Wolf RPG

He heard the voices as they carried down from the ridge, and he looked up with water running out of the corners of his mouth and down his frosted jaw. He could be wrong, but believed he had heard the deep call of a male followed by a handful of females. He snorted with amusement. That fellow had himself a harem, it seemed. There was no mistaking the nature of the howl. It invited his women to sing with him, and warned others that a new pack had been formed. Atta boy.

He swiped his tongue across his mouth, and leaned a strong shoulder against the pale bark of birch tree, his chartreuse eyes cast across the stream. He had lived on moving paws for a significant portion of his life, trading work for refuge during the winters. He was reluctant to listen to his age, hesitant to consider settling down, but listening to the birth of a pack compelled him to reflect, and he did so at length.

She'd howled. Everyone else howled. They'd all howled. Awesome. Frostfire Ridge was officially a thing. And she was going to die there, old, alone, and the worse healer in the world because the conditions she was stuck with weren't good for shit. She huffed, pouted, and fled the territory if only because in this moment she hated herself and the closest the she had to running away from herself was turning tail and heading away from her new home. 

She fled down the mountain an happened up on a river. Not thinking, Citali plunged into it, found the waters to be cold as ice and shrieked as she turned heel and fled back out onto the riverback. "Holy shit that water is fucking cold." She bristled, shook herself out, and then retreated to the dead and drying kind-of grasses of this place, rolling to try to dry her fur faster so she wouldn't catch hypothermia or something awful.

He remained where he was for some time, eventually coming to rest on his stomach, still leaned against the trunk of the tree. He was one of those with wanderlust and yet he could not deny that he was growing weary of the nomadic lifestyle. The desire to roam and live independently would never leave him entirely. He had seen enough and done enough that now permanence was becoming a more favorable thought than seeing what was over the next hill. The winters were not going to get any easier, nor he any younger. But he would not make this decision with haste.

His reflection and contemplation was interrupted, when the sound of fleet footfalls were followed by a splash of water upstream. Then a shriek and a moment later a voice. His ear twisted first, and then his head followed. His mouth drew into a line and he lifted a brow. What was that all about? He rose onto his broad paws to investigate. He saw a bulky, brown wolf rolling amid the grass, and idly wondered if she was one of the ones he had heard howling not long ago.

"Did the water bite you?" he asked as he came to a stop some distance from her. He had not quite caught what she had said.

She rolled, thrashing across the grass in a "get it off, get it off" frantic fashion before suddenly a voice cut through the air. She froze, whipping around and rolling to her stomach to stare back at the wolf who'd appeared through the darkness. "Well it wasn't a snake," she snapped, lifting to her feet as she shook herself off and tried to regain a little bit of her composure.

"Water's just cold..." she muttered that last part somewhat lowly as she rolled her shoulders forward, realized she was standing for no good reason, and sat back down. No point in standing if there was no need for it.

She looked at the wolf in front of her and realized what a scene she must have made. No doubt he thought her a crazy wolf, rolling around as though she were trying to put a fire out of her fur. "You saw nothing," she affirmed, letting him know that he was not to speak of this incident. She had a reputation to uphold after all. She wouldn't let it be spoiled with a singular moment of weakness.

It seemed he had surprised her a bit, or at least had caught her in one of her less dignified moments though he thought nothing of what she was doing in the grass. However comical it may have appeared it looked to him like someone scratching an itch or rolling in scent. Nothing novel to the travelled man. You saw nothing, she said and gave just a slight shrug of his shoulders. He really had not seen anything, but that she thought he had was curious.

He let the subject die, and instead proposed a new one in the form of a question. "That your bunch I heard singing?" He gestured with toward the ridge with his head.

He didn't say anything about what she'd been up to. Points for him. He offered no more than a shrug and cast it all off. Instead, he asked another question, which brought her to turn her ears in his direction. Signing? Oh. The howl. He was talking about their claiming howl in which they all joined their voices to unite as one force.

"Oh that," she said, deflating as her ears fell. She curled her tail about her paws and pulled it closer to herself. "Yeah. That was us. Our prince decided he wanted to become a king. So here we are." Her voice was a mix of forced excitement and something dull. She shrugged, turning her eyes elsewhere. Wasn't starting a pack supposed to be a happy thing?

"You just sight seeing? Or looking for a home?"

Yes, founding packs did tend to be a joyous occasion, but she did not seem thrilled at all. She tried to force excitement into her words but he heard them for what they were. That she referred to their alpha as their prince turned king intrigued him; some wolves used the terms as mere synonyms for a leader, but others had much more defined culture, which is what he suspected here. He had questions, but so did she and she got hers out first.

"Something like that. Reckon I'll be settling somewhere." It could be read in his expression, the way his mouth moved and the slight motion of head, that he had made no concrete decisions, but that he was on the cusp of one. "It sounded like the guy had a harem up there," he commented. It was an indirect way to draw information, if she was so inclined as to confirm or correct him.

Something like that. Hmm? What on earth was that supposed to mean? A wolf was either looking for a home or not looking for a home. Yes or no. As far as she was concerned there was no such thing as kind of looking. "Well are you or aren't you?" she asked again. If he didn't know whatever was anyone else supposed to do about it? But if he wanted to settle somewhere he might as well have asked for an early grave. The wolf was already starting to gray around the edges. Poor thing. Better to just put him out of his misery before life became unbearable.

