@Junior Outrider thread, though I don't know how this'll work because Night's gonna be too busy reacting to the thunderstorm and the Voices... Also this post sucks, so sorry for that... >.<
The Voices were strong and emotional this night. It seemed their strength grew in times of natural chaos, and thunderstorms were one such kind of chaos. They all Whispered at once, until they were no longer whispering and instead Screaming inside her head, causing herself to scream, as well, trying desperately block them out. Nightwing could no longer concentrate on anything, so intent was she on getting away from the Voices. Even Mordred, who was usually the calmest of the Voices, had joined in on the screaming, and it was giving the poor wolf a terrible headache.
She ran far to try and escape the screaming, and when she hit the coast, she kept right on running, until she was chest deep in cold ocean water. She herself was screaming as she hit the water so that she inhaled a mouthful of salt water, and then began to cough and splutter, which caused pain in her throat. She grew disoriented in the ocean as the Voices continued their relentless assault in her brain, but finally righted herself -- mostly because the ocean waves had taken her and slammed her into the shore so that she stood now in only ankle-deep water.
Finally, exhausted, she crawled all the way to the sand, well away from the ocean itself, and collapsed, breathing heavily, as the Voices continued raging in her head, and the thunderstorm boomed in the sky. Nightwing whimpered and placed her paws over her head and face, trying to drown out the awful noise of it all.
The storm seemed to make some of the Nereides anxious, though Junior couldn't say she minded the weather personally. She crept onto an outcropping overlooking the choppy ocean, watching as the dark clouds rolled in from the horizon. From up here, she could see miles out to sea, though the heavens soon grew too dark to make out many details.
Because of the rain, she neither saw nor smelled the dark wolf streak across the beach and crash into the waves. Because of the thunder, she didn't hear her scream. Junior remained oblivious to the intruder until her eyes fell from the squalling skies to the beach down below. A flash of lightning revealed a dark figure crawling out of the water onto the beach.
Junior reacted swiftly. She jumped to her feet, picked her way down to the shore and took off across the soaking sands. She did not attack, sensing the stranger's struggle. The youth braked to a sudden halt, standing over the bedraggled form even as she recalled the lore about considering anything that washed up from the Sea—even living creatures, like this wolf—as gifts. Since she hadn't seen the stranger enter the water, Junior figured she must have washed ashore, not unlike Junior herself had done before being discovered by Ragnar and Thistle back in the day.
"Who are you?" Junior shouted above the sounds of the storm.
There's sort of a lot going on this post, so feel free to have Junior like ignore half of it or whatever you want.
Nightwing gave a high-pitched yelp at the sudden intrusion of even more noise, coming from another wolf close by. She jumped up and faced the yeller, growling deep in her throat. She was in no mood to be bothered and had no idea what the she-wolf wanted, so stuck with her instincts. KILL IT, one Voice screamed at her, and she barked at Junior, as well as the Voice, trying to quell her inner noise. KILL IT, the others all began to chant, and Nightwing responded by barking all the more fiercely.
She truly looked insane, for now she was twisting and turning in the night, spinning in circles and snapping at air in frustration as the Voices and the thunder and the crashing of the waves caused a massive cacophony in her ears and her mind. Noise! How she hated it! "Shut up, shut up!" she screamed, at nothing and no one in particular. There were so many causes of the noise that she didn't know who to aim her shouting at. "Shut up!" she yelled again, having by now completely forgotten about the female before her.
All she knew -- her entire existence -- was now Noise. Incessant Noise. Noise, noise, and more noise, and she couldn't stand it! All night every night were Voices, and she didn't need anymore Noise added to that! Why couldn't the world just leave her alone? "Go away!" she shouted into the sky. "Away! Get away! Leave me alone!" Then she slumped back into the sand and went back to covering her face with her paws.
The stranger didn't reply. However, she sprang onto all fours and proceeded to run in circles, spouting absolute nonsense. Junior's ears flicked backward at the squalling that put the loud thunder to shame. Her eyes followed the stranger as she ran erratically back and forth. She's insane, the youngster realized. She might be dangerous.
