Blackfoot Forest the yowling won't cease

On his third or fourth day in the Teekon Wilds, Haunter left his chosen packlands and scoured out further than he originally intended. The newest wolf of the Creek felt no particular attachment towards his designated home, but there was the idea in the back of his mind that he must return or either move on from the place, and he wasn't quite ready to do the latter just yet. He was still about ten pounds lighter than he could have liked, so the one-earred male figured he would stay another couple weeks before making his stake elsewhere.

It was often like this with him, having never stayed anywhere longer than he'd stayed on Hollow Mountain, but this was neither here nor there. His thoughts weren't anywhere except in the present moment, his sulfurous eyes scanning watchfully back and forth as he moved in silence towards the looming woods ahead.

Night had fallen upon the black wolf, leaving him mostly unseen in the shadows, so he sought shelter here in the forest and would return to the Creek at first light. However, the thick clouds in the sky did not promise any sort of pretty sunrise when morning would come; but this was not his main issue, as it didn't seem Haunter would be having any sort of quiet that night either.

The yipping grew louder the deeper he moved into the darkness, and it made his lip curl in savage distaste. Being here somehow made him wish that his right ear was not only missing, but deafened as well. In fact, he wouldn't have minded being deaf in both ears at that moment. Abruptly, the irritated hound gave off a booming howl, momentarily drowning out all the foxes and actually shutting them up for a few minutes.

But once the echo of his howl had died down and been quiet for a while, they started up again, cautious but just as noisily as before.

posting from my phone, so please excuse typos!

Feeling overwhelmed by her new responsibilities, Fox escaped the confines of the pack. She knew that Jinx and Njal would work hard to keep their borders secured against any threats. Fox gravitated south and east, eventually finding herself on the edge of a forest. It was not one she had been to before, and as the sun descended into the earth, Fox decided she would not go back home until the morning.

As the sky grew darker, a strange sound began to grow from within the forest. It was one that Fox knew well, for she had been named after the very creature that yowled in the night. It was comforting to her, reminding her of her origins. She wondered briefly why her parents had given her such a name and if she had made similar sounds as a child. Suddenly, a loud and booming sound caused her cousins to silence themselves. Curious to know who it was, Fox made her way toward the epicenter of the sound, her namesake creatures beginning to yowl once more.

Stepping carefully, Fox soon found out who had quieted the foxes, if only for a time. It was Haunter, her latest follower. Her posture remained relaxed, not feeling the need or want to assert her position here and now. “Fiesty little things, aren't they?” she asked rhetorically.

A light rustle drew his hawkish eyes over one shoulder, and Haunter half expected a fox, whose curiosity was too great for its own good, to come and meet its doom. What he saw was a Fox, but certainly not the kind he had been expecting. His ear twitched, acknowledging her words, but the only hint of would-be humor in his face was a brief flashing of his yellow gaze. His tail remained lank, out of respect. "That's not the word I would use," he said lowly, swinging his muzzle forward again and peering into the darkness as if there was something to view.

After a pregnant pause on his behalf, the black wolf tilted his head slightly to peer at the small Alpha again with only one of his acidic, menacing eyes. "Am I needed?" he asked, incorrectly assuming that she had been tracking him. He didn't like to be followed, but wouldn't admit it to her. Again, out of the respect that must be shared between subordinate and leader.

warning: some strong language up in this post.

Briefly, Fox wondered what word he would use to describe them. Maybe something like, "fuckers." She grinned at the thought, though it was not unlike her to have a smirk on her face for most of her waking (and unwaking) hours. To be honest, Fox kind of thought this guy had a stick up his butt, but who was she to judge? Everybody had their bad days... weeks... months... lives. Fox had been going through quite an adjustment period herself, so she was not about to call him out on his pissy attitude. Quite frankly, she did not have the energy to deal with it.

When he asked if he was needed, Fox shrugged. “Not for anything in particular. I just heard you go off all boom-like and thought I’d see who was making all the racket.” Of course, the foxes were making plenty of racket themselves, but his was a different kind of racket. Glancing around, as it to find an answer to her question before she spoke, Fox asked, “What are you doing out here if you don’t like that noise, anyway?” The Alpha found the piercing drone comforting, but she could not imagine that many did. Her tone was not accusatory, simply curious.

