Ankyra Sound Transpose

This thread references this event from a year ago. :)

She hadn't meant to wander so far along the jagged coastline, especially not all by herself. Thuringwethil would probably worry, the others too. But it was like she was wandering along in a dream and when she suddenly woke, Wildfire found herself in a strange forest. She blinked and looked around herself, even spinning in a circle, a silent What the? forming on her lips. It was raining lightly, the sound of gentle dripping echoing through the woods. When the she-wolf glanced upward, her breath caught in her throat at the sheer size of the trees here. She stared so long that she was overcome by vertigo and swayed sideways, coming to a hard sit on her right hip (thank goodness).

When the Bandrona caught her breath and stood up again, she turned slightly to her left and gasped lightly again. She squinted, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. It looked like an explosion of earth, only suspended in midair. The longer she squinted, the better she could make out something peculiar about the heart of it all. Slowly, Wildfire crept toward it and sucked in yet another breath when it dawned on her that she was actually staring into a tunnel of sorts. She paused, then backpedaled several meters to check it out from another angle and it all made sense. She was staring at the inside of a huge hollow tree that had fallen.

She disliked caves but as Wildfire came to stand front and center again, she steadied herself and began inching toward the shifting darkness. The steady drumming of raindrops coaxed her forward, the smell of damp wood and earth becoming nearly overpowering as the shadows of the unearthed roots draped over her in welcome. Soon the flickering red flame of her fur was swallowed by the belly of the upturned Hyperion.

Gold and silver eyes followed a distant speck of lively red fur through the chilling drizzle; watching a small drop of fire float through the cold, monolithic woods. Pipit blinked water from her lashes, following the figure at a leisurely pace, sure that she wanted company and unable to know yet if the solitary wolf felt the same. So the fawn wolf kept her distance, unwilling to interrupt the trance she seemed to be in, and instead occupying herself with crouching near the scent trail left by the stranger, finding out what she could about her before deciding to make her final approach.

The fact that she didn't appear to be hunting helped Pipit decide that she'd make herself known sooner rather than later, but as she rounded the massive trunk of a redwood, she found that her quarry had evaporated into thin air.

She looked around, even spinning a quick circle before her focus fell onto the gaping mouth of a downed, hollow tree, which seemed to be the only logical escape for the wolf she hunted. Padding softly to the mouth of the tree-cave, she called into it very lowly so that her voice wouldn't echo. "Hello?"

She felt a little of the usual dread sink into her bones as she delved deeper and deeper into the felled tree, though her natural sense of adventure overruled it. She slowed to a stop perhaps a dozen yards into the nature-made tunnel, listening to the light rainfall hitting the hollow wood and the sound of her own breathing. It was definitely a little claustrophobic, Wildfire supposed, but it was also sort of cozy. There were little pinholes of light here and there—places where the dead wood had rotted away before or after the great fall—and that certainly helped.

All the same, the Bandrona nearly jumped out of her skin when a voice called, "Hello?" She spun around and squinted at a wolfish shape silhouetted by the gray light at the tree's uprooted exit. "Hello?" she hissed in return, motionless where she crouched in the dark tree. After all the tension, trauma and tragedy of the past few days—not to mention her deep exhaustion—Wildfire felt a little bit like a wild animal backed into a corner (bah dum tss).

Though at first Pipit could not see the wolf inside, she could hear a clear indication of anxiety— claws scrambling against dead wood and soft fungi, presumably to face who had called out. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she was better able to make out small lines of the hidden wolf, aided by the small trickles of light that filtered through the decrepit log. Her tail wagged, but she back away from the mouth of the hollow tree as she noted the distress in the other's voice. She didn't want to make it seem like she was coming in after her; even though this had been her initial intention.

"I didn't mean to sneak up on you," she said, speaking a little louder now that she had backed away several feet. "I was just following you—" Don't be creepy! "your scent... you see, I'm terribly lonely, and I was just looking for some company."

Her amber eyes tracked the stranger's wagging tail, her ears pricking to pick up the friendly tone of her voice. Wildfire relaxed, little by little, and slowly began to wend back toward the reaching roots. She paused perhaps five yards from the mouth of the tunnel, eyeing the other she-wolf now that they were significantly closer. She did not look threatening in any way. In fact, her creamy coat and two-toned eyes distinctly reminded Wildfire of her pack's own Wocha.

"You were following me?" Wildfire repeated after a moment. "Are you alone?" Duh, she just said as much. "A loner?" she clarified.

Pipit's ears fell back a little bashfully, flashing the russet she-wolf a smile she hoped would ease some of the tension her stalker tendencies had created. She'd always been a bit of a follower— never quite eager to wander off alone unless it was in search of someone else. And it explained why she was alone, searching for her Redleaf brother, at any rate. "Why yes, yes I am," she answered the secondary query, using a bit more enthusiasm than she meant to, before tacking on an afterthought; a slightly depressed: "unfortunately."

She didn't return the question, if only because she could quite clearly smell others clinging to the damp, red fur of her acquaintance, but this didn't mean she was out of sociable questions. Not by a long shot. Pipit gave her own sodden pelt a quick shake, beginning to feel its heft as her undercoat retained some of the water it had gathered over the past hour or so. "I'm Pipit," the socialite smiled brightly— a thousand-watt grin. "And I'm alone so that I might find my brother, Shrike. You wouldn't happen to know a guy by that name, would you, love?"

The term of endearment came forward without her bidding. She had a thing for fox-red fur, after all.

She felt bad for thinking it yet Wildfire considered trying to bring Pipit back to their current base, in case the ones they'd lost stayed that way. They could use an extra body, especially an able one, and Pipit looked healthy and spry. The thought put a lump in her throat and she nudged it to the side. She didn't entirely dismiss it, just set it aside for now.

She met the term of endearment with a blink and said, "Sorry, I don't know anyone by that name." She then had the presence of mind to add, "I'm Wildfire, from—" Well, she wasn't technically from Sleeping Dragon anymore, was she? But she barely paused before finishing by saying, perhaps even a little emphatically, "—from Drageda."

She was a little tempted to try recruiting Pipit, especially after the losses they'd suffered recently. But Wildfire didn't want to waylay the woman from her mission. They conversed for a little while longer before Pipit departed to resume her search for Shrike. Wildfire watched her go and considered disembarking herself. Instead, she lingered near the tree a while longer, enjoying her neat discovery.