Wolf RPG

Something about snow made Reek's stomach lurch with discontent.  A thick blanket of the white stuff had fallen over the maplewood, leaving no orange nor green behind.  There was a level beauty given to the snow-swept wood, but Reek balked at it's presence.  He did not frolic in the frost. He did not sing praise for Father Winter's snowy grip.  Instead, he wished it away... he wished for the season to leave him be and finally let him have some peace. Still, Reek knew wishes were childish things and winter was here to stay.

There was a day long ago when Reek would have accepted these wintery changes with a childlike sense of wonder and curiosity. Somehow, those days had left him. It was funny how time worked and how it changed a man.  Of course, he still felt like the same wolf... but, deep down he knew something had changed; a switch had been flipped.  It was like something that had been individually defining had been lost. The child inside packed his bags and was gone.

He made use of what little daylight there was to replenish his herb cache, but with the blanket of freshly fallen snow Reek knew it was a fools errand. Despite the perceived impossibility, Reek pressed on through the maplewood as he searched for the faintest touches of green. Saena and Scarlett both relied on him to deliver. Nosing the ground every few feet, he pushed forward, leaving a trail of fresh paw prints in the snow behind him.

Sharing a sleeping arrangement with Ukko had been a good idea. Now Tavi wasn't frozen to the point of being wide-eyed and sleepless, having grown up accustomed to the company of her family. Ukko wasn't family, but close enough. When Tavi woke up today, Ukko was already out and about - maybe tending to the injured woman from the cougar attack, or maybe doing some kind of Beta activity, whatever that would entail. He was up and away long before her, and Tavi felt the absence as she pulled herself from the den.

She noticed the quiet of the forest next. The somber attitude that had settled between the trees alongside the snow. This was not her first snowfall, but it was the most surreal. The cold was bearable and yet the absence of life - the absence of family, of friends, of anyone - put an itch in her feet. So Tavi set to work warming up her body, getting her blood flowing and heart pumping; first with a short but brisk patrol around the densite, and then further afield. She slipped through the winterscape without any true purpose -- and stopped abruptly when she caught sight of a dark figure scrutinizing the ground.

The girl barked as softly as she could (it still felt too loud because of the insulating snow), and made a friendly approach.

Reek's movement through the maplewood was a strange and awkward shuffle which consisted of taking four to five labored steps, before stopping mid-stride to bury his face in the cold snow. This cyclical act seemed to have no end— at least, not until he picked up the faintest scent of something useable. However, each time Reek tried, his efforts were to no avail. Each time, he came up empty handed and empty nostriled.

A quiet had set into the maplewood.  It was an overwhelming hush brought on by the cold. All save for the winter wind had died away in it's maddening silence. He felt the quiet's full weight upon his back as he walked as if it were his burden alone to carry. Like a soldier, forged by the chill of winter, he carried on through his own prison of trees.

A soft bark in the distance tore his attention away from his work. He pulled his head from the snow and craned his neck to get a good look at it's source. A stark contrast with the snow around her, Reek hardly had to squint to discern her features. She walked his way and soon was nearly upon him; he stopped his shuffling and waited. "Care to join me?" he asked as soon as she got close enough to hear his raspy mumbles; the cold had simply sapped his voice away.

So far, Tavi didn't know anyone in the pack. She hadn't really put herself out there either, so it was completely her own fault. Aside from Ukko she knew Saena - or knew of Saena, having talked to her once - and that was it. Ukko had told her some names and descriptions, but she was in no rush to befriend anyone. Not that she disliked the social aspect of the pack; Tavi had been a social butterfly at home. Travel had changed her a little. She was still more comfortable around men rather than women - they were catty, hard to decipher despite being one herself - so when the black wolf invited her closer, Tavi was more than happy to oblige.

"What're we looking for, Boss?" She queried, sounding a bit too chipper for the atmosphere. Tavi hadn't noticed any signs of prey in the area, so it was unlikely Reek was hunting for anything big. But then why would he be nosing around like that? Her tail waved behind her like a lazy pendulum, and she fell quiet, wondering what was going on.

