Blackfeather Woods oh, shyness is a waste of time

@Astara - on the outside of your terrain, kids.

 

the woods were spooky, but there was promise in that. buck was certain that most would have called his home an eerie place to dwell. he wouldn't have had it any other way. the fewer bodies there were in the bayou, the better. it meant he didn't have to deal with the comings and goings of folks who didn't belong. much like he didn't belong so near to the borders of the marked pack. he was like a cat, lured by curiosity to the peculiar way that they marked the borders. the cajun had never seen anything like it. 

buckshot paced back and forth, drawing in the scents that rested within the wood. there were wolves in there, but he felt like their numbers were smaller. that was for the best, he felt; small familial packs were often some of the most successful. at least, he felt like the bouchers had done a good job with their coonass family back home. there sure was an eerie feeling about those trees, though. the brute felt like there was something hidden within, waiting for him to draw too close. voodoo was in the air. 

it was not voodoo that sprung unbidden from the murkgloom, though it may well have been better -- instead of witchcraft, a black shade sprung suddenly into vision, propelled by long limbs which carried it spiderlike towards the "intruder".

drawing to a halt that sent her body tipped ahead and quivering, astara fastened her indigo gaze on the creature that lurked in front of her: big, burly, and brown. her ears fanned forward as she inquisitively sniffed at him, giving him about as much personal space as water does when it's splashed over something.

it didn't take very long before there was a dark little shadow that leapt from the brush and into the open. her eyes glimmered with the colors of violet and ink. buckshot barely reacted. his brows were lifted an inch from the ghostly silver of his eyes, and he swiveled a single ear toward the child. he looked about as intimidated as a gator basking in the summer sun. he was about as eager to move as one, too. there wasn't a pup alive that could have fastened him with a look big enough to frighten him off. 

the cajun squinted and offered the kid a half-frown. his dark lips curled downward on one side of his face. after a moment of thought, he glanced toward the forest home and drew his tongue along his muzzle in a swift movement. "ain't much to protect, cher," he jabbed verbally. then, his features twisted into a snigger and he latched his vision with her dark face. "you seen any swamp 'round here?" buckshot then inquired, hoping to be pointed in a more promising direction. 

it might have done astara a world of good to be wary of strangers, particularly strangers as large and as intimidating as this male -- but she was neither intimidated nor concerned for her wellbeing as she thrust her muzzle into his thick ruff, curiously sniffing along his frowning countenance.

he didn't look like any wolf she knew, but wintersbane hadn't either, and he had been friendly. which by astara's experience meant other wolves were friendly too.

the man had begun speaking, which caused the night-cub to step back and look at him with a wearied sort of indifference. she did not understand why so much of the world always uttered such unintelligible nonsense: her mother and sister never spoke, and they were the normal ones, right?

buckshot wouldn't find she was much of a conversationalist; after a few seconds the girl flapped an ear and then started nosing about him, fascinated by the assortment of scents the male had carried with him.

lord, he couldn't understand why the children in that area were so damn quiet. as the dark shadow took a step back to peer at him curiously, he caught the expression on her face and was unable to process it. buckshot blinked dumbly, still rooted to his place in the dirt. a wiser man would have realized that she might not have been comfortable with words. it was unfortunate for astara that she was stuck with the intellectual equivalent of a bag of rocks.

“don' ya'll teach yer kids how to talk ou' hea?” he asked her with a slight cant of his head. at this point, though, the girl had gone back to sniffing along his neck. the thick ruff seemed to react instinctively and rise upward. buckshot knew the customs for greeting a stranger, but he was relatively unnerved that this young pup was doing it without uttering a single syllable.

her inspection of the brute complete, astara stepped back while her dark gaze seemed to pool contentedly. she noticed the uprising of fur as it swept like quills along the male's spine - in recognizing this, astara's own fur seemed to rise along her slender shoulders.

