal of distance between himself and the borders that held his scent, perhaps he would not wish to return to the thick tangle of trees. The company of the mute was welcome in spite of his own reclusive nature. She did not bombard him with numerous questions, and she was not a reminder of his past. There was something about it that made her pure. He could not have described it if it was asked of him, but the pale beast found her being to be warming and welcome. Kierkegaard had never felt it before, but it was a strange level of comfort that had settled in his tired bones.
 
As the haggard brute continued to trek away from the forest, he did not stop to explain why he had come from within the pack. Surely, she was curious to know how he had taken her rabbit if it had crossed the border into the wood, but he was not in the mood to speak of his claim. It had been a poor decision, and the vicious ghost regretted it. The longer that he called Rosings his home, the harder it was for him to stand as a true leader for the wolves. He did not care for them. He would have allowed them all to die if it had come to that. It was the art of war that he had been taught, and though there were many who frowned upon it, their opinions did not stir him. Finding his tired body more at ease outside of the pack, the pale mercenary turned his attention on the halfling once more. “I am Kierkegaard, but I suppose you cannot offer your own name,” his voice struck the air with a weary breath, and though his words still rumbled in his chest… he sounded tired.
 
“You are like a night sky. Nathimmel.” And though she was certain to have received many monikers from those she met, this would be what he would call her.

The serpent wolf regarded his territory borders not with pride and ownership, but with the weariness of a struggle long endured — a weariness that ought to have been too heavy to sustain the thread of disgust that led his ghostly footfalls far and away. He angled his muzzle and Coelacanth followed willingly, her lithe paws taking two dancing steps for every one of his longer strides; she found in his answering quiet a deep-seated comfort, for in his silence and the fire of his eyes, she saw Amoxtli. She worried for this wolf — he appeared haggard, touched like the other wolves of the wilds by the famine that had claimed so many lives; but beyond that, there was a weight upon his soul that was palpable to the cerulean-eyed empath.

Relaxing fully in his company, guileless and content, the inky ingénue found herself surprised when the pallid wraith turned to her quite simply and offered his name — “Kierkegaard,” she quietly thought, mulling over the foreign syllables and the ease with which he’d given them to her with a shy and tremulous smile shaping her tender mouth. The look she turned upon him was as sunny as Amoxtli’s in that moment; hers was a dog’s happiness, pure and unfettered and honestly a little foolish, and she reached shyly forth to brush her cheek along the lean and rangy muscle of his shoulder as they walked together. Given her time with Marbas, one would have thought that Seelie would learn something about interacting with wolves who were not members of her immediate family — but this was not the case.

“You are like a night sky,” the ghostly wolf murmured, his tired voice pulling at her heartstrings and enchanting her all at once, and without preamble he captured her with a name. “Nathimmel.” A night sky. Nathimmel, she thought, tasting the name as she had tasted his. It bore a dark, rich sound unlike any word she had heard before, and the pace of her dainty, catlike paws quickened as she bounded a few yards forward, then circled back to him, seablue eyes glowing brightly with feelings she would never fully convey. She tilted her finely-sculpted head back and howled, a soft, elongated whisper, and sidestepped neatly as her arched back and inkbrush tail shaped the height of her elation. To Marbas, she was a creature of the sea — to Doe, a faithful and shifting pocket of ink — and to Kierkegaard, the night sky.

But you are a halfbreed — only a halfbreed, and a mute — the dark and lonely voice wanted to whisper, and she closed her ears to it with considerable effort that revealed itself in a flicker of her tufted ears as they cupped forward upon her narrow skull to catch Kierkegaard’s every breath.

The gentle touch of her cheek against his shoulder was almost foreign; it was the touch of another that had taken him by surprise, but it was not unwelcome. For a fleeting moment, the ashen male craned his neck around so that he could look upon her with his smoldering gaze and breathe. The quiet beauty of her was startling to the nomad. Kierkegaard had traveled a great duration of his life but never before had he come across such a stunning example of what wolves should be. All of the company that he had shared had not shown him such kindness and the warmth of her cerulean gaze was almost like a touch of comfort in itself. Her lack of speech was a blessing on his mind; he did not have to listen to the babbling of a stranger who spoke without the true knowledge of the world. It was as if he were stepping into the winter winds and breathing the crisp air that both shocked and livened him.
 
