Gyrfalcon's Keep Would you just come home

"SHUT THE HELL UP!"

The shout echoed off the nearby mountains, but even so, was quickly drowned out by the keening screams of dozens upon dozens of gyrfalcons. If the birds heard it, they didn't heed it, leaving a highly annoyed Wylla to press her ears flat against her skull in an effort to deafen herself. It didn't work. In a huff, the mottled she-wolf turned away from the squat mountain and began picking her way back down into the scrubland immediately surrounding the shoreline.

She didn't make it far—down a few steep dips in the mountain—before a wet sensation between her shoulder blades brought her attention back around to the birds. A scowl darkened her entire face as she slowly turned around and screamed, "HOW DARE," at the flock of heinous vermin, and then tried to shake the bird poop from her back, but it was no use.

Wraen continued to pursue the chosen trade, therefore today her path had led North in order to create the mental map of the areas and locations and see, if there was anything useful for her pack. Her main concern were sources of food, but as she passed the Fire Hot Springs and a lovely shady forest that had once been home to the Neverwinter wolves, she realized that should Moonspearans ever need to relocate or hide, she would have some good suggestions up her sleeve already.

After passing an interesting looking ice-formation, she came to crossroads - she could continue exploring the forest or climb up the rocky mountain and get a view of the territories from above. After little contemplation, she chose the latter and arrived at the Keep just in time to hear an angry girl's voice swearing at top of her lungs. Intrigued Wraen went around the corner and came eye to eye with a young she-wolf, who was about the same age she was. 

"You alright?" she asked, looking around to see, who the girl had been shouting at.

Wylla had to fight down the sudden urge to cry as she craned her neck to try to see the bird shit splotched across her saddle. She wasn't able to get an adequate view, but anyone who came across her would see it painted starkly against her cinder-swept guard hairs, and probably laugh themselves to death at her misfortune. Her eyes burned with the miserable embarrassment of it, and that feeling only grew to consume her when a voice suddenly rang out from nearby.

Wylla turned so fast that she almost made herself dizzy, promptly dropping her hindquarters to the cold ground as if that would hide the mess upon her back. She felt inexplicably ashamed that she'd been caught by a bird like that, but was loathe to let her mottled would-be companion know. She resorted to pure immaturity when she attempted to misdirect Wraen's attention by lamely challenging, "Are you?"

Wraen had not noticed the unfortunate accident the other she-wolf had had moments before, therefore she was completely oblivious to the reasons behind all the screaming, shouting and agitation. 

"I am fine, thank you," she replied politely, missing the sharp edge of the question or the sarcastic double meaning it might have had. "I heard you screaming, thought that you were in trouble," she explained, though now that this theory had not turned out to be true, she was at loss, what to do next. 

Turn around and walk away? Would that be the polite thing to do?

"Yeah, well," Wylla lamely fibbed with light gasps between each word, as if she wasn't able to handle Wraen's perfect kindness, "I'm not." In a way, she really couldn't handle the kindness of others. Lusca had been a kind enough mother, if a bit neglectful and naive in the ways of rearing, and Ingram wasn't exactly the most loving of brothers either. She'd never had the benefit of growing up with kind, selfless individuals—that upbringing, and being on her own so long, had bred Wylla into a selfish and uncompromising creature who covered up her insecurities with barbs.

But after a beat, presumably long enough for Wraen to decide that talking to such a guarded little thing was a bad idea, she loudly asked, "how do you get bird shit off your fur?" Because implying that another had had this problem and knew how to deal with it wasn't completely rude and unnecessary or anything. "Asking for a friend," she slyly tacked on, but we all know how that usually goes.

"How did you get bir..." Wraen asked with her brow furrowed, because she could not yet draw the connection with the other's anger and the birds. Then it dawned upon her, her expression cleared and she said: "Aaah... right..." She looked around in hopes that there was some magical cure right by her feet and it turned out that there really was.

"Try rolling in the snow?"  she suggested, then thought some more. "Or - if it is anything like mud, then you can let it dry out and it will fall out itself," was another suggestion, her reasoning being that all wet things dried out eventually.

"For a friend," Wylla emphasized, but both of them knew that was a lie. It wasn't even a good or clever one, and Wylla wasn't making too much of an effort to be convincing, since all Wraen had to do was circle round and she would see the plain truth. Still, the yearling pursed her lips and made at least a half-hearted effort to appear stern in spite of the circumstances.

Wraen's suggestions were both excellent ones, and Wylla favoured the former, if only because the latter demanded patience that she lacked. The vagabond nearly dropped her shoulder to the ground right that moment, but she had the good fortune of actually looking before doing so, and her face twisted in disgust. "Ugh," she exclaimed, prancing several steps away. Rolling the snow was a good idea, but its merit was impacted by the fact that this mountain was covered with almost as much bird crap as snow. "Uh... d'you know where there's any snow that's not... y'know?"

