Meadowlark Prairie in flanders fields

She violated her vow—not setting foot outside of the caldera—within hours of making it. She remembered passing by the field of faded red after her chance encounter with the mother and her pup near the dark forest. Upon waking this morning, she suddenly couldn't stop thinking about it. Raven decided she would go there today to investigate, pausing only for a moment as she breached the borders and headed out into no man's land.

They were dead flowers, wilted and withered by the cold. Raven stood at the edge of the field, stretching out a petite paw to touch the nearest one. It broke from the stem and crumbled into the dirt. She bent down to sniff. There was no smell, save for a subtle earthy fragrance. She licked her lips, trying to identify these blossoms. There were so many brightly colored flowers in her mental catalog, many of them red: begonias, chrysanthemums, hyacinths, marigolds, peonies, roses, zinnias and so many others...

Nearly none of the aforementioned flowers were known to be toxic and Raven was curious about potential medicinal properties. If these dead blooms possessed any, she would have quite the haul here. There was only one way to find out, however, and that was to ingest a small sample and wait for the possible side effects. She could have asked a pack mate to help her with this but she dismissed the idea out of hand; nobody she knew was in the right condition for risky experimentation. She would just have to undertake it herself.

An hour after swallowing a mouthful of red dust, Raven sprawled in the field of decomposing poppies, smiling happily up at the blue November sky.

Being young, strong and with no responsibilities to tie him down at one place, Birk was free to do, whatever he wanted. And after spending almost two years of his life fighting and working hard for his survival, he had learned to quite enjoy the comparatively easy lifestyle in the South. He had become a little lazy, he knew that and had no inclination to change it at present moment. 

Yet even the stomachs of lazy people get empty and demand their share and, since Birk could not tell his growling belly to chill out, he was on the lookout for food. As interesting as the lake had been, he had no other use. Prey hid itself in the meadows and nearby forests. It says that approximately 1 in 10 hunts are lucky, but the young man spotted something that looked rather edible from the distance on the first take.

Only, when he had approached the dark wolf that was lying on it's side in the middle of the meadow, being very much alive, did he feel a tad bit disappointed and cheated. The second and better look in the girl's direction told him that he might have been luckier than he thought - it was always a bonus, if you got to chat with a pretty creature and this surely belonged to that group. 

"You know, it's rather reckless to lie like this..." he began, stopping at safe distance, but close enough to be heard well. "... Big Bad Bears, for instance have a sweet tooth for pretty, little girls." He said this with a crooked grin.

Never in her life had Raven felt so at peace, not that she could remember anyhow. Her troubles dimmed and faded into the background at the back of her mind, leaving her blissfully buoyant. She felt like she was floating, actually, and when a white shape drifted into her visual field, Raven initially mistook it for a cloud. When it spoke, she turned her head to focus on it and blinked at the upside-down face of a white wolf.

A sober Raven likely would have rolled quickly to her feet to avoid being in such a vulnerable position beneath a perfect stranger. But currently, she could only stare for a few beats, then smile slowly. She did sit up enough to roll her weight onto one crooked foreleg but she didn't rush as she eventually pushed herself fully upright. She regarded the stranger with clear, bright, yellow eyes and a loose smile.

"Did you just call me pretty?" she asked in a shy but pleased sort of way.

Something about the girl was a little off - that much Birk could sense, but he could not put his paw on, what exactly was it. The good news, however, werer that he had not scared her or even worse unknowingly unleashed the wrath and destructive powers of the opposite sex. Both his mother Kari and his sister Nisse had had quite a temperament and the boys of the family had learned early on that you just did not mess with the ladies. 

"I did, indeed. You are the only pretty thing around here," Birk feeling encouraged repeated the compliment and wagged his tail. "Can't say the same for the flowers or... those rocks, for example," he beckoned to the mountains in the distance. "They just don't have the same appeal as another of one's kind. What's your name?"

She felt a delighted but bashful blush creep up her throat to warm her cheeks, not that anyone would ever know what with her dark fur. Raven's eyes dropped to her petite paws as a smile tickled at the corners of her mouth. It grew when he repeated the flattery, which made her already light heart seem to break free of her chest and drift somewhere up high in the sky. When she sipped a breath into her lungs, everything just felt so wonderful.

"I'm Raven," she said as she exhaled a long breath, the oxygen having lit up every nerve in her body with a pleasurable tingle. She definitely needed to take some of these poppies back to the caldera. "Raven Redhawk." She gestured, though its direction and intent were unclear, even to her. She huffed a laugh, then finally dragged her eyes back up to his pale face. "What's yours?" They were close enough that she was able to impulsively lift a forepaw and tentatively nudge his nose with an accompanying, "Boop."

