Wolf RPG

@Xi'nuata

The beast wandered, although it could not be so aimless as the act implied. His paws brushed heavy against the rock, torn and scabbed; each footfall was an underlying echo of pain between his toes, but he ignored it. He had been traveling for too long now. His encounter with Blacktail Deer Plateau had left him feeling sour and agitated, and he had hoped that they could at least offer him and his companions the opportunity to rest. It seemed such graciousness could not occur in pack wolves. Though he would keep his temper for now, Raheerah had made a mental note to see through those threads he had made, both silent and verbal.

For now, his focus was on exploration, scouring the land for some place suitable for Lham and the monk to hide. He sought their paradise, and though it was no paradise for the beast, he knew well enough what they wanted. What they sought lay in the mountains, surrounded on all sides and hidden from the rest of the world. A secluded little Eden all for themselves. That was why he found himself in the mountains now, scaling one particular mountain side in the hopes that he could see further from its height. Terrain was at an angle walkable, but still sharp enough that Raheerah found difficulty in traversing it as he normally would. His paws fought to make purchase on the ice covered rocks, and what earth revealed through the snow was slippery with soot, remnants of a fire long ago.

Above, the clouds churned. The skies were once more overcast and grey, but he found himself in the afternoon sun's warmth this time. It fell down between the juvenile trees, hardly hidden by any canopy of leaves. Most of what lay around him was illuminated in golden light. It was peaceful, as peaceful hiking up a mountain side could be.

It was peaceful. As peaceful as walking the naked scapes could be. However strong her convictions, however unyielding her pride, it was not enough to keep the restlessness at bay. And though she was not glad for it, she found herself walking toward the woodlands of the plateau once more. It was neither for camaraderie, or the pursuit again of food. But in the simple pleasure in bearing witness to the rise and fall of the sun behind its peaks. Such was the luxury of the wanderer; to take part in the beauty of nature at her leisure.

Though such moment's brought her no closer to a full belly, nor a warm bed to rest her head.

The last spell of comfort had been cast by the lakeside beneath the dark tresses of wild fur atop and equally wild frame. How glad she had been for that moment. It was near disheartening to know she would not encounter its likeness again.

A nomad both in name and purpose, she walked at her leisure beneath the shadows of the ridge. As the sun reached its peak smiling warmly to her withered frame, its luminous glow cast the long for shadow to conceal her ragged frame from the eyes of the all seeing. She was not a creature that took pride in her appearance, but she knew of her state... how disheveled she looked. Last she needed was the eye of another upon her casting is judging stare. Oh yes, she could feel it. Seasons of growth beneath such a gaze, she would have felt it even as she slumbered. And often did.

Sighing softly, she peered down to the blistered state of her paws. Cracked and split, furthering the width by the pressure applied with each step atop jagged foothills. The time was nigh that she would need to rest though her pace remained resilient, not urgent but steady. It was an aimless pace. A true wanderer's pace. One she had adopted and kept her rather well...

He set out his path before him. The snow was thin here, as though unable to gather higher than a couple inches before the wind and the slope would cause it to tumble down. No tracks lay out before him, but a steady trail of prints did wind around behind. He closed his eye for a moment and walked on, finding respite in this darkness against the consistent glare of the sun on the snow. It wasn't so bad the further up he traveled, where the snow thinned. Molten gaze reappeared when the beast had accidentally set his paw on a sharp branch; he put his weight on the very end of the branch and snapped it off loudly, but not without the branch sending a sliver of wood into one of the many cuts on his paw pad. A snarl tore across his face, and he stopped, leaning back onto his haunches to examine the damage.

His sights only held his paw for a moment before a figure moved in the distance. The beast caught her out of the corner of his eye, and his gaze flickered up. There he could see a tan wolf moving along the mountain side as well, surrounded by an air of familiarity in both her movements and aesthetic. It was with disbelief that he registered her face and placed a name to it - Xi'nuata. The one from the frozen lake. How strange it should be to find her here.

Raheerah raised his injured paw, grasping the sliver in his teeth and jerking it out of his skin. It left behind a swelling of crimson, but he ignored it. He replaced his paw on the ground, looked back to where he saw the loner, and uttered a strangled, hellish bay. By no means the sound a wolf should make, but it loosely came from his lips in an attempt to gather her attention.

Sound to the mind was a catalyst for memory, unearthing both deep memories and those that rested fresh upon the surface. In this instance, as the delicate winds carried the coarse tenor from the base of the mountain, like snow gently drifting from atop the land revealed beneath was a recent memory with scarred visage to recall. Swiftly her ears bent forward as her eyes grew wide, drawing orbs of amber and umber around to behold darkness incarnate thriving within the day.

Raheerah.

