Neverwinter Forest [ic joining] pilfer and plunder

Clouds rolled across the sky, dripping their wet silence across the forest below. And in that forest, the spider lurked, unfettered by the grey murk.

The spider did not hunt; it set it's trap and lay in wait, intelligent, nimble. Like the spider, the stranger who lingered upon the forest's edge skittered between the shadows. Her head low and eager in it's search; not hunting for prey, as evident by the stranger's disregard for a set of rabbit tracks that were passed over without a second thought; but predator.

She hunted for wolves, for where the wolf roamed, food was sure to surface.

Layers of snow hid the sounds of her movement. Layers would obscure the road behind her. The creature tangled her way through the crook of trees and, with a caress of her slick strides, she came upon an unforseen hollow.

The exposure put her at risk. With a low hiss of annoyance the ink-stained girl ducked low, and tried to slink along a new path. She was met with a wall of trees in one direction, and was forced to reverse, only to find another dead end.

There was nowhere for this spider to hide.

Tuwawi's legs still ached from the cold water's bite, but she had successfully returned to Neverwinter's home base... mostly unscathed from her adventures. The Phi resumed patrol at dawn around the perimeter, however, it was a halfhearted venture due to exhaustion. Her brain ran unfiltered and it struggled to process the events of the night prior. They were troubling, and her heart laid in her chest like a lead ball.

A certain odor sparked the omega's attention - an intruder? At first Tuwawi chose to hang back, her body rested in a languid pose against an oak. But when no other pack members approached, the young woman became restless and impatient. Finally, her ruddy ears pitched forward as the hunt began.

The distinct musk lead her to a familiar hollow, and in the middle was a thin creature decorated in god knows what. Tuwawi's russet fur bristled as she moved to intercept the vagrant. "You are on another's land," the Phi said in a solid tune as her quicksilver eyes gauged the stranger's intent.

It did not take long for someone to find her, and the discovery made her bitter.

She was better than this! Far better. And yet, a stranger emerged with the defensive demeanour that the girl wished to avoid in it's entirety.

Quick words met Bayou's half-cocked ears. Holding back the urge to bare her teeth, to hiss and spit and make a fuss, she tried to look as pleasing to the pack wolf as she could. As inconspicuous as possible.

It would fail, of course, for no wolf that wanders in the dead of night could ever be trusted.

She deferred to the stranger with her head nearly level with the ground, and tail curling to her swarthy underparts; the tip twitching as if it took true effort to allow the appendage to lower. Involuntary.

"Wi, repons lan se wi!" The spider spat while putting forth an apologetic front.

"I have been walking for days, won't you be emab, ehr," She slunk towards the red-crested creature with her belly in the soil, lifting that sharp snout so that she could reach at the ruddy woman's chin with her tongue; a wave of hot, rancid breath spilling forth with the effort. "Kind? Kind, yes? It is winter and I am so hungry."

Bayou was loathe to beg, but at times begging was necessary. The foul little girl had been caught and there was no other option, but to squawk at her captor and hope for leniency.

A thick accent rolled off the stranger's tongue, and it was as new to Tuwawi as the girl's sad appearance. So reedy was the black yearling that her matted fur hung like a three day old carcass... and smelled like it too. Despite this she was lively, animated, and surprisingly eager to prostrate herself. The dark child nearly ran herself into the ground as she begged for food, and Tuwawi pitied her in earnest.

Such a flamboyant display warranted caution, but what was protocol here? Tuwawi reflected onto her past... and remembered a time when she had killed for Kindred — the raider's blood still tasted fresh on her tongue. That wolf had been desperate too. And Tartok? No creature was allowed on their territory. No exceptions. And what of her alpha, Chakra? If Tuwawi had been a year younger, she might have been more eager to chase off the beggar wolf. However, now, there was a softness to her that didn't exist before. Tuwawi was a good wolf by nature.

The inky child squirmed and writhed as her silky voice beseeched the Phi, going as far as attempting to lick her chin; but Tuwawi backed away, with a fang bared, unwilling to accept such a lowly display. She watched, and thought, for a few moments before answering. "Perhaps I will get you food. What is your name?" she offered with a sideways glance. The swamp creature looked hungry, enough. Taking food from the cache meant one mouth in the pack would go hungry, however recent events had made the red woman's ulterior motives shift.

@Chakra I howl at the wind.

The red woman's creased face and utter revulsion towards young Bayou, made the child want to retract. To coil in to herself the way a spider folds in to a ball when smacked aside.

Most of all, she wanted to spit in the woman's face. Perhaps attempt to overpower her (if she got close enough); then she would be free to pilfer from any cache the stern woman may be protecting.

