Grouse Thicket An Irishman walks out of the bar

@Caiaphas 

Some time had passed, since Apple had met that lovely young man Lucca, who had claimed to come from a nearby Blackthorn clan. At that time it had not elicited much interest in her, because truly - her family members were like fleas scattered accross the world map and just waiting to infest a new coat. But now, few weeks later, when she still had not come accross a single soul, she began to think that it would not hurt to meet someone. A Blackthorn or not.

She had settled down in a nice field for time being, hunting her fill of muskrats and other small rodents that were foolish enough to consider the old, fat she-wolf slow and harmless. Looks were deceiving, but every little critter that got it's spine crushed in Apple's jaws realized it just a second too late. She could be amazingly swift and agile for a wolf that looked like fluffy piggy-bank from afar. And quite ferocious, when it came to tearing bigger fellows apart and crunching their bones. The predatory side of Apple contrasted a great deal with her generally happy demeanor. 

But the little, old lady did not care much about that. Finished with one rat, she went on to find her next victim, prowling in the still green grass like an oversized cat.

caiaphas' prospects here were poor. big game was scarce, and most small game easily eluded her limping form. her fight with charon had not been free of consequences; the battered shrew looked every bit hellish cur, and skulked through the thicket with a dark mood shrouding her.

she saw ahead another creature; one that was evidently well fed by the thickness of her condition. yet caiaphas surmised a bulk of that was her coat, which was plush as lambs wool and a pale, soft white. the she-wolf was hunting - already caiaphas was devising a way to perhaps trick the wolf into hunting for her -- with a careful limp she began to approach, though kept her distance respectful.

Nanny Ogg just met her Granny Weatherwax!

OEEEEEK-scrunch! And yet another rat of the vast population here sang it's last song and ended up in Apple's jaws. She began to chew on it, when rustling of the grass and approaching footsteps made her pause and turn. The sight could have been ghastly with her blood spattered muzzle and rat's ass hanging down from outside her mouth, but her otherwise quite innocent looks. Quite like surprising an otherwise frail, harmless and all cookies-and-rainbows grandmother harpooning a pig in the living room. 

She gave a thorough up-and-down look at the scrawny witch before her, chewed the rat that was still in her mouth thoughfully, then tossed it in the air, caught it and swallowed it whole. "Now you look like someone's unfinished dinner. What happened? Didn't like the taste of you?" she asked, tilting her head to the side and feeling sorry for the bad-looking wolf, who truly looked like something that has passed through the whole digestive system and has not been quite processed.

omg yes!! lol'd at the harpooning comment

it was over in a flash -- for the rat apple hunted anyway. caiaphas' simmering yellow gaze traced that macabre dance, watching as the long, whirling tail disappeared down the jaws of the wolf that, for the rat, must have been leviathan-like and all-consuming.

she was not unaware of apple's thorough inspection of her -- nor was she unaware of the tattered, ugly cuts that snarled across her face -- her face hurt, with a rather tender pain she had not experienced in some time; good god, was this what getting old felt like?

all the bones and structures complaining, everything protesting under the groan of the wheel? she shifted a leg and noted the soreness of it; perhaps in a younger age, she would have easily bounced back from such a terrific scrap -- but she was no spring buck, and charon had thoroughly seen to it she did not escape unscathed.

caiaphas gave a rueful smile; this one was witty -- she had met many witty wolves, but not many old witty wolves. their mouths tended to spell their early doom, but this one seemed different: perhaps she was that rare strain of witty and pragmatic - which so few witty wolves tended to be.

"what happened, is i got away." she could have lied and said she killed him, but then how would she get this sharp-tongued crone to hunt for her? who wants to provide dinner to a murderer? then she smiled almost apologetically: "an old friend, with an older grudge."

"That must have been a hell of a grudge - you are not anyone's obvious choice for princess Beautiful title at the moment," Apple replied with sympathy, though some people might interpret her words as mocking. She was not prone to kick those, who were already lying on the ground, but she did not mind prodding the wound to find out more about, why it had been placed there in the first place. 

