Ravensblood Forest anytime

This is intended for Pied but anyone can reply! Takes place in Ravensblood Forest right alongside the mountain edge of Gryfalcon's Keep.

(Also Kat if you decide to reply I'll let you decide whether it's before or after Ariston is accepted into BDP)
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A blight on the earth by some...a conquest by others. That's what the decrepit remains of an ancient landslide spoke of to those who wandered too far from the beaten paths between territories. The vomited pile of mountain appealed to him in a particular sort of way and he took little into consideration - ownership, peril, and whatnot - before his mind decided at once that he must conquer this inanimate beast of the woodland.

He ascended the crumbling rocks, stubbed and worn nails scrabbling against the granite shells that sloughed off beneath the forceful heaving of his climb. His able body, boasting of all things young and strong, earned its keep in the final moments of his rising. Sure footedness certainly kept the likelihood of his falling at bay...he hardly seemed aware of the danger even as his ears detected the clatter of usurped pebbles during their freefall to solid ground.

Higher and higher until the wind whistled in his ears. Until his head broke through the virgin clouds and he could cast his eyes on what hid behind them. Until he could chew on the glittering marvels that he'd once been told were stars. Until he was free of the failures he'd endured and the responsibly of his guilt, his regrets, ceased suckling on his thoughts and left him alone to be the carefree fellow he'd always been before.

He could never get that high.

Golden eyes looked upon the quiet forest around him and his useless stack of boulders and, despite his turmoil, a grin perked at the edge of his lips. King of the rock at last, his brain murmured.

Pied skulked through the forest in search of fresh game. For the most part, she moved just like the ghosts that haunted her steps from time to time. Every once in a while, however, she foiled her own stealthiness by snapping a twig beneath her dappled forepaw, rustling the lissome shrubbery near the forest floor in passing or brushing her lithe body much too roughly against a rigid tree trunk. After the sixth or so incident, she grew frustrated with herself and stopped purposefully in a small clearing, muttering and growling under her breath.

Something caught her eye and her head snapped upward and partially sideways to pinpoint the movement. Pied watched as a figure in the distance scaled a small stack of rocks lying in the shadow of Gyrfalcon's Keep. From her low, distant vantage point, she could make out a solid build, sandy fur and even the glint of soft golden eyes. As she studied the stranger, she tilted her muzzle into the air and sniffed, catching his scent.

I wonder if he can see me? she thought to herself, as he was now standing above some of the treetops and she was exposed in the little glade. Her tail twitched and she waited watchfully, wondering if he would spot her and, if he did, if he would call out to her or otherwise acknowledge her in any way.

His awareness of the stranger was not an immediate event. He had time to nonchalantly study the varied canopies of the trees around him and listen to the distant melody of a nameless bird roosting in the branches beyond his sight. The warmth of the sun shining on him became a perfect yang with the chill of his granite throne and was he felt meditative enough that he considered dozing...all until that exact moment when his senses began tingling from the weight of unknown eyes settling on him.

The back of his neck prickled (being spied on was a sure way to give most anyone, regardless of their secured sense of manliness, the heebie friggin jeebies) while he looked down and tried plucking his observer from the ambiguous wilderness. When he spotted the pale little thing peering back at him his concerns faded somewhat...but due to his vantage point the wolf's identity, even gender, was a mystery.

He decided to take the safe and grander neutral approach.

"Hey there, Sunshine!"

Everyone knew that Sunshine could be a masculine nickname, too.

He seemed to cotton onto the fact that someone was watching him cut a majestic figure against the pale skyline and, soon enough, his eyes fixed on her. Pied met his gaze from across the distance, waiting for him to do or say something. She saw his mouth move, then heard him shout, referring to her as Sunshine. A small, amused smirk twitched her lips.

"Ah, what's up, Sandy?" she called back, deciding it would be humorous if she stayed put and tried to converse with him from afar.

The laid back wolf had hardly a problem carrying on with a total stranger. "Nothing much!" he shouted back with such volume that it pinged off the woodlands and carried back to him a distinct echo. A slightly perturbed expression, likely unseen by his distant company, creased his face for a moment. That's what he sounded like?

Boo.

Mentally he shook away the realization and his naturally jovial visage bled back into his facade. "Hey aren't you going to ask me how the weather is up here?!" he squawked. "I mean you're missing an opportunity on a pretty classic joke!"

