Moonspear Sweet child o' mine

Now and then Wraen returned to the caves at the foot of the tall mountain the Moonspear wolves called their home. Since the days had become colder, there were no dangers of encountering rattle-snakes or any snakes, that would make the young wolf run for her dear life, and she was free to explore the place and fill the empty spaces with the creatures from the palace of her mind. 

The last time she had placed a small size snot-troll in almost triangular shaped crevice in the wall. He was a shy person and therefore preferred lodgings, where he could see everyone, but not vice versa. Today, however, she was moving up and down the rocky path, jumping from boulder to boulder in a search for a hiding place of a grumpy goblin. Not that he had expressed any wish to leave her mind, but he had spilled grumpiness for quite some while and Wraen wanted to fire him respectfully.

As Rannoch felt better, he found himself straying from the lifestyle that he had become accustomed to; instead of napping mid-day, he found himself setting out more often to familiarize himself with Moonspear's territory. On this particular blustery Fall afternoon, Rannoch was exploring once more. Roaving along the trail that was more-often trekked, as he didn't want to risk any further injury, the Iota wandered mindlessly for quite some time as he took everything in. 

In his meandering, Rannoch eventually caught a whiff of Wraen's scent and, almost instantly, he found that the smell piqued his interest. Changing his course, as he was interested in meeting the packmate that he was not yet acquainted with, Rannoch walked with more purpose as he followed the trail that she had left. 

Soon enough, Rannoch came across Wraen. He found her bouncing between boulders in a manner that the Iota read as determined. For a short moment, Rannoch was conflicted on whether or not he should reach out, as she seemed busy, but, he figured it'd be nice to introduce himself quickly before allowing her to go on her way. 

"Hey!" called Rannoch from as distance, and quickly, he found himself wondering whether or not he'd been loud enough to catch her attention.

What do you think? Wraen had a mental conversation with the creature she was about to sack. She was peering in a hole, which was located between some rocks and from the smell she could tell that the previous inhabitant must have been a bird or something very like it. Avian poop had a very specific smell. However she did not hear the goblin's answer, because someone called her from outside. In her haste to turn around, she hit the top of her head against the ceiling of the hole and, when she finally faced the person in question, she was wincing and there were tears in her eyes.

"Just a moment," she said, squeezed her eyes shut and willed the pain to go away. "Hurts like hell, when you get hit right in the middle of the skull," Wraen told and mustered up a small smile, then lifted her paw to wipe the tears away.

Wraen had arrived at the grumpy goblin's hiding place by the time that Rannoch's voice had reached her. He kept his distance as he observed her in silence, his curiosity growing with each passing moment. When she turned to face him, she greeted him with a pained expression and tears in her eyes. Though he had initially been puzzled by her grief, she explained the reasoning behind her hurt. 

Quickly, Rannoch asked, "Is there anything can I do to help?" as he observed her with concern.

"Oh no," Wraen shook her head and though she still felt pain, it was receding now. "Don't tell anyone that I almost cried, though," she added with a chuckle, though her tone was pretty serious. By "anyone" meaning Hydra in particular - a great person, leader, everything that Wraen should be and was not - she somehow had a feeling that there was little patience for crybabies. 

"I am Wraen, what is your name?"

Though Wraen's answer didn't sit right with Rannoch, he did not question her further. Instead, he replied, "Your secret is safe with me." After all, it was none of his business to disclose the events that had unfolded before him.

"Nice to meet you, Waren. I'm Rannoch." Curiously, he pressed, "How long have you been at Moonspear?" 

"Mhm..." Wraen thought, trying to recall the exact moment she had joined the ranks, though now it felt like she had been here forever. "Some time in summer, I guess..." she shrugged, feeling happy that she had battled the problem and put behind her. 

"What about you? Where do you come from?" she would much rather hear the other's story than tell hers, which - after three or four repetitions had grown quite boring for her to tell. "You came here recently, didn't you?"

Summer. A much simpler time, Rannoch reflected upon silently. He nodded at the information and found that he had nothing worthwhile to comment in reply. 

Unlike Wraen, the events that had led to his recruitment had seemed to have spread like wildfire, and he found himself genuinely surprised that she had not heard about what had happened. "Yes, about a month now," he began, "I used to be the Alpha of a nearby pack, Northstar Vale. My brother, Cypress, had gone missing and I decided to investigate where he had gone. During my travels, I stopped by Firefly Glen for the night. I was attacked there and, thankfully, Hydra, Ayla, and Lyra were nearby. They saved my life and brought me back here so that I could heal. Since then, I've joined the ranks as I wish to repay everybody for their kindness." 

"How about you?" he asked with a tilt of his head, "Where did you come from?" 

