Moonspear i can't remember when i felt so free

@Dragomir

all along the snow-tufted summit, arcturus detected day old scent of lynx. brief ruminations of the area revealed the lynx had gone uphill -- good news for those below, but bad news for him and whoever were sent to dispatch it.

a lynx could not coexist with those of the spear, not when puppy season was so close at hand. he backtracked down the cold slope, coming to the evergreen studded treeline that marked the spear's lower domain. here dragomir's scent mingled with those of the forest, and arcturus sent a querying howl into the air for his company.

Dragomir was weaving through the trees just beneath the treeline, hot on the trail of a resident beaver, when his ears perked and his attention was piqued by Arcturus' call. The boy wrestled with himself for a second or two, but ultimately decided that attending the Beta's summons was more important. The beaver wasn't going anywhere. Scraping his forepaws artfully on the cold loam in an effort to bookmark his location, the boy turned and loped up and out of the forest and along a narrow ridge to where Arcturus was.

Here he could smell, very faint on an errant wind, what Arcturus had already discovered higher up the mountain. It wasn't a recent scent and he didn't know the name of the creature to whom it belonged. What is it? the young Gamma (?) asked as he slowed before the Beta, referring to both Arcturus' summons and the scent.

yup, gamma! MSP is flexing the beta rank since it is unoccupied, so there is one duplicate in the rank table ATM (gamma).

arcturus would have been sorry to pull dragomir from his hunt, but as the boy (not a boy anymore, he found an inner voice correcting him) came across him, arcturus gave him a customary wave of his tail in greeting. he took several seconds to apprise dragomir mentally: the limp was entirely gone (that he could see) and he had filled out immensely.

"lynx." the beta inferred, pointing towards a cluster of dried ferns where some scat remained. "have you ever seen one before?"

Lynx? He couldn't recall ever hearing of such an animal. He swept toward the dead foliage and pressed his nose low, sniffing among the pebbles until he glided over the scat and breathed the scent in. No, he said, finding he was unable to place the scent. He'd never smelled anything like that before. What he didn't realize was how lucky that made him. He'd never come across a puma, a lynx, a bobcat... nothing to compare this to.

Is it prey or predator? he asked, wagging his tail low at his hocks when he turned to greet the pitch Beta properly. A quick reach of his muzzle to bump the man's dark chin as he swung around, prepared to follow wherever Arcturus would lead him on the mountain. Of all the wolves upon Moonspear it was this swarthy male who seemed to have picked up on Dragomir's interests and sought to teach him more than just fighting and defending himself, and for that, the boy harboured a lot of appreciation and trust for Arcturus.

arcturus received dragomir's nose-bump with a friendly wag of his tail, noting that dragomir had long at last settled and come to his own along his newfound kin. arcturus watched as he drank in the scent, committing it to memory. in hindsight, arcturus only knew lynx from one other occasion -- and that made him lucky as well.

unlucky now, though, that there was lynx on the mountain so soon to whelping season. he wondered if the savage cats were aware of this. if they tracked wolves the way wolves tracked them.

"it is predator -- a very large cat. not so large as a mountain lion, not so small as a bobcat." he tried to think of lynx, and what they looked like. "they are very tall, and very agile. they have bunny hind legs -- don't laugh --" arcturus canted his head, hiding a grin as he continued: "but really, they do. they leave us alone for the most part and mostly only hunt hare and rodents -- but during whelping season, they have been known to turn to hunting our puppies."

A very large cat. What is a cat? Dragomir asked next, for Arcuturus' humorous description painted an image in his mind of something like a huge, long rabbit that ate meat. The Beta bid him not to laugh but he couldn't choke down the giggle that bubbled up between his grinning teeth. What a freaky concept. The reality of cats—sharp teeth, sharp claws, sturdy bodies with a snake-like flexibility and long legs to propel them great distances—would be nowhere near as funny when he was confronted with it for the first time.

Mirth aside, it was time to get serious. We're expecting puppies, then? he asked, having completely missed the whole point of Hydra's lecture about her season a little while back. It'd helped explain his really weird boner but he hadn't exactly got the memo that she was having more kids. Now it clicked. Or maybe Arcuturs was? He didn't know any of the existing juveniles besides their names and he found himself hoping he could teach Moonspear's new pups a few things, have a better relationship with them, if they truly were coming.

He lowered his head and sniffed along the ground for a little while, catching traces here and there of the lynx's passing. Do they live up high? he asked, turning to gaze up toward the summit. That's where the trail seemed to lead.

arcturus was grinning too, though he tried his best to hide it. his poker-pace was pitiful, so after a brief snort he paused and considered how best to indoctrinate the yearling to the frankly horrifying concept of cats.

what was a cat? "think of it as the antithesis of everything that makes us wolf." arcturus started, finding them hard to explain despite the vivid picture of one in his head. "they are solitary save for if they take mates. they are fast -- they have claws they can retract --" he demonstrated by raising his paw, showing the feebleness that was their own ability to control their paws: "and fangs, just like us too. their faces are short. their ears are long and pointy, and their bodies usually long as well. they can jump better than we can, and can climb trees." he thought this was a good place to start.. hopefully dragomir would never encounter a cat outside of here.. arcturus couldn't say he loved them.

