Sequoia Coast how many centuries deep is your wound?

@Caw. Set in the area just north of Drageda, near the Tangle.

The sun hangs low in the sky, illuminating in purple and orange and pink as it sinks down, closer and closer to the water in the distance. The gulls cry in the distance, further down the shore, and the clouds offer a clear view to the stars beginning to peak through into what remains of daylight, and half of the moon hanging in the sky, ready to greet the night. The shore offers a loud crashing of waves as she leaves behind the last few redwoods, offering a barrier to Drageda and exposing her to the elements and upcoming creatures of the night.

Their neighbors have not offered them much strife in the last few weeks, since the boy brought Rose back to her borders. There is still so much left to question and Arrille has not had his justice. Soon, she decides, she’ll bring them together. It has been too long since she’d made the decision and too long to give her dangerous neighbors a chance to retaliate. If the pale boy had given his service to try and sweep Blackfeather to the coast, what else do they have up their sleeve?

Thuringwethil licks her lips, walking smoothly on to solid grown. The grass below her feet void of snow, and for the first time, she can see more green than white and it is a refreshing sight to behold. The cold days of her northern life in Seageda are often forgotten as most of her life has been in Drageda, away from the very source of their world, but she can’t help but feel her home has managed to settle so far from them. Instead of moving closer to the shore, where she finds the most peace, she wanders outward, looking out over the tangle to the south.

caw does not often consider borders to be particularly serious. he spends much of his time – not ignoring them, no, but testing them, seeing how many wolves he can draw after him and how far they will go. it is not the safest activity, as avis is always quick to remind him, but caw has very little opportunity to feel anything but placid calm.
 
there are many border-scents on the coast – caw has never seen so many packs crammed into so little space before. but he trots cheerfully by the borders, mere paw-lengths from crossing over, and nobody comes to visit him, so either they are waiting for him to actually step over their invisible boundary or they are not around and caw is not drawing an entire pack to him for the sake of a scuffle. the most interesting things he has seen so far -- namely the collar and the smoke-smelling stranger -- were around here and he is hoping he will find more.
 
so perhaps he is not in the greatest of moods as he wanders his way down the edge of the tangle, but a better mood is rather nebulous to him anyway. he chatters idly away in latin while he walks, and occasionally avis inserts a comment of her own, but caw does not necessarily need a conversation partner to talk.
 
he only pauses when a lazy inhale brings a familiar pack-scent to his nose, and caw glances up to see a large reddish-brown figure amidst the grass.
 
his ears lift, head cocking as raw-blood eyes focus on the wolf ahead. “scio odor,” he says, and feels avis turn at the same time that he starts trotting forward, directly towards the stranger. he is hoping she will have the same collar as the other similar-smelling wolf he met, but as he draws close there is nothing, and he frowns as though she has done this specifically to inconvenience him.
 
“collare!” he demands, continuing to walk closer with his usual disregard for personal space, muzzle aimed directly for the woman's neck as though she is hiding it from him. but then, latin is a language he has not seen a single wolf use since he left his home, despite its clear superiority; he will have to make do. “neck band," he elaborates eagerly, ears perked up high; surely this will make sense. "other had. same smell. where is?”

PP with permission!

She turns as the scent of another becomes apparent in her vicinity and her nose flares, trying to track if back to the wolves of the sound. The last thing she needs is some confrontation from their pesky neighbors to top of the sour feeling settling in her chest. Dark eyes watch as the two-toned, odd patterned wolf approaches and looks at her as if looking for something particular but her attention shifts immediately to the bird sitting between the stranger’s shoulder blades.