Kael was desperate to be noticed in the pack as an excellent hunter. As soon as dawn approached, the boy was bursting out of his den with the energy and exuberance that only a naive yearling could possess. He dashed alongside the woodlands, feeling refreshed from the winter's snow under his feet. It gave way with satisfying crunches and cooled his otherwise heated pads from his constant activity. 

He had finally made it to his favorite valley that was nearly always teeming with unseen life. Nestled in the soft foliage were softer greens that were sheltered from the harsh snow by large canopy branches. With the abundance of greens, Kael was on the alert for any sign of movement. It wasn't long at all before he saw it. Fat and fluffy, a white rabbit seemed to rustle against the ground, camouflaged almost to the point of invisibility due to it's mottled brown and white fur. 

For a fat creature, the thing could run. It took Kael four full seconds to go from stock still to 35 mph - but it took even less for the rabbit to match the speed. They exploded through the snow, skillfully dodging trees and other such flora. They seemed to cover a great deal of distance, neither party willing to forego the potential life of emerging from this moment victorious. 

However, the moment went from two parties to four when the bunny banked on the snow, and curved to find itself in the midst of two more wolves. Both Kael and the rabbit looked up simultaneously to acknowledge the figures before Kael realized that he was in full throttle to run straight into one of them.

Despite the low spirits that Reek presently brought to the table, Tavi it seemed had retained her chipper personality even in the hellish nightmare that was winter. There was something to be respected about that. There was a vague familiarity to how she carried herself, in fact, she reminded him of who Reek used to be. The wolf he used to be had been practically immune to the sads, but nowadays— Reek was far more prone to the melancholy than anything else. This quality may have been respectable, but Reek found himself a tad bit envious to reclaim that tiny bit of himself that he had lost.

"Oh, yeah. I'm looking for—" His speech tapered off and he could hardly complete his sentence before noticing the frantic clamber from beyond the hillside, just out of sight. Bursting explosively into view came the newest arrival to the maplewood in pursuit of rabbit... his course, of course, led Kael square in their direction. If they did not move in time, there would be a collision.

Reacting as fast as he could, Reek leaped to the side and tumbled headlong into the cold snow. Beneath his cold cocoon, Reek muttered a muffled, "Plants..." before rising back to his feet and shaking himself dry with a scowl.

Reek was about to explain when there was a cacophonous flurry of activity - starting just out of her peripheral vision, and ending almost on top of them both. Someone came bursting through the trees, hot on the heels of a large rabbit, and it took a second for Tavi to react. She saw the rabbit first. Its movement ignited her prey drive, forcing her to step towards it rather than away, and the next thing she knew the wolf in pursuit was slamming in to her. The snow crunched under her weight as she went down, limbs tangling with those of @Kael and pulling the other wolf down. The rabbit might have been in there too, squished between two large bodies, but after landing with a hard thump Tavi had no thoughts about the prey. 

When the snow settled, it was Reek's head that popped up first. Tavi was still a bit dazed when she finally got untangled, and thrust her hind legs against the body which was taking up so much of her space - it was a childish response, but in the heat of the moment she was in pain and frustrated by that pain. "The hell was that?" She called out as she rolled to her belly, aching all over.

Running into Tavi, Kael had the literal wind knocked out of him by his body slamming into hers. His agouti legs buckled under the sudden change, and his whole body went down in a flurry of snow and fur. He closed his eyes as the pain began to course through his front and paws, letting chaos take over his body as pure physics of three colliding bodies came to a head. His mouth let out hard grunts after hard grunts, trying hard to keep his mouth closed to prevent any further injuries.

At last, the whole tornado of activity came to rest, first with the hard thump from Tavi, and then Kael's, and then sliding off of Kael's chest came the fat rabbit. It landed unceremoniously, and Kael looked at it for a full second before snapping it up with his large jaws.

He sprang to his feet, ignoring the pain of letting his weight settle onto his foot. He lifted the bunny straight up into the air and gave a triumphant look to both Reek and Tavi. This was his justification, and he got it, so he vocalized it in the most graceful of manners. "I got it!" He barked, a silly grin plastered on his very, very silly face.

