Kintla Flatlands I hear my home callin'

Peregrine rarely stepped beyond the borders of the plateau, yet when a hare led him on a chase along its outskirts which eventually took him into the flatlands, he didn't hesitate to pursue it. Unfortunately, the rabbit disappeared into a hole and the swarthy male's pumping legs slowed and he came to a stop, panting. He licked his chops a few times, his dusky eyes scanning his surroundings. He sniffed the air, wondering if there was a warren here and whether there might still be a chance of bringing fresh rabbit meat home to his pregnant mate.

As soon as he caught his breath, the young Alpha dropped his head and began to comb the plains with his nose. Last season's long grass, dried and yellowed, tickled his ankles as he wandered further from the plateau in search of prey. Although he kept moving, Peregrine was far from oblivious to the distance opening between himself and his homeland. Every few moments, he paused and glanced backward, keeping an eye on the plateau and admiring it from a distance.

Finally, he stopped and decided to go no further. As he prepared to pivot and begin loping home, the setting sun caught his eye. He drew in a deep breath as his eyes roved over the sky tinged with streaks of burning orange. Peregrine's black tail twitched as he knew a moment of simple, wild happiness, then smilingly began trotting back in the direction of the plateau.

It had been close to a week since Fox had left the confines of the creek. Unlike Peregrine, she was no homebody. She preferred to be out and about, exploring and checking up on the various packs to make sure their borders were being patrolled properly. She set out today to do just that, but somehow got sidetracked and ended up on the other side of the pack she had intended to check. It was one she had not bothered yet, and it was a shame considering it was so close to her own home. It simply would not do to have a poorly-guarded pack right next to her own. And if they were poorly-guarded, she would make sure that they fixed their habits or were forced out. There was no room in this world for weak packs in Fox's mind.

The Delta found herself somewhere in the flatlands, though she could not remember why she had decided to move in this direction. Something, or somebody, caught her eye, and suddenly the yearling had a new mission. What good was exploration without a little taunting?! As she closed the gap between herself and the other, however, she realized who it was. None other than the alpha of Blacktail Deer Plateau. Grinning, she howled a soft, short howl at him and quickened her pace in an attempt to catch up to him. She did not know what her intentions were, but figured things would play themselves out however they wished.

A nearby howl made Peregrine freeze in his tracks. He turned, his black ears thrusting forward and his tail stiffening as he saw a figure coming toward him. When he realized he recognized her, he did not relax. His blue-green eyes narrowed as he wondered what she wanted.

"Oh," he said when she drew within earshot, "it's you again. How are things at the board?" he drawled with a touch of bored sarcasm. Then, spotting the opportunity, Peregrine added, "You know, there was no reason to run off like a little weenie last time. I'm not going to come after you and destroy everything you love." He paused. "Although I might piss on it..."

Fox's grin only widened when he spoke. She could not quite place what it was about him that she liked, but there certainly was something. Perhaps it was the clash of his no-nonsense attitude and her own care-free "do whatever" personality. “Well perhaps you are not the wolf I thought you were,” she replied, feigned disappointment laced in her voice. Granted, she had only met him once, and his sense of humor was a bit quirky, but Fox was totally in to that.

“Pissing’s alright with me, so long as you don’t mind getting your ass kicked.” It was not like Fox was just going to let him piss all over the creek. Besides, they had plenty of respectable members to watch the borders when she wasn't around to chase off wanderers. “Why aren’t you keeping out assholes like me, anyway?” she asked.

She met him pace for pace, all mischief to complement his dry sarcasm. Peregrine saw an opportunity to make a crude joke about golden showers but refrained, deciding she hadn't yet earned his better jokes. And, anyway, he was too busy snorting scoffingly at her threat.

"You kick my ass? I don't think so, Lil' Weenie," he replied. "And I am. If you try to get anywhere near the plateau, I'll rip you open and string you up in a tree with your own intestines. Then I'll stuff your hollow carcass with treats and have my pack mates treat it like a piñata." He smirked as he relayed this gruesome image.

"But seriously," Peregrine added in the next beat, his face suddenly serious and his eyes flashing, "if you ever try to piss on my borders again, I will fucking flay your tiny little weenie ass. I don't make a habit of holding grudges but I'll make a special case for you if I have to."