Wraen was glad that her advice was appreciated - smiled and nodded, when it was clarified that this information was needed for a friend and not the girl herself. Having heard her earlier, the young she-wolf was convinced that it would do her no good to argue much or be a pain and notion something else. 

"Definitely," she got to her feet. "Unless there is no other reason, why you should remain here - let's go further down, where there aren't so many birds around," She waited a moment to see, if the other girl wanted to follow, and then began to walk.

"Nope," she said with another dirty glance toward the birds before she turned away and headed down the slope, careful to keep Wraen just ahead of her in case the other woman spotted the bird shit on her back. The ruse was surely up, but Wylla was stubborn enough to disregard that and try to keep it going as long as possible.

When they reached the snowier lowlands, on the edge of a forest that bordered the coast, where the snow was pure and clean, Wylla turned to her companion and said, "so, uh, is there a certain way to do it? I want to practice it so I can show my friend." Yes, that was exactly it.

"Well, it is not science or anything," Wraen was not sure, how to reply, because explaining, how to roll in the snow, roll in anything was a general knowledge. One was born with it and it was the first kind of moving around one learned. But there were all kinds of people in the world - perhaps - this one was truly clueless or had a different understanding of what Wraen had been talking about. 

Therefore she put some distance between them, chose the spot, where the snow was the deepest, dove in the heap head and one side first, then rolled on her back and looked from that position at the stranger. "Like this," she said. "Until it's nice and clean again."

The funniest wolf-rolling-in-snow image I found on google for an illustration - 

Wylla's lips twitched into a thin, tight line as she watched Wraen drop into the snow and roll like it was no big deal. Well, it wasn't. Every wolf in the world knew how to drop to the ground and roll, and so did a coarse and salty little wench like Wylla. She watched flatly as Wraen demonstrated, and then ground out a rough, "that's not what I meant."

Deciding there was no point in trying to elaborate, Wylla dropped dully into the snow next to Wraen and began to shuffle her messed shoulders into it. By now the bird crap had begun to dry along the edges, so though she came away with much of it smeared into the snow instead, there was nothing to be done about the bits matted in. It would require the sea's touch, and Wylla was already too cold for a dip. She turned her head sidelong to Wraen and, with a frown, asked, "you don't have anything better to be doing?"

She didn't mean it rudely but it sure came out that way.

Wraen was not offended by the inquiry the least, assuming that the tone was more or less the usual way this girl spoke with others. She took her time to muse a bit in silence, to word her answer better and then said: "I am a scout in training. So - technically - seeing and mapping new places, meeting other people is part of the job."

The girl got to her feet, shook her coat to rid it from the remnants of the snow and sat down. "What about you - also on a mission?"

"Sounds interesting," Wylla said, but her tone was noncommittal. As a sort of permanent wanderer, that was her entire lifestyle, moving about and mapping the world, pretending to like wolves she couldn't stand for a meager chance at food and shelter. She couldn't imagine making it her official job as well. Talk about tightening the noose round her already chafed neck. "Why would you pick that?"

By now she'd sort of forgotten that there was bird shit smeared on her dark hackles, so she rose from the snow, unconsciously flashing her back in Wraen's direction for but a moment before turning to face the pack wolf. "Survival," she grated, flickering her ears as if the very notion of expending energy on anything else was offensive to her. In a way it was.

"At first I wanted to improve my navigation skills - after a while I found out that just wandering and mapping was maybe exciting for me, but not very useful to the pack I belong to," that realization had come after discovering some very good "mushroom picking" spots and memorizing them for the future use. In the end it was more interesting to search for food than just travel for travelling's sake. 

"That's honest," Wraen acknowledged and basically that was, what she did every day, when she was on her own. Polishing her survival skills. "How long have you been on your own?"

Not very useful to the pack. There was a concept that Wylla couldn't properly comprehend. Her own chosen profession—survival, as it were, by means of reliably obtaining food for herself—had many uses for a pack, but she didn't believe that that was the only thing that gave merit to her skills. "Who cares what your pack thinks?" she asked with a quick shrug. "If you like doing it, that's all that matters. You're not some pack's slave to do only what they want."

Oh Wylla, you poor fool, you have no idea how the world works.

"A long, long time," she said noncommittally, if only because she'd never cared to count the months that had passed since she got lost. It was probably at least a year now, but she didn't really know for sure. All she knew was that it was too long, and her life was only hers for as long as her little frayed lifeline held her. She lived paycheck to paycheck, as it were, and each month lost a little more than the last. It had been a long time, and she doubted she would survive alone long enough to double it.

"That is true," Wraen laughed at the stranger's statement, which was very true in a way. Though in that case she would be in trouble, because, what would be that thing she would fill her spare time with, if it was not for the benefit of the pack? Listening to stories? Playing games? Suddenly she was reminded of KJ, who had wanted to spend her time just stargazing all the time, but had not learned and was not capable of simple survival skills. Somehow this was not a very good example of doing only, what you wanted. It seemed kind of miserable to her. 

