The Tangle sexy fashion cactus

@Ingram - click for entertainment

Furi purposefully spends her mornings avoiding @Blixen. They’d had an awkward reuniting in the forest before returning home and what little time they’ve spent together since they’ve been back, she tries to avoid talking about anything in particular that might try to get something out of her. As much as she wants to try and figure things out on her own, she has too much to think about, and her relationship with Blixen is too much to handle when she can’t find her friends. Arrille’s scent from Drageda is long gone, as well as a few others, but she doesn’t even know where to begin to look for him. He didn’t have a good foothold in Drageda to warrant them all searching for him, or even going to war for him, but she has to find him. He isn’t good on his own and she can only assume the worst has happened.
 
She moves east as the day begins to brighten the sky, skirting out of the borders before Blixen can catch on to her. They’d been gone so long that any fresh scent away from the cliffs have long since faded, and no one else has any answers or directions, so she simple wanders until something catches her attention. Now faced with the barrier that is the tangle, she stops short before things get too bad. It has been a while since she’s been here but she didn’t have the best experience, aside from meeting a new friend. Her nose searches for anything that indicates @Sif may have been here recently but the way they parted once before doesn’t give her a lot of hope.
 
Instead of marching right into the tangle, she decides to skirt the outsides where it’s safe and there’s no chance she’ll get tangled up and in need of help.

unlike furi, ingram had marched right into the tange -- and the tangle had spat him back out.

he was battered, stung and full of thorned briars by the time he wrestled free of the bramble's thickness -- and well beyond exhausted. trying his best to disguise his limp he struck west. he had not seen his sibling in weeks and lycaon's avoidance vexed him; he was still brimming with euphoria over his meeting with chusi and the only wolf in the world he wanted to share his happiness with was nowhere to be found.

not that lycaon was the fount of happiness himself, but ingram missed his brother dearly.

he had not gone far before he saw a thin figure in the distance. at first he had mistaken her form for the strange siren lycaon affectionately called mana and had made every effort to conceal himself from detection -- until the wind swung and her scent came tumbling down the hill. he was slightly relieved she was not who he had assumed her to be and he stopped in his tracks with his posture neutral, a quiet chuff given in her general direction.

upon closer inspection ingram thought she was young - perhaps younger than he -- and wrongly assumed that might make her more affable upon approach. stupid, naive ingram, thinking every which wolf in the world wanted to be his friend -- it would be a long time yet before he figured out that not every wolf in the wilderness was approachable.

The chuff pulls her attention and her eyes widen, turning her head to see the other wolf. She thinks of Sif, and almost spins around to greet her, but a look that lasts longer than a few seconds keeps her from rushing the distance close. Slowly, she turns to face him and get a better look but he is no more familiar than before. After going through the last few months, she’s a little wary of the situation, and having lost more than anticipated she isn’t entirely sure how to greet the male.

Furi mimics the sound she heard, ears back against her head, and waves her tail a few times in hopes she doesn’t find any ill-intent in his approach. After realizing she suddenly has questions—where had he come from? where is he going? why is he here?—but she isn’t so sure she should voice them now. Had he been following her and she didn’t know it? Her beard begins to beat faster in her chest and she sucks in a breath and offers a quiet greeting in return: ”Hey...”

rapidly the juvenile spun round to face him - for a moment ingram seemed taken aback by the speediness of her gesture. she assessed him in a way that made ingram feel as if she was uncertain, or at the very least, somewhat perturbed by his arrival. his ears mirrored her own as they pulled back, but he kept his position neutral and his expression ambivalent.

he was not so sure by her greeting that his presence was welcoming -- while she emanated no hostile behavior (not that ingram would notice, the obtuse clod that he was) he still felt somewhat at unease. he had never been a sociable wolf - not in the extent that he had never met a stranger, so he cleared his throat and offered a wave of his tail as he spoke. "hey. i'm ingram. you seen those rabbits anywhere? or on the subject of seeing things, have you seen a little sulking white wolf anywhere? looks kinda like me but less ravishingly handsome? 'fraid i lost him." damn it, if it wasn't wylla he was looking for it was lycaon. at this point he might as well get used to sibling departure.

There’s no direct threat from the stranger but she does not ease up ye. She mimics the wag of the tail, keeping hers flowing easily behind her. “No, I haven’t seen any rabbits,” she says, glancing off into the tangle. To be fair, she doesn’t really know—she hasn’t been paying that much attention—but there’d been nothing obvious at least. But she does know for certain she hasn’t seen another wolf, considering she’s searching for one herself. “And no, I haven’t seen anyone either. I’m Furi,” she adds on and twists her lips, debating.
 
“I um, I’m looking for someone too. I just didn’t want to go in there,” she says, gesturing with her nose to the depths of the tangle. By the looks of it, he had just of a rough time as she once had. “He’s white with sandy legs,” she explains, ears twitching upon her head as she decides to close the distance a little.

as it just so happened, ingram knew someone with white fur and sandy legs. someone more intrepid than he may have suggested it inadvisable to share this knowledge, but ingram was stupid -- or at the very least, lacked enough world experience to be jaded enough to play close to his heart and keep his mouth from getting ahead of him. his ears worked forward in surprise and their tense position betrayed his recognition of the wolf furi spoke of.

"oh! i know someone like that... arrille?" he queried, propping his shoulder out for dramatic effect as he wiggled what little eyebrow he had. in his mind, being forthright with such information might garner him favor -- he had very little luck wooing chusi, maybe this wolf would be more receptive to his awkward and inept affections.

in truth, ingram knew nothing of the circumstance surrounding arrille's introduction into grimnismal. he assumed the youth had come with the dark-masked wych and her stalwart gargoyle companion -- and had never thought to ask the true nature of the boy's arrival on their shore.

