Wolf RPG - so many walls up

OOC: This became long and strange SORRY I promise it'll otherwise be a normal thread. >_> My imagination got carried away.

IC: The forest seemed, in all ways, to be the picture of tranquility: the birds were quieter here, the wind's breath seemed to die at the edges, and the outside world seemed soundproofed away. It was an idyllic paradise for prey animals, who might wander through the trees with relative ease; the sun filtered through and reached the floor here, leaving it bursting with foliage quite unlike the choked undergrowth in Neverwinter Forest. Jinx had spent a lovely afternoon wandering through the territory in search of moss or any herbs she could add to her stores, fully intending to bring them home and use them for good. She was settling into Neverwinter nicely, and was beginning to think that maybe life wasn't solely about leading a pack. When sundown came faster than she expected, Jinx had chosen to spend the night in the forest before returning the next day to her new home.

That was where she discovered the origin of the forest's name, at least in part, and when her plans quite abruptly changed.

The forest at night was very much unlike its diurnal self; the canopy that so beautifully filtered in sunlight during the day seemed to close overhead, blocking out any moonlight that might've hoped to get through. It was eerily quiet, at least for a little while; it didn't take long for the screaming of the foxes to begin, and when it did, Jinx felt deep within her the stirrings of her spirituality returning. Within the hour, the pale-furred girl had risen from the hollow she had made in the forest's bed and was walking amongst the trees, her fur rising with every unearthly cry.

It was in the very heart of the forest that she found Him, knowing He would come: the bear was hulking, its breathing heavy and laboured, but that was to be expected. There were no altars here to Sos, and it was not yet the Crow Moon, so His mortal influence was weakened. Nevertheless, as the Dark Father turned on her and His crimson gaze flashed dangerously, she stopped short and fear clenched her heart; there was never any encounter with Sos that did not bring prayers for mercy leaping to her lips and did not give her the dread of death descending on her.

You fear me, He noted, and the rumbled of laughter that roared from Him sent earthquake spasms through her own chest. The Bear's dark amusement ended quickly, and suddenly He had rounded on her fully, the fury burning in His gaze as He came within inches of her, jaws parted and hot breath heaving in anger. You have given up on Me, wench, He noted, and although Jinx didn't want to believe it, Sos knew her innermost feelings; knew everyone's innermost feelings. With a feeling like a punch to the gut, her God bowled her over and left her struggling on the forest floor with His great paw pushed heavily down on her chest.

How dare you, He roared into her face, and she clenched her eyes closed against the spittle that flew. A weak cough was her only response. You have failed me, Kesuk, He said, with disappointment and rage. You were meant to be more intelligent than this. Waiting for your destiny to fall in your lap? Ignorant, selfish child. His paw lifted and Jinx's mouth parted in a great gasp as she sought life-giving air; so busy was she refilling her lungs that she could scarcely appreciate His mercy, even as he turned to lumber away. You know what you must do. Do not disappoint me again, inept whelp, lest I find someone competent to serve me.

When she awoke in the same place she had finally blacked out, she could still see the burning crimson in her mind, and her chest still felt the pressure of His touch; yet she had a new resolve. Rather than gathering up her finds and making for Neverwinter immediately, Jinx dragged herself back to the hollow she had made the evening before and widened it into a cache, into which she placed her findings: a few dried herbs, a fistful of berries carried in a nest of leaves, and a couple broken mushrooms. As she covered them up, newfound purpose and determination burned fervently in her breast; Sos had spoken at last, in this haunted forest where the Living realm touched the Spirit realm, and she finally knew what her destiny was.

Leto's hours in these woods had been few, but they were some of the most pleasurable she could recall in these last few weeks of travel. Nights had begun to turn cold and worry was settling comfortably into the back of the one-year-old's mind as she considered over and over her options for the winter. Returning to Emerald Forest was never and could never be a possibility, but remaining a wanderer through bitter cold and biting snow was hardly a practicality. No matter if Merak thought that the coyote part of her was strong enough to outlast anything--her stomach, an equally important part of her, was not so confident. Over and over the arguments for and against seeking a pack roiled in her mind, but the usually-certain female was uncharacteristically unsure.

Her afternoon spent in a pleasant patch of forest, however, had yielded a plethora of food in a pair of fat quail. She'd flushed them from their nest purely by accident, but a swift jump and a swipe of her claws brought not one, but both of them to the ground. Never the most skillful hunter but always a swift one, Leto had eaten until she was satisfied and buried the few remnants at the base of a tree to come back to in the morning. Her good mood had lasted into the evening, when the sinking sun gave way to a few shining stars in the twilight. Leto had never put much thought to the heavens until she'd traveled and spent so many nights beneath them, and they could at turns make her feel incredibly amazed or incredibly small and insignificant. Tonight they were a marvel and a wonder, until deeper darkness fell and the last vestige of sunlight left the sky.

