Wolf RPG

Don't ask him why, but the moment Dash saw the massive, sprawling beaver dam, it became his singular mission to destroy it. He would tear apart the whole damn dam, one damned stick at a time if that was what it took to eradicate the offensive and entirely unnatural structure from existence. 

The young man was currently occupied by an intense game of tug-o-war with a branch that remained quite stubbornly stuck in the dam. His paws squelched deep down into the snowy muck on the dry(er) side of the dam as he pulled. As Dash gave a final, mighty tug, the partially-rotten branch broke apart with a crack. A surprised yelp tore out of the boy's throat as he tumbled backwards into the mud.

'What a savage' thought Prialux when she was close enough to figure out that the sound she was hearing actually came from, well, a brute tearing needlessly into a beaver dam. Pria wasn't exactly an ambientalist or even an animal advocate; to be honest her nature made her quite the opposite, but destroying for the sake of destroying, she believed, wasn't particularly smart.

But she was not in a position that allowed her to do anything about the situation, was she? No, Prialux knew better than to pick a fight with a savage that she wouldn't know how to handle afterwards, but she stayed back at the edge of the water, waiting for the moment when the structure came undone and the brute got the fuckening that was surely coming for him. 'There it is' she thought with a fair amount of giggling when the man tumbled back into the mud.

Dash picked himself up with all the dignity he could muster after collapsing into the sloppy concoction of mud, snowmelt, and beaver shit. His entire left side was coated in the gunk and he stank to high heaven, but... would you look at that! A small rivulet of water streamed out from beneath the damaged part of the dam, pooling at Dash's feet. The boy felt enormous pride at this accomplishment, completely forgetting his previous vow to pull the whole damned dam apart. In this moment, the trickle of water was reward enough. 

A peal of giggles sounded, and the boy's ears twiched upward. His green-apple gaze scanned his surroundings and landed on a young lady with a milk-and-honey coat. "Whatcha laughing at?" he asked innocently, expression breaking into good-natured (albeit rather goofy) grin. "I meant to do that!" he insisted. To prove his point, he dove back into the mud, rolling around until the rest of his body was covered. His head popped back up with a jerk, and he searched to find the woman's gaze once more. "Ever heard of a mud mask? Makes your skin soft and your fur shine!" Was she buying this? Oh well, he was in it pretty deep at this point (so to speak). "You should give it a try!" he called playfully, eyes gleaming with mirth.

Pria's golden eyes followed the male's as he admired with pride the sorry stream of water that barely flowed through the hole he had managed to poke on the dam, and then, quirking an eyebrow she looked back at him with amusement painted on her lips. 'How thick can a wolf get?' she thought to herself before he noticed her, but then he did.

Pria straightened her expression as his eyes caught her, but couldn't hold back a shy grin the moment he claimed he'd meant to take a mud bath. Improvise. Adapt. Overcome. She had to admit that he was pretty good at it. In fact she would say he was rather charming in all his goofiness... Or maybe it was just the way his eyes seemed to flirt with her smile.

I'll pass, thank you, She replied playfully, laughing at the idea of herself willingly covering herself in mud. Although I must admit you seem to know what you're talking about she joked, then, and maybe for a moment she allowed herself to imagine how soft his skin was behind all the mud.

Once Dash was coated in mud, he climbed up onto the top of the beaver dam. He was pleased to feel the wall shifting under his weight-- removing the large branch had clearly weakened its structural integrity.

Surprise, surprise-- his company declined to take a mud bath. "Eh, you probably don't need it anyway," Dash replied, noting how soft and luscious her creamy coat appeared already. The woman's decision was probaly for the best... Dash had just realized that the only way to get the mud off was to take an actual bath-- as in, jump into the lake. In December. 

She admitted that he seemed to know what he was talking about. Dash flashed another easygoing smile, bowing at her from the top of the beaver dam. "Some people say.. I'm not as stupid as I look." To be fair though, he did look pretty darn stupid, perched on top of the King Elk Forest's biggest shit pile, coated from head to toe in the thick, lumpy tarlike substance. 

With that, he leapt. The boy splashed down into the lake, resurfacing with an explicative already on his lips. "Fuck!" he swore, "F-fucking c-cold!" He began to swim, propelled to move by his plunging body temperature. Once he reached his new friend's shore, he emerged dripping and shivering, but more or less clean. 

"So whatcha d-doing here?" he asked, jaw chattering a bit from the cold. How was it that he had found himself dripping wet in front of a strange lady twice now in as many days? "Did you come to tear down the dam too? Thing p-p-pisses me off," he said with an annoyed look thrown over his shoulder at the dam. No, such a pretty lady wouldn't want to do such dirty work. She was probably from Rosings, and Rosings ladies didn't like to muddy their paws.

"Oh, no, you're here to hunt the beavers!" he guessed again, eyes lighting up as he found what must be the right answer. "I hate those things, I hope you k-kill 'em all."

The situation had made Dash look unflattering, to say the least, but he made up with wit and words to keep Prialux staring. It seemed that everything he did worked against him in a way, but at the same time it helped his messy charm do the trick, and Prialux could not stop giggling.