Lol, if I had a nicer/more "fun" character, they would love Fox ^_^ BUT HERE HAVE A GRUMPY-PANTS HAUNT INSTEAD

A wolfish brow quirked in her direction, and he peered down at the small blaze of fur for a moment; his slightly incredulous expression read: "I'm making all the racket?" although he didn't feel the need to say it out loud. He examined her slender face for a moment longer before turning his one-earred skull elsewhere again. She returned quickly with a justified question and Haunter found himself snorting lightly on reflex. He didn't want to admit that he liked being alone, or that he felt it was better because then no one could provoke, or worse, abuse him. These were irrational fears, especially of one of the most socially-bound creatures on earth.

Haunter took a deep breath, which seemed necessary to come up with another, less revealing answer. "I didn't realize at first that it would only get worse the further I walked." This was true, but then it led to reason about why he didn't turn back. "I also thought I could tolerate it," he added, raspy tone disintegrating as he fell quiet once more.

Fox briefly wondered how he couldn't understand how walking toward a noise was going to make it louder, but she brushed off her little judgement for now. Perhaps before she had claimed the throne of the creek she would have snickered and told him he was an idiot, she knew that it was more important to play the politics game now. Not that she was willing to play it as cool as some others did, for she had her own way of dealing with things. But Fox knew that she had to appeal to her underlings if she planned on keeping them around. She may have been the glue that kept the creek together, but it was her followers who were the popsicle sticks. Without both of them working together, they were just a bunch of craft supplies.

In place of responding with something snarky, Fox shrugged her shoulders. “I know we didn’t really get to... chat when you arrived,” she replied, emphasizing the word only because she suspected him of not being the chatty type, “but what’s your backstory?” It was an easy question to ask, and although Fox was loathe to go on about her incredibly boring story, she thought it important to know where her followers were coming from and what had brought them here.

Idiot didn't seem too far-reaching for the brute, by appearances, but his rugged quietness was not to be mistaken for stupidity. Perhaps he should've explained that he thought he would pass the noise or that he thought it might die down, but Fox didn't press the subject and of course Haunter didn't pursue it (not being a conversationalist and all), but things didn't quite end there as he might have expected.

Chat. One of his least favorite words, and he looked at her sidelong with a glimmer of dismay in his eyes; Haunter worried vaguely that she would talk his remaining ear off. Instead, she asked about him, which was possibly worse than the former nightmare he had imagined.

"Back-story?" he parroted, as if the words confused him, but he cleared his tight throat a moment later and gazed at her intently, leaving no room for mistake or a lie in his gaze. "I have none."

But of course that wouldn't be a good enough response for the leader of Swiftcurrent Creek. And before she could press further he raised his long muzzle slightly and angled it away from her again. "From the second I was born I had to fight to survive and I've been fighting ever since... I assure you there's not too much else about me."

fox is a dummy, sorry. :P

Haunter did not seem like the open-book type, which Fox had pegged since the moment she met him at the borders. Still, she had asked him a question, and she bristled ever-so-slightly at his first reply. Thankfully for them both, he gave her a more acceptable answer. To be honest, he seemed like a bit of a drama queen. “Pretty sure we’re all cursed with that ‘fight to survive’ thing,” she replied, making light of whatever situation he had gone through. Fox had on more than one occasion gotten herself into situations that should have killed her.

“Does that mean you’re more of a defender?” she asked. Fox was far more of an offensive force, picking fights whenever she could and looking for the weak spots of others before they were even aware of it. Knowing where his skills lay would help her to determine where he would fall as far as duties went. Considering his appearance and stature, she had simply assumed he could help Jinx and Njal with the borders. She had done it in haste, due to being preoccupied by a million other things at the time, so it was a good thing he had not been some softy who could be pushed over.

Though the dark drama queen male nodded slightly, he was almost sure that many did not have to "fight" as he had. Not every wolf was born a despised omen; not every wolf was persecuted and abused until they were big enough to properly defend themselves. He looked at Fox and couldn't imagine her being hated from the moment she was born, nor having to face the angry gaze of her own mother who fed her out of duty rather than love.

