Whitefish River The soft and fading light

Perhaps for a Morningside member? @Sunny @Shale @Screech etc :D

She felt better alone. The Blackfeather Woods' scent had washed off her body and she felt truly free now. No one knew her out of her former home, and that felt like a new start. Who cared about family when freedom and adventure tasted so much richer? So much more powerful?

The river she followed trailed alongside a cavern. She expected the opening of it, the glimmering of quartz interesting her. The lights glittered in her mismatched eyes, seemingly entranced as she entered the mouth to inspect the shiny stones. Dozens of them decorated the walls, the roof, even the very floor she stood upon. It smelled damp, but not as menacing as the tunnels back at Blackfeather Woods. Bones were also scattered here, something that barely alerted her.

She approached a piece of quartz, white as sea foam and shiny like a diamond, that had fallen from the place it had once been stuck in. Somehow, she could relate to this piece of beauty. With a paw did she stroke it, before taking the pebble-sized piece in her mouth. It tasted somewhat weird, but not poisonous, and then she was on her way to carrying it out of the cavern.

Seeing as this looks like a little lonely thread, I hope you won't mind me? If any of the tagged parties join, Wraen can leave. :)

Instead of spending her day hunting and tracking in Hoshor plains, Wraen wanted to venture further for a change. Once she had arrived to the Whitefish river and spotted a flock of mallards in the distance, a decision was made to remain in the area for now. Her ordeal with the goose-hunt was still vivid in her memory, therefore she was quite happy that her objects of interest were smaller in size, numerous and more inclined to run than to defend themselves and attack.

She approached the flock with relative ease and meandered in their vicinity nonchalantly, sniffing around, nearing the birds and then distancing herself. To her mind this was the way to go - make herself as inconspicious as possible and get them used to her presence. She was about to take her hunt from level 1 (approach) to level 2 (first attempt), when something else alerted and scared the ducks - with flapping sound they all left the ground and landed several feet over to, where there was water visible between the cracked and melted ice.

Wraen's disappointment was great and, failing to see any fault with her doings, she turned around to find out, who else was to blame. She caught sight of a black wolf in a distance - too far away to be the cause, but close enough to spark the young hunter's curiousity and encourage her to walk towards the person, which was of less interest to her than the object he or she was carrying in his/her mouth.

Mismatched eyes slid comfortable across the land. Everything was so bright outside of the woods. Why hadn't she left earlier? Why hadn't any of them? Perhaps then they wouldn't have suffered the humiliation of losing to some other pack on their own lands. Everything had been on their side except pure luck. How typical.

Koume froze when she saw the grey female make her way towards her and she bit harder on the quartz. This was hers, that much was clear by the defensive pose she took on.

Unlike the woman, who Wraen had met some weeks earlier, and who had obliged in entertaining her curiousity about the odd stone and then made the young hunter very afraid, this one did not seem nearly as friendly. Quite the contrary, by the time she had approached and was within a comfortable distance to have a good look at the stranger and a hint of idea, what the object was, the defensive manner of the other detained her from coming any nearer. 

"What have you got there?" she decided to ask and in case of an answer, the other would have to put down the thing on the ground. And thus Wraen could see all the better, what it was.

Koume squinted. She felt accused, angered - exposed! It was like she wasn't meant to be here and this woman was calling her out. Koume was never in a good mood. For nobody. She had nobody to care for, had never learned to do so either, but now she didn't even have the protection of the dark woods looming over her like a threatening shadow as if her own brawny and rude appearance didn't put others off enough already.

She lowered her muzzle to the ground, placing her treasure there but hovering above it as close as she could. A shiny rock. She answered bluntly.

The other's wave of frustration was a mystery to Wraen, because - though she had softly forced her presence at the wolf - she hadn't acted in any way than being polite, friendly and calm. Then again her only interest was in the "shiny rock" that now was lying on the ground with it's owner's body shielding it protectively. She reasoned that, if you were curious about the object, you did not have to like or try to impress the person to whom it belonged. 

"I am not going to take it away from you," she told reassuringly. "Where did you find it?"

Koume's frustration was a mystery to everyone - even to the brat herself. Perhaps it was a lack of friends, love and understanding but friendship ended, love would be over in a jiffy and did anyone really understand another or just themselves? She was anti-bullshit and these things seemed a little vague to her.

With one back leg she scratched her belly. The cavern there. She said with a slight point to the opening of it. Perhaps that would be distraction enough for the nosy female.

"And are there more rocks like these there?" Wraen continued to dig for more information, ignoring the fact that the black wolf was not very willing to share the details or talk to her at all. It would probably be polite to leave the person be, if they wished so, and yet the young hunter's selfish side indulged her to keep her unwanted company a little longer, because she knew she had caught a very peculiar fish in her net.

Breath in. 1 2 3. Breath out. 1 2 3. This girl was really pushing her luck. Koume bit the inside of her cheek in frustration, to keep herself calm, but she was a bomb. And the other had definitely pulled the pin to the point of balancing on the last inch. Keep breathing.

The whole cavern is full of them. So I thought it was okay to take a small one. No, it was okay to take one. No one owned that bloody cave after all. She rolled her eyes and returned to observing her "stolen" goods, mismatched eyes mirroring the sparkling of the quartz.

Wraen studied the other's features and demeanor and wondered, how long would she be able to push her luck. The hairs on her nape stood up slightly, which meant that she was very aware of the other's frustrations and that there would come a time in the very near future, that she would have to get up and run. 

"Does it possess any magic qualities?" she asked. "I met a wolf few months earlier, who seemed to be able to see future in a stone very similar to this one," she recalled the meeting with the white and very odd female wolf in the area. And she had appeared to be obsessed with the stone she had. Future-telling, however, was something Wraen had added to the story later.

She rolled her eyes again. What a bimbo. Magic doesn't exist. She stated matter-of-factly. She didn't believe in the woods' gods nor did she believe in the paranormal. the only thing real was her and what she could see and feel.

That wolf probably fooled you with some magic mumbo-jumbo shit. She commented with a disapproving look. no one could see the future, otherwise no one would get hurt anymore.

"You are probably right - though she seemed very convincing to me," Wraen replied with a light-hearted laugh. Pressing the matter further would be pointless now and feeling that it was about time she had worn the other's patience very thin, she got to her feet, stretched leisurely and with an apparent pleasure in the action. Then shook her coat and gave one last look to the wolf. "Well, thank you for sparing your precious time with me - my curiousity has been sufficiently satisfied. I will go have a look at those shiny stones myself now," and with this she headed off.

Thanks for the thread!