Then did a true blackness cloak the forest, and any sense of comfort and pleasure leeched away into the cool night breeze. Slowly, so slowly, a chorus arose, and Leto froze where she stood, the dark ridge of fur standing up along her nape and spine at the ominous sound. She thought, initially, that the screaming might be coyotes, but she'd nosed no coys on her way into the woods and didn't suppose they'd come in now since she'd spread her half-wolfish scent around all day. Besides, she'd never heard such an unearthly wail to belong to Merak or any of the coyotes she'd had run-ins with in her summer of journeying. The only comparison she could make was to the sound of an injured fox she'd once had the misfortune of stumbling upon and forcing herself to dispatch just to end his suffering. She'd supposed that was the sound of a terrified and pained fox, but it seemed that all foxes made such a banshee's noise, and that they must be hidden throughout the woods to make every tree and stone echo with their yowling.

Startled by the noise, Leto found herself racing through the forest in near-darkness in search of a place where fox howls couldn't carry. And soon, it fell almost eerily silent. Leto stopped mid-stride, hesitating. If the chorus of foxes was unearthly, this silence was unnatural and sinister. She should at least have heard the vulpines at a distance, but no sound penetrated this deepest part of the forest. Then, though, a low pitched and undulating rumble, like thunder, reached her. The half-coyote lowered her head and bared her teeth in an instinctual display of defense against whatever this was, for logic told her that there had been no clouds in the sky at sunset and that thunder didn't take a pattern of up-and-down tones like speech. Creeping warily through the underbrush, Leto's emerald gaze swept from side to side and the sound grew louder, and turned into a voice, but she couldn't understand the words. Another roar of noise and then the sound stopped abruptly. Leto, too, halted, frightened of what she could no longer hear and still could not see.

A loud crash off to her right, not twenty wolflengths away, send the female skittering backwards to avoid danger, but the sound of branches splitting and bushes being trampled told her that whatever made the wake of destruction was going the opposite direction. When after many long minutes the sound faded and the fox cries reoccurred in the distance, Leto was able to overcome her instinctual caution and slipped into a clearing.

There was no one and nothing to be seen, but the scent of ash, like trees after a wildfire, filled her nostrils with a bitter tang. Beneath the acrid scent Leto could make out the scent of wolf, and so began to track the scent through the pitch black forest. It was a challenge, but this had always been a skill for the girl, since the days she'd begun tracking Merak's coyote clan. At length, the trek paid off, and there the wolf was, ivory like a glimpse of moonlight in black forest. From a distance, Leto could see few details, but with the night growing old and day soon to break in the east she was more confident, and the forest did not seem so dangerous now. "What in hell was that back there? Were you attacked?" Her voice was more ragged than she intended, made so by long disuse. She couldn't tell, from several paces away, if the stranger was injured, but surely whatever beast had lain waste to that path in the forest was large enough to kill this woman, whose slender build was not unlike Leto's own save for looking more wolflike.

Even as Jinx attempted to set about normal tasks that would bring her back to reality, the feel of the Spirit World infringing on the Physical was impossible to ignore, almost like a tear in the fabric of reality had allowed the Spirits to tumble into her world and play, unbound by the laws of their own. It was unearthly. The entire forest was unearthly, inexplicable, and the yowling of the foxes in the pre-dawn gloom was so fitting that after some time, she forgot they were foxes, and believed they were, indeed, lesser loa crying out in the wake of their Master. But none of them revealed themselves to her, and besides their wailing, Jinx could understand nothing they said.

Her attention was pulled backward as a voice, taut and scratchy with what she assumed was dryness, heralded her from behind, and as she turned her head she beheld a desert-kissed coyote (whose scent, she noted as it diffused through the air, was curiously unlike a coyote's, and bore resemblances to wolf, which gave her pause for a moment) whose concern might have been genuine, or might have been fearful. Jinx, being ever suspicious of others, was wont to believe a loner would not care for the wellbeing of another, but instead, would ask such a question in the interest of their own continued survival. Nonetheless, she could not fault anybody for that, for she would likely have done the same if she had heard the sounds Leto had been subject to earlier in the night.

“The Dark One is displeased,” she answered simply, mistaking the coyote-who-smelled-like-a-wolf for one of the voodou-loving variety. It was no secret to her, and was a strong belief, that coyotes and foxes, being of trickster quality and clever, were creatures of voodou, and practitioners of it. Of course, there was the fact that not all coyotes and foxes believed in voodoo at all… But Jinx was ignorant of that, and believed the teachings of her family, which were that all coyotes and foxes and crows were inherently tied to voodou and were capable of performing it, with or without revealing the truth of their power to others. Therefore, there was no second thought; she thought Leto would know exactly what she was talking about.

