Shadewood Smoky blues

@Phex 

Fate was very favourable to Apple, because it was late autumn now and she still was able to manage quite well on her own. Lifetime of experience having to provide for hungry mouths, had given her a very keen sense in locating small prey. It did not matter, how carefully the rats treaded the fields, or how quietly and well the young hare merged with it's surroundings. If the old she-wolf was in the vicinity, she would find it. The only drawback was that with age she got more tired easily and needed more hours than in her youth to recuperate. 

After an eventful day in the surrounding moors and fields, with the rush of river nearby and sound of waves from the distant ocean-side, Apple looked up the nearest forest to spend the evening and night-time hours. The sun was already setting and the light was growing dim, therefore she did not have much time to look around for something else. While sensing that other wolves had passed through here before her, she entered the forest.

The girl was returning from her outing, weary from her exploration and with the weight of new knowledge of the world. However, she continued to try and be more aware of her surroundings by raising her head to smell the air every now and again; and this now proved useful. The scent of another wolf reached her, and it didn't smell like one whom already dwelled within the Shadewood. Perhaps they were looking for a family too.

The girl bounded forwards with new-found energy to find herself on the tail of a plush dame. Her steps were not covered at all, but that was ok, she wouldn't want to scare the new character. "Hey there!" She called out, taking a great bound that drew her up beside the woman -- and immediately thrust her nose out towards the woman for inspection. 
The youth had no manners what-so-ever.

"What'cha doing here, stranger?" She asked, not expecting to receive any admonition for the blatant intrusion of the woman's space; despite her nose being mere centimeters away from the interesting elder.

Apple's life-long experience with children had desensitized her from such concept as "private space". This had stopped to exist, the moment her first litter had been born. It took a year to raise a proper wolf being out of a total brick. Sometimes you needed longer and there were individual cases, where learning manners was a life-long struggle. Therefore she was not put off from the girl's exuberant approach as much as she simply felt surprised by her sudden appearance.

"Ain't you a sunshine," she said and patiently let the other have a sniff for half-a-minute and then took some resolute steps back, showing that she had had enough of it. "Seven dwarves and a poisoned apple. This looked like a perfect place to find them. What about you?" she asked.

Her head snapped back when the dame stepped backward, realising her mistake. "Oh, I'm sorry. I get a little over excited when there's someone new to meet," she offered the woman a sheepish grin and a wave of her tail in apology with ears sleeked back. "The heck is a dwarf?" She inquired, perplexed by the woman's statement. Who the heck would be looking for seven dwarfs, whatever they were, and a poisoned apple?

Her head canted and then straightened again before continuing, "This is my home, I live here with Cry and some other wolves and a bear!" Her eyes gleamed with the thought of how powerful and cool it was to be living with a bear, yet she'd yet to meet him, "We're going to be a family of happiness and-"  the youth was suddenly lost for words and shook her head dismissively to herself. "You think there's dwarfs here?"
Yep, the youth had yet to grow out of rambling too, if she did grow any bigger that is.

"I see that," Apple remarked and was about to ask, for how long had the piebald she-wolf been on her own to be so excited about all and every new person that came her way. But this inquiry was discarded the instant she mentioned living in Shadewood with a couple of other wolves. So much for taking a rest here. Good thing then that she ran into the lass now and not, when someone would discover the sleeping Beauty (Apple), who had trespassed someone's private yard without knowing it. 

She was also not too sure that sharing a home with a bear was such a good idea. Predators should not be making friends with other predators, if there was the slightest possibility of one getting too hungry and eating the other. But since Apple was not going to stay here permanently, she was not going to advise others on, how to live their lives. "Dwarves? Well, if you have met up with tiny, cackling things that do mischief in the midst of night and play jokes on you during the day, then - yeah. This forest seems a place that dwarves would prefer to live in," she went on to yank the girl's chain a bit, telling all this in the most solemn voice.

