Two Rivers Isle he jests at scars that never felt a wound

@Raven

From the base of the hill he selected his pathway up, choosing to ascended the snow-bare southern slope that had thawed quickest under the strengthening sun of the spring season, and was bathed by it on this mid morning. His broad paws sank into the soft melt-soaked soil, darkly staining the whites of his toes as his nails bit at the hill for traction. It was easier and quicker than navigating the structureless snow that sill blanketed the northern slope, where half his effort would have been consumed by the slip of his feet.

Jagwyr stood tall at the crest, turning his head over his shoulder to see where he had crossed the river. His gaze roamed its bends and runs, and flowed with it to where it joined with another river to the south. His survey followed the second river back, where he learned the rivers were in fact two halves of a whole that had split in the north. The black wolf was at the high center of a faux island set between them. He licked his lips thoughtfully.

Movement below him caught his attention. His eyes narrowed on the treeline where a doe and a fawn from the previous season had stepped out from the shadows that had hid them. Jagwyr tracked their meandering as they made their way to an open swath and bent their heads to graze. With his nose into the wind, he began his descent down a different slope than the one he had climbed, aware that he stood out like an ominous shadow against the snow he left muddy tracks in, but equally aware there was nothing to be done about it.

Sorry for keeping you waiting! <3 Tagged Jennifer for reference.

Raven's modus operandi when she was in season tended to consist of remaining as reclusive and solitary as possible. It was how she'd avoided male attention in previous years, understanding that her place in the pack did not grant her the right to breed freely. However, she had broken that fundamental rule of being a pack wolf -- she hadn't sought Towhee's blessing prior to her (admittedly rather sudden and unplanned at the time) coupling with Quixote -- and now she wasn't certain where the chips would fall. Would she become pregnant? Should she? She knew of a few plants with abortifacient qualities but she didn't want to take that route. Ever since she had taken the mantle of surrogate motherhood over her youngest siblings, she had wanted a litter of her own. Towhee couldn't deny Raven's skill as a parent, either, having herself been one of the pups she'd nursed and helped to raise. But would the hot-headed young alpha see it that way?

These thoughts bounced rampantly around in her head as she wandered with no particular destination in mind. @Quixote had had some things to attend to, so they had parted earlier that morning and Raven had taken the opportunity to get better acquainted with the plateau and its surroundings. There was still snow on the ground in small amounts, much of it melting away in the warmer afternoons now, and areas where the grass was visible were sodden and muddy from runoff. Mud clung to her legs and spattered her underside, but it didn't bother her. She was fascinated by her new surroundings and enjoyed the exploration, observing groves and thickets with the practiced eye of a healer on the hunt for useful plants. She scented deer on the breeze, which tickled her instincts and prompted her to look around, scanning the landscape for signs of prey. Not that she thought she could take one down by herself, but it was good to be aware of the movements of game in a new territory. She saw no deer -- perhaps they were obscured by trees from where she stood -- but she did sight the dark figure of a lone wolf moving nearby. She stopped where she stood as she considered turning and heading in a different direction. If he was male, that wasn't a chance she really felt like taking (she had, after all, already made that mistake with Screech and wasn't eager to repeat it).

No worries! I am in no rush. :)

His eyes were trained on the deer. If the doe put up her head, he stilled his paws and waited to move until she resumed feeding. He kept this methodical pace to the bottom where the bare slope transitioned to patchy brush and the snow underfoot became damp grass. He sunk into the cover about to make his final stalk when another scent crossed his nose.

He lifted his snout, drawing the current of the wind. Unable to see another from where he stood, he carefully stepped through the thicket, maneuvering like a sage old buck through the shrubs as he keeps tabs on his does, until he could see the dark female nearer the treeline. Ears cupped forward, his eyes peered into the forest for other shapes, but he neither smelled nor saw any.

Jagwyr turned his head toward the deer and let his thoughtful stare and his interest linger at length in their direction, with just one ear craned toward the other wolf. He could just make out the adult, but the fawn — his target — was obscured. The black male licked his lips, and then glanced back to the female.

