Sequoia Coast sipping from a straw

For @Falwasi! Takes place outside Ankyra Sound. FYI, Spyro only speaks Greek, and he's not terribly friendly.

There were few times that Spyro left the comfort of the sound, but this was one of them. He had been tracking a deer for some time now. She was alone, likely injured by the way her footprints were staggered, and she was alone. He continued to move forward at a steady pace, ears, eyes, and nose to the ground as he followed the fresh trail. He had a good feeling about this one, and if it would help to feed the mothers and sisters, Spyro had all the more reason to want to fell the beast. She could not have been very large, but she would have to do.

Then... there. She was digging through the light dusting of snow, grazing on what she could find, and clearly favoring her back left leg. An easy target indeed, but this was not the right place, nor the right time. Spyridon waited, crouched low behind a bush, readying himself for the attack.

[size=x-small]Thank you! Weather change while writing this xD[/size]

She had often found herself leaving the safety and comfort of the Creek. Falwasi had no explanation for this though, besides that she wanted to know more of her residence, and exploring was required in that area.

After a decent hunt, the lissome wolf started to stray further west of Swiftcurrent Creek. The air was of a thick, damp humidity that made her pelt stick up slightly, were it not for the rain slapping it back down and wetting her fur as an entirety.

Short hours passed by until the rain died into a drizzle and she neared closer to a strong scent ahead — an unfamiliar scent. Just as she halted, Falwasi no longer felt any rain on her body. She looked up; snow. The wind was still and it did not help in drying her fur, so she gave herself a mighty shake as soft, featherweight particles of snow replaced the water's living.

Spyro might have gone after the beast if another scent hadn't trickled toward him. He curled his lip, annoyed that another wolf might be so close by while he was attempting to catch food for his sisters. He would have to abandon this one and come back to it, he knew that much. He could not trust an outsider to help him, especially considering none of them (save the stranger who had met with Caiaphas) spoke his language. In the literal sense, of course. Greek was not commonly taught here, aside from the wolves who lived in the sound, and Spyro would be surprised to hear it spoken anywhere else.

Sighing, he moved toward the scent until he found the source: a girl. She was in seemingly good health, but she smelled of another pack he did not recognize. That wasn't surprising, considering Spyro had kept to Ankyra Sound until today. Even so, he was not far outside of the sisters' domain. He observed, silently, waiting for her to notice him. What she did from there would determine his next course of action.

An ebony figure approached her, and as it neared, it made out the shape of a wolf. Falwasi did not move from her position, snow starting to settle around her. He was part of the pack further ahead. She had gained unwanted attention. Well, she kind of asked for it. Most pack wolves that sniffed out a neighbouring pack member or loner would be interested enough to check it out for themselves.

Falwasi lifted her muzzle a little higher. The snow tickled, but she didn't let it show. "What pack lies ahead?," she asked, monotone. It would be nice to know the name, even if she was certain a pack resided perhaps on the sands. Somehow just the knowledge of knowing where it was wasn't enough. I wasn't... complete.

The tawny woman could just make out the eyes that were obscured by the wolf's thick black coat. They were green, very green. Falwasi stood still as she waited for the stranger to answer, her damp fur causing her skin to ignore the heat produced by her body.

Just as he suspected. “Δεν μιλώ για την κοινή γλώσσα,” he replied, the words sliding off his tongue the way they had since he was but a babe. He had never been taught the common tongue. Knowing it was a risk to The Nereides, and he was meant to be an asset. Spyridon's duty was to teach the young spawn how to behave as consorts, protect the sisters, and bring them food. Anything beyond that was out of his realm, and not his to deal with.

He stared levelly at the girl, wondering if she was happy where she was. How could anybody be happy without knowing their place? Spyro had never understood the other packs, nor had he ever attempted to. They were alien, foreign, strange societies that he wanted no part in.

The words that came out of the stranger's mouth were uncommon, and they surprised Falwasi. Was his name... Milo? She thought she heard that somewhere in his words, but she had no idea what he just said, and she furrowed her brows at him. Was this the man who taught Star to fish? Surely it had to be; he was foreign and he didn't live too far away from the Emberwood.

