Where the ferns grew.
With a low head and eyes lackluster, he watched how each of his paws crossed over one another. Step by slow step, his nose awaiting the scent of prey again. Nothing was coming up. This attempt felt pointless again, yet onward he trekked. Trekked and walked, and he could do so for a while. It was not as if he hadn't spent nights alone like this before, looking for a deer or elk to pierce his teeth through. A herd had to be somewhere. Being like this, by himself, feeling the moon burn his fur and attempting to banish him back to the voided depths, reminded him of his previous winter. It reminded him of every day trudging through snow, charging head on at bulls, and feeling the fangs on their scalp try and pierce through his own.
He'd not gone into the fern forest before. Something about it had continued to ward him away. He lifted his head, staring at it. During the day, it felt eerily beautiful, but even then, he kept his distance. Moments were spent wondering, wondering, wondering. It felt closed off. Like he shouldn't have been going in.
So, he didn't listen, and he went anyways. He went with the intention of finding prey for a pack he was trying to call home, but struggled to understand what the meaning of that even was. When he crossed the border, he tensed his shoulders, going from a level head to a high one, as if it'd make a difference. This way, to him, he could see above some of the greenery, if not below it. Crickets screamed in his ears. At what point would they stop.
With a flick of his ear, his tail raised high in the air as a grunt puffed out from his throat. He saw no one, and he did not like it, surveying higher area than he shouldve before he let his gaze drop to the ground as he persued a quickened walk. What the hell was that?
It has been all too quickly he found the gray mass puddled on the floor. Helpless, pawing her chest and softly whimpering. Her figure made him retreat, stiffly tucking his tail and letting unrestrained growls seep off his lips. The fur on his neck was up, his head was reared up in disgust. Then, in no more seconds waste, his limbs swiftly put themselves beside her and he went to hover. Sniff. Sniff.
SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF.
"Who are you?"
Whether or not he could be so sure that she was an ally was not of his knowledge. Who the hell was Riverclan and why was she out here alone? All valid questions, and all that crossed his mind, yet none of them he cared to sit on for long. His reactions overruled him. His ears felt ready to pinch his scalp from how hard he pinned them, maw slightly leaning down inches below her fur to entirely trap her scent up in his nostrils. He'd long done so, but he tried again, this time to see if he could pull traces of Kvarsheim on her. Maybe. Maybe he did.
Snorting, he relaxed his ears only slightly and huffed gentle air from his nose. "You want me to bring you back to Gunnar or somethin'?" Whatever he was supposed to do here was bland to him. Maybe he should leave her out to die. Weak. Small. It wouldn't be a waste. But there was no good ending to that route, was there?
She. When he moved, she turned. When he breathes, he could feel the return of her own breath trickling down his lungs. That same breath, her breath, didn't stay in his nose, didn't stay where he could relish in scent and smell alone, but intoxicated him like pooling smoke. She rushed out his own air. She faltered his breath. She distorted the meaning of oxygen. She didn't make him stop breathing, no, but she made him breath harder. From faster, to slower, to holding it and demanding it back out. In that, he was devolving into a mess.
A mess, however, that he acknowledged in himself, and could not tell if he wanted to destroy it, or if he wanted to keep it. Keep it for, and he did not know why, a fleeting moment where he had scraps of purpose. So, he started harder at her, tail holding at a slight rise and his nose unforgiving. For a broken, injured woman, he did not know how to handle himself. He did not know what to do, nor how to behave. He felt no sense of calm around her, and that same feeling in his gut remained. Even so, he wasn't leaving. He captured her in his vision on upright legs and his chest out. "I don't know where 'Riverclan' is, lady. You want me to help you?" Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. As if his aggression was rising, springing to the surface. Yet he didn't think he wanted to bring any sense of harm to her. None.
"How?"
She was a friend of Kvarsheim.
Then he could trust her.
With hesitance, he looked down upon her, high chest and high tail, and huffed violent air out of his nostrils like a vengeful dragon. A dragon that's mighty head leaned down with open jaws, fiery eyes and sharp horns ready to cut through throat. One whose head tried to press underneath her muzzle, and perhaps he might have gone for her neck. Her stomach. Her legs, her mouth, her eyes should he try hard enough. One who had tamed, as he struggled to find proper positioning to let her lean her weight upon him.
It had not taken him long to figure out a new option, after attempting many others, and this time he tried to scoop her belly up with the top of his nose, trying to shuffle her onto his back.
"Tell me where to go." Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. He felt uncomfortable. "Now." Hardly a demand. He tried to make it one regardless.
i dont! do u wanna make a new backdated one? id love that! <3
the ripple of avoidant muscle under her clutching talons pleased silvertongue. bonnie took care with her, and so she goaded him no longer. the sharpfang crossed her arms and rested atop the larger male, watching for any signs of riverclan as they moved.