Otatso Wetlands my words would just evaporate

@Talos ! <3

He had not crossed deep into the wetlands - as a traveller he had seen many harsh landscapes, and though this was not the worst of them all, he did not dare to test his luck attempting to travel the waters. Despite all else, it was an intruiging place; full of unique wildlife and vegetation, some of which the young man had never laid eyes upon before. It was dark here, where the trees' canopies grew thick above the head and cast the land in shadow, but occasionally a dim sparkle of golden light would trickle through a gap in the leaves, beaming down like a lost puzzle piece and glistening on the brackish water.

A soft exhale fled his muzzle, and he placed a paw delicately in front of him, testing the stability of the mound he had come across while skirting the edges of the wetlands. To his pleasure (or... mild relief), it was strong enough to hold his weight and the young man lowered himself down onto his rear, settling with a humph on the mound and allowing his gaze to search across the horizon. 

Talos was starting to think this had been a bad idea. But then, there was very little that ever seemed to turn out to be a good idea anymore, nowadays, she thought grouchily to herself as she stooped below a weedy vine trailing lower than she'd like and swerved past an ugly lumpen treetrunk that hummocked its roots rudely into her path. She'd seen an interesting-looking creature whose colorful feathery...scales? fur? who knew?!... had piqued her interest for a moment— just a flash, the smallest and most tantalizing of glimpses— but it had well and truly vanished among the shadowy labyrinth here, it seemed. Talos had been hoping that perhaps her luck might turn for a change, and give her a look at what she thought might just maybe have been an actual, real live dragon this time...but nope. No such luck at all. She lifted her paw high and wide so as not to trip on the snaking lumpy treeroots that rose up into her path like small stubborn foothills, and then grimaced as she managed to set her foot into an unexpectedly swampy patch of ground with a loud SPLORTCH.

 Well, it had looked solid enough; how was a girl to know when perfectly ground-ish looking ground was going to turn out not to be ground at all? It took a bit of extra effort to free her paw with another disgusting sucking sound and then she was left staring with a grumpily wrinkled nose at its goopy brown exterior dripping in midair where once there had been a lovely sturdy little coal-black paw. Well, whatever. With a deep sigh of disgust she stepped out and around the soggier patch and continued on her way, snaking and threading her body in all sorts of weird contorted positions in an effort to not get totally coated in mud, thinking more and more that the sooner that she left this territory the better off she'd be. There was a small problem in that she wasn't quite sure which direction was "out" any longer, though, as she'd stalked into this wetland in high dudgeon and been paying little attention, but Talos was confident she'd manage to remedy that soon enough. Besides...it wasn't like she was expected to be back anywhere at any particular time now was it. That was one of the perks of going off on one's own and away from difficult parents and other adults after all: hey, no bedtimes! Talos tried to feel some small measure of happiness about this, at least, and failed.

She spotted a hummock of higher ground highlighted by one of the fitful beams of afternoon light, up ahead. It took some doing and a little bit more of slogging, but a few moments later she hauled her carcass up onto the thankfully quite dry patch of dirt, and promptly tried to scrape her muddiest forepaw off on the nearest convenient patch of scruffy tan grass. It was going to die off for the winter soon anyway, wasn't it, so who cared if she made an utter mess of it anyhow. It took Talos another moment for another twitch of movement to catch her eye: this time however, as she twitched her own head upward to follow it, she caught herself staring resentfully at the form of another wolf just sitting there uselessly. Oh, she said, disgruntled. ...What are you doing here. She didn't sound as if she really much cared about the answer, and her expression soured a little further as she managed to catch a whiff of the guy's scent. He smelled much of Swiftcurrent region, and faintly of a few other canines of whose existence Talos would really rather not be reminded at the moment. Great. Just great. EXACTLY what I wanted to find in here, sure. Go hunting for a dragon and get some stupid ugly packmember whose name and face I don't even know. Her stare was quite rude, almost challenging as she ogled him with a sullen and unblinking silvern gaze.

is it bad i'm already laughing

There was only the buzzing of busy wildlife to accompany his whirring mind as it ticked away like a clock. Amongst the scattered trees and rippling water, the occasional furred or feathered creature might scuttle past - insects, too, though their company was far less pleasant. The grey Valento had a lot on his mind, plaguing his thoughts, but he found, at least, the silence comforting.

