Wolf RPG

Redhawk Caldera had a bear problem.

Specifically, Grimm did. For weeks, she had coveted the den of a slumbering black bear. It was near the shore, just inside the treeline - an extension of the round hole created by an uprooted tree. Colourful fungi and ferns grew around the deceased tree now, and there was a large and very inconveniently placed bear dozing where Grimm wanted to be.

So she decided to kill it.

Murder was something that Grimm had the potential to do well at. More than the healing herbs, she knew the ones that killed - brightly coloured berries, red fly mushrooms, the leaves of the yew tree. The list was endless and the symptoms often heinous.

Grimm prowled the forest edge in the low light of dawn, on the lookout for any such mushrooms that might have survived the winter. She had a plan, and the poison was the last ingredient.

Fox was in full mother mode. She spent hours upon hours cleaning her coat for some reason. She had begun to question her choice of a whelping den. She rarely ate, and when she did, she felt nauseous. She could feel the squirmings of her children seemingly all day long. They often woke her in the middle of the night, and she would have to wriggle outside to pee and get them to calm down. Sometimes, she would even hum them a little tune with the hope that her ragged voice could put them to sleep.

By far, the oddest thing was that she had asked Perry over the past couple of days to... well, lick her nips. It wasn't even a fetish thing! They were just so... well, she couldn't even explain it. It was weird and gross and fascinating all at the same time. She was just thinking about all this when she stumbled across... "Grunt, is it?" That didn't sound quite right, but Fox had never been known for her excellent memory.

A rotund someone interrupted her foraging. Grimm looked up in time to hear her name mispronounced, and grinned widely at the mistake. "Grimm. Grunt's my mother," she quipped in good humour, peering very obviously at Fox's swelling sides. She wasn't exactly football-shaped... erm, wtf is a football, Grimm says moon-shaped, but some padding had definitely been acquired. "So - any hilarious cravings you want to share?"

Grimm corrected the mistake, and Fox took it easily. "Grimm, right!" She wondered if all of Grimm's relatives had one-syllable names that started with the same sound. Wouldn't that be weird? Fox would approve, considering how much she loved naming conventions. In fact, it'd been a point of contention for some time with Peregrine. He seemed to have put the conversation to rest for now, excited at the prospect of being a father ("Again," thought Fox a bit too sourly).

"Y'know, I haven't really had that aspect of it. Maybe my body forgot what it was supposed to do. Keeping anything but a few bites down has been the real challenge." She'd had to go from scarfing everything down the minute she was able to being thoughtful and slow with her eating. It was torture, but definitely better than feeling nauseous all the time.

"Oh, seriously?" Grimm made a glum face. "That's gotta suck. Vomiting is so gross," she offered, assuming from her interactions with Fox that crass sympathy was just as welcome as the sensitive, flowery kind. Speaking of vomiting. "I'm searching for mushrooms," she whispered theatrically, casting suspicious looks at the shadow treeline. The sunrise was as yet unimpressive and lacking in colour, owing for the most part to densely layered cloud. "To chase a bear out. I'm gonna cause anal and oral explosions that're so bad, its guts will just drop out." There's that said, then.

What was it with girls and their obsession with pissing off bears? Finley did the same kind of bullshit over and over, and she didn't seem to realize that it was really fucking dangerous (or maybe she did, and that was 90% of the fun). "How exactly do you plan to do that?" Fox inquired with a quirked brow. She'd never been fond of fungi of any sort, and she couldn't imagine bears liked being chased by them a whole lot better. "More importantly, why is chasing a bear with mushrooms going to make it puke and shit itself?" Obviously, Fox was not particularly knowledgable when it came to plants.

Fox's baby-addled brain grasped the wrong end of the stick and ran away with it at speed. Grimm choked down a raucous bwahahaha, squeezing her lips tightly shut around the laughter. "Wouldn't you, if someone was legit threatening to jam a mushroom up there? The big kind," she emphasized, looking around for an example but finding none that were safe to pluck. "Or I could, you know.. lace meat with it and caaaaasually drop it in. Nobody says no to free dinner." Certainly not Grimm, who had the capacity to eat for twelve.

Up where? Fox gave Grimm a puzzled look, clearly confused by this entire conversation. Her slow side was really showing today! But when Grimm mentioned that she planned to stick it in some meat, then drop the meat off wherever the bear happened to frequent, that made a whole lot more sense. "Ohhhh," Fox drawled, realization finally dawning on her. "You want the bear to eat the mushrooms!" Fox thought that had a tiny chance of working, with one caveat.

"Won't you get poisoned when you're moving the poison?" Wolves had no opposable thumbs, and Fox couldn't figure out how Grimm intended to put the shrooms with the meat without ingesting some herself. "Unless killing a bear is worth your own life, I guess."

Grimm opened her trap to counter with a smart solution, but came came out with a wheezy, wide-mouthed ".......ha." instead. She hadn't thought that far. Shit."..maybe I'll pre-chew some meat, stick the mushroom in there, and roll a rock over it?" she pondered aloud, smacking her lips. "On a leaf!" the fledgling poisoner continued brightly. "Then I can just roll it, pick it up, drop it in.. it's cinch." Pause. "Unless, like.. you have a moron friend that you want to poison? That'd be sooooo much easier."

Fox couldn't quite pinpoint who it was that Grimm reminded her of, but she was already taking to the girl quite well. Grimm explained (in a much confusing way, according to Fox) a way that she planned to poison the bear without also poisoning herself in the process. The Alpha wasn't convinced at all, but she gave Grimm a smile and a tail-wag anyway. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” What? Was she encouraging this kind of behavior? Y'know, murdering bears for the hell of it? Maybe. Fox told herself that the bear would be a threat to her children.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any morons I’d like to kill at the moment, but I’ll let you know if one becomes available,” she quipped. There was a time when Fox would have gladly given up a dozen names, some within her own kingqueendom. Those days were far behind her now, though, and she was happy with each and every wolf who was currently in her life.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Grimm bounced happily on the spot, accepting the praise like a child. "Well if you do, I'm here and ready to murder," she jested, "Just give me a few days to work out the mechanics, otherwise I don't think you'll want me around the pack for a few days.. it really comes out of you, even if you just have a little bit." The budding potions master canted her head towards cluster of squat little growths on a decaying log nearby, sucking air through her teeth and shaking her head. "Really bad. I'll give those kids of yours a Dos and Don'ts chart when they pop out. That's soon, right? Did Peregrine tell you that I'm a wicked good sitter? Just say the word - I'll wipe butts and impart wisdom."

“I think we’re going to need all the help we can get,” Fox admitted. Two adult wolves versus a dozen wiggling babes didn't seem like a fair fight at all. Even if Grimm had been a mediocre sitter, Fox would probably shove her kids off on her at some point or another. Everybody in the pack would be expected to lend a helping hand when the parents needed a break.

Fox felt that tingling sensation in her bladder that she knew all too well. “I’ll leave you to it, Grimm,” she said, trying to make her exit as quickly as possible so she didn't pee all over herself. “It was good to see you!” Without further ado, Fox made her way to the bushes as quickly as possible to empty her bladder, then trotted off to find Peregrine.

Grimm barked a farewell and watched her go - until she realized Fox was desperate to pee, which was neither a group activity nor a spectator sport. With a quietly whispered Oops!, Grimm went back to her search, making sure to continue in the opposite direction to the one Fox had gone in to avoid the super-awkward 'now you're just following me, hurhurhur!' small-talk that inevitably followed a second meeting after a goodbye.