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+--- Thread: Greatwater Lake the vagrant rover life (/showthread.php?tid=21964)
the vagrant rover life - Coelacanth - May 25, 2017
@Adeline and @King ♥
Other characters are welcome to make cameos or “roll call” posts, particularly Undersea members. I deviated slightly from the original line, “the vagrant gypsy life,” so as not to use a potentially problematic term. I’m sorry, John Masefield! In my defense, he uses the term “fellow-rover” a few lines later.
This post takes place the morning of May 23, 2017.
Other characters are welcome to make cameos or “roll call” posts, particularly Undersea members. I deviated slightly from the original line, “the vagrant gypsy life,” so as not to use a potentially problematic term. I’m sorry, John Masefield! In my defense, he uses the term “fellow-rover” a few lines later.
This post takes place the morning of May 23, 2017.
It was a slinking, skeletal creature that lingered in the shadows at the southern side of the lake, tufted ears twisting and flickering uneasily. She experienced the dawning of the day as a mole might, reflexively blinking tears from her Neptune eyes and squinting in the fragile, rose-blush light. The velveteen of her cheeks was so sticky and coarse with a blighted mixture of caked earth, saline, and grime that the moisture didn’t soak in or trickle down. It lingered in purulent globules that stretched into strings at the innermost corner of her almond-shaped eyes. The scalloped gradient of her ribs stood out sharply — it was something she’d been able to conceal when she’d had the luxury of grooming and feeding herself regularly, but now the lank and greasy strands of her dusty oilslick fur pressed flat into the divots between her bones.
The arch of her spine was a crenelated bridge, the knobs of her vertebrae bordered by the crests of her shoulders and hips, as she skittered to the water’s edge and peered down. She was thirsty, and a flurry of intent sniffs from her dry, cracked nose told her that the area was untouched by her captors, but she faced the glimmering surface with fraught consternation. Tremors raced from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail as she glanced wildly back and forth, moving at a stuttering rate composed of fits and starts and frantic double-backing. When her lips first met the sweet chill, she practically levitated, leaping back as if she’d been burned — and she shook so hard her teeth chattered with the force of it for a good minute or so.
Thirst drove her forward, and she started the excruciatingly tentative process all over again, placing her paws with meticulous precision in her own prints. Whuffing nervously, she watched the ripples of her own breath on the water before lapping greedily. The swirls of brown that spread out from her dirty chin and the matted feathers of her throat appalled her, but she couldn’t seem to settle enough to drink properly, let alone bathe. Every flicker of sound or motion caused her to flinch — and eventually, when her thirst was slaked at last, she simply hunkered down in the mud at the riverbank, red-rimmed eyes glassy and staring.
The arch of her spine was a crenelated bridge, the knobs of her vertebrae bordered by the crests of her shoulders and hips, as she skittered to the water’s edge and peered down. She was thirsty, and a flurry of intent sniffs from her dry, cracked nose told her that the area was untouched by her captors, but she faced the glimmering surface with fraught consternation. Tremors raced from the tip of her nose to the tip of her tail as she glanced wildly back and forth, moving at a stuttering rate composed of fits and starts and frantic double-backing. When her lips first met the sweet chill, she practically levitated, leaping back as if she’d been burned — and she shook so hard her teeth chattered with the force of it for a good minute or so.
Thirst drove her forward, and she started the excruciatingly tentative process all over again, placing her paws with meticulous precision in her own prints. Whuffing nervously, she watched the ripples of her own breath on the water before lapping greedily. The swirls of brown that spread out from her dirty chin and the matted feathers of her throat appalled her, but she couldn’t seem to settle enough to drink properly, let alone bathe. Every flicker of sound or motion caused her to flinch — and eventually, when her thirst was slaked at last, she simply hunkered down in the mud at the riverbank, red-rimmed eyes glassy and staring.
RE: the vagrant rover life - King - May 25, 2017
King licked his lips and stood, wishing there'd been just a little more meat on the grouse he'd nabbed on his way down the mountain. It'd been more luck than effort, but now that he'd eaten, the male was beginning to realize just how hungry he was. Hungry and thirsty, since he'd not come across fresh, clear water since the night before last.
The lake was wide and welcoming. King trotted toward it without caution, not accustomed to fearing... well, anything. He only stopped when he caught sight of a strange shadow down the shore. A 'yote, probably, or something equally insignificant. He hardly even glanced at it, at first, except that something about the curve of it's spine kept drawing his eyes. He couldn't quite take it all in with a glance, and so he looked again. And again, and eventually he didn't look away anymore, and a strange sense of dread began to creep up in his stomach.