Wraen was pretty oblivious to the events going on in other packs, aside from the one, where a rock-eating distant relative lived, she didn't know of any other in the area. Therefore she listened with polite interest, adding all of the "oh"s and "ah"s in the right places and in the end she felt sorry for what the guy had had gone through and secretly glad that she had not been in his place. 

"Far-far-away," it was easier to tell it this way, then disclosing all of the left and right turns you had to take to get here from the place, where her parents lived. "I was born somewhere around here, in fact, but me and my siblings and parents left, when we were young. Did quite a lot of traveling and finally found a great place to call our home. My brother Terance left earlier this year and... I kind of felt the knack of seeing the world a little bit myself too. Could not let him have all the fun, could I?" she smiled.

Like Wraen, Rannoch listened with polite interest until she disclosed a specific piece of information that caught his attention. "You're Terance's sister?!" Rannoch asked as he gave her a once over from where he stood at a distance. Despite his brief investigation, Rannoch did not seem to notice many similarities between the two wolves; but, a lack of evidence did not discredit her claim as he reasoned that he and Cypress did not look similar in appearance, either. "He's a really cool guy," he elaborated on his initial surprise, "I met him a little while ago." 

Curious to know if any more of their siblings were around Moonspear, Rannoch asked, "Are you the only two? Or do you have any other siblings here at Moonspear?" 

"Doesn't he know it..." Wraen rolled her eyes, when Rannoch told her that he thought Terance was cool. She had never envied him for being tougher, stronger and more adventurous, but she sometimes wished that she too - with all her silly antics - would be appreciated the same way.

"Don't look very much like him, huh?" the other's searching gaze did not escape Wraen's attention. "He is daddy's boy through and through. I take after my mum," this was a small solace. Osprey had been cool in her days.

"Nah, just him. Though I have an older sibling at home - Sarah helps dad with leading, and I have a bunch of younger ones, though I have not seen them ever since they were little, fluffy potatoes," she spoke fondly of her family and not for the first time wondered, what had grown up from those tiny things.

Rannoch snorted lightheartedly at Wraen's response, knowing all too well of what she was betokening. From what Rannoch had seen, it was apparent that Terance was very self-aware. His consciousness on the matter wasn't a bad thing, at least in Rannoch's eyes it wasn't, and at times he found it both charming and humorous. 

When Rannoch had realized that Wraen had caught his observation, he lowered his ears briefly out of embarrassment. "No, not at all," he replied meekly. Feeling as though the two could relate, he added, "My brother, Cypress, and I are the same. I take after my father and he..." he paused and ransacked his memory for who Cypress had taken after, "takes after our.... great-grandfather?" Sure, that sounded right. 

He nodded as what he learned about her family, finding himself particularly fond of the fact that she had some younger siblings back at home. "That potato stage has always been my favorite," he mused with a softened expression. "They're just so... cute."

"Wow! And probably your great-grandfather took after his uncle, cousin or other great-great-someone. It is odd to think that we are not very original, but assembled from jumbled up pieces of our ancestors," Wraen mused, remembering her mother telling about herself being very similar to her uncle Osprey Sr. and of Wraen having inherited her grandmother's March Owl's green eyes. Where they had come from, however, Osprey could not tell. 

"Yeah, but they don't stay little potatoes forever. Soon they grow teeth, the next moment you know it - your own mum kicks you out of the den and then comes all the gangly-limbs and lack of coordination and in general - too much body to be aware of and take care of-time," she chuckled, recalling her own clumsy days during childhood. Those had been fun. And bruise-full, if that kind of word really existed. 

"Though I am a lot graceful now than I was before," she added, smiling though not to the full extent. The memory of tripping and rolling down the slope of the mountain the other day was still very vivid. And it had not been a dangerous or very trick slope.

Rannoch considered what Wraen said, his expression thoughtful in his momentary pause. "Yeah!" he exclaimed excitedly, his mind buzzing as he considered all of the unoriginal traits that came together and make him an individual. "Kinda weird... but, kinda cool!" He briefly contemplated what traits his children would borrow from their lineage.

"After that, those little potatoes begin to learn, well, everything-- like walking without falling a million times!" he reminded her kindly. "But, you're right about the coordination stuff; I remember being very clumsy when I was younger," he mused with a chuckle of his own.

"Well, looking at you now," Wraen began letting her gaze travel from the tip of Rannoch's muzzle to the tips of his toes and tail, "it is pretty hard to imagine you ever being a potato to begin with. Are you sure that you weren't born this big and gorgeous from the very beginning?" She asked and chuckled, feeling a little foolish for her choice of words and not too sure, if it was appropriate to reveal to others that you thought they looked amazing. 

"If I am right - don't worry about not being part of the potato club. I was not either, you see. I was an unspecified root," she smiled. "Not all of us can be potatoes..." Wraen sighed and looked away.

