Great Bear Wilderness We get to carry each other

ooc: half-way there!!! :D

"But then you will be watching me eat and I will feel all uncomfortable," Osprey was bluffing though, just for the sake of having an argument. After that she didn't even wait for Burke's answer and dug in. Meat was meat no matter, what state it was in or what kind was it for that matter. 

But then there was yet another explosion like sound not too far from them, followed by the noise one make, when passing gasses. Osprey lifted her muzzle with a piece of hide between her jaws and stared in the direction she supposed the sound had been coming from. Then her gaze met the one of a bear's (who had apparently had bowel problems and was sorting them out in the bushes). Her mouth fell agape, the thing she had been holding falling to the ground. "Oh, shit..."

Burke grinned a bit when she made that comment. The male lifted his muzzle. "I will eat with you then," he decided and dug in too. That however hadn't been that smart of a decision because before he got two bites down there was a bear storming towards them. "Watch out!," he called out and jumped away from the carcass.

He was a big male but he was not going to fight a grizzly without the power of his pack. Now he had only a female with him and well, he did not think that it would be very handy to get her injured. Maybe he should have protected her or something like that, but Burke decided that was too noble for him. She was not in his pack and as much as he liked to hang out with her he was not going to fight a bear for her. "It seems it does not want to share," he stated, staying at a safe distance away from the other predator.

So excited!! :D

Osprey had always considered bears slow-minded, but quick to act, if they decided to pursue someone. A deadly combination. So, she did not wait for the grizzly to come near her and make his point of "whose corpse it was" clear, she was getting out of it's way around the same time Burke exclaimed to "Watch out!" and rushed off. 

When it came to survival, all wolves were for themselves, so she hadn't even expected the Burke to stay behind and valiantly defend her from the beast. She wouldn't have done this for him either. "You don't say," she said sarcastically, coming to stand next to the brute and watching the bear resuming his meal. 

Yet again the animal passed awfully foul smelling gasses in series of small explosions. "I guess, it's good that he is eating it and not us," she remarked.

Burke watched the bear and its ferocity. With that though the organs seemed to be small balloons too that exploded in his face sometimes. Burke tipped his head at the curious sight. In his 6 years of life he had never seen anything like it. But that was probably because he lived in cold climates for most of the time.

"Do you think the gasses will make him pass out at one point?," he asked curiously while watching the bear. It seemed mostly obsessed with eating instead of chasing the wolves away. They were at some distance, a good distance but still close enough to watch what was happening.

"I don't know and - frankly speaking - I am not going to wait and see, if that happens," Osprey replied, regarding the big beast with a scornful glance and then turning to leave. Just because the bear had busied itself with eating up, whatever remnants there were of the putrid corpse, did not mean that he would not change his mind at any moment and decide to pursue the two wolves, which were standing nearby. 

"You coming?" she asked, beginning to walk away from the scene.

Burke kind of liked to see what happened but when the female asked if he was coming he was easily convinced. It was probably better if they would leave the bear and the rotten, and exploded, carcass. The male trotted to catch up with her, after all he was leading her to the Caldera. "More to the right here," he spoke, changing their direction a bit.

"So what business do you have at the Caldera?," he asked, curious as to why she wanted to visit it, and if she maybe knew someone there. Burke had not been on good paws with the alpha's there, well not since last time. Yet he had left them alone for a while now...

It had not occurred to Osprey that with Burke and his pack living somewhere in the vicinity of the caldera, that he might not be in the best of terms with his neighbours. And it did not occur to her now, while she pondered, how to answer the question diplomatically yet not giving away too much. After all - how much she wanted this wolf to know about her?

"A good friend of mine," she said at last - it was not a lie, rather an unfinished sentence. "I haven't seen him in ages. Do you know anyone from there?"

Burke expected that answer, because the female had always been a bit secretive about who she was. Yet it coud be just a friend that she was visiting. Still Burke took her answer with a grain of salt. "I've met with the alphas," he spoke. "So I don't know much. How have you befriended them?," he asked curiously, not so sure if they even could befirend outsiders. Maybe she had been in their pack once.

"You have," Oprey repeated and grinned - Burke had already met her "friend" and did not know it. It was nice to feel the "upper hand", even if the matter was as small and insignificant as this. He would never find out, unless she told, and therefore it was an even better reason to have something to grin about. 

"O-o-o-oh, we have a long and complicated history," she said with an annoyingly know-it-all smile. The statement was true, but before she continued, she wanted to find out, what would Burke make out of her words.

Burke looked at her with a curious expression as she continued to talk about this friend she had in the Caldera pack. The male tipped his head a bit at her reply. A long and complicated history. That almost sounded a bit like their history. Were they friends? What was their relationship right now? It had been complicated for sure.

