Wolf RPG

He was back. It'd only been a week, but a lot could change in that amount of time. He was hoping Tonravik'd allowed someone to help her through her lady times, but he was uncertain of her status. He was also going to try to keep it that way until it either passed or she'd been taken care of. 

Kero dogged through the territory, keeping a wide berth on any feminine scent as he tried to reacquaint himself with these lands. He started with the borders and circled them, noting the fragrance of another creature here and there that had turned around before pressing too far into land that wasn't theirs. Satisfied with the lack of anything strange here, Kerosene moved inward and traveled the mountains this territory was named for. 

Paw over paw, he created switchbacks of his own and climbed the spiny slopes. A roll of clouds darkened the area, casting shadows over the land as the wind picked up. It tangled within his fur as he paused on the slopes and watched the clouds build above. Storm weather. Rolling in from the west. Rolling in from the sea. 

Lifting his head, Kero released a howl, seeking a second opinion on the angry clouds above. He pressed on, moving towards the summits with the hopes someone might join him there.

His voice rose into the sky, calling her. Perhaps not her in particular but she would answer anyway. He had been absent lately, something the Warden had taken note of, as was warranted by her position. The white, bearish creature rose from her half eaten meal, carrying it along with her as she moved in the direction the call had come from. Fully mended, she moved like she'd never been injured, and for that, Kroc was grateful. Crippled was not something she aspired to be and he had assisted with eliminating that threat. In essence, she respected him and his abilities. 

Gravitating towards the Spine's calling card, gold eyes stayed alert, watching for his form. She didn't know why he'd been absent and honestly, she didn't care. She didn't put two and two together that he was avoiding Tonravik as she broke into her heat cycle. Kroc had not hit her own and likely wouldn't. She hadn't last year, though that might have been because she'd been a loner at the time. Whatever the reason, the smell of the Alpha female had reminded her of the very first time it had happened, which had so far (thankfully) been the last time. 

So when she approached her pack mate, it was under normal circumstances, though she tossed the half meal in his direction. She wasn't sure if he'd eaten recently. She had and it was just that simple. "Shit-For-Brains." The epithet was amicable, something she was just used to calling him. He had a name. The others had a name for him, too. But Kroc remembered wolves best when they'd earned a nickname in her own book. "Welcome back.

He wandered, climbing higher into the sheer ridges as he picked his way across the terrain. Paw over paw he climbed, slowing his pace so anyone who might have heard his call would have the opportunity to join him. Here and there he lingered, turning his gaze towards the horizon to visually mark his progress. He was certainly putting some distance behind him.

After a while the white wolf joined him. She dropped a half eaten meal at his paws, offering it to him as she greeted him. A lazy grin slipped across his lips as he greeted her with a wag of his tail and stole a glance at her shoulder. It appeared to be in fine working order and she wasn't cursing him for a poor job so he'd assume it was mostly, if not completely healed.

"Nice smile, Krocodile," he teased back, lowering himself to the ground to take her up on her offer of a meal. "Think I forgot how to hunt for myself, huh?" he said with a smirk as he picked through the remnants and consumed the parts he wanted. "Did I miss out on anything?"

"Well, you do only have shit for brains, so it's entirely possible." She didn't ask him where he'd been, didn't ask him what he'd been doing. It was his business. While Kroc did not really leave the territory, she understood that some wolves were more nomadic than she. "Not really. There's another new wolf but other than that, nothing." Which was not a bad thing. She was glad for the peace, though she did not relax in her day-to-day work, ever vigilant in her patrols. "What'd you call for?"

Heh. She used his nickname against him, at which he shrugged and picked away at her offered meal. It was delicious and just what he needed to work off the edge of his late travels. He nodded to her as he moved the carcass aside and left the rest of it for the scavengers. The bones were too small to be more than toothpicks at this point. Let the carrion crows feast.

Lifting to a sit, Kero scratched at an ear with his hind paw before pulling into a stand. He listened as she elaborated on things left uneventful and glanced at her with a bemused smile upon his lips. "Another one? Hell. Most wolves here are new. I keep happening upon scents, but haven't caught sight of a soul. It's like a ghost town in here." Aside from a few regulars, he'd found wind of scent here and there, but nothing concrete... Maybe one day he'd finally meet these furballs.

Until that happened, her question reminded him he wanted a consult. He jerked his head towards the horizon and padded off a few paces, gesturing for her to follow until they reached an outcropping with a viable 360 degree view. "Look skyward. What do you see?" He revealed nothing of his own thoughts. He was more curious as to her unbiased opinion.