Until it was gone.

The voice was laced with the high-tones of youth, and a mighty frustration that caused Soltero to immediately incline his head in their direction, only pausing as he caught sight of who the words belonged to. Nothing slipped from his muzzle, at first, not until his nostrils flared and he tasted her scent on the air with his salmony tongue; she was from the creek. That was the first deduction he made, though her gender and age was quick to follow, and he eyed her with mild curiousity, entangled with uncertainty. She was a young one, younger than himself, though her tempermant did very little in her favour.

"Thinking. What are you doing here?" He imitated her tone, watching to gauge her reaction.

homg. It's great  XD  *applauds Soltero for knowing pretty much EXACTLY how to handle Talos and her dumb little hissy-fits, hahahaaa*
Oh dangit, I forgot her dumb speech quirks too, lolwhoops.  <.<;

Talos was taken aback, to have her own rudeness thrown right back in her face just like that. She scowled at the gray and white creature, and sulkily thought to herself that his colors were ugly and his face was stupid and his attitude was really more than she felt like handling today, thanks. Also he didn't seem to be lost at all. Which was also totally not fair if you asked her. Especially since he wasn't doing anything useful with the information! He was just sitting over there looking down on her and lording it over her! Uuuugggh!

It was probably pretty clear a lot of her irrational resentment had more to do with her own issues than anything with her fellow wolf here, even to the most clueless observer. She glared at him with a sullen, sulky, almost comically pouting face, her ears folded harshly back and her brow puckering up as her lower jaw jutted out like a whelpling about to throw a temper tantrum over having just been weaned. She really was a little old for this nonsense, but far be it from Talos to let that little factoid stand in her way... I'm huntin' f'r any dragons sneakin' 'bou 'ere, she informed him with lofty superciliousness as she stuck her nose up in the air. She was freshly irritated further to note that no matter how high she jabbed her nose it still didn't quite make her taller than this fellow who was sitting there looking down on her however. A'cause I have better 'n' mo' useful things t' be doin' 'n jus' sittin' 'roun an'... thiiink- iiiing. She pronounced the last with a decidedly sarcastic fresh flash of distaste and an exaggerated overenunciation, for once, rather than her usual habitually lazy lack of clear verbiage. There was more than a little irony to her oh-so-superior put-downs of poor Soltero's innocent solitary ponderings, given that Talos herself had in fact had no real clear goal and very little thought of doing much at all useful to anyone else even if she genuinely had found herself a dragon somehow, somewhere. But hey, this guy didn't have to know that, right?

You ha'n't seen Ar'ya, ha' you, b' chance? Talos asked with impulsive dislike before she could stop herself. She might as well try to get some useful intelligence out of the guy if he was just going to be sitting around stupidly in this stupid swamp after all, mightn't she. Although she might get more useful intel if only she would more fully and properly pronounce Aria’s name, but that would be rather more effort and care put into those syllables that Talos on some irrational level thought that bitch really deserved. And then, with a little more hesitation: ... Or... or Durne'viir? There was a certain more wheedling note of anxiety that crept into her voice as she couldn't help but ask about her mother, despite the sneering tough-guy facade and lofty above-it-all detachment Talos tried to project. She really wasn't nearly as good at hiding her feelings as she on some level thought.

LMAO

Soltero resisted the urge to allow a smirk to creep onto his features as he witnessed her expression shift. Her pouting face was only familiar in the sense that he'd had spouts of sulking just as she had (a toddler could cause a riot just by screaming), but he was not the most social of creatures and so he knew of no methods to ease her moodiness other than his own satirical sense of humour, which likely would only make it worse.

Oh well.

"Dragons?" He murmured (her speech was... difficult to focus on), granting her with a raised brow and curious stare; alright, perhaps he wasn't at all good at dealing with kids. But he frequently got lost in his own dreams and clung to what he could of his youth, so her talk of dragons... maybe he could play along. "What are you gonna do when you find one?" What he especially didn't know how to handle were moody kids, so if she wasn't gonna play nice then maybe he'd stop playing and huff back at her, just to see how she liked it. Maybe he was just as childish as her, beneath his mask of solemnity.

