Wolf RPG

If insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, well, did this make him insane?

Probably. Most likely. But the weather had soured, and with it, his prospects of survival -- and though Tuathal had very little to live for, he still didn't want to die.

He had found this forest in the pursuit of shelter, only to find the trees marked with the all familiar claim of a pack. Just his luck. But there was something familiar and relatively sane about the most prominent scent that traced the perimeter of the forest. Not just of one, but of several. The familiarity, faded and faint, but present none the less.

"Shit."

But even as he spoke, he tipped his muzzle to the air and pushed his voice through the whistle of the snow-stung wind.

Familiar, and familial.

Things were still wrong. He wanted the storm gone and the world fixed. Where were his children? Simmik? Hadn't they all been through enough? Why was this still happening? He couldn't head back out into this storm to look for Caerus when it felt like they were as a pack bleeding around the edges. He didn't know what had happened beyond either. There was enough at home that had put him in a dark state.

So he patrolled. It was better than inflicting it on others. He went to answer the howl, but upon finally spotting the figure there, he paused slightly, You seem familiar. It had been a while. Probably what felt like a lifetime ago in Mal's eyes. Someone he'd met briefly had probably had most of that bit of memory overwritten by some sort of new drama -- there was plenty of it, and it was far fresher in his mind. I'm Mal, and this is Neverwinter Forest. But he said it in a way that seemed to express that the guy might already know that.

The kid who met him was someone he hadn't expected to still see around these parts, given the phenomenal hospitality of the Wilds. "Hey! Yeah! It's you!" he'd forgotten his scent, but remembered his face -- didn't remember if they'd exchanged names, but what much did that matter? He knew now at least, and Tuathal brightened at the sight of the strangely mottled boy, perhaps the only reason his face had stuck with him.

"Lookit you!" a grin broke the usual veneer of his grim complexion, "Jeeze kid, didn't think I'd ever see you again," because in all honesty, he was surprised he wasn't dead. Maybe the Blackthorns brought enough crazy to keep him alive. "Got any room in your woods for another? I'd sell my kidneys to be somewhere that was never-winter right now."

A bleary memory that somehow was meshing with reality. What else had he forgotten? What else was just beyond? Hopefully it wasn't something important. By now it couldn't be anything, right?  I'm sorry.. I don't remember your name. It was like.. Eons ago. I guess. Was it really? Maybe a year?

Still, he was a little off-guard by it all. He tried to figure out where that put him in the usual routine, There's room -- and you're still alive out here though, so I guess that means you know enough to survive and all that, yeah? Don't need to ask? Especially in weather like this. Where the world just hated them all, no prisoners.

"Frankly I don't think we even got each other's names," though it was just as likely he too had forgotten. You could only meet so many people before something about them decided to slip between your paws, like a trout or a slug or a couple folk he knew. Anyway. "Tuathal Blackthorn. Not usually one to drop my family name but from the air of things I reckon you've heard the name before."

There was something easy in Mal's demeanour, and a sense Tuathal got from his approach to this recruit, that he wouldn't be too tough a guy to listen to. "I like to think I've got survival down pat," he shrugged, "and I come from a big family, so I know well enough how to carry my weight." It seemed a pretty sealed deal, then. And if Mal wanted more, Tuathal would give what he asked. He knew how to hunt, to fight, not so much to negotiate or counsel, but against the elements, and in a winter like this, how much did the arts impress?

Jackalope and Aibreann? He honestly couldn't remember if he'd met any Blackthorns with those names, but it didn't surprise him. If mom was still kicking out babies when he and Ceara were born, that woman could do anything -- including pump out a litter even after them. But the names sounded very Blackthorn - a nickname, he reckoned of the first, and a sensible one, he reckoned of the second - that he nodded along anyway and said, "Yeah, that'd be them."

"Thanks kid," he followed Mal quite contentedly. Finally, some solace from the bitter cold! It was, of course, still winter here, and still cold, but the trees at least seemed to form a barrier that kept most of the snow out, and Tuathal was thankful for that. "Don't think I have much to ask," he admitted. He'd been a part of so many packs already, he knew the base line of what to expect. But a niggling reminder of their past conversation came to mind -- funny, how he would remember it (he pushed the resurfacing memory of Ceara aside) -- and amended himself with, "actually, I have got a question for you. Ever find those lost sisters of yours?"

So, then he was sort of family to Mal then as well, in an extended way. Few more then, too. Aibreann and I have children together. A slight smile. Two were missing, but he didn't say that. It hurt -- so many were gone now, and Mal was certainly not whole. How did he say that two of his sons were gone just like that?

And Tuathal brought it up, too. They were like a mirage more than a memory at this point, he shook his head, No. And I've had other important people disappear since then. I hope they're ok. He was a fairly broken man -- perhaps he was similar attitude to when they'd last met, but he'd missed the man Mal had been in the middle, where for a brief time things had been kinda okay. Now? Things were wrong. It was too much weight on him. He changed the subject slightly, I'm sure Aibreann and Jackalope will be glad to see you. I don't know if you wanted to hunt them down soon or...?