AW, deerstalker (scavenging!) #8 (prey: moose, using hunting bonus to change this to mule deer to more accurately fit the setting, failed)
The deerstalker was vaguely surprised -- vaguely only because she came from a land where the ground was always covered in ice -- to see that the open field was still covered in a light powdering of snow, even now as summer approached and the days grew warmer. She'd not expected to find much by the way of game out here -- at least not much more than the birds and small animals that were scattered along the Plains and its fringes, where the treeline began again.
But a dark shape on the horizon caught the she-dog's attention, beckoning her to trot closer in investigation. The black blip morphed into the shape of a fallen animal, a large and stately mule buck with a full rack of antlers. A gathering of coyotes feasted on the stag, snapping and snarling over the meat but they hadn't noticed Imaq yet. The she-shepherd deliberated silently, knowing she had only moments before they did and she lost the element of surprise, trying to determine if she was capable of chasing the...one, two, three, four coyotes off on her own.
Want to move this up to present day? May 24th-ish?
The dark shape on the horizon had also beckoned Lane, given that it was the only blip on an otherwise unmarred, endless stretch of plains. She needed a landmark to aim for anyway, and this one seemed perfect.
As she neared, it became clear that the landmark was some sort of kill-site. Little black specks churned in the air above the spot, and occasionally one would swoop down to snap up whatever it could before getting chased back up into the air. Larger figures milled around in a more hectic manner, and the chatter of coyotes met Lane's ears.
She resolved to give the coyotes a wide berth. She was no fighter, and thanks to her shiny new official pack membership-- she was not nearly hungry enough to risk her skin out here alone.
The chatter died down noticeably as the coyotes seemed to alert to something. They stopped their milling around and stood still, oriented toward...
...Toward Imaq. Shit. That was definitely Imaq-- even from a distance, her likeness was unmistakable. Lane picked up her pace, and in a few tense moments she had drawn up to Imaq's position.
"Need backup, packmate?" Lane murmured. It was likely that the presence of two wolves together would be enough to encourage a stalemate and keep the coyotes from charging them. Unfortunately, they still didn't number enough to make an offensive move and outright challenge the coyotes for their kill, especially seeing as Lane was pregnant. She probably didn't need to be picking any fights.
yeah, that works fine!
Imaq hadn't quite made up her mind when the wind shifted and she suddenly found herself staring into four pairs of tense, hungry brown eyes. Instinctively, her fluffy hackles bristled and the fur along her spine prickled as her lips twitched back into the beginnings of a defensive snarl. A splotched tongue rasped along her speckled chops of cream as the Selkie fought back the urge to flinch and snap towards Lane's direction as the she-wolf appeared at her side. She offered a low noise of apology, relaxing a bit with a comrade at her side.
"Aya," she breathed uncertainly, watching as one of the coyotes took a step forward. All thoughts of chasing off the coyote band had fled. They needed to get Lane out of here, there was no need to risk her pack mate's unborn children when their pack's caches were already well stocked.
She rumbled a low warning to the coyotes, edging back a step or two to make an escape -- glancing to Lane to make sure she was coming too.
Amped up by the situation, Lane could hardly blame Imaq for turning to her with a snarl. For all the shepard knew, Lane could have been a coyote sneaking up on her. The young medic flinched a bit, wagging her tail to signal friendliness and deference.
Once Imaq was able to recognize Lane and relax, the Vitale fell in line beside her packmate. Imaq seemed to be signaling for a retreat, which was no doubt their safest course of action. She nodded.
Lane was tempted to run back in the direction of home, because at this point the Glacier had become a place of safety for the newly-initiated packwolf. Unfortunately, it was just a bit too far, especially if the coyotes pursued them. They needed to make a break for higher ground, so they might have the edge should they need to mount a defense.
The Rise to the north offered another appealing option for retreat, but Lane recalled that the south-facing wall of the rise was just that-- a wall. The last thing Lane wanted to do was lead a chase directly into a dead end.
The mountain ridge to the south was going to be their best bet-- it posed the most likely chance of offering a gentle slope up onto higher ground. Lane gave a small leap and a bark, signalling for Imaq to follow in the direction of Emberflame Ridge.
Imaq's eyes flickered over to Lane briefly, nodding as her gaze shifted back to the coyotes -- whom had already used the she-wolves' brief distraction of silently deliberating on where to flee to, to their own advantage by inching forward as their beige hackles bristled challengingly. Imaq snapped her jaws with a little more oomph, lunging forward just enough that the coyote at the head of the group flinched before launching himself after the fleeing Glacier wolves.