Catching herself, her eyes flew wide and she dropped her foot and her gaze again, giggling under her breath at her own boldness.

The girl seemed shy, but not uncomfortable by his presence, therefore unaware of the effect his words had on her, even more that she was under the influence of some sort of drugs, Birk continued to walk the road of flattery. "The names suits you," he remarked. "I am Birk of Jötunn Glacier. Though just Birk is fine by me."

Then Raven did something so sudden and stupid, that it left Birk speechless for a second. He too glance down at the offending forepaw, his gaze then moving up to see the girl's face and understand, what all of that had been about. She did not realize, how very lucky she was to meet him and not either of his siblings. They would have bitten the paw off right on the spot.

"Do you greet all people like this? Or is it a custom around here that I know nothing about?" he asked curiously.

She peeked up from beneath her eyelashes to gauge his reaction to her touch. He looked a little taken aback but not in a necessarily bad way. Later, when the high wore off completely, she might cringe about this, if she remembered the encounter at all. But right now, her shoulders shook in silent laughter and tears even formed at the corners of her eyes, so great was her mirth at her own uncharacteristic behavior. What made it even funnier and more absurd was Birk's conviction that it might be some sort of local custom.

"No, I—no," Raven replied, still laughing a little breathlessly. "I don't know what's gotten into me." She paused, then snorted. "I mean, I do. But." She did not continue that thought, instead taking a moment to swipe the tears gathering at the corner of her eyes with the back of a foreleg. "I'm sorry. I'm not myself," she had the wherewithal to explain, swallowing back another bubble of laughter that bloomed in her chest and drifted up her throat.

"What brings you here, Birk?" she wondered, putting in some effort to appear soberer, though there was still a glassy, dancing sheen to her yellow eyes that gave her away.

"I can see that," Birk agreed and nodded slwoly, because he too had no idea, what had got into Raven. When she announced that this was not her usual self, he regarded her a little skeptically, because even if he was not a good jugde of character, he could not see her any other way than he saw her now. A good person, apart from the craziness.

"I can tell that along the way, when I take you home," he told her boldly. "In case you decide to "boop" a bear or a beast similar in size and appearance. You can lose a paw or worse... have your face eaten and you do not want that to happen, do you?"

"No," Raven answered, one side of her mouth quirking up into a smile, "I don't want that. But I know better than to boop a bear, I promise." She paused and looked around for a moment before her gaze returned to Birk. "I'm not ready to go home. I'm actually doing a study right now. I need to wait out the results." Raven didn't mean to be cryptic but the euphoria within her was making it a little difficult to focus or take things too seriously.

Again, she made a conscientious effort to concentrate, then explained, "See these flowers? I'm checking out their possibly medicinal properties. I took a small dose probably an hour ago. I'm experiencing the side effects now. They're kind of wonderful." She almost offered to let him try, yet her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She couldn't be entirely sure yet whether there were no negative side effects and she didn't want to possibly harm her new acquaintance.

"You do, really?" Birk was not so sure about it, but then again if Raven did not give a damn about her safety, then what could a handsome stranger do? Her next words confirmed his suspicions: one - something most definitely was wrong with her; second - she was a reckless fool. Her mom probably was right in saying that pretty is as pretty does. This time in regards to common sense. Or lack of it, to be more precise.

"You do know the saying that all mushrooms are edible, some are just once?" he asked her, sniffing the dried up flowers and scrunching his nose. They didn't smell nice or safe for that matter at all.

Her brow furrowed, wondering what mushrooms had to do with anything. Then his meaning clicked with her and Raven smiled softly. She could feel the effects beginning to wear off a bit, though everything still felt more or less hunky dory. It made it a little bit easier to think, though, and more rationally explain her approach.

"I only took a very small dose. There's no other way to find out than to experiment." She rolled a slim black shoulder. "And no guinea pig besides myself. I didn't have any reason to believe they were toxic," she added, taking a deep breath to ward off a sudden and strong impulse to giggle. Luckily, it passed as quickly as it came. "I know what I'm doing," she assured. "I've been dabbling in medicine pretty much my entire life." And she was getting close to two now.

She blinked a few times as soberness began to creep up more and more. There was no cause for concern. Nothing bad had happened for her sampling. She hadn't even experienced some of the more common side effects when experimenting with new herbs, like dizziness or a headache. She hadn't experienced anything except an hour of bliss and contentment. Of course, Raven would want to try out another, larger dose on herself before she chanced offering it to anyone else. But she was hopeful.

"Poppies, I think," she blurted randomly at Birk.

"I won't pretend that I understand anything about medicine, but I still think that, what you do is... reckless," Birk shrugged, realizing that he had sounded patronizing and hoping that he had not offended Raven with his opinion. She probably had heard this before and, if she was as smart as she seemed to be, then she knew this very well too. Eating poison went against all survival instincts of the wolf.

