Wolf RPG

She usually found the other recruits in her own, but she didn't go searching actively for this one to introduce herself. Instead she wandered about the territory doing her usual business, filling the pack's cache and patrolling the border.

When she smelt one of the new ones nearby, this one being male, she paused. Search them out or wait for them to come to her, that is if they came this way? Lingering for a moment in indecisiveness, she turned and disappeared into the brush to sniff him out.

She let out a soft bark upon finding him, tail wagging happily at meeting another of her pack mates.

He had a rabbit hanging from his jaws and while he wishes to eat it, engulfing the whole thing—bones and all—but he sets the urge aside to find a cache that needs replenishing. He’d taken little since being apart of his new home, using what he needs in order to regain his strength, and returning more when the chance arose. He’d started to fill out once more, putting more weight on his body, and his strength had become to return. He frequently checks up on his younger brother, whose fate still remains unsure, but overall he spent most of his time putting in more work in Drageda than he had ever in Seageda for the only purpose to prove he is still loyal.

The bark distracts him and he drops the carcass from his mouth to turn and see a smaller wolf. Her scent is familiar but he doesn’t recognize her—he’d spent a lot of time alone or with his brother—and so he lowers his head and tail and pivots to face her. Thuringwethil had placed him at the bottom, which hadn’t been a surprise, and until he was ready to challenge for a higher place among her ranks, he remained low. With a jerk of his nose, he wagged his tail a few times and waited to see if she needs anything before he goes back to work.

He was larger than she but that mattered little, she was used to that. It was true that in her rather challenging pack she would end up at the end of the food chain. Most here were stronger and fiercer than she, not to say she wouldn't fight for her position if need be. It was only logical to assume she would lose it to one of these larger wolves. 

He was attractive, as was the other male she had met. The standards of her natal pack had been odd though, being raised with her brothers she had been taught that no man was worthy of a woman unless he could beat her in combat. She wouldn't truly be interested in either unless they defeated her in a true battle, one for rank. 

Her stance remained neutral, she never bothered enforcing dominance. She approached him shyly, tail wagging still as she sniffed him over. It was the way of canines to investigate with their nose and she did just that, familarizing his scent in her memory. 

He had yet to speak which didn't bother her, she was rather quiet herself. She found the need to speak now though, which was rare enough. She usually didn't bother with words if she could help it. "I'm Lorne," she rasped, her voice husky with misuse.

She approaches with a neutral posture and Gavriel can’t help but wonder her stance in the pack, though he’s sure she’s of some importance. His own tail wags and he returns the gesture and breathes in her scent. It is strange to be in a home of wolves he doesn’t know, when he grew up with warriors and brethren. Things didn’t change often, unless war was on the brink, and they’d always return a few wolves short.

“Gavriel,” he introduces with a dip of his nose, turning his nose to look away from her for only a moment. “Just filling the cache,” he comments, turning to look at the rabbit at his feet and the empty spot in the ground. Wanting to finish what he's doing, he digs at the ground to quickly bury the rabbit for the next hungry wolf that comes by but he’s eager to return his attention to the other wolf. 

Life being different here, in Drageda, compared to the ocean where he’d been born, had thrown him for a loop. He doesn’t quite have his mountain legs and hunting isn’t easy on the slopes. He’d taken to the valley to the easy but he wondered if he’d adapt at all. “You seem much more comfortable on a mountain than I do.”

Her russet ears twitched as he spoke, moving up next to him to help dig the hole for his rabbit. She moved back once done, watching as his curious eyes returned to her. She felt a bit nervous to see him staring at her like that, like an anomaly. She shuffled a paw in the dirt, eyes down shyly. 

She glanced up as he spoke once more. "I grew up in the mountains," she rasped quietly. It wasn't hard for the small, sure footed woman to hunt in the rocky mounts they called home. "You are from somewhere else," it was a statement not a question. He smelt of somewhere else, he hadn't quite gotten the smell of Drageda ingrained in his fur yet.

Lorne admitted to growing up on the mountain and, for a brief moment, he considered it might have been this one but he didn't think it were possible. Heda wouldn't have overthrown or claimed a territory already time, that he is aware of, but their lives hadn't quite been the same since her rise in power. He never places blame, trusting the spirit within his sister to make the right decisions in the long run. Mistakes would be made along the way, and even as she ages, before her reign would be over, there would be plenty more.

"I grew up by the sea, where Heda comes from," he explains, wondering if the message had been passed. Perhaps not, but he doesn't question it. With a roll of his shoulder, he nudges her own to have her follow. "Where did you come from? Around here?"

Lorne pondered what he meant. Her pack or the location? "I lived in a different set of mountains, east of here. It was my mother and father's pack, made up of all their children."

"You are related to Heda?" His statement had caught her attention, it sounded like more than being raised in the same place.

Seageda had a close knit feel. Even with Thuringwethil taken away, his family had been big enough to be able to handle the transition the day she’d been taken away. They had time to prepare, they knew it was a likely possibility—as it is with any litter—and he’d felt content in the pack where he knew everyone. Drageda has yet to offer that to him but the more time he spends with the rest of them, the closer he’ll once again feel the same as Seageda had made him.

“We come from the same place,” he explains. The day she’d been born, Gavriel knew he’d lose his first younger sibling (outside his litter) and as much as they could prepare, it had felt a little empty. It eased over time, speaking to other wolves going through the same with their own. Even his own littermate had to go through it with Seregryn. “I have always been loyal to Heda, even before Thuringwethil,” he adds. Sivra held the rule a few years before her life had been taken in battle, and she’d accomplished plenty before Thuringwethil’s reign, but through each vessel one thing remains the same.

"Why do you follow them?" he questions, eager to know. Lorne and the others not of their own cloth don't have the same motivation, the same beliefs, unless she'd been able to convince them. Unsure if that's likely or not, he waits to see what she might present to him.

The fur on her neck rose slightly, defensive as was her nature. She ignored it, silent as she scoured the confines of her mind for some answer. What she could possibly say that would sound like she had some commitment to Heda? She had no reason to follow the dark woman, only doing it because she had wished to.

In the end she shrugged. It was a slip back into her silent tendecies, making no move to speak. Her ears flattened briefly as she questioned herself. She found she couldn't even remember why she had come to Drageda's borders in the first place.

"If you wish for some elaborate reason that she should trust me, that I should follow her, I can give you none. I have no reason whatsoever for following Thuringwethil and yet I do."

Her physical response catches him off guard and he blinks a few times, flicking his ears for a different sound in the area, scanning their surroundings quickly, but concluding nothing. Eventually, though, she shrugs it off and Gavriel remains a little more confused than he anticipated for the question. Even with her actual response, he isn’t sure—she doesn’t even mention the queen, but Gavriel doesn’t push for more information when there is none to give.  

The large male stands there, a little awkwardly, before he tries to shake himself out of it and back pedal a step. “I’m going to head back to the valley and hunt again, if you’d like to come.”

Able to tell she had made him uncomfortable, possibly confused, she declined with a shake of her head. Lorne made no comment, loping off towards the central den without a further thought of the member.