Her Warrior's instincts kicked into gear then and she jumped at the sable stranger, attempting to grab her by the scruff and hopefully subdue her. Junior didn't necessarily want to hurt her, yet if she put up a fight, she would swiftly change her mind. She wouldn't tolerate a threat to herself nor her pack mates, especially not right on their newly claimed turf.
This is sort of all over the place. Sorry. I'm super tired right now.
Suddenly, amidst all the chaos in Nightwing's mind, there was a feeling at the nape of her neck. Whoever the fuck was grabbing her had better back off, is what she was thinking. Instinctively, she yelped at the feeling of fangs, and tried to twist away, bucking a bit to try and dislodge the offender's teeth from her scruff. She didn't like being handled. Not when she was like this. She had hurt other wolves before, on accident, because the Voices hated it when she was touched, and they would make her hurt wolves who touched her.
"Get off me!" she screeched. "Please get off! Let go! The Voices, they might make me... hurt you!" Her words were more growls than anything else, grunted out while struggling to get free. "I don't wanna hurt you! Please let go! Let go!"
In her mind, the Voices were angry at whoever was grabbing her. KILL, they began again. KILL IT.
"No!" Night shouted at them, aloud. "I won't do it! I won't hurt anyone else!" And she continued to struggle, to gain control over her own mind...
She managed to nab the stranger's scruff. She gave it a good yank, hoping to jar some sense into her. It had the opposite effect, however; the strange she-wolf began to scream even harder. Not to mention the struggling. Although Junior's ears pasted to the nape of her neck in response, she didn't loosen her grip. Instead, she gathered more folds of fur and flesh in her teeth and began to drag the dark stranger up the beach, away from the water and toward the borders.
She had dragged heavy prey before but trying to tug a living, resisting creature was a whole different ball game. Eventually, Junior felt so rattled that she had no choice but to let go with a muffled gasp of breath. "What is your problem?" the youngster hissed indignantly, tail lashing. Her eyes suddenly danced with lightning. "Why are you screaming like that? Who are you?" she repeated her earlier question, though she wasn't benching on getting an answer to any of her questions.
Lol. Poor Night is like, "STOP IT VOICES" and poor Junior is like "WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU, YOU CRAZY?!"
The second Nightwing was let go, she immediately stopped moving, and pretty much face-planted into the sandy-grassy area they were now in. She didn't speak or move for a long time, just lying there as her heart rate slowed down again, and the Voices finally calmed themselves. Then, with a rattling sigh, as if she couldn't breathe in all the way, she sat up -- though she refused to look at the young wolf who had dragged her here. She was embarrassed and a bit ashamed, though she knew she had no control over the Voices.
"The Voices," she whispered, afraid to speak too loudly for fear of enticing their wrath once again.
"They make me do things. I - I hear Voices in my head. They tell me to do things, and sometimes they take over my body... I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say then. There really wasn't anything else she
could say. What the hell could
anyone say in this kind of situation? She was insane, and she knew it. There was nothing she could do about what had just happened, so she simply kept staring at the ground, half expecting to get attacked or for the other wolf to run away.
I'm narrating a conclusion since the player's been suspended/quit.
The stranger's calm was so abrupt that Junior didn't trust it. She kept her mismatched eyes shrewdly pinned on the other she-wolf, mouth falling slightly ajar when the other explained that she heard voices in her head that made her do things and which sometimes even took over her body. Something about this made her think of Tytonidae, who saw and heard things others didn't, yet nothing about her sister was nearly this obnoxious nor ominous.
"I don't want to hear your apologies," Junior replied curtly.
"You need to get out. These are claimed lands and you're trespassing. If you don't leave of your own free will, I will show you out," the young Warrior threatened in a quiet voice, ears suddenly thrusting forward and tail lifting to show that she meant business. A rumble of thunder seemed to punctuate her command and lightning pulsed in her bright eyes.
That seemed to do the trick. The strange she-wolf frantically scrambled backward up the beach, in the direction of higher ground. Osprey Jr. trotted behind her, dogging her steps until she disappeared further inland, following the direction of the storm.