Redtail Rise i unpack the heat with my oven mitts

blackboard in rain kept information longer than her brain did, but as with all dogs, diesel's nose tugged her towards simple things - food, shelter, company.

the memory of a good lay.

thinner now than then, chain links taking on her fur's hue. diesel tested her voice with a bark up the rise, followed up with more. 

strong, confident.

a smidge demanding.

tagging @Augur, otherwise aw+

new snow was close.

it kept augur the same: available. accessible. he left off his eternal search for the elk and hunted small game nearer the borders, feeding her as often as she needed.

and he waited.

buffalo hunter was still a welcome sight. augur whuffed loudly as he galloped to inspect her short fur and heavy jaws. to where had she gone?

Cameo!

Sunday grew larger by the day. But she knew there was much time to go yet. She believed she had found the place where she would whelp, and soon she would seclude herself there... but Sunday had more preparing to do, and more providing left as well. Sunday Morning, in this state, did not often go to the borders. But there had been a pheasant she had buried relatively close to them a week or two ago, and she was in no state to hunt a winged thing.

A bark sounded off nearby. Several more. Sunday dug the pheasant free, and then carried it with her. The Blod moved only near enough to see that the caller was being attended to, and there was her man! Her tail waved. She placed the pheasant down for a moment. The beast beside him was a strange thing, but a friend to him was a friend to her. Sunday Morning loosed a whuff in greeting and waved her tail to them both, her affectionate gaze lingering for a beat upon Mountain Boulder.


She was only passing through; Sunday Morning let out a series of amicable barks to relay to Mountain Boulder she had come to pick something up that she had buried, and picked up the thing to show them both the pheasant. Eating could not wait in her perpetually ravenous state, and so she departed the scene.

her man, her rebar-legged heat-stiffler, came galloping. her intact wrinkles curved into a smile.
 
first she sniffed and prodded back. again, no words from him. looked to her like she'd need to talk for both again, when a whuff interrupted. 

diesel cocked her head to see a rotund, pale thing greeting them. the wolf left quickly, belly and pheasant swaying. diesel raised a brow.

back to her man.

"shight 'or shore eyesh." she dragged her cheek up the side of his neck, parting to look up and smile at his face. "that re'indsh 'ee," she gestured with a shoulder towards where fatty went. "you know 'hat ha'ensh 'en a 'an and 'o'an like each other 'eeery 'uch?"

new snow. 

maybe it would be apparent that he saw much in her, from the way his hawk-yellow eyes followed the curved figure. 

she carried his children. augur was protective. he whuffed to the woman. she went on her way and his attention came back to buffalo hunter. she spoke in her odd sounds, and the man understood little.

he looked back in the direction new snow had gone, tongue lolling in contentment as he looked back at buffalo hunter. maybe she had come to join.

not sure if Avi ever met Diesel!

Augur, stalwart that he was, arrived first, and Avicus found herself moving past the retreating pregnant woman as she, too, answers the call. she spares only a brief glance backward before heading onward, pulling alongside her hunter with an interrogative whuff in his direction.

her eyes light upon the hulking beast at their border. her fur stands aloft for a long moment. she resembles a bear more than a wolf, though the smell's not right, and what she'd heard of her speech was garbled, much like her own.

who're you? Avicus inquires sharply, her gaze cutting sideways at Augur before returning to the stranger.

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her hazel peepers narrowed. was he...? did he...?

christ.

"hey." she chuffed to get his attention back. "heeey~" she repeated once she had him, aping girliness.

"you know, th' 'o'man getsh reeeal hea'y - like she chugged rocksh - and that shorta getsh in the 'ay shometimesh..." in mockery of grace her eyelids slapped, her paw swayed limply at the wrist. "-ut you know 'hat the 'rsht 'art ish?" she blonked at him.

diesel got onto her hindlegs and caught his face between her forepaws. 

"having to shit. out. sheven. dead. log-shized grey turdsh."

the bitch pushed his face away, again on all fours.

"sho i shure hope ya left that one-" a wide sweep of the paw in that one's direction. "-ide enoughh!"

diesel spat.

"who're you?"

riled up, the mastiff's head whipped around, jowls swaying and drool spraying. 

who the fuck are you is what diesel meant to say, jaws parting, before remembering. 

the mastiff swallowed down her words.

and snorted.

