Wapun Meadow salt

@Reigi

The pasture in early morning hours allowed the moonlighter time to hunt. His nimble frame was perched atop a stable boulder while his eyes scoured the grass sprouting through snow for signs of small rodents and prey. It did not take long for the halfling to sight a plump vole; it was attempting to feverishly dig a way through the remnants of snow and bury itself in earth. Tadec stiffened his limbs and took two small steps down the large rock until he sat near the sloped base. A hungry glint found his fiery gaze; his tongue extended to run along the dark hairs of his muzzle.
 
With an arch to his back and a practiced leap, the coywolf landed on top of the rodent and sunk his teeth in its neck. Lifting his skull upward, the thief searched for signs of approaching others. He would not put it past the wolves of the terrain to seek his catch. Tadec was, after all, smaller in size than most of their kind. He lacked the muscle of his lupine ancestors, but where he failed in musculature, he made up for in tact.

the raven watched from the shadows.  she'd been thinking about tadec a lot — she wondered what brought him back to the valley.  perhaps he had chosen to come back on his own time.  she had a soft curiosity for the thief; perhaps his presence would bring her singing-friend back to the valley.

she made no attempt to hide herself after his balletic leap, although she kept a respectable distance as she chuffed for his attention.  she was fat and uncomfortable; already, her exhausted posture showed that she was little threat, though she carefully kept her heavy-lidded eyes on him just in case.

A chuff stirred him from his thought and the smoky creature turned sharply to face the creature who had summoned him. Immediately, the thief felt his limbs relax with a better sense of ease. The face and scent of the other were familiar, though he had never managed to get a name from the wolfdog. The tip of his tail twitched excitedly as he bowed his skull toward the cold earth and slunk toward her on outstretched and wiry limbs. The burning of his eyes sought her figure for a moment and he realized that she was with a litter; soon to be born, by the looks of it.
 
Tossing the vole so that it would land at her paws, the rawboned little halfling motioned with a bob of his skull to the kill. If she was feeding youth that was growing inside of her, she would surely need all the sustenance that she could get. Tadec felt that he was capable of catching another, should he find himself starved at a later time. With a shriveled smile, the half-coyote looked from the vole to her before urging her to, “eat?”

 

i passed out on my couch.  sorry! ; ~ ;

the raven searched the coywolf's features as he faced her and then softened, and she offered friendship in another soft wag of her tail.  his searing golden orbs found their way to her swollen form as he stalked towards her and she worried intensely for a moment, bracing herself for cruelty, the deep but healing lacerations on her side a solemn reminder of the last time she had taken kindness for weakness.

he stopped short and tossed his trophy at her feet. the matriarch softened immediately, woofing at him in curiosity.  surely, after his hesitation to follow her and being on his own so long, he could use the sustenance himself.

still, she would not pass up a good meal.  she ate quickly, her gaze fixed on the coywolf.  once she had finished, she studied him again.

so he could speak!  but he would not sing!  she didn't understand it.  if he would allow, she would gingerly close the distance between them with a lowered head and touch her nose to his chin.

The cadaverous crow was pleased that she would accept his offering; she swept it between her teeth and made swift work of the small morsel. The thief’s tail twitched pleasantly behind him, jittering between his hocks as it wavered from side to side. After she had finished, the mum woman moved toward him and pressed her nose to the underside of his chin. Tadec shuddered at the scent of the large white Alpha that was so delicately intertwined with her own aroma. A quiet little humming murmur was elicited from the back of his throat and he flattened his lengthy ears to his skull, wiggling his rear to show that he was pleased she had enjoyed the treat. Knowing his place within their pack, the moonlighter extended his muzzle and aimed to nudge beneath her muzzle in a friendly manor.  

unlike her husband, she did not expect submission from even bearclaw's lowest ranks.  so long as nobody challenged her directly, the members of her pack would not be reprimanded.  that did not mean that she didn't find it flattering when they cowed before her, but mostly it just confused her.  the only displays of dominance she had ever seen were xan's and indra's, and both of them seemed to be sharp and demanding.