Ears fall back against her head, disregarding the words coming from his mouth as he gets closer. She lifts one paw, somewhat taken aback by the sudden approach but a Blackfeather wolf has never made the best decisions and though she is alone, she is not afraid. His size challenges her but he lacks the visual experience and she moves quickly, disregarding everything that he tries to go for. The moment he’s close enough, trying to search, she swings back and snaps at his face and moving quickly to overwhelm him and even snaps for the bird, wishing to crush it between her teeth for giving her a bad omen all those months ago. Swift feet and years of training easily move her and her tongue shouts blood, whether bird or wolf she does not care, but she will not stand for a Blackfeather wolf to get away so close to her home.

caw has always been thoroughly unafraid of walking directly up to anyone. this is no different – the woman’s eyes settle on him, and he does not even give her presence a second glance as he goes to snuffle at her neck. does not pay the lift of her paw any attention. he is focused on his goal and, as always, avis’ warnings go unnoticed. they never mean much.
 
except this time, somehow, they do.
 
usually they let him get fairly close, at least, let him sate a bit of his curiosity. this one does not even allow that. avis launches off his back in a flutter of wings, and before caw can question it – not that he necessarily would – there is a blur of movement and then, abruptly, teeth, gleaming and white, directly in his face.
 
caw gives a startled yip, and then her teeth sink neatly into the flesh below his jaw, sending bright pain flickering along his nerves. it is not how he imagined their interaction to go but he is certainly not complaining; the ache of punctured skin flares hotter as he twists his head and snaps indignantly at her shoulder, tasting coppery blood on his tongue.
 
“collare!” he repeats. he is enjoying himself but is also mildly confused. perhaps she has misunderstood his words and that is why she is so upset? he does actually want an answer. “neck!” he snaps at the fur around her throat demonstratively, but has genuinely no clue how to get it across. “thing. not wolf! not here!”

She catches wolf instead of bird and tightens her hold even through the bite of her shoulder. It’s over a scar healed from another Blackfeather wolf. All of her weight is thrown forward into her grasp and she does not let go even to readjust should the other snake away in a matter of seconds. This time, whatever voodoo lay in that forest isn’t going to stop her. Cicero may have gotten out of her grasp then, but this wolf will not. It is not a surprise they know where they are now, given their neighbors, and maybe…

Thuringwethil shakes her head, using her force to get him on the ground. She could let go and snap at other various parts of his body but all she wants in that moment is submission. She ignores the words and the tug at the side of her neck as he tries to get close once more. In an attempt to keep herself safe, her throat out of reach, she finally lets go and slams all she has to shove him into the ground.

unlike her wayward girlfriend, blixen does not often venture beyond drageda's borders. it is easier to defend what you are near (or inside of, as the case may be). but she catches nomi's scent near the northern border and follows it, curious. maybe she can get a chance to demonstrate more of her cheka-ness to nomi, even.

how on the nose she is, though not at all in the way she imagined. there's a scuffle: she sees a bird and a large black and white wolf entangled with nomi. whatever circumstances involved are irrelevant in the face of nomi snarling and a stranger putting his teeth near nomi's throat -- a snarl erupts from her as she rockets forward, fur fluffed, and throws herself bodily toward the man's shoulder, aiming to further knock him away before he has a chance to get his teeth into nomi.

caw's words garner no reply. avis shrieks, cawing loudly, swooping over the two of them; her language is one only caw and his old pack really understand, and each crow is different. he's certain nobody else can understand her yelling for the stranger to let him go; even if she had caw thinks she probably would not have listened. his backfur bristles, drawing the wayward feathers stuck into his scruff upwards; the token snap at her shoulder becomes one with far more teeth as the woman's grip tightens, though it does not really get anywhere with her teeth fastened under his jaw.

she yanks him to the side with a shake of her head, pulling him towards the ground; caw barely manages to stay on his feet, yapping in excitement as his teeth flash again and again, snapping for any bit of flesh within reach. his ears angled forwards, trying to figure out where avis is, to make sure she is away from the battle -- he knows perfectly well how easy it is to crunch a bird between a wolf's teeth.

he doesn't see her, in the end, but he does hear her -- another warning shrieked in his direction, of someone else approaching.

caw pauses, trying to turn his head to look for this stranger, at just the same moment as the woman's grip tightens and she twists her head, slamming him towards the dirt. his scrambling paws lose track of the earth, and as he hits the ground another body slams into him with not-insignificant force, pushing him away from the teeth in his cheek with a vicious, white-hot flare of pain as the wound opens wider and caw tumbles, belly hitting the ground.

he laps at the blood running from his face and trickling down across his lips with a swipe of his tongue. he's starting to think that perhaps neither of them speak english, or they would have responded to his question in a way that wasn't this. it's very... it's what he would have expected from his pack.

