Bearclaw Valley we rush the west in silence

All welcome (: Trying to get Nanook out of social isolation. That moment you dig a character a pit you really regret digging.

She had followed the light of Polaris; she had struck for the North. The myriad of colour that danced at night joined her sometimes, and the stars too, when the skies were clear and she could see the host who watched her. Under their eye, she ran, until her legs grew weary and her body cried for rest. Then she would sleep, until the sun blinked away and the night claimed its crown once again.

And the land had rolled from valleys and vales, to hills and streams, to mountain ranges too steep to climb and rivers too vast to cross. Her paws grew calloused, and her angled body weathered and wild. She met others on the way, some like her, and many not, and learned from those who were willing to teach her, and from those who were not. Nanook had seen the world - but she never found the North, the acres of white her father had once spoken of, when the days were simpler and kinder, and when her only concern had been that which she could reach with her squirming limbs and milk teeth.

She had never found the North, but she had found something else, a need that pressed her to return.

From the Maplewood she remembered the way. The landmarks burned with a vividness knit tight with the the turmoil of her family's upheaval, and her ears canted against her skull, as if she expected to still hear the ghosts of her mother's voice, and her own cries to turn back. But she moved each quaking leg forward, until she reached the meadow freshly spotted with the colours of spring. A few more steps and she would be in the Valley, but her mind skipped on the spectres she would find through the twisting path like a record too broken to play. A sudden urge to vomit overwhelmed her, and even the cool morning breeze through her wayward fur felt stifling in the face of Bearclaw Valley.

The wolf did not know where he was going, only that the scents were new, and that seemed like a good thing. He was hungry. He was tired. There was no sign of uncle anywhere (there hadn't been for many days now) yet still the wolf persisted. Leaving the mountain had been a difficult task but as he moved, as he adapted, his worries became vague things. Where his family had gone mattered less and less as he roamed - he became a feral thing, concentrated solely upon hunting the next meal, finding shelter for the moments where sleep became impossible to resist, and the wildness within him.

A part of him would always be connected to the mountain - to uncle - but without the older beast present, Tsukiko merely had to worry about himself. He had been taught well; as he came upon an unknown valley he knew to seek out water first, food second. That his belly should fill with fluid rather than entrails was counterintuitive to him - his hunger was intense and mindlessness pursued it - but Tsukiko would not depart from his family's teachings so easily.

As he came slinking through a foreign forest (it was so much like Ryoumori that he felt a stirring of something deep beneath the shroud of ferality that overwhelmed him), Tsukiko was captivated by the scents and sights around him; so much so, he forgot for the briefest of moments that he hadn't eaten more than a rat in the past few weeks.

Nanook stood a statue, with a tight stare transfixed upon the gate of boulders that marked the Valley's start. Icy claws seared upon her reason. Forget and don't slow down. Run and keep running, as she had always done. The wind played against her, to push her away, but the sweetness they carried sang of her mother - when they had watched the clouds together - and her breath choked. Her copper eyes burned with the heat of withheld tears and the only fire she had left, and, with the white ghost ablaze in her mind, she plunged forward, and felt the forest consumed her.

Branches snapped against her face, and she scrabbled against the uneven terrain. Pebbles cracked into her paws, and she bit her tongue, but kept pushing, pushing forward. Alone and confronted with the memories of travelling this path reared a storm within her breast. Her throat tightened with anxiety and stress, and her senses blurred from the thoughts of what this place once meant to her, but she knew if she slowed she would never chart this course again.

And that was something she could not afford.

Her new avatar is gorgeous! Your style is one of my favs <3

The sound of the wind's increasing whistle was a mystery to him; the sound was something basic, something without name, but it called to him deeply. As the wind picked up, he thought the frenzy of crackling brush was caused by the wrathful air eddying around him. That perhaps there were spirits here that had been disturbed by Tsukiko's presence. Surely such myths were not locked away among his own people? A beautiful place such as this - a lonely place - must have had its own ghosts. Perhaps this is what fueled his apprehension as he moved about through the trees. The crackling grew more intense the further along he went, and when Tsukiko stopped, a pale figure emerged from the depths of the grove with such voracity that he could've sworn it was the wind made manifest.

She was a sight to behold, whoever she was. Clad in cream and silver, a shooting star — or the closest living thing to it — careened through the dark, catching every glimpse of light as if hungry for it. Tsukiko watched her go, and before he knew it, he was following doggedly behind... More curious than anything, in awe of her speed and mentally sliding closer and closer to childlike wonder the longer he tailed after her.

Thank you! <3 Also, I absolutely adore your writing. You have a beautiful way with words <3

She pushed against the wind, her eyes narrow slits against the stinging gusts. All around, the forest shuddered and stretched out gnarled limbs to grasp her. But she twisted with them, and though their claws scored her, their lashes missed her flesh, striping only her stormy fur with their fleeting scores of light and shadow.

She could not tell where she was going, but the farther she ran, the less she cared to know. Sunlight peered like eyes through the canopy, and her skin burned beneath their stare and filled her with a trembling awareness she was not alone. Her ghosts lived here; she felt them watching, too. She heard their footfalls join her flight, the chilling sound of their breath. Nanook did not dare look back, but let the momentum of the sloping land carry her faster.

Ahead, the breadth of the valley peered through the thinning tree line, and with a final push, Nanook erupted into the bright and blinding haze of stormy sunlight that blinked like a fallen galaxy off the gushing river. With a lurch, she scrambled to route herself in a tight semi-circle, until she stood with her face to the forest, and the blood-freezing spectre who peeled itself from its shadows.