He paused when she mentioned names, but the first held no meaning to him whatsoever. "Afraid not. Maybe she went looking for dragons too and got eaten." Aria was simply a face among the creek wolves that the Valento had yet to encounter, but perhaps with a little time. "Durnehviir?" Oh, she was the dragoness, wasn't she? Rather fitting. Maybe she ate Aria. Soltero snapped out of his amused ponderings, and flicked his tail seriously. He was not talented in the ways of speech, and he was especially terrible at reading emotions, so the shift in her tone went mostly unnoticed. "I haven't seen her since the meeting. I'd imagine she's searching for Viinturuth."

I was thinking this thread predated the pack meeting in my headcanon, but if that's not meshing here LMK and I may twiddle and retweak things as necessary.  :o  (The last paragraph here, at least...)  ...I think it did technically stuff itself in threadlogs after the meeting, mind you, too, lol...hhhmmm.
So rooting Soltero on OOCly here though either way, especially with butthead Talos being the only other option to side with.  XD

Talos scowled more blackly than her fur at the older male whom she very strongly suspected was subtly attempting to make fun of her, here. Ee-yeah, dragons! she insisted, doubling down in the face of resistance to this idea. How dare this ingrate not appreciate all her hard work keeping the pack borders free of vicious firebreathing reptilians. Maybe she'd just have to let one slip by and "accidentally" get ahold of him while he was being so mocking and unwary; now what fun would he make of good ol' Talos and her brilliant dragonhunting skills then? Yep: would darn well serve him right, too! I'mma kill an' eat 'em if I'm hun'ry 'nough, so there! She knew her anger was likely to lead her down pathways she was likely to later regret, here, but at the moment with her furious continuing to boil and build and with such a convenient target to direct it all at right here in front of her now she really couldn't much bring herself to much care, or find the wherewithal to even try reining it in.

Until an unexpectedly welcome and intelligent suggestion popped the bubble of her anger quite suddenly. It deflated into a more nebulous and halfhearted emotion, compared to the righteous chest-swelling and all-encompassing red haze of it mere moments before, as it penetrated her skull just what this officious and all-too-snarky wolf was next suggesting. What if Aria had gone looking for dragons and done gotten herself eatened all up? All of a sudden an invasion of the vicious and scaly beasts didn't sound all that bad to the young supposed former dragon-hunter here. In fact it sounded almost downright welcome, as Talos's vivid young imagination suddenly surged down a couple of heretofore unseen pathways... What if a dragon did live right here in this swamp for instance, and if it did manage to eat up Aria...? Would that be enough to magically make her parents reconcile, and glue her little family firmly back together again? It seemed implausible on some level, and yet... and yet... Talos could only stand there staring with wide eyes at Soltero, her gaze going a little unfocused as her mind drifted wide of their conversation and her tightly-held anger for a moment to go running after the dazzling possibilities that fluttered just out of her reach. Maybe... maybe this was even something she herself could try to arrange, if Fate herself wouldn't just obligingly plop such a scenario in Talos's waiting lap? The young Frostfur-Mayfair stood there with tail drooping at half-mast and fur floating slowly and gently back down to its normal state parallel to her backbone as it too forgot it had been bristling in self-aggrandizing anger only a short while before. After a long moment of thought she recalled that she had been trying to communicate with another after all and cautiously offered up to him a, Maaaayyyy- beeee...? The first non-hostile word of encouragement she had offered to Soltero thus far in their short acquaintanceship. Congratulations dude; perhaps they could make you a medal or something. (Though of course it would take violence to reconcile little Talos to all this, naturally!)