The tundrian's aquamarines continuously flitted over to Lane as they ran -- as if to check that the fallow agouti was still there, still okay. Selkie couldn't have said for sure when the pursuing coyotes fell back, only becoming aware of a sudden lack of their presence behind them. Still, she pushed on towards the Ridge at the other medic's side -- panting lightly when they finally came to a stop.
The she-dog sniffed the air as she caught her breath, scanning their surroundings for any sign that the coyotes were still giving chase. But somehow she knew they wouldn't. They had a sizeable kill that they would be reluctant to leave unattended and two she-wolves, especially pack wolves wouldn't pose much threat so far from their own claimed land. They weren't hungry enough to chase the coyotes off from their meal and the canids knew it.
The coyotes leapt after them, but the wolves were swifter, seeing as the coyotes were weighed down by their most recent meal. They likely weren't looking for a fight anyway-- just bluffing, hoping to chase the lurking wolves away to a safer distance. The coyotes peeled away as soon as the terrain began to lift, but Lane and Imaq continued on. Once the first few trees began to appear around them, the pair slowed.
Breathing hard, Lane turned to Imaq. She still seemed on guard, sniffing the air in search for-- what Lane imagined to be-- any new dangers.
Lane glanced around. The trees grew thicker as the land stretched southward, elevation climbing sharply in the shape of a ridgeline. They were at the edge of the Sunspires. Lane would bed down for the evening in this little ridgeline forest before continuing her journey over the mountains.
"Imaq, are you expecting?" Lane inquired, still panting. The inquiry would likely seem abrupt to the shepherd, but it was a question that was not often far from Lane's mind these days.
The she-dog continued to hover in a stance of alertness, listening and breathing in the soft scent of the spring-warmed forest, utilizing her senses as much as she could to ensure the danger had passed. As the pair’s breathing began to slow to a normal pace, Imaq turned towards Lane with an impish grin. Her lips parted to say something, a joke maybe, when Lane’s question wiped the mirth from her face. If wolves could visibly pale, the shepherd would have blanched.
With a sigh, that sounded more bone-weary than Selkie intended it to, Imaq settled on her fluffy haunches defeatedly. “Imaq not know,” she answered honestly, seeing no reason to lie.
Hesitating, the dove chose to divulge after a moment. “When Imaq leave Nunaat, Imaq is Tupilak. Cursed, evil. Father wolf, Salik, say Imaq never have cubs. Cubs come out evil too.”
”Imaq not think,” the mutter was lacking, frustrated. She didn’t regret what had happened at all, the thought of what she’d shared with Rye and the thought that their children might be growing in her womb as a result causing her stomach to flutter. But she had been dreadfully underprepared, mentally anyways — she had no doubt she could provide for her young. The helplessness she felt, the uncertainty, was what was eating at her.
“Imaq…care about Rye. Imaq not want…” she struggled to string her thoughts together in a way Lane would understand, ears splaying gently with anxiety.
I don’t want to mess this up. With either of them.
Watching Imaq's face fall, Lane felt guilty. She'd been so consumed by the need to know, that she hadn't stopped to consider the delicacy of the topic. She opened her mouth to take back her question with an apology, but then Imaq answered.
She didn't know. It wasn't outright denial, so that meant that Lane's suspicions were likely true. It was Rye, wasn't it? Lane couldn't ask now, not with the way Imaq looked. She stepped forward, wanting to comfort Imaq but unsure exactly how to do so. Imaq hadn't yet revealed the source of her discomfort.
With the explanation that followed, Imaq revealed everything.
"Wait so.. the reason you're cursed is because you.. left Nunaat?" Lane wanted to make sure she understood, mostly because it was just so preposterous. If Lane believed in such things as curses, they certainly wouldn't be brought on by something as innocuous as leaving a place. Hell, Lane had been leaving places all her life. Did that mean her children would come out evil too?
On that point...
"Children are not born evil. Never ever." Lane was certainly not as experienced with newborns as some-- Kukutux and Mahler, for example-- but she knew to the core of her being that there could be nothing inherently impure in the soul of a child.
Imaq not think. Well, there was something to which Lane could relate. She hummed a sympathetic noise. And Imaq cared about Rye... another point to which Lane could relate. The mention of Rye's name triggered a sinking feeling in Lane, because it banished any doubt she still harbored that Rye was the father of this litter. Swallowing her own feelings, Lane stepped forward with a comforting nudge to Imaq.
"I'm not.. completely prepared for this either. We can figure it out together." Tzila could help too; she'd done this parenthood thing before, after all. "Your kids will be perfect and good, you'll be an amazing mom, and.. R-rye is going to be such a great dad." Lane swallowed again. She felt a heat rising in her chest, burning her cheeks.
