The Heartwood my irregular heartbeat is starting to correct itself

the sound - the 1975

Time went by slower when you were inside your own mind.
And this was something Remi was now doing quite often...
Ever since he had sorta opened up a little about his past home to Seabreeze and Rannoch, his shoulders felt a little lighter, but at the same time his thoughts weighed him down. He had dreamt of her again and though he was glad to see her regardless of the form she chose to present herself to him, he was loosing the few hours of sleep he had because after appearing in his dreams she left him irrevocably awake for the rest of the night. 

So with a lazy expression hanging from the corners of his eyes he ventured into a nearby forest. He was out and about, away from the Vale again as he found it sometimes to hard to be in his new home when the thoughts of his old one flooded his mind demanding his full attention. 

Hi! :)

Minutes passed into hours, which turned to days that faded into weeks. And still, hunger reigned king in the homeland of the Redhawks. Small game was becoming somewhat easier to find, but Raven eschewed eating in favor of Finley and the pups getting what they needed. It had been weeks since the zeta had really eaten anything substantial, mostly subsisting on berries and edible plants. Whatever small amount of excess fat she had carried on her lean frame was gone now; bones and angles stuck out where there had previously been curves, and the faint shadows of ribs lined her black sides. Berries and shoots were enough to keep her alive, but she definitely was not thriving.

Since the onset of the famine, she had ventured outside of the Caldera's borders in search of food more than she ever had before. Today was no different. She was following some scent trails in hopes of finding something alive along the way when she rounded a thick copse of trees and spotted a pale figure nearby. Within seconds she realized it was a wolf, yet -- somewhat disturbingly -- her mouth still ran with saliva at the thought of living meat. Quickly banishing that morbid line of thought, she waved her tail and greeted him with a grin. He was someone from outside of her pack, and instead of being guarded and borderline aggressive like she probably should have, she was curious and unassuming. "Hello," she said softly so that her voice wouldn't carry too much. "You haven't seen any signs of game around here, have you?"

hiiiiiiii :D

Lethargic and slow, the movements of the sleep deprived Ostrega ceased as a strange voice demanded his attention. He turned over his shoulder to find a frail form, a dark coated female with bright eyes, staring back at him. She looked hungry, and by her question she definitely was. Even though there was still a whole season before Winter arrived, the creamy Ostrega figured that the food sources were beginning to be scarce. What seemed a bit off was that, judging by the scent she carried on her, she was not a lone wolf.  
In the Vale, the amount of food available had not yet turned problematic.

"no," he began, shrugging his shoulders before continuing, "but i really wasn't paying attention, so there could be something around..." he added, oferring now a small smile to the strange girl. "we could find something" he barked after a brief minute of silent pondering. He needed to practice his hunting skills, and this girl needed something to fill her evidently empty stomach.

Raven was pleased at his friendly response, and she waved her tail at him in return. "As long as I'm not interrupting you from other business, I'd really like that," she said, though she wondered if she would actually eat whatever they took down (if anything at all). Her compulsion to take everything directly to her alpha female and insist she eat it was more powerful than her own appetite. Puppies were the pack's future, after all, and every instinct in her screamed that whenever she entertained the thought of keeping meat for herself.

As she fell into step alongside the pale stranger, her voice was hushed as she added, "I'm Raven. I live at the caldera over there," she indicated the direction in which her packlands lay with a nod of her head in what she assumed to be the correct direction.

The young Delta shook his head, "no, no I was just scouting the area," he barked, assuring the female that he was not doing anything to important at the moment. He could use the distraction from his own thoughts and what better way to forget the world and its overwhelming b.s. that running frantically behind a meal with legs? 

"I'm Mouse, from the Vale - that mountain over there" he barked, mimicking her movement but almost in the opposite direction. He held his eyes on her for a second, before lowering his head in order to analyze the different scents and trails that  seemed to surround them. There was a faint trace of small rodent and then, a bit more fresh and recent, the scent of another type of critter: probably a raccoon.

Don't mind Raven, haha. She's a bonehead. :P

When he mentioned he was from the Vale, she suddenly remembered the travel-worn she-wolf that she had met not so long ago in the meadows very near here. "I met someone from there not long ago," she commented with a grin, her eyes lingering on the picturesque peak in the distance. "Chusi. She's an interesting wolf." That meeting had been pleasant, and so far this new acquaintance from there was shaping up to be a very friendly fellow as well. To say her impression of the wolves of Northstar Vale was good might have been an understatement at this point.

