Wolf RPG

His venture back from meeting with Verrine had taken a bit of a detour. Perhaps it was out of nostalgia already, but Mordecai hadn't graced the overgrown woods for quite some time. He thought that maybe the last time he had come through had been his final departure from Silvertip. The first time had brought him into a meeting with Jinx. In many ways, the woodland was the start of many of his adventures in the Wilds.

Though sunset was heavily upon the terrain when he had first reached the cover of the woods, the canopies above soon blocked out any sort of twilight. A late summer haze blanketed the way before him, but Mordecai moved through it ease and without care. The terrain even after all that time was still familiar to him, and he wondered if the game had repopulated itself in the absence of them hunting from the mountains.

But the thought passed through his mind in favor for a curious scent on the faint breeze. It was of the sea, full of the bracken and watery tinge that he recalled from Verrine. Mordecai's pace slowed as he tested the air thoroughly, though all he could ascertain was that it belonged to no one he knew. Certainly not Verrine, who had gone back to the coast to be with his mate. Someone else, but who? He exhaled, soundly, and allowed curiosity take the better of him as he chose to suss them out.

He found her not much longer after he began his search. It would have taken longer, but the rising shape and movement in his peripheral drew all focus to her. What he noticed about her first were those piercing eyes, their untamed hue much stronger in contrast to his own. Her overall shape reminded him of Rahzie, who now had gone stray from their ranks. Most overwhelmingly was the scents of the sea, of the grit and fine grain of the sands he had walked many months ago. He drew it once again, and let the breath out soundly.

“You're a long way from home.” He spoke softly, hoping to put her at ease. If she had been resting, which he figured she was, he hadn't fully meant to disturb her from that necessity. Or so he thought, though it seemed more likely he had wanted to disturb her from it; all above things Mordecai held curiosity dearly close to him. Even it had its limits though, as he kept his distance. There was no telling what kind of response he would get from her, or whether or not his assumptions and guesses were hitting all that close to home.

“What brought you all the way out here?”

This time, things didn't really go to plan. His gentle speech wasn't enough to put her at ease. Not that he could blame her for not wanting to be forthcoming, of course. Information was just as much of a commodity as shelter or food. What she did offer him was just as informative as anything, though, and he had no problem giving a little. “I'm Mordecai.” For a moment, he considered adding on that he lived near the forest, but that wasn't entirely true. The Spine was still a bit of a trek off, and certainly not in the direction he had been heading. He would go home later.

“My brother and his mate live in your pack. Do you know Verrine?” So instead he tried to find some common ground between them, curiosity ever getting the better of him. He did not consider that she had wanted to be left alone, not now that he had gotten her to talk.

Initially, he thought he was going to be stonewalled, but her expression delved quickly into one of confusion. He mirrored this as she spoke; his own ears turned back as he gave the landscape an awkward glance. Mordecai considered that maybe he had mistaken the bracken air. He hadn't been close enough to the shoreline for it to dampen his senses. But the scents didn't change either, like some cruel trick revealing itself at the worst but most crucial time.

“My mistake. I thought you came from the Bay.” An apology didn't seem necessary, though he held the tone. He paused for a moment then, if only to compose himself slightly. “You smell like them, or at least a bit. They're ocean-dwellers, always smell like the salt and the water.” This time, he refrained from assuming that she lived by the sea. Perhaps she had just taken a trip and stayed long enough to pick up that same salty tinge.

The fact that she came from the ocean said a lot too. He only knew of a few of the packs that resided in the Wilds. Despite his penchant for meandering, he had never fully explored all that the terrain beyond them offered. It made sense that there would more than likely be others in existence out there, at least beyond the scant few packs he knew. Her statement left a nagging sensation of how little he knew, but the prompt to discover more would have to wait for another time. Leaving the Spine for too long would not be beneficial in its state.

“I don't. I live in a pack near here, though. We used to live on the mountain just beyond here.” He laid the pieces of the puzzle out, if only so she could piece them together. “Guess you could say that I'm passing through out of sentimental reasons. Are you apart of another pack on the shore?” He ventured the guess, but also hoped that maybe she wasn't. The Spine could have used with new blood in its veins, so to speak. That was if Ptarmigan would allow it. The intricacies of that he did not know.

As she turned about the area, he watched her curiously, wondering just what she was doing. Getting her bearings, if he had to guess, and was never fully able to when she unleashed a series of questions… and the answer he was hoping for. No pack to call home. He offered her a smile all the same though, at first opening his mouth for a moment as though he were about to answer her questions. But instead he closed it momentarily.

“Well, we're in a forest,” he started with, stating the obvious. “Can't say I remember the name of it. And I am a local, but I don't venture as much as I used to. There's no packs this close to here that I'm aware of, but I guess the closest two would be the Plateau across the river to the east here,” he gestured here, “and somewhere roughly in the direction behind me is the Spine.” Beyond that, he didn't know where anything really rested. In all actuality, he had never gotten close enough to the shore to see where Verrine lived, but he knew better than to call on the ire of an unfamiliar pack.