He flowed in her wake like a sparrow pealing across the open expanse of a meadow. She was faster than anything he'd ever seen before, moving as if she knew the valley and its intricate twists and turns, and while he did not want to take his eyes off of the shooting star, he was forced to as he ran. When the dusty wolf emerged from the forest and was met with blinding light, he thought that surely it was the pale girl herself who shimmered. Tsukiko's eyes narrowed to sharp slits as he adjusted to the change in the lighting, and when the girl's figure became more solidified in his vision he relaxed. The yellow of his iris caught most of the surrounding light and made him look positively hideous, but he was a good distance from her - looking stunned yet trying to appeal to her as best he could.

The man kept himself back. It was easy to see the unease within her as she spun to greet him; rather, she seemed spooked by his appearance as if she hadn't noticed him behind her. He was small and thin but hardly a runner, and not stealthy. Perhaps it took more concentration than he thought to navigate these winding trails? Tsukiko put that all aside for now. He dipped his head lower and rumbled a sound to the stranger, his tail flat to his bottom but wagging all the same, trying to convey the simple message of: not a threat and hello concurrently.

Fear spiked the wiry mane of twisted fur along her neck into a wild thing, and her pupils dilated. The features of the wolf sharpened before her. He stood without further approach, ghoulish and ragged, and cut by razored shadow. Dark fur formed a spectral mask upon his face, and twin stars blinked out from the depths, wide and startled.

He could have been something from a fevered dream, but his approach - meek and amiable - struck against his feral appearance and warmed her frigid blood with questions. Why was he following her? Where had he come from? Around them, the wind picked up speed, and kicked up bits of debris and fallen leaves into the riled air. The dust swirled about in a circular wave, and as Nanook stepped forward and leaned, she swayed her tail in lesser mimic of his own and greeted him with a sideways tilt of her head, a question to his presence there. High above, the sky darkened with the coming storm, and heavy clouds ate up the sun and filled the air with the smell of rain.

Seeing her now, startled and defensive, did little to warn him away. He could see her plainly despite the gray of the sky and the oncoming dark - she was young. She couldn't have been much older than himself; or maybe it was the nature of the lone wolf to find similarities in others. To crave the attention of whoever they came across. Tsukiko could not speak to his desires; he was merely curious, and made more curious the longer he watched her.

The sky broke - he heard the drops before he smelled anything, numbed to the petrichor that inhabited all paths untraveled at this point. The beast licked his lips (An act of deference? A show of insecurity? Merely to taste the air - or something more foul?) He seemed to extend from there. Reaching with his long steps to close the gap between them, but he kept his head low and snaking close, sniffing the air quite obviously as he did so. She smelled sweet; she smelled of many foreign things, but nothing unpleasant. No warm layers of wolf-scent, only the growing cold of the incliment weather. 

He was almost shy as he crooned a low note to her - an invitation maybe, an instinctual note sung from the heart that would ring true for any wanderer. Stay with me? He could've been asking. Friend? Maybe.

He closed the space between them, and prodded forth his nose like a snake would his tongue to taste the air. Yet his body spoke of innocence, and Nanook did not move. She let him sate his curiousity, for in letting him do, he lent her the opportunity to do the same. A deep inhale brought the wealth of his travels to the canvas of her mind. He was earthy and wild, and bound by nothing but the forests and stones and hills. A wolf like her. She felt the ice in her veins drip to meltwater, and she watched him with growing wonder through the drive of the rain.

Who was this boy, feral and speechless?

Over the clamber of a distant rumble, his note met her ears, and he drew her back with a thrill. Nanook turned her head, and blinked, part in question, and part from the water that caressed the sharp curves of her forehead and dripped into her eyes. She took a small step toward him, and another until she drew her snout near the side of his, and cast him a side-long glance. She didn't know what to make of him - but the rage of the river and the drive of the rain told her they couldn't stay in the lowlands any longer.

She reached out to nudge him, then jumped back, and swung her head low as she gave a questioning note of her own. Come? Nanook wished to stay with him, but only if he followed her to somewhere safer than here.

She appeared to be hesitant of his advances, but that did not stop him. Tsukiko could be bold. He could let the wild take hold and puppet him to it's will; and when she crooned a note back to him of similar calibur, it made his heart soar to think that the same wildness was within her. That she understood - that he wasn't alone.

The rain pelted them from head to tail, but they wove themselves close together, and as per her invitation Tsukiko did not abate. The two of them were intertwined as they escaped the worst of the rainfall, seeking shelter with one another as well as the trees each time a suitable hideaway was found. The rain did not stop, though. He was a soaking mess of mud and fur by the time he spied a coppice that held any potential - and with a soft call to her, he veered for it.

He understood, and a curious delight filled her, warm against the pelt of the rain, and intoxicating. When he brushed beside her she turned in unison, and together, they ran.

By the time the man spied lasting shelter, the mud and rain had painted them nearly identical. Nanook felt caked and chilled from their scurry through the rising storm, and she made a sharp beeline after her companion, sprinting fast on his heels until she overtook him. Without hesitance, she pressed toward a denser portion of the trees, where the boughs grew thick and draped a shelter over the soft ground below, and shimmied herself to present enough room for the man to join her. The stay would be tight, but after their twisting dance, she felt no fear of him, and longed to lend him company and warmth. She made this clear in every move of her thin and ragged body. Though he had thus far proven himself adamant, Nanook worried he might leave her now, and she chuffed again to gather assurance he would stay.