waterworld

Bringing a little bit of twister destruction to NP. :) For everyone - if you'd like me to PP your character, send me a PM! I will make vague reference to the kidlets, but you can definitely be the one that scampered off. :D @Kaskara @Pasha @Allure II @Whittier @Swift @Tryphon @Jorunn @Kieran

The wind and driving rain forced the wolves deep into the forest, abandoning high ground for the shelter of the dense pines. The slopes immediately below Nova Peak were a no-go - lightning struck the mountain repeatedly, dislodging enormous shards of rock from its dark face that crashed, then shattered or rolled into the treeline. For miles around, the earth vibrated with the awesome power of nature.

Bazi and @Scimitar shepherded the younger members of the pack away from the rendezvous site, arriving damp and exhausted into the very core of Northwoods. "Under the tree," Bazi whispered urgently to her husband, ushering her family into the depression beneath an enormous pine.

OK - next person to post, roll a 1d10 dice, match the number to an event, and post accordingly!

1 - 3: Lightning strikes the pine they're sheltering under
4 - 6: The lakes that feed the Bitcurrent are flooding - the force of the water explodes through the mountain like a giant firehose and water comes through the forest with all the force of Swiftcurrent Creek
7 - 10: A huge piece of the mountain dislodges and rolls all the way through the Northwoods, crushing everything in its path

Well.. that was an unfortunate roll.

His eyes sluiced across the darkened skies – lightning reflected across the peaks of their home, flashing so brightly that Scimitar could have swore he would see the defining contours of shadows and the trees of The Northwoods, if only for seconds at a time.
 
Bazi’s voice broke through his thoughts, and the ivory female guided them to a shelter. His heart skipped a beat as his eyes studied the children, his form wrapping about them to herd them closer to one another and the tree they sought. He almost contemplated dragging them back to the shelter of their old den – but with the lightning scraping across the heavens, he dare not.
 
His muzzle lifted, clipping a short cry for their other pack members – a check in of sorts. Were they okay? He would still for a moment, his muscles tensed as he awaited a response – but what he heard was not the familiar sound of his comrades returning their point of location.. the sharp crack above them confused him at first, until he smelt the burning smoke. The tree they huddled under was on fire.
 
“Move,” he barked sharply, his muzzle sweeping to Bazi’s hind limb to encourage her to push the puppies away from this new terror.

pasha no y u try 4 escape

Though there had been storms that caressed the mountain throughout the summer, this was by far the worst that Pasha had lived through thus far. And though there were far and few guarantees he would continue to survive — such being natural life and law — he could not help but feel a certain tension and invigoration rising from the peak of the storm that had come wildly to their home.

The strike of lightning to the treetops they resided beneath was deafening. It was confusing. He had yelped out when the bolt came from the dark skies, though the sound was lost to the earth quaking and the roar of power so much stronger than anything they could have physically performed. He had pressed his growing body against the curve of his mother's belly, somewhere squashed cleanly between his siblings. Their warmth was of little comfort to him in the resulting chaos — the boy felt the urge to bolt and scatter, find somewhere that was much more safer than their exposed environment.

Yet in the tangle of limbs ahead and behind him, Pasha could not escape. He scrambled and writhed, lashing out momentarily at one of his siblings in the form of a hard bite. Move! it demanded, and once more as he bit roughly at the foreleg of his mother. Move! He dared to find a way of escape, willing his lanky youth to slip out into the darkness of the night and through the storm.

There had been storms before, but none had the power behind them that this one had. He felt the clamor of it in his paws, in his chest, and the wind and rain stung his face. He had never shown much fear or respect for storms before, but this one unsettled him, and so did the cues he picked up from his parents as they ushered them to a safer location. For once, their stubborn son did not hesitate to listen, and quietly tucked under the tree beside them as the mountain king gathered them close. He watched the turbulence around them with uncertainty, occasionally shrinking back as lightning rent the skies overhead.

They had barely taken shelter when one such streak of fury touched the tree they huddled beneath, setting it ablaze. His father commanded them to move with a sharp bark, and he was on his feet to do just that, until the tip of a burning branch fell off to land across his foot. The fire immediately burned his paw, and with a yelp of pain and surprise he leaped sideways, crashing into Pasha and shoving him away. It was enough to free his brother from the tangle of limbs that barred him, and Swift watched with wide eyes as Pasha fled away from his family, into the dark around them.

"Pasha!" he called, forgetting his stinging paw for the moment.

Whatever it was that shook the very heavens above them, the little girl wanted no part in it. Her bi-toned form was pressed against her mother’s, her tiny nose trying to press itself even further in to the plush of her fur and ribs. A whimper escaped her as a crack of thunder rolled above, and at her parents request, the girl slunk to the tree, her tail tucked tightly between her legs.

She barely had a moment to hunker down and snuggle indefinitely against Whittier when the world lit up quick a sharp flash – and suddenly, her nose smelled the burnt bark. Her father’s urgency only caused her aqua eyes to widen, and as Pasha bounded forward, panic fully set in, the girl found herself unable to do the same. Fear held her rooted to the spot.

Scimitar rounded his children -- Allure, who seemed frozen by fear, and Whittier, who was slower than the others. His eyes drifted between them and his other two children who were ahead with their mother. Jorunn was amongst them all, and as his jaws moved down to grasp at Allure's scruff and lift her up, the family propelled down the peak edges, away from the crackling of the beginning fire.

Heat burned at his fur, even still as they moved farther from the danger, and glancing back, he could see his the tip of his tail had been singed -- a pain he would feel only later, when the adrenaline had left his body.

