Mount Apikuni The Scar on the Mountain

@Kodokuna I’m keeping this vague because our thread with Ferdie isn’t done yet. Set some time after that thread, but before Red joins SS, maybe? I can always go back and change it later. Also, I was playing a lot off of the description of Mount Apikuni for this post. You may want to read it before responding so you know what I’m talking about.

It was raining lightly that mid-afternoon when Red decided she needed to go exploring again. Her Coyote blood made her restless, and the urge to move was a constant. She still had no memory of her life before the Teekon Wilds, but that didn’t matter so much to her anymore. All she knew now was that, so far, she was enjoying her life here more than she had previously thought possible. Slowly, she was becoming braver and more likely to step up to a wolf, rather than running from them. This was a good thing. She was building up her courage to join a pack, and she already had a feeling she knew which pack to choose. Kodokuna had been kind to her, as well as the alpha male. They had fed her, and she felt tied to them somehow. Maybe she was just being dramatic, but she didn’t care. She knew she needed to find a pack to live in one way or the other. Why not choose the pack with wolves you already knew, and who had been nice to you? That seemed like a smarter option than traipsing all over the place waiting to stumble on more packs that might not be so friendly.

She was thinking about all of this as she made her way to her destination. She had seen Mount Apikuni from a distance and decided that morning that she needed to conquer it. She would be the greatest explorer ever, which would later come in handy when she pursued the Outrider Trade. The muscle she was gaining in her legs was traveling to her shoulders as well, so that now she was still small, but also lithe and strong - like a jungle cat, only not.

As she approached the mountain, she noticed that only one-half of it seemed to be thriving. The other half, the northern face, was a dark canvas of sheer rock that looked broken. And small, hardly noticeable pokes of green were coming up from the soil. Something odd had happened on this side that hadn’t happened to the rest of the mountain. It had been years since the landslide and fire, so the clues leftover were few and far between. There was no ash to cue Red to the forest fire, and the rocks and boulders from the landslide had long ago been swallowed by the earth where they’d settled at the bottom of the mountain. Now it looked as though Apikuni had always been this weirdly deformed formation sprouting from the ground.

But the coywolf who stood at its base knew something had happened, and with a determined air began the trek up to the darkest part of the northern face, where the tiny saplings of trees were beginning to grow back after months of nothing but ash.

Kodokuna chased a large deer across the base of Mount Apikuni, it was fast but Koko knew she would last longer than he would. She followed him closely, hoping to bring home a large gift for Ferdie and Jace who had been so welcoming.

A familiar scent caught in Kodokuna's nostrils, Red, the coywolf she had met a few days earlier was traveling up the north face of the mountain. Kodo let out a long howl and abandoned her hunt to join the she-wolve's adventure.

"Hey! Wait for me!" She called as she tried to catch up to her new friends progress.

This post feels pathetically short…

Red was only a few feet up the side of the mountain when suddenly her trek was interrupted by a howl. It sounded close by, which frightened her at first, until she realized that it was only Kodokuna - the chimera wolf who had caught her a fish the other day. She turned to look downwards and wagged her tail happily as she saw her friend begin the hike up to meet her. She barked a greeting and began picking her way carefully down to meet her. As she approached her friend, the coywolf smelled the faint tinge of deer on her pelt, and her mouth watered automatically. She looked around for the culprit of the smell but didn’t see any deer nearby.

Red leaned in toward Kodo and attempted to sniff at her questioningly, to say, “You smell like deer. Where is it?”

Seems like my normal length haha

"Last I checked he was headed east, big rack on him too." She replied wagging her tail excitedly. She had wanted that deer, perhaps her friend would help her take him down. She smiled at the coywolf and walked around her smelling where she had been. "Why were you going up the mountain? It's dangerous." Her question was born out of her natural curiosity, she hoped there had been a reason Red was going up, perhaps she saw an animal up there and had gone to hunt for it.

Red listened as Kodokuna told her that the buck had gone east. She tried searching for the creature with her eyes, but he must have disappeared around the side of the mountain, for she did not see him now. She supposed she was lucky she wasn’t hungry, or the mention of a big, juicy deer would probably have driven her crazy. She had hunted a few times before getting here, so she was fine now. Though she could hear the longing in her friend’s voice. She was about to suggest they go hunt the creature down, but then she saw Kodo sniffing the ground all around her.

“Why were you going up the mountain?” her friend asked. “It’s dangerous.”

The coywolf barked excitedly, wagging her tail. She bounded up a few feet above her friend, and then looked down at her, gesturing with her head to the rest of the mountain. That was her way of saying, “I wanted to explore! I’m excited! Come with me!” She took a few more steps upwards, and then stopped and waited to see if Kodo would follow. She wanted adventure! She wanted a story to tell later. She hoped her new friend would come, because all great adventurers need good friends at their side.

Kodo watched her friend lope excitedly up further up the mountain before following.

"Count me in!" She barked and let a long excited howl ring through the air. She too loved adventure and having a friend with her was even more exciting. Most exploring that Kodo did was on her own, alone, but now she finally had a friend to call her own.

"Do you know where you want to go?" She questioned as her tail wagged feverishly, this was turning out to be a day to remember. First she had caught a fat rabbit and now she would get to go explore the one part of the pack lands she hadn't yet gotten to discover.

This post was inspired by this song. Isn't it awesome and beautiful and mysterious??

“Do you know where you want to go?”

The question instilled in Red a sense of proper adventure. Suddenly, she felt her paws had wings, and that she was destined to use them to explore the entirety of the Teekon Wilds. She needed to. Her Coyote blood called her to explore — to learn — to be courageous! And she felt the instinct to follow that calling.

