Wolf RPG

At night, the silence could have been described as deafening. And it was exactly that at times; so quiet that it felt as though it were walls that dared to press inward at alarming rates. Being in a forest made it doubly so, at least to Echelon. The night would have been silent, but of course there were the sounds of kin not unlike herself in the midst. Their calls had rose up and died from time to time, again and again. Singing songs, mourning, she didn't put much thought into what she heard. She didn't put much care into what packs were around in this particular region either.

On this outing in particular, she had come across the vast plains that rested beneath the mountain range, delving into what the scenery had to offer. Trying to sharpen the skills that she had led dull from disuse. She couldn't afford to let them dwindle any longer, unless she wanted to run the risk of her own survival beginning a slow spiral around a questionable drain. Especially if she wanted to wheedle her way into somewhere to call a home, whether it was temporary or permanent. The life of a traveler did not suit the young Phase, but it too had become a necessary evil. Which was why tonight in the depths of a wood she did not describe mentally, she was hunting.

Her stalking through the timberland led to a quick dismantle of a rabbit warren, and through an exhausting process she had ended with a plump male clutched firmly between her dark jaws. Her sides heaved from the exertion, but her grip did not loosen around its warm body. Echelon carried the kill further into the darkness, knowing that the plight of the rabbit would have done nothing more than alert others to her successful hunt. Once she had found a place suitable for its consumption, she began to settle. And unlike few other times, she did not let her guard down. The tension of being aware tired her, but she would not allow it this time.

Night had fallen, casting the Wilds into darkness— the tapestry of stars above cast an eerie glow across the land, the sliver of a moon offering only slightly more light. She found the stillness unsettling, perhaps because the sleepy world left her alone with her thoughts and feelings. It was worse out in the open, where no other creatures were awake and moving, and so she had turned north from the lake that had been her first distraction. The fact that north was further away from the caldera was only coincidence; it was simply the closest forest, a place that would provide shelter and keep her from feeling so exposed and alone. At least, that's what she told herself.

The rustle of nocturnal creatures that greeted her instantly put the yearling at ease, and she moved silently through the trees, simply absorbing her surroundings. Magpie pointedly avoided thinking about Fox and Peregrine; every time her mind wandered there, she felt a sick and panicked feeling in her stomach. She didn't like being wrong. She liked admitting to being wrong even less.

Her ears perked at a noise ahead; the sound of something larger than a raccoon moving rapidly through the brush. For a moment she considered going towards it— perhaps it was a wolf, someone she could talk to— but thought better of it and altered her course. It was unintentional, but it was the way that the other beast had gone. After a few minutes, Magpie stumbled upon the stranger's form, only a silhouette in the shadows. The heady scent of blood enveloped the space, and the yearling mumble— "Oh... sorry..."

Not more than several minutes into her meal, a sense of being sated rolled over Echelon. At that point, she had been so hungry that any meager scrap of sustenance was enough to bolster her strength. She made easy work of the best morsels she could find and pry from the hare. For the longest time, all Echelon really heard was her own progress with her meal; the crunching and snapping of the bones, the moments where she paused to clean the tarnish from her muzzle. It was in one of these stretches that something overrode those noises. Someone was creeping in close, though to say that they had been creeping was untruthful.

Her blue eyes found the form of the yearling just as quickly as the yearling offered up an apology. Mumbled words, but a distinct sorry, and by then Echelon had brought her head well higher than the hare she had been gnawing on. In spite of being fully grown (or close to it), she could see the traces of youth that lurked on the dark features. The wolf may as well have been a partial mirror of her, save for the personality. Though the darkness didn't offer up much, she was willing to believe that she wasn't lying in wait for a trap. "Are you hungry?" The question left her before she really thought about what she was doing, but Echelon did nothing to retract it.

Her movement through the forest— the snapping of twigs underfoot, the rustling of barren branches against her body— masked the sounds of bone-crunching and meat-tearing that lay directly ahead, else she might have turned yet another way, no matter how desperate she was to talk to someone. Most wolves didn't appreciate when their meals were interrupted, and those without pack affiliations to protect them liked it even less. But there was nothing to be done about that, because here they were.

Whatever Magpie might have expected as a reaction from the stranger, it certainly wasn't the question that followed her own awkward apology. She hadn't eaten that long ago, but hunger was a constant worry for lone wolves— for a moment she considered politely declining, and instead opted to shyly accept. "That's nice of you. I could eat— I mean, if you're all done. You caught it."

The dark-haired youth was seemingly polite. Though they were all innately wild creatures, there almost seemed to be a lack of ferocity lingering. Perhaps it was simply her personality altogether, meek and mild as opposed to angry and feral. For reasons she wouldn't have cared to describe, Echelon felt perceptive enough to determine that she would not garner much problem from the yearling. And it wasn't like she hadn't taken the choice cuts out of a hare anyway. Giving up the leftovers, whether it was to someone now or someone who found it later, didn't matter.

