Broken Antler Fen that terrifies you

Just skirting around the borders, greet him however :3

Second time was the charm.

Or was that third? He didn't remember and in the great grand scheme, this was certainly well beyond his second or third time doing something like this. And he hadn't died yet! Maybe scruffed a few times, bruised and bit, but never killed.

So he would try this once more in this stretch of land before he wandered far off to some other wooded stretch of area. This was not the northern group with the big slobbery beast, but the scents sort of seemed all the same to him when he thought about it. Large canine stench.

Whatever. It wasn't as if he planned to dive in deep. He just wanted to sniff around the edges and see if anyone had carelessly left something out.

While he'd officially been accepted into the pack (which was both a surprise an a relief) Jackalope would take his time getting settled in before integrating himself into the pack's social structure. In an almost pre-emptive move, he took to scouting out the pack's claimed Fen from the outside in, as though making sure he knew where the borders were in the case Wraen and her cohort decided to chase him out. It would appear as though he was doing a patrol, and putting in his fair share of work- so he figured it was a win-win situation. Acquaint himself with the borders he may one day need to flee if he ended up being too much of a handful (or if there ended up being too many pups come Spring) and do a bit of marking and patrolling as well. 

A flash of red in a sunbeam in the distance caught his attention. I like redheads, He thought to himself, though he was disappointed to notice that the pelt belonged not to one of the many beautiful women Wraen had promised him that he would get to meet, but to a fox. A common pest, but not one that deserved a great show of energy of force. The fox was meandering along the borders, so Jackalope continued to meander toward it- figuring that his presence alone should be enough to give it the hint that this land was claimed, but not by a bunch of trigger-happy wolves, willing to expend more than the necessary amount of energy to discourage an unwelcome visitor.

As it should have been expected, something approached him. It looked kind of uncanny from the typical large beasts? Like it seemed to have a...slanted face, protruding teeth like fangs and if he peered enough he could see that no tail was noticeable. Maybe missing entirely.

Which honestly was enough of a deter for Nuisance to slowly back up at the same pace it approached him. Except...he had an idea. Yelling had seemed to work last time. Maybe he could try something like that here?

Hey, hey, pssssst hey. He tried in a strained voice that might come across as kinder than a foxen scream. Granted he had no clue whether the weird big beast would understand him or not.

up to you if Nuisance can be understood! :D

Cool! I couldn't make up my mind so I rolled for it. He got an 'able to mostly interpret' which is right in between complete comprehension, and none :)

The fox moved away from him, without running or and without being so bold as to continue wandering toward him. He was a quiet shepherd, then, content to continue his trek, intentionally continuing his course toward the fox to continue putting just enough pressure on the creature to give it the idea that if it had any nefarious plans, it wouldn't be tolerated...Without wasting the energy it might take to teach it a lesson it might never recover from. Foxes could be a pain in the arse- they were thieves, of course- but otherwise? Relatively harmless. He'd never heard of a fox killing a wolf pup and...To be honest- Jackalope thought any parent who allowed their children to get caught and killed by a fox was probably doing it wrong, anyway. 

It hissed something at him, and that caught his attention. "Hmm?" He grunted, stopping in his tracks, as the fox vied for his attention. His lips twitched, but he didn't notice anything threatening about the creature's posture, so he was left wondering why it was the creature had seen fit to make that sound. A bit raspy, he thought. Foxes made all manner of noises, anyway- and tended to be somewhat shrill and loud. This one, however, had a more tempered tone to its voice. "What d'you want?" He asked, surprised it had seen fit to converse with him at all.

He couldn't actually believe it?!

The big beast stopped and talked back. Which meant he had to be on the edge of some big beautiful idea. His tail twitched nervously behind him as he licked his lips. He had to forge onward.

Help a guy out and I can return the favor. How? He didn't know. He imagined there was...probably nothing he could do that the big beasts couldn't. But maybe it would buy him some time and a meal.

The fox spoke again, and while it was clear that it was using language to communicate, Jackalope had to squint and flick his ears forward to try and decipher meaning from the words. It was the tone of voice, he thought- or perhaps was it an accent? There was clearly something that it was saying which, to its own kind or perhaps a wolf more versed in understanding the smaller canids, was clearly a language with inflection and flow. Almost intelligible, he thought- but he'd not spent much time trying to understand foxes. It reminded him of the few times he'd tried to understand young children; while their mothers and fathers were perfectly capable of understanding what their young were saying, Jackalope could never quite puzzle it out. 

Nevertheless, it seemed to be pleading with him. Given the fact he hadn't charged or threatened it, he assumed it wasn't pleading for its life. The only other thing he could assume the fox would want, then, would likely be food. Foxes and coyotes almost always looked hungry anyway. "What, you coming around here like a little beggar, asking for handouts?" He asked, with a snide smile. He was aware he might've looked a bit off, trying to hold a conversation with a creature he didn't fully understand- but Jackalope was exactly the sort of wolf who would talk to whatever he pleased- whether his conversation partner was an inanimate object, or a sentient being like this one.

Little begger.

Well, as factually correct as that might have been, it rubbed him wrong. His face contorted as if he had bit into rotten fruit and his tail fluffed a bit. Still he didn't make a move yet.

Not a begger. I'm offering a TRADE. He snapped angrily before he shrunk some in what could only be described as an apologetic manner. There was a very good chance that a raise in pitch and flare of his temper had likely wiped away any chance at something free or easy.

"The Little Beggarman" as performed by the High Kings. Fun little ditty that this thread reminds me of!

A scowl, and a change of tone that sounded somewhat like a bark. He wasn't entirely sure if they were understanding each other, but he also wasn't surprised to see that eventually, he'd get this sort of reaction. Jackalope tended to have a bit of a nauseating effect on most others, wolves included, and he was very aware of this. While the fur of his bottlebrush tail prickled, the way a porcupine's quills might stand up when offended, the fox's body language was still somewhat in the realm of what Jackalope interpreted as being appeasement. The fox was neither running away, nor was it acting in a hostile manner. 

"Of all the trades that's goin', ah sure begging is the best," He prattled tunelessly, as Jackalope was no singer. "For when a man is tired, he can sit down and rest," He continued, pausing for a moment to see how his recitative was being received. Heedless of any reaction, he continued to finish the phrase. "He can beg for his dinner, he has nothin' else to do, only cuttin' around the corner with his old rig-a-doo." He wasn't sure why he'd felt inclined to share a portion of the song, which he hadn't even bothered to sing, but the fox was a curious creature by nature, he figured. And he considered them all to be little beggars and thieves- and wondered if it had ever heard the rhyme before. "You. You're a little beggarman," He offered, as somewhat of an explanation, just in case the fox didn't catch the point. But it was spoken in an almost lighthearted fashion- he didn't mean the term to be offensive, at all. If nothing else, there was something endearing about the little canid-folk, who lived their lives in a way that was likely the idea for what Jackalope would have liked to have for himself.