yet the girl did not offer him challenge: instead she studied his face and limbs with a quiet, almost studied patience -- it was not unusual for wolves to speak to her, and she had learned to shoulder their expectations of speech with a wearied indifference.

it appeared at length astara believed his presence disarming enough that she ventured a catlike stretch - and then, with a nip at a paw, bolted past him.

she was just as odd as she seemed. the girl matched the rising of hair along her shoulders. the cajun brute peered at her with a curious glint in the argent color of his gaze. it seemed as though they were at a standoff, and buck wasn't all too sure what he was expected to do with a youngin' that didn't talk much... at all. he was a talker; always had been.

it seemed as though she wasn't much interested in any of that, though. the dark shadow of a girl had taken to playfulness. in a flash, she had darted forward and nipped near his toes. the great bear jumped back, feeling the weight of his frame against his hind legs. with a wild glance toward her, he saw that she was racing away.

so, he followed.

buckshot soon found that talking to astara had all the futility in it as talking to the moon - you didn't feel better after you hurled your tender thoughts towards it, and then after, you realized that moon, as brilliant as it was, was still a big insensate hunk of rock that probably looked down at you with all the condescension of a white-collar man in a tesla. 

well, fuck you too, moon --

astara was off already, a bolt of black shadow between the arms of trees. a few steps in and she could hear buckshot was following her. giggling as if buckshot wasn't in earshot (and who wouldn't hear that creepy, almost sinister girl's shrill laugh? really, it sounded like that ostensibly terrible giggle you got when you broke the box in call of duty's zombies --), astara darted round the wide husk of a fallen tree and then as buckshot strode by, sprung at him in the manner of a tiny piranha.

the longer he stayed in an area, the more he had started to realize that the kids they were growing were wild little things that didn't seem to be made of the same things that he was used to. back home, he had known nothing but the life of a young socialite and he had thrived in such an environment. there was nothing better than being able to flex his ability to chat people up. to happen upon young things who didn't utter a peep to strangers in the woods seemed more than odd to him, but he wasn't about to harp on it any more than he already had. if the kids wanted action over chatting, he'd give them what they liked and then move along with his day.

the pursuit was swift and easily accomplished with the stretch of his legs. she was smaller and capable of moving faster with a lack of body bulk weighing her down. the cajun knew that he'd put on a few too many pounds to be chasing kids through the thick of the woods, but he did what he could to keep up with the flash of shadow. when it seemed that her smaller frame was disappearing from his sights, buckshot wheezed against his own weight and trampled forward.

gone... the girl had vanished.

halting and lifting his crown upward to pant heavily, the scoundrel searched for her coloration against a backdrop of more shadow. it was like searching for a bullfrog in the heart of the swamp. his pale gaze sought every moving bush that he could latch onto, but she didn't seem to be anywhere nearby. it wasn't until he'd spun himself around to backtrack that he saw the flash of violet in her gaze and he barked out of surprise. the sound echoed in the chambers of his chest like a drum. the young thing met her mark and buckshot instinctively tumbled to the ground, aiming to wrap his forelegs around her smaller frame and pull her close to his bearish body.

well, the tiny demon had met her mark -- and might have had something to show for it -- if she wasn't suddenly hauled off by the immense target in the process. she howled her defiance, but it did little good - buckshot was stronger than her in every way, and she was outmanuevered and outmatched.

feeling buckshot's limbs constrict about her, astara continued her bellyaching protests, shrieking like a beheaded chicken and flopping around with an unruly lack of self-preservation. her first struggles against him had been good-natured, but the more she pushed and kicked the more she realized she was truly at his mercy -- a realization that passed through her like the cold sunder of a knife.

panic set in, and suddenly silent, astara aimed to sink teeth into anything she could -- anything at all to get away.

she managed to wriggle free - more out of buckshot's willingness to release her than anything -- but the second she weaseled out from under him, astara bolted like a greased pig, never once looking back until she was well within blackfeather.