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+--- Thread: Blacktail Deer Plateau hurricane heart (/showthread.php?tid=30140)
hurricane heart - Ruenna - October 11, 2018
I'm opening this thread to anyone who would like it! Special shoutout for toons that Rue hasn't threaded with yet @Issun @Illidan @Minori @Krarius. Also since there is cache digging happening this could be used as a trade thread for hunter...
The autumn breeze was chilly this morning, but for once the waif wasn't bothered. She was working up a sweat digging a new cache. The turn of the season had insticitvely driven Rue to spend her free hours hunting, and the Plateau's caches were now stuffed with her little victims. When Rue had gone to bury her latest catch (a most unfortunate hare), she found a cache that was full to bursting. Clearly she was not the only pack member padding the stores.
The rabbit carcass lay abandoned a short distance away as Rue dug. She knew this might be the last chance she had to dig additional storerooms before the ground was too frozen to break, and that worry had her focused intently on her little project. With no one around to hear her she hummed she worked, allowing the pure, sweet tune to entwine with the rushing sound of the autumn wind.
RE: hurricane heart - Minori - October 15, 2018
Something inside of her had settled down, no longer was she so grouchy and mopey and set in her ways of hiding away from everyone. She had begun to notice the many many scents of pack members she hadn't met yet and it made her feel a tad bit weird. Everyone must think her to be rude or mean not to hang around and be social. She did her part at least, they couldn't deny her that. She had been out hunting, only managing to snatch up a fat brown creature like a seriously obese squirrel without the long tail. She carried the heavy thing back toward the cache only to find it stuffed.
Deciding to dig a new one she set off, quickly finding the trail of a packmate leading away from the stocked cache. Curious she followed it and found a female digging a cache, apparently under the samd predicament she was in. "Hello. Apparently everyone thinks alike here." she said from behind the woman.
RE: hurricane heart - Ruenna - October 17, 2018
A voice from behind Rue caused her to start. She whirled around to face the newcomer, alarm in her eyes. "Oh, Minori. Hello." Rue relaxed as her gaze set upon the woman's familiar visage. Rue knew the Minori's name of course, seeing as she had been here longer than Rue herself, but they hadn't ever really spoken to one another before.
"It's really good to see you on your feet." Rue's expression darkened slightly, thinking back to the days after the bear attack. Everyone had been on edge, wondering if the bear would come back, wondering if Minori would wake up...
A small smile brightened the girl's features as she caught sight of the oversized squirrel carcass. Clearly Minori was doing much better since she had been able to hunt successfully. "With the change in weather, I think instinct must be driving us," she agreed. Humor danced in her eyes as she added, "..It seems it also drove your squirrel to overindulge."
RE: hurricane heart - Minori - October 18, 2018
Minori blinked in surprise when the female greeted her by name. She had no idea what the woman's name was. She had been around during the bear fight but they hadn't met before. She tried to think back on the names of newcomers and others that had been here when the pack formed that she hadn't met yet. Thorleif....Illidian...Ruenna...welp there she had it. She had already introduced herself to Elixir and Krarius so that left this female to be Ruenna. "Ruenna. Thank you....I hadn't expected to be put down like that so fast." she said her own gaze darkening as she remembered the force of the paw smacking her and how it had hurt when she hit the tree.
The smile that appeared as the other eyed her catch made her smirk and she shoved it over "Honestly I don't think it did too well. Lost it's tail somewhere too. Must have eaten so much it was too slow to outrun a predator." she snorted and lifted her paw off the carcass. " Do you want some help digging?"
RE: hurricane heart - Ruenna - October 22, 2018
Ruenna nodded wordlessly, reluctant to comment any further on the bear attack. She had little desire to relive such a nightmare; packmates flung left and right, bloody, broken...
Rue suppressed a shiver.
The change in topic was very much welcome. Rue nodded again. "I've found that winter provisions are better stored in the ground, as opposed to in the stomach." It was a lesson Minori's squirrel had never learned it seemed. Well, speaking of storing provisions...
"Absolutely," Rue agreed, shifting over so that Minori would have room to dig beside her. Even though Rue was fairly reserved herself, she had cast Minori as practically antisocial. Rue figured this was a rare morning, to get to spend time in the presence of the pack's resident recluse.
RE: hurricane heart - Minori - October 29, 2018
Minori turned her head to give a smile toward Ruenna as she sidled in beside her and began to dig, claws scraping and tearing at the cold soil. Luckily it didn't seem so frozen that it made digging absolutely impossible. Between the two of them, the hole would be dug out quite fast. "Where I am from food was never eaten in the winter except at set times, when everyone would get a ration. We were not starved and everyone always survived. Occasionally the few greedy were caught stealing....the punishment was severe" she left out saying that it had been her job to deal the punishment. Her parents used to command her soldiers to pin the offending wolf down while she bit and tore at their maw enough to make it so they'd not want to eat for days at a time. For some reason it now made her feel bad, where back then it had been a source of pride.
RE: hurricane heart - Ruenna - October 30, 2018
Was that a smile? Rue couldn't think of the last time she saw such an expression on Minori. She returned the smile as Minori joined her.
Minori spoke a little about the policies of a previous pack of hers, and Rue couldn't quite tell whether these were fond memories or painful ones. Minori was a difficult wolf to read. The statement about "severe" punishments certainly sounded ominious. Rue chose to answer somewhat diplomatically.