Bayou held herself in check. Her hostility was restrained. She let out a keen whine which pierced the forest's walls and retreated in to the soil in earnest, dragging her muddied chest through the twigs, ready to expose her tender belly if need be -- but the woman, taking her act as truth, finally gave in.

"Oh, oui, oui, this is very kind indeed!" The spider praised while exposing her teeth in a dull yellow grin. The girl got to her feet. Her haunch trembled as she stood there, with her belly lifted from the earth by those narrow limbs.

With her bright eyes staring at the woman's shadow-obscured paws, she gave a short sweeping bow and, thinking quickly, uttered, "Kòbo -- I am Kòbo," A twitch of the eye could betray her, so they remained steady upon the defensive woman's bare limbs.

Oops short post! Maybe @chakra could intervene next post before Tuwa gives away all of NWF's food?

It was if all of the fight and fire had abandoned the young woman's spirit, and it left her in a shell of broken indifference. With a raised brow she queried the urchin's answer, but accepted it all the same. "Kòbo," she parroted after the youth, oblivious to the lies she spun, "wait here." Her narrow body turned away and disappeared over the ridge to a cache that had been planted by another the day before. Swiftly she turned earth, and retrieved half of a decaying rabbit from the hole. A few moments later she returned with the prize in hand, ready to offer it to the emaciated yearling.

Tuwawi hoped that an act of generosity would draw forth some sort of emotion or good feeling she desperately desired. Yet, as she stood prepared to give this beggar a meal, the bleak void remained.

A howl rent the air, its songful message spoken in a voice she did not recognize. Keen ears, like radars, swiveled and determined where the call had come from, and quickly she was on her way. Yet another stranger dared to encroach upon her timbered boundaries. After her recent run-in with the fox-like fool who had come here, it seemed, solely for the purpose to pick a fight with her, Chakra's tolerance for strangers on her lands was nearly nonexistent. A soft growl had begun to rumble deep in her chest, and her mane bristled pre-emptively.

It didn't take her long to find the one who had howled. When she did, she saw that one of her packmates had already arrived and, apparently, been talking with the stranger. It was Tuwawi, her beautiful red Phi, and it appeared that she intended to offer the stranger a carcass from one of their caches. Quickly, a sharp snarl flew from Chakra's lips, her ears flattening back in anger, and she sprang at Tuwawi. "What do you think you're doing?!" she hissed at her subordinate, sea-ice eyes blazing with cold fire. "It is the middle of winter and here you stand, giving our pack's precious food to an intruder. I should throw you out along with this fool," she gestured toward the dark-coated stranger. "You can redeem yourself by putting that back where you found it."

She whirled on the dark stranger. She appeared to be a yearling, withered and thin by lack of nutrition so that she appeared spidery and wraithlike. Chakra was disgusted. "What do you want?" she asked harshly, her ire escalating slightly from moments before.

When the guard took off through the trees, the withered girl had half a mind to follow, to steal away within the shadows and spy upon where the precious cache was located.

Bayou held herself against the earth despite this wanting. She reduced herself to her belly once more, limbs sprawled in a v-shape towards the escaping flash of red, and waited. The foolish woman returned, ready to ply the miscreant with meat.

It was not to last. The spider may have tricked the fly, but there was something bigger coming from the moody forest, and Bayou saw it before the guard - a great white monster of a woman, who was upon them quickly; a living snow storm.

The spider did what she thought was best, and scurried out of the stranger's path. A morsel of food was not worth this trouble. While the storm berated her subordinate, pelting her with a hail of reprimand, Bayou searched with her wild eyes, hoping for an escape.

But the ice was quickly directed at her feeble self, to which she had to buckle and grovel. "I am so hungry, just hungry! She was kind to offer what was needed, please," Think quickly, little spider. "I begged, and she accepted, but it is good intentioned."

A new thought brightened her spirit, although Bayou kept herself plastered low in the dirt, creeping closer to the obvious superior with her tongue ready to administer deference. "I would repay! I would do whatever is asked. Quick to learn, oui, that is me. Ranbousman, I repay I repay!"

The spider crept closer and closer, and reached, hoping to land her tongue upon the stranger's chin the way she had with the fire-woman; her sunken cheeks puffed with the effort.

You guys can skip me from here on out... but Tuwa's hanging close by in case she is called upon.