Imaq shook her head, a tiny wrinkle forming between her oceanic orbs as she felt a stab of frustration -- directed at herself rather than Lane. It wasn't the medic's fault that her grasp on the common tongue was still tenuous. "Father wolf curse Imaq. Make leave Nunaat. Imaq dirty," she did her best to elaborate but it seemed that her story would have to wait to be heard in any depth -- at least until she commandeered the language of Teekon more adroitly.
The pale beige agouti's next point was made vehemently, so insistent that the dove did not argue. In some place of her heart, she agreed with the mother-to-be. Even her sons, her precious lost boys, had been adored. Cherished. Imaq had never blamed those innocent faces for what their sire had done to her, though some sick part of her had wanted to hate them at first. It would have made it easier. She might've just abandoned them where they landed at birth but she'd been damned from the moment she first saw Ikila's face in the light of day. She'd loved them, fiercely so, until the day the last of the triplets was snatched from her useless fingers -- and even after.
But Lane was not raised to hear the spirits, nor was she borne of Sedna's waters. She could not understand the fear that plagued the shepherd: that she was in fact cursed, that she had cursed her first litter with her ruin of a womb, that these babes would be as doomed as her first sons.
The comfort and kind words were appreciated but their meaning was lost on the dove at first. The change in Lane's demeanor distracted her from admitting her long-kept secret just yet, pulling her attention away from children and to the man that had created her own.
"I-is Rye...?" Tupilak asked, hesitantly, as she wasn't sure whether it was an appropriate thing to ask.
Oh, okay. So Imaq left her homeland because she was forced out (by her own father!) for being "dirty." Whatever that meant. Lane had a hunch that it might have something to do with Imaq's mixed heritage, particularly because she was so insistent that the "evil" would be passed to her own cubs.
Whatever Lane's preconceived notions about mixed wolves might have been, she did know that there was nothing evil about it. Imaq's heritage was what it was, and it was certainly no fault of her own. If anything, her father wolf ought to be the one to blame, since Imaq's bloodline was a direct result of his indiscretions in mating. Pardon the crudeness of it, but if he didn't want mixed kids, he shouldn't have fucked a dog. And he certainly shouldn't punish his kids for having the misfortune of inheriting so much shepherd blood.
Lane had probably jumped to a lot of conclusions in her interpretation of Imaq's backstory, but in her mind this is what it would be, until Imaq developed the language to correct it.
Lane tilted her head as Imaq began a question about Rye, but didn't finish. "Rye's fine. He's healing well. He should be back to normal in a few days." Was that what Imaq had wanted to ask about? Probably not. She probably wanted to know whether Rye was bigoted like her own father, and whether Rye would punish their children if they dared to look like their mother. "He's a good man. A kind one," Lane assured Imaq, although to be honest the shepherd probably knew Rye better than Lane.
Imaq smiled, though it was still a bit lackluster, and nodded mutely. This was reassuring but it wasn't what she'd planned to ask -- of course, Lane couldn't have known this. The moment had passed though and she'd lost the courage to ask who had sired Lane's own litter. She supposed it didn't really matter. It wasn't as if she and Rye were an exclusive...well, anything. For a moment, she wondered if Rye had feelings for Lane (if they had coupled that was), if he had offered her the same silken promise.
A hot flash of something acidic, jealousy, sparked through her blood and she swallowed back the thought. Fretting over it wouldn't do any good and it would only upset her, which wasn't exactly healthy right now.
"That is good thing. Glacier is lucky to have Lane, Rye too," she said and tried to mean it. If the two did have pups together and Rye ended up with Lane, then she didn't want to live the rest of her life on Duskfire in pining misery -- nor did she want there to be any animosity between the possible half-siblings that would be born.
"We go home, Taupek?" the she-dog questioned when the silence settled between them, gently inclining her gilded crown in the direction their tribe's claim lay in.
fade with your post?
"Thanks. You too, Imaq." Lane accepted Imaq's praise with gratitude, returning the sentiment. They all worked hard and to the benefit of Duskfire Glacier, Imaq especially. It was no mistake that the shepherd had been elevated to the gamma position.
"Not me, Taupek," Lane answered regretfully, "I'm headed south." Well technically, it would be west until she found a way through the mountains, and then south. Either way, it meant that this was where the packmates would part ways.
She'd already had several different versions of the "you shouldn't be traveling when you're that pregnant" conversation with Tzila and Rye, so Lane was reluctant to tell Imaq the full truth about where she was going, and when she would be back. That run had tired her out, and she was much too weary to fend off a new wave of concern and judgement.
After they separated, Lane would follow the ridge west until she came upon a copse of willows. She would rest there for the night, and then continue on until she found a pathway into the mountains at Raven's Watch.