Deepwood Weald autré temps
5 Posts
Ooc — Houkie
Offline
#1
All Welcome 
For @Dirge, but anyone's welcome!

Days and weeks had come and gone, and the only thing that had really changed was the landscape.  Even that had only changed so much, though, as she now found herself back in the very wilderness she'd visited briefly before.  Memory flashed back to the kindly wolf she'd met at the mountains last time she'd been here.  She could remember neither his name nor the specific peak he reigned, and it was the search for him that had led her here — to this ancient, old-growth forest of stately majesty and shadowed intrigue.  The scent of other wolves was heavy in the area, and she wondered if she'd inadvertently strayed onto claimed lands.  Threading her way through the massive trunks whose dew-kissed limbs stroked the length of her body like so many caressing hands, the pale she-wolf sought to leave the wooded expanse as soon as she figured out precisely where the edges of its boundary lay.
so lay your hands across
my beating heart, love
938 Posts
Ooc — Rhys
Ranger
Offline
#2
The wind shifted as he lazed about, the boughs overhead creaking as the height of the day began to roll towards its imevitable close. For the most part things remained quiet in his little timberland, not that he had ever anticipated much clamor to be raised for loitering in the dense wood. @Nyx was without a doubt off on some other avenue of exploration, though as always she never strayed too far; nightfall would more than likely draw them to their usual rendezvous point.

Though the inclination to meander had mounted quite the assault earlier in the day, he had been content to gnaw at sticks and reeds in the misty wood, ever deliberating what move to make next, or to ponder how best to rally others to his fledgling cause. There had been those curious enough to come around, perhaps linger for a spell, but whether or not they remained and offered their loyalty was another effort entirely. He couldn't begrudge them—summer was long yet, the world wide open to venture. But so long as the weald benefited he and his sister, he would linger.

Leaving meant losing touch with Hydra again too, and he did not quite entertain that thought with anything other than disdain. No, he had reasoned as he moved along a lesser trail, leaving forfeited the opportunities therein ever dangled out of his reach. Whatever exactly they were, whatever he hoped to gain, well, all of those things were another affair for another day. Entertainment for the night to come when dreams consumed him through fitful rest, where perhaps a healthy imagination could fill in blanks better left off stage.

As it were, his gilded gaze lighted on another where the timber began to grow sparse and dwindle, and this one may have been the most surefooted yet. She wove easily against the backdrop of fern and hardwood, her steps far more calculated than others of late. And so he followed at some length behind, curious whether the timber would devour her with its depths and mist or if she would navigate it in the way he and Nyx had, a careful precision afforded by those as confident as they were seasoned pathfinders. He did not mask his study of her, nor try to conceal that he fell into trailing her with all the laze lent to a young man of poorly thought out decisions; it was a curious venture—a risk if she thought so poorly and turned to set her teeth to unmarred flesh.
5 Posts
Ooc — Houkie
Offline
#3
HI I AM SLOW

Somewhere betwixt one moss-laced trunk and the next, she became aware that she was followed.  It was not obvious to her right away, but rather a series of subtle clues.  A soft footfall, a fleeting scent on the breeze -- fickle as it was 'neath the cover of this great wood -- a rearward glance met with a flash of russet fur.  After some time she drew to a halt, ears turned rearward and hackles partially raised, alert.  She turned and cast about with eyes of glacial ice.  A shift in the shadows here, a subtle movement of a gnarled bough there.  Then she saw him as he appeared between trees:  a large wolf, male, heavy in stature and draped in colors of darkness and warm earth.  Suspicious as she was of his tracking her, his face betrayed no ill intent.  Rather, he wore an mask of curiosity and quiet interest, and her misgivings quieted somewhat.  She tilted her head at him, her expression mirroring his for the moment.  When he drew nearer, she asked simply, "Why are you following me?"
so lay your hands across
my beating heart, love
938 Posts
Ooc — Rhys
Ranger
Offline
#4
At some point as expected, she had become aware of his presence. It had only been a hunch carried along, its truthful point confirmed as her voice called back to him through the reeds. He felt a smile come to his face with ease, by now closer to her than he had been over their short span—perhaps her steps had slowed after all, somewhere, and now in their halt had lured him in all along.

At least relatively unobscured now, he could admire the way faint color found its way into her pale coat and that too was obvious. The season had been favorable to her as it had him, within reason, and she bore the evidence lent to those who wandered... or doomed to it.

"Wouldn't you follow someone wandering close to your claim?" His head tilted inquistively; his eyes roamed over her shoulder to the point of her nose. "Or would you set teeth to their hide?"