Her eyes moved back to Mouse and met his -- and for the briefest moment, she was struck by how beautiful they were, like gleaming chips of glacial ice -- before she glanced down at the same time he did, feeling somewhat abashed. She had never been one to take much interest in the opposite sex, but Mouse really was very handsome. She felt her cheeks grow warm and, as she lowered her head and tried to force her attention toward signs of prey, she regretted that the caldera's food shortage had left her looking so skinny and awkward.

i like her! :3
also assuming she met chusi before she became alpha of the vale

Though he had come to this realization a bit late, it was better late than never right? Well, Remi thought so. "wait did you say you were from a Caldera?" The name  ringing a few names into his head of packmates or former packmates the dark female may be familiar with if he wasn't wrong. He was ready to share his small list when suddenly she decided to do the same. The name that fell off her lips brought a cold shiver down Remi's spine. 

Chusi.
She wasn't properly from the Vale, she had been a guest to Rannoch and every wolf of the Vale, but Remi didn't correct the dark furred female. Little did he know that the guest would become the heiress of the land. He remembered their flirtatious exchange and felt a smile crawl upon his lips against his will and his cheeks flush with warmth, then hoping Raven would not notice the world of emotions and sensations her name alone had brought onto him he tried to play it off with a simple, "yeah, she's cool" 

And now that she had been brought up, Remi too had to force himself to refocus on the task which was finding prey. He failed to notice the dark girl's appreciation for his eyes. :( . But he noticed something else. The scent of raccoon was still not gone, and though these were not animals wolves typically preyed on, Remi figured that being two against one made it doable and that Raven wouldn't be too picky. "i think we could take it down, the two of us" he barked, a small gesture of his snout inviting her to take in the animal's scent as well and give her opinion. If she wasn't feeling it they'd have to look for something else.

Yeah, they met before Chusi became alpha. I'm having to keep things vague since my thread with Chusi is still in progress.

To his question about her being from the caldera, Raven nodded to the affirmative, and she smiled at his general agreement regarding Chusi. Not that Raven was a big fan of going on trips away from home (that hadn't exactly worked out so well for her the last few times she'd tried it), but some part of her thought it might be nice to visit the Vale sometime. Redhawk Caldera was a generally friendly pack, more or less, and if the Vale were much the same, it couldn't hurt to pay a visit there and make some connections. There could be benefits for both packs -- perhaps, for example, were she able to offer her medical skills and knowledge to them, they might be willing to share some plants and herbs that were exclusive to their area, or share some food with the hungry wolves of the caldera. She made a mental note to bring up the subject with Aunt Flea and Uncle El later.

Mouse's comment on the scent -- which was unmistakably raccoon -- brought her back to the task at hand, and she nodded her agreement with him. She wasn't picky at all. The thought of warm meat of any kind made her mouth water, and if the way she licked her lips didn't make it clear enough: "At this point, I'd be happy with a half-eaten, three-day-old dead squirrel. Let's do this." She grinned boldly at him, her tail waving behind her, and began to follow the scent trail.

alrighty! i'll also keep things vague about liffey and andalusia since those threads are ongoing too

To be honest, Remi did not know of any pack aside from the Vale, and well Tealaigh from Chusi's mouth alone. He had joined the first pack he had come across with, and though he did not or would never regret following Rannoch into the Vale, he did regret not having gotten around a bit more. As an aspiring scout knowing about the packs that lived in the area was a must. 

"Do you know Liffey?" he asked shooting a sideways glance at the Caldera wolfess as the faintest traces of a smile began to crawl upon his face. "And... Andalusia?" he asked then, a bit more hesitantly than when asking about the Vale's Beta but truthfully more interested in the answer of the latter question.

At her gesture of licking her lips, Remi flashed a smile in her direction - happy to see that his find was good enough for her. He gave a soft chuff and then he was off, nose close to the ground as he tried to decipher the exact route the furry bastard had taken. After a couple of minutes he stopped, his eyes now fixed on what seemed to be an old, hollow log that seemed to be the x that marked the spot. "it's in there" he announced, though he figured Raven could've already come to such conclusion by herself. "i'll go on one end and you stay on the other...mind the teeth" he barked, the last bit a warning not only for her but for himself as well. Personally Remi preferred meals that did not bite back but sometimes its not what you want but what you get.

When Mouse started dropping names she recognized, she felt a little flutter of excitement. "Liffey is my alphas' daughter -- my cousin," she answered, a grin playing over her face. "She and I were close when she was little. I haven't seen her in a long time though." Sometimes she still felt a little bitterness that Liffey had chosen to run away from the Caldera and leave her family behind, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't be mad at the girl. She loved her too much. "And Andalusia is my friend. I taught her a lot about medicine." That reminded her that she needed to drop by and see Andalusia sometime. With the Firebirds nearing adulthood, the arrival of Finley's litter, and the famine, she'd been too busy to pay much attention to her withering social life.

