Mount Apikuni Those Claws Dig Deep
78 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#1
All Welcome 
As the sun drifts through the baby blue depths of the sky Ulysses paws are rubbed raw due to his lack of rest. He refused to hunker down until he finds a safer, more suitable place to sleep. His travels have taken him to the torturous cliffs and danger terrain of the eastern Sunspire Mountains. He’s weary but not enough so to trust just lying around out in the open. His wits and lack of trust keep his ears perked and alert, always alert.

Ulysses is traversing up the valley between Mount Apikuni and Northstar Vail. The sun is a couple hours from disappearing behind the horizon so he still has some time.

His massive body makes it hard for him to be the sneakiest but he really isn’t trying to be right now as he sidles through the green of the grass below him. This appears to be at a disadvantage when he sees a few smaller rocks tumble along the mountain ridge beside him. He suspects it’s a mountain goat or something of the sort, what meets his eyes as this white orbs follow it up is another story.

Siding carefully down the rocks is the long body of a fairly large cougar, not the biggest but healthy enough to be dangerous. Those rounded amber eyes of the big cat glued to Ulysses own form and he knew he was in a bad situation. Who knows how long he’s been stalked for. Ulysses knows he can’t outrun this cat, his only chance is to fight.

Ulysses pulls his lips back in a ferocious snarl, the growl emitting from deep in his throat would be enough to scare off a fair amount of other mammals. The hair along his neck and spine bristle, making him look even larger and he slowly walks toward the cougar, attempting to scare it into submission.

A audible thump and the cats paws meet the same grass Ulysses stands upon. It’s body is low to the ground and it’s already begun trying to circle him. The wolf dog expertly keeps his back away from the cougar. He’s surprised it even wants to tussle with him judging by his size, he’s still bigger but that doesn’t always mean luck is on his side.

Hissing the cat pounces towards him, just close enough to get a tough swipe of it’s claws in. Ulysses hardly has enough time to move back enough to narrowly avoid them. So he tries his chances and takes his own lunge while it’s recovering. Growls and barks emitting from his maw, face screwed up to intimidate it, he watches it try and scrabble back but misses it footing enough for Ulysses to clamp his teeth of the throat of the big cat. 

It’s not even the teeth that are the dangerous park about big cats, it’s those back legs. He already feels the cat drop it’s weight to the ground and out of the corner of his eye sees, then feels, those deadly claws trying to shred his side. The cat spits and growls as Ulysses backs the opposite direction of those claws, dragging the cat a few inches. He holds his ground and shakes his head savagely, shaking the smaller cat from side to side, it’s body following the movement. It has its front paws around his neck and shoulders, digging into his double coat. It’s not enough protection and he can feel the cat splitting his skin, leaving bloody claw marks. 

All he cares about is killing this cat, so he  continues to shake and drag the feline across the grass. His ears are pressed back but quickly swivel forward again when he hears the rocks falling. Keeping a grip on the cougar he looks up, sees and hears, two smaller cougar cubs attempting to safely make their way down then rocky slope.

His eyes go wide and all of a sudden the blood in his mouth tastes toxic. One of the cubs give a loud squawk at their mother and even she hears it. She goes still, then starts a whole new type of struggling, the frightened, panicked kind. Ulysses own memories come back, of him protecting his family and he instantly disconnects his canines from the cat, dropping her instantly and backing away as fast as he can. 

She scrambles and tumbles a few times to the direction her kittens are in. Ulysses’ moonlike eyes are glued to her neck, all bloodied and ruffed up. She stumbles a few more times but she’s not bleeding too severely as she licks her kittens a few times. Her round and frightened eyes stare back to Ulysses and he locks eyes with her. He turns his back on them, sidling away. He wants nothing to do with that, he’ll go lick his wounds elsewhere.