Reek's dive had saved him from the impending fray, allowing himself enough time to watch Kael and Tavi's bodies become a chaotic tangle. In one big mass, they rolled together and eventually settled in the cold snow. Rolling off of Tavi in the wake of a hard kick, Kael emerged victorious with his targed snagged tightly in his jaws. Reek could see the pride written across his face, and perhaps if this had happened months prior, Reek would have seen the humor etched into the situation. Hell, he would have probably joined in the antics himself.

However, he was not the same man he used to be. A deep and displeasured scowl took over his features. His herb search had been inconvenienced and brought to a screeching hault— and with Scarlett's life depending on his ability to deliver, he had no time for shenanigans.

"Oh joy..." he muttered with a voice dripping with melancholic sarcasm. Motioning for Tavi to follow, Reek once again buried his nose in the snow to continue his search. Captain Calamity (i.e. Kael) could follow if he wished, but in Reek's aggrivated state, he did not extend a formal invitation.

The buffoon was up and chasing the rabbit again, briefly, and Tavi took the opportunity to get back on her feet. She was still a bit groggy from the entire episode. There was a moment where she was overwhelmed by a great need to strike out at someone - or something - to make up for the pain the collision had caused her. She narrowed her eyes at the boy, baring her teeth in preparation to strike, but then Reek spoke and Tavi's thoughts were interrupted. She huffed softly instead, and headed after Reek without further incident; however, she did kick her heels through the snow, marking the spot where she fell with her scent and sending chunks of ice towards the fool with the rabbit. Whoever he was, she didn't like him.

Whatever he was expecting, the pure disdain that he was given wasn't it. He felt his whole body wilt underneath the cool attitudes of his pack mates. Kael looked from Reek to Tavi and back again, brilliant gold eyes dulling in realization that his antics were not appreciated. His brain was shifting gears quickly in his head, and from where the zeal and zaniness depleted, defensiveness seeped in. The bunny still in his jaws, he shifted his head down and set his shoulders straight with brusque defiance of whatever sad and rejected feelings he may have had.

That's fine. He thought almost angrily as he winced and shielded himself from the female's icy kicks. I'll just throw it in the cache or something. Kael watched as Reek turned around, inviting Tavi, but not himself, to join him. He felt the beginnings of a whine bubble in his chest, but it caught it before it turned audible. This was not his time, or his area. Stiffly, the boy turned to deposit his catch.

Kael exits.

Stress changed a man; Reek would be the first to attest to this simple fact.  He could feel it changing him day by day, choking the life from his once free spirit like a creeping vine. Life was so much simpler when he had no one relying on him for their survival. He had been a wanderer with nothing to carry but the lies that dripped from his silver tongue. Scamming his way from place to place on his march to the sea and only looking out for number one was the game he knew how to play. That life had been so easy.  So simple, but so lonely.

He pressed forward through the maplewood with Tavi in tow. This was his prison, dotted with iron bars taking the form of snowswept trees.  But, despite these feelings of incarceration and the soulcrushing weight of obligation, Reek wouldn't change a thing about his situation. The lonely life was not for him in the end, and to reach these ends he had been forced to change. Qualities and traits that once defined his identity slipped away, leaving a rigid provider behind. Everything he did now was for his family and this pack. However, in gaining all this, these connections and sense of belonging— Reek had lost himself.

Turning his gaze to Tavi as he trudged through the snow, Reek could see that Kael had taken his leave and left them to carry out their necissary duties. There was no time for shenanigans, not when he had a family to provide for. With that, Reek resumed his duties in silence.

It went without saying that Tavi was pleased upon witnessing the departure of the fool, and she made a mental note to avoid him in the future. She almost called out to him, to say something truly nasty in the heat of the moment, but the chance passed her by too quickly. Kael was gone, and that left her with Reek, resuming the search that had been so rudely interrupted. Not a word passed her lips, though she licked them expectantly as if to hold something back, and returned to aiding Reek.