Firefly Glen dark wings, dark words

dated after mal thread!! vague, but, before stravanger bay thread. seeking brudder @Revui but open! 

 

This was where last they reunited. A light snow was beginning to fall as Hydra assessed the Glen, leaving nothing uninspected as she moved with @Alya nearby. Hydra blinked as she thought of the future and what was to come. Was war wise? The only way? Hydra, as she prowled, thought so. These wolves, these three wolves, caused harm time and time again. What else was there for her to do but to begin a campaign to kill them? To finally finish it?

Hydra hoped that might be it. That once this was done, she could lay claim to more of the Wilderness in an effort to protect it from others who might become such a way, and end them before some sick legacy like this began again. If they did nothing, nothing would change. 

Wolves could die, she considered. Your wolves. Hydra idled where she stood, nosing the earth. She did not want that, but there was also the knowledge that these nefarious three would seek to kill her wolves anyway, with or without war. They had done so anyway, had they not? The mercenary, dead. Her son could have died if not for Dacio. One had hurt Dragomir in the past, and perhaps might seek to in the future. The seawitch waged a war on Drageda, and for what? 

This was for something. This was for a better future. A future for all of her young, old and new, to be safe within. Her nieces, nephews—might she have any? Her head lifted as she looked over her shoulder and thought of Revui. You could, she realized, thinking also of @Ying. 

Ying. She would fight with her, surely; Hydra wondered how her meeting with her sister had gone idly, before resuming her task of finding any evidence of the nameless shade.

Something darker — more solid — than the low afternoon shade moved through the crowd of spring boughs in the glen. Goodnight tried to follow it with his eyes, but lost sight of the figure almost as quickly as he had found it.

He waited patiently to find it once more, and only when the shadow idled was he able to make out the features of another wolf in the distance. Not prey, disappointingly.

The wolf sighed as he rose from his prepared crouch and shook loose what earthy litter still clung to him from the ground. It would do him no use to keep lying in wait along this stretch of a deer-path, as he would not find a meal with another predator traipsing mildly about. She seemed lost in thought, which was entirely unhelpful to his present cause, but the hunter was nothing if not flexible, and he quickly rearranged his objectives so that he might make a slow approach towards the packwolf with the intent of making her acquaintance.

The bachelor chuffed, and wagged his tail — low and unthreatening — wondering if her mood would allow him closer.

The sound of anothers approach caused Hydra to lift her nose from the earth; one ear swiveled in his general direction before she caught him in her own peripheral. He blended in the forest better than she with his tawny furs that held the shades of shadow and tree alike in its variation, and as he chuffed Hydra turned her head toward him to regard him wholly. Upon his person was no mark or color that indicated he was an enemy to her, and so her demeanor remained aloof rather than unwelcoming. No fresh injuries, or old ones that she could see from this distance, either. His display was sign enough he did not intend to pose a threat, but Hydra remained guarded nonetheless. She trusted the intentions of no stranger anymore. 

That did not mean she was unkind. She whuffed in turn, ears pricked. Perhaps he might know something, or have seen someone she sought on his own travels. Though her attentions seemed set upon him, Hydra heeded their surroundings even still. She listened for signs that any others might be among them, but for now it seemed to be just the two of them. Although Hydra was hardly in a good mood, that did not mean she was unwilling to meet a fellow wolf that might aid in her pursuit of wolves she hoped to see dead, inadvertently or otherwise.

Though accepting of his tempered approach, the she-wolf remained respectably guarded towards him, and Goodnight was keen enough not to stray too close. It was an attempt to seem as non-threatening as possible, but it also served him to stay out of her range, as he was fairly aware of the danger she posed to him — as hale and unruffled as she looked. That was not to mention the cloud of a packscent that curled around her like the telltale clacking of rattlesnakes; and the last thing he wanted was any of her fellow wolves, who were surely lying in wait, mistaking his intentions as ill-boding.

