Fairspell Meadow Dust off your boots

These wilds were not the only location hit by the locust swarm, but they were the most affected by far. Macintosh's eyes combed the distant trees as he thumped along, mulling over whether his decision to keep going in this direction was wise. Should shit hit the fan, he would be welcomed back at Chokecherry Bramble, but begrudgingly. You could say he was an odd one in his family, but he didn't shame them, and yet he brought them no joy or glory either.

Leaving hadn't been hard, but Macintosh pushed the thoughts away all the same and brought himself back to the present. Locust swarm or none, this was a new land and Mac was ever interested in the goings on of packs that might inhabit new places. He smacked his lips and pressed on, paws thumping and tail swinging, while trying not to look too hard at the devastated trees on the horizon.

mind if i hop in? :3

The passing winter had left the aging male with a bad case of sarcoptic mange- a parasite that had left him nibbling insistently at his haunches. Having probably picked it up on his wanderings outside Teekon, Dovev was just starting to recover. The male's fur hung in patches off his lower back legs as his made his way back into the lands he called home for the past several years. That, coupled with traveling alone and the depletion of prey had left the loner looking weary, his grey eyes gaunt in their sockets.

Although he had never been this far south, Dovev needed to cover vast amounts of land just to pick up some nutrition, relying on only himself to provide. He was getting too old for this. There was a time for adventure, and there was a time to settle. The white brute needed it, and hopefully this spring and the impending wolf smell- in fact, he could almost spy the brown creature ahead of him, would turn up roses. Framed by the bare pines, Dovev stopped to eye the male trotting along the edge of the treeline curiously.

His stride was lackadaisical and devoid of purpose as he slowed in the meadow. There were endless directions he could choose now, and all of them would no doubt lead to somewhere interesting. He could turn north and head along the mountains, or maybe even through them, and see what sorts of tribes lived among the spires. He could turn west and bypass the foreboding woods in the distance, perhaps even make his way to the domed mount he could just make out from here. Or he could keep walking toward the trees, leaving behind the other trees, to which he turned now.

Macintosh was surprised to see not only trees, but a white-furred wolf among them. From this distance, Dovev's mange and eye colour were completely invisible to Mac, but he could tell the wolf's size was on par with his own. Unlike him, however, Dovev probably was used to using his size. Mac's was mostly just inconvenient. He narrowed his sea green eyes suspiciously and wondered just how long Dovev had been standing there, watching him. The other male was out of earshot, but Macintosh was a wolf, and wolves could speak across miles readily in other ways. His tail dropped neutrally to his hocks and swung lightly, and he rearranged his body to be head-on, with ears planed and head drooped comfortably between his shoulder blades.

There was not a thing about him to suggest that he was intimidating or hostile, and he hoped that that would please Dovev enough to quit staring at him like he was, or even approach if a social mood struck him.

He had realized it had been a fair while since he had the chance to encounter another of his kind, so it was well enough that it began in a non-confrontational way. Dovev didn't have his old strength, and he thought it would take longer to rebuild his former mass, if he did at all. The male was reaching the point where he would probably be less of a gangster and more of an aging, laid back creature. It was just as well, for Dovev had grown tired of his aloofness.

The stranger had a oaken, almost honeyish brown hue to his coat, and held a neutral stance. Inching closer, Dovev weighed his options with a thoughtful lick to his upper snout. Chancing a chase against this other male was pitiful; there were no clear resources to be contested. However, it might be worth some interrogation as to the surrounding landscape. Dovev had spent his time much farther north of this valley, and having reentered Teekon a short while ago, it would make sense to ask the locals.

Know of any good hunting round here? he called out, his own tail swinging like a pendulumn against his back ankles. The arctic creature looked a bit more weary than usual, with what most of his fur incesscently scratched away.

Dovev's posture hardly changed, but Macintosh chanced a few steps in the man's direction, enough to put them within earshot of one another. His tail swung easily at his hocks, unconsciously mirroring the sway of the Arctic wolf's when the man called out a question. Macintosh's ears perked heartily, and for a moment he mulled it over. The historian wished he had something more to say than what he did, but that was not the case.

"Unfortunately, no," he answered loudly. "I'm too new here, but I'd say prospects look grim." And indeed they did. The entire wilds as he had experienced them was stripped bare of sustenance for the prey, and even the dumbest of wolves could recognize the danger of that. Macintosh was not the dumbest of wolves and saw the bleak reality for what it was, but his plan was not to remain here anyway. When hunger began to press his gut, Macintosh would return from whence he came.

"Well, unless you can sprout wings and fly," he added as an afterthought when a crow burst from the canopy under which Dovev stood. Birds were not fare for wolves, however; they were too tricky to catch, and too oft could hop away into the sky at a moment's notice.

I'm losing my patience with these prospects, Dovev responded as he glanced about. He looked harried with his loose tufts of fur and skinny legs. He had always been a bit possesive about food, which partially stemmed from his pure love to tear through skin. He doubt he could sate that love in his current state, and it was driving him to desperation.
He didn't know how long he could keep up his easy going attitude, which he disdained. Dovev felt as if he were a begger every time he approached a wolf in his starved state, as if he was broadcasting his message as weak imbecile. His ears flicked. No matter what he thought of himself, he couldn't keep himself on this diet for much longer.

The white male glanced after Macintosh's upturned muzzle which followed the black bird flapping underneath the trees. Often times crows and ravens were guides for food, being carrion eaters and such. But he'd notice the birds flock to him now, instead to kills, their caws sharp. They were demanding him to do his duty as a wolf and hunt. 

We're disappointing our helpers, those crows.
He started thoughtfully after the bird for a moment before turning to the stranger. The mottled brown male had mentioned his foreign status and the arctic beast cocked his head. This younger male had left his home at a bad time. Dovev could easily see Macintosh's slightly healthier state wane with the days and meet the same impending fate Dovev faced- starvation and death, splayed out on a hillside somewhere.

"No sense in getting fed up with circumstances you can't control," opined Macintosh, who believed in going with the flow. His family was comprised of wolves who lived and breathed conflict and anger. Macintosh had grown up with a different mindset, and found it unproductive to blame the world for his problems. The famine was brutal on the wolves, but the locusts that had surely begun it were no doubt living the high life. All things had their time.

Dovev made a fair point about the birds, though. Mac rarely spent time thinking about how ravens and wolves helped one another. It was an incidental relationship formed over many generations, not one that either species likely acknowledged often but one that defined them. The ravens had nothing to eat without the success of the wolves' hunts. "I suppose you're right," he agreed as the crow winged away into the horizon. They could not lead the wolves to food where there was none.

"Maybe if you follow it, it will lead you to good fortune," Macintosh suggested. He himself had no desire to follow the bird but Dovev appeared to be in a worse way than him.