“But He is placated now,” she continued, “for the time being. He gave to me a mission, and I failed it, but I will not fail Him again.” Now her eyes turned to pierce into the coyote's (still unknown hybrid, because Jinx was a Kesuk, and truly stupid), the colour of dazzling emeralds so deep that even the richest grass could not compete, set as a perfect contrast to spun-gold visage, and a little grin tugged her lips upward; Leto was perhaps the most beautiful coyote Jinx had ever seen, and she equated the gift of beauty in this one with the favour of Sos, being faithful to a fault to her God. “You must have felt Him, too, and come here.”

"The Dark One is displeased, but he is placated now." The stranger continued on in such a vein, and Leto could only cock her head to one side in curiosity. She was not unaware of or averse to the concept of faith, but she'd never had a personal connection with any divinity, let alone a Dark One. Those sorts of things were nearly unheard of in Emerald Forest, a pack that was practical and interested in earthly pursuits, and of the Canyon clan's coyote religion she knew nothing at all. A bit uncomfortable with the spiritual bent that the conversation was taking, she shifted uneasily from paw to paw, but at length Jinx turned the inquiry to her: "You must have felt Him, too, and come here."

Leto took a few steps closer, placing the pair of females within actual conversational distance, but she made a point of occupying herself scratching at the bark at the base of a tree instead of casting her piercing green gaze upon the other female in a confrontational way. Whatever else had occurred in the forest that night, Leto was not itching for conflict. Mildly, she said, "I heard a sound like thunder, but there was no storm. I heard it saying words, but I couldn't tell what it was saying. When it left you, it left a path of destroyed underbrush in its wake. This was... your Dark One?" She was telling only the facts as she'd experienced them, but the questioning and faintly quivering tone of her voice revealed that she wanted very badly to know what the stranger had met in the depths of this forest.

I am mentioning Atka because you chose Loco'en, but she can be more of a Sos wolf if you want. >> Jinx isn't the brightest and probably couldn't actually tell the difference anyway.

Her eyes were critical now on the 'yote, whose head seemed to drift to the side somewhat, less than 45° — less than significant, in her eyes. It was the natural tilt of a canid's head when they were engaging their senses, she decided. She could not deny a sense of unease when the other avoided her gaze and set to pawing at bark instead, but took it as some misguided form of respect. Coyotes were… Uncivilized. They knew nothing of the ways of the wolf, did not behave the same way, and their methods were archaic in her mind. They at times formed clans but often lived in solitude and selfishness; a coyote's sole redeeming quality, as far as Jinx was concerned, was its tie to the gods and the supernatural.

This belief, she assumed, Leto must've subscribed to by necessity and by nature, so there was no need to explain further what she meant. When the coyote recounted her experience, it struck Jinx as unusual, if only because she was so vehement in her belief that all coyotes were the same, and this one seemed ignorant. And yet… You heard Him, she pointed out with a knowing smirk, which might've been considered unnerving to anybody not acquainted with her. Then you are not so unnatural as you would have me believe.

With scarcely any concern for the 'yote's personal space, the wolf approached, penetrating her bubble with confidence she might not've shown in approaching another wolf; what were the instincts of a coyote to the instincts of a majestic wolf? They were savage, barbaric. She wasted no time in approaching the other's coat with her nose, drawing in her scent as though it was tangible, and pushing herself invasively close. It might best have been compared to possessiveness. He will touch you, she said, lifting her lips to the other woman's ear with full disregard for any reaction her nearness had caused. He will make you His.

Little could Jinx know that it was Atka she felt, not the Dark Father; she had come to throw away her perception of the Mother, so that now even the faintest whisper of divinity was instantly attributed to Sos, and She was left out of the equation altogether.

I am adding a very brief conclusion onto this thread; I don't believe you're still here with Jinx but if you are and want to continue it, PM me and we can resurrect it.

Leto listened to Jinx's words with perked ears and her head twisted to the side in curiosity, but she did not feel the presence of anything in particular there with them in that moment. She didn't doubt that Jinx believed that of which she spoke, but for Leto, faith was slower in coming. So instead she simply dipped her head politely, and as the night wore on the two females spoke for a time, Jinx's words a bit more mystical, Leto's a fair bit more down to earth. When they parted, Leto was glad to have met the Kesuk female and though she didn't realize it, Jinx would soon be at the helm of a newly-created pack that Leto would call home...