Wolf RPG

The boy was, to put it simply, on a mission of sorts. He didn't know where he was going, or how long it would take him to get there, but he felt he would know where he needed to be once he'd arrived. For the time being, he allowed his legs to guide him over the terrain, his mind working to commit the views and directions to memory even in his pained state. It was a good habit, one that would never leave him, but also one he could not turn off. He did not recall the sights he was seeing, as they were new to him, but he would remember them if he happened to pass through the area again—which he most likely would. He would not turn back and set his icy gaze on the land behind him for awhile, though, as he felt he was currently being guided forward. Alastor believed that, for whatever reason, it was Athena who was guiding him. The Greek wolf was confident that the goddess had seen him in his current state, and had decided to assist him. So far, he'd yet to see anything, or cross paths with any others, but he trusted what he felt within himself.

In truth, there was no one leading or assisting him in his journey. The feeling was simply his drive to find a place he could settle at, and the presence he felt a mere illusion created by his mind to counteract his loneliness. Perhaps he would have realized that, too, had he not been absent of any interactions for so long. Alastor was not a wolf made to be alone, and yet somehow he'd ended up that way. Alone and injured, but alive. He was alive, and would remind himself of that on a regular basis. While his injured paw currently caused him to walk with an uneven gait, time would heal it and all would be well. Almost well, anyways. If he did not find a place to call home, he would still be alone, and so he pressed forward. He used his front paw to move over the thin grass, despite the pain that shot through his arm each time it touched the ground. It would be worth it in the end, or at least he hoped it would. After awhile, however, he needed to stop and rest.

As Alastor neared a flatter and rockier terrain, he slowed and then came to a stop, knowing he needed a break. Carefully, he sat down, being mindful of his left paw the entire time. He'd tried holding it up and using only three legs after it'd been injured, but that had led to him falling flat on his face. It was difficult and slowed him down, and so he'd opted for using it, ignoring the screams of protest coming from his body. It made his gait uneven, and tortured him with each step, but he knew it would eventually heal. Slower, most likely, due to his continued usage of it, but it would heal all the same. Carefully, he adjusted himself so he could slide down into a lying position, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he did so. Alastor kept his body leaning to the right, wanting to keep as much weight off of his left side as possible. It was hard to imagine that, not too long ago, he'd been a healthy and happy yearling. Now, however, he was another year older and hit with a wave of agony every time he took a step. It saddened him, at times, when he'd look back on his days in the Bypass, but it seemed to hit him harder whenever he'd realized that he was still without his friends. Several moon cycles had come and gone, but there he was—still wandering around, unsure of where to go. Releasing a sigh, as he often did after getting trapped by his own thoughts, the boy let his head drop down to his right arm and allowed for the minutes to trickle by. He waited for his strength to return, so he could continue his trek to wherever he was going. Little did he know, though, was that if he continued on his current path, he would never reach a place worth joining.

When they had reached the Spires, they had spread out considerably. There was work to be done and much of in the way of claiming ground. But for Echelon, she had been handed a task all of her own. Apparently when it was necessity to be mailing someone out to figure out what the state of conditions were, it was her. And she didn't really think of herself as a scout, though in essence she would have probably made a good one. That thought did occur to her as she ventured outward, pressing forward through the swath of devastation that had come to the lower climes of the mountains. Finding prey was certain one thing that came to her mind, knowing that their hunting grounds would have to stem from somewhere off the mountain and at quite a distance anyway. It wouldn't be one of those let's haul this back moments, not entirely. They'd kill what they could eat, rinse and repeat.

And she was hours into her journey through the mess of tangled assorted countryside when she caught wind of where some of the herds may have ventured to. Whatever time had passed since the onslaught of the weather was negotiable; she didn't pay attention. But the prey was rolling on back, perhaps surveying the damage just in the way that the wolves were venturing out to do so as well. It surprised her that even here, the storm had come through. It was probably several stages and episodes to a storm, but to her it was as though one large and massive beast from the sky had come down and twisted it all up. Ate it up and threw it up, threw it out because it was the roughest and worst bout of projectile vomiting the earth had ever seen. Volcanoes did that, she surmised, so this had to be some sort of sky volcano.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, there was some anthropomorphic being scribbling away with nub ends of crayons to picture this for her, but she had already forgotten about it when she spotted another wolf. A light-colored beady little dot on the horizon, perhaps too caught up in what they were doing to notice someone so paper-thin and tiny as her. She slunk down through the spread grassland, peeling across the earth like some miniaturized heat-seeking missile to seek him out. Curious, because she remembered this area. Curious, because there was pack nearby to here that she had so kindly decided to instigate nonsense with. Something about chasing off their food or some shit, she didn't remember the real details to it. Either way, she had hauled ass to get away and even lingered around long enough to go shucks, that sucks, it wasn't me (and they didn't believe her but whatever).

