Blackfeather Woods a bad thought is blossoming behind my skull
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#1
Joining 
 
@Vaati

idk how this is gonna work because she doesn't speak english and is primarily nonverbal, but i figured we'd give it a shot

she danced closer and closer to the rotting borders of blackfeather woods, spurned on by the cold and a certain loneliness that had set in.

she raised her muzzle to the air, leathery nostrils moving rythmically as she tasted the gore that marked the borders.  although she had been raised entirely in solitude, and though she knew little english, she still had enough sense to let out a high, ringing call that reverberated through the dark forest ahead.

now what? she wasn't sure what came next; she'd never done this before and now an uncertainty was creeping up in her gut.


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#2
Vaati's instruction that he stay away from the borders had only served to push Ramsay toward them. There was something out there his older brother feared and didn't want him being exposed to, but Ramsay was a creature who succumbed easily to curiosity. He wrongly assumed that Vaati was afraid of Beruthiel; Ramsay was afraid of her, too, but he hadn't seen her near the borders since, and wrongly assumed yet again that she was nothing to fear any longer. Anyway, if there was something out there Vaati didn't want him to see, then obviously he had to see it.

So again he went where he wasn't meant to, and this time there was someone who wasn't Indra, Beruthiel or any of his pack mates. A narrow-faced individual, reminding him of Cicero and Euron in a way, but with even more delicate cheek bones. She was inversely countershaded, which enhanced the play of light and shadow upon her and made her stand out crisply, especially against the bright snow in the outlands. Ramsay noted all these things with a quick sweep of his darkening eyes, then settled his gaze on her nose.

He was still quite small, reaching only to the outsider's elbows, having not yet reached the point in his growth where his body would rapidly shoot up until he reached his full size. On top of that, he was about half her length. It hurt to look up at her with his rigidly short neck, but he did the best he could. Rather than indicating that he had any idea what he was doing or any business meeting anyone on the borders by interpreting her howl and asking about her name or her skills, Ramsay did what he did best and took a flat out approach that betrayed his ignorance: "whadda you want?"

Ramsay's mostly here to get in trouble for being here, but also this is a good merc opp and learning opp for him, so hope you don't mind me until Vaati arrives!
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#3
 
i don't mind at all!

out of all the things she'd expected, this had not been one of them — stumbling out of the woods is a babe, grotesquely disfigured by nature and inbreeding.  the most animal part of her brain states that if this were her child she'd have culled him at birth with a quick snap of that short spine, and that he is still young enough to do so —

but he is not hers, and savage as she was this was not someting she would mess with.  curiously, she cranes her head down slow to position herself eye-to-eye with the peculiar child so he didn't have to crank his neck at such an uncomfortable angle.

he barks at her, something incomprehensible but assertive and she cocks her head, vocalizing back at him with a bark of her own that tapers off into a questioning grumble.  her ears swivel forward, cupped at the top of her skull before sliding back against its delicate curveature.


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She didn't reply. Instead, the stranger barked at him, a sudden blast of sound that made Ramsay snatch his ears back against his scalp. The beginnings of a scowl marked his eyes as he scrutinized Reigi, with a silent question of his own that coincided with her punctuating rumble. He didn't get what her problem was; why didn't she answer him, like any other civilized wolf would? Ramsay incorrectly figured it was related to her unusual appearance.

"Hull-ooo," said the dwarf, cautiously pulling his ears up but poising them for retreat should she emit such a sudden sound again. He did his best to read her body language—he, as all wolves, was at least fluent in that—but she mostly just seemed confused and uncertain, which didn't match with the frightfully loud noise she'd made. His family members didn't bark very often; as a matter of fact, it wasn't a sound that Ramsay could ever remember hearing at such a close proximity. In the distance, sure, but up close like this, it just seemed kind of rude and made to startle. He didn't understand her, just as she didn't understand him. "Can't you say anything?"
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#5

he scrutinizes her, such a keen eye for such a child, and she surveys his annoyed expression with a kind of confusion.  what did he want from her?  she is beginning to become frustrated with both her inability and the situation.

he makes a noise, so she copies it the best she can, a drawn out rr-ooooo.  would that appease him?


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#6
Well, this was going about as smoothly as Rocky Road ice cream. The boy twitched his raven lips exasperatedly, and then asked, "looking for a leader?" If nothing else, Ramsay knew who to go to for pack leader things, even if he himself had some problems with authority, as evidenced by his continuing to go to the borders in spite of explicit instructions not to. He obviously didn't really know any better, since he did so without even a trace of guilt, even when the Dark Master himself caught him.

By now his border excursions had taught him that strangers couldn't enter the woods, so rather than offering to bring Reigi in as he had with Indra, Ramsay opened his muzzle and howled awkwardly for @Vaati. The sound was high and strained, partly because he was just a child and partly because, with his head fused almost directly to his shoulders, it was hard and painful to lift his muzzle enough to adequately open up his vocal chords. The result was a half-canted head with a pained expression and a howl that wavered on the brink of dying out entirely.
in our town the hangman came, smelling of gold, blood and flame
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#7
At the half-strangled warble emitting like a beacon from the borders, Vaati moves quickly to meet the being sounding the call. But the being doing so does not surprise him, and he does not take much note to his brother lounging on the border where he had been instructed not to go. Vaati knows they have not been listening. They did not want to heed his word of caution, fine. But Vaati would not be rescuing them if they were plucked from the borders whilst disobeying his instructions. At least Maegi had the sense to understand what was best for their safety, what was best for everyone else, but then again, it was she who he favoured. At this point, he does not bother to dismiss the kid from his company, seeing it rather as a learning opportunity not to be wasted. Pulling himself together and planting his heavy feet before the stranger, pointed ears stand upright as if asserting his dominance. "Looking to join?" He voices gruffly to the woman, taking note of her unusual silence. His head tilts slightly, as if to beckon an answer from her, and wonders if that is even in her capability. If not, that does not matter to him. They need numbers, those willing to learn, not necessarily mouths.
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#8

let me know if you want this changed

he says something that is all consonants, low and rumbling, and she stares through him in pleading confusion.  in the end she is unable to glean anything from their interaction, and by his tone of voice she feels as though she has done something wrong[/].

oh.

she wants to know how to make it better.  her tongue escapes from her slim jaws and she smooths it over her muzzle.  why did she even try this?  she'd [i]never
had any luck with these conglomerates of other wolves, and she doubted she'd ever find one that accepted her.

anxiously, she shifted her weight before bounding off without another vocalization.

there was no fixing this.  there never was.

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#9
Hm. What a strange creature. Reigi turned and fled all of a sudden, and Ramsay watched her go, incorrectly surmising that Vaati was to blame when really, it was just an animal's mercurial nature. "She is scared," Ramsay concluded with a thin grin. "We scared her." And with that he turned and slunk back into the woods, promptly putting the speechless wolf out of his mind without even realizing how much she reminded him of Relmyna.
in our town the hangman came, smelling of gold, blood and flame
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#10
The woman takes off before he has a chance to get a word out of her, and he looks to Ramsay with a dismissive shrug. Perhaps they did scare her, it had sure happened before. "likely so" he states, before the boy retreats back into the shadows, and Vaati casts his eyes in return to the fleeing figure in the distance. She had saved herself a whole lot of trouble by doing so, for some came and did not have the courage to leave honourably until they were hunted down for abandoning them in an hour of need. Some were just not strong enough. Once her figure has completely been erased from his vision, he takes his own leave and returns to his place in the dark woods.
for the sins of the unworthy
must be baptized in blood & fear