She lets him go, Ulysses can feel blood trickling down into his fur on his neck and side. She got him a few good times, so he plops down in the thinnest part of the tree line of Herbalists’ Cache, licking his wounds. Maybe he’ll rest here for the night.
948 Posts
Ooc — Hela
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#2
She wandered farther from the lake than she had intended, but it had been so long since she allowed herself such freedom that she was loathe to stop even as the sky warned of impending nightfall. Then, the sounds of a fight pulled her even farther from her claim, although when she heard the vicious roar of a cougar, she slowed her pace some. She was never one to falter in the face of danger, but the thought of never returning home to her children made a new kind of fear pool in her chest. 

The sounds stopped eventually, leaving only the noise of the mountains, and cautiously, she continued her way through the small valley, stopping when the scent of blood hung thick in the air; some belonged to the cougar but some also smelled strongly of wolf. For no other reason than she was curious to know the outcome, she tracked the stranger's blood until she found him nestled against the tree line of the forest that stretched into the taiga, a place she wasn't keen on thinking about right now. 

She paused a good distance away, releasing a low chuff so as not to startle him. If she were alone and injured, she would be in a pretty foul mood, so she didn't venture any closer yet, instead, alerting him to her presence and waiting to see his reaction.
Inuttuk
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78 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#3
The atmosphere is beginning to grow somber, though a few rays of that striking fiery orange sky still sun kiss the bark of old trees and flora. Ulysses lays there, partly on his side with his hind legs stretched out in front of him and his front paws curled in. His multicolored tongue laps at his rough and sore paw pads, long black claws unkempt and damaged. 

Next, he rolls over to the other side and sighs at the three to five inch cuts on the line of his ribcage, thankfully not deep enough to do too much harm. He winces when his tongue touches the wound, silver eyes squinting and brows furrowing in frustration. Yeah, he’s pissed but somewhere deep inside he’s wondering if the mother of those kits will be able to continue to care for them. He hopes she doesn’t pass of infection, but he knows without the prober care she’s most likely to catch one or some type of sickness. 

He shakes his head of those thoughts. Why is he so sympathetic? Must be my dog half. He thinks with only a hint of salt. 

Then something in the tangible world catches him off guard. The smell of another wolf, the sound of someone; a stranger. Ulysses ears swivel backwards and he jumps up as fast as he’s physically able to. Spinning about to face the source of the noise, teeth already bared and fur already bristling. His stance is wide and his head is held up high to assert dominance through confidence. He didn’t want to take any chances getting jumped again, he has to be cautious.

Though, what he sees stuns him. So far he’s not seen one like them. A wolf of the purest of whites. Female by her scent, tall and slender, with loads of well hidden muscle he assumes. She’s almost ethereal to him as his teeth sheath and his eyes go a wink bit wider. His ears face backwards in astonishment of how he let her sneak up in him. Not paying attention to detail can allow things to turn sour much too quickly. 

He stands there stock still, hardly breathing. Waiting to see if she’s a threat. Though, he feels as if she were truly wanting to be a threat she wouldn’t have let him hear her at all.
948 Posts
Ooc — Hela
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#4
His initial reaction came as no surprise, but she still stiffened in response, shrewd gaze narrowing and zeroing in on his face and the flash of teeth he gave her. For a few long moments, she merely stared him down, giving him a chance to calm as her fiery, predator's gaze took in his every move.

He seemed to calm, but only slightly, the tension in his frame evident even at this distance. She remained where she was, thinking it the best way to portray that she was only a threat if he was. Her eyes drifted to his side where blood matted the dark fur that ran along his ribs and her eyebrow raised in response. Run in with a cougar? she asked, returning her gaze to his face. It was a guess; obviously, she had no way of knowing if he had been a member of the fight she heard before. But, she had tracked him with his blood, and here he was freshly injured, so she had a feeling her guess was correct.
Inuttuk
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78 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#5
Ulysses can see her stiffen and that all too powerful gaze burn into him. Her Coppery eyes intertwined with the sort of fire you don’t mess with. Though he can tell she is no longer a threat as she waits patiently for him to calm down.

