Swiftcurrent Creek a dangerous presence

Set after Fox's disappearance - @Fox; there was no mention of Fox disposing of the body, so I hope this so OK!

By the time Bazi arrived at Fox's den, the stink of death had crept beyond the doorstep and into the open air. The Beta wrinkled her nose, wondering what had possessed the Alpha to store decaying meat in her home - until she poked her head into the entrance and saw what was causing the smell.

The sight of Haunter, freshly dead on the floor, turned Bazi's skin to ice. She scrambled backwards and into the light, gasping for breath. Where was Fox? What had happened here? It took several minutes for the girl to gather her senses and take a few reluctant steps back into darkness, stretching her neck to sniff at the dark wolf's corpse. No blood. He lay there as if asleep. A frown creased Bazi's brow. Was it sickness? And where was Fox?

Confused and now quite worried, she stepped back out and loosed a long, mournful howl into the air, summoning whoever heard the call to come at once.

There was something about the shrill cry that echoed across the lands -- but it was not the urgency within the tones that stirred Scimitar so quickly to his heavy paws, and what caused him to move as if he was suddenly as lithe and agile as a youthful yearling. No, it was the simple fact that the voice belonged to Bazi.

Her anguish had erupted from Fox's den, and the moment the agouti male arrived, his eyes scanned before him with unease, his pace slowing as he neared the den entrance. A flash of ivory was all he seen before the scent hit him, and his stomach churned as panic hit -- was Fox in there? Was she dead?

"Bazi," he paused, feeling as if he was shaking as he closed the distance between them. "What is it?" He didn't want to know the answer.

Not truly.

Scimitar was the first wolf to respond. Bazi thanked the stars for that; she was in distress, and in no way up for playing the role of leader. After gulping down a wayward sob, she rushed forward to press the top of her head against the male's large chest, squeezing her eyes tightly shut against the threat of tears. She stayed there until her breaths became slow and even again.

"It's Haunter," the girl whispered, clearing her throat as she stepped back. A watery gaze drifted from Scimitar's aquamarine eyes to the darkened den. "That.. wolf with one ear, Fox's boyfriend, I suppose. He's... dead. I don't know where Fox is."

Unbeknownst to Bazi, she would soon be saying that same thing about two other Swiftcurrent wolves: Magpie and Leaf.

There were moments of silence.. Bazi swallowed what was a sob, only solidifying his dread that something had befallen the red leader. Her brazen nature had lead her to an injury or two and her youth was certainly shining through on matters with The Sunspire pack. If any of them had dared touch her.. they were dead. He would see to that.

She closed the distance between them even further, pressing herself in to his chest and in a position he would have much rather enjoyed under different circumstances. He did not rush her, though he felt as if his throathad closed over with grief. Finally, she uttered words. Haunter was dead.. and as relief flooded him, a sense of disgust at this relief invaded him as well. He had only met the dark wolf briefly.. and had thought he was off to begin with.

"You didn't touch him, did you?" Suddenly, it seemed to make more sense.. his sickly appearance.

She felt Scimitar's heartbeat quicken in his chest before she pulled away, though it was more like a cargo train gathering speed than her own light, sprinting pulse. Ghosts of emotion crossed his broad face when Bazi explained what the den contained, subtle as the changing light and just as difficult to interpret. The news distressed him, that much was clear, but how much of that was inferred from the fact that the news ought to distress him was unclear - he was not the kind to wear his heart on his sleeve.

But Bazi was definitely the sort. At the mention of sickness, her face became sharp and angry. "That fool," she growled in the direction of Haunter's body. "I never liked him, and I don't understand why Fox did. Go figure that he brought something disgusting with him." She maintained the accusatory stare for a good few seconds, grinding her back teeth in thought. The anger seemed to fill her with strength and confidence, and when she turned back to Scimitar, her gaze was steady.

"I didn't touch him, no. We need to fill the den in and mark the area as contaminated - and call on everyone to find out what is going on. I know that Fox had a fresh wound... but I assumed a play-fight had gotten out of hand. Maybe something more serious happened." The fact that he leader was missing a Ferdie-sized chunk of flesh had not occurred to Bazi - she was not even aware that Fox had gone to the Sunspire.

Scimitar did not know of her past and how much this might affect her -- the anger that clouded over her was almost as instantaneous as her tears, and he once more desired nothing more than to pull her against his chest once more and allow that rage to simmer.