She reasoned that by asking - "If this person is someone I should look out for as well?" - she got both an insight of, what kind of conflict it had been, without being accused of going in too personal matters. "I can stand my ground, of course, but at my age fighting kind of does not go well with the wise and elderly image," she added.

caiaphas did not take apple's judgment of her looks to heart; to wit, caiaphas cared very little about her appearance -- she knew she was mostly pale, she knew she had a black face and red ears, and that her features were impossibly narrow and her eyes cold - but after that, she knew very little -- and frankly, she cared even less.

this wolf, however, seemed in sharp contrast: her eyes exuded a sympathetic nature, and her fur seemed luxuriously soft. for all the advancement of age (age which, caiaphas was not so far behind) she moved with a surprising dexterity, and caiaphas did not think for a moment she would be an easy creature to overtake. 

but... she might be easy to manipulate -- as intelligent as caiaphas supposed apple was (and there was certainly a glitter of cleverness in that crone's gaze), caiaphas knew even wolves of impressive acumen could be bent to her will, provided she found the right leverage. "oh -- i think you will be fine, unless you are harboring his dead brother somewhere." she spoke rather flippantly for a wolf who was still not over kevlyn's death - the reminder of it caused bile to rise in noxious fumes around her throat.

"I prefer dealing with the living than the dead. Mostly because of the stench. And they say the dead have nasty and easily irritable tempers too," Apple replied and with this closed the discussion about the other's looks and reasons for them being so. For a moment her attention was drawn to a rustling sound of the grass in the vicinity and some high-pitched squeeks elsewhere. She flicked an ear, wondered, if she should go and check out this instant and decided to postpone it.

"So. What do you want from me?" she asked then, since the wolf had been first to approach her. And what other reason could it be than being in need of something. "Can't stitch you up - that's the nature to take care of. And don't really see, how I can improve you in other ways. They say that, what's perfect does not need refurbishments. Kind of your case, except the opposite."

the well-furred matron gave caiaphas a quirky response: it was enough for her to chew over for a while, wondering where the crone had gotten such a poor opinion of the deads' collective temperaments. as far as caiaphas was concerned, the dead were dead -- unless the she-wolf was hinting of the phantasmal, which caiaphas put very little stock in.

her ruse was transparent as the first rime of ice to gild a lake - it appeared apple had seen right through it, for she had suddenly shifted the topic to what caiaphas' own concealed motives were -- of course, with a vaguely satirical twist. the siren smiled ruefully to herself, but answered truthfully enough: "a meal would be nice."

"Oh, well, that's not the most obvious problem, is it?" Apple kept yanking the other wolf's chain just to see, how far could she go with her banter. You had to forgive the old crone, but it had been a while she had had a company. And now that she had it - one that was probably the least fit for her verbal outbursts - she was determined to use it's whole potential. 

"I may be right, assuming that you are way past regurgitated cuisine?" she asked, half-seriously, because her only stash of food was inside her stomach at the moment. Apple had many talents and one of them was the ability to throw up her food at will. After fourteen kids, she believed that her stomach lining had grown an extra layer of muscle and was just as tough and strong as one of the body-builder's. No tanning cream though.

"I could get you something, if you sat here and waited for me, but you have to tell me first, what is there for me, if I feed you?" she asked in a business-like manner. The message was clear: Apple was not going to do something just out of goodness of her heart. A favor for a favor.

apple's brand of humor, refreshing as it was for caiaphas' author, elicited only a cold stare from caiaphas: she could play along, if she wanted to -- but she was hangry, and hangry wolves made for poor dinner company most of the time.

she was not going to grovel; it was well below her station, in her eyes -- and besides, as wounded and ugly as her cuts were, she could probably still hunt small game.. if she didn't kill them with her teeth, perhaps terrifying them to death with her grotesquely mangled face might do.

"is my company not rewarding enough?" caiaphas flicked a blood-crusted ear, thumbing her split lip with a pink tongue.

"You are positively ghastly!" Apple shot back with a shameless grin. "Wait here!" she commanded and disappeared in the forest. She was gone so long that one could start question her motives in volunteering to help out the beaten-up coywolf. Even consider that the lovely granny had played out a particularly nasty prank, which she had not. Because occasional sounds coming from afar, from different locations and at almost regular intervals. It went on like this:

At 10 minutes: an angry shout, some crashing through the undergrowth noise and an ominous sounding crack.