He dipped his muzzle cordially, but otherwise made no effort to reduce his tall and neutral stature. For as much as he wished to come off as benevolent, he was not keen on being seen as weak-minded. His tattered ear flicked as the wind picked up through the budding leaves, and the wolf waited until he was sure there were no others lurking before speaking up.

My name is Odyssey. I'm looking to become more acquainted with the packs in this area, if you are inclined to share your knowledge.

Hydra had no qualms with any dwelling in the Glen, so long as they did not intend to do so permanently. Wolves came and went through all matteries of territories, and the Glen was no different than those. In times of famine Hydra would not permit a wolf to hunt here either, but with the return of the herds she no longer felt so vexed to see it. With her son being attacked near the edges of this place though, she was far more suspicious of those that passed through... and was determined to deduce their nature as best she could. 

Friend, or foe? 

This wolf seemed lax, not at all weak in her own eyes... and for all of his social cues that displayed he was not a threat, Hydra was not so foolish as to not think of him as one. He had no packscent upon him, but he was in good health and not at all pathetic looking. He had survived for how long on his lonesome? She did not doubt his strength had aided him in his having done so. 

The stranger—Odyssey, he introduced—sought knowledge. Hydra had that in spades; this Wilderness was her own. There are three at present, one of which is my own. I could share more with you, although first, I would like to better know you, she drawled. Given there were threats within this Wilderness she sought to remove, she did not want to give a potential enemy any ammunition to use against either Neverwinter Forest or the Nightwalkers. Knowledge was power, after all. I am Hydra, she introduced, supplying him with that much. Her sister in the backdrop behind him kept her distance, continuing their investigation in that way. What has brought you to this Wilderness? she asked next, interested.

"Fair enough," Goodnight acknowledged with a wag of his tail. He hadn't expected her to give him anything at all, let alone offer an exchange. He couldn't say what information he might have that would be of worth to the shadowy matriarch, but the wolf was grateful not to be immediately shut down.

"I'm distantly aware of two packs, but I don't believe either of them was yours." He imagined that he would recognize her scent if he had crossed it, though in truth he was beginning to think this entire area smelled of her, now that he could identify it. "Your pack is either well hidden or—" Goodnight paused sharply, and turned his head to catch another dark spill in his peripheral. "—not among these wooded territories."

If he were a more easily confused soul he might have considered that he was hallucinating. Seeing this she-wolf in places she couldn't possibly be... but as things were, he recognized that the second shade must be a packmate, if not a relative, which would explain the scent of them permeating this area like a fog. He turned back to Hydra, as she spoke her name, and settled in the knowledge that he was outnumbered and possibly outclassed. It might've agitated him, was he not already of the mind that his status as a loner placed him at a distinct disadvantage to her primed ilk.

At her question, he gave his muzzle a small shake. "Nothing, truth be told," he mused. "But I imagine this might be a decent place to end my tourney as a bachelor. I was here several moons prior, and found these lands almost eerily barren, so I moved on. I was only passing through again by chance when I noticed the prey seemed to be flourishing and the packs in this area had not migrated. I took it as a sign to hang around for a bit." He fell quiet afterwards — instead of making it his turn to ask something — and waited to see if she wanted to know more of him, or would volunteer anything else without prompting.

omg I thought I replied!!! I'm sorry <3

 

Hydra regarded Odyssey at his admittance he was considering ending his bachelorhood, and thought of Lyra. He was looked at in a different light thusly, though Lyra would have to be wooed aplenty to be won by any man. Still, she addressed his first points. No, she answered, me and mine are not woodland wolves, she supplied. That left for him, then, the vast range behind her. 

His explanation made plenty of sense. The food has seemed to return in droves. Travelers that passed through explained they had come from places where things were much the same with their own food scarcity... from the north, the south, the east, the west. It did not seem wise to move, that in mind. Small game remained and Moonspear was fortunate to take control of any large game that was found, she drawled. It was why they remained, and why they ever would. She wondered about him, and his character; was he a fighter? A traveler? A wolf that focused on the hunt? He seemed clever enough to deduce when to come and when to go... and had returned at a great time, when it came to prey.