Redhawk Caldera Genius titles of clever nonesenses

@Black Hat

Sarah had spent her night at a place that had been under her maternal uncle's rule for many years. Since she had no interest in history of any kind, she would not have cared, even if she had known. All that mattered that this obviously had once been a home for wolves - dens and traces of old caches and barely visible paths criscrossing the territory were sure signs - and that no one lived here anymore. 

In the morning she left the den and took a walk around the area to see, if it had any more practical uses to her in terms of food. By the water she caught the pungent smell of muskrats, even saw some promising burrows, but for now the feisty rodents did not show themselves to her. Oh, well, the search continued.

He recalled hearing @Valour say he found @Hela in the Caldera back when the boy had first brought her to the Haunt. Black Had hadn't actually been inside of it before, only passed it by. So on he and @Tzila's way back from their extended outing, he split from her to investigate it himself. No one had been here in quite some time, it seemed, but there were faint relics of a pack that once was.

A large boulder sat by its lonesome in the open, looking quite out of place. He approached it inquisitively and was met with the stench of bodily decay. Some unfortunate creature laid crushed beneath it, unrecognizable from what few remaining bones jutted out. Whatever it was had supplied the local scavengers with a decent meal, at least. An earthquake was no doubt the culprit. He stood over the crude grave as he studied it coldly, unaware of any living being's presence here in this ghost town.

Even this place had not escaped the damage of the recent terrestrial madness, Sarah's path was blocked by a ragged pile of jagged rocks, mud and broken wood. For a moment she considered climbing up and seeing, whether this would be a shorter way than going around, but the surface did not look stable enough. She did not wish to risk it.

Just as she came round the corner the smell of the dead and rotting thing in the vicinity reached her. She was hungry still and not too picky, she followed the trail and was dismayed to see that someone had got there first. The gaunt man was standing with his back to her and she first thought of taking the centuries old tactics of felines all around the world. Sitting down and waiting out on the person.

But she did not have that much patience for this today, therefore she stepped boldly out of the open, approached the stranger and asked: "Came to mourn the dead?"

So absorbed in his studies, he didn't notice the presence of another until she spoke up behind him. With a start, he turned to face her with a flash of panic in his eyes, though it quickly faded, as it was obvious she had no ill-intentions. His fluttering heart stilled, hard as it was to shake his instincts after years of battle.

More like studying, He corrected calmly, turning back to the boulder. I've no idea who or what this was, I just know a boy from my pack rescued a girl from this Caldera a while back. Probably from the likes of this, if he had to guess.

"A wolf, huh?" Sarah arched her eyebrows in question, then walked past the man to sniff around the scene. You could not make out much from the visual cues. Scavengers of all sizes had done their job well. And from the state of decay it was also hard to tell, whether it was a fellow canid or an unlucky grass-grazer. Though she thought she caught a hint of a wet dog, but it might as well be something of no importance either way. As important as corpses got. 

"What your study has told you?" she turned to look at the guy over her shoulder, to get an impression of, whether he was inclined to unearth the rotting thing and eat or he had moral arguments based in science not to do so.

From the size of the bones... probably, He supposed with a cant of his head. If it was a wolf, did Hela know them? He could ask her, but it wasn't enough of a pressing matter for him to be arsed. Besides, he knew she wouldn't be inclined to talk about it if that were the case.

Yet another question came his way, which he answered in a jesting manner, That something, maybe a wolf, died here. He grinned at his dry humor, unperturbed that he was making light of someone else's death right by their gravesite. They were long gone, and Black Hat held no belief in the afterlife or anything of the sort. Hell, even if he did, he'd probably do it anyway, because he was just that shamelessly deplorable.

"Well, whoever it is, that body won't do him or her much good anyway now, will it?" Sarah asked rhetorically, examined the plot she was about to work on and did a test digging at one side, where the earth looked softer than elsewhere. However, soon she had to give up digging there, because a mesh of roots underneath it prevented her from doing so.

Then a thought occurred to her and she looked up at the guy: "None of yours have gone missing has they?" In her experience, people did not share her views of the dead and afterlife and might get offended, if she went right out and ate the good meat lying there.