He realized he wasn't hungry at all. He'd never seen something quite so hungry as whatever creature was scuttling around across the lake.
Fearing he would be seen, King lowered himself into the grasses as he crept closer, wanting to get a better look at the skeletal canine before him.
RE: the vagrant rover life - Ixchel - May 26, 2017
Nothing to see here, folks; just a gibberish roll call post ♥
Intuition drew her westward, following cloud-heavy sunsets with a faith that rivaled the devout. She skirted the bowled valley when returning this way, unwilling to meet the child-pack again. Neither the regal teen-alpha or his insubordinate crow had left anything to be desired there, and Ixchel was naturally inclined to avoid conflict where possible. She gave the vale a wide girth, though quickly fell victim to the fatigue of altitude and the unnaturalness she felt being upon oceanless cliffs. The foreboding crags, stale and stagnant with no visible waves to carve and wash them, could not feel more unsettling to the white-capped swimmer, but she braved them nonetheless. She could not explain for herself why she wanted to visit what was west of the unsettling palisades, though this uncertainty held no weight to her in the grand scheme of things.
And so through the north Sunspires she went.
And so through the north Sunspires she went.
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RE: the vagrant rover life - Addie - May 29, 2017
Adeline has noticed King’s scent in the area on more than one occasion. He’d been good company when she’d been on the other side of the mountain range but now, uncertain to where she’s even going, she finds comfort in the presence of something consistent. She thinks, more than once, about staying close by when she seems him again. It’s been a while since she’s had proper company. When she finds herself dwelling on loneliness, it only makes the day go slower as she sinks further into heartbreak. She is lucky, thus far, to have not encountered any danger since she broke away from her brethren. She has to tell herself her heart would hurt worse if she’d stayed and watched his other family go on without her.
It is a particularly hard day, unable to shake the weight in her chest. Not even King’s reassuring scent nearby gives her any optimism. Adeline releases a weak, shaky breath as she moves through the clearing. The lake in the distance gives her a goal, smacking her dry lips against one another, only to taste the thickness of King somewhere close. Her green eyes lift, searching for his form, but it is hidden from view. She does not notice the crumpled creature on the bank as it dips down. She can’t help but wonder how long ago he’d been here and if he’d kept on going or tracked back.
Still oblivious, with thirst in mind, she lopes over to the nearest bank for a drink.
RE: the vagrant rover life - Coelacanth - June 08, 2017
It was the creature’s obsessive hypervigilance and not any particular lack of stealth on King’s part that caused her to notice the little fissures of motion in the tall grass. Panic warred with a weighty sort of exhaustion that turned the creature’s limbs to ununseptium. She jumped to her paws, tufted ears perking like two inverse, block letter exclamation points, and retreated — but only by a single step. The moment her feathered hind paw broke surface, she lifted it, and she stood there on three legs in the mud for a time before she slowly folded in on herself. She was aware of the other female, the dusky bulb of one ear twisting to catch the muted lap of her tongue, but she kept her eyes trained on the storm-and-blush agouti male.
You scare me, bespoke the thin crescents of white that bordered them, stay away. To her feralized mind, the long-limbed loner was a threat, so the bridge of her slim muzzle wrinkled, velveteen flews curling to reveal the very tips of her canines in a virtually indiscernible flicker of alabaster. It wasn’t a snarl — it couldn’t even really be considered a warning. Her sodden tail fluttered anxiously, beating uneasily against the ground as her natural desire to submit and appease grappled with a learned behavior: to ward off and to isolate.
You scare me, bespoke the thin crescents of white that bordered them, stay away. To her feralized mind, the long-limbed loner was a threat, so the bridge of her slim muzzle wrinkled, velveteen flews curling to reveal the very tips of her canines in a virtually indiscernible flicker of alabaster. It wasn’t a snarl — it couldn’t even really be considered a warning. Her sodden tail fluttered anxiously, beating uneasily against the ground as her natural desire to submit and appease grappled with a learned behavior: to ward off and to isolate.
RE: the vagrant rover life - King - June 14, 2017
This post is sort of lame. Sorry!