She considered her pronunciation and repeated it correctly before promptly beaming. She thought carefully if she'd seen a dwarf before, or experienced any of their games; her brow furrowed in the depths of her thinking. This quietened her a bit before she said with the careful calculation she'd spoken to Cry with, "I think that they don't exist, or a crows being funny." Her ocean eyes tilted to the woman and smiled at her approach; of course, the girl didn't believe in something if there wasn't evidence right in front of her for it. 

Phex's white-tipped banner swayed side to side as her gaze wandered to her surroundings, hoping she'd catch a glimpse of the bear that Cry had promised her. She'd love to study it and perhaps talk to it; if it could indeed speak in the wolfish tongue. 

"Good thing you haven't met them, then. They would dig you out of your home and you would not even notice it," Apple replied somewhat cryptically, as if there was more to the subject than she was revealing. There was not - if anyone's interested. She just liked to keep the aura of mystery. An old habit that she wore proudly, since the days, when she had been the most eligible girl in the village. 

"So, how many of you are actually living here? Besides the bear, you and..." obviously she was not the Snow White of the story, because this princess had effectively denied the existence of dwarves in her steading. No Grumpy, no Dopey, though - in Apple's opinion - the latter would be make a lovely companion to Phex. Or Happy. She seemed to be like a very nice person. Inside and out.

The girl disregarded the womans tall tail, she didn't belive in childrens stories when they were so blatantly untrue. "There's uhh.. Me, the bear, Cry, Kai and a bird that I don't know the name of," she grinned, proud of her home and the kingdom she hoped it would become.

Her head canted in curiosity of the female because it struck the youth then that although the dame had many scents intertwined in her plush fur, it wasn't of a pack; more like family. Before asking the youth canted her head, "Where'd you come from, hm?"  Then promptly sat back on her haunches and watched the woman with intent.

"You have quite an animal kingdom there, Phex," Apple remarked, thinking to herself: Hippies! An entirely new level of, how those ideas of love, peace and she had forgotten about the third, were interpreted in real life. She was not judging them - quite the contrary - she was reminded of, what it meant to be young, full of enthusiasm and having world by your feet. Were she a yearling still, she would join this odd group of misfits without a blink. As an older wolf, she was more set in her ways, yearned for routine and comfort, instead of instability and lack of structure in a foreseeable future. Quite a revelation to an old lady, who tries to catch up with everything she had not been able to do during her prime, and who realizes that no matter, how many miles she walks and who she meets along the way, she still remains that elder, who is heading along the the path of her final years in this world. 

The previous paragraph, written in so many words, was like a flash in Apple's mind. It was like a flower that had been waiting for the right trigger to go in full bloom. The truth had always been there, she had just not wanted to see it. "I am a proud mother of fourteen and former matriarch of the Blackthorn clan. Few months ago I left my reign to my children and headed out to see the world. And - here I am - still kicking and not regretting any bit of it," she told. "What about you - how did you come here?"

"I take pride in this land," the youth smiled softly, looking affectionately up into the trees that she called home, and proceeded to listen to the dame's words.

When the plush woman finished, Phex couldn't keep the disbelief contained, her eyes widened and she exclaimed, "Fourteen children! Wow."  She grinned, happy to be in the presence of such an experienced matron. The skewbald wolf then wondered what the woman before her had seen and experienced on her travels, and wondered if they'd been as pleasant as her own.

"I come from somewhere..." she turned her head, much like she'd done when telling Cry although not as dramatically, "from that way. A couple moon's walk," her muzzle gestured south-west.  "I left my family, whom I love very much, to see the world. I came North to see what sights beheld me here and I want to learn as much as I can here." Her head canted to the left, white-tipped banner waving behind her.

"Starting on your way early is the best. I was not even a year old, when the pull to the wide world was stronger than being a dutiful daughter and staying with my family," Apple reminisced. Of course, this had not happened without influence of a certain young man, who wooed then young and beautiful girl. And it had been fun those first carefree months, even though they had broken up later. 