"we may have puppies, but that is for hydra and dirge to decide." the beta quipped on a more solemn note, now striding up the slope. "it is likely they will have a second litter this year, and if they do we should do all we can to protect them." he stood as dragomir sniffed at the ground, his gaze panning uphill. "i think they prefer the lowlands, like the forest and such -- but they can live wherever wolves can."

Dragomir's eyes grew both wider and darker the longer Arcturus tried to explain what a cat was. The image he wound up with in the end was truly grotesque. He imagined the base form of a hare with its long hind legs and much shorter forelimbs, but each paw was equipped with sickles for claws. Vaguely, he recalled Phox's description of a badger's long digging claws and shuddered. A blunted face hid teeth the side and shape of a wolf's, while long rabbit ears adorned its head. And they could climb trees. Of course. It sounded positively horrific.

Better get rid of it, then, just in case there are pups, agreed Dragomir, who had some doubts and misgivings about going after a creature that sounded as terrifying as that. At least they were solitary. If they had to contend with a pack of the monstrous things, he didn't know what he'd do. He loped after the Beta, pondering the best way to take down a mutant rabbit-badger-wolf. So, based on that, we should try to sneak up on it from behind? Get the jump on it? If they came at it head on it could bite them, maybe gore them with its claws... or it could jump away, he imagined. Hard to picture. He assumed by jumping better, Arcturus meant they could soar about 50 feet into the air, practically to the top of a sheer cliff.

ok, maybe arcturus wasn't doing as good a job explaining as he should have. it's hard to explain a cat! he grinned, wondering if he had not just given dragomir lovecraftian nightmare fuel.

it was a good thing indeed that they were mostly solitary. arcturus did not want to ever encounter a pack of pumas -- that set his blood to a screeching chill, and the hairs along his spine lifted upright as he quickly shoved that particularly terrifying thought down. the scent was getting thicker, and somewhere along the cliff arcturus expected they would see the creature any moment now. unless it leapt those fifty feet (ez) and managed to scale the mountainside like a cliffghast. "luckily, bobcats and lynx you can usually scare off without much physical interaction -- that should be our goal, since their claws are sharp and i'd hate to explain how you got so beat up to lyra. i am not sure if we could sneak up behind one, i think they hear as we do. it seems close, though."

The cherry on top: they could possibly hear as well as wolves. Great. If not for Arcturus claiming they were easy enough to frighten, Dragomir might've insisted that with no advantage over the cat, this was a suicide mission. How could they possibly hope to fight such a horrifying creature without a weakness to exploit? Exploiting weakness was what wolves were all about!

But, thankfully, they weren't intending to fight it. He had to giggle at the thought of the matronly Lyra with her lips pressed firmly together, tutting about where his injuries had come from. He hadn't met her face-to-face and he hoped he never had to, at least not for treatment. She was more frightening than Hydra in a different sort of way.

They were close, said Arcturus, and Dragomir angled his snout into the breeze for a sniff. That was when he caught sight of it: a weird, grey-furred thing ambling along a higher ridge with its hindquarters situated higher than its shoulders. Wait, he whispered, squinting. Is that it? It looked nothing like what Arcturus described! Or, well, okay... a little bit, but not in the grotesque fashion Dragomir had imagined it.

arcturus had been doing scratch-and-sniff in the pinestraw when dragomir exclaimed, his voice hushed but urgent. following the yearling's gaze, arcturus at first didn't see anything. then his gaze was drawn to slow movement along the ridge -- instinctively he focused on the interruption of stone and foliage, coming at last to the figure prowling along the shale.

he froze, tracing the cat's path silently. then he looked dragomir with a nod, confirming the boy's suspicions and sharp eye. "let's try the intimidation approach first. don't get too close, but don't hide yourself either. stick to me." arcturus did not think a lynx would put up much of a fight if it saw two wolves - but he didn't want to play it risky either.

mantling the ledge in an easy jump, arcturus began to prowl after the cat. his head was low and his hackles lifted, his yellow gaze resting intently on the cat as it made its way north.

Stick to me, said Arcturus, and Dragomir was happy to comply. Whether the lynx looked like he imagined or not, he didn't want to be caught alone with the thing. He sprang after Arcturus and up onto the ledge, doing his utmost to mimic the Beta's fierce aspect as he trotted along in the man's wake.

