Note to self: I'm using this as a Gamekeeper thread.
Tagging:
@Finley :)
Berries were on but mushrooms were definitely
off the menu. What menu? The menu Peregrine was constructing in his head, a sort of inventory of all the alternative food sources to be found in and around the plateau. Perhaps it would come in handy in wintertime, when food was scarcer. If not, they would at least have a list of side dishes to go with their meaty main dishes.
Recently, he'd discovered some strange plants not far from the pack's cemetery. They consisted primarily of long, winding vines and their fruit was large, round, orange and strangely bulbous. Little did Peregrine know that he was looking at pumpkins as he stared at them now, debating whether it was worth the risk of trying a bite. Maybe these fluorescent, slightly rotted plants would make him trip like those mushrooms...
She missed Sun Spark. Finley hadn't known the man all too well, having only spent a small amount of time with him before he passed, but to know now that she would never get to was a weight than hung heavy upon her. The Blackthorn had never lost anyone close to her before. Grief was strange to her. She detested it immensely, but was at a loss as to how to deal with it.
Fin was wandering aimlessly through the Plateau, lost in her thoughts when she stumbled upon Peregrine, fiddling with some weird orange things. She watched him for a second before deciding to approach. "Trying to find a hole in it you can stick your thingy into? she said with a small grin as she padded up to his side.
He turned when he heard someone approaching and smiled at Finley's crack. "You know, you need to meet my brother now that he's awake, if you haven't met him before. You two will get along just fine." Pulling his eyes from her silvered face, he regarded the pumpkins again. "Nah, I have five of those already. Five? Yeah, five..." he mused aloud, winking at his own crassness.
"I'm working on a project," he explained in the next moment. "I'm trying to identify the plateau's food resources, aside from those that breathe and walk around. Plants, berries, that kinda thing..." Peregrine paused, then asked, "You wanna try these with me? Friends don't let friends eat strange objects alone."
Fin was a little surprised by her alpha's response. It wasn't the sarcastic jest that she had anticipated, but a suggestion that was actually a little touching. "If he can keep up like you can, I'm sure we'll be best buds," she replied with a grin. As he suggested that he had five holes already, she took a moment to try and count them herself before she stopped and realized that she really did not want to start doing that.
"Yeah alright," Fin agreed easily. After all, she hadn't let him take a mud bath alone, so she might as well just keep up the trend, "Just as long as this is the strangest eat-able thing you try to share with me," she said with a suggestive little smirk (ooc: OMG my dog just farted and it is so god damn rank I'm choking)
Fin trotted around her friend, setting her eyes on another pumpkin a few feet away, this one somehow more... tasty-looking. She wasn't sure what exactly it was about the longer, slightly thinner pumpkin, but it looked like something she could take a bite out of. "It reminds me of a turtle.. kind of... Do you think you break it open first the same way?" Fin quirked a brow at him as she asked.
In response to Finley's quip, Peregrine asked, "Have you ever tried eating the mushrooms around here? I tripped balls." The Alpha paused for effect. "Which could be fun, in the right context. You'd be fun to trip with, for example. My company at the time was not so suitable." He grimaced, slightly embarrassed. He hadn't known, though!
His eyes followed Finley as she located a choice pumpkin and looked it as if she didn't quite know how to approach it. She likened it to a turtle, though Peregrine just didn't see it. He studied the pumpkin closest to him and pondered her question, even stretching out a paw to touch it. It felt hard and smooth.
"I'm really not sure how this is supposed to be done, but..." He trailed off, exchanged a look with Finley, then bent down, opened wide and locked his jaws into that thick orange peel.
For a second, his fangs didn't seem to do much good, though the pumpkin was softening and rotting, so continued pressure forced them to sink into the strange flesh of the plant. He bore down, grinding the exterior into a thick pulp, then yanked. A large chunk of the pumpkin came away in his jaws, leaving a hole. He spat out the rind, then touched his nose to the lighter orange flesh, which suddenly gave way. He almost fell snout-first into the pumpkin's unexpectedly hollow interior.
He withdrew abruptly, a smear of pumpkin guts on the tip of his nose. He went cross-eyed looking it, then frowned, shook his snout and sneezed. The stringy stuff fell to the ground, clotted with what appeared to be little white seeds. It looked utterly disgusting, though it smelled strangely sweet.
