Totoka River Daddy long legs

Please excuse the title. I just killed a spider :|

As was his detached preference, Haunter kept himself on the move. He felt safer at long distances, and even with a pack full of wolves that were technically on his side, he still found more comfort in his own company, watching his own back. A seasoned wolf bred only with mistrust in his heart could feel this way and be entirely justified, not that anyone knew his particular story or why he was the way he was. His yellow eyes flicked back and forth warily as he traveled miles and miles northwest, skirting the rear of the mountain range and stopping to sleep only once in its shadow.

His belly was fuller than it had been in weeks, perhaps months, but winter still looked quite shaggy and gaunt on him. The long-legged scarecrow wasn't searching for anything, nor was he intending on abandoning Swiftcurrent, but wanderlust took him further from his supposed home than originally planned and he knew to himself that it would be another day or two before he was back at their borders.

For now he arrived at a river, shallow and mostly still frozen, but he wasn't thirsty or hungry at that moment, so he padded slowly alongside it without qualms or interest. He kept the river on his left, a boundary, and moved steadily towards he ocean, which he could smell and feel as the air grew even colder and biting the closer he approached. The particularly sunless afternoon didn't help the chill either.

Wisecrack (or Wisecracker, depending on who you talked to) had somehow escaped the confines of his warm home. He was not quite sure what had driven him to seek the outside world, except that he could not help it. His owner, dear Delia, had forgotten to clip his wings for quite some time (or perhaps she had not believed in such a thing), and so now he was flying his way south. This place was too damn cold and filled with wolves.

Still, he could not help but pester them while he had the chance. When the brightly-colored bird saw the one-eared wolf out of the corner of his eye, it was his first instinct to squawk at him. “One-ear, one-ear!” he yelled, “Oh, oh, my mistake. Can you even hear me?” he asked. The multi-colored bird kept to the trees, not willing to get close to those he was taunting.

The gurgling river could not drown out the sudden raucous squawking of a creature somewhere above him. Haunter knew the discordant voices of crows and ravens, but this sound was different, and when he peered up he could see why. It was a large, colorful bird he'd never seen before, and with an impeccable capacity for language. Unfortunately, the things said by the avian wasn't cause for wonder or appreciation, but rather: aggravation.

"Piss off, rainbow," Haunter growled, turning his long muzzle forward again and padding along. The bird was lucky of his high perch—the dark wraith wasn't fond or very tolerant of insults.

With a few flaps of his wings, Wisecrack flew to another branch so that he could follow the one-eared wolf. When the dark brute swung an insult back at him, Wisecrack could not help but chuckle in his high-pitched tone. “Piss rainbow! Piss rainbow!” he squawked back, mocking the wolf with his tone. “I’m a piss rainbow!”

Wisecrack jumped to another branch, cocking his head to watch the wolf beneath him. “Did I squawk your ear off?” he yelled, “Maybe getting ready to squawk the other off.”

It was following him—and if Haunter had ever wished he could fly, it was right then so that he could destroy the loud-mouthed bird on the perch from which he cawed. And he would have not been gentle either, imagining himself trapping and plucking each of its brightly colored feathers with extreme prejudice.

The black wolf did not up his pace, but rather he slowed, wondering abruptly if the bird would dare come close enough to be rent from the tree. He highly doubted this, and there were very few branches low enough for even the stilt-legged canine to reach, but he could hope; and hope he did. "I killed the last creature who took my ear," he convincingly bluffed, as there was little room in his gravelly voice to be called a liar of any sorts; "I will not make an exception for you, bird."