"Don't you fear that one day one plant will be... you know your last one?" he asked out of curiosity, trying to understand, how much the girl was willing to risk in order to gain knowledge.

Reckless? Raven pondered that. Nobody had applied that to her before, though she could see why Birk might think that. Whether or not it was just the effect of the poppies, she decided not to take offense. She shrugged, a smile twitching her mouth, then considered his question. Her head still felt pleasantly light and airy, though the effects were definitely wearing off now.

"No," she replied firmly and with a smile. "I'm very careful. I do my best to identify the plant first, then analyze the risk on what I know about it. There aren't that many outright toxic ones out there, you know, and most of them are easy to pick out of a lineup. As for the rest, well, it's a calculated risk. I take a small enough dose that even if it's toxic, at most I'll get a head- or stomachache. And if I somehow still manage to get in a really bad way—like I think I've poisoned myself—I know what to do." She would eat grass to make herself throw up the substance, then swallow soil or even bits of wood to absorb what was left in her system.

"Thank you for your concern, though," she said after a beat. Raven tilted her head, favoring him with a smile that wouldn't come as easily once the poppies were entirely out of her system. She then cautioned, "If it makes you uncomfortable, you may want to go now. I'll be ingesting a second and larger dose soon."

"Long story short - you are doing witchcraft," Birk summarized Raven's lengthy explanation in one sentence the contents of which would have made any medieval witch-hunter happy. He smiled at her in admiration of her skill and courage and willingness to risk in order to gain more knowledge. He would never dare to venture that far. 

"Wasn't one dose enough?" he asked, a feeble attempt to refrain her from doing so. "I think that I will stick around. Before you do it, however, who should I inform of your demise? Just in case?" he was part-serious, part-joking.

Witchcraft?! Now that just seemed far-fetched. There were no magical or ecclesiastical connotations to her work. In fact, it was one hundred percent focused on science and physiology, although she supposed she did sometimes try to rehabilitate the mind and spirit too. Raven shrugged again, though, taking no particular issue with Birk's opinion. It was kind of amusing to be introduced to the perspective of an outsider, someone who hadn't been dabbling in medicine all his life. That someone might think her a reckless witch caused a bubble of laughter to lodge in her throat.

"No," she said patiently, "I want to take a double dose before I consider allowing anyone else to ingest them. I'd rather put myself at risk than my entire pack." She licked her lips and said, "You won't have to do that. But I'm from Redhawk Caldera." This time, her gesturing wasn't so arbitrary. She pointed her slim black muzzle at the squat peak in the distance. "We've recently suffered a tragedy. That's part of why I'm doing this," she continued after facing forward again. "These poppies will really help my pack mates cope."

"That's an interesting theory," Birk nodded, thinking that helping a pack cope with a tragedy by ingesting potentially poisonous stuff was not the right way to go. Yet he did not want to be too muh of an annoying "know-it-all". He hadn't had a good amusement in a long time and therefore he was curious to see, what was going to happen now. 

"The odd peak there - got it," he memorized the general direction and then settled down for the show. "Just... another thing, before you go - do you have an antidote for this? In case it goes totally wrong?"

Since she wasn't one hundred percent certain of the plant's identification, there was no way Raven could have an antidote at the ready. But there was plenty of grass nearby and, heck, she could pluck out and swallow her own furs to help in the case of an overdose. She really wasn't worried, though. During her nearly year-long sabbatical, she had had nothing much else to do other than whet her skills until she found her way home. She had done plenty of observation and experimentation during her time on her own, just very little actual application without a pack.

"Yes," she fibbed in any case, smiling once more at Birk. "Don't worry," she added, "I know what I'm doing. I'll be fine." And with that, she canted her head and moved to help herself to a double dose, the fine red dust sticking to her tongue and the roof of her mouth and forcing her to swallow several times to get it all down her gullet. Raven then retreated to the edge of the field, largely ignoring the other wolf as she sprawled in the grass and waited for the euphoria to begin again.

I think this'll be my last post, as she's probably just going to get high as a kite and lay there, haha! These two should cross paths again sometime. :)

"That's, what they all say," Birk said, shaking his head. Wasn't it the second most popular of "famous last words" list, first being "just watch, how it's done"? Yet he stayed, watching, how the girl ingested more of the dry red flowers and then sprawled on the ground, waiting for something to happen. He could not imagine, how any part of this bizarre experiment could go the right way, but the drama and the mystery were the two things that kept him there watching.

ooc: definitely. :) If you wish another one now, I have an open thread here - http://wolf-rpg.com/showthread.php?tid=18802 - taking place few days after this one.