A name that was not formed so easily by her tongue, but in thought it was with care as if reciting her own. And with it too was the same sense of certainty. Her posture would not alter, yet the tip of her tail spared its energy to wag slightly, as did her head rise a sliver as warmth graced her cheeks. Then just as quickly, all manner of exertion was void and returned to its stoic state.

However, a thrust paw shifted purposefully to turn the female away from her endless path, and on to more meaningful ends that paused by the mountain. Each step was carefully placed though her pace remained unwavering and graceless. Had the steps been those toward her demise, even then they would not change, but perhaps might have been softer than march playing soundly atop the snow. Countless flakes creaked to her weight though their song was shortlived as the ground gave way to bits of green and frigid earth. Only when nearer to the beast, when she dared stand at but a length's breadth before him, did she scent the mountain's deep aroma as well as the hint of blood on the air.

Her brows receded into their autumnal fringe in awe, as dulled eyes flickered to life as they bore into the singular fiery gem. An injury? She had a mind to a inquire, though thought better of it when the scent made the question redundant. Briefly turning her gaze to the ground she spied the minute droplets of a spray. "Where?" she asked softly, wrinkling her nose with interest.

His head slowly began to fall to once side before she noticed him, but he straightened as she turned and redirected her path towards his company. He had to wonder what she was doing out here, what path would have taken her from the frozen lake to this forsaken mountain side. Then again, perhaps she wondered the same of him. His journey consisted of deciding points - each turn was not without its purpose or its cause. He had been led here, and he only wished to know if the same fate had drawn her to cross his path once more.

Raheerah shifted his weight. There was a dull stinging in his paw still, but it was not enough for him to cease his journey to recover. He had suffered far worse ailments than an achy paw. Still she came close and Raheerah huffed at her question, seemingly aware of the injury he sustained. "It is not your conceerrn." He rumbled, standing once more at his full height. He looked her over, seeking any changes to the physique he had seen days ago by the lake. She looked the same as she had then, and that was good enough for him. "Whaat brings you heere." The beast added, failing to let his gaze leave the tan wolf.

Though she asked, he would not offer his injury to her, a reason she believed had something to do with pride. The beast was well weathered with a plethora of scars to hint the tales of his history, yet unknown. Perhaps another to his collection did not merit the care she offered. Rather than insist on a brief inspection, she let it be, not wanting to damage their fragile understanding. A simplistic state of being, onto an intimate one.

"I came from the plateau," uttered honestly, and for a moment turned her gaze across the flatlands. "In the morning, the sun in warmest there. I wanted to see it rise from the woods," smoothly she returned her tired gaze to him. The intent sounded reasonable to her ears, and that was all she cared to regard when offering her confession to any that would listen. Her time within her mountain keep, had instilled how precious the shared word was to another. Be it truth, or offer no word at all. However simplistic. However foolish.

"...and now I return to the lake before the moon's rise," she continued just as softly. Her ears fanned back as she let her gaze graced his muzzle. "I have found no other place where the moon dances as vibrantly as it does on the water..."

With the small stinging in his paw nigh undeniable in notice, Raheerah resolved to sink back onto his haunches. He made no effort to relieve his paw of the weight of his front half, but this made it somewhat easier to ignore it. The beast wrapped his tail around his haunch and, feeling his skin prickle beneath the wind, gave a slight toss of his nape and the fur that sprouted from it. She spoke nothing more on the matter of his paw, and he opted to ignore it further, knowing well that if he should dwell on it it would only turn the ache into irritation. And he would not do well to be irritated, not right now when he was also a multitude of things - hungry, tired, exhausted from his travels.

Her mention of the plateau caused him to raise his brows. He had recently been there as well, but their encounter was brief - it was a day or so ago, as opposed to this morning. Her path must have been shorter and more concise than his own. "I doo hope you managed to avooiid the ones that craawwl it." Raheerah mentioned with regard to the plateau, and the pack that resided upon it. However, he didn't know of her relation to them, if she had any. They could be allies for all he knew.

His gaze moved out in the direction of the lake she spoke of, the lake he had first seen her traversing. It laid beyond the mountains, where the land came flat again, surrounded by the rocks and trees and the sheer wilderness. The ashy brute furrowed his brow. "Ii've not seeeen the moonliight illuminate the waters of a winter laake." He commented; as he recalled, it had been covered in a sheet of ice. Perhaps the water was still open in some parts of it. Not that it mattered to him, he had no interest in beholding this sight. Things of beauty were mortal treasures, they were below him.