But there was no time, and wearily, he looked to the den. "Was the body marked in any way? A scuffle couldn't have happened if he has no injuries.." Which left only a very few options.. All of them disheartening when he considered the areas the male had likely touched -- and given his title of Fox's boyfriend, of whom.

He did not truly wait for a response. He did not want her to slip in and double check for herself, and so Scim sidestepped her then, his large figure striding with purpose to the den entrance.. The only sign of his agitation now being the sharp flick of his tail as he got closer.

"Not that I could see," Bazi replied, moving out of the way to let Scimitar see for himself. There were no visible injuries on Haunter's corpse, no sticky pool around the body - nor the sharp, metallic scent of blood. He might have died from infection; the summer heat had accelerated the body's decay and it was impossible to tell if he had carried the stink of death on him before taking his last breath.

"Maybe.. maybe the two aren't related. Fox's injury and Haunter's death. He was always a little strange; maybe he succumbed to some disease of the mind." Like Ferdie, the Beta thought in an acidic internal voice.

Several options were crystallizing out of the confusion. One - Haunter had infected Fox, passed on, and she had disappeared to die in peace. Two - Haunter and Fox had fought, Fox had killed Haunter, and fled the Creek in a fit of panic. Or, finally - the two were utterly unrelated, and Fox had simply... taken her grief at Haunter's passing and run.

"But if Haunter didn't injure Fox.. what happened?" Confusion creased Bazi's brow once more, and she craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the corpse. Even if he was not diseased yet, dead bodies had a tendency to attract all sorts of microscopic horrors.

Despite her reply stating she had seen nothing on the body, Scimitar pushed in to the den, his breath held and his tongue pressed tightly to the roof of his mouth in tension. There lay Haunter -- his eyes sweeping over the fallen male with a twinge of sympathy. He had not known the dark male -- happening upon him once, the other had left a sour taste in his mouth and the deeper question of why Fox would allow him in to their ranks. But he had not questioned it.. and now, the wolf lay within the confines of a den.. Scim was only grateful he hadn't collapsed in to the creek and tainted their water supply.

Sweeping back out, his eyes fell upon Bazi as she continued to speak, attempting to correlate what had happened. How long had the dark creature been dead? Scim had not seen Fox in a few days, but her scent was still fresh upon the land.. she couldn't have disappeared long ago.

Without answering her, if only because he held no answer, the agouti wolf turned then, his paws beginning to dig in the ground as he began to pile dirt in to the newly made grave site. The lack of markings was enough to intimidate him to the potential of disease, and he wanted it out of their air as fast as possible.. especially with Tuwawi's pups.

Scimitar had no answer to give when he returned from his inspection, but disease was very much at the forefront of his mind - that much was made clear when he wordlessly began to shift earth into the mouth of the den, spattering Haunter with dirt. Bazi's brow met high on her forehead in a look of renewed worry as her emotions violently from rage to ill-concealed terror. She opened her mouth to say something else, to ask for reassurance, but the words would not come.

Silently, she joined her paws to Scimitar's, and the pair of them worked swiftly to fill the impromptu grave. When her paws and chest were black with dirt, Bazi lifted her head in search for something larger to drop into the den. Her eyes fell on a little hamlet of boulders nearby, and she rushed to dislodge the largest one.

Conclude with your next post? :)

He did not see the look of terror on her face -- surely it would have spurned him forward once more to her side, allowing those few moments to perhaps soothe her. Instead, she joined him, and as they made swift work of what was to be done, his mind clouded with worry for Fox, and fear for what any of this could mean for the pack. If she too was infected.. No. His mind would not go there -- he could not see her so hurt. So diminished. The thought of her life fading was far too great a sorrow for him. Little did he know how emotionally broken she was now.

Bazi moved then, to move a boulder to the site, and with quicker paws than normal given his size, the cinnamon Frostfur aided her. It was exhausting work, but once done, they would simply move on to the next task.

If Fox wanted to give her boyfriend a proper burial, she would need to do it herself, despite marking the site with a myriad of rocks -- not that the caved den was something one could miss now.

Once completed, Scim did take that one precious moment. His dirt-covered muzzle would press to her cheek for a stolen moment -- something more than a pack mate simply seeking solace to another. But he did not linger, and without word, he followed her until she stopped, calling for their pack mates to deliver the news and piece the puzzle together.