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+---- Thread: Bitterroot Valley ✢ With the holes in his sneakers (/showthread.php?tid=66367)
✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - September 29, 2025
AW!
The man carried his musk like a weapon, heavy and unyielding as he pressed into the wooded edge of the valley. Each step ground into the loam, as he turned his broad shoulders toward the bark. His leg lifted, the hiss of his urine streaking down the rough trunk. Steam curled in the chill air, sharp with dominance.He marked again, and again. The trees bore his name now, his claim, the valley written in lines of scent that no beast nor man could mistake. It was not enough to watch the herds, not enough to corral them into the lowlands. The land itself must be bound, spoken for in the language of piss and claw.
A growl coiled low in his chest as he pressed into the earth, nostrils flaring with the mingling reek of his own scent and the old musk of fox, hare, and snake. Lesser things. The trees shivered in the night wind, but they did not deny him.
Sega’s hackles eased only slightly as he lowered his leg. He turned toward the valley’s throat, pale eyes flashing like frost in the moonlight. This place was his now. And if the gods thought otherwise, they would need to rip it from his teeth.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Veteran - September 30, 2025
Veteran chased the three white-tailed deer southward at an easy lope. Unbeknownst to the deer, he had no intention of catching them. He was herding them, angling his pursuit so that the deer fled into the gentle hills in the valley at the base of the Sleeping Dragon.
Veteran pulled up abruptly, unwilling to be caught in his own trap. From afar, he watched as two of the deer disappeared from view, escaped and free to live another day. The third dropped heavily to the ground. Veteran approached eagerly. He stepped carefully around the marmot burrows that littered the hills, one of which had been responsible for felling his prey. The wounded deer thrashed on the ground, foreleg clearly broken and eyes wide with fear. Veteran put it out of its misery swiftly.
With his prey dispatched, he finally had a moment to breathe. When he did so, he detected traces of a marked boundary. That was new. He had just been hunting in this valley last week (or was it last moon?) and it was unclaimed. Hopefully, whoever the boundary belonged to would forgive his mistake. But Veteran wasn't counting on it. He buried his muzzle into his kill and began to gorge. He intended to consume as much as possible before the pack showed up to chase him away.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - October 03, 2025
The scent struck him first—blood, fresh and heavy, mingled with the reek of a stranger. Sega’s lips curled, the rumble starting deep in his chest as his golden eyes burned toward the carcass. The deer had been taken down inside his valley, his herd, his watch.
His hackles rose in a ridge along his shoulders, and he stepped from the treeline like stone rolling loose from the mountain. The earth shook with his weight, his scars catching the last slant of light. He made no effort to hide his approach.
A huff thundered from his nose, sharp and cutting, and his jaws split to show the flash of teeth. The growl that followed was low, guttural, the language of wolves old as the ice.
Not your kill.
He stood tall against the land, head angled, tail arched heavy behind him. Each muscle was drawn taut, the warning thick in his stance. His stare locked onto the interloper’s, daring him to deny it, daring him to test the claim.
This valley. Mine.His voice was gravel, but...not unfriendly,, curious, at most for what the vagabond had to say for himself.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Veteran - October 03, 2025
A stranger made a beeline for him-- probably a scout, out ahead of the rest of the pack. Veteran shifted, positioning the deer between himself and the scout, but still he continued to gorge. When the scout was close enough to pose a threat, he lifted his head from the kill reluctantly. He shifted into a defensive stance, just in case this scout was the bite-first ask-questions-later type.
His ears flattened at the scout's show of dominance, and he swung his tail low. His demeanor was respectfully wary, and there was a curious glimmer in his eyes matching that of the scout's. Had there been more than one pack wolf present, he may have submitted, cut his losses and slunk away. However, seeing as the man was alone, Veteran wasn't ready to back down.
"Your valley is beautiful," Veteran complimented him, dipping his blood-soaked muzzle. He would concede the valley, but not the meal. "But the kill is mine." He paused for a moment, his gaze searching. "I will share it with a brother," he offered, "and I'll defend it from an enemy. Your choice."
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - October 11, 2025
Sorry for the wait!
Sega’s hackles eased, though the tension still rippled beneath his pale hide. The stranger’s words hung in the air—steady, not boastful—and that earned him a measure of respect. His golden eyes lingered on the black wolf’s blood-marked muzzle, then drifted to the valley beyond them, the curve of mist and grass.It is beautiful,he said, the words heavy with truth. His tone was still edged, but quieter now.
You see what I keep. What I guard.
A slow nod followed, the set of his jaw firm but no longer hostile.
Brothers, for now,he allowed, the phrase carrying both warning and acceptance.
Then, without another word, Sega stepped to the kill’s edge and lowered his head, taking his share of the meat—a silent truce sealed in blood and breath.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Veteran - October 15, 2025
No worries at all, if I'm involved in a thread, it was already destined to travel in the slow lane. xD
Veteran nodded at the man's words. The valley was breathtaking and a prize in its own right, but he believed it was the unseen things that made a home most valuable- the bonds of friendship and family in particular. Veteran wondered if this man kept guard over any such treasures, or if he was as alone as their still surroundings suggested.
Brothers had been the choice he hoped for, but he kept his relief hidden. He tore one last strip of flesh from the kill and then moved a few paces away to finish the morsel, allowing the stranger space to feast directly from the carcass. He looked out over the foothills as he chewed, surveying the marmot burrows with a keen eye.