"It is like our... friendship? Lets call it friendship. Is it like that?" He curiously wondered. Because well, it seemed this lady had a knack for being... well, quite herself. The male just wondered if she had more friends like him.

"Yes and no," Osprey replied. "Yet the friend in question is nowhere near like you," she went on with a hint of humor in her voice. "I mean, you are - one of a kind," whether this was a compliment or an insult - was for Burke to decide. Maybe both, but he had quite thick skin and her arrows never managed to pierce through it.  

"I will be rude and nosy, but your mate aside - do you have any true friends? The one's you can trust entirely," because it struck her that he was the kind, who did not make friends easily, just because experiences in the past had been to hurtful.

Burke snorted because well there wasn't anyone like him after all, which she confirmed. The male raised his muzzle a bit with a quirk on his lip. He was proud that he was one of a kind. He was curious why it was a yes and a no though. Maybe their relationship was one of a kind too.

She returned to him with a personal question. "Terribly rude you are," he commented to her. He wanted to say his mate. But if he was really honest it was none he trusted 100% not even Damien, or his beta Nemesis. He liked to think he did but it was only for 95%. "Why would you want to know?"

"Just curious, that's all," Osprey shrugged and smiled. Whenever they met, Burke made an appearance of "I am the cool guy, I don't need anybody". Therefore the fact that he had had a mate was still a little surprising. It was as if seeing a bright side of a rough gem - it made you wonder, what else lied beneath the shell. 

"Hey, look at this!" she exclaimed, spotting first an uprooted tree and then a rather deep hole underneath it. Osprey went ahead to have a better look and, once there cast a glance back to see, if Burke was following.

Burke looked at the female and shook her head. "Curiosity killed the cat," he murmured. Burke rather liked that number of trusted friends to himself. And he was not about to share that with this female. The male was happy when fallen tree excited the female. He didn't think that it was that exciting but clearly there were quite a few things that interested the female today.

Alas, it was quite refreshing to see such enthusiasm. Normally such antiques were rather reserved. So when she went down Burke stayed a bit ahead to let her explore it, after al he had a mission to bring her to this pack and not discover some underground tunnel system. "Very strange. Now do we have to explore this?," he asked, still being all business, yet maybe she could persuade him.

Osprey thought she heard a bit of a skeptical tone in Burke's voice, therefore she turned her head to face him. "Have you ever heard the tale about a young, adventurous wolf, who went down the rabbit hole?" She paused, realizing then that it was silly to even ask this, because this guy was not a book-worm (wolf style, of course) type at all. Therefore he did not know - which was very likely - and he therefore did not see any appeal in having any interest at exploring the place further. 

"There could be anything down there - food, treasure, danger... genie in a bottle, whatever that is!"

Burke looked at her skeptically because he had not heard about that story at all. The male always wondered how she knew all those things and all those stories. Still he was open to learn, always, even though this story seemed rather stupid. Sometimes her stories were interesting after all...

"I do not know that story," he commented and then glanced at her. "I am not going to fit in there, I think," he then realized. It was pretty small, if he would get stuck that would be.... unfortunate.

Burke's remark about getting stuck made Osprey chuckle. "Then I presume you don't know of the story about a very hungry bear, who ate too much and got stuck in his den mouth?" She turned to eye him with a mischievous, teasing twinkle in her eyes. 

"Anyway," she resumed her quest of finding out, what was inside the hole. She could stick her whole head inside (which she did not dare to do, for as much as Burke was sort of a friend of hers she did not dare to have her back entirely turned to him), therefore she decided to stick one of her forpaws. And after a bit of clawing the sand inside... "Hey, I might have got something!"

I keep looking over this because it is so far down in my thread log xD <3

Burke didn't know why she chuckled but at least she was amused by something. Often the male would be offended if someone would laugh about something he said, but today, and with this female, he didn't feel the need to be offended. She was just different and did her own things differently.

"I do not know this story,"he spoke. He did not come from a storytelling pack. But a pack that needed to work hard to get through winters. Burke watched her with a curious eye and perked up his ears. "What did you find?," he asked curiously. Now he seemed interested.

ooc: we could arrange a spree one evening. It is bizarre to think, how much has changed, since the beginning of this thread. 

Osprey did not reply right away, being busy with attempts to dig and claw with either one or the other or both paws at the same time. Eventually she had uncovered an object that loosely reminded a little wooden octopus - it was some sort of star-shaped root. She picked it with her teeth and pulled it out in the daylight. 

After putting it down at her feet she studdied it with a curious expression, then looked up at Burke: "I doubt it is of any real worth. Just a fancy little toy." Plopping down on her stomach, she placed her find between her outstretched forepaws and began to gnaw the edges. Unlike most people, Osprey still found toys great in her age. She paused only once to ask: "Do you want to hear about that tale about the hungry, hungry bear?"

