Otter Creek be Bob Ross and paint me a picture

There was a dull ache in his head as he laid across the shore of the creek. He didn't know where it had come from but when he woke it made itself known. It was not the worse pain he had ever experience but it was perhaps the longest. Drawn out, persistent, annoying.

He groaned and rolled onto his stomach to guard his eyes from the sun. Yet he was greeted with a face full of water. A hard snort escaped him as he pulled back. The ache in his head flared even more at his sudden jerked movements.

Peach eyes blinked away grogginess the best they could yet he almost wished he hadn't. The large male had no clue where he had awaken.

wintersbane loops his patrol past the northeastern borders of blackfeather woods, with it's blood stains and the sickly sweet smell of decay. he sidesteps a decaying corpse as he makes his way into the creek's territory. it's not apart of the wood's claim but it and all the neutral territories that touch the dark woods are often times included in his personal patrols. scouting for prey more oft than not. he doesn't often find wolves this close to the dark wood without reason, though those new to the wilds might innocently find themselves tempting their luck ...and sometimes they willingly seek out the woods. sometimes, they seek to join.

what he does not find often is a wolf standing near the banks of the creek looking utterly confused. dazed, perhaps. nevertheless wholly uncertain. the tundrian's guard is up ( when is it not? ) as he approached, steps purposeful and cautious as glacial gaze assess the agouti colored man before him. the delta's chin rises upon his approach. "are you lost?" there is no accusation in the soturi's tone. it is a simple question, born out of curiosity and a desire for an answer. they are not close enough to blackfeather's borders that wintersbane perceives him as an immediate threat but still they are in a territory that touches it and wintersbane is territorial and protective to the point that neutral territory touching claimed lands is close enough.

The voice was like someone gnawing on his skull and he groaned, sinking his face into the damp earth between his paws. His beefy form was well out of its prime, worn down by time doing only heavens knew what. He couldn't recall. He just knew the now. The pain and the odd voice.

Yeah....yeah. He mumbled as he pulled his face away from the earth to be heard by the stranger. Peach eyes squinted out of confusion as he took in the frosted figure. He didn't recognize them nor the scent that was on them. Everything was so foreign to him as he tried to stand on his own legs only to quickly find himself slumping into a sitting position.

Sorry...I'm not usually like this. He awkwardly admitted as he stared into the water.

wintersbane gives a quick, shallow assessment of the male's physical condition viewable to him from the distance between them, noting that he looks worn. no doubt he's seen better days. there is confirmation to his question. the other male is, as wintersbane had assumed, lost. "you're in otter creek," wintersbane informs him with a furrow to his brow before posing a follow-up inquiry. "does the name sound familiar?" was he from the wilds as so many were? or was he new? these are things that wintersbane cannot deduce by an assessment though it occurs to him that the other male might not have a response.

wintersbane ghosts forward a few steps, lured forth by his unbidden curiosity but cautious. he doesn't know this man and he could violate; though that consideration was short lived as the longer tries to rise from his place but ends up slumping into a sitting position instead. frankly, he didn't look like he was in any state to put up much of a fight and this belief drew the frosted tundrian closer still.

"you are unwell?" the question posed was strictly rhetorical; it's easy to see that there was something amiss with the loner as wintersbane was concerned. easily, wintersbane could leave him here and go on his way but something stops him. not necessarily a conscious but a consideration nonetheless. "what happened to you?" wintersbane asks next. his medical knowledge as a warrior is limited and basic but his knowledge had been enough to tend to tywyll and keep the boy alive. perhaps he could be of some use to this loner, too.

Each word is like another greedy tooth digging into his skull. The voice was not loud yet it hurt all the same. The light of day only further accented the throbbing hidden behind his forehead. No. He answered weakly but honest all the same. He's never stepped a single paw into this place as far as he knew. Yet he had woke up here. On the creek bed with a face full of water.

The voice got closer, louder and the throbbing in his head showed no signs of welcoming the stranger's closeness. Outlander would have lashed out for such closeness before but he was too weak. Even instinct told him he would lose against the frosted male.

Peach eyes squeezed shut briefly, a heaving sigh escaped him as he forced himself to open his eyes again. I couldn't tell you but good Gods my head... He groaned before looking over to the male. You wouldn't happen to know something to help, would you? Anything to ease the pain.

wintersbane watches as the male reacts to him drawing nearer, though as he speaks he clarifies that he has a pain in his head, looking to him with a suffering peach colored gaze. a secondary glimpse is given as he contemplates. he does, in fact, know something he could give the man to ease the pain. he considered the mushrooms he'd ingested ( out of curiosity but not a mistake he'd make again ) but the high they brought with them might only serve to aggravate the man's headache instead of alleviating it. he knows that poppy seeds work as a pain reliever but they would be have to administered in a very small dose. too much and the risk would run of getting the loner hooked on them.

"yes," the tundrian mouths in the way he'd learned that the enchanting listener spoke. he borrows her silent way of communicating now in the hopes that he might not be such a burden upon the other male's aches. wintersbane desires to ask why his head is hurting but considers that the loner might not have an answer. a possible concussion? temporary ( or permanent )memory loss? "i'll be right back." wintersbane mouths to the man before he turns and heads back to the woods knowing that he's seen poppy seeds in a medicinal cache.

wintersbane returns not too longer afterwords to where he's left the man and lays the piece of tree bark down with a poppy blossom on it and noses the bark towards the loner. "poppy will help with the pain," he takes a few steps back not wanting to be overly invasive for both of their sakes. "what's your name?" it was strange to be the first one to ask that; usually he was the one that was always on the receiving end of that particular question. wintersbane was using it to judge just how confused the loner was and to try to come to a diagnosis of if it was a concussion or memory loss of some sort.