"ashk thish one." one meaty shoulder gestured at the big-baby-spawner.

aaaah edited bc i accidentally posted before avi <33 (and no they haven't met!! the speech impediment duo is finally complete!) 

augur was confused. the sounds went on.

red woman arrived, but buffalo hunter did not seem to notice.

she was touching him. pawing at him. this caused the hunter some tension, for he still did not comprehend. he only understood that something bad had occurred.

maybe it had come from their pairing.

he glanced to red woman. she too made similar sounds. perhaps she understood. now buffalo hunter spoke to his alpha female. augur waited.

things move quickly. she'd already opened her mouth to sharply object when the woman grasped Augur's face with her ugly paws. 

then drool spatters across her muzzle. ashk thish one—

it goes unheard. she rears and snaps her teeth toward the fleshy junction between the stranger's chin and throat. not enough to puncture, just to warn the insolent bitch.

backgh. OFF. Avicus barks, should the physical warning not be enough.

she again looks at Augur, this time with anger. he'd done nothing when she'd touched him.

who is this brute?!

teeth thurst froward to catch the fat, punctuated wrinkle on her throat, and diesel moved back, snarling in reply, but feeling the jaws grab her flesh and let go, as a threat. she backed off, putting the big man between she and the redhead.

diesel remembered too well what happened last time she tangoed with two angry wolves at once. not that she thought big guy would attack, but the rusted gears of her thoughts were turning, turning...

"you're shome kinda hoss here, eh?" the mastiff licked her chops. "ya know that chick ain't the only 'ne he knocked ah?" 

diesel slid her head under his chest, wrinkles curving into a smirk.

"we're hractically hamily."

buffalo hunter's behavior was beginning to aggravate augur. red woman's warning coupled with her look in his direction brought his hackles up. 

he had not pushed her away before due to his attempts to ascertain what had happened. but when buffalo hunter pushed closer, augur rumbled a sharp warning and pulled aside.

he looked to red woman. he motioned to buffalo hunter's underbelly with a tip of his muzzle. and then he sniffed the air, facing the direction that new snow had gone. a third gesture, to the place outside the rise where this one and he had killed the bison. she was useful. but she would not belong to him.

his yellow eyes were hard on buffalo hunter. it was not her words, it was her disrespect. he returned to the side of his leader; even if red woman was enraged with him this was his place, and the way buffalo hunter was acting ended their brief bond.

he growled again, warning her that he would enforce his alpha female's teeth if they flashed again.

she does comply—at least, to move away from Avicus. Augur is between the two of them, though she can see that his patience, too, is wearing thin. she moves to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her hunter, eyes sharp as her teeth, boring into the woman.

Avicus follows Augur's motions with a silent indigo gaze. they're clearly familiar. but it's the brute's turn to answer questions.

who are you? she asks again. there won't be a third time.

it's bad enough that the stranger acted so forward, but something had happened to make the Rise's resident pregnant wolf nervous, and she'd not stand for any trouble at their borders. not now, not ever.

diesel was bluntly rejected.

the way her big guy turned his back on her got the mastiff wide-eyed. when he looked, she gave him a look of furrowed, incredulous betrayal.

so that's how it is, and a wrinkle beneath one eye twitched. fuckin' whore.

her pallid gaze slid away from his pantomime to look at the redhead. she was in charge, if not of the whole damn gang he ran with, then of the situation. she was the growl that'd have diesel's one-night-stand throttling the dog.

a slick tongue squeezed out a ruined maw to lick at her drooly chops. mentally, she was thwacking her useless "fight" instinct with a rolled-up newspaper.

think, think.

at last, diesel took a step back.

"jusht shomeone 'ith un'inished 'usiness, who ain't gonna 'other you any'ore." she told the lisping sputtering pimp, lowering her head and tail as all good dogs do. "-ee all need shome closhure in our li'es." diesel tried a teethless smile, another cautious step taken backwards.

but muscles tensed in preparation to bolt.

another creature might have felt quite cruelly the thrust of guilt in one's chest.

but augur was a beast of pure instinct.

once they had hunted together. once he had seen in her strong children and the potential for a companion.

but she had gone.

and new snow had come. now the huntress grew full with his children and he must protect them. this meant defending his place in the rise. and that meant heeding the tone of red woman.

buffalo hunter retreated. the man rumbled low but quieted, looking to his leader should she seek to question him further.

good riddance. still struggling with parsing the woman's speech, Avicus says nothing in return, instead fixing a gimlet glare upon the beast as she lumbers away. should she need more of a cue, the ruddy woman will move closer, growling at the interloper's heels.

and she will not look away until this strange threat has passed beyond the horizon.

don' lehh' her come here again, Avicus commands, looking at Augur after a few long moments of picking through her thoughts and choosing the right words. her shoulders have relaxed; clearly, she trusts her hunter, but the way that woman had acted toward him. . .

she shakes her pelt out with a sigh, a brief snort, and then wheels 'round, heading back to her business. she gives a chuff over her shoulder in invitation for Augur to follow if desired.

red woman called. he would follow, after a moment of stropping his claws along the border.

he smeared scent from his footpads upon their boundaries and then raced after her with a revolving tail.

buffalo hunter's bond with him was severed.