Talos's eyes sharpened into focus again quite suddenly and riveted themselves to the other wolf's face however as he casually surmised about the whereabouts and doings of her mother. And...perhaps even more shockingly and importantly...her brother? Talos had been very much out of the loop these past weeks in the packlands; she hadn't been aware that she was not the only pup gone MIA. She thought back in bewilderment to the last time she had seen her sibling, and genuine concern unadulterated with fury washed over her this time as she considered the possibility that Viinturuth might have gotten himself into real trouble and found himself not unwilling but unable to come home. It was too much, far too much to handle... so Talos's brain immediately dug itself up a fresh burst of fury to mentally direct toward her parents, toward Aria, toward any wolf or creature that might possibly have ever had anything whatsoever to do with any of this. How dare they chase her brother off to who knows where, too! It was all so confusing and overwhelming and unfair! Talos choked back a sudden loud sob and hastily ducked her head to scrape at her face in embarrassment as her rump slumped to the muddy ground in defeat. She tried, she really did, but how was one young wolfgirl supposed to handle all of this?! Wasn't this what the alphas were supposed to do?!

I don't mind lol. also aw sad talos ;-;

She was insistent with her claim of dragons, so he simply regarded her with a half smile, slate-grey ears flicking nonchalantly on his head. "You'll have to tell me what they taste like, then," the smoky young man replied, watching the fiery girl as the wheels in his mind clicked and turned - he wondered, briefly, what it would have been like to have siblings born alongside him, little pups who had grown as he did and walked at his side. Would he have that same burning spirit, too? Even if they hadn't gotten along... Talos wasn't alone in the world, now, and Soltero envied her greatly. He had only had his mother, and growing up and playing alone hadn't been something he saw as lonely until he saw the world with mature eyes, as a young adult trekking the land in his lonesome. The solo traveller.

The girl's anger seemed to deflate like a popped balloon, and he watched her with mild intruige - he supposed, after the scene at the meeting, she didn't really like Aria... perhaps that was an understatement. The Eta's lips almost quirked into a small grin when she spoke, her words lacking the thickness of fury that burned like fire in her young body; maybe she would warm to him yet, though he couldn't be sure. Kids could be unpredictable with their mood shifts... then again, adults could be, too. 

The sudden squeak of a choked sob, the emotion, ripped him from his thoughts and his apple-green gaze shifted to focus onto Talos with a serious frown once more, corners of his blackened lips tipped downward as he struggled to adjust himself. There was another thing he wasn't so prepared for - the sadness of a young pup. He recalled her bitter words, strewn with an anger so strong for her age, so violent and hurt, the way she had cast them toward her father, at Aria, and the scalding look she had surged her mother's way. She was a girl who seemed to struggle with some internal war, and Soltero looked on in dismay as she ducked her head and scraped at her face.

"Our whole fam'ly is fallin' apar' and it's all your fault!"

He didn't know what had occured to disturb the carefully constructed bond of blood, but clearly something was amiss, and the man shuffled uncomfortably on his paws. A small part of him wondered whether he was supposed to move closer to comfort her, or just... uhhhh... "Hey, kid..." He rumbled with a deep voice, though it lacked the confidence of his earlier words. "You know... you're not... alone. I don't know... uh... how much that helps, but I promise you you aren't alone." Then, as a greater attempt to reach out to her, "If you... need a friend, I'll be your friend. I haven't really got any here yet."

"Sometimes things get rough... but it'll work itself out in the end. I'm heading out soon to try and find your brother," He purposefully left out who he was going to be travelling with, if only to avoid setting her anger off again. "I'll do my best to bring him back."

Still not sure when I'll get around to trying to make other posts consistent with the timeline, here, *koff.* ...Soltero is putting me in mind of some of my very favoritest people in the world atm though, awww. Don't be mean to him, Talos you brat!
Tagging another brother for reference and for the lulz, here.  ;)

She jerked a little in surprise at Soltero's words that let her know she was not alone in all of this, despite how far and fast she had run from it all. Talos raised her silvery gaze to him with a furrowed brow and some befuddlement and suspicion lingering in her expression. Did this guy really mean that? Or was that just, like, the kind of trite thing he said to all the weepy girls he might encounter? He wasn't very suave or smooth about it, if so. His fumbling but apparently quite sincere offer to be her friend took her further aback again, though, and left her fumbling for words for a moment herself (even more so than her tongue already tended to trip over them, that is).

