Wolf RPG

[size=x-small]ooc: god I love me some Iggy Azalea. I bet she would be Rahzie's favorite, ha. @Mordecai [/size]

It was just after sunrise, and though the morning mist was just starting to burn off, it clung stubbornly to the evergreen trees, hiding under their boughs. A small, dark form was weaving her way between the tightly packed trunks at a trot, large ears on the swivel. It was eerily quiet. She had entered these woods in an attempt to escape the light drizzle, and was only slightly successful in this endeavor. The thick coniferous woods blocked out the rain, yes, but the mist was almost as damp.

She stopped at the base of an especially wide trunked evergreen, studying it with a sense of awe. It was almost as thick as she was long, not including her tail. The trunk was covered thickly in moss, and the roots jutted violently from the earth, like claws digging into flesh. Condensation dripped from the pine needles, and one drop hit her square on the bridge of her nose. The sudden cold shock caused the coywolf to shake herself as a shiver ran down her spine. She crunched her nose in annoyance.

Suddenly, Rahzie caught a scent nearby. It was hard to smell much through the thickly humid air, so she was caught a bit by surprise at it's nearness. Her gaze shot to it's source, ears pricked.

In light of the recent events that had begun to plague Ouroboros, Mordecai found it difficult to venture away from it. But it was a necessary evil as well, as he ached to run loose. Part of it was to allow himself to completely lose touch with reality, and delve down deep in his thoughts. The Spine was beginning to become troubling, he feared, if only for the fact that with Jinx unwell and the whispering of the woods about it placed a considerable unease on him. He did not like it. He did not like that she was will, that the frothing and foaming at her mouth had occurred with more and more frequency. He did not like the whispers or the possibility of her declining mental state. Most of all, he did not like the thought of her not being at the helm of their pack. While they had established themselves in the Spine, it seemed as though they had not been there long. Not long enough to truly enjoy it, especially now with the threat of something bad hanging over them.

Perhaps presumptiously, he had decided he would seek Lecter out soon. What he would do, well, that was what he was out there doing right then and there — trying to figure it out. He wanted to know what was wrong with Jinx, what he could do, and more importantly what would become of them if she became so unstable that her superiority over them all came crumbling down. But it would not be today that he would go seeking out her mate; Mordecai had slowed his run down to that of a walk and came to the realization that he had taken himself well outside of their veiled borders. Out to where he had seen the elk some odd days ago filtering themselves through the thick forest and its dark canopies. The hunt was still fresh in his mind as well, and he absently licked at his lips. Something else had his attention now though, and it was around the next bend that he found out why.

Her dark, lithe form could have blended in, had it been night. But in the crisp foliage of the late summer, she stood out just as plainly as he did. His pace had stopped just around that bend, their eyes meeting. She seemed young, but maybe that was her size talking. From apperance alone he could tell that she was not pureblooded, but then again neither was he. At least not entirely. She reminded him of his mother in that regard. “I hope you weren't intending on continuing this way for much longer,” was probably the worst opening line he could give her. “There's a pack a good run away from here that won't take so kindly to just anyone flitting around their borders.” Why he was warning her, he couldn't have said. Mordecai wished he had just said hello instead.

It was a big male, around one and a half times her height and easily double her weight, that caught her eye. Shades of brown, red, gold and cream covered his sleek build. Not lacking prowess in any physical aspect, Rahzie thought in a bit of admiration. He was handsome - not nearly as strikingly so as one of her recent acquaintances, Kaname, had been - but handsome nonetheless. She wasn't really feeling in the mood today to play the game she usually played with a good-looking companion. But she could see herself playing it with him sometime in the future. “I hope you weren't intending on continuing this way for much longer,” He spoke first. “There's a pack a good run away from here that won't take so kindly to just anyone flitting around their borders.”

A corner of the coywolf's lips turned up in a coy half-smile. "I wasn't really intending on anything, big guy," Though her tone was playful, her words were honest. She gestured over her shoulder with her muzzle, bringing attention to her small frame. "Besides, are you really worried about a smallish woman like me?" She let out a light snort of laughter, hopping gracefully up onto one of the wide roots arching up through the ground and balancing herself there.

He hadn't known what he was expecting, but was nonetheless surprised when her personality seemed to be bigger than she was. In a good way, of course. He couldn't help but return her smile easily, but it was genuine at the response that she gave. Her words pulled him away from the distractions in his head, and he soon found himself sharing a chuckle with her. On that root, she was just a bit more eye level with him as she had been before, and he eyed her with mock suspicion.

“I don't know, should I be worried about a smallish thing like you?” He followed up his statement with a scrutinizing appraisal of her then, drawing slightly closer to her. Mordecai could have pretended to study her; he wasn't sizing her up but rather playing along. He made a thoughtful noise in his viewing. “I think my odds are fifty-fifty,” he concluded with a laugh. “Maybe forty-sixty, but in your favor. You could probably smack me with your tail and be gone before I'd ever catch you.” And in other words, he saw no reason to worry about her. She had done nothing to catch his attention in that way, but his attention was most definitely caught now.

The first words out of the mouth of the russet-colored male had been perceived by Rahzie as somewhat condemning, and she was hoping his attitude would turn around. It was the reason she attempted some slight humor with him in the first place. She was not disappointed. “I don't know, should I be worried about a smallish thing like you?” Rahzie couldn't help but lift her chin up and grin as the male scrutinized her, as if posing for his inspection. He drew closer to her, but she was not worried. The coywolf wasn't getting a threatening vibe from this one.