The stranger—henceforth referred to as Sandy—bellowed back, clearly game for a long-distance conversation. He pointed out the missed opportunity for a joke and she snorted, her tail waving slowly to show him that she'd acknowledged his quip and found it humorous.

Rather suddenly, Pied heard her grandmother's voice in her head, so loudly and clearly that she actually looked around, fearful of spotting March Owl's ghost. She didn't see any spectral evidence of the large white she-wolf, so Mo hadn't died and come here to haunt her—a good thing on several levels. Pied sighed a breath of relief, then furrowed her brow as the voice repeated itself in her head.

'I can see your balls from here, you know,' is what you need to say right now, Mo's voice instructed, the clarity making Pied wonder. I can't say that! she protested her grandmother. The yearling was not as uncouth as her mother's mother. C'mon, you prude! He'll find it hilarious!

"Fine," she huffed, half-seriously and half-playfully before raising her voice and belting out something very uncharacteristic for Pied Starbuck indeed: "You know, Sandy, I can see your balls from down here!" As soon as the words left her mouth, she felt a flash of heat across her entire body and she lowered her eyes and sucked in her lip, holding back a guffaw of embarrassment.

Pied's momentary distraction was obvious enough that for a moment Ax believed they might not be alone; her wild glances around made him look hard at her general vicinity (specifically for evidence of a threat given the sharpness of her averted stare). His shoulders coiled, preparing for launch in defense of the little stranger beneath him, but his hasty dismount was halted by a statement so bawdy that he was for an instant rendered speechless.

The femme seemed just as bewildered by the statement as he was. But where her body drew within itself in embarrassment his opened in response. Gales of laughter spilled from his highpoint and he fell back onto his haunches, shoulder drawn back, the stiffening of his forearms trying desperately to keep him from guffawing himself right over the edge of his imaginary throne. "I'm surprised you can!" he wheezed after regaining a bit of control, "this cold weather is not kind to them! I thought perhaps they'd retreated into my body until spring!"

While he had sureness in his step Ariston stood and abandoned his perch...standing at a short distance from his company once they were on even ground. "That was a good one, Sunshine," he said bemusedly. "You just about sent me tumbling to my doom!"

This thread is making me smile so hard...

The silence that met her outburst made Pied's cheeks flame, though the sound of barking laughter made her jerk upward in surprise less than three second hence. She watched—with some trepidation, actually—as Sandy practically fell off his perch due to the force of his laughter. The sound was rather contagious, causing her lips to twitch, despite her humiliation. Damn it, Mo, she thought.

Suddenly, Sandy stood in front of her, congratulating her on her joke. "I'm sorry, that was really rude. I don't normally talk like that. I was channeling my grandmother..." she apologized sheepishly, despite his amusement. "I'm almost embarrassed to introduce myself properly, since there's part of me that would rather slink away in ashamed anonymity... but I'm Pied."

Aha me too! I missed this kind of writing ^_^
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A previous statement of hers was brought back into light. "Your grandmother must've been quite a character," he speculated with a bemused smirk.

"Don't be," he chortled in the moment of her apology. "It was funny! But maybe wait to say those sorts of things if the recipient is so high off the ground." A wink flourished the off-handed advice and his canines poked into sight at the birth of a large, toothy grin as she expressed a degree of distress. "We'd be bound to run into each other again someday," he said, "and me and my balls would remember you even if it was 100 years from now."

His crudeness became gentler at the introduction of her name. "Hello, Pied," he reflected back in a confirmation of her moniker. "But it's funny...I really am Sandy. Or maybe not. It fits me though doesn't it?" He batted his eyelashes in a girlish (but totally mannish) way. "It compliments my honey colored eyes."

Pied merely smiled in agreement, her innards still twinging with embarrassment at her behavior. Although she loved her grandmother and respected her in many ways, she did not endeavor to take after her that way. Although Pied wasn't necessarily formal, she simply wasn't that uncouth by nature.

When he told her his name was actually Sandy, she looked up from her paws, her face surprised, then suspicious. "No, it isn't," she guessed, though her tongue lolled out in the next instant. "But, yeah, it really is apt. I understand if you want to keep it for your own." She stopped short of punctuating that remark with a simpering honey.

"So what were you doing up there, besides looking majestic?" she wondered, eyeballing his distant promontory. "How were the views—and the weather?" she pinned on with an ironic smile.