The meat had nearly been placed on the ground, but Tuwawi saw Kòbo's waxy eyes go wide and soon Chakra, Neverwinter's undisputed leader, was upon them. "What do you think you're doing?!" she seethed, her anger palpable. The phi was quick to bow away, tail scooped beneath her belly with ruddy ears flattened tight against her crown. "Just a child—," she fumbled in an attempt to get a word in between Chakra's. The effort was futile when the alabaster wolf's voice cut deep. "It is the middle of winter and here you stand, giving our pack's precious food to an intruder. I should throw you out along with this fool," Tuwawi flinched as her lips curled over her teeth in a submissive grin, the corners of her mouth pulled away. No amount of reasoning would justify her actions and so Tuwawi held her tongue. Shame should have infested the red woman, but even now no sentiment came... the border between right and wrong blurred perilously.

"You can redeem yourself by putting that back where you found it," Chakra said. Not wanting to be banished from Neverwinter, the ember complied with the order to return the meal to its rightful cache. She slunk away, rabbit in tow, to bury it again in a safe place. It was up Chakra to decide exactly how to handle the murky teenager, whose appeared unimpressed by her meek cries.

So sorry for keeping you waiting! Last few days have been very hectic. Btw, even though Chakra's kind of dismissing Bayou here, you don't need to consider it a rejection yet; Bayou can still talk her way into the pack. :)

Chakra watched Tuwawi go, a bit of sulk evident in her slink as she left with the food. Despite her harsh exchange with the red-coated subordinate, Chakra felt an undercurrent of warmth and affection for her. Tuwawi was hers. It was her duty to protect not just their pack and their pack's interests — such as the food Tuwawi had been prepared to give away — but also her pack's members, including Tuwawi herself. If this strange little wolf was a threat in any way, it was better that Chakra deal with her and any dangers she might bring.

Turning her attention back to the dark wraith, she growled in distaste at the other's attempts to lick her chin. A quick snap, white teeth coming together with a sharp clack, put some space between them again. "I have neither the desire nor the resources to feed every beggar that comes crawling at my borders," she replied coldly to the other's pleas. "Go away."

When a spider faced a bird it would always lose. The bird was always better equipped; quick enough to scoop up the spider's body and swallow down it's kicking legs.

Bayou was indeed a skittering menace, but she was young. She had not encountered any birds with enough hostility to end her life — but the white woman's snapping teeth still made her flinch away, to slink and sulk against the mud.

Being refused was something else as well — Bayou was accustomed to getting what she wanted, simply because what she wanted was often the same thing that many packs did not want or desire. Rotting meat, for example. A half-frozen carcass with only bones remaining.

The stranger's dismissal of her felt a lot like losing and Bayou, as aware as she was of her position in life, was resistant.

"I do whatever is wanted! I repay, refill!" The spider chatted away, falling over her slick limbs as they crumpled beneath her; as Bayou prostrated desperately. "Gather, hunt, bless, I do things for you. All things, any things. Oui, mwen menm mwen nan dèt ou-" She crawled on her belly towards the woman now, but did not dare to reach with that pointed crow-face of her's; learning swiftly that the great white woman did not want to be touched. "Debt, yes, I repay debt for life. Please choose life,"

her gaze was sharp and wide-eyed, the shining yellow of her iris cutting contrasting circles in the dark.

Cold and hard, that was Chakra's exterior. Yet inside, she was raised by a mother who had taught her mercy. She may have had savage Feralheart in her blood, but she had a kind and merciful Endore heart. She preferred to ignore it most of the time, because such emotions seemed to get her into a lot of situations she'd regret later.

Like now. As the young stranger crawled, crumpled and pathetic on the ground, begging and pleading for something, anything, Chakra felt something kindle inside her. Some miniscule iota of mercy sparked in her heart and she found herself considering, despite her overwhelming desire and instinct to just tell this carrion crow to get lost. Another growl rumbled in her chest, born more of her own ire with herself than with the stranger. What was that bizarre babble that she kept lapsing into anyway? Was she mad? Her voice was cold and direct: "What is your name?"

Yes, yes, this was good.

The stranger had a flicker of kindness within her, and this was what Bayou latched upon; a child feasting against a teat. She could use this mercy and was eager to.

"What is your name?" The woman questioned, stern, yet relenting to Bayou's pleas. Yes. Very good.

"I am Kòbo," The girl lied, but the grim smile upon her face tried to hide the error that her tongue boasted. Bayou would not give her true name, for there was a power in names.

And as quick as the spider was to grovel and survive, she would never give away the power within herself. Bayou crept closer by one step, her head reaching towards the spectral woman with a warm, hopeful whine.

Kòbo, the other answered, and Chakra had no idea that it was a lie. To her, the name of this stranger was no more special or noteworthy than the name of countless other strangers who showed up at their borders for whatever reason. The young she-wolf inched a step closer, her narrow head on its skinny neck stretching toward her like a hand reaching for a gesture of charity. A soft growl of warning again reminded Kòbo of her place. She was not so tolerant with older wolves; only this one's youth earned her the benefit of the doubt. "I don't have room for the useless here. If you have any worthwhile skills, let's hear them."