Raven followed her new friend as he tracked the raccoon's scent, and it didn't take him long to identify its hiding place. She nodded to his directions and readied herself at one end of the old log, her heart doing a little nervous flutter in her chest. She'd never come face-to-face with the sharp teeth of a raccoon before. But as hungry as she was, she was willing to give it a shot.

omg your avatar ... i die

A flicker of excitement lit up her eyes as she began to explain the relation she had to the two females Remi asked about. Oh, Liffey was daughter of Alphas as well? He pursed his lips in thought before answering "Liffey is Beta in the Vale" he informed her, not wanting to include and our alpha's girl because really he was not one to go spreading gossip and even if he was, he had not direct statements from either to publicly confirm this.  Then as she spoke about Andalusia, the creamy Ostrega felt a little flutter in his own heart.

He opened his mouth, with the intention to speak,but he did not have the chance to comment because, as they were readying themselves for the attack, the raccoon must've felt the movement or presence of others outside and tried to sneak a peek by poking its head out over at Raven's side of the log. The critter looked up at the female, its little whiskers twitching before its face contorted into an angry growl and the fur along its spine rose on end.

"get it!" the boy screamed, already making his way towards that side so he could aid her inmediately after she got a hold of the furry growling gremlin. 

Omg I know. I love it so much. Iris is such a great artist, heehee. <3

His comment that Liffey was the beta of a pack made Raven's brows beetle in a mixture of emotions: surprise, confusion, skepticism, concern, and a touch of disapproval. She thought of the petulant, somewhat quirky young girl and tried to imagine her leading a wolf pack, but just couldn't picture it in her mind. What kind of pack were they running over at the Vale? A band of puppies? Raven wondered what Finley and Elwood would think of this.

Before she had a chance to respond to Mouse, however, the raccoon's face suddenly popped out of her end of the log and she abruptly found herself staring into its black, beady eyes. Mouse shouted something and swiftly leaped toward her. Without even thinking about it, she snapped at the raccoon in an attempt to get ahold of it and drag it out of the log, but was unprepared for its sharp teeth. The creature squalled angrily and latched onto her nose, eliciting a high-pitched shriek from Raven. She backpedaled, shaking her head in a desperate attempt to get the raccoon to let go, but its jaws wouldn't budge. Her eyes watered like faucets and her nose, white-hot with pain, leaked blood and snot as the raccoon held firm and scratched at her face and neck with its claws.

Talk about a plan back-firing!

Well shit, that wasn't part of the plan.
The sight of his new friend fighting to shake a vicious raccoon of her face was, despite being a posible outcome he had considered since the beginning, not the one he wanted (NOR RAVEN OBVS lol). 
With his ears flattening back and his lips curling back to reveal his own furious snarl, the young Ostrega threw himself in the line of fire, his teeth finding their mark in the nape of the critter's neck. Inmediately as he felt the animal's flesh in his mouth he clenched his jaws and tried, not to pull or shake the animal off since he was afraid that attempting to do so might harm more Raven who was still in the raccoon's grip, but to choke the pest from behind or collapse its spine. 
Anything to get it to open its damn mouth. 

Oh holy crap. I thought I had replied to this and I just realized that I did not. I'm so sorry! We can wrap this up if you like since it's somewhat old. <3

Raven couldn't see through the red haze of pain that clouded her vision. Shaking her head or doing anything in an attempt to get the raccoon off of her only made it hurt a thousand times worse, so after a few seconds of that, she simply crouched down on the ground, her breaths heaving in and out in a ceaseless, strangled half-whimper, half-snarl. Her whole body trembled with pain and fear -- would she lose her nose? would she be blinded? would her sense of smell be damaged? -- but within the space of a few breaths, the situation changed. The raccoon's grip loosened somewhat as the creature became distracted. She opened her eyes, clouded with tears, and blinked rapidly as she attempted to see what was going on.

Mouse had his jaws firmly on the raccoon's neck and (thank the stars) he wasn't pulling, but rather crushing. The animal let go after a few seconds of this, but it was too late -- its neck succumbed to the enormous pressure of the wolf's jaws and Raven heard a sharp pop as the bones snapped. The raccoon sagged, its life draining away, as Raven sat up and attempted to regain her composure. She swiped at the blood on her snout, coming from both her nostrils and the bite marks left behind by those needle-sharp teeth, and felt more embarrassed than anything else. What a sorry-ass excuse for a wolf she was. She sat there catching her breath and looked up at Mouse, a grateful smile pulling the corners of her lips upward, and said somewhat lamely, "Thanks. I can't believe I just got my ass totally kicked by a raccoon."