Wolf RPG

Diane's movements were anxious, unsettled. Her pace would quicken each time the wind died down, and she kept pausing to look over her shoulder; uncertainty bubbling up every mile or so she went. She wasn't used to this quiet. Raised along the coast, there had always been noise—the ocean was never silent—but here...

She kept traveling upstream, keeping a ponderous ravine far to her left; wanting to have a distinct direction in which to travel, but afraid to peer into its depth. Afraid to keep looking at the water below...

She had never spent more than an hour out of earshot of the tides before. Unfamiliarity made her hesitant, but fear drove her further inland at a ceaseless pace. She figured that eerie quietude was a small price to pay for the absence of a constant trauma. It helped that the icy gales would sing past her, easing her nerves somewhat, but the shrill notes were not like the tumbling crescendos of the sea.

Her heart ached, and her feet burned, but a newfound and overwhelming phobia had kept her trotting for over forty-eight hours. She did not stop to eat or drink, and micro-sleeps came inescapably as she traveled. Exhaustion eventually forced her to stop beneath a proud overhang, where the snow was thin to nonexistent, and the ground was marginally less frigid. She buried herself into the hollowing base of a tree and gazed out bleakly from her confines.

Her stomach growled, and in ignoring it she blankly acknowledged that it was dawn. The sky was lightening somewhat, but the clouds were so thick, and smoky, and heavy with snow, that Diane would miss the sunrise. She sighed, her warm breath pooling around her muzzle, and she closed her eyes for just a second...

It was on a whim that he decided to extend his outing, heading north from the plateau so that he may scout for passage at the backside of the ridge's neighbors. If ever came a time when they could not take the short route immediately east of their home, it would be good to know the second best option.

He picked his way down the mountain side, his black toes carefully spreading over the uneven surfaces as he tested the route. He knew by experience that what may appear to be a solid surface may be little more than overhanging snow. But he encountered no such illusion this time, and when he arrived safely at the bottom his interest was immediately piqued by the scent of a lone female.

His pack had been full not long ago, but since then one of his females had left and the other he had not seen since Capriccio accepted her. It was just as well; if he saw her now he would run her out himself for failing to make herself useful to the pack. So, with space to fill, and a not-so-benign desire to add anyone to his ranks to save them being added to the ranks of his neighbors, he sought her out.

He honed in on her first by scent, squinting in the budding daylight in order to discern her resting form beneath an overhang. His paws stilled several wolf-lengths away from her and he woofed a gentle greeting. He was relaxed, and his tail swayed amiably.

A mere second expanded into an entire dream, and cold, hard earth evolved into a sandy paradise; water was lapping her chin, and she found herself blinking at the crystalline waters from home. 

She smiled, suppressing a nervous laugh from between previously anxious jaws. Her sister came to sit beside her, and she swiped saltwater on her face, making Diane sit up abruptly. 
"You've been sleep for a long time, Di. The tide's coming in," the blonde wolf chided gently. 
"I was having a bad dream, Lilly. I was alone in this strange place. It was cold, like after a winter fishing, and I had abandoned the sea..." Diane shuddered. 
"You? Abandon the sea?" Lilly scoffed, smiling. "Not even in your dreams!"
Diane visibly relaxed. It was just a dream...
"DIANE!"
The water had swelled to an impossible height, darkening the sky as the waterwall came tumbling down on top of her. Her sister. Her family. Her pack. Everyone was trapped. Everyone was drowning. 

A woof, too solid to be apart of the surrealness of her dream, jolted her from the nightmare. She breathed in sharply as if she had been holding her breath, and found herself gazing into eyes of quicksilver, distant and shiny like stars in the blackness surrounding them. 

She took her eyes respectfully from the swarthy stag, her heart rate slowing as she recalled the manners of her upbringing and she reverted to using them because she was in no state to defend herself. Hunger and pure exhaustion made her the automatic loser of this match-up. 

She pulled herself from amongst the dry tree roots, crawling, stretching towards the male before rolling slightly onto her back. Her tail, short and rudder-like, wagged slightly in acknowledgement of the fact he hadn't threatened her. Diane could be fiesty under normal circumstances, and it hurt her spirit to resort to grovelling, but it was impractical to act any other way at this time. 