He appreciated the mouthed words of the male. It helped to ease some of the pain in his head. Although as he watched the male leave, he momentarily worried. Some part of him did not fancy the idea of being alone even if the silence was nice. He suffered through the male's absence. It was brief. Or at least he thought it was. The sound of water was not a good measurement of time.

There's a plant laid before, a poppy on a piece of bark. The rough loner stared at it, blinking a few times. So...do I just eat the whole thing? He had no clue the power of what he had been brought. Although he was already inching down towards it with a greediness to soothe the pain that haunted his skull.

I can't recall right now. Maybe after the pain subsides I'll be better at answers. The large male whispered softly.

"yes," the tundrian replies to the loner's question, glacial eyes squinting. "it is the only one you'll get and the only one you'll need. poppy is very potent and from what i've heard very addicting." wintersbane doesn't think that one will be enough to get him addicted, though, and he will not be consuming it with the want to grow an addiction. the delta of the dark woods watches as the male lowers his head to eat the medicinal flower and draws in another breath, taking in the loner's scent once more. he knows he is lone, that much he can tell but beyond that there are no other lingering scents that wintersbane can detect. no companions then, he assumes.

headache, sensitivity to sound and light, can't recall name. he catalogs these symptoms silently. potentially both a concussion and temporary memory loss. a more knowledgeable medic would have to take a look at him. as it was wintersbane wouldn't dare call himself a medic, per say. he knew enough about wounds and how to treat pain to handle field application if he was away from home or a practiced medic.

"i'd ask you if you remembered how you got your headache but...," wintersbane trails off figuring that it spoke for itself. "sounds like you could've taken some damage to your head. a fall or an attack." a fall sounded more likely. "you might just be suffering from a concussion," he concludes and shifts his weight. "or it might be temporary memory loss. either way," wintersbane drawls with a soft pause taken on a deep breath. "it'll take a while for you to fully recover." the tundrian deduces.

He ate the medicine once he got the go from the frosted male. Once it was down, he stretched his neck forward to lap at the creek in order to wash everything down. It is refreshing to him and while the side effects of whatever had happened to him did not soothe immediately, he felt better just knowing that soon enough they would. A soft sigh even slipped past him as he raised his head from the water.

Thank you. He whispers softly. I know you didn't have to do this but I really appreciate it. Outlander wasn't one for getting sappy but he really owed this guy. A lot. Had he been left out here alone he would probably still be rolling around in agony until the sun settled.

Now he just had to hope maybe it was a concussion rather than memory loss.

wintersbane almost misses the soft, whisper words of gratitude that come from the other man. in wintersbane's world he rarely does things out of the kindness of his heart. perhaps, the maned delta considers, there is no kindness to be found there and if there is it is reserved for so little few. the tundrian draws in a deep breath and lets it out in a slow exhale. he was in no position to offer the male any sort of temporary refuge and wintersbane had other things to do; he couldn't remain out here forever. his weight shifts as he contemplates, eyeing the other male up once more. it seems a bit imprudent to bombard him with the recruitment song and dance, especially since his memory seems to be not all together whole at the current moment.

"i know i didn't." wintersbane remarks on the topic. silence falls and it is some time before wintersbane's lips part to speak once more.

"you wouldn't be interested in joining a pack, would you?" the tundrian asks conversationally, as if that's normally something someone asks of a complete stranger. blackfeather woods isn't hurting for numbers and it wouldn't hurt wintersbane's feelings if the stranger flat-out declined but there the tundrian isn't one to waste an opportunity when he sees one, regardless of how slim the chances of success may or may not be.

Are they all like you? He mused softly. Once upon a time the words might have been flirtatious but now they were heavy and tired now. Was this stranger offering him a place of plush kindness or did the dark forests to the east hide something sinister? Outlander would have loved to keep dwelling on it more but the faded ache in his head seemed to not want his brain to work.

He bent to lap at the water again, soothing his parched throat. The poppy flavor seemed to linger in the back of his mouth like a bad neighbor. He supposed he just needed to be grateful that the neighbor was bad but useful, not just an annoyance.

this thread is pretty old so i went ahead and edited in a conclusion for archival. :-)

are they like you?

wintersbane contemplates that question for a short while, weighing his response before he gives it. what is he like, he ponders. he doesn't really have an answer to his own question. there are so many facets of him ...it's like opening pandora's box. there's no set arithmetic for his behavior when meeting strangers. like a well versed actor upon the stage: he can be whomever he's needed to be. it was not fair to claim that anyone in blackfeather woods is like him. that is a loaded question, there are still some members of the dark woods that the delta himself has yet to meet. if you want to know the answer to that you'll have to find out for yourself. wintersbane deduces with a lofty shrug.

an answer is given: a negative. unsurprising to the tundrian who is used to failed recruitment drives. he has to believe that the gods will draw those that are worthy into their fold and that the ones who greet him with rejection are ( unknowingly to them ) rejected by the gods themselves. wintersbane stays with the male for a while long ensuring that he'll be ok and once he is sure the other is fine to be left on his lonesome he departs, heading back to the shadows of the woods he materialized from.