Her approach slowed when she felt she was within range to be spotted, and she took the effort to make herself known. Maybe he was nursing a wound she didn't quite suss out for herself, maybe he was just pretending not to see her. Hell, maybe he didn't care about anything at all. But she chuffed lowly at him, holding off but intently curious about what he was doing there. Alone. And stuff.

When the sound of footfalls first reached his ears, he hadn't paid much mind to it. He knew not of the pack that was located near by—then again, he didn't really know of any packs in general anymore. Even so, he knew he was in an unclaimed territory, so felt it would be irrational for someone to attack him. With his injury, it probably wasn't good to allow his guard down so low, but he couldn't help it. He figured anyone would walk right on by him, probably to get to some place he didn't know about. His assumptions were proved to be incorrect, however, as he noticed the steps were heading towards him, rather than in a direction to avoid him. Curious, he raised his head and looked towards the other, a trace of fascination spreading throughout his features at a leisurely pace. Alastor waited until he heard a chuff sound from the other, wanting to be sure she wasn't a mere illusion. Not that hallucinating had become a regular thing for him, but one's mind could do odd things when left on it's own for too long. The sound was, for the time being, all the confirmation he needed to accept that she was real, which further snagged his interest.

Slowly, the Greek pushed himself up so he was sitting, icy gaze refusing to leave the face of the other. "Hello..." he greeted, voice rougher and quieter than usual from having not been used in awhile. His ears twitched backwards ever so slightly as he heard his own voice, and he took a second to clear his throat as quietly as he could. "You are real, yes?" While he was pretty sure that the woman before him was, very much, a real wolf, he could not be entirely sure. A small voice in the back of his mind urged him to trust her existence, to accept entirely that there was a breathing creature before him, but he was not so sure the voice could be trusted.

He noticed her, though it seemed a little bit on the slow side. Then again, she was not surprised the moment he opened his mouth, as the voice that came out of it was of some timid wayward youth or whatever she anticipated; it was rough with disuse. It cracked, creaked, and maybe even groaned. His question gave her pause, at first her only response to be to look off at the distance as though she was breaking an imaginary fourth wall. Was this guy for real and what not.

The moment passed and her gaze swung back to meet his, the peculiar blue not entirely like her own. Softer, full of warmth, something something; her own were more like the blue glaze of ice on a glacier. Hard and unyielding, much like the personality she tended to possess. "Maybe," she countered, canting her head as though she could warp his sense of reality. "Why? What's not real?" Her questions were rapid-fire and insistent, pushing and prodding from the moment they left her tongue.

A 'yes' or a 'no' had been the only thing he'd been expecting to hear from the woman, so when her answer was given, it led to his invisible brows knitting together. He was tired, drained of energy from the storm and from his travels, and yet he still could not bring himself to snap at her for giving such an answer. "Πάρα πολύ γρήγορη..." he murmured, her words coming quicker than he'd thought they would. It did bring him to draw a conclusion, however, and that was that the woman before him was real. Had she been a hallucination, he was certain she would have spoken far slower, so as to be at the same pace as his own thoughts. "I was curious, is all," Alastor said, then, answering the first inquiry to leave her maw. The latter one needed to be thought over, as he didn't really know what he could say. There were plenty of things that were not real, and yet he could not pinpoint exactly what the other was questioning. Did she wish to know of everything in existence that did not actually exist, or was she simply speaking in an attempt to mess with him? Being one to see the good in others, rather than the bad, he opted for his first assumption.

"Ghosts are not real," he started, going over any tales he'd heard as a child. "Hallucinations, revenants, witches... they are not real, either." As he spoke, his tone stayed calm and even, not a trace of sarcasm to be found. He believed himself to be doing nothing more than answering her questions, though the meaning to it might have been taken far more literal than intended. That was not taken into consideration, the idea that she could have only been joking around, since doing so didn't seem like a very kind thing to do—to him, anyways. Perhaps, he just wasn't in the right mood to appreciate a joke, if one was presented.