The hair along his spine finally settles and he stands in a more natural position, ears facing his new company. Then he gives himself a good informal shake, bits of long fur fly through the warm sky. It jostles his wounds and he ends up hating himself for it afterwards as his face screws up in pain when he meets eyes with the stranger. 

Those moonlike eyes of his never leave her own, though he doesn’t intend for it to be a dominating action. He risks it and pads just a touch closer, but instead of going straight towards her he goes forth in almost an arc showing her the wounds alongside his ripcage.

He gives a huff of a laugh, he’s just a little bit salty about the encounter but he nods none the less. “Yes, it seems I did. I was close to killing her too.” His accent almost makes his words slur. “Seems life had different plans.”

He attempts so catch her scent again to know a bit more about her and she had a great deal of other scents on her, along with other wolves. He assumes she must be from a pack. Running into a pack wolf isn’t always ideal, but as long as she isn’t a threat neither is he.
948 Posts
Ooc — Hela
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#6
He eventually calmed enough to move closer, turning in such a way that she could see the large, claw-like gashes on his side. She raised her eyebrows a little in surprise when he claimed in his accented common that had almost killed a cougar, seemingly on his own. By yourself? she asked skeptically, eyes narrowing a little. Maybe that was why he hadn't finished the job. Why let it live? she asked next, suddenly curious. She wasn't sure she would have had the same outcome had she fought a cougar; it would have been a fight to the death for sure. 

She stepped a little closer as well, sniffing the air a little and realizing he was lone. Her gaze fell to his wounds once more, and she wondered if he had cleaned them yet. She was no healer, but she knew a bit about preventing infection, at least initially. Mahler was better equipped to deal with such things, but that required bringing the stranger back to her pack's territory where her four children were, and that wasn't going to happen without getting to know him a little better. She decided she'd wait to inquire about his wound care until he had a chance to answer her previous questions.
Inuttuk
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78 Posts
Ooc — Malia
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#7
He stands a little ways away from the stranger wolf, listening to her ask her questions about the battle. Eyes gazing at the long flow of her fur and the rays of the sun shooting through the leaves leaving an odd pink and yellow pattern all over the bright white of her coat.

She’s curious to how it went, he might as well tell, for there’s no particular reason to keep it from her. He sighs, “Yes, by myself. I’d been traveling and she was protecting her turf.” He shrugs. The next question got him thinking. “She wasn’t big, not too strong either. I could have ended it but...” His gaze got lost in the trees just beyond her shoulder. 

His mind shoots to his own past, when he’d used to be a pet. A pet to the two legged. Protecting that little girl was the only thing he lived for. Their praise, attention, love is what he worked for. He knows what it feels like to have it ripped away. When he saw those kits of hers, it hit something within him. He wanted her to live to be able to take care of them. Something he wasn’t able to do for his own people.

There is a certain hurt in his eyes and his facial expression is mournful for just that quick second before he shakes himself out of the haze. Showing a weakness like that in front of a stranger wolf, let alone a pack wolf is dangerous, though he doesn’t think she poses as a threat to him any longer he doesn’t want to chance it.

He looks back to her, “She had cubs.” He said simply as if his reply would get him judged for being weak. There’s certain things he’s willing to do, but if it can be avoided he’d rather take that road.
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Ooc — Hela
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#8
He seemed conflicted about something, and sadness broke through his expression for the barest of seconds. Then he continued, and it all made sense. Cubs. Before becoming a mother herself, she might have rolled her eyes at that, maybe thought he was weak for not finishing the job anyway. But now, she wondered if she would have been able to kill a mother. Of course, if it were to stay alive, she wouldn't hesitate, but if she knew they could both go their separate ways...

She nodded once, understanding in her eyes. Then she glanced again at his wounds. Have you cleaned those? she asked, raising a curious eyebrow.
Inuttuk
Common