Nathimmel was not without words, though.
 
The ink-cloaked halfling had come to life at his few words – she darted forward and then back to him, halting so as to raise her tapered muzzle toward the sky and exhaled her voice. There was more expression in the twisting of her limbs and the sway of her heavily coated figure than there were in his entire vocabulary. In many ways, the wolfdog was more than he; she had evolved into something greater than he ever could. There was a fraction of him that was saddened by this. The ghost felt a twinge of melancholy at the thought that a mute had become an unearthly being in her short years, and he had wandered on for ages in hopes of finding the light that she held. The great brute was not one to believe in fates or the swing of the pendulum called ‘destiny,’ but there was a small whisper in the maze of his mind that suggested… perhaps he was where he needed to be. All of the actions that Kierkegaard had taken had pulled him into that singular moment. He could not have stated whether or not he was thankful or wary of such a turn of events. It was only within those past few months that he had dwelled often in the depths of his mind – analyzing everything with pinpoint precision until it ate away at him and all that he was.
 
When the breathy voice had faded and the sharp blue of her vision clung to him, he could not help the flicker of his leathery lips. The soft curl of a smile had almost been forgotten. It was as if his grizzled face had lost the memory of the action and forsaken him. Somehow, Nathimmel had rediscovered it without great effort. A light struck his fiery gaze and he breathed deeply, exhaling through his nares all of the wicked forces that had lingered there. The ghost knew that they would not be gone for long, though. They would return with a vengeance and he feared the ironclad clasp they would have on his mentality. That was the catch; he could abandon the plaguing thoughts for a short time, but they were sure to return with a tighter hold, and he was not certain that he could free himself again. The situation that he found himself in was an odd one. Nathimmel was a momentary light on his dismal state, but he could not ask her to explain to him her nature. He could not inquire how she had become such a pure soul – he simply had to live in that moment.
 
Fastening himself tightly to her shadowy visage, the pallid wanderer moved to close the distance that there was between them. He willed for their pelts to touch – just so that the length of his ragged fur could twine with her feathery tufts. Without the strength to prevent the words from falling from his lips, he peered at her sadly and uttered, “you have found me at a bad time in my life.” There was regret immediately afterward simply because he feared that she would request an explanation. The proof was evident in his unkempt figure. What once had been a powerful form had faded into something much more… tattered.

Even had Coelacanth been privy to Kierkegaard’s thoughts, she would never have believed them. It was not that her opinion of herself was particularly low, but she knew well her limits — and in these wilds, she had learned with enforced alacrity that although they did not multiply in number, they absolutely did so in weight. It was more prominent out here that she could not speak; it was more evident that she was a weaker, smaller creature than her full-blooded brethren. Her gently-reared upbringing had not prepared her for life outside the protective bubble of immunity that came with being the naturally appeasing, submissive daughter of a king. Her flesh was virginal and unsullied, unmarked by any scars or scores save the vertical line tucked within the inkdark hollow of her throat. She was a dancer, not a fighter, and the generations of domesticated dogs that dappled her DNA lent her a childlike quality that would never truly leave her.

The inky ingénue did not quail at the sudden, near-physical force of Kierkegaard’s sunrise eyes gripping her own; yet her dainty paws etched an indecisive staccato step as she faltered, recalling only after her impulsive action that it was unwise to take such liberties with unfamiliar wolves. Had she overstepped her bounds by touching him so boldly? Her feathered tail sketched a quick apology, beating like a caged bird against her slim hocks — but she recovered neatly at the lively spark kindled within those fiery depths, a new light of interest and warmth that had not been present moments ago. Her keen seablue eyes mapped the differences between the Cortens and Kierkegaard — there was a spectral, otherworldly quality about the long-legged serpent wolf that none of her father’s wolves could boast. They were robust and hardy creatures of the sand and sea, painted in earthen tones and compactly constructed. Only Amoxtli bore the flicker of flame within his plush pelage, and only Kirynnae and Catori bore the pallid coat of Seelie’s beloved spirit bears. Kailani, too, was unique in her blue-black and silver loveliness — but this wolf —