“I think my odds are fifty-fifty,” Rahzie nodded with a smile. "Maybe forty-sixty, but in your favor." She nodded again, this time in stronger agreement. "You could probably smack me with your tail and be gone before I'd ever catch you." Rahzie laughed at this, and gave a strong flick of her tail as if to prove his point. "Damn right," The lithe girl briefly flashed her teeth in a false threat, before returning to a smile. "I may be smallish, but I could take you." Rahzie was being playful, but she also believed in her own words. She knew that she wasn't the biggest or strongest wolf out there. She wasn't stupid enough to think otherwise. And she wasn't stupid enough to pick fights and put herself at risk. But she was fast, and agile, and fierce, and she knew that, too.

He huffed jokingly when she bared her teeth in his direction, as if to suggest he had only said it nice. But Mordecai believed she could. He might have been quick on his feet, but also knew that there were definitely others who had the upper hand. Some of those definitely resided in Ouroboros, though it seemed like their pack had catered towards its share of grizzled fighters. Mordecai fit somewhere in the middle of it all; capable of possessing a good fight, but also capable of escaping them if possible. Still, he smirked at her words with a sly wave of his tail. “At least that's what you think,” he teased, unable to help himself. “With all that spunk, you're probably exhausted from everyone you've been beating up.” And for a moment, he felt like the words came absently out of his mouth.

Had it been that long since he had carried some sort of banter like this? Mentally, he shrugged it off. Sometimes, escapism came in handy. “So you must live here, which is funny because I used to live on a mountain near here. I guess since we vacated this area you've been using it as a personal fight club, right?” And obviously the members weren't talking about it, because Mordecai hadn't heard of it. Book reference aside, he was innately curious about her now. If her intentions had been to lure him in, she had certainly passed that goal then.

Rahzie liked this guy already. Bantering with him was enjoyable. On her end, she wasn't really trying to banter in a flirtatious way, for once. This may have been the first wolf she ran into in the Teekon Wilds that she was just... friendly with. He challenged her teasingly, and Rahzie conceded, slowly nodding. "True, true." She smiled at him, this time without a dominating coyness. "No sparring today, then."

"So you must live here, which is funny because I used to live on a mountain near here." Rahzie knew several mountains near here. She didn't quite make the connection with Silvertip. "I guess since we vacated this area you've been using it as a personal fight club, right?" The coywolf snorted, and stepped down off the root she had been balancing on, settling her haunches on the driest patch of leaves in the near vicinity. "Nah," She drawled casually once she had sat. "I don't actually live anywhere, right now." She pasued, and smirked. "If I did have a personal fight club, it would be somewhere less... dreary," The coywolf scowled at the mist that still hung in the air and the light drizzle still coming down.

But her attention soon turned back to her russet and gold companion. "Do you live somewhere, big guy?"

He chuckled again, this time at the thought of her hosting a fight somewhere less dreary. Mordecai almost suggested a sunny meadow, but was left to drop the idea as she queried where he was from. For a moment he considered trying to lie, trying to steer her clear of any notion of where the Spine was. But ultimately, he decided against it. Whatever would happen, would happen. As far as he knew, Jinx had not gone to roam the countryside, and had stayed to straying through the basin-held woods day and night.

"I live to the south of here, in that place I mentioned earlier." That place where mere wanderers got the short end of the stick. He kept his description vague on purpose, gauging whether or not she would question him further. "But I can assure you, our forests are a lot less dreary than this." And truth be told, he hoped they would stay that way.

[size=x-small]ooc: no worries <3[/size]

"I live to the south of here, in that place I mentioned earlier." Rahzie's head tilted to the side, thinking back to what he had mentioned. A smile grew on her lips as she remembered what he had said in place of a greeting. The contrast was almost funny now - he curt he had been at first and how friendly they were being only a few moments later. "The place you warned me about instead of saying 'hello'?" Rahzie teased lightly.

"But I can assure you, our forests are a lot less dreary than this." Rahzie looked around at their surroundings with a eyebrow raised, then turned her eyes back to the tawny male. "I sure hope so, for your sake," The coywolf said with a light snort of laughter. "And where's that? Is it a pack territory?" She was curious as to the details of the packs in the area. It had occurred to her that she maybe ought to join one of them one of these days. As much as she loved wandering, she had been pretty lucky lately, avoiding a lot of danger. And plus, a constant burning desire in her chest wanted her to prove herself in that sort of context - prove that she could run with the big boys and girls.

Whether her pushing for where he lived was out of innate curiosity or the search for another niche for her tease him in, Mordecai nodded. It was the place that he had warned her about, and also where a pack happened to reside. And to an extent, the forests were definitely less dreary than their present locale. They were also less overgrown, though he didn't see the reason to mention that. The forest that they were in then was a bit of anomaly anyway, even if Mordecai couldn't quite pinpoint where exactly the overgrowth faded away to the surrounding wood.

“We live in a place called the Spine,” he told her. “It's got some woods like these around it, I guess. It's a bit mountainous, but nothing like the range through here. There's a lake, some waterways… your typical home.” The nonchalant description couldn't have been helped; he simply didn't have words for it. It was a woodland of considerable depth and variance though, no doubt chock full of its own secrets. Incidentally, he figured he would let her form her own questions about it, rather than entirely spill everything. In his own way, though he didn't realize it, he was testing her.

As they spoke, Mordecai extended the offer to Rahzie, that should she be interested she should seek the borders of the Spine. Soon thereafter, the two parted ways, and Mordecai hoped in time they would meet again.