"How about," he began innocently, "we save my real name for a time when we meet again. That way your embarrassment won't cause you to avoid me the rest of your life. You strike me as a girl who loves a good mystery." She's probably as tenacious as Koontz he thought to himself wearily. It was a good quality...possibly one of the best ones to have. But it was not something Ariston shared and thus he tired easily when confronted with someone with such a trait.

At the production of her inquisition he too looked up at his prior seat of choice. Damn I must've looked cool he mused. "I was trying to shake off some bad mojo," he said after a moment before looking back to his companion. "Must've worked!"

"The views were...emptier than I'd expected. What happened to all the packs out here?" he asked at last.

"Wow, sorry again then," Pied rejoined, feeling an extra helping of guilt for having interrupted him during such a momentous moment. All the same, she grinned a little bit, finding the whole situation more amusing than embarrassing with each passing minute. "I'm glad you were able to get rid of it. I like to think that it fell off the precipice while you were laughing your butt off up there."

Sandy questioned her about the local packs. "Well, I'm from Horizon Ridge. Before that, I was from Blacktail Deer Plateau. Before that, I was from Bon Dye. I promise I'm not some pack hussy, though," she quipped, her tongue surprising her again, though more mildly this time. "Bon Dye disbanded, as did several other packs at the time, I'm pretty sure. We're doing well at the ridge, though, and I know the plateau's thriving as well. I'm pretty sure there's another pack around here somewhere... but were you asking about any one in particular that's gone now?" she wondered.

OK I think I have a timeline now for all our threads linking between Pied, Ariston, and Hawkeye

Ariston joins (zoot suit riot)
Ariston and Hawkeye share company (karma police)
Pied and Hawkeye interact (eyes of another)
Ariston meets Pied (anytime)

Like Ax knows he's heard Pied's name before but it was only mentioned once by Hawkeye so he would've mostly forgotten it xD Think that'll work?

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An inkling of familiarity nibbled at the corner of his mind as Pied spoke. Had he heard her name before...? He couldn't place it. And he didn't have a chance to ask before she flooded him with information and names that were entirely new to his memory. So many packs had risen and fallen in the short time of his absence. Was the place cursed or what?

"Dragon Watchers," he answered with a slight frown. "The one where Blacktail Deer Plateau resides now." Gauging for the other's reactions he omitted his motive for naming it.

Haha, I was operating under the notion that this thread takes place before mine with Hawkeye, hence the earlier edit. I don't know at this point... lol. This has actually made for some funny inconsistencies that are rather amusing, though. xP

Once upon a time, the mention of the Dragonwatchers would've caused a sick, angry feeling to overcome Pied and twist her insides into knots. Now, however, she felt rather indifferent about it. Actually, she was vaguely concerned for her cousins, Koontz and Ray, and she hoped that whatever had happened to cause them to leave hadn't been direly unfortunate.

"My cousin, Koontz, led that pack. They just sort of disappeared without a trace. There was no evidence of foul play or anything," she said with a shrug. "Were you a part of the pack at some point?" she guessed.

Oh man I think we're all screwed up! If there's anything I can do to change my timeline to fix yours let me know!
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"I was its creator." The confession never seemed to make the incident any less surreal. His face did not shine of misplaced pride (for who would rejoice in birthing a pack which thrived so shortly after the fact) but neither did he look away. Sunlit eyes locked onto Pied in search of any minute twitch of her expression that would reveal an unspoken reaction. "Koontz was my beta until I left...after which she took over."

The response he'd gotten may not have been quite the one he'd wanted though it didn't surprise him given that an entirely new pack lived where he'd left it. It was appreciated, however, that their mentioned faith was not of battle or death. There was only minor reason to fret. It wasn't as though he was 100% certain he'd be unearthing Koontz's dead body somewhere. "I'd simply wondered how she'd faired after I left back for home," he explained lest his motives be questioned.

It's cool, it's not a big deal one way or another. *magically makes everything make sense!* :D

His revelation did indeed shock her, though she didn't make any outward indication of this beyond a single emphatic blink. She waited to see if he would elaborate. He did, albeit vaguely, and the silence stretched momentarily as she wondered if he would explain his departure. Just when she was absolutely certain he wasn't going to get into it, she opened her mouth, only for him to make a comment about Koontz's wellbeing.