"What have you seen so far?" she asked, yearning to hear a bit more of, what this considerably younger wolf than her had found new, interesting and exciting in her life. She herself had witnessed so much that at times it was difficult to find novelty in her life.

Oh boy, she had found a lot of interesting and exciting things on her way to these woods. But she supposed she had not enough time in the day to tell the woman everything. So the youth selected her favorite to share.

"My fondest memory was when I found the ocean. My blood-family lived far enough away for it to be too far to visit often, but not so far that one would be called a deserter of the pack," she smiled fondly whilst reminiscing, "I visited for the first time after leaving my pack and it was the most wonderful place I'd ever seen. I met a sea-wolf and he told me everything about the sea and what lived there." 

Her tail wagged enthusiastically at the memory, even if meeting the boy who she took quite a liking to pulled up a painful sorrow, "There were these red and orange creatures, he called them crabs, they scuttle about and live in pools of water and have sharp claws that pinch you if you get too close, they make a great game though." Her eyes shone with her glee, making a promise then to revisit the ocean she knew was not far away.

"Not too long ago I saw the ocean for the first time in my life as well," Apple related to Phex's experience. Her excitement had been more muted though, but she still thought it was remarkable that such a seemingly never-ending space of useless water existed. She had tried to drink it, but it had been so salty and foul tasting, that she had spat it out immediately. On the other hand, the creatures she had spied on, who dwelled there and thrived, did not seem to mind the saltwater. Maybe they had adapted to these conditions in a way Apple could not and would not.

"Kind of an extreme game, it seems to me," Apple remarked, because she did not see any fun in being pinched. On the other hand, it was her age talking. She had done a lot of reckless and silly things in her youth that she considered now as... not so great at all. "Can you eat those orange critters? Or the game is simply to avoid being pinched?"

The girl shrugged, she’d tried to eat it but it wasn’t that great, “When I tried to eat it, it’s body broke and was sharp like stones. But if you can make it past that, underneath is a strange white meat that tastes like the sea and plants, but it’s still ok. I wouldn’t eat it again myself.” 

Phex grinned with her description of a crab, and had indeed found the whole experience pleasant, “It is a fun game to play though,” her eyes shone with a youthful playfulness, “crabs are better alive than eaten.”

It was then a hawk screeched from nearby, causing Phex to turn herself to find the source; of course, the hawk was out of sight, leading to confusion from Phex. "The hell was that!” She spun in a circle, eyes scanning for the creature before turning again, slower, her ears swiveled like satellites.

"Edible, but not worth the effort," Apple concluded and noted to herself to seek out those little odd things, when she was back on the beach, to check the facts Phex had told her. She was not so sure about the part with playing and was about to say something on this matter, when a loud screech interrupted her line of thought and their conversation, and made her look up to see, where the feathered rascal had hidden himself. 

"You have to watch out for them, if you have little kids around. One such tried to carry away my Rudy, when he was a wee ball of fluff on four tiny feet. That bastard had spied on the whelp from the trees and swooped down to grab him. Good thing my mate was there to fend the predator away, but we moved to a different den after that," she shared her experience with these birds and her dislike for them was evident in her voice.

The girl nodded in agreement in her statement, it really wasn't worth the effort unless she was hungry enough. Phex's eyes met Apple's and widened in surprise to her story of the monstrous, screeching creature, "That's crazy. Thanks for the heads up though,"  the girl smiled sympathetically, "I'm glad your Rudy is safe." She tilted her eyes up to the darkening sky and smiled softly to the plush dame. "Well, it's getting dark now so I'm probably going to get to my den," she grinned, "feel free to stick about though; but make sure you say good-bye."

The youth's tail wagged with the glow of happiness embedded within her soul, "If you see the bear, be sure to tell me! I haven't met him...yet!" and with her final statement, the youth lept into the undergrowth, lost in the blur of assorted browns. 

Thanks Apple, Loved this thread!