What he said was true. There were a limited amount of 'active' scents; Tonravik, SFB, Kodiak, and herself. The others seemed to be more reclusive, and familiar to the Warden only because she had met a fair few of them at the borders. "Better than zombies," Was her only reply, a brief memory of a dark wolf on a dark night coming forward, his moans and fucking weird antics making her frown again. 

He distracted her though and her gold eyes cast upwards to look so that she could answer. Except what the fuck was he looking for? She gave him a weird look but answered. "Clouds. Stars. Other shit." Kroc was so well spoken.

Better than zombies... He snorted, stifling his laughter as he mentally agreed with her. "Eh. I think I'd be okay. I've got shit for brains. Hear that's less tasty than regular brains. You'd be worse off." He teased her as he wandered towards the rise that overlooked far more than could ever meet the eye.

She didn't seem too terribly impressed. Her answer was short and obvious, but without much thought. He glanced at her, lifting a brow as if to prompt her for more than what she offered. "It's still technically daytime. You can't see the stars," he corrected. She hadn't really tried at this at all had she? "What do you think of the weather?" There. A little more direct. Hopefully she'd have a better idea as to the approaching afternoon storm than her first attempt.

"Could if you fuckin' looked hard enough." The shot back was ridiculous, she knew. But she had never been interested in the sky, or the clouds, or the weather. It was of no concern to the Warden and never had been because in her mind, the weather was the weather and that was it. "They're still there so the answer is valid." The sharp edge of her mind peeked out from behind that brutish exterior. "I think it's the weather. It might rain. It might shit rainbows. Why do you care?" So she was intelligent but blunt, and didn't care about conditional things as much as maybe she should have. 

She was... definitely saying that to make herself feel better about making a stupid comment. "You sure your name's not Shit-for-brains?" he asked, turning it back around on her. The sun made the sky far too bright for stars. Looking hard or not, it was downright impossible. The sun needed to disappear. She knew that. Or should have. Now he wasn't so sure.

Skeptical at her level of intelligence, Kero turned his gaze skyward as she elaborated on what she saw. "Whether it's cold or whether it's hot. There's gonna be weather, whether or not." He repeated what she'd said, only in a rhyme that was common where he'd come from. There was truth to it. The skies were unpredictable, but they bore warning of what would come or what could come.

"Because it changes things," he replied, plain and simple. "Changes behaviors." He looked back to her. "Do your patrols change at all when it rains?"

Giving him a look, Kroc shook her head. "I've seen them, dumb ass. I'm not just spouting shit out of my asshole." Planets. Stars. They were relatively the same thing, still far, far away where no wolf could touch. His little chant only brought the twitch of an ear as they looked above them. "Exactly. It's just weather." And that was her true belief; rain, hail, snow, tornado, whatever it was, she was still the same wolf, with the same responsibilities.

His question gave her pause, looking at him with a curious expression. "No. No matter what it's like, I do my job." There was no form of weather she was afraid of, or so she thought, and so there was no form of weather that held her back. "Why should it stop me from doing my patrol?" Understanding that it affected mood, she skipped over that particular piece. Rain could make a wolf grumpy, and she'd even seen some become more playful in the snow.

"That's good. Because now you're just full of crap." Hold it all in wolfess. Hold that shit in. She could have her raging case of diarrhea later and hopefully not on his watch. That would not only smell, but it would be one hell of a mess. Ew.

Okay. She wasn't getting it, but that was fine. "Right. But with a storm comes winds and with it scents are tossed around." It changed the scenario even if her task was still the same. "With rain comes water. That means tracks erased. Scents muddied. Wouldn't stop a patrol, but it does make one a heck of a lot harder."

He kept talking and Kroc was, once more, sorely tempted to give him a good smack. He illicited that response quite a bit from the Warden, though at this point she was far more tolerable of his presence and his antics than she might have been with anyone else. While she was stubborn, she wasn't completely mindless and his explanation had caught her attention. Thinking about it, patrols were harder in severe weather but... "True, but it doesn't stop a patrol altogether." It could, if the Warden was weak willed. "What are you getting at, anyway?" If he had a point... Maybe he could start making it without her being a bitch. (... Nah.)

She was growing impatient, he could tell, but she tolerated him and listened best she could. Her question of a reply was actually somewhat intelligent this time and he regarded her for a moment before turning and seeking out another section of the sky. Lighter on that side. Darker on the other. Winds from the west rolling inland. The promise of a storm.

