King Elk Forest tamarack pines

@Tzila

the forest called to him from the mountain. though he knew that he was capable of finding thick trees and woodland expanses, the wildcat had set his sights on the forest to the west. after several long days of trekking across unforgiving terrain, tusk had found himself in the heart of it with nothing but his lean frame and his lightless yellow eyes to show for it. the savage had not hunted along the way, but he anticipated that there would be a great deal of potential in the wild wood; trees housed prey of many sorts, and this was increasingly likely due to the thick layer of snow that had settled across their earth. with the looming branches overhead and the thick boughs of the trees, the forest floor had only but a dusting of the chilling winter touch.

in time, tusk knew that he would return to the mountain, and the mountaineer who had joined him on the rocky peaks of the jutting structure. before then, the wildcat longed to roam through the woodland in search of long-legged hares and clever turkeys. he struck out in his search with a low frame and a careful prowl; the image of a savage predator. the razorback hairs along his shoulders and spine stood like rigid reminders of where he ought to return to, and for any who would pass by him. the dull yellow of his gaze sought any movement from the brush at the base of the trees – he was a hunter, and his gut seemed to rumble with the reminder to fill that need.

After many long months away from the Teekon Wilds, Tzila was back. The unmarked lands she had found beyond this great wilderness had been of little appeal to her. She retraced her steps and returned here. Though this place too, she had explored little of during her short time here. This time around, she intended to stay for good and leave her mark.

The chill of the air enveloped her like the hug of a long lost friend. The crunch of the snow beneath her paws like a soothing touch. And the shadows parted, just for her as she peeled through the forest, yet ever reaching for their mistress. Tzila owned the night. She was a part of it, as it was a part of her. She was in her element, with the forest cloaked in pale layers of frost and snow. It was etheral yet spine tingling. The silence...the way the shadows danced and shifted. As dark as the hour itself, only a bloody stain painted on her shoulders and a pair of haunting silver eyes gave her presence away. She moved in complete silence, unaware of the slow but steady headlong path she was on with another of her species. She was hungry, slipping forward with her head dipped between her shoulders, eyes sharp and full of predatory intent. A midnight snack never hurt anyone.

as unaware as the stranger in the wood might have been, the razorback was not; he had scented her with a shift of the wind and had corrected his course so that it might cross with her own. with a lean-limbed prowl, tusk moved through the shadows as though he belonged to them – though he truly did not belong to anything but the wilderness. a haunting cry of an owl from above echoed through the wild wood, ringing against the crisp chill of the winter wind as it passed overhead. the wildcat turned wolf did not even flick an ear to address the bird above. it was not his place to interact with the winged folk, as they belonged to the skies he would never reach. instead, tusk continued along on confident limbs, passing beneath only a touch of the moon above.

though he could tell that her scent had gotten stronger, the savage would almost have missed her figure were it not for the splash of crimson that adorned the back of her neck and shoulders. for a moment, he imagined that she had been bathed in blood but had shed the rest. the onyx coloration of the rest of her frame seemed as though it had been birthed from the very shadows that they prowled. for a moment, tusk was reminded of thorn and quill, but the images of his siblings did not last long enough to give him pause. instead, the savage released a gruff bark to garner the attention of the stranger in the night.

The cry of a lone owl, somewhere high above, earned only a subtle flick of her ear tips. It was nothing she would concern herself with. There was something else. The breeze had shifted, bringing with it a fresh armoa. Wild...untamed. Masculine and distinctly of her own kind. Her neck arched higher, head drawn upright in attention. Her dark legs slowed her paces just slightly as she pressed forward. 

Silver eyes squinted, Tzila nearly missed the cur. Were it not for the dusty gray contrast along his underbody and the chocolate tint to his wild fur, he would have blended in almost as well as she. His call prompted her to stop, turning her head towards him fully. With several wolf lengths between them, she stood oncoming, lined with his right side. The night mistress repricrocated, issuing a low, soft huff. The while, her body language remained completely neutral, save for one relaxed flick of her tail. As a relatively new wolf to these wilds who knew no one, Tzila much preferred to place the ball in the court of any passerby.

the stranger paused in her trek to turn and face him with sharp eyes. had she happened upon any other brute in the wilderness, her feral appearance might have caused them to turn their tail and flee. instead, she had been met with the razorback of a savage, and his intentions were only his own. if the wildcat turned wolf could have survived the brutal companionship of his siblings, a dark stranger would do him no harm. after a few long moments of her gaze roaming his jagged figure, she returned the calling with a relaxed sway at the very end of her tail. tusk followed the movement with a flick of his dull yellow sights before allowing them to rest once more on the dark features of her face. in a way, she reminded him of thorn, though she lacked the burly ox-frame of his build.

the savage was not keen on wondering what strangers did with their time. without asking for permission or waiting to see if she would approach him, tusk moved toward her with a lean-limbed prowl that rolled the muscles beneath the fur on his shoulders. he kept his skull low to the earth to protect the tender underside of his throat from an unwanted attack. only when he had closed a good deal of distance between them did he pause in his saunter – lightless yellow optics flickered to her dark features with a hollow expression.