As they got closer and closer to the lynx, a low growl found its home in Dragomir's rounded jaws. The name of the game was coercion, and what in the wilderness was more menacing than the cascading rumble of a wolf's snarl? The lynx turned its head, although it was probably aware of them before now, and...

dragomir followed up the rear expertly, a growl throttling magnificently in his throat. arcturus grinned to himself, happy to join in -- together, a thunderous and threatening chorus sounded within the wild.

the lynx, many years both their senior, had seen all manner of life in its time and understood the value of placing safety above pride. he was old, but he was no geriatric -- he could stand his ground and fight, or live to die another day.

arcturus hoped for their sake it would be the latter; lynx claws were sharp as hawk's talons, and a lynx's fury fierce as a mother bear.

giving both of the wolves the disdainful sneer only a cat could muster, the lynx easily mantled downward. what was a difficult leap for a wolf was an easy task for the lynx. switching his tail, he froze along the rocks and peered up smugly at the wolves above -- it would take them some time to navigate the steep incline, and by that point he would be long gone.

For a moment, it seemed the two growling wolves had won. By Dragomir's estimation, the lynx had nowhere to go but up, and the two wolves would be hot on its heels the moment it turned from them. There was something about the expression on its face that gave Drago the willies and made him want to freeze in place. He shoved the feeling away, focusing on their impending victory rather than the way its eyes seemed to see right through him.

What happened next made Dragomir gasp. Not in a hundred years would he attempt a jump like that, his history notwithstanding, but the lynx slipped easily over the edge and landed silently on a ledge far below. What! the boy exclaimed, rushing to the lip to peek over at the luminous pair of eyes staring back up at them. He could almost swear the cat wore a lazy grin across its cleaved lips. It wasted no further time, turning and sauntering away with its raised hindquarters adopted an almost haughty sway.

Do we go after it? Dragomir asked, somewhat doubtful that they would ever make it down there fast enough to catch it. Maybe Arcuturus could manage a jump like that, but Dragomir's heart turned to ice just thinking of it.

not even arcturus would brave such a leap. he turned to dragomir with a roguish grin, a bit of a i-told-you-so in his expression. yeah, cats were that athletic. they made wolves like dragomir and arcturus look like stumps.

"we can pick our way down, follow his trail.. but i think he got the message." he peered over the ledge behind dragomir, looking for a descent that was less treacherous. finding a stony outcropping several yards away, arcturus began the slow journey of picking his way down. it would be slow going, given he picked only the most sturdy of rocks to climb down, but hopefully it would be safe. "now that you've seen one, how would you describe it?"

As always when faced with the prospect of climbing down a steep cliff, Dragomir's mouth went dry. But this was no sheer drop and Arcturus was leading the way; it wasn't the same. He would never master a fear by avoiding it forever, and there were places in Moonspear's territory that could only be reached by a treacherous descent.

So he had to brave it out. He followed cautiously behind the Beta, thankful for the man's ability to distract him. Dragomir couldn't say if Arcturus knew that going down on iffy terrain made him nervous, but it absolutely felt like the man was deliberately keeping him from thinking about it by asking questions.

Uhh, he said, placing a forepaw carefully where Arcturus had just stepped. I dunno, not like a rabbit. Maybe like a wolf but if our back legs were way too long and our heads were small. Thinking then of all the wolves he's ever seen, and the vast amount of variety in colour and body, he asked, do all the lynxes look like that? Some animals exhibited much less variation. Deer looked more or less the same. Could there be black lynxes and red lynxes and even white ones out there?

(Is lynxes even a word, for that matter?)

arcturus paved the way, keeping his selection of footpaths on the sturdiest of rocks. he could hear, as well as see, that dragomir's descent was very careful. understanding why, arcturus kept his pace even and easy.

they could take all day, for all he cared. what mattered was where the scent went when they got to the bottom.

thinking of all the lynxes he had seen, arcturus contemplated. "i think so. they all look like that type -- but maybe like us, they come in lots of different colors. i've only ever seen brownish white, though." he motioned to a rock that looked stable but had wobbled when he stepped on it. "skip that one. now, if only we had legs like lynxes -- we could just bounce our way down."

All lynxes looked more or less the same, then, at least in Arcturus' experience. He'd seen many varieties of wolf, but wolves were a far more common animal, it seemed. Or maybe it was simply that lynxes were solitary animals and finding more than one at a time was rare. Their ability to move up and down levels that a wolf couldn't dream of jumping probably helped. It was something to keep in his mind for the next time he saw an ominously disproportionate shape in the distance.

Uhhh, Dragomir hesitated, placing his paw very carefully onto the stone Arcturus selected while shooting the wobbly one a suspicious look. I don't think even if I was a lynx I could jump down like that. He could never work up the nerve. Speaking of nerves, his suddenly fluttered into his throat, and before he knew he was speaking, he blurted out, I fell down a mountain once and broke my legs.