"Only that it would make you a better Warden if you stopped to pay attention here and there." She was excellent as was, but it never hurt to take additional precautions. "Rain threatens mudslides. It means half of our borders become extremely difficult to navigate during or just after a storm." At least along the spiny slopes. Where the earth was more level? "It also means wolves seeking shelter. Which means borders may be more or less busy."

He looked to her. "Thoughts?"

Okay. He had a good point and she was inclined to listen as he'd struck a chord in her protective, pack serving self. She gave him the full weight of her gaze, a motion indicative to the fact that he had her attention now. Her mind now awake with the jumpstart he'd given it, she nodded, accepting what he'd lain out for her. "Sounds important, perhaps... more so than I gave you credit for at first, shit-for-brains." Perhaps. "What do you think the weather'll be like with that shit?" Indicated the clouds overhead, now that she had a different take on it, they looked a bit angry, a bit... threatening. This could be good for her to know.

There it was. She was starting to understand why paying attention to the weather might be important to her role within the pack. Maybe she'd be a little more observant in her patrols and pass on a few tips to whoever else decided to join her on her strolls. She complimented his observations and their usefulness. He chose not to comment if only not to ruin her seldom offered praise. He'd take it and run off to answer her next question.

"Afternoon storm." He went ahead and came out with it. She didn't appear to be quite as knowledgable about the skies as he had hoped. There was no point in beating around the bush to try and draw out an answer he wasn't so sure she had. "You can feel it. In the air." The wind rushed passed them. It was warm, almost electric with the tingles of unspent energy. "It's warmer. Wetter. It promises rain."

He described feelings, sensations that she was not attuned to and never had been. But these were things she could learn, and even if she only learned the basics, shed still be better for it. she sat there, examining the weather with him, her voice not breaking the silence that feel for several minutes. Kroc allowed her mind to process what she was noticing now to compare it to a normal day.

She did notice one thing right off the bat however, and finally spoke up to mention it. "It smells different as well. The coming rain." There might have been a tone of surprise layered in her voice but her expression was as stoic as it usually was. Gaze switched to glance in the direction the breeze was coming from, its tendrilous fingers curling through her pale fur as they sat there.

Once upon a time, Kroc might have had the chance to grow up and become a well-tempered, polite wolf who was studious and curious and wanted to learn of the world. While that pup was gone, she had still left certain qualities behind, ones that rarely found their way to the surface. Even though she would never revert back to such a personality, Kroc could embrace the will to learn once more, open to expanding her horizons to those she respected enough to let them talk. How he'd fallen into such a category was inexplicable but he was there, and from him, she would apparently learn about the weather.

He seated himself upon the rise. Wind whispered through his fur, coaxing through its layers like the long lost fingers of a distant lover. He shivered; the rustle of his coat demanding the involuntary motion as he shook the tingling sensation away. Even with the approaching promise of a storm, there was something wild about this wind. Electric. It was alive and breathing and filled with an energy that reminded him he was very much a part of this world.

Only the rush of the wind filled the space between their silence until she elected to speak once more. This time her words were focused and more thoughtful. She must have found some grain of truth within his opinion on the sky and what effects it would have upon the world she lived in. "Earthy and wet," he confirmed, agreeing with her. "Anything else?"

A sound of agreement came from her at the male's description. Summer storms were common in some areas, though she hadn't had a summer here yet. "The winds are fair. The storm should pass fairly quick." Her tail flicked behind her, eyes glancing over at him again, her black lips curling into a toothy grin. "And that you're full of shit, in my opinion." She'd had enough of the cloud-talk. While she would keep it all in mind, it was still not something she'd likely focus on. 

"Still hungry?" She asked, still not full from the small, half-meal she'd shared with him. 

She was quick to remind him why it was they happened to get along. A grin curled upon his muzzle as she not only answered him, but reminded him she was also growing bored of this conversation. "Mm," he murmured, glancing towards her. "I could use a good poo." Might explain why he was so full of shit.

He lifted to his feet and brushed her shoulder with his own. Turning, he took a few paces down the ridge only to turn his gaze back in her direction when she suggested a topic of conversation he could always agree on. Food. "I was actually thinking about that," he admitted. He hadn't had anything else to add to his las inquiry about the clouds. He'd just used it to fill space. "I was contemplating white crocodile with a side of a sass."

"Yeah yeah. Shut up and get moving." Standing, Kroc gave him a rough nudge, intent to get his cinnamon ass moving. "If you hurry the fuck up, we can hunt something down before the storm starts." And just like that, the usual Kroc was back, bad mouth and all. They moved from their location then, ahead of the storm to find something to munch on.

Thread fade.