He signalled her with a calm wag of his tail and gestured with his head toward the hunt — an invitation. His ears were swung toward her in anticipation, awaiting an answer that did not need to be spoken.

She remained where she stood for several moments, eyeing the loner and weighing her options. She considered his gesture of invitation. It was risky to carouse with an unknown male in the midst of her estrus, that much she knew for certain. But she couldn't help thinking of how nice it would be to bring some fresh meat home to share with Quixote. After the...events...of the previous evening, she imagined he could probably use a good meal.

A breeze carried another strong whiff of deer to her, and she decided to chance it. If he tried anything, she could flee or, if that was somehow not possible, she could howl for backup. With all the Redhawks on pee patrol, heavily marking around the plateau to establish their presence in the new territory, it wouldn't take long for someone to come to her aid. Taking up a brisk trot, she closed the distance between them quickly and approached with caution, her eyes wary but her body language relaxed. She greeted him by way of a wordless grin, her eyes following his to the prey they would hopefully take down.

Once she started to move in his direction, he turned his attention back to the hunt. Jagwyr slid forward at an reserved lope, strategically affording her the chance to come to his side without expending herself to do so. From the corner of his eye he beheld the grin she met him with, and he offered her a tip-down of his muzzle in return before he quickened his pace and weaved a route through the cover that would conceal their approach. "Doe. Fawn." He informed her in a deep, gravelly whisper.

His sense of distance was keen, honed by experience and the sear of hunger that came with failure. He slowed when they drew near even though the deer could not be seen through the thick web of branches. The wind and the deer's scent struggled to buffet the brush too, but it was detectable occasionally. The black wolf glanced to his hunting partner, passing a thoughtful glance over her. "You cut and drive," he said, leaving it to her to choose a target once they broke cover.

Jagwyr moved again, snaking and stealing the rest of the way to where the shrubs yielded to meadow. To where the deer could be seen grazing with their backs to them. The doe was closest, the fawn off to her right shoulder several lengths away. The wolf split off from his comrade, moving to the side, ready to break when she did to flank the game she selected.

She nodded to his terse instructions, and after a moment she understood that he intended for her to select their prey. Temptation led her to eye the doe with interest, but the more rational side of her brain told her that they ran a much greater chance of failure if they pursued the larger and stronger of the two. This was not the doe's first spring, and with age came intelligence and experience. Raven was hungry, and instinct told her to go for the weaker link: the fawn.

She caught the strange wolf's eye and whispered almost soundlessly, "Fawn." After confirming that he was ready, she quickly shot out of the brush in a blur of silent shadow, feet barely seeming to touch the earth as she flew across the distance toward their quarry. The doe saw them almost immediately and sprang to flee, but Raven was already moving to cut her off and drive her -- and the fawn -- back toward her partner. She was no expert hunter, but she knew that to succeed, they would have to separate the mother from her offspring to get the opening they needed to score their meal.

He had assessed her right. She cut through the brush in a way that seemed to defy their grasping branches, and beared down on their quarry with a fleet nimbleness he had simply not been carved for. He was not long in following her. Jagwyr grunted, a brief smile at the corner of his mouth, and lurched forward, taking up position some distance abreast of the dark female as they ran.

The doe's head shot up and she whipped it around to face them. She snorted, a loud high pitched sound — the alarm call — and up came the fawn's head with eyes wide. The doe stamped her foot and twisted on her heels. Her blazing white tail was flagging above her hips as she surged away, flying and leaping, her fawn bleating as it worked to keep pace with her.

The black wolf broke wide, flanking the deers' to their right as they ran and weaved, attempting to shake the predators on their tail. His hunting partner was on them nearly as soon as they made to flee, driving them toward Jagwyr, who met the doe with snapping teeth and snarls in an attempt to baffle her and break her stride; to hopefully give the dark girl a chance to cut the fawn from her side.