so she drew her tongue over the bridge of the thief's muzzle slow and delicate so he would not fear her, and she woofed quietly.  as much as she would have liked to, play still hurt; the injuries she'd obtained during her brief stent alone as well as her pregnancy made it just much too difficult.

she nosed his cheek before moving back, and lifted her voice to the air, once again quiet.  this was not a summoning howl.  instead she was making an attempt to mimic the beauty of the singing-coyote's song, trying to lure one from the thief.  her first try was only a few seconds, lest he think she was trying to betray him, but once she finished she looked at him expectantly with tilted head.

The soft rolling of her tongue against the narrow bridge of his muzzle was welcome, and he chirped softly to her before catching the scent of the wounds against her sides. He pulled away from her touch and moved slowly to peer at the deep markings on her side. Wide-eyed and fearful, his burning gaze darted from her face to the lacerations and he reached out tentatively to touch against it with the cold wet of his nose. Wolves were savage creatures, so he was not entirely surprised that she would carry marks on her frame. Tadec wondered if it had been the large white Alpha of their land; he had not given the impression of a patient creature. With a careful whine, he looked to her and frowned.
 
It was then that she attempted to pull a song from him. He watched her face with a wide-eyed and intent stare. The cant of her skull and the questioning tone in her voice was enough for him to know that she was looking for a song. With a curling little smirk, Tadec lifted his head and parted his lips to create a yip from the back of his throat that lilted out into the air in a high melody. He then looked at her with a questioning glance, tail fluttering behind him.

his chirps delighted her, and she watched as he sought to inspect her wounds.  she wondered quietly if this strange man was also a blondine, a healer like the shadow of a girl who had first tended to the ugly wounds.  the concern in his gaze was not missed by the matriarch, and she offered him a comforting hum.

her heart caught in her chest as he sang for her.  she had thought he was broken this whole time!  her paws fluttered across the ground in little excited taps, and happy yips cut through the wintery night.  

thaaan you.

Tadec was far from the healing sort; he had always had his hand in other specialties and could never focus well enough on learning herbs to be of much use there. It was a skill that was to be admired in others, but he was not interested in Reigi for the possibility of curing her, merely understanding what had happened to cause such foul wounds. The weaknesses of those around him had always been a perplexing and intriguing thing to imagine; Tadec found that he – himself – was a fragile hound and could easily have been overcome by brute force. Still, the thief was quick as a whip and cracked just as sharply.
 
At his song, the woman seemed to unfold into rolls of spilling silk and pleasure. Her eyes danced, and he continued to chirp for her until she spoke, casting Tadec into a state of stunned silence. The smoky creature did not believe she could speak at all. “Hain,” he told her the word in his natural tongue. If she should want him to do it again, she could request in a language that he understood. The Hedgerow that he used to speak to the others was difficult for him, and he much preferred the language of his birth.

sorry for the wait on this!  irl whump after irl whump....

the thief continued to tear down the walls she'd so eagerly built against what she still considered the outside world.

she enjoyed his presence and his queer vocalizing, more than anything she was overjoyed to learn that he was not broken; his song had not been stolen from him as she had believed and she had even been able to coax it from him.

she froze alongside him as he spoke to her.  she had no way to differentiate between common and foriegn tongues, so she repeated his hain, with a questioning tone.

The female echoed him, and the moonlighter’s slender muzzle crinkled in a smile that seemed to travel down the length of his slender frame and caused his hind quarters to shimmy. With a spark in his gaze, he reared his head back and yipped wildly into the sky. It felt as though his voice would drift away, lost against a stretch of fading grey and charcoal. While Tadec did not know that the female didn’t understand his manner of speaking, he had imagined that she was requesting another song from him. When his cries faded, the spindly moonlighter dropped his torso to the earth and his tail waved behind him. A playfulness sparked in his gaze and he yapped once before the length of his limbs carried him around in a swift circle and he turned from her to chase the landscape, a quiet invitation to follow was left for her to take or leave.