"I am not a slave - but it is as the saying goes - the prison we choose ourselves in longer a prison," Wraen added and after her companion's revelation that she had been a lone wolf for a long time, she did not feel very surprised. "Are you on your own now - or do you run with a pack, a friend maybe?"

"Once a prison, always a prison," Wylla stubbornly countered, but otherwise let the subject drop. The only things she did in life were for her own benefit. Without Ingram, there was no one for her to even want to share her successes with. She lived solely for herself, and believed that was the best—and only—way to live. She judged Wraen for her devotion to her pack, but kept it from her face, if only because the pack wolf had thus far been helpful and tolerant of her, two things Wylla almost never got.

"I tried to join a pack. They made me hunt something for them, then fed it to a bird and told me to get lost when I got mad about it." She grimaced, turning her head up to the sky as if seeking some answer there for that terrible injustice. She would probably hold that grudge for the rest of her days. "The next one had a leader young enough to be my kid," and so she shrugged against the snowbank, ignoring her own gross exaggeration there, and said, "would rather hoof it alone than live with pricks, y'know?"

"I wouldn't trust a pack, if they had a bird for an alpha either," Wraen thought that it was a really weird thing, especially since she considered any creature with wings  as a food source first and a sentient being later and only in the case, when it was perched somewhere out of her reach. 

The next comment was even weirder and made her look at the girl walking next to her longer than it was polite. She did not look much older than Wraen and her mannerisms also spoke of a certain degree of immaturity. And she had met more older wolves in her life than those, who were the same age or younger. "Pricks are hard to get along with," she agreed smiling.

"I know, right?" Wylla said with a scoff, tilting her body to rest on an angular elbow. "Seriously, this bird rides around on someone's back and gets fed with food that wolves catch. Must be a cushy life but what kind of psychos follow a bird like that?" In hindsight, the assumption that the bird was the Alpha was the only assumption that actually made sense. If it was some sort of companion or pet, it would rightly only be getting scraps from the wolves' feasts. At least, that's how Wylla would treat a dumb bird if she had one, but she didn't and never would, because birds of prey befriending wolves was, she thought, so rare it was downright mythical.

"Many pricks where you come from?" she asked conversationally, mistaking Wraen's agreement for confirmation that she had the same problem wherever she was from. Thus far, she hadn't caught the subtle scent of Hydra on the other woman, and didn't know that she came from the pack Wylla had promised to revisit and then never had.

"I guess that a bird on a shoulder was a sign that they were living quite well," Wraen pointed out and grinned, "if famine hit them, we don't have to guess, which one would be eaten first." Osprey had taught her kids early on that they - of course - could befriend other predators or even animals that were considered prey, but always to keep in mind, what would happen, if the predator got pushed to the limits and was very hungry. Eating a friend would be justified at some levels, but difficult to live with later. 

"No more or less than in other packs," Wraen shrugged, thinking, whether this slang word could be applied to Cerberus and deciding that they ran better under a different codename. "Though they say that a pack of true bastards live just south of here in a dark forest that is marked with blood and body parts. Rumor has it that they are pricks to everyone, who is not from their gang."

Wylla grimaced, but had nothing more to say on the subject of a hawk. She thought it was supremely stupid to hunt for food and give it away to other animals that were also capable of hunting, but she didn't dwell long on Redhawk Caldera or its mentally slow border patrol unit. Instead, she focused on Wraen's next topic.

Her muzzle wrinkled at the thought of blood and bones on the borders—that sounded like a gothic edgelord's idea of "sick digs yo"—but before she could comment on it, Wraen said something else and Wylla interjected with, "most wolves are pricks to those outside their gang, in my experience," which indicated that Wraen herself was an exception.

Think we could wrap this one up or fade it in the next couple posts? I've got entirely too many threads going on right now and really need to cut back. ^^;

"True," Wraen agreed thinking about the rest of Moonspear wolves and which one of them were very likely to be friendly with a stranger. Rannoch, Liffey, maybe. The rest would be pricks. Terance included (in the best sense of the word). Just like most folks around the valley and beyond. 

"Do you plan to found a pack of your own then?" she asked, thinking that a person, who did not want to bend her knees to others, could be a good leader-material. "Plenty of freedom then to do, what you want, in my opinion."

Sure. Maybe in your next post you can have them "riding off in the sunset"? :)

"Pfft, no," said Wylla with a haughty laugh as she glanced back at Wraen. "That's too much work. Think I'll just do what I want on my own terms, without the responsibility of being an adult." She was getting close to the point in her life where others expected her to be a functioning wolf, but Wylla still felt very much like a child. She wondered if Wraen felt similarly, but didn't voice the question; instead, she gave her shoulders a roll, hoisted herself off the ground, and said, "speaking of, best be off. Dinner's not gonna catch itself."

After a few moments thanking the other she-wolf for her help and offering to allow Wraen to join her on a hunt if she wished, Wylla headed off into the wilderness, with or without the Moonspear girl in tow, to try to find supper.