Sunset Valley heart of the wilderness

@Indra / AW!

The light mist of morning rain was over, and that was a blessing - or a curse, perhaps, that whatever higher power existed wanted him to wander aimlessly through unknown land with a heavy hide that slowly began to stink like all wet fur did. What fur remained, at any rate, considering the patchwork of new scars that ran over him like a map of battle. They all faded with age, the newest at least two years old, but still they reworked the switch of his fur and the way his coat grew and re-grew with every summer shed and winter fluff. 

And in the mid-season of autumn, he looked almost comical, were it not for the mean cut of his face.

Twitching a still-wet shoulder, he lets himself roll to a shuddering stop in the open clearing, sunlight glaring overhead and lighting the rain-wet field with glitters of dew and fresh-filled puddles. There went his chance to pick up new scents. Quietly, he stalked his way through the plush dirt, casting the single eye he had up toward the clouds that converged in the distance, black and fat with more damn rain. Great.

thank you for starting! <3

indra had been dousing herself in the sunlit puddles when she saw a figure approach -- curiously she watched the stranger, innocent trust in her warm gaze. he had not noticed her yet, and when he drew to a stop indra was able to admire his figure in its entire. he was huge!

she remained undaunted, though perhaps foolishly so -- her eyes roved over the interrupted swatch of his dark umber fur. she was too far away to note the hollow socket, but she could tell even from her distance the scars he carried.

she stretched herself in the puddle and the mud seeped around her in small tsunamis as the water lolled along the outer edge in frothy chestnut bubbles. indra sat upright, bright and chipper despite being entirely splattered in mud. "hi!"

ofc! ♥

The sudden sound surprised him - something not too many could claim in their lifetime of knowing him. His ears jolted forward, a ripple of muscle beneath his tensing eyes the only real show that he'd even been marginally startled. Nobody could say that General Karma didn't have a knack for keeping his emotions under control, what little of them that he had. It's a young voice, too, and that probably surprises him more than anything else. Children simply didn't see the light of day so freely where he came from - he's old enough to understand different cultures, and everything, but he'd always sort of assumed his commanders had the right idea in keeping them so tightly leashed.

Afternoon, he chuffed, a pique in his gravelly voice. Slowly, he angled that massive body toward her, a russet little thing, all youthful chub and good meaning. At her age, he'd been twice as thin and half as vocal; the sons and daughters his wives once bore had never lived long enough to reach half her size. He'd long since given up in that department. Let me guess, and he slumps to the weight of his heavy hips, grimacing briefly at the mud that splashes up around his already-soggy fur, You're not too far from home, are you? He could only guess that the little thing wasn't too big of a wanderer, and whatever neurotic guardian she undoubtedly had would be barrelling through the thicket spitting curses and gnashing teeth.

Tiring, really, the business of parents. Quietly, he dropped that single eye to the mess she'd made of her puddle, a thread of amusement waxing through his gaze. He'd met more than a few enemy children this way, removed from the battle but nowhere near the realm of safe. That had been a different time.

indra had no perspective of any world besides her own, and as such, would not have thought her unaccompanied presence strange. brightly she watched as the male prowled over to her -- and delightfully, a loud squeal issued forth from her muzzle followed by a giggle as he sat down besides her.

she wriggled in the mud and it seeped about her, clods of umber-brown and ecru contrasting well with the dull sienna of her fur. she looked up to him hopefully and a dutiful nod followed. "i'm not!" she chirped, her tail beating in the mud and flinging sod every which way. "are you?"

The amusement in that golden eye glimmered to little more than embers, but it sparked through the mangled features of his face all the same. Children, he'd learned, were the most telling of all different cultures. Whether they were broken spirits or innocent things, emaciated or chubby, grunts or the next generation, all depended on the wolves that raised them. He wasn't jealous of her naievete, no, but he appreciated some far-off ideal of it, just as much as she seemed to delight in his company.

