Shadewood instinct

There’s a hunger in his belly that he’s felt before, but rarely, and he knows it isn’t going to get any better. It’s been days since he’s seen green, since the locusts had taken over, and he’d only been trying to follow a herd when it happened. Bowie lost them. Now, he’s lucky if he can come across an easy-to-fish-from lake or stream or a small rodent crossing his path at the wrong time. However, it has been a while since he’s stumbled across anything.

He walks through a skeletal forest, light peeping through intertwined branches that hold no leaves. Birds cry from above, flying around, and he wishes for an easy catch. None of them ever come within reach of his waiting, hungry mouth. Never do they fly close enough, or touch the ground long enough for him to plan an attack, so he continues onward through the forest. Unsure of where he’s going, of what he’s going to find, but between the never ending rows of trees and the accent of death looming his future, he knows it’s not likely he’ll see a lick of green any time soon.

Macintosh's steady legs took him north from the lake, all the way to the coast, and then south again. His search for greenery and knowledge alike was fruitless in that time. The entry to the mountain-hidded hinterland was a stinking swamp, muggy and warm from the spring ambience and lack of shade, and Mac thought that surely beyond it there must be greenery. How could there not be in a land moist and fertile enough to house a swamp? But when he pulled out of the mire, he saw nothing but the same devastation from before.

His travels took him westward next, and by the time he entered yet another thick forest with no foliage to speak of, the mud was dried and cracking on his legs and flanks. The lower half of his body itched something fierce and his eyes were flinty with irritation. Yet Mac was a patient beast, and so the irritation was only beneath the surface, and would soon be quelled by conversation: in amongst the trees just ahead of him strode a smaller wolf, of a typical tawny colour, and Macintosh subtly announced himself with a slight cough.

The cough is enough to distract him, ears swiveling forward on his head and swinging it around to search for the origin. It takes him a moment to finally land on the other canine. His fur blending in with the surroundings with no green to contrast his depth. Bowie then takes an extra second to scan the area a little harder, searching for others that might be tagging along with the newest stranger in his path. Sight or scent bring him any answers and so he finally lands his yellow gaze on the stranger.

Bowie boofs quietly in response. He doesn’t make any effort to step closer, peering through the brush to keep an eye on the other. He moves a little, so he’s a little more visible to the other—no harm here—as his ears rest casually on the back of his head.

Bowie's responding noise and body language both seem non-threatening, and Macintosh takes it upon himself to close the distance. He leaves a comfortable space between them upon approach, but draws up within earshot. Now that he was closer, Macintosh could see that Bowie was shorter and more compact, though not by a whole lot, and his agouti pattern is far more pronounced than Mac's own, which is pale at best. He wasn't observant enough to note the scar adorning the male's cheek, but Mac did briefly catch sight of flaxen eyes before he looks away so as not to present hostility of any kind.

"Are you from around here?" Mac asks, his customary greeting. While he doesn't care terribly much to ask how others are doing, or their titles and holdings and claims to fame, he cares a great deal about where they came from and who they were, and perhaps a little for where they were going. History was born from such things, and Macintosh sought to write it on the canvas of his mind, that he could tell of it later, although whom he could or would tell, even he didn't know.

The other wolf catches the hint and decides to close the distance between them. There's enough space should either decide a consequential course of action but Bowie has little interest in using his energy on a negative altercation. He'd walked in the shadow of his father so long, secured in his shadow even when he'd taken over the hollows, and he didn't quite have that safety net here. Whoever this wolf is doesn't know where he comes from and what protection he used to have. It doesn't apply out in the world where the rest of them rest comfortably back in quicksilver. 


"No," Bowie finally replies when yellow eyes finish scanning his no companion. "Got caught up in the locusts but looks like I went the wrong direction to find my way out of it," he says, with head pointed up and scanning the area. Not a sign of green left and it appears he's going further into ground zero instead of finding more places untouched.

"Hmmm," hummed Macintosh with a press of his lips into a contemplative line. He'd been hoping for some information on their surroundings, but it was likely that Bowie knew only as much as he did, and nothing more. It was equally possible that the man was a wealth of knowledge, but he couldn't guess at that. It seemed that Mac and Bowie were of mutually little benefit to one another short of teaming up for a time, but that had its own share of potential problems.

"I'm sorry you got lost in it," he said instead, choosing to manage some small talk instead of action. He wasn't a fan of small talk, but it didn't hurt Mac any to engage in it, either. "I came from a nice, prosperous place, thinking I'd find a taste of adventure out here, but all's I taste is dust." As if Bowie cared, Macintosh smiled and shook his head, then asked, "how 'bout you? Nice place to return to if you can find your way?"

There’s a slight twitch in one of his eyes when the stranger apologizes, one flick of an ear. There is little sincerity behind it that doesn’t allow Bowie to respond and instead brush it off as he considers the rest of it. If he had a place to return to, he wouldn’t imagine he would be here. An empty, desolate forest that holds no promise he’ll be able to find something to fill his angry stomach.

“No, but I should just go wherever you came from,” he tells the other with an indifferent roll of his shoulder but there’s a delayed, awkward chuckle.

Macintosh wasn't a lover of small talk and it seemed that Bowie was no lover of talk at all. Macintosh knew the sort well. Stoic and silent, brooding in a way that was almost melancholy to anyone with an ounce of personality. Why, Bowie might well be his own long lost brother come to find him. The Winters were well known for being stoic, silent, and brooding, warriors all. Droll as doorknobs, Macintosh would've called them, being one of the few Winters who liked to talk and laugh and sing songs and tell stories.

Well, Macintosh had many wolves in his life that Bowie reminded him of, and his desire to mince words with such folk was almost nonexistent. He'd left home to meet wolves with colourful personalities and cultures, damnit, not to see his family reflected in them! "Mayhap you should," Macintosh agreed, then added, "and mayhap I should. In fact, you've inspired me to return home." He thought momentarily about asking Bowie if he would like to join him on the journey, but thought belatedly that the other wolf's comment had likely been ironic, and anyway, his choice of traveling companion would have to be a sort of fellow he could talk with easily.

For better or worse, Bowie was not such a fellow in Macintosh's eyes, so he dipped his head and said, "adieu and good luck," and headed back in the direction he'd came.