Which probably explained a lot, but he hadn't meant to share it, and his face grew hot with the realization that he'd just spoken something back into existence that he wished he could bury entirely.

arcturus surveyed the optional routes for their descent solemnly. finally, it seemed he selected a route -- only to hear dragomir speak behind him.

arcturus had always wondered what had caused dragomir's limp; he had watched the boy grow from one-sided, scrawny whelp to strong, capable yearling. the length of progress dragomir had underwent was tremendous -- to the point that if arcturus ever described it to someone, they might think he was touched.

he wanted dragomir to feel at ease with this; he could tell the yearling felt ashamed by his blurting, but in arcturus' eyes he should feel anything but that. "that is nothing to be ashamed of. i do not think i would attempt it, either." he intoned softly, making sure he adjusted his pace to dragomir's comfort. while he had his own questions about the how, arcturus did not press; it was neither his place nor his business, and he would respect dragomir's preferences when it came to speaking about his burdensome past. "wolves were not made to live on mountains." arcturus commented dryly, picking his way very carefully down the slope. "we are plains-runners, valley dwellers. if we were meant to live in mountains, we'd be goats." he hoped his small joke would break the levity that he felt yoking their shoulders.

Wolves were not made to live on mountains, said Arcturus, which Dragomir thought was a weird thing for a mountain-dwelling wolf to reveal. It made sense; Dragomir was largely at ease on the mountain ridges only because he, too, was born on a mountain, but the sight of sheer cliffs always made his stomach do flips. Sometimes even running down the more treacherous paths was enough to make his mouth dry. As for hunting... he was unlikely to ever target a bighorn if he could help it, if only because they frequented even more precarious ground than a wolf should dare.

Why do we live on a mountain, then? he asked, and although he didn't mean to be cheeky about it, he couldn't stop a rueful grin from sneaking across his face at the end.

the irony of arcturus' statement wasn't lost on the mountaineer. he turned in time to see a light grin tug at dragomir's lips -- that cheeky smile was returned as he shrugged his shoulders. "our ancestors are stubborn, i guess." his tail flicked as he added: "or stupid."

he supposed there was a legacy to be had here, though in the months that came, arcturus would find himself for the first time in his life, uncomfortably outside the privileged life his father and mother had made for him. "we could probably make it anywhere -- we're not specialists, we're generalists." or that is what arcturus believed, whether or not he was right. "maybe that's why we can be found anywhere. ocean, mountains, plains.. which is your favorite?"

Stubborn or stupid though said ancestors may be, thought Dragomir, they'd done well on this mountain. Even without having been there the whole time, Dragomir could tell that Moonspear's resident pack had been there a very long time. Ruts drawn in the earth around the borders suggested that, as did the ease with which its inhabitants scaled even its treacherous heights. Whatever originally drew wolves to settle on the mountain had continued providing for them throughout the years, regardless of the terrain's suitability.

Arcturus' question had him thinking hard for a few seconds, long enough to concentrate on finding level ground to set his feet. I don't really know. I lived on a mountain before this, and then by a river. I didn't really like the river. Kaistleoki's keep might've interested him eventually, if his family stayed long enough for him to be able to explore it. Alas, he'd spent almost all his time lying around in a clearing, trying not to relive his horrors every moment of every day.

My dad wanted us to live by the ocean, but all the packs there hate each other. I only got to see it once. The memory was hazy now, overtaken by fear and mistrust. He'd only been to the ocean once, but that was long enough for Sanguinus to lure him away. He couldn't say he was eager to go back. So I guess mountains, because those were the only places Dragomir had ever found happiness. What's yours?

arcturus wished he knew more of the mountain's legacy -- how his father had come to be in this cold reaches, or how his mother had journeyed to this frontier -- but any sort of story they could have told him was dead now, and the mountains did not speak of them, either.

he reflected solemnly. he had never lived near a river, but did not blame dragomir for his dislike of such climes. he would be poor suited as a fisherman, himself. his face strained as the ocean was mentioned; all he had of the ocean was the memory of his father when they had scoured the coast for revui. he had wanted to stay just a little longer, but charon had firmly guided him home.

the ocean was a stranger, constant in his mind, but practically unobtainable. he had duties here. a life. the ocean was a distraction, a lure; he would not get lost in his own selfish whims. "in a different life, i think i'd like the ocean." arcturus commented, noting the strange glint in dragomir's eye. "fighting packs or not.. but i like the mountains too. i like that you can see so much from so high -- but i like the lowlands at the foot of the mountain too. i think i'd be fine wherever, so long as the company and food was good."

arcturus found the longer they conversed, the more he realized he had a soft fondness for dragomir -- when it came time to part he was sorry to leave the yearling, and would think of him often in the months to come.