Ingram lights up and her eyes widen in surprise but eventually any expression fades away between maybe neutral, maybe displeased, but her brows knit together in confusion leaves it to question. Furi swallows, uncertain what to do with the information now that she’s found someone that’s seen him. And enough to exchange names and be familiar. But it’s surely in passing and Arrille is long gone.
 
“Yeah, actually…” she says but pauses, now unsure if she really wants to know. “Where did you see him?” she decides to go with as her features relax.

furi was an enigma to ingram, if only because she was completely oblivious to his flirting -- it didn't occur to him that she was too young, but it did to occur to him that she seemed concerned by their mutual friend's well being. or at least, he assumed it was a mutual friend.

there ingram went, making assumptions he probably shouldn't have. he gave another wag of his tail but for a moment paused, remembering wylla and how austere she had been the last time a wolf broached their borders. would wylla or lycaon appreciate him being so forth-coming? that thought troubled him but for a second before he blithely pushed it away in true reckless ingram fashion.

"he's my friend. he lives with me in ankyra sound." little did ingram know he might be betraying his friend by offering such information. as far as he knew, furi was simply looking out for an old friend, same as he.

It hurts, for some reason, to hear Ingram is Arrille’s friend. She stiffens a little but tries to avoid any major shift in her posture, as much as she wanted to end the conversation and run home to deal with this. Instead, she thinks about Étoille and what he did during the war and the things he’s told her. If she were not so oblivious to his a-little-too-friendly-nature, she could use it to her advantage, but she doesn’t control much of her physical movement to avoid giving away more hurt than she intends.
 
“I didn’t know there was a pack there,” she says and frowns, looking away. There are more questions she has but she doubts he’ll be the one to answer them.

ingram thought he detected a miniscule shift in furi's posture -- like something in ones' peripheral vision it was fleeting and he had no word for it. he would not have acted on that impression were it not for what she did next -- look away. ingram thought she was avoiding his gaze, and he realized something might be amiss. a frown worked its way to the bottom of his muzzle and he followed her gaze with confusion. was it him? had he said something?

like chusi, this girl was confusing. he didn't understand what had just happened and it showed evident as day on his troubled features. "yeah..." he answered in rejoinder, his reply tapering off as he too turned away. if she could not bear to look at him, he would not pressure her by staring.

it occurred to him far too late that he could possibly reel in the conversation and salvage this awkward meeting by asking her questions, but would it even be worth it? she seemed suddenly distant. "did i say something wrong?"

As much as Furi wants to shift the conversation to an end, she wonders if it will do more damage than good? She’d just been told something that impacts more than just her—her entire pack—and leaving immediately after doesn’t seem that suspicious. Ha.

“Um, no… I guess I’m surprised,” she says, taking a slow inhale as her heart pounds heavy in her chest. Can he hear it? “There wasn’t a pack when I was last there,” she comments, one ear twitching flat upon her head briefly as she tests her limits.

there it was again, or at least ingram fancied he saw it -- a flitting expression that he could not give identity to. he was convinced he had said something, but didn't know what -- and now all he was left with was a strange numbness in his tongue as he labored on how to retrieve this suddenly-awkward conversation from its eventual end.

"oh." he said slowly, still misinterpreting her disquiet. "yeah. been there a few weeks now." he tried to smile and joke: "where have you been?" he offered a lopsided grin to accompany his feeble joke, unaware that it might not be received so kindly.

It seems their creation happened while the majority of them were gone. They even took one from their new neighbors—that wasn’t a great way to start—and she hasn’t even considered anyone. She’d gone after Arrille first and foremost but she realizes she hasn’t tracked down Rose yet (is she there too? Rose wouldn’t do that to her…) but none of these can be answered without possibly getting into trouble. Blixen’s words ring in her mind to be careful and wary of outsiders and, now betrayed by one, does so. But where is the harm in answering if it is for the good of them? Surely some things will benefit them. When he smiles, she frowns, and watches his face as he tries to lighten the situation. After a quiet few seconds, she finally responds:

“War.”

ingram's smile was not returned in a way he expected. instead she seemed to become even more distant. well fuck. his grin slowly melts off of his face like ice held under a flame and he looks at her once more with a mixture of confusion and, well frankly, sadness. ingram thought highly of himself in a way that he thought his presence ought to be enjoyable for anyone.. but furi sure didn't seem happy.

she dropped a weighty monosyllablic answer and ingram is left struggling for a witty rejoinder. why couldn't he be more like lycaon, with a tongue as keen as a raptor's beak? he wilted a little bit then. "ohh." he repeated, his tail waved in a half-hearted gesture. his eyes lit up as he thought of his next question. "d'you guys win?" cue idiotic grin again.

She shifted the conversation too far onto her side as he continues with another question, following up from the first. Perhaps she should have left it alone and moved on. She’d gotten the information she thinks she needs and left. “Yeah,” she says, licks her lips. “Chased the survivors out of the valley,” she adds though the exact details are beyond her. Eske and Étoille have shared a few details but she never saw anything first hand and she doesn’t have anything to show for it, but she doesn’t mention her lack of participation. “I should go, though,” she says, glancing away and shifting her position to return the way she came should the other not have anything else to hold her back.

ingram wasn't always the brightest, but he knew a staggering conversation when he saw one. his ears perked as she mentioned they were victorious and he wanted to smile and warmly congratulate her, but she had grown oddly distance. if by chance she looked his way, she might have seen the last soft touches of a grin still lingering on his muzzle.

"that's good." he exhaled out, his voice breathy -- he did not move to stop her as she made to leave. he was still puzzled on what he had said to cause her to turn suddenly, but give him ten minutes and he would have found something else to obsessively fixate over. "okay. goodbye." he waved his tail in a friendly manner, giving her one last look before he looped back the way he came.