Seeing that he'd been caught out, King rose to full height and gazed openly at the creature he'd now come to believe was another wolf. A small, thin, and mangy wolf, but a wolf all the same. He wondered at her circumstances, and how he might assist, and was so intent that he did not, at first, notice the precense of another, or the creature's nervousness about his presence.But, in observing her, the latter fact soon came to be observed. Guiltily, King let his ears flicker and then fall back, and he lowered himself to her accusation, his own silent speech as clear as hers. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to!
Only then did he catch sight of the red-brown blur of motion - one that he gladly recognized.
"Hey you!" he hailed her, glad to see a familiar face. "I've been wondering when we'd run into each other again!" In his excitement, he failed to realize that a loud, boisterous shout might alarm the dark wolf-creature he'd been observing.
RE: the vagrant rover life - Addie - June 18, 2017
She laps at the water until she feels the swell of her belly, lifting her head so that water drips from her muzzle. The first thing she notices as she turns around, tongue halfway across her lips, is the ragged looking wolfdog to one side and the sudden words of someone familiar to her right. Her ears fall back against her head and she turns to see King not too far off either. Had she been so distracted she didn’t notice either presence before now? Green eyes narrow in thought but she does not linger on it, nor does she know what to say, and instead offers an awkward chuckle to break the silence.
“Hey?” she offers with a tilt of her head, taking a step or two closer to king before she looks back to their terrified company.
RE: the vagrant rover life - Coelacanth - June 18, 2017
The Coelacanth of yore might have granted King immediate amnesty, offering her best and most eloquent apologies in turn — but the cagey, feral creature she’d become reacted with blistering stoicism. The withdrawal of his threat was greedily snatched and scrutinized with a suspicious, wounded glance of lightless, swollen eyes; and then she set about ignoring him utterly. Avoidance had become the foul little stray’s best method for dealing with other wolves.
That is, until he spoke.
His boisterous, enthusiastic cry had a profound effect on his unintended audience. Tufted ears popped to attention like inverted, block letter exclamation points, and although her spine still arched like an anxious cat’s, something about her ironically seemed to settle. Her wild, cerulean eyes did not fully relinquish their grip on the paranoia and madness that had become second nature, but it was very clear that she was listening to their conversation.
When her watchful gaze fell upon the female, red is what she saw — and her kneejerk reaction was wholly unlike her initial response to King. For reasons that her reptilian brain could not comprehend, she was inescapably drawn to the russet guard hairs she espied. It was not recognition but a natural magnetism that pulled her battered framework from the mud in a surprisingly graceful sweep of spindly limbs, but as she made her first frenetic overtures toward Cascada, her eyes fixated on the two perfectly symmetrical ears.
The wrongness of those ears seemed to slam an invisible wall between Coelacanth and Cascada, and the tiny wolfdog tried to retrace her steps, walking backwards, obsessively trying to fit her paws into the prints she’d left behind. The fierce clench of her empty gut and a strange, wrenching feeling of loss cut her retreat short, however, and she huddled in on herself with an odd, toneless keening that presented itself in an erratic chorus of airy whines.
That is, until he spoke.
His boisterous, enthusiastic cry had a profound effect on his unintended audience. Tufted ears popped to attention like inverted, block letter exclamation points, and although her spine still arched like an anxious cat’s, something about her ironically seemed to settle. Her wild, cerulean eyes did not fully relinquish their grip on the paranoia and madness that had become second nature, but it was very clear that she was listening to their conversation.
When her watchful gaze fell upon the female, red is what she saw — and her kneejerk reaction was wholly unlike her initial response to King. For reasons that her reptilian brain could not comprehend, she was inescapably drawn to the russet guard hairs she espied. It was not recognition but a natural magnetism that pulled her battered framework from the mud in a surprisingly graceful sweep of spindly limbs, but as she made her first frenetic overtures toward Cascada, her eyes fixated on the two perfectly symmetrical ears.
The wrongness of those ears seemed to slam an invisible wall between Coelacanth and Cascada, and the tiny wolfdog tried to retrace her steps, walking backwards, obsessively trying to fit her paws into the prints she’d left behind. The fierce clench of her empty gut and a strange, wrenching feeling of loss cut her retreat short, however, and she huddled in on herself with an odd, toneless keening that presented itself in an erratic chorus of airy whines.