This wolf, with the pale ash of his coat and the monochromatic gradient that darkened into charcoal, soot, and ink along his shoulders, back, and saddle was wholly new and strikingly familiar. In his eyes she saw Amoxtli’s fire kindled against the amber flicker of Corten orange; in the pallid fur she saw Kirynnae, Catori, and their ursine guides; in the ink of his spine she saw Kailani — and yet, he was completely foreign from all that she knew and understood. He dwarfed her completely, but she felt no fear — he had not yet given her reason to. The barest flicker of a smile claimed his kohl-lined lips and a deep breath swelled his boxy chest, then spilled from his nares — he closed the distance that separated them and with a serpentine motion of her own his Nathimmel snaked her body along his taller one like a cat. She did not press herself to him but merely allowed the uneven lengths of his fur to tangle alluringly with her feathered pelage, drawing her body in a circle and curling her slender haunches to sit demurely facing him.

What he intimated then was strange: “you have found me at a bad time in my life.” Tipping her finely-sculpted head first to one side, then the other, “I do not understand,” bespoke Kierkegaard’s Nathimmel. There was no other time to meet him; there was no better time. Although the weight of weariness and sorrow lay upon his haunted frame like a burial shroud, Coelacanth could not see what he perhaps saw, looking at himself. He was tall of stature and long of leg — a handsome specimen. The tattered and unkempt edges lent him a weathered air, like the scored binding of a well-loved volume or the patina of a rare and tempered metal, and the inky Groenendael cross could not look upon him and see anything but dignity and strength. “What is wrong?” she wondered, an airy whine falling from her lips. Her eyes, glittering with oceanic bioluminescence, traced his face as her tufted ears sprang forth upon her skull with pointed poignancy. He could speak to her, if he wished. She would never tell his secrets, even if she could.

She was young and beautiful, and he was aged and worn. It was startling to see the differences between them - she was a stunning expanse of night sky, and he was a cracked and barren wasteland. There was a part of him that wished he could have come across her in his youth. Perhaps she could have helped him - crafted him into something better than what he had become. It was a foolish thought, but one that drifted through his mind nevertheless. His life could have been so very different; it could have been better. 

Trying to cast the thoughts aside, the ghost moved to focus on their current situation, but he could not help but to realize how very young she was and how old he felt. She had so much ahead of her, and he wondered if life would tarnish her youth in the same manner that it had taken his own. Part of him resented his own upraising, for it had been nearly nonexistent. Simha had not raised him as his own; he had played the role of father until Kierkegaard had aged enough to fend for himself. Without Moz, he would not have survived as long as he had. A pang struck his heart as he recalled his sister with a strange fondness. The emotion was quick to elude him, though, as he tried to grasp what it might have been. It was better left alone - she had gone, and so had he. 

The inquisitive expression on the dark female's face brought a stabbing to his chest. He wished he could explain to her, but he did not have the words. Instead, he breathed outward and attempted a ghostly smile. It turned into something more akin to a grimace, but it was the attempt that mattered. He realized, with regret, that he should not have spoken at all. It did no good to plague her with the thoughts that weighed heavily on his mind. Instead, he attempted to force the hypotheticals from his mind and focus on his future, and the future of the pack that he had overtaken. It would be time for him to depart, he knew, but he would need the appropriate means. 

Flicking the tip of his tail, the pallid and rangy brute swung his head to face her with an intense expression. "You smell of seafoam," he remarked in a quiet rumble. "Do you live near the water?" he then inquired with an awkward twist of his mouth. If he were to ever find her again, he realized that he would require a starting point for tracking. The questioning look on her own face was forgotten for a moment. He only hoped that he could keep the conversation away from his own blunders. 

Coelacanth did not quail from Kierkegaard’s intent expression; his fiery gaze was too poignantly reminiscent of Corten’s descendants to ever fear it. Quite the opposite, she found it easy to lose herself in those citrine eyes, even as her tapered muzzle dipped in an affirmative nod to his query. The inky ingénue, having known her weary companion for less than a day, already trusted him implicitly — and when it came time for her to leave him and return to her brother for the night, she did so with a soft brush of her muzzle against one serpentine shoulder and a lilting whine of affection.