Little Raven didn't have the bulk or the strength to take down a large animal by herself, but what she did have was speed. She was light and nimble on her feet, and for a fleeting moment she wondered why she didn't do this more often. Most of the time, she stuck to her plants and medicinal research and left the hunting to the larger, stronger wolves of the pack. But she had forgotten how fun this could be as the wind whistled in her ears, adrenaline zinging through her system and making her blood burn and heart race.

She grinned wildly as her partner read her intentions perfectly, moving in sync with her to intercept the doe. With a terrifying snarl and a flash of teeth, he cut off the doe and she abruptly swerved, attempting to dart away from her attackers. The fawn did its best to keep pace with its mother, but it had the disadvantages of being smaller, slower, and very confused by the chaos around it. It stumbled, and in that instant Raven saw her opportunity. Like a black arrow, she shot in between the two of them, slashing at the mother's heels to drive her onward before whirling to face the fawn. The small deerling cried out for its mother but Raven buffeted its attempts to get around her.

It was not often the case — in fact it seldom was — but once in a blue moon a hunt unfurled in a way that could not have been more perfectly imagined. It was unexpected when running aside long time packmates whom were in sync with each other; it was doubly unexpected for it to happen when partnered with a complete stranger.

The fawn met its end in the confusion they crafted. His nimble comrade slipped between the deer, snapping at the doe's heels and then thwarting the fawn's attempts to follow. Jagwyr spurred the doe onward with his own snaps; leveraging her mortal fear and panic against her to separate the pair even further. He then spun and rushed the fawn, circling to come at it from its rear quarter while his partner barricaded it from the front.

He did not hesitate to commit to the kill. The black wolf barrelled into the fawn so hard as to knock it over as his teeth clamped shut on its slender throat. Its gargled cry for help stopped up the fleeing doe, who ran back towards the wolves, ears pinned back. She anxiously paced around them, desperate to help her fawn and attempting to push them off her young one. But as the fawn quickly fell limp under the crush of Jagwyr's jaws, the doe backed off.

There was no ceremony, no celebration. Not from Jagwyr, who let the fawn's head thump onto the ground as he got up and moved to the more tender lower belly, where his practiced teeth could split it open quickest and easiest. He shoved his snout into the viscera, seeking out the liver and tripe.

The doe looked on from the distance. Reluctant to leave her offspring even after its death.

Raven did not actually witness the kill, as her attention was solely on the doe. She drove the doe back with her teeth, emboldened by an instinctive energy she'd hardly known was there. Her white teeth flashed and rent the doe's forelegs as the mother attempted to maneuver around her and get to her fallen fawn. Finally, as the smell of the hot blood filled the air, the doe seemed to understand that all was lost and she backed off to a safe distance from the wolves. Panting, Raven remained in place, golden eyes locked onto the doe in case she decided to renew her attack while their backs were turned. It was an unnecessary precaution, however, as the doe soon turned and wandered away, looking disoriented and lost.

Raven felt no remorse. It was the way of the world to eat or be eaten, and the hunter had to survive. She turned to where her companion feasted at the belly and, eyeing him warily, began to gnaw on a tender rear haunch. The fresh meat and warm blood were, at that moment, the most wonderful thing she'd experienced in her life, and suddenly she felt very glad to have met this stranger and been invited along on this hunt.

He offered her a brief sidelong glance as she joined him at the warm carcass, grunting in acknowledgement of their shared success. Then he ate. He did not hasten but neither did he savor. The black wolf devoured with efficiency, until his stomach was distended with organs and meat from the backstraps and shoulder, and the white of his chin was stained red. His toes, too, were colored with blood.

Stepping aside, he scrubbed the side of his broad snout against his foreleg. Then his tongue swiped around his jowls as he lifted his head and glanced around them. The doe had gone from sight, and the meadow was quiet except for the hum of the breeze and the chirp of a small birds as they flitted among the grasses and carried twigs to their nests.

Jagwyr approached the fawn once more, plying the power of his jaws against a center rib until he broke it off. Skin and meat came with it, tattered and hanging. He lied down with it a few paces away, working his teeth against the young bone in recreation, to the pleasing sound of crunching and cracking.

He let his gaze fall unabashedly on his companion as he chewed.

