anyone :)
Scrawny legs breadthened across the sleety grasses of the ridge, feeble gleams of encrimsoned light filling an effulgent glow around her frame as she traversed from the nondescript woodland into territory that left its former indwellers with little more than a singed reminiscence.
An early riser, sunup found Lusca bright-eyed -- not quite to the extent of bushy-tailed, owing to Tachyon's frisky attempts to jetpack her in the wee hours (this was resolved by a deliberate punt to the groin). Huffing and puffing, she'd abandoned her niche in the buttress root of a tree and set off for the day. Knowing he would catch up with her later, she sought to make his progress toilsome and inevitable success hardwon. The she-wolf got to where she was by ducking under branches, crawling through prickle thorned bushes, dashing across muddy creeks and blowing up the skirts of bear territory.
A spiderweb drew her focus, curiosity grabbing hold of her as she sat inspecting the arabesque nature of its creation. Lusca briefly considered projecting her frustration upon the diaphanous strands, to boast its exquisiteness as a chaplet upon her brow, but could not bring herself to follow through with such an act of needless diablerie. She leveled her lantern gaze with it, bringing a cold glistening snuffer inches away from the arachnid that recoiled into the tenuously spun filaments.
Staring down her nose at the creature, ears straining towards it, Lusca noted its silvery carapace, the black and yellow belted abdomen and the staggered lacing that was unique to the orb weaver. Daybreak -- the perfect time for a little spell of arboreal embroidery, she mused with a faint titter.
Flexing her nostrils at it, a light wisp of breath agitated the web and the spider scampered up the branch. Her eyes followed it until the small creature hid itself away in the aperture, then they lazily trailed away, looking for a novel object of interest.
He, too, had found himself a spider web. It had become draped across his muzzle like a luxurious but clingy cloth, when he had turned his head to glance abreast of him and failed to notice the shimmer of sunlight on the gossamer threads. He shook his broad head but found he could not merely shake himself free of the spider silk, resorting instead to lowering his muzzle and swiping at with his hefty paws. Just as he cleared the last strands from his face, he felt the tickling toes of the spider itself upon his ear, but one twitch and it was gone.
He walked on, with no specific purpose but to roam. Ahead, not so far, his spanning gaze came to rest on another, and as was his custom, his paws came to rest. He looked in her direction with curiosity. The wind had shifted and now was at his back, and if she did not seem him, he suspected she soon would be aware that she was not alone on this ridge.
HELLO PAL
The hackles of intuition stood on end and collectively, the little wolf's nose and eyes ascertained the tinkerpot-black figure, observing her at length from the hillside. Startled, a sharp inhale yoked in Lusca's throat as she tried to make sense of the indistinct proportions, nape bristling.
Much to her relief, the quick appraisal verified that this was someone of her ilk and not the more disagreeable lot of a disgruntled bear, tracking her down after she'd barged so indiscreetly into its commonwealth. Her posture slackened and she ambled along toward the fellow, coming to a standstill upon arrival at a polite distance at the foot of the hill.
Friendly -- yet not without a wonted pearl of uneasiness -- Lusca chattered a good-natured "how's tricks?", tail falling pensile at her hocks.
HELLO FRIENDLING!
Both parties were respectful of one another, choosing not to draw too close into one another's personal space before having established some amiability. This etiquette had less to do with disposition and more to do with survival, at least for the black wolf, who did not endeavor to place himself in reach of disagreeable teeth. No wolf, let alone a loner, could afford to risk unnecessary injury.
"Well enough," he replied, his tail waving peaceably. With the wind still blowing through his fur the wrong way, he could not catch her scent, but he was inclined to believe that she was not from a pack, as he had caught no sign of a pack living in the area, much to his liking.
"Tagg," he introduced himself with a subtle dip of his blunt snout toward the ground.
"You live around here?" Still, he did not operate by assumption.
sorry about the wait! holiday shenanigans have me in solidarity with ebenezer scrooge
His affable response to her approach set Lusca's dithery neurons at ease and the girl visibly relaxed her clench around the qualms she had about their encounter.
Tagg was quick to identify himself and although her lips bared a plain smile, she could not find a window to offer her own name as he forged ahead with social procedures. "Ahhhh, no, this is all new to me." she explained, staring down at her feet upon the dendrite scarring of the earth once stricken by firebolts. She gingerly traced a paw against the discharge tracks.
"I'm Lusca. Looks like someone had a bad day here." Her tone was an intarsia of curiosity and perhaps even apprehension as she passed the speaking stick to him -- though there was nary a stormcloud in sight, the landscape and its cauterized wounds left her with conflicted feelings. She hoped, dearly, that the expression "lightning never strikes the same place twice" would prove out -- but the little wolf's history with luck did not leave her with much in the way of assurance.
No problem at all! I myself have been quite occupied with the holidays.
She relaxed, and indicated in her response that she, too, was new to the area. Strangely, he had encountered more transient wolves than he had actual residents, but that worked for him and his purposes just fine enough. As her sooty paw traced the pattern scorched into the earth, his gray eyes were drawn downward, his gaze trailing idly across the curves of her toes, her claws, and then to the imprint of the lightning's touch beneath them.