You'd...? I... yeah, yeah, I could use a frien', she admitted, still a little cautious though quickly warming to the idea. Especially since she was feeling rather bereft of allies at this point, with her brother gone missing in particular...were all of them going to disappear one by one? Her sibling's sudden up and vanishing had shaken her core a lot more than she really like to admit. ...Talos might have had something a little more in the line of obedient slavery in her mind than mere friendship, in truth, but hey: one had to take what they could get with this recalcitrant child, it seemed.

She caught her breath and considered her packmate with fresh eyes. He was going to look for Viinturuth, then...? L... l-lemme know if y' fin' 'im, okay, then...? She sniffled hugely, and then swiped a large black paw across her muzzle in some embarrassment at having broken down this much in front of this older and now much-cooler-in-her-eyes wolf. An' I'll... if I see 'im firs' I'll let you know, 'kay...?! This idea brightened her mien rather considerably: her innate competitiveness was at work here now too, making her savor the possibility of beating the bigger and supposedly more-capable wolf in the Great Brother Hunt, as it were. Just a friendly little rivalry between friends here, though, right? Not to mention it was such a noble cause for her to engage herself in, here—extra-super-duper heroic, even, when you considered just how many times she might have secretly wished for her downright annoying brothers to just disappear. She didn't have that many of them to spare, though, not really...! But in truth, if one of them had to vanish, why couldn't it be, oh...@Akatosh, say?

making this thread go soft was not my intention but- <3

Her body seemed to jerk at his words and he felt the stirrings of anxiety shifting in his stomach, a leaden weight of sheepish regret pooling on his tongue (had he said the wrong thing?), but it cleared as quickly as it had brewed. It was suspicion in her eyes at first, but the words that fell from her muzzle indicated he'd not done too poorly in the situation that was handed to him. Soltero almost gave a sigh of relief, but allowed himself simply to give a gentle nod in her direction.

"'Course," He confirmed, feeling the promise linger in his mind - it would not be forgotten, and he would do his best to uphold his words. Her sniff sent a wave of dismay down his spine, though, like a gust of polar wind; she was so young... her life was supposed to be full of wonder and excitement, of innocent stupidity and amusing ignorance, full of experimentation and discovery, but what had Talos discovered, other than the woes of adult life? Of how relationships were fragile and could crumble with such ease, and of how the very act of living was a dangerous balancing act? Loneliness. He'd felt it too. "I will." The smoky traveller nodded again, and then allowed a sparkle of hope dance in his eyes at the rekindling of her flame. At least temporarily. "Absolutely. I'm sure if you're hunting dragons you've got all the tracking skills needed."

<3
*flails s'more at RL  >.<  *  Ugh. Still may yet have to put some or even all of my wolves on PPC here, at least for a little bit... but we'll see  @.@;; 

Her fluffsome black chest puffed out as the amples stores for pride and self-confidence contained within it were restored bit by bit by Soltero's bolstering words. Talos's eyes widened a little bit at the mention of dragons, though... she'd almost forgotten about them entirely, at this point. Whoops. But she'd seen one this time, she totally had—she was almost 100% positively certain of it!! Surely the small scaly beast couldn't have vanished entirely and must still be lurking about for her to discover.

Besides, now she totally had permission to go hunting for her brother as well as for the dragon(s), and with her confidence puffing up anew Talos was quite certain that she could easily multitask and go looking for both of them at the exact same time. She straightened herself up a little taller and hastily chased all the doubt out of her voice as she said, Yeah... yeah, o' course. But then there was this awkward pause. Talos wrestled internally for just a moment before telling herself that no, surely, if he was truly a friend this fellow wolf would be kind and understanding and nothing but helpful. She glanced at him a little suspiciously sidewise as she said it, however: Tho' didja see th' dragon come by a lil' bit ago? Talos sniffed at the air with what was supposed to be an attitude of nonchalance, though her alertly twitching ears might have been fixating a little too intently on her packmate to actually pull that attitude off. Or any sign o'my broth'r, she added a little belatedly. She bit down on her tongue before it could go on to overexplain: of course Soltero oughta know exactly which brother she meant. He'd never misdirect her to Akatosh or Akavir, surely, who were if anything too overly easily found all around the packlands, if you asked her—brothers were such pesky things that way! Talos was somewhat surprised therefore to find that she genuinely missed little Viinturuth's presence.