And a lot of damage had been done to her psyche in the past week or so. It was difficult to tell if she would ever be fiesty again. If she would ever be herself again.

He had sought her here, and she wondered why as she peered at the dark stilts he called legs and his deep, powerful chest, looking everywhere but in his face. Unpleasantly, her stomach protested loudly to its emptiness.

Nothing about his stature intentionally commanded her submission as never did he ask for such a thing in neutral territories, but nonetheless it was given. The small flaxen she-wolf rolled to partially expose her stomach, taught and rumbling with hunger as it were. His expression softened and his head canted to the left as he regarded her quietly with a small smile rising up at the edges of his mouth. Still his tail swayed, gentle and slow.

"No need of that," he said as he lowered himself into a sit. "I was just wondering who the new scent belonged to."

Delicately, he appraised her from where he sat. She did not smell of sickness but certainly looked in need of a bit of a meal and perhaps some shelter from the cruel play of winter.

"I'm Tagg," he introduced himself.

Her submission was instinctive, and it felt infinitely better than dwelling on her stricken and bare emotions. Her cheery fire had been dampened—there was no fight left in her bones—and she lay bare like untended coals; her eyes smoldering but dim.

But when she glanced up at him, much to her horror, he was bemused. A palpable blush bloomed, and she rolled back onto her stomach, ears pulled back in an embarrassed fashion.

He was just curious.

"I-I just..." she started, wanting to explain that she saw it, even despite his gentle coming. Wanting to say that she could see his Alpha bearings; but she considered the fact that she could be wrong. But his scent carried many others with it, and she was not inclined to disbelieve her instincts.

She shook her head in several quick switches, and peered up at the wolf named Tagg, with soft interest. "I'm Diane," she said softly, noticing that her voice was quite coarse and her throat felt as if she had swallowed sand. She realized that she hadn't had a drink in a while, and she hadn't spoken for even longer. The vain part of her suddenly remarked at how ugly her usually musical voice sounded.

She cleared her throat as best she could. "Could you tell me where I am?" she croaked, frowning a little at the sound, and going briefly cross-eyed as she mentally berated her ribbiting muzzle. Her gaze jumped back to the seated shadow.

The black wolf's chest expanded as he drew a deep breath. He turned his thickset muzzle, casting his gray eyes about their immediate surroundings. She wanted  a specific answer, he knew, but he had not learned all the names of the places, if they had names at all. "Well, where do you want to be?" he asked, a touch of humor glistening in his gaze as he turned it back to her. "I have only been here a couple moons myself. My pack lives on Porcupine Ridge," he gestured with his head toward the rise of the mountains behind them. "But as for the names of the rest of the places..." he rolled his shoulders.

Tagg's question, an innocent quip by all definition, had incidentally rubbed Diane the wrong way. A small, unhappy cringe crossed her features before becoming quickly overshadowed by her attempt to erase the expression. The distressed emotion passed by shyly, and she over-focused on what he said next.

"Porcupine Ridge..." she rasped thoughtfully. An unbidden memory jumped to the forefront of her consciousness, and before she knew what she was doing, she had reverted to her conversationalist roots. "My father said he met a porcupine once... He also said that they weren't very nice." She looked at him pointedly, speculatively. It was hard to notice, but her expression had brightened very slightly; now only marginally lighter than the heavy, gloomy air surrounding them.

"You don't look like a 'brown, walking sea-urchin', but should I be worried... about you?" A question so innocently posed, it was difficult to tell if she was joking or not. Diane had yet to find her missing smile.

She seemed a trouble sort, but the black wolf could not put a paw on what he sensed exactly; her fleeting and her earlier manner of rolling over to him spoke of a wolf with much unease. But, in the next moment, she seemed to open up and relax, if only a bit, and his smile broadened in response to the subtle lifting of her expression.

