Verdant Basin every road takes us farther from home

@Tegan

it was, by all accounts, a perfect summer's day. the sky was pale blue and near-cloudless and the sun beat down on the grass and the gleaming surface of the lake, accompanied by a breeze that kept the heat from becoming too much. it was quiet and peaceful so, of course, as she watched the figures of elk and deer milling to and fro from the water's edge, maya was wearing her best toothily pleased grin. not that it was that visible; she was tucked down and the grass rose up around her so all that anyone could really see without getting close was a pair of bat-like ears, the briefest flicker of eyes the color of old blood, and the blunt end of her muzzle, the briefest glimmer of teeth.

she dragged herself forwards with her front paws as she stared across the water, hind legs stretched behind her in a truly ridiculous pose, until she had flattened all the grass in her way under her belly and had an uninterrupted view of the lakeside before her and, thus, the backsides of several full-grown elk. not that she was planning to chase after them; a single one could squish her with a misplaced kick, she had no illusions about that, and besides there were easier meals to find. ones she could steal, even. the less work food took, after all, the better it tasted.

but she had a plan. as her plans went it did not even make the top twenty, but she was so incredibly bored anything sounded good right now. like this. she squirmed forward, butt wiggling like a cat about to pounce as the wind swept over her face, inhaled a deep lungful of air and, comically oversized ears perched excitedly atop her head, let out the loudest bark she could manage.

the chaos that ensued was deeply satisfying on several levels. elk trumpeted and reared around and took off both towards the hills and into the lake, and even though she was soon scrabbling to her paws to avoid being pasted across the dirt like an insect she was laughing as she did so. within moments, the bankside was bare again as the animals crashed through the grass and disappeared, and maya skipped up towards the lake and planted both paws in the water as the remaining handful swam away.

for a moment she considered trying to catch up. she was good at swimming, after all, and they all looked too ungainly to do much, but she wasn't certain what to do when she actually caught up, was the thing. maybe she should have tried cutting a tendon first.

instead, she flopped dramatically down into the shallows, sending a splash directly up her nose, and instead of some witty parting remark spent the next several moments coughing as she tried to get the water out of her lungs.

tegan had this problem where-- don't act surprised-- he hated doing things if they weren't for himself. i mean, don't get me wrong, raven? thumbs up. towhee? nice. niamh? thicc in rl and in his heart. he loved all his friends and packmates, and would absolutely do anything for them... but like... if you could do it and also get something out of it then like, fuck yeah. this was one of those times.

though he typically just fucked off to god knows where without alerting anyone, today tegan let @Towhee know he was going to scout for herds. he wasn't a  gamekeeper or anything so like, when he found herds he really couldn't do anything. like, following and seeing and being like 'ah yes, a herd, i shall go alert raven' was about the most he could do. but it was useful all the same. he spotted the herd from some distance on a higher slope, tail wiggling. fuck! yeah! herd spotted, time to go fuckin swimming. that was the bonus of this trip-- get herd for pack, go roll in the shallows. win-fuckin-win.

but, oh-- oh FUCK what the fuck. tegan's victory was abruptly s o i l e d when he heard a loud bark break the air. he didn't fuckin see anything except some dark shape in the grass-- was that a wolf? fuck she was tiny, must've been a puppy-- and then all of a sudden the animals were scrambled. tegan frowned. he preferred his breakfast over-medium. but, to be fair, it was pretty fuckin funny... he liked her style. 

he watched as the dark wolf trapezed on over to the water and plopped down. he'd started walking closer at this point and watched as she inhaled a good fuckload of water, he snorted. 

two approaches to this situation-- tegan went with both. well, actually, 3 ways-- tegan went with all three. "don't drown yourself above water," was his charming opening, paired with a bright wagging tail. he'd move it along. "dude, you kinda scattered a herd, real pain in the ass," he began as he padded up(did herds regroup? or relocate? tegan didn't know), "but that was pretty fuckin dope too-- aren't you kinda worried you'll get fuckin whacked, though?" he stood a short distance off, grey head tilted to one side. he kept his opinions of her appearance to himself, for the time being. he'd wait until she opened up that moutha hers to pass judgements.

maya grumbled under her breath as soon as she'd gotten enough of it back to stop doing her best to hack up a lung, and smacked a paw into the water to underline her irritation, far enough away that she wouldn't just have a repeat of that incident, thank you very much. her ears wriggled for a moment, as though uncertain what position they wanted to take up, and ended flat against her skull. embarrassing. at least nobody had been around to see --

-- and then, as if to mock her, someone made a sound that was unmistakeably a snort. maya knew it, because it was also one of her signature responses to seeing something stupid when she wasn't instead laughing like a hyena. in other words, despite the fact that she certainly would have done the same in his position -- rude. she scowled, the expression on her face distinctly indignant, and swiveled her head slowly and with deliberate purpose in the direction of the offender.

the boy in question did not seem like he was that much older than she was, persay, but then she had difficulty judging by appearance alone when she was so tiny. she had perhaps gotten the short end of the stick on that one. but what she did not have in height she made up for in dramatics and a complete disinterest in watching her tongue in any way, shape, or form, and as he began to dole out his unwanted comments, all for the worse since he'd seen her fuckup, maya puffed up like an angry hedgehog.

"i don't care. and you can go stick your advice --" maya began, and then, all at once, actually registered the last sentence he'd spoken. she stopped short and squinted at him through narrowed eyes, waterlogged ears just about flopping over her face. 

what the actual fuck did 'dope' mean? no idea. but she could use her context clues. 

she straightened herself up, as much as one could when they currently resembled a drowned rat more than an actual wolf, and eyed him. "well, i didn't," she informed him unnecessarily. "they're stupid, and i move fast." she wiggled her toes as if to underline this statement. "anyways, it's not the first time i've done it." she stared at him for a moment longer, before the frown on her face broke into a smile and then a cackling bout of laughter. "and it was funny, right?"

haha whoa-- this bitch had a fuckin mouth on her. she caught herself, seeing that he com p l men t ed  her just moments after,  turning to a more pleasant conversation, but tegan heard the sass bright as day in her first comment. shove it where? up his ass? real creative, stranger. 

"well i like your style," tegan said with a wave of his tail and a broad smirk, and then he agreed, "fuckin hilarious." curiously tegan peered past her off into the distance before his gaze settled back on her. she was pretty cool-- maybe she looked better all fluffy and dry. right now she just looked... wet. he could over look this flaw. she had some spice, some sizzle-- some got damn sauce.

he shifted where he stood in the water. "my names tegan," he introduced with a smile, ears cupping forward in case she decided to be generous and give her name. "how often do you do that?"