She too ate until she could eat no more, her belly tight and round. With a sigh of satisfaction, she lay down in the grass a few feet from their prey and watched the enigmatic wolf with whom she'd shared her meal. He was large and strong, his coat healthy and lustrous. She had enjoyed their hunt immensely, particularly since she understood that it was not often two strangers managed to successfully work together so seamlessly. She admired his focus, as well, for she was not unaware of how distracting her heat scent could prove to be to the males around her.

With a soft groan, she rolled onto her side and enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her darkly-furred body. She felt sleep tug at her now that her belly was full, but she did not want to succumb to it here. Not even bothering to lift her head, she caught his eye as he gnawed at a rib bone and asked with a small grin, "So. With whom have I had the pleasure of enjoying this hunt today?"

His eyes leisurely explored her. They grazed the slenderness of her muzzle and brushed along the arc of her spine, to then fall against the point of her hip. She rolled then, and his ears shifted to hold her satiated groan as his gaze travelled across her flank and the curve of her rib, before returning to her slim and grinning face as she spoke to him.

"Jagwyr," he answered, pausing his work long enough to enunciate his name clearly in his gruff and gravelly tone, before breaking the bone's tapered edge with a loud crack. He rolled and crushed the fragment between his jaw teeth for several seconds, his studious and cool attention never wavering from her. "You? Got a pack nearby? A mate — hmm?" The black wolf lifted his head and cocked a brow, draping a broad paw across one end of the rib as it rested across the opposite wrist.

Under different circumstances, she might have been attracted to her companion. He was certainly more than handsome enough and in good health, and he had just proven his adept hunting skills. Something deep inside of her thrummed with interest, but she pushed it away without even considering it. He was not of her pack, so such a pairing would be forbidden unless he joined their ranks. Plus, her interest in Quixote was not a fleeting byproduct of the whims of her estrus. She had no desire to use him and then cast him aside.

Jagwyr was his name. And what an interesting name it was. She caught his gleaming verdant gaze and grinned again, offering her own name in return along with answers to his questions. "Raven Redhawk. My pack lives at the plateau near here. And yeah, I've got a mate." Were she and Quixote mates now? They hadn't talked about what happened or what it meant. She had no idea if he intended to stick with her after the hormones subsided, but for simplicity's sake right now, she went ahead and considered herself taken. She remained where she lay, but pulled herself upright and reciprocated his own questions back at him. "How 'bout you? Do you have a pack or a mate?"

He had long since abandoned his dependence on social niceties. So a roguish smile tugged at one corner of his mouth as she answered him. She did not hesitate and seemed to take no offense to the questionable politeness of his questions. He found her character as appealing as her figure and her hunting prowess.

"Raven," he repeated. "Hm. Can't see the resemblence." He deadpanned. His attention on her remained steadfast. "Too bad about the mate," the black wolf hummed. "You would have looked all the better beneath me."

Jagwyr did not break stride, did not pause for a reaction, rolling his muscled shoulders as he delivered his impassive answer to the same questions he had asked her. "Did once. Not now."

His eyes moved to the bone then, and he resumed his casual gnawing, twitching an ear as a mosquito buzzed around it.

Raven blushed heavily beneath her black fur at his words, and for a moment found herself speechless at his boldness. What the heck was there to say after that? Embarrassing as it was, though, she did not let it show on her face -- the only change in her expression was the arching of one brow. Truthfully, had she not already taken to Quixote, she might have been interested in this brash, wayward male. There was something intriguing about him, and there was certainly no denying that he was a very suitable prospect. The notion was definitely on his mind as well.

Fortunately she didn't have to struggle to respond to his awkward comment, for he gave her no time to answer him anyway before he continued on to answer her questions. "That's a shame," she said with a little shrug. "You're really an excellent hunter. My pack would love to have you if you were ever interested in settling down somewhere."

His teeth flashed as he grinned against the rib bone. "I'll keep that in mind."