The night drifter stood poised, seemingly rooted to her spot. An onlooker may have mistaken her for a statue, but the occasional, subtle flicker of muscle beneath her dark pelt said otherwise. Keen silver eyes followed each and every little detail as the wild brute sauntered forward. Everything from the curve of his lips, the position of his ears all the way down to how he carried himself. 
Yet Tzila by constrast, remained completely unreadable. A blank slate.
He didn't seem to pose a threat. Not right this moment, so at least she had that going for her. Only when he stopped, narrowing the distance between them, did she re-animate. Her supple neck arched to draw her inky head just a fraction higher. Her backbone stiffened. She took only two small steps closer. Her posture was of a wolf who was curious, but alert, much as when any two unfamilair caninies met for the first time. 
She spoke at last. "Do you always waltz up to strangers in the dark?" Her voice was not hostile, but laced with some amusement. Tzila saw nothing to start a brawl over. No food...no territory...no status.

the she-wolf seemed to regard him with amusement over anything else. the wildcat of a wolf did not look at her with any expression that would have suggested his capabilities. it seemed as though he had been born of the wild things and they had instructed him to make his way to where she was without reason. that was the way of the world, he had come to realize. logic and rationality did well enough in the mind of the right beast, but tusk was composed of things that made very little sense. he did not bat a lash at the loss of one close to him, or rear his head back in fearful pride when insulted. the razorback fiend had found a way to allow his actions to speak for him, and it had carried him a great distance. the great stretches of land and sky were his playthings, and he had no intention of reigning in the insistent manner that he traversed them. for all there was, tusk knew that he would not see everything – he didn't care for such lofty attempts. the savage only wished to bound across what he could.

the first words were spoken by the dark woman of the woods. her tone was laced with the same amusement that seemed to crease her features ever so slightly. were he a humorous thing, the cur might have exhaled in a show of appreciation. instead, the dark leather of his lips curled only slightly upward and then halted. “if it suits me,” his rugged tone met her blatantly, honestly, and without fear of what her reaction would be. if she was to inquire of him, he would respond to her in the truest sense. though she was capable in appearance and she held herself with a modicum of pride in her form, tusk did not believe that he wouldn't have been able to pry himself from any danger that met him.

Any trace of humor that may have been written over face before, softened. Her expression smoothed into a more neutral one. Not friendly...but not hostile either. Tzila did not know this savage. What made him tick. What might possibly set him off, if irked the wrong way.

Then again, she too, was a bag full of mysteries herself. The slightest mistep could send her temper whirling in a completely different direction. If she chose to let said irritance get under her skin, that is. Her chest heaved with a soundless huff, escaping in a plume of air past her nose and into the dark. "Then, I would suppose this is one of those times." She eyed him with a brow raised barely an inch, waiting to be corrected if she were wrong. 

Comfortable enough to turn away so that she did not have to keep both of her eyes on him, she took two steps ahead. Her silver eyes searched deep in amongst the many trees and in between their shadows. Perhaps for prey, or other signs of life. Or it could be she was simply admiring her ever present comapion. "These hours...the night itself. It's my favorite. Like it feels...natural."

she supposed correctly, but the wild creature did not provide her with a verbal confirmation of such things. instead, he allowed for his silence to endorse the inference. it was fair to imagine that the mood did not strike him frequently. he had been curious after meeting the mountaineer tulimaq – after hearing that the wolves of the wilds were soft and tender things. tusk had never imagined that he would happen upon such beasts, and he had approached the idea with great skepticism. after having wandered a short ways, he had found that there was an odd mixture of creatures that inhabited the foreign terrain. some were gentle and lacked all the fierceness required of a predator in the wild, but others were capable things. the dark female seemed as though she carried the confidence of an efficient being.

there was a remark made about the lure of the nighttime hours. the wildcat thought it peculiar that daylight should tear away the naturalness of the world, but that the darkest hours would cast it in an entirely different form. he did not necessarily agree with the statement, but the wild-furred cur bobbed his muzzle once and then cast his lightless yellow gaze to her figure. “it should help that you blend so easily into it,” tusk remarked with a curl of his lip and a twitch of his whiskers. it was a good sign when one could disappear into their background; it showed signs of a promising rogue.