She raced past her friend and charged ahead up the mountain, towards the heart of the area that had new growth. She barked excitedly over her shoulder, ears forward, tail wagging, body wriggling. It meant, “I want to go everywhere! Anywhere the wind takes me! Follow me!” She put her nose to the ground to pick up on any interesting scents here, but all she smelled was new growth, soil, and - faintly - death.

Something tragic had happened on this mountain long ago. She looked back at Kodo and whined, pawing at the ground to ask, “Will you help me solve this mystery? Something happened here.” She looked around the mountain, and back at Kodo: “Can’t you feel it in the air?”

Oh GOD that song is so....adventurey(IT is too a word, look it up, it means like advetureish) haha

Kodo sniffed the air nodding her head softly, she agreed with the smaller canine. Something had happened here, something bad. "I feel sadness here...maybe it is haunted!" she exclaimed her tail wagging, tongue lolling out of her mouth. She was ready to explore, to find out the history of these lands.

The sun was high in the sky, signalling it was already mid day, meaning they wouldn't have forever. Kodo knew how dangerous a mountain could be at night, how easy it was to simply drop off the edge, to never bee seen again.

I think you were looking for the word adventurous… Lol. Also, apparently Red is the most gullible wolf ever, actually believing Kodo about the mountain being haunted. Lol.

Red’s ears flattened against her head in worry when Kodo mentioned the mountain possibly being haunted. If that was the case, she would not want to stick around after dark. She didn’t want ghost wolves pushing her off the mountain for disturbing their slumber (though how the coywolf knew what ghosts were is a mystery). Still, the call of this mountain and its past were too strong to ignore. If need be, she — and Kodo, if she wanted — could simply return the next day to finish her exploration.

She began sniffing around, and looking at the formation of the mountain. This side, with its dark, almost burnt-looking scar caused her to pause… It [did] look like sort of like a big burn mark, [didn’t] it? And all the new growth… So there had been a fire here. She turned and told Kodo of her discovery through a series of whines and barks.

Then she turned once more and looked at the upper portion of the mountain. Something else seemed off about this place, though. Why did the mountain look as though it was only half-formed? There were jagged edges all over the place in places where there should have been smooth ground. What was that about? She looked to Kodo with wide, inquisitive eyes that said, “Can you figure this out?”

Nope nope, adventurey was clearly the word ;)

Kodo found the red coy-wolfs worry adorable. "I don't think it's haunted, I was being silly." She reassured her friend with a comforting smile.

She surveyed the land that Red was baffled by, it was indeed strange looking, there were odd rock formations all over the face of the mountain. It was different than a typical mountain she was accustomed to. It was dull, sad looking. It then dawned on her, perhaps the rocks had tumbled down the mountain, like small pebbles do off of a ledge.

"The rocks, they must have fallen, crushing the mountain." She suggested gesturing towards some of the odd formations.

Is it okay if we make this after I’ve joined SS? I’m hoping I can count this toward an Outrider trade thread.

Red could have kicked herself for taking her friend’s jest so seriously. She really should have known better, and felt her ears go back in embarrassment. She soon forgot about her embarrassment, however, as Kodo studied the mountain to try and figure out why it looked so odd.

Eventually, the chimera said, “The rocks. They must have fallen, crushing the mountain.”

At first, this made no sense to Red. How could simple rocks crush a mountain? That would be the same as a flea crushing a wolf. But… maybe Kodo was on to something. The coywolf turned to face the mountain again, and climbed upwards a little more. She studied the formations, trying to discern where the odd lines in the mountain started. They seemed to begin about halfway up its side, so she squinted to get a better look around that area.

She turned and looked down at the ground. It seemed… lumpy, somewhat. Like something big had been buried under a mound of dirt. Quickly, she slipped and skidded down to investigate, woofing over her shoulder for Kodo to look, too.

And finally, it clicked. There had been a landslide. Of course! That would explain why this side of the mountain looked so odd! She excitedly told Kodo of her finding through excited barking and tail-wagging. “Why hadn’t we seen this sooner?” she asked, laughing at herself.

I don't mind :) I can't think of an object that would interest them, any ideas?

Kodokuna smiled at her friend, her tail wagging widely back and forth. "We probably didn't notice because we didn't care. We assumed that it had always looked this way." Her reply was insightful. She wan't a very old wolf, but she had gone through enough to know things weren't always the way they seemed to be.

Kodokuna noticed something strange poking up from the ground. She wandered over to sniff at the unusual object. She barked for Red to come join in her investigation of the new find. She pawed at the ground, wanting to dig it up. She instead made the decision to wait for her coy-wolf friend.

I’m going to make this my last post. Feel free to post once more.

Red was just beginning to feel that it was time to leave. She felt they had done enough exploring for today. However, Kodo seemed to have other plans. She padded softly over to a spot not but a few feet away, and began pawing at the ground and sniffing all around that area. She looked up at Red, waiting for her to come over.

The coywolf tilted her head out of curiosity. What had Kodo found? As she approached the object just barely sticking up out of the blackened earth, she saw that it was an off-white color. Her curiosity would not be sated, she knew, until she dug it up, so she immediately set to work. As it turns out, it didn’t take long at all to get to the object.

It was a skull. A wolf skull. Red yelped when she finally realized what she was looking at. She crouched low to the ground, her ears splayed flat on her head. “How awful!” her body language said. She looked up at Kodo, backing away down the mountain carefully. She barked. It was a high, sharp sound full of urgency. It meant, “Come! We must tell Ferdie!”

With that, she turned and carefully picked her way down the mountain to its base, and headed off southward, back towards Sunspire.

Exit Red.

Kodokuna followed her new friend who urgently went to tell their alpha what they had found.

Why would a wolf skull be buried here on the side of an old, scarred mountain?