"hod klin!" caw yips, cocking his head. he has no idea what it means, but he thinks if the other one could speak it these might very well.

It takes a little effort to get the wolf on the ground. She can’t let him get away and dismantling him as quickly as possible, making him vulnerable to her whim, is the first thing she needs to do. She doesn’t notice Blixen’s approach at first until the brute is swept off his feet and onto the ground. Thuringwethil lets go of her grip but her mouth stays around the tender flesh for a better grip, using her weight to emphasize him staying on the ground. When she releases him, mouth filled with blood, fur, and dirt, she snaps at Blixen’s direction in defense but quickly rectifies and catches a long look.

She doesn’t have time to sort the situation with her daughter’s involvement when the boy shouts beneath her, jerking her head toward him as he speaks. Her brows knit together and she swings back to Blixen, shouting, “Disha em?” This wolf isn’t familiar to her, shouting their tongue, making everything far more entwined than she cares for. If he’s the grey wolf that spoke of her when her children found Arrille, then then she has far more questions and she begins by immediately shifting back to him, giving Blixen no real time to answer: “Chon yu bilaik?”

her shove lands true, sending the man tumbling as snarls erupt from her chest. it's only now that she notices the bird, and feels a familiar ripple of anger at its presence -- like mother, like daughter, with shared anti-bird biases even if for different reasons. 

plus it looks a little like the bird that stole her fur.

she doesn't have a chance to go after it though, the downed wolf shouting in their native tongue and nomi shouting to her directly after. "no," blix says, "nou em." her lips stay curled, exposing teeth as she steps closer to nomi's side, eyes trained on the villain and his dastardly companion.

at this point caw could probably yank himself free, if he cared to ruin his face even further. as it is he's not so keen on such an idea. in either case, he is saved from having to make a decision as the woman lets him go to snap something in her strange tongue at the newcomer; avis is still scolding him but her tones are thick with enough worry that caw is sure he will only recieve a peck on the head as reply.

"discedite," caw warns her, and he takes the brief opening to start squirming his way free. it is difficult without his paws beneath him, and he manages only an inch or two of movement before the woman swings her head back to stare at him, splattering him with droplets of his own blood, in a movement sudden enough to make him pause.

the pain has already dulled to an insistent throb caw is sure he will carry with him for days. he laps at it again, instinctually, only now noticing the faint discomfort of the doubtlessly-broken feathers threaded into his scruff as they press awkwardly against his skin. he ignores the other wolf drawing close to her; right now he already has plenty to contend with.

she barks another phrase at him in that odd language. caw has heard many things before coming to this place but whatever they use is still completely alien to him; he cannot even begin to figure out what she means. "bad," he responds, and starts trying to wriggle free again, his front paws coming up to press into her chest to try and use her as leverage to drag himself forward. "hod klin!"

It’s not him. Then Blackfeather? He shouts anther word but she pays little attention since she doesn’t know it, but he goes on and rotates between common and their own. None of her questions are being answered in a way that gives her enough and she growls, snarling back at him. His front legs have locked in joints and pressed against her, making it difficult to stand over him. She pushes back, resisting the shove and tries to angle her nose down and snap at his legs, hoping to get him to relent and bend before he stands. “Hod em!” she snaps at her daughter between the clashing of her teeth.

whatever this guy's deal is, she is having none of it. blixen is not a deep thinker, nor is she particularly inquisitive -- his odd behaviors don't give her pause but reassure her that he is just some useless enemy to be disposed of or chased away.

she doesn't need nomi's instruction. the stranger tries to -- what, grab? -- nomi and she erupts forward in snarls, aiming low to grab his hind leg. should her teeth find purchase on his hock she will yank as hard as she can, pulling as nomi pushes to bring him down (and if a bone is snapped in the ruckus, well, his fault for being so foolhardy.)

Despite their best efforts, and not without a few snaps from either opponent, the smaller male manages to get out beneath her and her daughter and up on four legs: enough to get away. A bird above them squawks and she looks up briefly to it, watching it soar ahead. It looks like the same bird that stalked her for some time (to be fair, black birds tend to look the same to her). But the grey wolf manages a faster speed than the two of them, disappearing from where he came and eventually the pair retreat, returning back to Drageda more than frustrated.