In truth, she held no ill regard toward the wolves of the plateau, but neither did she believe them worth a kind word. However brief her experience, it lacked a memorable impression, no more than a wander passing the graces of another. There was no benefit to merit further thought. The individuals perhaps warranted more a delve of the mind, but as a whole they were but part of the woods; scenery to see then just as easily forgotten. "Initially... no," the words rolled smoothly from her maw as bold verse took hold of her delicate tongue. "A brush... and nothing more. Though I have grown more cautious in treading near for my purposes. Though their musk is faint. It is doesn't I would have been noticed lest they walked toward the borders..."

As he had taken a seat, she too lowered herself to ground though with forelegs outstretched and haunches firmly tucked. Her tail coiled at leisure by her thigh as she lay, only twitching so slightly by the stir of a gust of wind. To the mention of the lake, her brows receded into their autumnal peak. "Toward its center, before the lake is solid to walk across, a part of it remains a dark blue. A stone tossed across it will shatter the ice for the water to be free. And in the night, the moon may dance upon it before winter seeks to seal it again."

Such was a tale told from adult to pup during a time when innocence still reigned the young mind. However even as the age of the adult wore on, certain tales were not as easily lost as one's innocence. However silly the tale, however whimsically it was spun, it still held importance to even the heart of a wandering fool.

"And you..." she whispered, slowly her eyes drift to his paws. "What brings to this place?" A wander, perhaps...

He nodded and left it at that. She seemed to pay little mind to whatever interaction she had held with them, and though Raheerah knew little of the interaction, he wondered if it had ended in disappointment as it had with he and his wards. Still it left a bad taste in his mouth, and irritation; he saw them as untrusting, paranoid. Perhaps even greedy, but how could selfishness warrant the rejection of a proven warrior and hunter, a protector? It was then that paranoia would win over, and he would have to place the blame on the creamy male that stood aside his Alpha, the one that had regarded them with skepticism. They would see soon enough the mistake they had made.

Raheerah twitched his ear and listened to her tale. He could not understand what would compel anybody to seek beauty, to go so far as to shatter the protection of ice, to endanger one's self to witness the water that shimmered below. The act itself held no reward for him, unless he were to fish in those waters, or quell his thirst. But he accepted it anyways with a nod. Another slow breath led to a low bubble in his chest, and Raheerah cast his gaze out to the mountain side that stretched above them. "Ii seek to encompasss the whole of the mountains in my gaaaze." He rumbled, gesturing with his nose towards the top of the mountain, his destination. "So that I maay find nestled in its breast, a paaradiiise."

He hadn't told her when they first met of his intentions here, or the ones he traveled with. They had shared few words. Had he asked her if she had a home? Raheerah's expression grew contemplative for a moment, but he dismissed it. Gaze returned to Xi'nuata, returning to that stoic, hardened grimace. "Doo yoou call any place hoome?"

The eloquent tongue was a treasure among their kind. And while not all could appreciate the articulation, however coarse the voice, she was one of the few that fondly regarded the practice. Regardless of what the content may have been.

Paradise within the mountains.

A beautiful image as her mind perceived it... Perhaps more so if her eyes too beheld this splendor. But there was only the glimpses by what her mind could create, as the world as she recalled it threaten to snuff the berate the image as little more than fantasy. There was no paradise, only pain and hell within this world. Blessings to be found were those only in dreams. But she did not turn her gaze from him, nor contest his pursuit. He had been kind to respect hers. Although she could not simply not in reply when deep vocals entranced her ears by a question she dreaded.

"I do not," she growled softly and russet hairs raised sharply in defense. "Is the earth not enough of a home?"

He found it curious when she recoiled to his question. Not visibly, although her expression had changed, and her fur stood on end; he could tell that the question had put her on edge for whatever reason, even before she spoke her words. Raheerah failed to answer to her reaction at all, instead he looked her over, and twisted his expression into a scoff. "Thee earth aloone bears little promisse of saafety." He spoke, twisting an ear to the side. "There are moonsters that roam iiiiit." The beast added lowly, and his own voice, tumultuous and deep, rumbled with the words.

He could only assume then that she truly had no home; as a wanderer, she seemed to call the Earth itself her home, but Raheerah could find many faults in that claim. Like he said, there was no promise of safety. To live alone with the Earth as one's home is to lack a private space at all, to lack any place that others may call home alongside you. Even he, the Dragon, the criminal, could not survive forever without companionship. For as much as he despised the monk, and as much as Dawa refrained from his presence, Raheerah found use in them in that they did keep him from loneliness. Even without them, he would have sought out somebody, anybody. To listen to his voice, to breathe in the same air as he, to hear his stories. To quake in his step.

Was this not something she would desire as well?

Raheerah cocked his head again, but righted himself almost immediately. "Iiis it not lonesome?" He questioned, intrigued by her lifestyle, but doubtful all the same.