"I saw her not long before she and the Dragonwatchers disappeared. She was well enough to disown me," she joked rather dryly. "Ray was with her. I bet they decided to go back home to Flightless Falcons or something. I know Koontz was—is, rather—smart and all that but I never pictured her as a leader. She's too quiet. We were close when we were younger and we both lived with the falcons," she added to explain why she was a fair judge of that.

BEHOLD THE MAGIC OF IC =D

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A pang of pity struck him at Peid's mention of disownment though he felt wise enough not to pry into such private matters. He clung to his tenacious state of ambiguity that had risen at the declaration of his prior history with the Dragonwatchers...for all intents and purposes he paid mere witness to the personal review of one wolf to another. It was however her rash analysis of the black Dragon that prompted him to look down at his feet. "You're absolutely right," he laughed despite trying hard to remain stoic. "She had a lot of learning left to do when it came to leadership."

He straightened to rid himself of his previous bemusement. "But she was supposed to learn those sorts of things from me. She'd depended on me to teach her how to be more charismatic. She needed me to learn how to be less book smart and more social smart." Was that sadness in his eyes? They averted to look into the distance. "She was bound to have shortcomings because I left for home before she was ready. So I apologize for any transgressions you two might've shared. It's as much my fault as it is hers."

Ariston agreed with her assessment and Pied wondered how close the two had been and how they'd met. Since he didn't volunteer the information, she didn't pry. Instead, she listened as he admitted his guilt for letting down Koontz and, by proxy, herself. Pied's lips pursed as she prepared to protest. She hardly held anyone responsible for her cousin's actions except for Koontz herself.

"Koontz was an Alpha and is solely responsible for her own actions," Pied replied simply, then shrugged. "Anyway, I'm sorry we both parted with her on what seems to be poor terms. Maybe one day, we'll each get our chance to speak with her and clear the air."

A sudden and sharp pang in her stomach reminded Pied of why she was out here in the first place. She thought of inviting Sandy to join her on a hunt, yet decided against it. It wasn't anything personal, she simply didn't take to the idea of hunting with someone from a different pack just now. And though she didn't think Kisu was the overtly jealous sort, she imagined he might not want her cavorting off alone with a strange male.

"Do you live there now, at the plateau? Do you know Hawkeye? She's my sister, though not by blood. I haven't seen her since I moved to the ridge. I should drop by sometime soon..." Little did she know, Hawkeye would soon show up on her doorstep.

Seemed like a good time to close this up! We need to thread again soon! Btw YOUR POST COUNT LATELY IS INSANE OMG xDD

"You and me both," he admitted at the other's mention of coming to terms with one another. His only hope (aside from the general desire that she be of good health) was to clear up any misunderstandings between them...especially her attitude toward him at his untimely dismissal.

"I'm a freshly indicted member of her group," shared the wolf at Pied's query. "But she and I have only just begun to know one another." He was getting the distinct impression that Hawkeye was aggressively perusing him as a potential suitor; the realization of such hadn't quite settled with him one way or the other. He was hardly of breeding age in the first place, and though he remained comfortable around the opposite sex, he wasn't sure he was ready to sneak off into the bushes with one. It was a sticky situation he was in...but one that could wait until later to handle.

He smiled at her mentioning a visit and quoted, "Well if you come to visit be sure to send a call out my way too. I owe you my name anyway!"

Ariston was acutely aware of a sudden chill in the air. He looked skyward and noticed that the sun had dipped behind summit of the bordering mountain...a sure sign of the afternoon waning to an approaching nightfall. "Speaking of the Plateau," he began, "I might should head on that way before Hawkeye begins to suspects I vamoosed into the wilderness." The male nodded politely at Pied and turned, grinning over his shoulder for one final exchange. "Keep working on those jokes, Sunshine! They're gonna get you far in life!"

Soft laughter followed him into the shadowy trails back home.

set by Emy

Okay! Sammi's is actually more impressive, hers is just spread between two characters. :3

"She's a great leader. She stepped up to the plate when the previous Alpha choked," Pied said, wanting to elaborate on Sandy's impression of his leader in a positive way... and momentarily unaware that her choice of words might give him a nasty twinge. "If you see her, tell her I'll come by soon."

And with that, the impromptu encounter drew to a close. Did Sandy realize how apt his comment was, considering how concerned Hawkeye tended to be over her pack mate's whereabouts? Pied smiled wryly and bobbed her snout in rejoinder to the male's parting words.

"See you later, Sandy. Nice meeting you," she said, laughing softly as she watched him go before lapsing into silence and heading back to the game trail.