He murmured something then, something that was so foreign to her ears that she comically tilted her head again. This time, in the opposite direction for pure effect. Perhaps now more than ever, she probably seemed like some weird looking coyote that had lost the genetics lottery, but Echelon hardly considered this or. Or would have cared, if ever called on the point. But her interest was half-genuine, though a part of her began to wonder if he wasn't just sick in some way. Whether it was truly some sort of physical malady that affected him or he was just sick in the head, well, she hadn't decided. So far, he seemed to just have a screwed up appendage.

"Ghosts are real," she said in seriousness. "Tuunbaq is real." Her head righted itself. "Other stuff's not real, though. But ghosts are. Spirits are. Your spirit is real, yes?" He had piqued her interest, which usually was not so easy to do. But given that he was an utter stranger and unfamiliar with so much, hell, even a foreigner of sorts to boot... she saw no harm in being philosophical for whatever inclination.

"What's wrong with that," she stated rather than asking, gesturing to the place he had been fussing with. "Did the storm get you? Lightning?" Lightning made fire though, so maybe he just got whacked by a branch in the chaos of it all. Truth be told, Echelon probably was not without her cuts and scrapes as well. Only she had been fortunate enough to ride out the worst of the calamity from the refuge of a hole in the wall cavern.

Alastor was taken aback, and rightfully so, by the seriousness of the woman's voice when she mentioned ghosts being real. He'd heard fables of ghosts, stories of heroes having to ward them off in order to accomplish their tasks, but the idea of the lost souls being real had never occurred to him. Fear, perhaps, was a motivator behind his beliefs, or rather, lack of. In stories, they were often spirits who seemed to make decisions and act with fooling others as their only purpose. In some tales, they'd even caused the death of those who once walked the earthly plane, simply because they had nothing to do, or because the living creature had unintentionally offended them. Believing they did not exist at all was, by far, more reasurring than acknowledging their existence. The way the woman worded her beliefs, however, got him thinking. Maybe spirits were real, and residing within every living thing on the planet. The thought was a troublesome one, but he did not wish to disregard it entirely. "I... I believe so," the boy started, paying careful attention to the way he worded his response. He did not wish to offend, after all. "I must admit that I never gave it much thought. Ghosts and spirits, they were only ever things in stories to me, but I never considered the possibility of them existing along side us." It was still strange for him to even consider that the living were not alone on the earth, but out of respect for others, he did not wish to rebuke the idea entirely.

When questioned about his leg, the male glanced down at it for a brief second, then returned his gaze to the stranger. He nodded when she voiced her first assumption, though paused in his motions when lightning was mentioned. "No, it wasn't lightning," he informed her. If it had been lightning that'd hit him, he had a feeling he wouldn't be speaking to her currently. "I was searching for shelter when the storm hit, and ended up being attacked by some rather large stones." Alastor felt lucky that they'd only injured his paw, as the damage done could've been far worse.

Oh, well that was kind of boring. And most of such probably was expressed by her in some form or fashion, but it was just as quick to ebb away to her usual blank slate approach to things. But instead of entirely processing what it was that she was being told, she pushed right on ahead and already had another question waiting in the wings by the time his voice ceased to reach her ears.

"Where's your pack?" Simple enough question, anyway. Of course, it was rather obvious that he had been without. At least if he had somewhere to call home, then she couldn't have found it. Still, her eyes couldn't help but scan past him for a moment, on the off-chance that he actually had somewhere he was supposed to be. There was always the likelihood that they hadn't been the only ones displaced by such a monster of a storm, but thankfully that would soon recede into memory and in her case, promptly forgotten.

 
It seemed almost as if the woman was never without a question, but he couldn’t really complain. He was just glad to actually be able to talk with another living creature, rather than mumbling incoherent things to himself as he wandered. The newest query was one he wasn’t unfamiliar with. It seemed many had the tendency to ask that when he’d meet them, leaving him with a sort of "default" response to give. “Gone,” he stated. “The pack I was a member of disbanded quite some time ago.” Neither the pack nor its members remained any longer—aside from him, of course. He knew Shadow had left with his son to the home he’d departed from for Teekon, but the whereabouts of everyone else was a mystery to him. It was almost as if they’d disappeared from the face of the earth, though he refused to voice such thoughts, out of fear that speaking such a theory would make it real. A part of him believed that, someday, they might return, but that was wishful thinking.
 