"Take it, it's yours," she said, pushing it away from herself as she rose. Echelon felt it was better to give a bit of space, though if anything the gesture came about nonchalantly. She wasn't there to trick or entice or otherwise start a fight. Not tonight. "The night's still young anyway, I'm sure I can catch another if I'm feeling peckish lately." And unsurprisingly to her, the comment came off just as nonchalant. As though they weren't all out there struggling at some point and time to simply survive.

Trust was not something that came easily to the yearling— in her youth, she had kept her mouth firmly shut around strangers, communicating only through body language. As if it would protect her if they wished her harm. It had only been amplified by her captivity; held against her will by the Sunspire, Magpie had resorted to silence and starvation to stage her protest. That had worked to her advantage. Even after that, the young female had not known the comforting life of pack for long. Her year of life had been nothing but travel, the loneliness and uncertainty of having no pack to call her own. It was all she knew. As she aged, she had grown comfortable with her independence. She had learned to trust in herself, and silence no longer seemed like protection— Magpie could speak, and if things went sour, she trusted in herself to escape.

But Magpie was also extroverted in nature, and longed for company. It was lucky that the other appeared to be harmless— at the least, she didn't seem to view Magpie as competition. "Thanks," the dark youth said simply, eyes on the stranger as she lowered herself to eat what she could tear from the remaining carcass. It seemed likely that the female would go her own way, but the yearling hoped she wouldn't— there were only a few bites, anyway. It would be good to talk to someone, anyone, and it might distract her from the anxieties that threatened to bubble up beneath her surface.

To a degree, Echelon knew nothing of anxieties and how they plagued any sort. She was fearless in a sense, perhaps even an adrenaline junkie with the way she tended to antagonize or otherwise stir a rise out of someone. If there was ever anything she could have related to with the yearling, it was the loneliness and uncertainty; the feeling that there was no one coming to save them if things went awry.

With Tonravik so firmly out of the picture and her own state of awareness in some sort of disarray, Echelon hardly knew what kind of creature she was supposed to become. It wasn't easy for her to simply drop everything and just walk up to someone and go hey let me in. She had been thriving purely running from her own arrogant fuel and a few well timed events. Sometimes, they were ill-gotten gains.

And like any true scavenger, she was waiting now. The yearling would finish with the carcass and, true to form, wanting nothing to waste, Echelon would swoop in to pick off the remainders. Her silent seemingly indicated as much; the dark-haired wolf of Tartok was a poor conversationalist, even on a good day.

Magpie tore away her fill of the rabbit, then tossed the remnants back to the other— a bit regrettably, for the bones and their marrow were some of the best parts, but the older female had caught it and deserved all the choicest bits. She bobbed her head appreciatively, feeling awkward— another spoken "Thank you" would be overkill, and it seemed that her accidental companion wasn't much for talking, anyway. Still, she had to either say something or leave... nothing would be more awkward than standing here breathing after tossing a meal back and forth.

"I'm Magpie," she offered cautiously. "How long have you been out here?" Alone, was the unspoken addition to the question. After the overwhelming scent of blood had released its hold on her senses, the yearling finally realized that the quiet female was similarly unaffiliated.

As the carcass came back to her in a toss, Echelon was surprised with the generosity of the other. She made no outward notice of this however, merely found herself sinking back to the earth to cradle it between her outstretched limbs. She easily grasped and snapped through a strong bone, for a moment seeming as though that were the only thing she was attentive of. But a silky ear of ebony turned towards the yearling as she spoke all the same; Echelon remained aware of their close proximity.

Chewing roughly, she lifted her head from the remainder of the hare to regard her dark counterpart's question. "Long enough," she surmised, then adding, "I'm Echelon." Tonight she opted to be herself, not adopting some reusable name from history or simply making one for herself. There didn't seem much point right then and there, she sensed no need to be evasive. She felt in her current situation, there was nothing she or the yearling could or would do to undermine one another.

"Do you not like the woods at night?" she decided to query, zeroing in on the underlying tension in their exchange. It had been present all along, but only now did she choose to focus on it, turning the dialogue away from herself.

Magpie felt a twinge in her belly at the sound of the cracking bone, thinking wistfully of the marrow she had willingly passed on— but it passed when it was clear that the stranger would entertain company. A bit of relief went through the yearling, though her anxiety still lurked beneath her skin, tense in her muscles. A fact anyone would have picked up on, but the dark female still felt her ears go hot as Echelon zeroed in on it.

"I'm not afraid of the woods," she answered defensively. "I don't like it out there, alone and exposed." That might be obvious. What creature enjoyed being out in the open, vulnerable? It was true that she was wolf, predator, top of the food chain— but without the security of the pack, danger followed lone wolves.

There was a minute part of her that was delighted when the defensiveness crept into Magpie's tone. It would have served her well to be defensive, because after all, they were both free agents left to roam the countryside. And those dangers that she implied, dangers that Echelon knew were very real, did actually lurk out there. She knew exactly what she spoke of but betrayed it, only offering a hmph sort of sound as she gnawed tirelessly at bone.