Rannoch chuckled at Wraen's comment, unable to hide his amusement at the mental imagery she created. "I can't be too sure, actually," he admitted with a look of mirth. "After all, my Momma always said I was a big boy." Perhaps he had been as big and beautiful as his packmate had envisioned. 

"An unspecified root?" Rannoch echoed with interest, a brow raising in tandem with the words that he spoke. Taking a step towards her, Rannoch asked with a cant of his skull, "What were you?" 

"The very thing I said earlier - u.n.s.p.e.c.i.f.i.e.d r.o.o.t.," Wraen spelled each letter to make it clear that this was a very long and a very complicated abbreviation. "Just the same way potato or flower kids aren't only described by the obvious meaning. There is a hidden one behind every single letter," for a brief moment she was very proud that she had managed to come up with such a smart thing and a searching glance in Rannoch's directions wanted to make sure, if she had made the right impression.

However a second later her excited expression fell, realizing that - oh, god - there was a goddamn lot to come up with, in case her companion asked for further explanations. Failing to create something rational and reasonable would be very embarrassing indeed.

Wraen's elaboration did the opposite of what she had intended. Instead of understanding what had been said, Rannoch found himself more confused. Instead of inquiring further, as he figured it'd just be more of a headache, Rannoch feigned comprehension of the acronym and nodded. 

"Oh," he replied with a self-conscious flick of his tail as he put forth his most confident front, "I understand." He did not understand.

"Did I give you a mind-block?" Wraen asked worriedly, when Rannoch - rather than sharing the enthusiasm for the mystery within a mystery, suddenly grew uneasy and distant. "Oh, shit... I am so, so sorry," she said, moving from one foot to the other, growing increasingly nervous herself. It had been a while, since she had managed to "talk one's ears off". 

"I know, what we can do to rid of that," she came up with an idea, that would solve all of the trouble. "Let's run to that tree," she pointed to a young oak-tree in the distance. "See, who gets there first. Are you in?"

Rannoch's ears flattened the moment that Wraen had caught him red-pawed. "Yeah," he replied, "But, you're okay!" He felt guilty that he hadn't understood what she was trying to get across and he felt even worse that she was troubled by the confusion that she had caused. 

Before he could elaborate further, she came up with an idea that would put the entire conversation behind them. His eyes followed as she motioned to the oak tree in the distance and once it was spotted, he returned his gaze to her. To Rannoch, it seemed like the perfect plan. 

"I'm in," Rannoch replied with a smile.

"And... los gehts!" Wraen exclaimed the only two words she knew in a foreign tongue that she had learned from a new recruit just before she had left her family pack. "Let's go!" would do as well, but something about the sharp sound of the former seemed more effective and appropriate for the time being. 

She ran as fast as she could, keeping her eyes locked at the goal, knowing very well that her small and agile frame was no match to Rannoch's. One leap of his would be two or three of hers.

Wanna wrap this up soon?

At the sound of Wraen's exclamation, Rannoch pushed off against the ground and launched himself towards the tree; he had been too absorbed in anticipation of the race's start to realize that she had spoken another language. 

Rannoch lumbered forward, his gait resembling that of a bear in pursuit; he had never been the best with cardiovascular activities, and this race was no exception. Focusing entirely on making it to the finish line, Rannoch focused on the goal without knowing whether or not he was in the lead. 

When he did make it to the goal, he stopped abruptly and swung his head in the direction that he assumed that Wraen finished. With his sides heaving and his tongue lolling, Rannoch looked to his competition with a questioning expression, as if silently asking, "who won?" 

Do you know that one moment in action movies, where a gigantic dinosaur/gorilla/robot is coming your way and you hear his thundering footsteps way before the very beast appears? That was, how Wraen felt (though I have to add here that she was over-perceptive at times and loved to exaggerate), when Rannoch first caught up with her and then dashed past as a massive steel locomotive. At one point his shoulder almost collided with her, if she had not jumped sideways at the right time.

He won, though Wraen was not too far behind either. "Wow - now that was something!" she told her companion. "You are fast and you take down with the mass - so to say."

ooc: sure thing. In your next post maybe?

Rannoch looked at Wraen with genuine surprise when he was told of his victory. It was hard to believe but, despite his self-doubt, he had no reason to assume that his packmate of lied about something so minuscule. 

Smiling, he looked from Wraen and to the trodden path they had raced upon, feeling suddenly ambitious. "Best two out of three?" He asked, turning back to his pack mate with the mischevious light in his turquoise eyes. 

The two raced to their heart's desire, only stopping when Rannoch felt that he couldn't go another step. Once he felt good enough to walk again, Rannoch bid his friend farewell and left the scene on stiff legs. He would retire to his den for the rest of the day, and rest up so that he could wake early the next day and patrol.