"Do you dare me to eat it?"
Fin, surprisingly, had never done anything before that made her "trip balls". In fact, she didn't really even understand what that meant. She did like to have fun, though, which all in all just left her conflicted on how to respond to her friend. Tripping on balls really sounded more like a guy problem, but apparently women could be invited. Weird. She was going to just let that one go.
As Peregrine moved to start the attack on his pumpkin, Fin set to devising her own tactics against her quarry. There was a weird vine sticking out of the top of the thing that caught her attention first and it was this that she leaned down to prod at with her nose. It was surprisingly scratchy with a weird spongy sort of texture when she bit down upon it. She lifted a paw to prod at it more when a 'thump' took her attention back to Peregrine.
The Blackthorn's face quickly jumped from amusement to being scrunched up in disgust. "Urghh," she whined, "It looks like snot and spider webs... Fuck yeah I dare you to eat it."
"Snotty spider webs," Peregrine muttered to himself right before he opened his mouth again and scooped up the pile of orange mush with his tongue. Although he was tempted to swallow it directly, he made himself chew it. The texture was definitely a bit nightmarish for him, yet the flavor wasn't altogether bad.
"It's sort of sweet. Once you get past the texture, it's not half bad," he reported after swallowing. He licked his lips, savoring the sugary scraps of pumpkin flesh that lingered there. "Try a bite, feeb. Dude, look, it's full of that gunk." He pointed a paw at the hole in the side of his pumpkin. It was full of chunky, stringy orange stuff and what looked like hundreds of white seeds.
"Hey." A thought suddenly occurred to him and he turned his body to fully face Finley (tongue twister oh my). "If you eat seeds, can they... grow inside you? Is one of these things gonna sprout in my stomach and make me look eternally pregnant? And... will I poop it out eventually? Is my asshole doomed?"
Fin stuck her tongue out as though gagging when he slurped the gunk off of his nose and began to chew. She watched him as though something terrible were about to happen to him, but considered him thoughtfully when he reported that it wasn't all that bad. She gave a little shrug, dismissing the remainder of her trepidation before leaning down to go to work again on her pumpkin.
The girl grabbed again onto the vine and began to tug, wondering if by pulling on it, it would be like when you pulled on a deer's intestines and out rolled the stomach (I just grossed myself out). It didn't seem to want to budge. Planting her paw on the top of the gourd, she pulled harder while pushing it away. It crackled and popped due to her effort, but still didn't really want to go anywhere. She gave a frustrated little growl and upped her effort, stopping only when Peregrine turned to her with sudden concern.
She lifted her head too lok at him, teeth still dug firm into the vine so that she lifted the pumpkin from the ground. It was surprisingly heavy for being hollow. Fin looked at him with a ಠ___ಠ face before dropping the pumpkin to the ground so that she could respond.
"Wow," Fin said, "'Is my asshole doomed?'? Really, Perry? You seriously make it too easy sometimes, DiSarinno." She gave him a wide grin, soooo many gay jokes floating around in her head that she couldn't even decide which one to go with besides to allude to them all being there.
"But yeah, you're probably screwed. Think on the bright side, though. If the vine grows out of your ass first, you can get Fox or Lasher to help yank it out of you." She paused thoughtfully. "Or, we can just start beating on your stomach to smash it up into smaller pieces. It would still be an unpleasant experience for you to pass them, but at least it will be a bunch of smaller traumatizing poos instead of just one, massive, anus-annihilator."
She wondered briefly if she had just stumbled upon Peregrine's nickname for Lasher or vice versa, but decided that she didn't really want to know.
Confusion flickered over his face for a brief instant, then comprehension dawned. Peregrine smiled and chuckled, shaking his head. "I'll have you know I've never taken it in the ass. I'm a top," he told her informationally, offering a toothy smile and a wink to go along with the mental image he'd likely just served up hot.
"Okay, whoa, whoa..." he said when she began to describe treatments in vivid detail. "Don't talk about vines growing out off my asshole. That sounds really itchy. As for your other idea — while disgusting and painful, it's actually pretty clever," Peregrine had to admit.