His attention snapped to a small movement within one of the burrows, and he watched as a curious nose poked up out of the burrow. A short whistle sounded from the creature, no doubt a warning to the marmot's kin that there were predators lurking.
It needn't have worried. The valley prey were safe from him; he wouldn't make the same mistake twice.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - October 28, 2025
Sega’s ears turned toward the sound of the marmot’s whistle, though his gaze remained on the black wolf a moment longer. The man’s calm was steady—rooted, like the old trees that clung to the valley walls—and Sega found something in it that quieted the last of his guard.
He swallowed his mouthful, muzzle stained red, and lifted his head.
You kind,he said, voice rough but carrying weight.
Not many come here with peace.His words were halting, the rhythm shaped by effort rather than fluency, but there was a faint warmth beneath the gravel of his tone.
His golden eyes flicked to the marmot holes, then back to the stranger.
They trust valley,he murmured.
Animals. Wind. Me.A pause, breath fogging in the cold.
Now, maybe, trust you too.
He stepped from the carcass, giving space as the other had done, his tail lifting once in quiet acknowledgment.
You hunt good,Sega added, a faint smile breaking through the weathered line of his muzzle.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Veteran - October 29, 2025
The other man's voice rang out, and Veteran turned to him, head tilted with interest. Veteran had been perceived as kind. Peaceful. Such a positive appraisal was unexpected, but welcome. It warmed Veteran's heart to reflect on how far he had come from the warmongering days of his youth. Veteran smiled, pleased with the positive turn the encounter had taken. He was always happy to share a meal if it meant he might make a friend.
The man spoke once more, this time almost under his breath. He seemed to be commenting on the marmots' behavior, which elicited a wider grin from Veteran. It was unusual for him to encounter another wolf with an interest in the surrounding ecology, for any reason other than hunting it of course.
The man went on to compliment his hunting, and Veteran accepted the praise with a nod. He swallowed his last bite and spoke his reply. "Thank you." He was just about the furthest thing from a conventional hunter, and his style was rarely appreciated.
"There is much here worth protecting," Veteran agreed with him. "I've seen what happens when nature isn't respected, and it's not pretty. I'm glad you're here to protect the balance."
Maybe he was pushing his luck, but he decided to add, "I'd like to stay in the area too, as long as I'm welcome. My name is Veteran." He'd be a good neighbor and keep his hunting away from the valley, of course. He just felt in his bones that he wasn't quite ready to leave the Taiga behind.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - October 31, 2025
Sega’s golden eyes lingered on the dark male, reading his tone before his words. The tension that had once knotted his shoulders now eased, loosening like thawing ice. This one did not come to take, but to live—Sega could hear it in the quiet of his voice, see it in the way he watched the land rather than claimed it.
He gave a slow nod, breath steaming from his nose as he stepped closer to the carcass, the air between them no longer sharp but steady.
Good,Sega said, rough voice shaped by a thick accent. “
ou respect land. You stay, hunt fair—then you welcome.
The hunter’s ears twitched, catching the distant chatter of the marmots again. It made the corner of his mouth curve, faint and rare.
They smart. Warn others when we come,he added, gaze still on the burrows.
Balance. You see right.
After a pause, his chest rose with a deep breath, and he inclined his head.
I am Sega,he said at last.
Born Big Sky. Long walk… now here.His tail gave a single slow sweep behind him.
He looked to the valley below them, the mist curling like smoke.
If you stay, Veteran, you stay as brother,Sega finished, turning his head back to meet the other wolf’s gaze.
This place—strong with one more.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Veteran - November 18, 2025
Veteran's request to remain in the area was immediately granted. He smiled warmly, tail waving.
The other man remarked further on the marmots' behavior, and Veteran nodded in agreement. "They are smart. They always have a brother nearby, watching out." A solitary marmot was not typically a long-lived one. The same might be said for a solitary wolf.
Veteran was finally given a name for the valley's caretaker. Sega, born at Big Sky.
"I was born there," he said pointing his muzzle westward, toward the small piece of glacier that was visible behind the Dragon's peak. "Duskfire Glacer." There had been a time when he knew this valley like the back of his paw. How strange it was, to stand here as a stranger to someone who called this land home.
Or.. perhaps he was not considered a stranger after all.
"You stay as brother," Sega insisted.
He offered a family. A home. Veteran had stayed with packs before, but none that carried the emotional significance of this one that had taken root in the shadow of his birthplace.
"Brothers," Veteran agreed with a nod. Just like that, he had a family again. A place to belong. "What do we call this valley?" he asked.
RE: ✢ With the holes in his sneakers - Sega - November 18, 2025
sega’s ears lifted at the question, something warm kindling behind the steady gold of his eyes. he looked out across the valley—its sweep of pines, the quiet curl of mist, the mountains rising like old spirits around them. this place had held his scent, his steps, his breath. now it would hold veteran’s too.
he nodded once, firm.
great sky,he said, voice low and sure.
this home.
a beat of quiet passed between them, the kind that settled deep into the earth.
wind name it first,sega added, gaze following the line of the glacier.
i only keep it safe.
he looked back to veteran, tail giving a slow sweep.
you call it same. great sky.
another small nod, heavier with meaning.
yours, too, now.