A burning sensation reached the golden girl's cheeks with the male's compliment, but she didn't get enough time to say anything back before he mindlessly jumped right into the freezing water. Pria jolted back to her paws in mild shock and peered over the water hoping the an hadn't killed himself by landing head-on on a rock. But her worries proved to be over-dramatic as the male swam back to shore apparently unscathed. You boys are just something else, she voiced, half joking as she helped the male back to land. He asked whether she was there to tear down the dam or kill all the beavers, but little did he know that her initial plan had been telling him how stupid he looked by trying to attempt either of those things. She glanced at the half-torn dam and then back to him with a blank mind. She actually thought beavers were kinda cute, but she couldn't contradict him, could she? What would the Rosings wolves think about her if she did? I.. I was.. blank. In fact, she didn't even really remember why she'd come at all. It wouldn't be proper of me to take such a task upon myself, now, would it? she claimed with a terribly hidden worried grin. Come, we need to get you dried and cleaned up before you catch a cold, she hurried with a shy smile, that being the only escape she could think of.

The girl didn't seem to know how to react to all of Dash's ridiculous antics, but Dash was used to that. The only girl who had ever taken his foolishness in stride was his sister Melaine, but she was buried at the bottom of an avalanche. Because of his foolishnessness. Nice job, Dash. The boy's smile wavered as his thoughts touched on the recent tragedy. 

Thankfully, Dash was not the type to ruminate, and his thoughts moved on as quickly as it took the creamy lady to giggle again. She reached out to help him onto land, and in gratitude he stopped himself from shaking all over her. Self control was not his strong point, and it took every bit of it he possessed to stand there and simply allow his pelt to remain soaked and dripping. 

Gods, she looked confused. Dash hadn't really thought his questions were that hard, but these Rosings ladies were odd ones. Always preplanning their actions just to second-guess them, always so selective with their words, always nervous... It was all the exact opposite of everything in Dash's nature, and so it was difficult for him to understand. 

...Such a task wouldn't be proper, hmm? Now did Dash look like a proper wolf to her? "I wouldn't t-t-tell," Dash assured her, some mischeviousness finding its way behind his grin. He had this theory about the Rosings ladies... see, he had a feeling that they actually really enjoyed doing all the things that they said they couldn't do. Dash had a tiny feeling that they secretly loved getting away with breaking the rules... just like him. 

"Works for m-m-me," he replied to her suggestion with a shrug, still trembling. "It'll give us s-some t-time to make our attack p-p-plan. I c-could use the help, honestly, I s-suck at p-planning."  It completely escaped Dash that the milk-and-honey maiden had avoided agreeing or disagreeing with his take on the beaver situation. He simply assumed that everyone hated beavers and wanted them dead dead dead. Because why wouldn't you? They were just so godsdamned, fucking beavery.

What was there to hate about beavers, really? They were actually cute when they worked their little dams, though she wouldn't disagree that they were rather tasty... She would probably eat them more often if she was any better at hunting. Alright, she wouldn't disagree that it seemed pretty fun to demolish stuff either, but she really feared she'd get hurt if she ever tried it. And still she seemed to have found a way to get herself into Dashiell's crusade against the woodworking rodents. I'm probably not much better myself, she replied with a laugh, but it was no joke. Pria wouldn't even know how to approach the issue.

All the while Pria had felt strangely uncomfortable, but she wasn't really aware of it until she realized that Dash was still trembling and dripping cold water. Oh! she exclaimed, embarrassed, and stepped back a few paces to allow some room for him to shake without having to worry about her getting soaked. Sorry, go ahead she said with a shy smile, and assuming the male took his chance to finally allow his instincts to get him dry, she approached again with a question. Why do you want to tear it down so badly anyway? she asked gesturing towards the dam with quirked eyebrows.

The boy regarded his companion skeptically when she insisted that she wouldn't be any better at coordinating their plan of attack. Just about anyone would make a better planner than Dash, he was quite certain of this, but he figured it would be pointless to argue with this girl who seemed to insist on depreciating herself.

Dash did not need to be prompted twice; he shook his coat out as soon as the girl backed away. With his long, damp fur now puffed-up and sticking out in all directions, (if it was possible) he looked even stupider now than he had looked perched atop the dam, bowing to his audience of one. 

The boy's shaking subsided almost immediately. "Well.." he considered the lady's question, and then considered some more. Now that he was being asked to explain himself, Dash realized that this was something which had never before been required of him. His sister had just always gone along with his hairbrained ideas... she had never stopped to ask why they were doing what they were doing. 

"It's like..." he started again, apple-green gaze sweeping out over the weir. "Like, this giant nasty-ass puddle used to be a creek, right? A pretty little creek that you could, I dunno, build a pack around. But now... uh.." Dash paused for a moment, losing his train of thought. "Uh.. the, uh, the beavers.. the beavers came, and they.. they put this shit pile here, and the creek flooded, and now this place is ruined. You could never build a pack here." 

Dash was on a roll now. His eyes sparked to life as he realized that his inexplicable hatred for beavers wasn't inexplicable at all. "Like, what if they have a bunch of beaver babies? And those babies decide to go flood the other creeks around here! This whole damn forest will be underwater, and elks can't swim so they'll die, and then what are the Rosings wolves gonna hunt, huh? What if- what if there are so many beavers that they spread over to Silver Creek and flood Rosings, huh? We should just save ourselves the trouble and kill 'em now, while there aren't so many." 

Dash nodded as he finished, looking very pleased with himself for offering such a logical explaination. He hadn't known he had it in him. 

...

Although he was no longer soaked, the cold was beginning to sink in through the dampness of Dash's pelt. The woman's previous idea to head back to Rosings and warm up was looking better and better. "Buuut I'm thinking we can make a better attack plan from a den. You know, where they can't overhear us." Dash grinned and tilted in head in the direction of Rosings. The woman wouldn't argue with him. Rosings ladies never did. He started forward, knowing the lady would follow.