"I," he announced, "am going to assume seeds are like the nasty bacteria and shit that we ingest when we eat meat and that my stomach acids will annihilate the seeds long before they can annihilate my ass." He took a breath. "Yeah, I'm going to bench on that," he muttered before abruptly punching his right forepaw into the hole, scooping out a handful of goop (not unlike Winnie the Pooh thrusting his tiny fist into a honeypot), then jamming it into his mouth.
Fin gave her friend a grin. It was weird to discover the strange thing she had in common with Lasher--something she never thought she would have in common with a male. But, she supposed there were stranger things she could have in common with the man. She didn't know him all too well, so there was a good chance they actually had many other similar traits. And yet. This is the one she discovered first. That's awesome.
"Hey man, you started it," Fin defended with a laugh. "Whatever helps you sleep at night, buddy." With that, she returned to tugging on the vine. She clenched her teeth down hard upon it and planted both paws on the orange shell, this time determined that she was going to win. She tugged and tugged, growls getting louder and louder until finally, she won. With a loud crack, the vine along with part of the shell and lots of pumpkin guts came spewing out. Fin tumbled backwards with a yelp as the gourd's innards went flying all over.
The Blackthorn scrambled over onto her stomach after the fall, highly displeased to find the bits of seeds and orange cobweb snot on her beautiful silver fur. "God damnit, Peregrine, why am I always covered in shit when I hang out with you??" she whined as she pawed a particular long and stringy piece off of her forehead.
Peregrine froze mid-chew at the loud crack! His wide eyes watched as Finley stumbled backward, followed by a spray of pumpkin innards. Forgetting that he had food in his mouth, the Alpha male began to laugh, then choke, until tears were streaming from his eyes.
"Shit, son, you almost killed me," he managed after finally clearing his airways and taking a couple of deep breaths. "Covered in shit is a great way to be," he croaked, trying to sound funny but mostly sounding like a dying animal. "You'd think something so mushy would go down a bit easier. I'm pretty sure a couple of the seeds are in my lungs now and my lungs don't have natural acids. Damn it, Finley." Despite his words and watering eyes, he laughed.
Fin got onto all fours and walked back to the pumpkin, nosing at the clump that had come out of the pumpkin briefly before she stuck her nose inside of the shell that had been left behind. She gave him a look as she accused him of almost killing him, biting back the you started it comment that clung to her tongue since she had already used that one. She shook her head to free herself of more pumpkin guts, but stopped as his words inspired a mental image that caused her to snort with laughter while her nose was still inside of the gourd.
The Blackthorn sneezed a few times due to the orange debris that had gotten sucked up into her nose--true pumpkin snot, funnily enough. "Oh my god," she said, choking on her cackles, "You're going to grow boobies!!" And then she burst out laughing at the thought of the seeds in his chest growing side by side. He was going to be ever so busty! yay blurring the lines between humans and wolves!
Peregrine's watery eyes widened again at Finley's comment... though not in horror, as might be expected. "I'm going to have titties?" he whispered to himself. Louder, he added, "I... I'm okay with that," while giving his companion a dead stare.
Chuckling in the next moment, he abandoned his own pumpkin-pot and strode over to help brush some of the orange pulp off Finley's back. He wrinkled his black lips back from his teeth and gently plucked clumps of the stuff from her fur, then flung them aside. He'd had enough to eat by now.
"I'd say they're definitely on the menu," he announced when he was finished, taking a step back from her. "I mean, I guess I should put them on hold until I figure out whether they're going to germinate in my innards. But after they've got the all clear, I think they'll make the cut. I may even stockpile a few today, just in case they disappear at midnight or something..."
Fin snorted with laughter at the look on Peregrine's face upon the prospect of growing lady parts of his very own to play with. She rolled her eyes fondly and peered down at the mess at her paws. When her alpha set to work on cleaning his subordinate up, she figured she probably ought to help him--it was her coat after all--and began to nibble at the bits she could reach on her shoulders after thanking him. It really didn't taste all too bad. It was stringy and mushy with seeds that seemed to exist only to get lodged in your teeth, but not hugely unpleasant when you looked past it.
