Kintla Flatlands pussyfoot

When the adults returned from the hunt empty-handed, Junior trotted away into the forest in search of either small prey or a cache—whichever turned up first. She licked her chops, her stomach pinching with hunger. She hadn't had a bite to eat since catching a vole on her way back from the creek. She felt tired and knew she couldn't do any exploration until she put away a decently sized meal.

She stumbled over one of the plateau's hidden stockpiles and helped herself to a stiff, dead hare. Hunger sated but stomach still burbling with dissatisfaction, Osprey loped toward the borders and dropped into the flat lands. She hoped to rustle up some grub on the plain, knowing that small animals like mice kept nests in the long grass.

A foul odor struck her suddenly. Following her nose around the natural curve of the plateau, she stopped suddenly when she came across the corpse of a wolf. Her heart jumped into her throat. He didn't look like anybody she knew; he had thick agouti fur and yellow eyes. There were no signs of violence on the body. She stood frozen, torn between moving closer to investigate and backing away from the glassy-eyed cadaver.

With the state of affairs back in Ouroboros settled; his Alpha Cara demoted to Beta Female after being defeated by Ptarmigan, Kaname left the valley to think. To plot. Knowing Cara, she might be planning to regain her former power. He would be happy to oblige her and kill the usurper. Especially now that she was weak and wounded. Powerless. He had seen it firsthand.

The assassin walked through the valley absentmindedly, focused on all the little details. How to escape if he was caught, where to hide....The only thing that made him snap back into reality was a strong smell. The smell of something dead. Rotting.

His ice-blue eyes searched his surroundings before settling on a dark body. The body of a wolf. He approached it, hoping to get a good look at the thing before noticing a smaller form nearby. A pup. The Beta Male chuffed softly to the child with mismatched eyes, standing close to the body. "Do you know this one?" He asked as he sniffed the carcass.

The voice made her jump. She turned and nearly jumped again, thinking her Uncle Atticus had suddenly appeared, apparently cognizant and verbal once more. She quickly realized it wasn't her uncle, nor anybody she knew, despite the fact that he would have blended in well with the plateau's primarily black population. She regarded the stranger warily, legs bracing stiffly.

"No," she answered truthfully, eyes following as he shifted nearer to the carcass and sniffed it. "Do you?"

"Not a clue." He replied. The assassin stared at the wolf's face, not recognizing it at all. So, none of them knew who he was. What a mystery. On closer inspection, the wolf had no signs of violence. No bite marks, no blood..

The girl was staring at him warily, legs stiffened and looking ready to leave in a moment. Kaname studied her curiously, seeing something familiar in the dark pelt and eyes. What was it? "Are you from a pack?" He said as he examined the body further. He must have died somehow. Disease? A fall?

Her uncle's lookalike didn't know the deceased either. Junior stared at him for a few beats, then looked down at the unfortunate wolf sprawled on the ground. She wondered why it smelled so bad. She knew that rotten meat could be rather malodorous, yet she always associated that stench with blood. There was no blood here.

When asked about her pack, Junior replied, "Yes. We're standing right beneath it." She tipped her head back, motioning toward the plateau overhead. They were technically not on the pack's territory, yet these were certainly the borderlands. It suddenly occurred to her that she should probably ask this wolf to step away from her home.

"You're too close. Let's go over here," the youth said, eyeing him and then turning to lope beyond the shadow of the plateau. They were still pretty close, yet the youngster didn't think it would be a problem if she accompanied him. "What about you? Are you from a pack? I'm Junior, by the way."

Now he remembered. The Plateau wolves. He had fought one of them. His doppleganger. She must be related to him somehow. He wouldn't pry into how. It wasn't his business or his concern. The pup told him to move, since he was close to the borders. Was he? He hadn't even noticed. He seemed to have problems detecting the plateau's borders sometimes.

He followed the dark pup, sitting down where she instructed him to sit. The girl called herself Junior, though not after asking him about his name and pack. "My name is Kaname. I am from Ouroboros Spine, south of here." He wondered if she knew of Silvertip before it moved. She looked close to half a year old. "That wolf has been here a while, hence the smell." He brought the conversation back to the body, seeing as it was much more important than his life story. "It is possible that he could have fallen to his death..."

When he introduced himself and mentioned Ouroboros Spine, her ear flicked. "I know you," she said without thinking, then amended, "My dad and me ran into Sitri when we were out exploring. He told us about you... and what happened to your first leaders."

Death seemed to be a theme as of late. Her eyes flicked back to the corpse but only briefly. "If he fell, he would've fallen off the plateau. But he's not from the plateau." You could practically hear the gears grinding in her head. "Maybe he was trespassing and one of our Wardens pushed him." Maybe it had been her dad or maybe even Pura (although the latter likely would've eaten his victim, leaving nothing for them to find).

The lack of blood still begged a lot of questions, though. Could the wolf have fallen (or been pushed) and not have bled, even a little bit? Junior didn't see how that could work. It was a mystery. But she was losing interest fast. The living, namely Kaname, intrigued her much more than the dead.

"What're you doing here anyway?" she questioned.

"How do you know me?" He was intrigued. Was his name that well-known? For what? She explained that she had met one of his own. Sitri. He hadn't seen much of the brute ever since Lecter buried himself with Jinx's body and commited suicide. After covering up the grave he had left, but he didn't know what became of the chocolate brown male.

The girl was smart, theorizing the lack of possibility that this wolf had fallen. The plateau was all pack territory, so this wolf probably trespassed. Junior even thought that one of the wardens chased them off the edge. But yet again. There was no blood. "A disease, perhaps? He collapsed and died here?" He mused, more to himself than the girl.

Junior was more curious towards him than the body. He was terribly close to her pack's territory. "I was taking a walk. I guess I was daydreaming, I didn't realize that I was this close until I smelled the body."

Kaname's response was rather boring. "Oh," she replied. Suddenly her interest in him began to dwindle, just as it had with the dead body. Honestly, she'd been having mood swings ever since that conversation with Kaskara. Don't think about it, she coached herself. But it was easier said than done and her upset over the issue stripped her of her usual luster.

"You should probably get out of here," the youngster said rather tonelessly, shifting her weight. "I have to go tell our Healer about the body," she fibbed, "and I can't leave you lurking so close to my pack's borders."

The pup had gotten bored from him. He could tell by the toneless quality of her voice, the way she lied to him. She was easy to read, though the girl tried to hide it. But he was too well versed in reading others to not notice her lack of interest. What had made her lose it? Was it what he said he was doing? How droll.

But Junior was right. He was very close to her pack's borders anyway. The last time he lingered by the Plateau he was scarred. Speaking of that encounter... "Before I go...tell me, do you know of another male that looks like me? I met him before a while back..." He hadn't even gotten his name. Had he known it, he probably would ensue in an evil twin escapade for a while. That would have been fun.

Kaname didn't argue with her, though he said he had a question before he left. The pup made no response, though her ears gave away her curiosity when they pricked to attention. When he asked, they fell back slightly. Uncle Atticus, she thought with a pang, wondering why he asked. Yet she pressed her lips closed against probing for details.

She shook her head no after a pause, then lingered silently until after he'd left. She didn't dislike him and didn't distrust him, either, per se. Junior just figured it was her duty as a pack wolf to make sure strangers didn't coming hanging around. And Dante would be pleased if and when she told him she'd behaved like a Warden, a thought which tugged a minute smile from her black lips.