At 23 minutes: "BLOODY MURDER!"

At 47 minutes: more crashing through the undergrowth, sound of six feet running (yup, imagine, how's that possible), a loud screech, some mumbled profanities that Apple definitely did not say (how dare you imply that!"), a boom and a thud.

At 59 minutes: someone's padding back towards the beaten up she-wolf and there comes Apple, holding a muskrat proudly in her jaws. Her coat is splattered with mud and there are twigs and small bits of tree bark, grass and whatnot stuck in her fur. 

She tossed the rat in Caiaphas direction (either hitting her or having a close call) and said: "Dig in!"

U MAKE ME WAIT AN HOUR FOR A STINKY RAT!!? UNAAAACCCEPTAAABLLE!! no jk thank u

her tongue roved along her split lip as she assessed apple's reaction; she seemed amused -- good. caiaphas afforded a slim smile, one that was smug and knowing, but painfully short-lived. and then she watched as the fluffy she-wolf skittered off through bands of slender, winterbare trees.

she shifted, waiting.

it occurred to her at some point that the time that had spanned between when she and apple had last spoken had grown quite generous - more than once she had turned round to scratch an itch, or shifted a leg that had fallen asleep.. each time she took it upon herself to possibly leave (or even investigate) a sound carried through the woods that assured her apple had remained true to her word.

then, apple re-emerged --something trailing and limp in her jaws. caiaphas inspected the muskrat approvingly - it was not quite seafare, but it would do. expecting the she-wolf would gently deposit it in her direction, she had little time to react as the corpse was suddenly flung at her -- her ears flew forward in alarm just as the pelt of the dead critter smacked into her muzzle, drawing forth a sharp inhale from the sylph.

she might have thought of yelling at the old crone for being so careless, but gods she was hungry -- it was her appetite alone that spared the granny from any cutting words, though in truth, it likely would have been nothing apple had never heard before.

she took her time eating her fill, saving the tough and prehensile tail for last. chewing with a satisfied smack, caiaphas looked up at apple and grinned between blood and gristle: "good dinner, thanks. got a name?"

What did you expect - a menu from five star restaurant?

Sorry! Apple shrugged and shot an apologetic look in the old crone's direction, when the rat hit it straight in the muzzle. But one part of her was guffawing at the hilarious side and twitching of her lips and the odd "coughs" that were stifled from erupting from her muzzle gave her away. 

The old woman must have really been hungry, because Apple's hard earned rat disappeared in a couple of seconds at most, if not faster. Well, the spoils weren't great, yes, but did the black-masked chick even chew her food before swallowing? Didn't she know, what could happen, if you... oh, never mind. If she was just as old as Nanny here, she had to know about perks of old age. 

"Apple Blackthorn," she replied. "You?"

YES! bare minimum 4 star or i send back 2 kitchen!!

caiaphas paid the crone's humor very little mind, besides sparing her a quick flash of those hawk yellow eyes. the meal, once wholly consumed, sat in her stomach -- its weight a comfort to the old shrew, who had little to eat on the road.

she would remember the name easily enough, though caiaphas did not much see "apple" in the she-wolf. maybe a sour one -- possibly, though she wondered what wretch would name its child after food? did it want it to get eaten?

any sharp-tongued criticisms were kept close to her heart and buried under tongue; after all, apple had just provided caiaphas with a (1 star, 1/10 would not recommend to friend except on tuesdays, when they have $1 tacos and bottomless warm beers) stellar meal.

caiaphas, the siren returned politely enough, though she didn't give a surname. it was meaningless here, she knew -- and besides, caiaphas had met plenty of blackthorns where their proliferate ways really came as no surprise.. but... at least every one of them was different..

if only all of them fed her, too.

the two exchanged a few more pleasantries, though caiaphas kept her responses short (less material for the ole harpy to rake over, yaknow). after some time, she licked her cut muzzle and made for home - disappointed she had not found fire, but not at all disappointed she had gotten a meal out of it.