He couldn't imagine that she personally experienced any of his troubles and he wouldn't burden her with the knowledge. He let the young wolf go on assuming that everyone had their own hardships that eventually equaled to the same hardship of merely surviving. Haunter did not blame her for her naivety. "Yes," he answered modestly, his rasp slightly quieted, but his yellow eyes searched her small, slender face before turning away again.

"But I will be what you need me to be, for as long as I stay with you.. and yours." A rustling nearby made his one ear perk and his large head swivel instantly to his left, where a fox was clearly peeking at them from beneath a snowy-sprinkled bush. He bore his teeth but looked elsewhere, somehow thinking that it would be impolite to murder a fox in front of... well, Fox.

As much as she was curious about the stories of others, Fox rarely revealed her own. She preferred to keep her past in the past, where it belonged. Being only a year old, there were rarely questions about where she had come from or where she was going. Then again, the "going" part seemed to be pretty clear at this point. Now that she was at the helm of the creek, there was no reason for her to diverge from this path. Achieving such status at such a young age was almost a waste, considering she barely had to work for it. Not that she was complaining, of course.

“And how long might that be?” she asked, curious as to why he had chosen those particular words. Fox was not opposed to those who wished to only stay with the creek for a time, but it would be nice to have a heads up if they were planning on doing so. It would be much better if they let her know, rather than simply disappear one day. That was abandonment, and not something the fireball would take kindly to. An amiable leaving was an entirely different matter.

As an aside, Rem, Haunt would've been upfront with Fox when he joined, about being with Creek only to ensure his survival of sorts... I imagine she was just like "sure, you're big, just make yourself useful and patrol our borders a lil" lol

She finally asked the question he had wholly expected when joining, but Fox had either been too busy or distracted to ask at the time, so he hesitated slightly, as he not entirely sure if his answer was the same as it had been when he'd first arrived at the Creek. "Originally, I gave myself until spring to take my leave," he said at length, watching her sidelong, but somewhat distracted by the still-lingering fox in the nearby underbrush.

"I might stay longer, should the Creek prove more of a home to me than any place before..." he added, in a small attempt to appease the small leader. "But this seems unlikely given my history." And then there went that small attempt at appeasing, true to Haunter's derogatory nature.

Okay! Will keep that in mind. Fox tends to forget details anyway, so it works out. ;)

His answer was good enough for her, although it did not give him much time at the creek. Despite his standoffishness (or perhaps because of it), part of her wanted him to stick around for longer. At least until summertime. If he chose to leave then, he'd have yet another season to find somewhere else to hang his coat before things got too bad. She did not expect him to stay, nor did she want to pressure him into something he did not like. Fox knew that even she had not expected to stay when she'd arrived here, and we all saw how that worked out.

With the ever-present calls of the foxes that made up this forest, Fox wondered if she shouldn't try and head back to the creek and get some sleep there. Even she, who loved the sound of the creatures, could not possibly lay her head down to this racket. “You do what you gotta do,” she quipped. “I’m going to attempt to get some shut-eye back at the creek. I’ll leave you to your brooding self.”

He went slightly rigid at her comment, half-expecting her to dismiss him from the pack for his apparent lack of loyalty, but instead she dismissed herself, claiming that it was to try and catch some sleep before the duties of Alpha-ship called upon her again. He nodded resolutely, watching as she turned and began to pad slowly back in the direction of the Creek.

For a moment, he was frozen, unsure and feeling his lack of certainty, which was a rare thing for Haunter. His yellow eyes glanced sideways, spotting the brave fox again, and suddenly (because of his leader's name), he felt not quite so murderous towards the red-furred vulpine. His head snapped in the direction that Fox had went, and his long legs took him to stride after her. It took less than thirty seconds for him to come in range of her again, though he kept his distance for reasons unknown. Perhaps mistrustful of her, though he had absolutely no reason to be, and the opposite should've been true of her in regards to him.

"I will accompany you there," he thought to mention, by way of explaining his presence behind her. And the dark wraith followed her back to the Creek, unwilling to admit to himself that he actually didn't mind following her, in every sense of the phrase. They parted ways once reaching their borders, but when Haunter was alone, he felt himself still left wondering why he had decided to return here so quickly.