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dainty, distinguished — his, his, his, his.
they were lost children, thin in the teeth of winter, their pelts worn ragged by the sleepless nights and the scraps stolen from bearkills. their mother was nowhere to be found, but buffalo had not allowed byll to seek out the Sos-touched woman. She would have killed them if She returned to find them near, he believed.
and so he had taken his sister and set a trudge for them into the frozen embrace of the mountains. they had been attacked by rogues, harangued by bears — he had brought her out of it all relatively unscathed.
byll was by turns a whinging, pallid moth, and a violent flash of pale fire. her voices chunnered and spoke, but never to buffalo, who often lay down to sleep alongside one of his sister's personalities, only to awake alongside another.
today he had hunted for her and it dawned upon him, as his mispaired eyes took in byll's shivering, emaciated form, that they would die without a pack. or rather, that his sister would die; buffalo was assured of his own immortality, though he would never admit how much he leant upon byll's existence, or what her death would spell for him.
can it,
buffalo hissed, pausing at the scent-soaked borders of the first pack they had found, weary of her muttering and chanting. charmed by his own appearance, bright red across the canvas of his face, the details of which had been checked in the ice of a frozen creek, the boy called for a leader. and let me talk; don't say anything.
The voice was felt, and it could not be ignored. This was who Buffalo was faced with this morning, and there was no silence to be had. "No," she sneered, her nostrils flaring indignantly. "Tell me what to do again and you'll pay." These threats were never idle when they came. Her anger was explosive, quick, and though she was small she was reckless in the pain she might cause. Thinking ahead was not a forte. Of course, she, too, was marked and ruined. But if Byll was good for one thing, one thing at all, it was keeping to the character that ruled her mind that given moment.
And she had given in.
She was a woman possessed by many Loa. This was declared by Clarice who had noted the wild changes. Blessed. Byll believed this with all of her heart.
Her gaze was locked upon him, and the testy girl bore her teeth. Try me.
When a call had rose up through the snowy silence around him, Mordecai found himself squinting at the boughs above him. In a moment of passing weariness, the fledgling alpha of the Spine had been rolling about in the snow. He had made a proper mess of a small and perfectly good patch of untouched snow, but it had to have been done. Mordecai rose with a furious shake of his body, sending whatever little bits of snow that clung to his now damp and slicked-in-every-direction coat back where they properly belonged. He set off promptly with no true direction, other than the one he perceived to believe the call had come from.
By the time he found them, he wasn't entirely sure what to make of the sight he saw. Most striking was the evident male of the pair, a wolf that at first glance, really could have fooled him as Lecter. It was enough to give him pause a ways off, enough to cause him to bristle and lose the momentary good feeling he had been carrying. But the cause for pause came to pass relatively quick, and his approach was marked strongly by dominance. They looked sickly, worn so thin that he wondered what it was that they could do for him if they had fared so poorly coming into the first weeks of a tentative winter.
Shifting his gaze between both of them, he wordlessly prompted them to speak. They had called him to his border, left him leery in his approach, so he offered them no niceties in greeting. Just a question, firm gaze that wondered what it was that they had come for, and why.
![[Image: warrior_master.gif]](http://wolf-rpg.com/images/trades/warrior_master.gif)
![[Image: gamekeeper_master.gif]](http://wolf-rpg.com/images/icons/trades/gamekeeper_master.gif){kind=icon}
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he made as if to growl, annoyed by her threat, but the approach of a hale man stifled his plans to control byll. buffalo was aware that their appearance was off-putting, even pathetic, but he gathered what height was granted him thus far and offered the male what he felt was a charming smile.
hello, sir,
buffalo murmured, ears sweeping back and tail lowering in the submissive gesture of their species. my sister and i are in grave need of a place to weather the winter, sir,
the boy continued, his features adorned with an expression of worry that was not completely falsified.
Byll of course did not understand the gravity of the situation. Death, particularly their own, was a topic she did not mull over at great length. She noted her brothers worry and wondered at it, and kept her gaze on her duplicate for the while.
