Wolf RPG

As the days had stretched into weeks, Echelon's hopes of finding Tonravik dwindled. She did not bother trying to seek out those who had begun to follow in her aokkatti's stead, as she believed they were also gone. Within her burned a certain tinge of confusion, and the very emotion itself was something that she had never felt in all her life. Not even when her mother had succumbed to the wounds of battle. Many things were in black and white for the young Tartok wolf, but this fell into such an area of greyscale that she did not know how to comprehend.

And so she wandered. Her searching had taken her far along the coast one way, when she had decided to turn back. Searching for Tonravik to the south would do her no good; Echelon knew better than to go towards warmer climes. If anything, she believed that perhaps her superior would have returned home. Yet it was somewhere along the path they had taken into the wilderness that she had chosen to deviate. Something in her that boldly shouted I don't want to go home. Consider it arrogant youth in its finest, Echelon had turned and beelined for the glacier she had come across in a previous travel.

Except this time, beneath the midday sun, it did not glow in the way that it had when she had first witnessed it. And with the off and on cloud cover, she did not expect to see that fiery glow any time soon, sunrise or sunset. Yet the sight of it still captivated her all the same, a tribute to a home that she was set on not returning to. It deemed itself an applicable substitute, one that she hoped would draw others of her persuasion to it in the way that Tonravik brought other wolves worthy of holding the Tartok name.

Loitering at their borders, her impatience played a hefty hand as she threw her narrow muzzle skyward and called out. She avoided the higher octaves she could have lent it, never one to really broadcast her mixed heritage. It hardly mattered, for as inky and flighty as she was, Echelon would always look the runt in a crowd. As her loose notes drifted off into the crisp breeze, she settled in to way and watch, wondering just who would come creeping out from the terrain to see to her summon.

Hopefully they wouldn't come out with fangs out, though.

He had only been a part of Duskfire for a day or so now. He was merely familiarizing himself with the precise range of their territory when the call for a member rang out. Stranger hesitated. He had just recently been accepted himself, and he hardly knew protocol for approaching potential joiners. But being the nearest around (he assumed), the stone-furred wolf began to plod steadily in the direction of the howl's origin.

Arriving, he spotted the caller easily. She was a black blemish on an otherwise sun-bled landscape, and he came towards her in confident steps, but wound up hanging back slightly. His ears pressed forward and his head rose very marginally above his shoulders. He was uncertain of how he should approach her, conversation-wise, but the gray monolith started with a simple: "hello."

She lingered for some time, though not as long as she would have expected. A stark figure rose from the terrain, his steps confident and dutiful in his approach. This was not the fellow that she had been accosted by in days past. Just as well though, she figured. A pack was more than just a wolf. As the pale-colored male drew ever closer, Echelon assessed him at length, her eyes not moving away from his form until he had come within distance for her to hear him. It was there she found herself offered a simple greeting, and one that she could most definitely handle. None of those state-your-business nonsense that she had seen Tonravik deal with, or in the rare occasion that she had dealt with.

“I want to join,” she said, a certain terseness to her words that betrayed the deference that she adopted in light of him standing there. He didn't need to ask why she was there, no, Echelon had no issues with cutting to the chase. She was blunt, better used as a hammer than something more precise. Though she were tempted to delve into what she could have provided, the inky, flightly Tartok creature withheld in his instance. If he were interested, he would ask the right quetsions. And if he werent, then Echelon knew she would be looking at moving on.

"I want to join," she expressed simply, and he looked at her more closely than before. She was svelte, a wiry wolf whose build betrayed her days alone, just as his did with him. Though if she had survived, then she was capable, this much he could discern on his own. Her eyes and other features were alert and sharp, probably making her a well-of hunter, which the pack would need in the approaching months. Not that her color was particular suited for this territory and the wintertime. Still, he felt no need to ask her of her physical worth.

"Our Alpha Tuwawi does not take kindly to flightiness or wanderers. If you stay, you are family, and expected to stay." This much he understood, and if he ever took his leave, he doubted he would be welcomed back. "Is such a commitment in your capacity?" For one who rarely spoke, and who often chose to fight rather than chat, he was turning out to be fairly intelligent.

Her nostrils flared slightly as the Glacier wolf rattled out a list of typical requirements. Things that every pack said were requirements that should have come naturally to all of them. But Echelon knew well that there were some who, for whatever reason, had never been raised to honor such natural laws. She withheld the urge to roll her eyes childishly; to do so would have severely crippled her chances at finding a place to stay. On the upside, he seemed to be able to gauge her abilities, and his choice to avoid the query of what she could do for them pleased her.

“Of course, such is the way of our kind.” Her words avoided the graze of terseness this time, but she made her comprehension clear. Echelon did not expect Tonravik to come popping up in the days to come, so the notion of turning her back on these wolves did not come to light. Still, the glacier seemed like the better place to wait and see, and the flighty Tartok creature would not return home emptyhanded. She had been sent to scout, and that was what she intended to do. But survival was better in a group, than solo.

But something changed her mind, an unknown force chimed in and pulled Echelon back from the decision she was about to commit to. “On second thought, perhaps this would not be the best time for this,” she found herself murmuring to the Glacier wolf. Before she could devote any more time to that decision, she committed to her flightiness, and fled.