"They are kind of prickly," he quipped with a chuff at his own bad joke. "Tasty though, if you know the trick to hunting them." To her question, he quirked a brow, and one corner of his mouth pulled upward further than the other into a roguish look. "Have I given you a reason to be worried?"

He did not offer her a chance to respond before shifting the topic. "I have space in my pack for a couple more wolves who can make themselves useful. I'll give you a good meal and a few days rest before I expect you to shift your paws and contribute. Interested?"

Tagg's wry, ungainly humor tugged at her heartstrings, reminding her of someone she would rather not think about. Faintly, she felt the urge to smile, but was disappointed when the familiar pull of her lips didn't happen. She didn't have time to reflect on her broken face before thoroughly embarrassing herself with a question she belatedly realized was preposterous. His response made it moreso.

Just as her ears had resumed a flustered position tucked neatly against her skull, Diane was thrown completely by a derailing proposal towards her very livelihood.

She was flattered and disconcerted all at once. Her heartbeat quickened, and aside from looking purely astounded, her tail had reflexively started a slow thump against the cold ground. A small trill sounded inside her head, reminding her that she had been right about him—my pack, he had said—and she very well couldn't ignore the thought of a meal. A small whine eked forth, happiness and uncertainty fighting for a dominant presence in her tone.

"Not just interested, Tagg, I'm.. I'm speechless," she blanched quietly; then there was a beat, before graciously accepting: "I'd appreciate nothing more than a chance." Diane hesitated. "Your pack... the Ridge? It, um, it doesn't overlook the ocean, does it?" Though he had earlier gestured towards the mountains, the world-naive Cove wolf had no idea of knowing how his land was shape or where it was in correlation to the coast; if the coast even curved around that way.

She could be on a peninsula, for all she knew.

His offer perked her spirits, and her tail thumped the ground. He did not quell his own from wagging in response as she accepted. She seemed like a competent wolf; one he would be pleased to count among his ranks, though there would be no hesitation on his part to see her out if she proved to be anything but an asset to him and his own.

"Good!" He grinned, before answering her question. "It does not, but you can see the ocean off in the distance if you stand in the higher reaches. There are several nice lakes, however." He regarded her quietly for a moment, tilting his head. "The ocean — does it mean a lot you?"

He saw the coastline as a good place for scavengers, but the saltine air and cool sea winds did nothing for his heart or his soul. He was a spirit of the mountains.

She could feel her stiff, sullen spirit begin to shift and pull in a direction away from darkness. She could've lie there beneath that bare, frosty tree until her death, and not thought about a life beyond the sea. Tagg finding her huddled there was beginning to feel less like coincidental curiosity, and more like Fate.

Diane breathed in quiet relief. The ocean was only visible at a distance, and only from the high reaches. She had never been on any mountain before, and looking over her shoulder at the massive peaks behind her only intimidated her further. But this trepidation did not quell the burning desire to escape. To be supported. To live.

When she looked back at Tagg, he was gazing at her, wondering before asking. Diane ignored the emotional pain his question elicited, turning her stomach into knots. She knew what she wanted to say, but instead she could only heave out her most recent opinion of the sea, as deplorable as it felt to feel it. "I am deathly afraid of it."

He was mistaken. He thought by her asking that she wanted an ocean view, to be near it, as it seemed to draw and hold the curiosity of so many. But instead, his question was met with quite a different answer. "Oh," he murmured quietly, before picking up the pitch of voice. "Well! You don't have to worry about it on the ridge. Come on, I'll show you where you just agreed to live. Splendid place, really." He winked, and with a sweep of his muzzle and tail, invited the girl to follow him.

Ghost-silver eyes regarded her without judgement, and Diane was energized by his certainty. Though a smile had yet to grace her features, she appeared comparably more hopeful. Her tail began a steady wag as she pushed herself to her feet and began to trek carefully after Tagg, following him gratefully into foreign province. Her pace was slow, but the dark male was more than accommodating with his longer, more sure strides.

Mimicking his movements, following the Ridge Alpha up the range's paths proved to be a task best accomplished solely by her eagerness to make a better impression, and to not seem as weak and defeated as she felt. Home was not too far.