Blacktail Deer Plateau saturn ascends, comes 'round again

The smell of death, cruel in its pungency, had drawn her across the plateau into the thick of the forest. Usually this was a scent she would disregard - when she was better fed. Unfortunately, this was not the case. Shadow was hungry, starving even, her stomach a perpetual knot of discomfort and longing. Her violet eyes were bloodshot with fatigue in the darkness of the woods. Eventually the odor engulfed her reality and she knew she was near to its source, and to her surprise, this led her to the yawning mouth of a cave.

She did not have to venture deep to find the dead thing. Tucked against the stone wall was the ravaged corpse of a deer (she knew this only by scent, as the thing was unrecognizably ripped to shreds). Her nose quivering, she drew up to the mass of white bones, brown fur, and reddish-brown flesh swirling with flies and shimmering with maggots. A wave of nausea came but it was dwarfed and snuffed out by the size of her hunger. Blackshadow inhaled through her nares, closed her eyes and tore a piece of the putrid flesh into her mouth.

Wraen had been detained in Blacktail deer plateau a little longer than she had initially anticipated. Getting rid of colds out in the wilds is more difficult, when you have to rely on your body healing itself. Therefore no wonder that, while the cough was gone, her breathing apparatus was not back to functioning properly. She tired more easily and even this trip from Broken Antler Fen to here had taken a toll on her, that required few days rest at least.

But today she was ready to be on the road again - while making her way through the forest, she had come across the same rancid smell that had drawn Blackshadow to the spot earlier. It was not the best possible thing out there, but - hey - if you are very hungry and there are no 5-star restaurants in the vicinity, you will be happy to have a burger at McDonald's too. If you are super hungry, then you won't even pass a taco from a suspicious guy, who sells them out of the dirty back of their car. 

She tracked, she sniffed and she found the source and a person there already. "Hey," she called out to draw the she-wolf's attention. "Is there room for some more or are all the best plots taken?" she asked.

She was chewing, trying to breath through her mouth simultaneaously in order to bypass the disgusting flavor and smells of her meal. Oddly, this took a fair amount of concentration, concentration abruptly interrupted by a voice greeting her from the entrance of the cave. Blackshadow swallowed and turned sharply to face the smoke-colored woman with striking jade eyes. 

Shadow blinked and shifted to the side a bit, allowing space for the she-wolf to join her. I won't eat all of it, she said, almost grudgingly. Had this been a fresh kill, she would have been far less apt to share, but as it was, she couldn't fathom eating more than just enough to quell the intensity of her hunger. 

Who are you? she wondered, wincing as she took another bite.

"Brilliant," Wraen replied and took the advantage of being offered a seat by the figurative table. She scrunched her nose at the horrid smell, but she had eaten worse things during empty months in her youth and this had humbled her for the rest of her life. Somebody had already taken a bite out of the intestinal content, she decided to avoid it, preferring the haunch nearest to her. 

And it turned out to be the least spoiled part of the deer. At least the one that was available to her. She ate in silence for a while and, when she had had her fill, she sighed contentedly, retreated from the corpse and began to groom her muzzle and paws that had got messy during the meal. With this done - belly full and herself prim and proper again - she was ready for a conversation. If the other was inclined for such a thing.

You never knew for sure, therefore it never hurt to ask. Introductions first, however: "What is your name?"

The two ate together. Admittedly, Blackshadow was impressed by the solidarity Wraen appeared to maintain as she ate flesh approaching the putrid. Neither one of them vomitted, so good on both of them, really. The meal had been unpleasant, but it would nourish her, and nourishment was what was important.

Wraen apparently did not hear her question; there was a silence in which the dark wraith waited for an answer that didn't come. No matter. They had finished eating and Wraen had restarted the conversation. Shadow licked the remnants of blood from her black muzzle, swallowed and spoke.

"I'm Blackshadow." Her name was a simple one, and never seemed difficult for others to remember. She gave pause. "You?" She flicked her soft dark plume of a tail, absently.

"Wraen," she introduced herself, having missed the first attempt, but now with the worst of her hunger sated, she was happy to have a casual conversation. "I came down here to visit a family of mine, but I have settled down further south in the valley," she explained. 

"Where are you headed to?" she asked next, assuming that the other one did not belong to a pack and was more or less a loner like her.

Her name was similar to that of the bird, the wren. Her coat took on a pattern similar to the feathers of such a bird, though it lacked some of the warmer tones. Shadow listened with cold eyes as the woman spoke of the reason for her travels, exhaling softly when she requested that the dark-furred woman reciprocate. Her mind swum in the seconds before she answered, trying to grasp at some pattern for her current situation and finding very little.

"I'm... not sure," she admitted finally. "I hope to cross paths with my own family, but I go where there's food for now." Vague though it was, her answer was honest, ringing true with the woman's nature. 

"What is it like, where you've settled?" she wanted to know.

"Hunger and cold do not give us much freedom of choice, do they?" Wraen remarked, having noticed that her own aspirations in life were pretty down-to-earth during the barren months of the year. If she was truly down on her luck with the two most basic needs in life, she would not be against making morally-questionable choices too. Good thing though - she had been spared from that. 

"Oh, well, it is part forest, part marshlands, there are groves and fens, a piece of land for all tastes and likings. And moose and elk like to hang around there too," she told. "I guess that with plenty of water there, the grass there is lush during the springs and summers - lots of places to graze, more options for us to hunt and thrive too," she finished.

They spoke for a while and then went their separate ways.