Firefly Ravine we need to find out where robosnatch is keeping her time machine

@Ingram

The trip to the ravine is easy this time, getting used to the few trips she’s made and making her way down the slopes where the ground opens up. She doesn’t know what it is, but she likes it. It’s cleansing, in its own way. Grief lingers when she mourned her former life and made new memories for the future. She ran into her father, not all that long ago, and she still doesn’t know what to make of it. Mostly she wants to move on, get to the other side of this back and forth, torn between two families that neither she can abandon.
 
Snow begins to fall from the sky after a while and she glances up, the chill of spring unpleasant when it is meant to bring warmth and sunny days. Furi sighs, looks back to the ground in front of her, and trots aimlessly through the low wooded areas.

ingram clambered through the corded wood without much thought in his actions - as of late, thinking had gotten him in trouble, and he was eager to leave ankyra behind. there was just too much going on; wylla's frayed patience had all but dissolved, caiaphas was even more irritable than usual, and nyx was heavily and flagrantly in heat -- lycaon was nowhere to be found and he was usually ingram's buffer from the crazy women. ingram did not even consider that lycaon's absence was possibly connected to nyx; that's what one gets when they're not the greatest critical thinker.

he was fairly absorbed in his own world until he saw the unmistakable pelage of furi. at first he was excited to see her, but then he recalled their last grim encounter; did she hate him now, for being associated with the siren queen --now labeled an enemy for what she had cruelly done to rose? is that what they were -- enemies?

he shuffled to a stop and looked uncertainly at the ground. he didn't want to have her pass him by and not say anything -- that would be rude, and also, he was so cooped up by grimnismal he really needed some exposure. with doubt in his voice he hailed her, an uncertain wag of his tail given as his voice called over the softly falling snow. "oi!"

Oi!
 
Furi doesn’t even have to turn around. Ingram’s presence is a mixed bag of feelings. The last time they were here, they’d decided they were friends, despite their situation. But the last time they’d seen one another, well… that didn’t have the same happy ending with rainbows and sunshine. Her friend had been tortured, starved, and who knows what else.
 
But.
 
Her jaw tightens and she smiles a little, though it is strained, and her tail sways back and forth. When she decides there is no aggression to be shared between them, she takes a few steps forward to close the distance. “Do you think we can still be friends,” she tells him, more than questions, with a twist of her lips. She doesn’t like the idea. She wants to like him. There’s good even in the enemy but where does that leave them?

ingram held his breath as furi swung to look at him; he half expected a show of fangs, but none came. she looked -- well, he didn't know how she looked -- it seemed she was neither thrilled nor enraged by his presence.

presently, not being enraged was a good sign for ingram, who took that opportunity to slide up close to furi and offer his most winsome smile. except it was wiped clean from his muzzle as she spoke exactly what he was feeling -- he deflated like a pufferfish, unsure how to continue.

"well, that depends - are you gonna touch my ass again?" he tried to joke, a sway of his tail given in accompaniment despite the tightness of her expression.

Ingram’s tension doesn’t go unnoticed. They are at odds with one another, on a great scale. If Drageda stood behind her and the sound stood behind him, she’d hate him. She’d charge him with teeth bared—she’d spare him, if she could, but in the ravine she doesn’t have it in her to find any of the pack-born aggression between two sides.
 
In another universe, they’d be star-crossed lovers sentenced destined to die.
 
She smiles a little when he does but it fades just the same, glancing past him briefly to make sure no one else accompanies them. “Not now that it’s all beaten up and stuff,” she manages to say with a shrug, a half-hearted attempt at continuing with the joke.

ingram glanced back at the object in question: his tushus. when his gaze roved back to furi's darkened muzzle he caught the wisps of a fleeting smile. her feeble smile and halfhearted joke was enough to encourage him; give an inch, and he'd take a mile -- with an exaggerated playbow he wriggled his tail in the air and stated matter of factly: "it's a good ass."

and then, without ceremony, he promptly sat on his prized heiney -- a grin still clinging to his loosened gums. "how is she?" by she, he of course meant rose -- but he had never gotten her name in their hectic, night-borne scheme.