Coarse hairs would twist on a weather scarred muzzle bringing forth the ashen hue that stained its chin. Swift tongue raked violently across its cage as it dulled itself in preparation to speak. Soft and steady as per usual, less the bother of his contest filter passionately into her voice. She was known for her calm... she prided herself for it. An acknowledgement to the truth could not be her undoing.

"If a monster would rear in violence without provocation, then the world is no different than the cruelty I left." Her brows knitted tightly as she forced her sights to the earth by dark paws. Her own bore their claws not in offense but to brace against the relentless strike of memory against her enduring mind. She had done well to ignore it, only frittering through glimpses the believed merited her attention. But this talk of loneliness... What did he know of it?

"Always," she breathed as her voice trembled above its soft octave, though would not exceed a regulated audible rang. "Yet it is no different than dwelling among others. If one's word is not accepted, isolation soon follows... then the burden of loneliness creeps to weigh upon one's shoulders. At least with my home made of the earth, loneliness is an effect of my own making..."

Raheerah spent little more time dwelling on living situations, and more on the situation at hand. He was unsure what he was trying to convince her of by combating her solitary ideals - it was unfair of him to argue with one's preferences when it had little effect, if at all, on his own. In the end, they would part ways living the same way they'd intended to live - she as a loner, and he in the company of the monk and the frail little cleric he protected, searching for their paradise, like he promised. Perhaps it was just a desire to seek something new. A change, or maybe he was just so blind to opportunities outside of his promise, he wished not to fathom those opportunities if they were to present themselves.

He rumbled, but felt amused at her response. Perhaps she was just as blind as he. More so, if she thought her Earth was ever kind. "The woorld is cruuuel. No plaace less so than aanywhere elllse." Raheerah scoffed a second time and tore his gaze away from her, that one molten eye peering up through the trees, to the peak of the mountain face, and then to the skies above. "The Eaarth serrves no juuurisdiction that monsters abiiide byy." The wolf added with a thunderous chortle. How easy it was for him to say; not quite for others to realize.

She spoke of her solitude and he looked back to her. Raheerah was beginning to suspect skepticism in her, and whatever idea she held of companionship, packs and the like. It was no wonder she didn't seem to have any friends, with an attitude like that. Then again, Raheerah was not particularly known for his outstandingly friendly demeanor - he had no right to judge her. "Solituude, too, is a moonster. A quiet onne." He answered off handedly, and rose to his paws again.

Stretching his legs, he was reminded of the small ache in his paw. If it persisted, much as he would dread to do so, he would see Lham - but for now, the beast would continue to neglect it. He shook out his heavy coat, preparing to continue his journey upward, but not without another pointed look towards Xi'nuata. "It is faarr too eaasy to be lost in themm. Monsters will consuume yoouu," He warned, both of the hypothetical monsters and the real ones that crawled the woods at night, then began to crack his lips into a devious sneer. "lest you befrieend the riight ooonnnes." Raheerah quipped darkly, and his remaining eye gleamed before he turned away from her.

With those parting words, he hoped to give her something to consider. His legs churned once more beneath him, pushing him forward, off towards the sheer cliffs above that would show him to the mountains and all that lie within them.

exit Raheerah!

Silence became her but by another's tongue, pulling the knitted brows of disdain apart as the veil of stubbornness was drawn for reason. Her loneliness... her isolation and monster? The ideal was unfathomable, though not absurd. Was not the role of a monster, a demon, to plague the living and prey upon the weakness they sought to conceal? Only had she ever looked to her isolation as a blessing, yet what had it brought her other that the perpetual silence and the cold of the winter wind? But was that not what she wanted? Was that not what compelled her to leave the Spire in the first place?

A wanderer knew not the regret of their actions. Such as a luxury for the established able to allow their minds to ponder their mistakes. Time was their companion when not spent on the foraging life. Their days softened by routine and the comfort of stability that they pry into their pasts to surface means of amusement. Such was not a commodity for her to indulge. But how it glimmered in complement to his words... luring her.

The gleam of a single eye held her gaze, drawing the mind from itself into the depths of hellish fire. She remained fixed upon him, pushing herself to stand by creaking limbs as he too rose. Her body was still, only stirred by the wintry gust of the mountains. Their whispers of a cold, clouded night tickling her ears.

He spoke so easily of monsters as if he had lived along them. As if he knew of them and they were a part of him. She knew nothing beyond what she had seen, what she had endured in her own keep. But the horror beyond the single eye conveyed that it beheld much more than what her mind could perceive. Dare she take his word as gospel.

And still she watched even as his rugged back was brandished in dismissal. His words still ringing even after the hellish tones were silenced by distance and wind. Still, she listened. And her ears remained erect long after the visage of the male was gone, and she turned from his path back toward her own... leading nowhere and everywhere. To the realm where monsters lurked in their silence.

[Exit Xi'nuata]

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