"I wonder how long they keep off the vine," Fin said as they began making plans for them, "It hasn't been cold enough for a frost yet, but I suspect we're getting there based on the look of the trees. Another couple of weeks maybe." She paused thoughtfully, studying the remaining shell that she hadn't demolished when ripping the vine out of her pumpkin. After a moment, she leaned down and stuck her muzzle into the long, tubular pumpkin and lifted her head carefully, making sure that it didn't slip off.
Fin turned slowly to look at her alpha, her muzzle completely covered by the gourd. She said nothing, didn't laugh or smile, just gave him a look as though she were doing nothing out of the ordinary, wanting only to see how he would react to her new mask.
"So do you think we should leave them alone and come back later to harvest them?" he queried. Was that the first serious, rational sentence they'd exchanged? Well, it was one of them, for sure. Having a sidekick like Finley made this whole project a lot more fun, though. It could've been rather dry and boring otherwise.
When she thrust her face into the malformed pumpkin and hoisted it off the ground, he stared at her. "Nice hat," he observed dryly. "It's a definite improvement," he added with a little cackle before jumping forward and bumping the pumpkin, forcing it further back on her face. Maybe it would get stuck there...
"No, I think you were right before, we ought to harvest some and bury them, just in case," Fin said in response to his question, "You never know, maybe they're rot-resistant. Plus, it looks like we're not the only ones who have made a meal of them." Her gaze lingered on the marks of tiny teeth dug into some of the gourds scattered around them. A few sniffs told her that some squirrels and mice had been doing some feasting, and Fin wasn't so level headed a wolf as to not feel the need to guard even pumpkins jealously.
And then she smashed a pumpkin onto her face.
Or maybe, it is better said that Peregrine did the smashing. Fin more did the placing and the setting up for the smash. She had barely had time to smirk back at her alpha before he bopped her on the pumpkin-nose, shoving it further and harder against her face to where she winced from the spasm of hurt it caused. Her eyes were watering when she gave him a glare. "Rude boy," she accused, her mumbled voice echoing out of the shell. Her ire didn't last very long before she broke into a good-natured laugh and added, "Well played, though..."
Fin lowered her head to the ground and shook it in an attempt to free her face from the pumpkin. It didn't work. She lifted a paw to scrape at the edge and push. It didn't work. Panic began to rise in her, but she gulped it back and tried again. Nope! "Fuuuuuck..." she whimpered as she pushed/pulled, "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck PEREGRINE!" After a few more failed attempts, she shot the man yet another glare, this time one that wasn't going anywhere until he fixed what he had done to her. "What did you do!?" she barked at him, like someone shaking an accusing finger at a puppy who had just doodied on the floor.
Perry apparently thinks it's funny to run off and leave Finley stuck in things. :|
He watched her struggle with her new muzzle, eyes dancing merrily. Although pushing and pulling on it wasn't likely to dislodge the pumpkin, all she had to do was bash it against a tree or something. She'd figure that out eventually.
"What? It's a good look on you!" Peregrine rejoined, then added a sly,
"Hey, uh, I gotta go take a dump real bad. I'll be right back to help you and then we can harvest and bury some of these." He tried to keep the laughter out of his voice, yet he snickered and snorted between words.
Without another word, the Alpha male turned and ran into the woods, leaving here there. He probably would come back later, just to make sure she hadn't suffocated or something, but there was just something that tickled him about always leaving Finley in precarious predicaments.
Fin stopped her thrashing to listen as the swarthy alpha gave a mirthful response. She eyed him suspiciously when he gave his disgusting excuse, her eyes widening in anger as he took off and left her with a pumpkin on her face. "You son of a--!" she tried to bark after him--succeeding only in hurting her muzzle as it pressed hard against the shell. A growl escaped her throat as she lowered her head and went back to attempting to free herself, her mind wandering to how she would extract her vengeance upon the bastard.
It would eventually occur to Finley to just break the damn thing on a tree. Unfortunately, that was not before she approached two squirrels and a raccoon and attempted to beg them to eat it off of her. And also not before she crept through a bush to slowly and "nonchalantly" push it into the open on the other side next to where a few rabbits were nibbling on some grass. That sadly had left her trapped in a bush and a pumpkin while little woodland creatures rolled with laughter. Yes, by the end of the day, she was definitely thinking that Peregrine deserved to be set on fire for this one.