Yet it was the shriveling female's words that triggered the most interesting note. Poisons and remedies, there had been more than just one other in the Spine's short history who had been capable of such things. They lacked a healer and in all honesty, had sporadic success with those who could mend wounds on the fly. Poisons were but a box belonging Pandora that he did not dare open. But he feigned interest in this for a moment, instead letting his eyes settle on the bloodied male. “What can you do for the Spine?” His words, though firm, carried a light tone with them. “Are you a hunter?” The bloodstains of his muzzle held his attention most of all.
buffalo's lips tightened at his sister's outburst; his smile faltered for a moment. stupid! he wanted to shout at her, for surely now their chances of entry into this Spine had been dashed by her mad witchy cackle!
but it was not so. the man before them spoke, assessing the starveling pair. could they hunt? buffalo felt it was evident by the blood splashed across them both, but he wisely withheld his sharp tongue. yes, sir,
he said softly. we had to learn, and quickly. our mother — she died,
the boy lied glibly, but perhaps it was not a lie, for who knew where clarice had gone?
At the mention of their mother, Byll turned to look at the leader again. Was she dead? Did Buffalo know something she did not? ...Was that sadness, or was that joy? Her nostrils flared as she thought of her mother bowling her to the ground in discipline, but there was a certain anguish she felt when she imagined never feeling the approving gaze of her mother as she expressed to her the voices that she heard. It had been but one time, but... to think it would be never again?
Sadness was plainly evident. And yet... there was a glimmer in her eye, a glimmer that could betray her own uncertainty in how to truly feel.
This round, the scrawny female was quiet, but still focused on her matching sibling. In spite of their weariness, in spite of their overall appearance, they were both hunters. Young hunters at that, though Mordecai couldn't have completely said he could have gauged their age properly. If that spoke volumes about what tribulations and trials they had been through, he didn't know what would. But for all he knew, it could have been a ruse. Winter had come to those lands and history spoke of libraries full of those who wanted nothing more than a place to freeload.
Perhaps emotion was one of his more obvious downfalls. It too, was something he hadn't entirely determined for himself. “Is that all you can do? Just hunt and work with toxins?” He felt slightly antagonistic, querying them in ways that he had not been on his own entrance so many weeks ago. But the settings had changed and so had all of the cast. Mordecai was still feeling his way out, trying to dredge up what would make them better additions to the Spine, versus what would only drag them down. He knew he could not take in all of the strays and vagabonds he found, and most of all he could not always take in those who were set on moving on come spring.
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his ears folded back at the man's lack of interest in the skills they had already listed. their chances of joining seemed grim; buffalo attempted a low whimper in the male's direction. we are quick learners,
the boy said softly, now truly pleading for their lives. we will attempt to fill any role you have need of.
be quiet, byll! he shouted in his head, hoping fervently she would keep her mouth shut and thus not cut the rope from which they dangled so precariously.
Byll does not so much as flinch at the leaders words, though perhaps she ought to of. She did not understand the severity of their situation. But hearing her brothers response gave her something of an inkling that this... this was a situation that required... something she was not used to. Byll struggled with that thought for a minute, and nodded (though to what, it was not clear. Perhaps to the leader, it would seem like she was agreeing with her brother).
"What do you need?" She speaks, ignoring her brothers mental plea which is tangible to her. She can feel his prodding, a blunt edge of a knife pressed between her shoulderblades. Byll never worked well with threats, but she was trying to work in this situation.
In spite of their shared appearances, the fact that they were quick to yield to him even minutely seemed promising. But in truth he may have hated that he requested that from them. It was a mounting tension that Mordecai was not quite realizing, something that he did not enjoy grappling with in the slightest. No doubt they were weary and eager for some modicum of hope that would ensure a foothold of success through the winter. Why he found himself unwilling to throw them the proverbial bone struck him swiftly and uneasily; Mordecai pondered how to face some sort of face.
"We have need of many things, foremost able bodies," he said, softening the edge he thought he carried. "Quick learners are one of those things, as well as eager ones. We could use healers, but defenders as well." The Spine had enough able bodies that could pass for bare-boned scouts, he felt. They were all feral at heart, so he did not fret at the concern that they needed fighters. The Spine had always adhered to those willing to defend it and linger, which for the most part there had been a handful of them that had banded together through the hardships.
Allowing the time for them to respond, he decided to go with the decision to take them in. However temporary at that, he assumed they could handle the burden in resource loss if they did not stay. They had endured so far and would continue to endure.