She shook off her thoughts as soon as the male dropped the word harem. She immediately bristled. How dare he suggest she left such a wolf do such nefarious things to her! "Oh heavens no. More like a bunch of nurse maids playing house with a toddler. Ugh. It's awful." She could have gone on. There were a dozen more things she wished to say, none of them pretty, but she held her tongue if only because she didn't wish to humiliate herself further by broadcasting to the world she'd just let herself fall beneath the rule of a male of all thing. It was degrading.

Actually... Why was she still speaking to one? This place was seriously going against anything and everything she ever stood for.

She asked again, unimpressed with his uncertain answer, but it was what it was. He was astride the line between actively seeking a pack and just now beginning to think he should. It was a very recent development for him to realize that his paws had grown tired of travelling every day, stopping only during the winters. Fortunately, she moved on from that subject.

Even if he was ready to commit to a pack, she was not going to entice him by telling him that their king could be likened to a toddler and that the situation up there was 'awful'. Coupled with her earlier lack of enthusiasm about the founding of this pack, it did not sound promising. He pursed his lips and his tail flicked behind him. "So, you're there... why?"

He wasn't answering her. Fine. Her stubborn streak was showing anyways and she didn't particularly feel inclined to answer him in return. Except she did, because she was huffy and a large part of her wanted to vent even if it was to toss words at a total stranger. Then again, males were nothing. They meant nothing, so speaking to them was almost like talking to nothing. She could live with that logic, flawed as it was.

"His mother charged my sisters and I with the task of looking out for him. If he wants to play king for a spell we'll humor him for as long as it takes for him to abandon this foolishness and later drag him back to his real home." If the loner was the least bit curious about this pack? In her mind it was all a farce. Just a dream cloaked in the pretty colors of a well constructed illusion of the truth.

It did not sound promising before, but she spoke again and it sounded even worse. Suddenly, her previous comment about nurse maids and toddlers made more sense, and also confirmed for him that he wanted no part of whatever was going on up there. If he was ambitious, he may have locked on to the potential to overtake a young alpha (so was his assumption about their prince-king) but Rhett was not. Or at least, not at this time.

"Just let him go," he said as he grinned, for though he was no closer to deciding what to do with himself at least her ranting was entertaining. "That's what a lot of young wolves do. They leave home, and try to make something of themselves. Why chase him and drag him back? He'll learn to look after himself." Or not. That was life. But he was obviously missing something here. Of course, if they were calling him a prince perhaps he was intended to lead 'back home'. Still, it was peculiar that he should have a guard of sisters following him around.

Rhett took a seat, chartreuse eyes upon her. She had his unbroken attention if she was inclined to tell him more.

The way this wolf spoke made it sound as though there were no strings attached to the scenario. If it were that easy, Citali might have done it already. As was, her circumstances were a touch more complicated than that. "Would, except his mother selected my sisters and I to drag his ass home. Alive. Hence, biding our time." They'd stay until this farce saw it's end. After that? Not much more to it.

Unless. "Spread the word. This pack is phony." Yadda yadda. They'd treat it like a real one, but she had severe doubts of it ever reaching anything akin to what she knew back at home. Coatl's Rise. Oh how she missed the place. "The sooner our now king gets this out of his system the better things will be for everyone."

He still not get why the wolf's mother would insist upon sending folks to drag him home, but he was a guarded wolf and did not like to be interrogated and so offered the same respect to the others. He also did not care too terribly much. He found out what he needed to know: that the pack on the ridge was one to avoid. He would not waste his time there. There was one small detail though that he should like to know, as a point of reference. "What do you call that mess up there?" He was half expecting her to call it by some name that was more befitting of her opinion of it.

It didn't make sense. None of it did. Any outsider looking in would take one look at the scenario and call them all silly for putting themselves in such a position. She was not looking for a new home, but she had one. She was not looking for a king, ever, but she had one. She didn't like anything about the place, but she was stuck there. All things she never wanted, but halfway down the rabbit hole, there was no turning back. It simply was.

What did she call the mess? "Ha!" A mess indeed. There were a dozen things she could have called all that was Frostfire Ridge, but none of them seemed to portray the situation in quite the same light as the word he'd already used. "Purgatory." She settled with that word. Neither heaven, nor hell, but some undesirable place in between. This waiting game was old already and it had only just begun.

There it was, not a name but a moniker that described it as she seen it. Or so he assumed, for all he knew they had christened their pack Purgatory, but he sincerely doubted that. "Fair enough," he said as the corners of his mouth tugged into a small grin. With that, he had all he needed. If she was more his type he might have tried his paw at coaxing her into a bit of stress relieving fun, but she was not and he highly suspected she'd take his nose off anyway. He dipped his head to her. "Thanks for your time," then turned and made to leave. One ear he twisted back to her, in case she had more to say or otherwise wanted to stop his departure.

If he was asking for the name of their mountain, she'd missed it. Instead she offered him something that made more sense in her mind. Purgatory. Ugh. She hated it. With every fiber of her being she detested all that pack stood for, but she was a part of it all the same. Hopefully, sometime soon, they'd all be able to forget this incident ever happened and make something for themselves, but until then? She had no idea.

He seemed content with where this conversation ended and bid his farewells before stalking off. Good riddance. Hopefully the fellow would take his tale of this event and spread it far and wide, casting off any who might dare to join in on their little farce. As for her? What was she up to again? Ugh. All this business was seriously throwing off her game.

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