I was just thinking that with my last reply! :O She and Dante should come and join Arthendal *wiggles eyebrows*

Burke watched as she revealed a worthless tidbit of a thing. He raised the dots of his brow as she settled before him, trying to bite it like a little pup. His head tipped as he watched her. She was such a strange creature. He was not sure what to do with her. The male sat down. "Humor me," he spoke, after all she was quite a good story teller.

The male then decided to lay down too, and take his rest as they were traveling. Deciding that they were both not the youngest. His pale eyes on her, not seeing what she saw in the wooden thing she just grabbed from the den. Burke lacked a playful nature, on very rare occasions he was in a playful mood.

ooc: on a weekday evening perhaps? There is only an 1 - 2h time zone difference between us, me thinks. Story reference to A.A.Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh.

"It happened a ve-e-e-e-e-ery long time ago, when bears were teeny-tiny smaller than they are now and it was before the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa Toptigin ate the nephew of Rabbit King Ogg and when the centuries old feud between the two species began," Osprey let the information seep in Burke's brain. In the meanwhile she chewed one of the octopus's tentacles off.

"Anyway there was this little, but hungry-hungry bear who had a friend rabbit. And one day he went to visit him. He climbed down the rabbit's den and the rabbit being a good host offered him food. The bear began with wild carrots and leaves, moved on to berries and mushrooms and finished with honey. By that time the rabbit was quite done with his guest and gave a kind notion that - perhaps - the bear would fancy to go outside. 

Having had his fill and feeling a little sleepy, he obeyed. Yet, when he was half-way through the den - with his snout peeking out of the den's mouth, while his behind was facing the concerned rabbit, he realized that he had got stuck. "What now?" he wailed. The rabbit, who had many exits from his home, went out sat before his friend. "It appears that you have got stuck." Since the rabbit was not entirely heartless creature (even if his friend had eaten everything he had got), he called all his family and friends to help get the stuck bear out. 

They tried for many hours to no awail. It was decided then that the bear would have to remain at the spot, eat nothing for a week. This - of course - upset the hungry, hungry bear a lot and he began to sob. Therefore the smartest from the rabbit clan promised to come every day and tell him tasty stories, just to keep his mind busy. 

Few days later the bear was lean enough to squeeze out. And from that day onwards he never set a foot inside rabbit's den. The End."

I have holidays, so that means I have a lot of time! :3

Burke never heard this story but he listened anyways. It sounded like a silly story. Luckily he was wise enough to inside the den. He was not very willing to stay in a den for a few days. The male listened more to the story and nodded at a certain times. Though in the end he was not so humored. "So that's it?," he commented to her as she was chewing on her toy she found.

"So are you going to take that thing with you?," he asked, indirectly feeling her that he wanted to go. The male liked walking better instead of sitting around. Burke wondered where she got all these stories, and if she found any truth in them.

"Well, yeah," Osprey told him in a "duh" kind of manner, spending the next minute or two chewing the root. She did not care if he thought her being childish. Chewing was good for your teeth - kept them nice and clean and your breath as fresh as you could get. And then suddenly her tooth hit something hard within the piece of wood. She let out a quiet yelp and looked down at the piece. 

There - quite remarkably - was a small, golden-red, shiny stone lodged between the fibres, reminding her of the tales about "pearls" - stones that grew inside clams. So, if the pearls could do it, maybe some trees did do the same thing? The stone reflected the sunlight and she stared at it with awe-stricken eyes, then lifted her gaze to look at Burke. "Almost like magic, isn't it?"

Burke let out a snort when she spoke towards him with such a tone, however he couldn't really tell her off for it because well, their relationship didn't work that way. The large male watched her chew, and as she chewed there seemed to be another encounter. The male however did step closer when she yelped, just a first reaction. The male was quick to step back again. It was not like he cared for her. Like at all.

His pale eyes watched her spit out something red and shiny. Something that he had seen before in some of the caves but it had been stuck into the rock. This one however wasn't. He tipped his head and stepped closer to sniff it. Though it smelled mostly of the girl's drool. "My adoptive daughter just returned to learn magic," he commented then. "However I don't know if I believe in it."

When it came to magic - you could either believe it or not. Or take the "scale attitude" - it did not matter, how accurate scales are in telling your body-weight. What matters more is, whether you like, what you see. Osprey belonged to the second group - she believed in, what she wanted to believe in, and did not argue about the rest.

"What kind of magic your daughter is interested in?" Osprey asked in a way that suggested that discussing various branches of magic was just as normal as discussing the college choices with a senior in high-school.