It was one thing to lie about a name. Bayou felt a twinge of doubt when she was asked to outline her abilities, as she was no wordsmith — and any titles or boasts she could expel here, could come back to bite her. The girl was not accustomed to weaving large webs of lies and improper claims, but here in this moment, she would have to do just that.

First, she flinched away from the rumbling woman. She buckled and lay with her chin against the soil, no longer reaching, and in her absent-mindedness Bayou's gaze flickered to the shadows where the ruddy red girl had departed to. There wasn't enough time to concoct a worthwhile story.

"I am young, I can learn." Bayou stated first, although the twitch of her nose (it crinkled awkwardly) bespoke her own understanding of how futile such a claim would be upon the woman's ears. Her youth was not important, not really. A pack was built of strong individuals who could care for one another.

There was no place in such a world for a scavenging wraith such as Bayou.

"I can prowl for you; seek out meals, track," What more could she do? The girl was not about to divulge all of her tricks and secrets, even if it meant receiving protection and food from the ghost's ranks. "Keep an eye on anyone you find unpleasant, yes?" Was that enough? Bayou let out a small squeal of desire, which crept through the trees as it dissipated.

"I do what is asked, oui, I do what is needed."

Bayou was coiled and ready to be chased out, eager to escape the scrutiny of the white woman, to find another target for her empty stomach; quickly assuming that her attempts would inevitably fail.

Gah, I just love Bayou. You write so beautifully, and I love how she talks. :)

As the little crow went over what she knew — which was, not surprisingly, very little considering her youth — Chakra listened with a neutral expression on her face. This scrawny little shadow of a wolf had very little to offer Neverwinter, a fact which under any other circumstances would have resulted in a quick, sharp-toothed dismissal. But something Kòbo said had caught the pale Alpha's attention; when she fell silent again, Chakra considered for a moment before commenting, "Hmm, I could use a good spy." She arched a brow at Kòbo, thinking she looked very much like the slick, sneaky sort who could do whatever "quiet work" needed to be done and keep a low profile about it. Chakra liked that idea very much, actually. "Is this something you would do? Be my eyes and ears where I have none, in exchange for food and shelter?"

omg ty ;-; i am trying to write her really simplistically so im glad it is working.

"I could use a good spy, The pale woman revealed, which was a surprise for the dark girl. It was not often that others sought out a creature with those skills; but she was eager, and willing.

When questioned further, Bayou simply gave a nod. The motion was more like a vibration that started in her neck and trembled through to her haunch, ending with a violent batting of her tail. "Oui!" The spider's voice bellowed, crackling in pitch.

Happy little sounds chirped and chattered out of Bayou as she peered up at the big woman, fully alert now and not dragging herself in the dirt; such an arrangement was the most favourable to the spider, who could continue skittering through the dark at her own whim.

It just meant she would have to return from time to time, to tell this ghost some stories. The level of entertainment in that thought was bountiful indeed.

"I pledge my service!" Bayou crooned, while her limbs unfolded and she stood proudly before the woman. "Kòbo is thankful - trè rekonesan!"

Time would tell if her pledge was true. It was always hard to trust a spider, after all.

Gah, so sorry for dragging ass with finishing this. Last post from me. Welcome to NWF! <3 Bayou will be ranked as a juvenile until her first birthday.

Chakra's brow furrowed in a brief moment of puzzlement as the scarecrow girl spoke words to her in a language she could not understand. She assumed, however, from the yearling's pleased demeanor that whatever she said was good. Chakra nodded, uncertain of the wisdom of this decision but accepting that it was too late to go back and change how things had unfolded. Motioning for Kòbo to follow her, she turned and made to head back into the forest. "Come," she said, her previously harsh voice taking on a slightly softer tone. "Follow me and we'll get you something to eat. Perhaps Tuwawi has not yet buried that carcass."

Deception. It was sweet while it lasted. More tender than the softest of meats, more satisfying than a fresh kill; not that Bayou was commonly around such a beautiful thing.

It was thrilling. Invigorating. What doubts had spurred her in to the mud, in to crawling and mewling for mercy in the beginning, now vanished. She was swift to assume a more relaxed posture along the earth's surface while the woman considered - and then rightly accepted the wicked child's half truths.

When prompted, she scurried after the pallid woman and over the knoll which rested between them and the cache of goodies, which now belonged to her

Yes, yes, this success bolstered Bayou's inner pride. Not even a great ghost could thwart her desires - she was just too smart for her.

[exit bayou]