"Rationing the winter stores seems like a.. fair way of doing it.. A good solution for a stationary pack. My birthpack followed the herds over the winter." Where Rue came from, packs had been very small family units that were joined through strong alliances to other similar packs. During the winter the packs would team up to take down large game as needed, and the feeding order was determined by rank, dominance, and prestige. Ruenna knew that if she had stayed with Red Fern Glade this winter, the pickings would have been very slim for the young, shy subordinate with no trades or noteworthy accomplishments to her name.
"I wonder how Blacktail Deer Plateau will do it," she mused. It was the first winter that the Plateau wolves would spend together as a pack, which meant there was no rule of precidence to decide things. Perhaps Liri and Kavik would call a pack meeting to discuss strategies for the upcoming winter and take input from the subordinates. Technically they all made decisions together, right?
Although, now that she was thinking about it, the leadership tier had seemed a little.. off lately. Perhaps they had things other than the upcoming winter plaguing their minds?
"Have you noticed that the leaders seem kind of.. like.. Like lately they seem kind of...?" Rue felt like she was taking a stab in the dark here, and she wasn't quite sure where to take her question. So she let it hang, digging quietly for a few thoughtful moments. The leaders had been acting weird, no two ways about it. Neither Liri nor Kavik seems to sleep a wink anymore, from what Rue could tell. Grezig's scent had just up and disappeared from the Plateau entirely. And Rue could have sworn she head someone crying a few weeks ago, but when she went to investiate she found only the lingering scents of the leadership tier.
RE: hurricane heart - Minori - November 01, 2018
Minori flicked her ears as Ruenna stated she thought it a good idea, which in all enirety it was. Her home pack had rarely ever seen a completely empty cache and nobody ever starved, though there were some harsh times when everyone barely got a full belly due to lack of prey. "I think I'll suggest it to one of them. Maybe even suggest taking trips out of territory to track down larger prey occasionally and take it back as a team effort. It would definitely prevent suffering mostly, though I suppose it depends on how the prey runs overall." her paw struck a stone in the ground and her claws snagged, causing her to wince. She carefully dug around the stone and pried it loose, kicking it aside.
As Ruenna asked if she had noticed anything off about Liri and Kavik, she paused to think about it. She hadnt seen Liri since the bear attack and the one time she had seen Kavik, he had seemed fine enough. "No I actually haven't seen much of them around. Why? What have you noticed?" she asked curiously, concerned for the leaders not for the sake of gossip. If the leadership was strained it could eventually affect the whole pack.
RE: hurricane heart - Ruenna - November 10, 2018
Rue nodded encouraginly at Minori's plan. It sounded like a good compromise. Following the herds over the winter had ascertained that Red Fern Grove never went hungry, but they were often forced to make do with less-than-adequate living accomodations as a result. If Blacktail Deer Plateau followed Minori's suggestion, they would be able to shelter within the Plateau and the cozy Door while also maintaining adequate caches. "If you do talk to a leader about it, feel free to tell them I like the idea as well," Rue said with a small shrug. Rue wasn't exactly sure how much her opinion counted yet, but Minori was welcome to use her name if she thought it might be helpful.
Minori struck a rock embedded in the earth, and Rue dug to help her remove the obstacle. "Well, that's just it," Rue replied to Minori's comment that she hadn't really seen the leaders around. "..There was a week or so where it seemed like they were never in the Door at night-- I don't know if they were sleeping," Rue started. It was not unusual for her packmates to shelter in a private den some evenings, but it was odd for any one wolf to be absent for a week straight. "And then Grezig took that sudden trip... I don't know, it just seemed like there might be tension." Rue shook her head. "I just spend so much time scouting, I wondered if I had... missed anything important while I was away."
RE: hurricane heart - Minori - November 21, 2018
Minori nodded and agreed to let Liri and Kavik know if she did say anything. She flipped the rock out of the earth and continued to dig until she figured the hole was wide and deep enough for a good amount of prey while also being easy to cover. She backed up and grabbed the mutated fat squirrel off the ground and dropped it into the cache, giving a satisfied sigh as it hit the dirt with an audible thud. She lifted her gaze as Ruenna began to speak on the topic of the alphas and beta, pointing things out she hadn't noticed. She felt guilty for not noticing, not paying enough attention to her packmates that she couldn't see the tension rising between the top three members of the pack. She frowned and shook her head "I don't even keep my den near the others. Maybe...maybe it's time I stop being so distant. Perhaps Grezig, Liri and Kavik had a disagreement on something? The alphas and their beta don't always see eye to eye" she pointed out, unsure if she was really being any help at all.
RE: hurricane heart - Ruenna - November 21, 2018
Rue gave a nod of finality as the cache was finished and the squirrel hit the bottom with a satisfying thud.
She nodded again at Minori's idea about moving closer. "You could just try a couple nights here or there in the Door." Rue shrugged as she made the suggestion, figuring it would be an easier adjustment for Minori. Rue was a pack creature through and through, but even she didn't spend every night in the Door. She could definitely understand Minori wanting her own space from time to time.
"It's possible," Rue answered, brow knitting in thought. "I'm sure if there is some kind of disagreement, they will soon bring the issue to the Council." ..That is, if the disagreement was over a pack issue. If the disagreement was personal, that was a whole other thing entirely... and one from which they were much less likely to make a quick recovery.
"Thank you for your help with this cache," Rue said gratefully, with another nod of finality. "..And for the talk," she added, glad for the chance to spend some one-on-one time with one of her packmates whom she considered to be more mysterious. With a goodbye nod and smile, Ruenna took her leave, the contents of their discussion still playing over in her mind.
This thread was getting old, so I went ahead and tacked on and ending so it could be archived. Let me know when/if you want a new thread between these two!