Down the slopes they went, careening. He did not glance back, but he could tell the fire had not stopped where it had struck originally -- slowly, it would burn their home, and everything his children knew. Pasha slipped away form them -- Swift's cry announcing it to the father, and uttering a harsh growl, his own paws moved in the direction of his son.. the family attempting to stay together despite the fear that clung to them.

Today was a crucial lesson in just how nasty the world could have been. Pasha really didn't register the fact that his family had been at some point technically hot on his heels, he merely took off. Being freed gave him the most relief he suspected that he had ever felt, and perhaps up until that point in his short memory it was really the best relief he had. But the storm was building and just getting started, bearing down on them with ferocity that propelled him forward.

Lightning lit up the world around him, prompting him at least once to squeal like the babe he really was. He found himself changing direction when it flashed, as though it were stonewalling him through the pockets of forest and open terrain. And it was to the woods that he felt the encouragement to stick — something about the openness of the various paths and ridges of the peak did not appeal to him. Whether it was simply because of a budding fear of the storm or out of instinct that he did not entirely possess the ability to control himself across the loose terrain, that was anyone's guess.

Most importantly, he did not realize that the only one behind him now was his father.

He felt the onset of fear as it crept up his spine, as his heart beat faster as though trying to run away from it. He stared after his brother, too startled to chase. His father thundered past him, jarring him from his fixation. He moved to his mother, Allure and Whittier then, and nosed his way in between them, with his head lifted to resume staring after Scimitar and Pasha.

One moment she was crouched upon the ground, frozen in her fear and the next she was swinging from her father’s jaws. She was heavier now – such was apparent in the grunt Scimitar made when he scooped her up, and the awkward way in which she hung from the air.

A flash of light across the sky indicated the storm was nowhere near over, and the girl closed her eyes tightly, wishing it to go away and for this all to be a terrible nightmare. They charged after Pasha, who broke away – and after they moved a bit further, her father dropped her back to the ground and not as gently as she would have liked. Being nudged forward, her eyes strained, locking upon Swift’s face before she moved to his side and leaned against him.

In all of this, Bazi was beyond useless. The lightning strike hit her senses hard, poaching her brain in its juices. Had Scimitar not been present, she might have stayed beneath that tree and burned - her children alongside her.

But he was, and she didn't. The shell-shocked wolf allowed herself to be herded through the rain, away from the burgeoning blaze, heat on her back and heart fluttering like a trapped bird in the back of her throat. Scimitar thundered after Pasha, leaving the rest of the family huddling together - damp to their core, but out of harm's way. Like Swift, Bazi just stared after them, hunched and gaping when she should have been comforting her kids.

Scimitar, only moments after tearing after his son, knew he was not the right wolf for the job. The boy was terrified, and within moments, the agouti man lost sight of him. Scimitar was thunderous and slow, unable to keep up with his son, and soon, panic seized him as well. “Bazi,” he shouted, for the first time in his life, terror clinging to his very tone. “Bazi, come get him!” His mate was faster – and as much as he would have given everything he had to catch up to that boy, he knew he would not be able to. Skirting part way back to the group, for he had not gotten far, Scimitar’s bright eyes fell upon Bazi, willing her to track down their son and bring him back.. she was the one with these talents, not him.

"Bazi!"

Scimitar's voice thundered in her ears, closely followed by a loud crack of the real thing. Wind, fire, rain, and panic churned around her like a hurricane. For one long second, it was all Bazi could to do to stay upright and breathe.

But only for a second. Before she could give in to the dark allure of shutting down, instinct revved its engines - Bazi shot through the forest like an adrenaline-fuelled torpedo. She blazed past Scimitar, zipped between trees and rocks and through turns that a Tron bike would not have managed. Find @Pasha. Find Pasha.

And find him she did.

Mother and son returned to the rest of the family at a brisk trot. Pasha's ruff was clamped between Bazi's jaws, and she was struggling not to drag his rear end in the mud. The Frostfurs moved quickly after that. The four pups were corralled between their parents and pushed to run - out and away from the Northwood, which burned orange at their backs. Their home was gone.

Scooping up Pasha and getting outta here! I think that makes sense from a story point of view, let me know if I should change. :D Last one from me if no changes.

Scimitar’s thundering voice scared her more than anything else – terrified, she heard her father’s shouts as he came barreling back to them, and before she could question any of the reasoning, her mother shot forward, faster than she had ever seen the pale she-wolf move.

Scimitar herded them forward once more and the family continued to race down the slopes of their home – a home that was now lost to them. Never before had Allure run as fast in her life either, but she moved with purpose. Smoke burned her nostrils, and tears stung her eyes – she did not even spare a glance back to her birth home.

Bazi need no coaxing – her maternal instincts went in to overdrive, and the white bullet shot past him in the direction of their son. He could only hope now that she would find him quickly and skirt back to the family.
 
With the others corralled together, the family ran down the mountain, stumbling at times, and fleeing from their burning home. Scimitar would stop to nudge a pup onward at times, and unlike his daughter, he did steal a few glances back. Their home was erupted in flame and smoke – the Northwoods on fire and the Frostfur’s now homeless. Onward they moved to see if they could find the others.

His mother left, and so he took up a position at his father's leg, and here he stayed as the family moved down the mountain. Though he was scared, he did dare to look back, and his eyes were filled with the horror of ravenous flame as it devoured his home. His heart beat hard in his chest as his paws worked to run as fast as they could. Not only did the fire consume the mountain, it had burned his confidence and his former boldness had been relegated to ash.