"It doesn't bother me to be alone," she commented nonchalantly, which was only half-true. Many of her nights, for the longest time, had been spent in Tonravik's company. But now she had been on her own so to speak for weeks turned months; whether or not she would actually see Tonravik again troubled her as much as the premise that she herself needed to find a place to stay.

"So why don't you join a pack then? Free security." If only it were that easy.

Magpie's eyes narrowed at the response— the soft hmph that reeked of arrogance and patronization. The yearling knew, instinctually, that she was right to feel the way she did. How dare Echelon act as though it were a childish, irrational fear? But unwilling to start a fight (and perhaps even more so, unwilling to free herself of company quite yet), Magpie let it go. Where she might have easily responded to further inquiry before, the yearling felt herself suddenly guarded, mistrusting. All she had wanted was to talk to someone about her woes, to help her think through them... but it was now the furthest thing she wanted to talk to this one about.

"It's complicated," she responded, flat. "I've been on my own for most of my life, anyway. Used to it." Magpie shrugged, her tone just as nonchalant. Perhaps trying to regain some of her "street cred". Loners rule, pack wolves drool.

It was always complicated. Magpie may as well have spoken some magic words because that was exactly how Echelon had been struggling to describe it. It was complicated, knowing that somewhere out there her aokkatti was lurking about. Possibly on her own. Separated unquestionably from her little pint-sized shadow. That was merely the only thing that stopped Echelon from outright joining a pack. She had a pack. She had Tartok. They were her kin and her home wherever she went.

Instead of just sharing that, she concluded with: "Me too."

It wasn't like she had a true pack of her own to call home. "Your family mean to you too?" she opted to ask, unfortunately finding that in thinking how complicated things were, she brought back what had caused her to return to the Wilds in the first place. Failure had never been tolerated by Siku and Echelon's attempt to worn her way back into the reaches of Tartok in the north had been ousted quickly.

She crunched noisily once again on the bones. No one told her not to talk with food in her mouth either.

Magpie didn't mind the lack of elaboration, since she didn't particularly want to explain the complexities of Redhawk Caldera to a complete stranger— realizing that as much as she wanted someone to vent to (that always helped her sort through her thoughts and feelings), it probably wasn't appropriate in this situation. She merely bobbed her head in acceptance of the other's simple statement.

The question startled her, though. She blinked, responding without thinking much: "No. I'll always have a home with them." Realizing how contradictory that sounded compared to her earlier statements, Magpie gave a small laugh. "That's complicated, too." And now she was really curious about the other's predicament, and she was never one to hold back completely. "Family is more important than... anything. Why would they be mean to you?"

She didn't realize it now, but Magpie would learn someday soon just how mean family could be.

Oh, well, that must have been nice. Relatively speaking, the same went for Echelon as well. Tartok was just more than a pack. It's span reached significantly far for those that were loyal. And because of that, Tartok was its own family where loyalty ran much thicker and deeper than blood. Technically Echelon would have had a home with them anywhere she had gone, but she had gone back to the source. Being spurned by Siku for her inability to keep sight of Tonravik was only one of many little instances where she had tested the much older's matron's authority. It was simply in her demeanor to do so, just as she had done with Tonravik.

And this time instead of some prompt, sassy answer, Echelon had stopped in her chow long enough to pause thoughtfully. This conversation intrigued her, when she wasn't much of a conversationalist. An aggravator, mostly, that's what she was. She couldn't think of the words to articulate the why of being mean. So she once more simply stated: "Well why wouldn't they?" Family didn't mean love or togetherness, not necessarily. It was a complicated word for their sometimes overly complicated lives.

She returned to noisily chewing, eyes watching Magpie.

Magpie was at a loss for words; hadn't she just said that family was more important than anything? Didn't that explain things? If you were mean to the most important wolves in your life, well... you'd be doomed to spend the rest of your life alone and miserable. That's what Magpie believed, anyway. She suddenly felt like no company might be better than this company; Echelon was perfectly polite (except for her table manners), but she was also bumming Magpie's vibe.

She shrugged in response, then, and said, "I need to take a leak. I'll see you around, maybe," she offered noncommittally, not that the other would likely care. Turning away, she began to make her way through the forest, calling over her shoulder, "Thanks for the meal."

The premise of being alone forever did not worry Echelon. In spite of her ingrained stubbornness, she was adaptable. She had survived this long without Tonravik to back her up and perhaps she had learned her own lessons in regards to that. And perhaps not; it was negotiable whether or not she had honestly learned anything. The only thing that she had truly come to terms with was the loss of her aokkatti, who was probably out there roaming. And if anything, Echelon considered the distinctly possibility that their bond was simply not meant to be.

Though in the end this was untrue, she allowed the equally dark-haired female leave her. And she lingered, poor table manners and all, until the last bit of the meal was gone. Only then did she depart the depths of the wood, striking out once more to ventures left undiscovered and stories untold.