It was then that Alastor decided to ask a question, growing curious of the stranger and where she’d come from. “What of your pack?” he asked, returning her question. She did not smell of a loner, and didn’t look like one, either. The scent that clung to her was not one he knew, however, as he’d never really traveled out of the valley, and therefore had no knowledge of the packs that laid beyond it. Hell, he didn’t even know of the packs within it anymore. He knew only of the bypass, which was no longer there, and also of the bay, thanks to Aesop. The latter being a place he'd never actually visited, but eventually planned to.

Aw, the poor thing. Not that Echelon felt sympathy for him. While it were true that packs disbanded one way or another through time or bad luck, she could not attest to it. Even if she had no pack to back her, she was a wolf of Tartok. And given the breadth of land that Tartok had picked and chose to claim, there was little that put them down. Scattered them, yes, but that was part of their domain. They had started as nothing more than a simple pack from what history she did retain and now, well, they may as well have been an entity far and wide.

"It is a strong pack," she stated in her simple way; nevermind it hadn't been apart of his original query. "We lay claim to the mountains." There was a brief gesture in which way, but she did not signify a solitary peak that was there. Nor would she, really. And when it came to the grand scheme of things, Echelon was just as ignorant as he was with knowledge of the packs around. All that mattered to her was what happened to be close by, and as it were within the range that she kept, there were few things for her to worry after. She did not anticipate the wolves of the valley to come near, nor the wolves of the caldera. North of them lied nothing more than a frozen wasteland fitted to her liking among others.

 
The boy was glad nothing more was said in relation to his previous pack, having not wished to speak of it any longer. Talk of it brought up pleasant memories, which he enjoyed, but it also brought forth the number of theories and whatnot his mind had come up with over time. Trying to rationalize the disappearance of the other members, while also trying to believe that they would eventually return. His mind became a jumbled mess when permitted to linger too long on thoughts of the bypass, so when the topic was switched to the woman’s pack entirely, he was relieved. The Greek wolf even looked past her in the direction she’d gestured, though his gaze ended up drifting along any and every of the points he could see off in the distance. A second later, he was looking back at the dark figure, having not wished to look out into space for too long.
 
“I am sure it is strong,” the male voiced, a gentle nod accompanying his words. “The mountains… are they nice?” Alastor held no desire to go and see them for himself, his current slump making him not want to do much of anything, but that alone didn't quell his curiosities.

"Yes," she said, this time with the thump of her tail to beat against the ground.  It was short-lived, for her eagerness about their new home was not entirely true.  While she was happy that they had found a mountain suitable to their claim, there were other things that nagged at her.  Those would not come to light here, if ever.

"Perhaps when you are tired of wandering, you will seek us," she offered, features almost snake-like with the way she chose to hiss the final word.  While she was versed in the common tongue, she found it far too easy to play as though she were not.  As though certain words were meant to have a pointed enunciation on purpose, though it was probably a given she was not native to the region.

And to punctuate her statement as a closer, she rose from where she stood to linger briefly, eyes still settled on his light-colored face.  She wondered if his interest would be piqued, but perhaps not — it wasn't like she had offered to give him some aid.  Echelon would have been the worst nurse ever anyway, given that she didn't know what one plant did different from the next.  She was built for the throes of war and had been raised as such.

Still didn't mean that she didn't like what she saw.

 
Alastor wondered what the mountains were like, though whether he’d ever look into them or not was up for discussion. If they were nice, then perhaps he’d have no choice but to… then again, such a statement was just a matter of opinion. Never would he speak ill of another being’s home, as he would never wish for the same to be said of his, but he knew not to just jump to conclusions. Everyone had different tastes, after all, even when it came to the land on which they lived. Knowing the appearance of someone’s home could tell a lot about them, too, but he did not press for details. The Greek was an outsider, that he understood well, and outsiders were never just given information on a wolf’s pack.
 
“Perhaps I will,” he voiced, uncertain of what he would end up doing. The lure of joining a pack was too good to pass up, but he didn’t yet believe he was ready to move on. There were still some things he wished to do, a place he had to visit, before making any final decisions. “It was nice meeting you,” Alastor voiced, standing and giving a soft bow of his head. “I have something I must do, but I hope we can meet again someday.” With those last words and a smile of farewell, the argent lupine took his leave. He had a bypass to get to, and an old home to finally part ways with.