There was a time he would have been disappointed that she was spoken for. There was a time he would have stubbornly met the challenge of courting her despite it, having seen in her many of the things he hungered for. Once, he had ambition, and a steadfast idea at where he wanted to end up. He had made it there too, to that tall peak in his mind's eye, and then had seen the ruin that waited on the other side. The fall that followed the rise.

Now, not even the swell of his cock in his sheath — aroused by her seasonal state — could spur him to chase game which required a marthon rather than a sprint; and that was all he had time and desire for now. He hunted for efficient satiation, as instant and effortless as it could be had. He took what was there to be taken in the moment — food and fucks alike — and no longer concerned himself with what once was and what may or may never be.

"There anything you can tell me about these lands?" The rib bone cracked again, splitting into two halves. The half he still gripped in his broad paws was jagged-edged on one end. He turned it, and continued to work his teeth against the smoother portion.

I so enjoy your writing. <3

They were a study in opposites, though neither of them knew it at that moment. Everything Raven had ever known had been a marathon. Her pursuit of medicine, her rise up the ranks, finding a mate, finding herself, all of it had been a labor measured in years. She was the master of marathons, sitting opposite the sovereign king of sprints. And yet conversation was so easy -- albeit somewhat inappropriate in parts. She liked him. People like Jagwyr could be really eye-opening at times, given the right subject.

He asked her about the lands, and she shrugged, lazing back over on her side and inhaling deeply the sweet fragrance of the soft grass, relishing the subtle, metallic notes of blood tinged in with the scent. "Honestly, I'm fairly new around here myself. My pack just moved here not long ago. Not sure how much I like it yet, to tell you the truth. Our plateau is a little swampy and exposed for my taste. But obviously, the hunting isn't bad."

and I yours!

He grunted as she described the plateau, bobbing his snout in agreement. The black wolf did not favor high ground for a home, and neither did he aspire to have wet paws all day, but he knew because he had seen for himself how preferred such ground was to small game, especially.

"Why the move?" He went on chewing, but then at once felt satisfied that his teeth had met bone enough, and he took a paw and swept the rib aside. He glanced at the carcass from the corner of his eye and swiped his tongue around his mouth, debating if he had any need or want of anything else from that fawn. He found that all he desired now was rest.

The idea of packing up and moving back to the caldera was never far from Raven's thoughts. It seemed like such a simple prospect, and it was one that she knew many of her packmates would support. But the timing was against them -- with Finley's pups being so young and fragile, and now with the possibility of her own pregnancy resulting from her coupling with Quixote -- and there was always the issue of pack conflict awaiting them there.

She sighed and responded to Jagwyr's inquiry, "There's a pack of assholes near our old home." Profanity wasn't a common facet of her vocabulary, but when it came to them, swear words weren't vulgar enough for how she felt. "They live at Blackfeather Woods, and they like to capture and torture people for fun. They got ahold of both my brother and sister, nearly killed 'em both." Bitterness sharpened the angles of her face as she thought back to those awful days -- seeing Wildfire broken and crumpled, remembering the sight of Titmouse's hideously broken leg. "We went to war with them. Afterward, our alpha decided to move us to avoid future bloodshed."

It was not the answer he expected but he was not surprised to hear it. Jagwyr was a world weary sort, cynical and pessimistic (realistic he would argue).

"Fair enough," he said. There were numerous questions that could be asked and they had fleeting come to his mind. But these days neither the black wolf's interests nor his cares stretched too far past his own paws. He was ready to leave, too. Had he intended to stay a while longer, he might have plied for more details to both pass the time and make further use of Raven's company.

He stood. Stretching out his thick forelimbs, he briefly stretched and then shook his coat. "Maybe you'll have better luck with your neighbors here," he commented with a grunt. Jagwyr turned away then, saying over his shoulder, "later," as he made to leave.

His departure was somewhat sudden, but Raven realized it was beginning to get a bit late. "Seeya," she said as he turned to leave, and pulled herself to her feet as well. There were a few good, meaty bits left from their kill, so she gathered what she could and carried it with her back to the plateau, intending to present it to Quixote. She was proud of herself -- it was one of the more successful hunts she'd had, and it felt good to occasionally be reminded that she was more than just a healer.