As she stepped away in distraction — or exploration; he couldn't decide which — Mordecai followed curiously. As her queries punctuated the night air, he couldn't help but wonder what it was that she was picking up on. Obviously her traits were far different than his own. “It's alright, I didn't used to be either. I'm from the Spine.” He peered about her digging at a distance, as though he would discern what she was after.

“And those are a couple of the packs that I know of. The proper names being Ouroboros Spine and Blacktail Deer Plateau,” he shook his head dismissively at the way the names felt on his tongue. It was easier to refer to them by their landmass, though spine wasn't exactly as descriptive as a plateau. “What are you looking for?” This time, he opted to try for one of his questions being answered again. The curiosity of what she was doing was far too tempting. He stepped closer.

As she turned to face him once more, Mordecai caught the full on emotion of her bright eyes. He was inclined to give in to the sense of dread that lingered within that urgency, but kept it at bay. He had an inkling of what ouroboros meant, but it eluded him. Perhaps Jinx had explained it to him at some point, as it was her that had named the territory. But he couldn't recall and truthfully, didn't want to. Some things were better left to gather dust on the shelves of the mind, versus the repeated visiting of them. She was gone, and he couldn't go and confirm or deny any perceived meaning. He rolled his shoulders in a furry shrug.

“Enlighten me,” he said. Somewhere in there, if he was told, he was certain he could pluck the answer as to why the territory had been named Ouroboros; the naming part for the Spine made sense to him in a convoluted way, if not for the squat mountains that ringed the majority of their territory.

He had captured her interest firmly now, and Mordecai watched and listened to what she had to say regarding the territory's namesake. The circle that she made, while it was crude, did in fact represent the generic shape of the Spine well. The story behind it also brought a sense of understanding to him, which he grasped easily and nodded with some enthusiasm. Within it though, it also seemed to give some hints back to her own upbringing, though he couldn't have said he knew what Norse was, anyway. Another culture, apparently one privy to wolves of certain places. The same went for Greek, as well.

“I don't know the exact reason, but I think I understand it,” he said after a moment of thought. “That circle you drew, that's the shape of our territory. We went there to leave a place that had led to some… unraveled situations, to borrow a word. I suppose that's how it got its name.” Right then and there, he almost wished Jinx alive to ask her himself. But there was nothing that could grant him that request, yet he knew he would retain the information was truth in light of it. Going from Silvertip to the Spine had been a rebirth, not dissimilar to a phoenix.

“Funny though, how it has two different meanings. In one, birth. In the other, death. Yet the two seem to follow each other, like a circle.” He smiled, albeit with a quirk. “Do you ever wonder how someone out there coined such a theory?”

He had never really given death much thought. Mordecai understood it was an inevitably, but had never considered whether or not something lied beyond it. Then again, he had not been exposed to a lot of death in the world either, and did not think about the lives that he took from meager things like prey. Her statement gave him pause, but only briefly. He had no rejoinder for it. Whatever would happen, would happen. If something existed beyond the earthly bounds that they walked on now, then he would discover them when his time was up.

Her next question posed an interesting topic though. Mordecai did not see the harm in telling her all the same. “It was a combination of things. Deserters who stole our resources. Nearby packs encroaching on our hunting grounds. We left because we didn't want the competition come winter.” And besides, living on a mountain was beginning to sound like a bad idea come winter anyway, he thought. More importantly for himself, he was only then realizing that he thought himself a local from a prior statement of hers. Local had such a permanent tie to it; Mordecai had never thought of himself as a permanent anything.

“Either way, where we are now is better. Terrain is better, game's not bad. You know, if you're looking for a place to stay before it snows, we could use an extra body or two.” Lessons over, he blindly returned to his intial thoughts.

For a moment, he almost wished he hadn't offered with the way that she reacted. It reminded him of how some wolves had reacted to the summery hot grit that made up the lands of Sedona. Still, she did decline politely and offered an explanation all the same. He was disheartened, but not insulted. His smile turned a touch sad, but it went away just the same as she mentioned visiting the Spine. Mordecai let out a breath.

“Maybe someday you can. I wouldn't be able to take you inside our territory, of course, but I could show you the ring of mountains from a distance. They're really quite a sight. I didn't even know they were there until we had come up on them, to be honest.” No, never in a million years would Mordecai have expected to find the Spine where it lied. While the mountains were rather squat and the seasons would render them more visible, it was what lied within the territory that made it interesting. Had he any say in it, he wouldn't have minded permitted a few visitors… but it was also safe to say that he would have had ulterior motives regarding permission.

“I'm glad you have somewhere to go home to, though. Maybe if I ever get out to the shore again, I'll find you and pay you a visit?”

For all her quirks, he felt as though he had uncovered a gem in the rough. The pleasantries were a nice change up from what he had felt in the air for weeks. But like all good things, they usually had to come to an end eventually. As she slipped back towards the damp and musky earth, he knew with certainty it was time to go home himself. Not because he was tired, but rather out of a sense of duty. There was no telling what had transpired at the Spine in his absence, but then again, it could have neither been nothing at all or everything coming apart at the hinges.

“It was nice to meet you too,” he said, realizing then that he had never caught her name. But sometimes a name wasn't really necessary either, was it? As he stepped away to let her rest, he mulled over the conscious thought of going and visiting the coast again someday. If only to seek her out.