Furi can’t help the roll of her eyes as he, once more, tells her how good of an ass he has. She doesn’t even offer him the entertainment of an answer. Instead, she lazily takes a few steps forward to make the distance a little more comfortable. As long as he stopped talking about his butt.
 
When he brings up Rose, any semblance of a smile fades. She never got any answers that night, from him or Rose or anyone else, for that matter, and his overall oblivious nature makes her wonder if he knows any more than any of them. “She’s okay,” she says with a bit of a shrug. She eats and sleeps and she helps out where she can but, she’s quiet. “She hasn’t really talked about what happened,” she adds as an afterthought, swinging questioning green eyes in his direction, as if he holds all the answers to her questions.

he didn't like how quickly the smile drained from furi's features, and regretted asking immediately despite the genuine concern he had on the matter. his lips pursed slightly in his own sign of discontent. he had not seen the siren queen since, and had arranged it that way. even wylla still remained unaware of his midnight expedition, something he had also devised. it felt dishonest to keep so many wolves in the dark, but ingram thought his intentions were at least good.

anything to keep the peace, it seemed.

in the end, he hardly knew more than them regarding what had transpired in the grotto. the nature of such malevolent misdeeds were unknown to him, shared only by the captive and the captor. he frowned slightly but tried to hide the unease from furi with a chipper: "well that's better than not okay." he leveled a big sigh and then continued. "what about you?"

Furi isn’t particularly moved by his logic but she doesn’t hold it against him. He might as well say at least she’s not dead, or set on fire, or... whatever. She’s in one piece and on the mend and that’s all they can ask for. When she’s ready, hopefully she’ll be able to reach out.

Ingram doesn’t offer any except information on the matter, for whatever reason she doesn’t press for. He asks about her and how she’s doing and she awkwardly shifts her gaze and shrugs her shoulders. It’s as genuine as the first question, even if she won’t admit to noticing. But Furi can’t find a good answer to the question and he’s always on the upswing so she settles on a noncommittal shrug, ”kinda hungry.”

ingram's ears cupped forward, his gaze resting on furi's form as he awaited an answer. when it came in the form of a diffident shrug, followed by the statement she was hungry, he rose to his feet abruptly with his tail wagging. a grin cracked his dark features and he stretched luxuriously before her.

"well, you're in luck --" he said, the roguish grin still on his features -- "i happen to be great at hunting. what do you want?" it wasn't exactly a fib -- ingram wasn't the worst hunter in the world -- but he hoped today lady luck would favor him. either way, a hunt would be a good way to get his mind off of the sound -- and from the looks of things, would be good for furi too.

Ingram lightens a bit when she changes the subject. She doesn’t have to talk about her strife with him. Something else entirely can develop and she can have something that is her own. Not necessarily Furi—or Mallaidh—but somehow separated from all of it.
 
“I’ll be the judge of that,” she informs him with a smile, stretching out her limbs in preparation and allows him to prove his word.

furi's quip was just enough to produce a cocksure swag from ingram, who then strode out in front of them like some buck during rutting season, his muzzle high and tail furled out behind him. "oh, you'll see --" he informed her with a wink, though he stopped as he realized she had not answered his question.

she had given a graceful stretch in the interim, their banter cut short as he thrust her a quick grin. "so - you got a few choices. seafare... or.... land-fare?"

Pale eyes watch after him as he struts his stuff though she is unaffected. It causes a broader smile across her features and she shuffles back to standing up straight. But the biggest thing she has to consider is what she’s hungry for and she can simply exist without a care. It’s long gone and she begins to move her feet, coming up close to the boy. “Land. But not bird,” she tells him though they don’t necessarily fall in either category. There are a lot of birds in the caches of Drageda and, well, she’s a little tired of plucking through feathers. And scales are slimy, even if they taste good.

she said land, and not bird -- okay, that narrowed it down. ingram was thankful she wasn't in the mood for avian fare -- one, that would be impossible, and two, her watching him struggle to catch something blessed with flight would be downright shameful. he rolled his shoulders affably, setting off in a brisk trot as he surveyed the land for their options.

so far, what was on the menu was dirt... and root. he sniffed over a particularly gnarled bramble bush, detecting something -- porcupine? yeah... he was going to pass. he stepped past it, trailing the ground with abrupt weaves back and forth until he found something a little more palatable (and obtainable). marmot.