RE: the vagrant rover life - King - June 18, 2017
The dark wisp's reaction finally drew King's eye. Guilt and realization flooded through him, and pity began to trickle down his spine. The poor thing seemed so sad and hungry, and so very alone. Exchanging a quick glance with Cascada, he padded a few steps toward the pair, only to come to an awkward halt. He wasn't sure the creature would want him any closer, considering how fearful it seemed. Would it attack him if he got too near?
"She looks so hungry," he said to the shewolf, his voice hopefully low enough that only she could hear. "We should help her - did you catch any interesting scents on your way down?"
He hoped Cascada would be willing to hunt with him. He'd been mostly scavanging since he left home, and he wasn't sure he could provide for both the wisp and himself without a bit of help.
RE: the vagrant rover life - Addie - June 21, 2017
Finally, Adeline runs through the information quickly as King speaks again. The wisp of a wolf doesn’t say much other than whine and her ears fall back, scared for her. She does not want her to run away in terror but she always doesn’t want to overstep and make things worse. She glances to her companion, surprised to see him still, and struggles to shake her head and form a coherent answer. “I—I wasn—… no,” she finally manages to get out through the scramble in her head.
The ghostly wolf she helped take care of comes to mind and how it had taken some effort to get her to trust the two of them—this isn’t Grayday, Adeline (she looks back to check)—but she also knows this will take more. Her jaw tightens and she returns her attention, lowering her posture a little more so she seems less of a threat.
“Are you?” she asks, passing along the question King asked. “We can get something for you.”
RE: the vagrant rover life - Coelacanth - June 24, 2017
Although he had frightened her initially, the diminutive little stray now tolerated King’s approach seemingly without demur. She tucked her muzzle against the muddied silk of her décolletage, her once graceful neck peppered with the jagged spines of her unkempt fur, and tucked her spindly legs more tightly beneath her. All four paws were firmly on the ground, ready to carry her away if the need arose, but she was cornered in such a way that she believed escape was impossible. She accepted the pair’s presence as inevitable, though her red-rimmed Neptune eyes darted somewhat suspiciously between the two sets of legs.
The male kept talking. His voice was low and weighty with an emotion that Coelacanth would have rushed to assuage, but the creature she had become only heard the words. She was hungry. Saliva pooled in the divot beneath her tongue, but she swallowed it back before she could add “foaming at the mouth” to her already maddened countenance. “Are you?” asked the female, but the skeletal wraith merely tucked her nose more firmly against herself.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, an uncertain growl began ticking in the mute’s hollow throat — but it faded away after a beat, thinning out into an airy, uneven whine. Then it was her turn to steer the conversation, perhaps literally. Unprompted, she rose from a slump to a skulk and tipped her head to the side like a curious bird, looking from one wolf to the other. She didn’t really know why, but they were talking about leaving, and she had decided rather abruptly that if they were leaving, she would go, too.
The male kept talking. His voice was low and weighty with an emotion that Coelacanth would have rushed to assuage, but the creature she had become only heard the words. She was hungry. Saliva pooled in the divot beneath her tongue, but she swallowed it back before she could add “foaming at the mouth” to her already maddened countenance. “Are you?” asked the female, but the skeletal wraith merely tucked her nose more firmly against herself.
For reasons she couldn’t explain, an uncertain growl began ticking in the mute’s hollow throat — but it faded away after a beat, thinning out into an airy, uneven whine. Then it was her turn to steer the conversation, perhaps literally. Unprompted, she rose from a slump to a skulk and tipped her head to the side like a curious bird, looking from one wolf to the other. She didn’t really know why, but they were talking about leaving, and she had decided rather abruptly that if they were leaving, she would go, too.
RE: the vagrant rover life - King - June 25, 2017
"Uhh..."
He wasn't sure what to make of the tiny wolf's reaction. He'd never met someone so hurt before, and so, did not understand the strange defensive nature of this one. Further confusing was her slow approach. Did she want to hunt with them?
Helplessly, he looked toward Cascada, waiting for someone to take control of the situation. What do I do? he expression clearly said. Tell me what to do!
RE: the vagrant rover life - Addie - July 01, 2017
King gives her the platform to help take care of the girl in front of them, if only by being allowed to be instructed. She glances back to him, unsure of what to make of this discovery but she doesn’t really have time as the other scuttles in their direction enough to surprise her. Her eyes widen and she glances back to find something comforting in King. She doesn’t know him well enough to read his expression as anything other than anxiety and so she sends him off to try and find something to eat.
When he is gone, she turns back to the flighty wolf to assess her the best she can and as much as the other will let her and treats her as best she can.