Tzila was young. She liked to think that she was experienced. Liked to think that she was tough. But, she had never been truly tested yet. She both was eager and anxious for when such a day would come. Whether it would prove if she really did have nerves of steel or if her confidence was all smoke and mirrors. Should she stumble and break, then maybe that was just the type of lesson she needed to strengthen her spine. If she were to guess, this untamed brute was likely far more hardened than she.

She clucked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and hummed shortly. "That it does. But in the daytime...not so much." Her supple neck twisted, angling her muzzle towards him. "You though...you have the benefit in both." His brown-black coat, broken up by the gray on his underside, would be better suited to blending in multiple environments, day and night. By contrast, against a stark white of the snow in the daytime, Tzila would stick out like an ink blot on unblemished parchment. 

She padded ahead to investigate the base of a tree to her left. It split wide open to create a potential burrow or hiding hole for a wide range of critters. She sniffed, pawing at it with a dark paw, blunt nails scraping against the bark. "What brings you out this way?" She muttered, still very much engaged despite the small, random distraction.

the dark woman had made an assumption of him in her mind that stood relatively true. if he could have read her thoughts, he would have told her that the only reason for his hardening was because he had chosen that life. youth had nothing to do with the grit of someone's frame, or the savagery that filled their body. she was just as capable as he. in time, she would surely find this out. she needed only to find the opportunity to show what she was made of; her instinct would provide the rest for her. after all, it was how they all discovered what they were made of, was it not?

he followed the movements of her skull as she spoke of the benefits to her cloak, and then to his own. the wildcat nodded his head softly and drew his salmon-colored tongue along his dark lips. she was right in that. tusk could blend well into most backgrounds, if he did not make himself obvious enough to draw attention. such things were difficult when he moved with the swagger of a violent junglecat and carried himself the way a proud boar would. “my brother has a coat like yours. once, i'd envied it,” he admitted to her with a curling smirk and a light shrug of his shoulder. the grass was always greener on the other side, they said. “you carry it well.” that was what mattered.

the cur followed closely at the dark stranger's rear. his ears were cupped and sat tall on his dark helm, searching for sounds that would reveal a snack. the woods were quiet enough that night. she stopped at a split log and scraped against it with her claw, drawing in the scent of the wood. one ear swiveled on his head as he watched. when she inquired what had brought him out there, the razorback frowned thoughtfully. “wanderlust. and you?”

One word he uttered struck something in her. Brother. Inside, she winced. Yet on her exterior, no flicker of emotion hinting at the bitterness showed. She wouldn't allow it. Especially not in front of a stranger...of one whose company wasn't half bad. Then, he complimented her.

She turned her head to the side, one silver eye focused on him. Her dark lips curled in soft smirk. "You flatter me. Thank you..." Her findings yielded nothing within the log by her feet. Just as well. Tzila wasn't in the mood for bite sized mice. She wanted something that would last. "Hrm." She nodded to his answer, and had little reason to withhold hers. Backing away from the spot, but careful not to bump into him, she resumed a leisurely walk. "The simple desire for a meal, tonight." Then she elaborated a little further. "Adventure...freedom." Her voice was low, hinting she had ran from something. But her tone was also content, without regret. As they moved forward, the barest traces of an old game trail wound their way through the forest. It could be promising. "My name is Tzila, by the way." She added with what could pass as an amicable but not overly enthusiastic wave of her tail.

we could probably wrap this one up soon and have a brand new one? :D

flattery was not something that he frequently was paired with. in truth, he had not intended the words to be complimentary. the savage was more driven by spoken truth than he was by the idea of offering flowery words to anyone. it seemed as though she had found the few words to be something that struck her closely, and he did not attempt to deny her that moment. if quill had been nearby, she likely would have sparked up at the idea that tusk could be considered anything close to flattering. there were moments that he was almost grateful to spend so much time apart from his siblings. they were a great deal of trouble, but he valued them in ways that only blood could fulfill.
 
the dark woman answered him with a simple response; she had sought a meal and the means to roam where she pleased. that was all that they could really ask for, he imagined. then, she provided a name that seemed as though it had come from a faraway world that he did not know. his ears perked atop his skull and he studied her with a careful gaze. “i am called tusk,” he returned to her with a small dip of his muzzle toward the earth.