“You’d be surprised, big guy,” she replied with a lift of her brow. She'd managed to best Jinx, so Fox did not think that the Alpha was completely out of her league. “But I won’t go pissing on your borders anymore. You passed the test, remember?” Fox stood silently for a few moments, then decided it probably wasn't going to do any harm if he knew her name. It might even stop him from calling her "Lil' Weenie," which she was not fond of in the least.

“Name’s Fox, by the way.” It was a befitting name, considering her red and white appearance and her small stature. “I live over at the creek.” So if he really wanted to piss on her borders, he would know where to find her.

"Probably not," Peregrine said. "I already know you're full of piss and vinegar." He gave her a pointed look. "I'm sure you could hold your own with most wolves... but I'd lay you out so fast, you wouldn't know what happened to you." He sneered, albeit without any real malice.

At last, she gave him a name and even an allegiance, which meant little to him. "No," he answered, "your name is Lil' Weenie. And I can't remember if I told you this before but I'm Peregrine." He gave her a bit of a cheshire grin, though his swarthy face quickly fell back into an expressionless mask befitting his wry humor. "You can call me Perry if you like."

The Alpha male shifted his weight, glancing at the plateau as gloom gathered about it. He wanted to get home to Hawkeye, though he knew he'd still need to hunt up some supper; he wouldn't be showing up empty-handed. Every moment spent lingering here with the foxlike she-wolf was pretty much wasted time, though Peregrine would be lying if he said her personality didn't intrigue him, despite his usual lack of tolerance for outsiders.

Facing her again, Peregrine spoke without preamble. "You should know something about me, now that we're friends, Lil' Weenie. I don't really leave my territory, so I'm not going to come find you at your creek—unless you give me a damn good reason, like I mentioned. But on that note..." He rotated his neck with some accompanying cracks. "Where's the creek? Is it close by? Is that why you keep showing up on my borders like a bad case of herpes?"

Fox pouted when he insisted on calling her Lil' Weenie again, but she made no verbal protest. It wasn't the worst thing in the world to be called, and it would allow her to think up a stupid nickname for him as well. She would have to think on that one, though, since her mind was not as quick as her legs. The swarthy black male introduced himself as Perry, and if he had said his name when they had met before, she had not remembered it. Now, of course, she would. Repetition was the best way to learn!

She spotted him looking back at his home, and she figured he was anxious to get back to it. Considering Fox had another stop on her list before heading home herself, she knew she would eventually have to part ways with him. "Gotta make sure those borders are secure," she thought.

The yearling could not help but wag her tail in delight when he labeled her as a friend. Perhaps he meant it only in the broadest of terms, but he seemed to get her strange sensibilities. It was possible that her antics would one day get her killed, but she was much too naive to understand that now. “To be fair,” she began, “I’m not actually on your borders this time.” She had only shown up there once before. “Swiftcurrent Creek is not terribly close. I just get wandering feet. There’s a pack between mine and yours that I’ve yet to test. That's actually where I was headed, and then somehow I got sidetracked and saw you over this way.”

"This is true," he agreed, "which is why you're still alive." His lips drew into a tight little smile, which stayed there as she explained that she had wanderlust and was planning on "testing" another pack's borders. He rolled his eyes, yet Peregrine wondered what and where this nearby pack might be.

"What pack is that? And why do you take it upon yourself to 'test' borders? It's an obnoxious habit, Lil' Weenie, and I won't be surprised if it gets you killed someday."

i wonder how drunk kat was when she wrote that post... or perhaps she had sobered up!

“Don’t know the name,” Fox admitted. “It’s between here and the creek.” Perry obviously lacked the brain power (or crazy factor) to understand why she tested the various packs laced about the wilds. Fox often wondered the same thing herself, but she had yet to find an answer that satisfied anybody, including herself.

“I guess I don’t really have an excuse, except that it’s a rush, and I get a kick out of it.” Her honesty was showing through, but she had never been an excellent liar or twister of words. Her singular talent for speed had not allowed much time for focusing on social skills. “And if it does get me killed, they’ve passed the test.” Little did Fox know that her world would soon be turned upside down, and she would have to worry about more than her own life.