Just as the thought. A careful glance tossed about the clearing, one tattered ear flicking sharply. Where one is, more follow. He'd never had to worry about this nonsense in wartime — and what an easy time that had been! Her question, though, brings him back to the present, and the normally-uninterested old man lets himself drop to his belly, crossing his forepaws over one another. "Very far," he mused, watching her down the length of his nose as she burbled in the mud and dirt. 

His brows knitted, and on impulse, he just had to ask — "What are you hiding your scent from, then?" He'd never really played as a child; the concept that mud could be used as anything else was a little hard for him to grasp.

her gaze remained hopeful as the scarred warrior lowered himself besides her -- it didn't even bother the child that his features were mangled, nor his eye missing; she was too delighted in the prospect of a potential friend to have any misgivings whatsoever about the male's appearance.

for a moment indra considered what very far meant -- she had no idea the expanse of the earth and the world she had witnessed thus far in her life was quite small. did very-far-land have other wolves like her? what about trees? was it rocky and mountainous like her new home, or perhaps a shaded, woody copse like silver creek?

she was about to ask all of these questions when his question stumped her. indra's brow furrowed as she looked down in the mud, and a great crease appeared on her muzzle. she looked up, mud dripping from her muzzle. "i'm not hiding, silly!" she splashed a paw in the mud as if to accentuate how goofy he was for asking (perhaps she was even more naive than he originally suspected). "i'm playing!" she wrinkled her muzzle again and looked at him as if seeing him anew: "wait, you're not like that other guy that doesn't play right? because that's boring" she hadn't understood why that other wolf she had met a few days ago had refused to play with her -- and even days after she was still somewhat put off by the experience. who didn't like to play?!

He watched her face with mild interest. He'd never been one for family - his wives had bore weak children, and he'd saved himself the embarrassment of claiming them as his with every litter. However, he was finding (albeit slowly) that he didn't dislike kids, as he'd thought before. There was nothing annoying about this one. In a way, she was like all the other children he'd scouted in no man's lands and cowering behind corpses - innocent, and not necessarily naive. Just... inexperienced. It was a bit of a wonder, considering how hard and horrible his youth might appear to the average wolf.

A low chuff, something like a chuckle, husked through his black lips, and the veteran shook his massive head. "I couldn't say," his husky voice mused, looking down the gnarled length of his nose at her bright face, "never learned how to play in the first place." He crossed and uncrossed his forelegs again, ears scooping forward expectantly. Of course, as he did with everyone, he looked down on her, but there was more acceptance of her reality than he had expected out of himself. More often than not, he grew impatient, doled out harsh discipline like he handed out haughty words. A child, alone like this, would be easy to pluck up and, with a little more force and a few snaps of the teeth, be turned into quite the soldier - or, whatever a girl could manage, considering. 

Instead, he's rather content with her. Even as he belittles her innocence for weakness in his head, Karma lets himself smile, a mangled, once-handsome thing. "Is it too much to ask that you teach me?" Why not? It certainly did him no harm.

indra, finding new encouragement in that heavily scarred smile, returned the expression with a warm, beaming grin of her own. he wanted to play! he wasn't like that weird wolf, which made indra breath a sigh of relief inwardly. it didn't occur to her how dangerous this situation could have been, or how dangerous the situation with the 'no play!' wolf could have been either; no one had warned her before of the perils of strangers, and indra (stupidly) saw good in every person, regardless of their exterior.

to teach someone to play, why, indra could think of no higher honor and she carried her task with a great and weighty importance. slowly she rose and the mud squelched underneath her; her expression took on a semblance of strange solemnity.

"well, first you do this." she tapped the mud with a soil-devoured paw, splashing in the puddle as she watched him. "then you do this!" she lowered her chest to the ground and wriggled her bum in the air in the classic play-bow stance. "that means you want to play see? and then..." she paused, as if to say what you did next -- but she gave him no chance to respond or register before she barreled towards him clumsily with impish grin and wild giggles.