Wolf RPG

He came from the east, slavering as he ran. He glanced over his bony left shoulder, tongue lolling from his misshapen muzzle, jack-o'-lantern eyes combing the dark landscape behind him. Rigor didn't see anyone; perhaps he had outrun them. Sloppily licking his wet chops, he faced forward and accelerated. He swore he could hear his old bones creaking as he darted through the night.

At long last, he began to slow to a bumbling trot. Then he began to walk. The cold, stiff grass tickled his twenty-eight toes as he skulked across an open plain. He lowered his head and hunched as he crept forward. His docked tail gave a few idle flicks and his lazy eye rolled as he scanned his surroundings. He neither saw nor smelled anything of interest.

He was about to slump into a weary heap when a chilly October wind blustered against him, ruffling his ashy fur and bringing to Rigor the powerful scents of wolves. His ears fell back and he peered shrewdly in the direction from which they came, a moaning, groaning noise reverberating low in his throat.

It was the chill in the night that stirred him awake, perhaps.

Whatever the reason, Mordecai found that he did not take well to the idleness that had come over him. He had ventured away from his particular place of rest and set off into the night. The frosty touch of the autumn air encouraged movement, if only to keep that chill from settling into his bones early. This season, unlike the last, was beginning to feel as though it slipped away far too quickly. Now, he noticed the way the day seemed to give way to night sooner. The herds stirred in the pastures beyond the woods, and the creatures of ursine history perhaps to head towards slumber.

He continued to venture outward; any notion of the hour lost on him as was the time he made in getting there. To wherever, anyway — the last bits of fading rest left him hazy. And that was where he heard the noise, somewhere in the midst of that thinning wood. A low groan, ghastly and disembodied in the dim light. Mordecai halted, his steps fading into silence as he studied what he could see, and listened carefully.

Would they try to chase and kill him too? Rigor shuddered, then suddenly began to cough. It was not the dry cough that sometimes resulted from a tickle in the throat. It was deep and wet, the hacking of disease. It brought forth a sticky gob of phlegm which he spat noisily onto the grass at his feet, just before another breath of wind delivered a very stark message: You are not alone.

"Don't eat me!" he wailed even as the elderly, misshapen wolf crouched low to the ground, his dislocated lower jaw swinging slightly. In his anxiousness, he began to drool. "I'm harmless! I swear it!" he barked into the darkness, beginning to tremble. He was old, he was tired and he knew he couldn't run anymore. His only choice was to plead for his life and hope these wolves wouldn't try to execute him for the simple sin of being a living, breathing horror show.

There was a cough, but he did not immediately figure out from where it came. A voice called out from those frosty depths soon thereafter and it was enough to prompt his hackles to prickle with anticipation. Though what the anticipation truly was could only be left undecided. Another bark of piercing fear only served Mordecai to locate him, and he swiftly pressed forward. No silence preceded him though his steps were just as quick to slow when he picked out the first few suggestions that someone was there.

In the low lighting just a few steps further, he found the crouched and misshapen beast. It was there that Mordecai came to a decisive halt, eyes scanning the thin wood carefully as though he expected there to be someone tucked away in an inset watching. Someone, or something, that had prompted the racket and set the mood. Again he did not find anything, but it did not change his demeanor and a low growl was left to rumble as warning.

Which left the matter of the miserable wretch and a prompt to follow: "Why would we eat you?"

He saw a silhouette shuffle nearer and pressed his belly closer to the ground in response to the quiet growl. "Why would we eat you?" came a gruff voice. Rigor lifted his eyes and squinted, trying to make out the wolf's face. It was too dark and his eyesight wasn't so good anymore. He wondered if the stranger couldn't see him properly either, else he might not have asked that question.

"Because of what I am," he replied in a slightly quavering voice. "Can't you see me? I'm an abomination. The last pack I crossed paths with tried to chase me down and kill me before I had a chance to tell them I meant them no harm." He coughed again, the noise a bit drier and raspier this time. "I only just outran them," he revealed, turned slightly to glance over his shoulder.

But he didn't want to take his eyes off this wolf for long either. Rigor faced him again, lazy eye rolling, jaw hanging oddly, looking ancient and disheveled and as if he ought to have been drowned at birth.

Words spilled forth and lured him in just a bit closer, if only so he could pick up on the way that voice rasped and shook. For what few steps he took to draw himself in to listen, Mordecai could pick up on those finer qualities and found that if anything, the wolf accurately described himself. He was an ugly thing, threadbare and broken well beyond repair that the Ostrega could have imagined. It came to him readily that it was no surprise for him to be chased, as the tension for him to do the same resided alive and well.

But at least he heard the fellow out and with good reason — if he had only just escaped his pursuers, then Mordecai had every reason to believe that they too were not far off. "From where?" he asked, feeling his jaw set uncomfortably. Perhaps not too uncomfortably, as the floppy hinge the other sported struck him as unquestionably worse. And then there was that cough, that overall malaise that got him to fire off another question.

"What's wrong with you?" May as well have been Jinx and rabies all over again.

At least that was where he felt his thoughts go for a split second.

The pack wolf seemed understandably concerned about Rigor's pursuers. "East," he replied simply. "I think they fell back a few miles from here," he added. He had kept running until he couldn't anymore, which was why he was here now. He did not think there was any danger any longer, at least not from those heartless savages.

When the stranger asked, "What's wrong with you?" it forced a dry, raspy laugh from the old man's throat. "It would be quicker to tell you what isn't wrong with me," came his reply. "I was beaten hard by the ugly stick. Far as I know, it's not catching," he quipped. "Then age and experience have unraveled me further. I know I look a fright but you'll never meet someone kinder."

Rigor paused a long moment, then added slowly, "I can be useful too." A rope of drool clung to his lip and then stretched, plopping onto the ground. He might look like a mess but he was not the waste of space he appeared to be at first glance.

From the east. Mordecai did not know whether that statement comforted him or simply concerned him more — the world further to the east became sketchy to him, and he did not know what lied too much further east than the river. But as it were he did not have the time to dwell on this properly, as the rasp started up again and his malformed company rattled on. Nothing he said beyond that soothed the tension he felt; if anything, that tension rose at the suggestion of being useful.

His gaze drew back to the east, though the density of the wood and the gloom of the late night did little more than play hell with his perception. He did not see anything or hear anything particular, but the urge to watch in that direction gave him time to arrange his thoughts.

"You might want to keep going to the west then," he offered, letting out a breath. The statement hinged itself on the fact that perhaps out there somewhere were his pursuers, lost or not for the time being.

It had been a hint. But the stranger either overlooked it or ignored it. He advised Rigor to keep heading west. The wolf bobbed his head, causing his strange jaw to shudder slightly. He slurped up the rope of cold drool and slowly (and creakily) pushed himself onto all fours. His bobtail remained limp behind him and his orange eyes remained lowered, as did the rest of his awkward, homely body.

"Thanks for allowing me safe passage," he murmured and began to slink in the suggested direction. It was not the crafty, fluid prowl of a normal wolf but the slightly uneven, hunched gait of a lame horse. He quickly faded into the ether, a faint and gargling cough the last sign of his presence before he vanished like a ghost.