Sounds good! Two more posts each? ^_^

Tzila did not let the after effects of the compliment linger long. She was a creature of unpredictable moods, but as relaxed as she was tonight, it stayed like water did along the feathers of a duck. Moving on. One silver eye turned to land on his roughish features, straying towards his dull yellow eyes. "Tusk..." His name was simple, easily remembered. Unlike her own, which was more...exotic. "Hrm, well it is nice running into you."

Neither of them knew each other, but his demeanor seemed agreeable enough. That she would settle for, and quite happily after her return from distant lands beyond. Having a familar face...and a name, to reference back to, was of some comfort. But not the warm, fuzzy kind. Rather, the solid assuring sort of variety. She'd see how he faired should they meet again, and if her mood was different. Ahead of them, sprawled on the snow dusted hunting trail, lay a prize. Frozen to death from exposure was the fully intact carcass of a rabbit. It's beady eyes were glazed over, staring blankly up into the night in death. "Well well...looks like my late stroll wasn't a complete waste of time..." She said, as her gait picked up. Rather than turn possessive over the meager find, she placed a dark paw it's upper body, and turned towards him with a look of anticipation...and invitation. She'd let a stranger share...just this once.

sorry for the wait on this <3

she seemed to taste the cur's name on her tongue. his lightless yellow gaze lingered on her for a moment before she offered him a polite means of saying that it had been a pleasant exchange. the wildcat did not think that she was wrong, and did not disagree. instead, he nodded his head and continued to prowl after her. there was little intention to leave after the thought of a meal had entered his mind. his frame was leaner than it normally was. somehow, it had managed to make him vastly more feral in appearance. the jagged slopes and rises of his figure caused his cloak to stand like spiked sentinels atop a hill. tusk was not unhealthy, though. no, he had survived in far worse conditions than those. it only meant that he was more compelled by food than anything else.

their trek led them to the frozen carcass of a hare. it was unappealing in everything but the soft pink meat that was still latched tightly to its thin frame. the dark woman approached it and managed to free it from some of the snow that had threatened to create a frigid casket. tusk drew his tongue across his lips with feverish delight at the sight of the thing. when her eyes turned to him out of invitation, he latched his own to her features and cast a small smile to her before moving forward to share in the meal. it was not vast, and it did not fill his empty stomach... but it was something.

“where to next?” the razorback asked once he had taken his share of the frozen morsel.

No worries! <3

A small, but pleased little smirk cracked it's way onto her features as her new acquaintance, Tusk, eagerly moved in to accept the bite sized meal. Her jaws parted, pearly teeth sawing through the frozen corpse with minimal effort. It wasn't the most welcome or tasty, but it was something. And that's what mattered. Tzila wasn't picky as a lone wolf...she would even scavenge off a rotting carcass littered with maggots if need be. 

In very short time that she was spending in the presence of the hulking brute, she grew more and more relaxed. His vibes, while not bursting with friendliness, were enough for her to drop her guard. Perhaps it was his very nature...similar to her own, that made the night mistress at ease. Sliding down to rest in an upright position, her share of the carcass placed between her paws, she thought about his question. "Well...how 'bout you say we try and track down something more...substantial?" Her silver eyes glinted. "It's still early...for me."

the meal was guzzled down in a few swift bites. one he had cleaned his dark lips and the hairs along his muzzle, the wildcat turned his attention to her with an expectant stare. truthfully, he was in no rush to get anywhere. he was merely wandering to fill the need to wander. he wanted only to find a place each night so that he could rest and repeat his journeys the next day. it wasn't a luxurious life, and it oftentimes carried him to loneliness. somewhere out there, tusk was aware that his brother and sister were searching to have their own needs fulfilled. it had been a short while since he had last seen them together. he wondered if they had parted ways, or if they had remained at each other's side for much longer than he had.

when tzila spoke again, it was to suggest that they find something more filling. tusk pulled his sights from the distance and latched them onto her dark features. the razorback creature nodded his head in an offhand manner before drawing his crown upward and drinking in the scents around them. they would have to trek further in order to find something bigger to eat, but this only meant that he would fill his need to venture. “that sounds fine to me,” the cur agreed in a gravelly tone. then, he plunged himself into the wood and expected that the dark female would follow after.