He agreed with what she was getting at, and he walked over to where she was digging, inclined to help her. These were trying times, after all. But she stopped to ask if he knew of anyone who'd gone missing. Radar came to mind, but he didn't find her important enough to bring up. No, He answered simply, then started digging alongside her, testing different spots until he found one free of roots.

Black Hat began shoveling with more effort then, sending debris flying behind him. He wouldn't mind sharing what was left of this alleged wolf carcass with a like-minded individual. He wasn't famished enough to fight the woman over the measly scraps, anyway.

Sarah had been a bit hesitant about speaking her intentions of eating, what was left of the wolf-corpse, because most wolves were weirdly sensitive to the subject. This man therefore surprised her. Not only he caught, what she had in mind, he had nothing against giving her a hand and having a bite of the mashed meat himself.

She moved aside, to give him more space and kept the pace. After a while and some broken nails she had uncovered a smashed in skull with brain oozing out. Sarah grabbed it, lost hold, was luckier on her second attempt and began to pull. Despite it's crashed state, it was not easy to detach the injured head from the spine and, when it finally gave way, there was little room for her to celebrate her success, because one of the boulders, under which she had been digging, moved and filled the hole again.

Sarah put the head aside, nosed and liked off some of the old blood, then moved to see, how her partner in crime was doing.

Black Hat appreciated how they rode on the same wavelength, making words unnecessary. He heard the woman tug at something with success but didn't back up until he grabbed hold of something, himself. It was a hind leg, and he yanked and yanked, occasionally twisting his head until part of it popped off. Dropping it, he glanced over at her, and his mouth watered from the smell of grey matter. The size and shape of the skull — or what he could make of it — confirmed that the victim was, in fact, of the wolf variety. He didn't think much of it.

Not a bad find. We got more out of it than I expected, He said conversationally. What's your name, stranger?

The man was not without spoils of the war either and after careful consideration of, whether she should continue to dig for more or eat her meal right away, Sarah decided for the latter. Though they both were of the the same opinion as the Old Waverly, who had declared that "meat is still meat", while stuffing his mother-in-laws corpse in the fridge, she did not trust the guy. What was inside her belly, could not be stolen later.

"It does not matter," she replied, when he wanted to make introductions. "You and I aren't likely to meet again. So, I won't ask your name either," she told him and gave a small, formal smile, then settled down and with her candy dish between her paws began to eat. "Nothing personal."

Black Hat didn't expect her to decline offering her name, but he supposed she had a point. Even if they did meet again, knowing one another's names likely wouldn't make a difference in anything. Fair enough, He uttered, sliding onto his belly. You're a traveler? He wasn't always much of a talker, but it'd be nice to have something to break the monotony of stripping meat from bone.

The pale man accepted Sarah's terms and did not press for more, thus earning one point on the list of "not an annoying person". Anything out of that list and the weathered misanthrope did not wish to have anything to do with that person.

"Kind of," she shrugged, focusing on picking temporalis muscle from the skull. "Forced by the circumstances. You?"

He presumed she meant the earthquakes. Many were on the move due to the drought of prey. He was fortunate enough to not be one of them by force... yet, anyway. Not so much. My pack is nearby; I was just on my way back from an extended outing. He gnawed away at the bone, stripping away all it was worth.

"Aha," Sarah murmured and did not contribute to the conversation much, not just because her jaws were full, but she really did not know, what to tell this creepy stranger anyway. Once the skull candy-dish was empty, she got to her feet and checked out the digging site for more morsels that would be easy to remove. She found something akin' to a broken rib sticking out of the grass on one side and began to dig again.

Wrapping this up, sorry for lateness.
The pair was content to gnaw away in silence, the only sound between them now being the scraping of teeth against bone. It didn't appear there was much more to glean from this old carcass, but the woman went back to digging anyway. Making a meal out of this carcass was a lot of work for hardly any reward at all, which was never something Black Hat humored for long. Having finished with his morsel, he rose to his feet.

I should get a move on. Good luck on your travels, stranger, He bid before taking his leave, stomach only slightly more full than before he came here.

Within the dark, he s͎͇̲͎̪͂͒̉͂̐t̤͈͉̱̝̍͒͊̚̚͟͡r̢̧̜̞̔͐͋̅i̛̖̜͎͍̫͍͆͐̈͞͡ǩ̩͉̈́͜͞e̝̭̩̔͂́s̘̘̓̍͗͜

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