If I was drunk at 11:00am yesterday, I might have a problem, LOL.

Although her answer made sense to him, at least somewhat, he balked at her last comment. "I don't know if you've heard, Lil' Weenie, but survival is the name of the game. You don't look old enough to have kids, so if you get yourself killed, there goes your genetic line." Peregrine paused. "Maybe that's a good thing for the rest of the world, though..."

Movement at the corner of his eye caused Peregrine to turn, his eyes watching hungrily as a rabbit—perhaps even the one from earlier—slipped into a hole. He stared at the spot a moment longer, then refocused his attention on Fox. Mentally, he made a note to revisit this area, as clearly there was a warren hidden beneath the earth.

"I'm under the impression that most wolves around this place like to mingle with members of other packs, though personally I don't get the appeal at all. As an aside, you should feel lucky, Lil' Weenie," he told her. "Anyhow, every pack seems to want to get in on the other packs' business and be all friendly and all that bullshit. So wouldn't your Alpha be pissed off if they knew what you were up to? I mean, isn't that the reason you ran off last time...?"

derp. i thought that said 11pm. speaking of drunkenness, my boyfriend is not allowed to have tequila anymore. i left to take my dog to class while he was at my house, and he ended up on the other side of town. when i went to go pick him up, he got in the car and just started crying. :( oh. and then he puked in the bushes when we got home. </story>

Considering she was just a year old, Fox had not really considered children of her own. Hell, she barely even gave boys a second glance. Aside from Njal, who was some kind of weird exception. There was just something about him that Fox did not understand. She would not go so far as to call it attraction. The Delta pushed the thought of him out of her mind, not wishing to dwell on it.

Fox grinned when he labeled her as some kind of exception to his "no friends with outsiders" rule. She did not think that she had any friends outside of the creek, and she was not even sure if she would consider Perry a friend. Perhaps he was a frenemy. Fox shrugged when he asked her the question about how Lethe would react. “If she doesn’t like it, she can tell me to bugger off.” That was not completely true, considering Fox actually did care what Lethe thought of her.

“Truth be told, I ran off last time because you stopped getting my humor.” It was no fun if he laugh at (or respond properly to) her jokes.

HAHA! The last time I drank tequila, I fell asleep spread eagle on my front porch, then woke up and threw up in my garden. I also threw up into my own hands and kept wailing about it, much to Tyler's amusement. I don't drink tequila anymore. xP

Fox insisted she didn't care what her Alpha thought, then admitted the real reason for taking off so abruptly the last time. Peregrine's lips parted in a single, loud guffaw. In that moment, he suddenly became aware of how truly young she was. She couldn't have been much more than a year old. He could probably be her father. The thought made Peregrine blanch inwardly.

"Well, then you really earned your name, Lil' Weenie," Peregrine answered. "And it's not that I stopped getting it at all... it's just that your sense of humor is so incredibly imbecilic sometimes that I'd argue it's not humorous at all." Despite the mean nature of his words, the corners of his mouth crooked upward in a little smirk.

posting from my phone, so please excuse typos!

Fox pouted when he called her humor imbecilic. She felt like those who didn't get it probably didn't get her. Granted, Perry was more forgiving than most when it came to chatting with her. She found that strange, considering the circumstances under which they had met, but she was pleased with it anyway. Besides, she was in some special club for being his friend. Fox felt like she should get a gold star or something.

“I gotta run, Big Weenie,” she said, glancing back at the pack she'd have to skip testing today. Fox's wandering legs had taken her too far off course to go there before returning home. “Keep up the good patrol work.” Feeling Swiftcurrent Creek tugging at her, the yearling made her way toward home.

Indeed, Fox should have felt special, as few found their ways into Peregrine's good graces and he couldn't really explain to himself how she'd found her way there either. He supposed she was just different from most others he met and, although obnoxious, she did make him laugh.

When she referred to him by a nickname, Peregrine's lips curled into a smirk. "Big Dick would be much more accurate on several levels," he told her. He then bobbed his head very minutely as Fox excused herself and turned to leave. "Good luck. Don't die," were his parting words of choice before the Alpha turned and returned to his own homestead.