Falwasi focused hard on the words she was about to speak. If he didn't know her arctic pack-mate, it could potentially confuse him. Oh well. "Swiftcurrent Creek? Fish?," she suggested. Perhaps Star had spoken these words, too, and the man was smart enough to recall them.

The fallow didn't know any languages other than English. Before she arrived at the Wilds, she knew no such thing of other languages. They ceased to exist in her mind. This was the first wolf she had met that spoke purely one language (unless his foreign sentence was a introductory greeting). Apart from the present male, she knew Shadow spoke English, and a language the Creek wolves called 'Latin'. That was about it.

She spoke more foreign words, her voice raising at the end of two to indicate that she was asking questions. Considering Spyridon did not understand any of what she said, he shook his head. “Δεν καταλαβαίνω.” He gave her a sympathetic look and shrugged his shoulders, hoping it would clarify his words in some way. Body language was universal and did not need their voices to be understood. Unfortunately, the finer details of conversations with outsiders were lost on him, but general ideas could be passed along with movements and more primal sounds.

Spyridon only wished he knew how to tell her to get lost so that he could continue to track down the deer he so desperately wished to bring back to the sound. His ear twitched, hoping that his intended meal would not hobble off while he was dealing with this stranger. If so, it meant he had come all this way for nothing. Perhaps if he had been a more trusting wolf, he would have invited her along for the hunt. As it was, he knew that any meat he brought down would be going directly back to the sisters, nowhere else. He had no intention of sharing his kill with somebody he did not know.

[size=x-small]Not sure what prey he was hunting, so will be vague![/size]

Falwasi was impatient, and she wasn't ready to play charades. The wolf gave her a shrug, that clearly said he didn't understand. How could a wolf live in a pack's community without being able to communicate? Surely it should be entirely frustrating. The female could never do it.

The Creek wolf tilted her nose slightly upwards. Prey. Falwasi conjured an image of the beast in her mind. Large, delicious and vulnerable. She knew she was keeping the male from his hunt.

With a toss of her head in the direction of the prey, she spoke again. "Go," she said, hoping he would at least understand the two lettered word. He had been awfully patient with her; Falwasi would have never abandoned a kill like that, nor would she expect a stranger to join her in the hunt. It wasn't hers to snatch, after all.

She quipped something, a short word, and threw her muzzle in the direction of the deer he had been tracking. He needn't any further instruction, and so he glanced back at her only once before sauntering off toward his intended kill. Spyridon's ears splayed backward, ensuring that she was not planning on following him. A few hundred yards away, though, and he was certain that she would do no such thing. Perhaps a more sharing wolf would have offered to give her a small portion of the meal, but Spyro lived and died for his sirens, nobody else.

Forgetting the common female just as quickly as he had met her, Spyro was soon on the prowl again, tracking down the meal he hoped to bring back to Ankyra Sound. He stepped lightly, tracking the smallish doe until he found the right moment to spring upon her, jaws latching onto her hindquarters as he brought her down with the sheer weight of his body. She bleated frantically, but she'd been separated from her herd for quite some time, and nobody was there to save her. She kicked and scrambled, but Spyro's grip held true, and soon Spyro managed to bleed her out enough so that she faltered. Taking the opportunity, the large male wrapped his jaws around her thrashing neck, biting down with all the force that nature allowed him. The doe's bleating stopped abruptly, replaced with soft gurgling sounds as the last of her life left her.

Spyro would eat his fill, then take the larger parts back to the sound to share with his sisters. He knew there was risk in doing this, especially since somebody else could find the fresh kill, but it was better than leaving the whole thing here, and he couldn't drag the whole beast back by himself. Hopefully, with the help of some of the sirens, they could store most of it in the caches.

[size=x-small]Thanks for the thread <3[/size]

Exhaling a breath that she didn't realise she was holding in, Falwasi turned away, stretching her legs that were stiff from standing in the cold, even from their brief 'conversation'. She was pleased the male had understood the word, the most part probably demonstrated by her body language, but all the same it was successful.

As she trotted away, the wolfess heard the frantic bleating of a deer, the animal she was so likened to, that her name carried some significance from it. The animals were balletic and gentle, and the one the charcoaled male attacked was dead now, its call cut short, the grace it once carried now gone.