"marmot good?" he asked, casting a glance behind him before he dove into the thicket.

Furi moves idly along after him, lowering her nose and occasionally sniffing. She feels awkward not helping but he’s gotta prove how good of a hunter he is and she doesn’t want to help him. She doesn’t need any more leverage against him. A quirk pulls at her muzzle and she looks at him, lashing her tail back and forth and only stops when he looks back, offering his first suggestion.
 
“Sure,” she tells him, licking her lips as her hunger presses on with a roll of her stomach. “Might want to hurry. Your ass is actually starting to look good.”

ingram cast furi a quick look, pausing when her quip hit his ears. his tail beat excitedly and he wriggled his haunches back and forth with a playful grin. "oh, what -- really?" his grin wide as beaming smile now, "you know, if you ever like, decide you're not into girls... not that i blame you because girls are where it's at, but... just sayin'...." he hiked a brow suggestively and then scampered off quickly, because he fully expected teeth in rebuke.

for a bit, he zigged and zagged around the area, criss-crossing from stone to tussock with his nose to the ground. finally, he caught scent that was fresh enough to track and excitedly followed it down the grassy knoll into a deposit of rough-hewn boulders. here the scent was strongest, and ingram pried between a few rocks with hungry excitement. one ledge had the distinct scent of marmot draped fresh across it and ingram clambered atop it, his gaze focused intently on a hole that was shielded by blades of winter-fern.

“That’d be your lucky day,” she snorts, laughing, and trots along after him. She follows loosely behind him, only scenting the ground to see if he’d caught on to anything as he goes. Occasionally she drifts off, curious about what’s around them but as he narrows down a scent and hops a ledge, she trots over to watch. Furi’s head tilts back then lifts herself onto her back legs, propping her front legs against the incline to see what he’s gotten into.

his lucky day indeed. he cast back a roguish smile, the only indication he had heard her quip. his attention was focused now on the marmot -- or, rather, the evidence of marmot.

thus far all his scraping of stone yielded was dirty and some grub --  somehow, he suspected she wasn't the type for second rate fare. with his features hardly dampened by his lack of success, ingram trailed around the hole and started to dig -- until the tunnel he was searching for collapsed in a heap of rubble and detritus.

what came next was too rapid for words or thought -- a flash of tawny fur, a streak of black: instinctively he lunged and brought the squalling thing from the earth, snapping its neck with an executioner's ease.

proud of his accomplishment, ingram turned round to present it to furi with his tail gently swaying.

Furi slows to a stop when Ingram does the same, seemingly finding what he’d been looking for. She angles her head forward to watch what he does. Every few seconds she’s a few inches closer, but stops a short distance away so she doesn’t disturb any of the progress.
 
And then, through a blur of dirt, nail, and teeth, Ingram is standing over the rubble of settling dust with a kill between his teeth. She grins and trots toward her friend. “I mean, it’s not a moose, but,” she adds, stepping forward to bump his cheek despite the hold on his prize—a hopeful act of faith—before stepping back with a genuine, happy smile, “it’ll do.”

Indeed the marmot was a far cry from moose -- smaller, less hairy, considerably less antlery -- oh, and definitely less dangerous. So yeah, definitely not moose.

IIngram's tail ceased its cheery beating as Furi pulled close. Uncertainty welled in his chest and his heart skipped a beat as she touched him. That slight brushing was more than enough to stir his heart to stampeding proportions, regardless if it was entirely unprovocative in nature. He nudged the offering towards her quickly, rather overcome by a cumbersome and sudden nervousness.

"It's better than moose." He insisted, a wink trailing after his words: "consider it pro bono, on me. I should probably head back soon - you gonna be okay?"

Ingram claims it’s better than a moose and she glances down at it skeptically with a stupid grin on her face. She won’t tell him but it is better than a moose (unless, of course, he actually caught a moose), and she wags her tail happily and only slows when he offers to give it to her because he needs to get going. Silently, Furi nods her head and doesn’t object to the free meal from a friend and watches him depart. She only goes after the marten when he’s disappeared from view.