"Or a good show," he quipped with a flick of his tail and a twitch of his lips - a glimpse of a smile. The wind shifted then, a faint breeze bringing her scent to him along with the earthiness of their surroundings.
"I'll be staking a claim in the mountains," he commented.
"If you're interested." He lifted his gaze and rested it on the contours of her fine-boned face.
His bid for shelter was received with a gracious dip of her muzzle. "It's a kind offer," she imparted at length, "and I appreciate it," a bland smile pulling at her gums. The rootless stray couldn't give Taggarik her troth or the guarantee of a vassal–not things to be given frivolously–but it was the fussing of a troubled conscience that ultimately gave the girl pause for thought. She was uncertain of Tachyon's interest in integrating with another group, and she'd admittedly grown the tiniest bit fond of him, despite his vast squadron of bizarro idiosyncrasies and disgusting daily intake of moshpig. With him rigged to her hip, the biological draw towards companionship hardcoded in her blood was slaked –– for the moment, at least.
Disdainful of these feelings Lusca outwardly maintained her lukewarm regard for the guy and justified her hesitance as having a preference for traveling light. However, it said nothing for the struggles to come when snow piled in and rations diminished –– yet, these logical thoughts, as they frequently did, ran away with the spoon. Unless it was an immediate problem that inconvenienced her, Lusca was unlikely to get around to catching it again.
Seating herself, her tail coiled 'round her flank. "What about it draws you?" she questioned with roused curiosity.
She neither accepted nor turned down his offer, and he thought nothing of it. It was there, and there was no expiration should she later choose to seek him on his mountain. His response was a simple, single, understanding nod of his head, which she followed up with a question of her own.
"I was born on a mountain," he offered, adopting the same position as she did, dropping his hindquarters to the earth and folding his tail alongside his hindpaw. He shifted ever so slightly sideways to be away from an embedded, ragged stone that was uncomfortable beneath his foot. "Food, shelter, good-looking scenery, can't ask for much more," he said. Not all mountains were created equal in this respect, but he was confident that he could carve out a home for himself and those who would join him somewhere along such an extensive range.
"I don't fancy the hardship of a winter spent alone," he added with a shrug.
Like Taggarik, the better part of her upbringing took place within a late seral forest nestled into the alps, so Lusca could appreciate the sentiment of wanting to hark back to that familiarity. His assertion was met with a contemplative tilt of her lips. "Mm, maybe not." She murmured, though the credence behind her words fell on measured ellipses. She'd lived with less, but some cardinal aspect felt unaccounted for -- privately, she frisked her memory for a resolution, but returned reluctantly and empty handed.
Shuffling her forepaws, the wolfling harrowed her gaze across the sun-fed vista, spanning scaffolding mountains and cockcrow-softened grassland for his cavalcade. "The view is hard to top..." She murmured absentmindedly, thriftily glancing over her shoulder. There didn't appear to be anyone with him and that whole "strength in numbers" thing didn't really hold up well when there were no numbers to be spoken of. "Decent looking group." She teased, firing a wry look point-blank at him.
He hummed in agreement. He would have taken a place that provided for all the necessities even if it did not come with appreciable scenery, but that it did was a perk, and it endeared the ridge all the more to him. He, nor any other wolf as far as he was concerned, really wanted for nothing up there except for the comfort and strength of the pack, which was on its way.
His gray eyes followed the contours of her muzzle as she glanced over her shoulder, teasing him with commentary about the group he did not have. "I agree we're a fine looking pair," he teased back, but he did so without a smile or a wink, but rather with a purposefully casual expression, as if he had truly believed her comment was directed at the pair of them.
Slinging her head back with exclamatory flair, as though tossing her hair over her shoulder, Lusca shifted her shoulders in the same insouciant manner. "Well, obviously it goes without saying." She returned, a waggish sneer revealing itself. "But I can't be with anyone wittier than me, sorry. It would never work out." She laid the disappointment on thick, a hefty sigh hoisting her chest up. This season on The Bachelor: Total Washout.
Last post for me :)
Their teasing banter was amusement enough, and he grinned at her latest quip, but he had work to do, and it did not seem that she could be convinced to join him on the ridge, and so he was inclined to depart her now.
"Aw, shucks," he drawled as his shoulders dropped and ears fell down. Even his tail curled at his hocks in his charade of disappointment. He shook his head, letting out a long, quiet breath that was almost tsking himself.
He headed away like a scolded puppy, but only for a few steps. He turned his head then and winked at her, then adopted his usual confident and relaxed stance and trotted back toward the ridge.
The nonchalance broke like a rogue wave over her wan features and she smiled smugly after Tagg as he turned and set out for parts unknown. Collecting her haunches from beneath her and getting to her feet, Lusca's lightsome form turned retreated due North –– all the while she hoped happenstance would aliment her and smite the fiendish appetite that vexed her.