Sheepeater Cliff even though I can no longer reach you
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#1
All Welcome 
Haha yolo, anyone welcome!

In a word, Haruki was distraught.

Mother had not been home for some time now, Takeshi had grown distant, his siblings as clueless as he was to her whereabouts. The adults of the pack were no help either, and the other pups, well, the young prince didn't exactly get along with them. He grew increasingly frustrated by the day, tantrums becoming a regular occurrence and his questioning of where was mother ending in shouting and angry, hot tears.

He decided to take matters into his own paws.

Early that morning, Haruki slipped out of the den and disappeared into the mist, making sure he was not followed. By now he knew the trails to take to get to the borders of the Empire, and this time, he was not going to stop when he reached them. No, today he would go beyond. He was going to find Reiko.

Only, the boy hadn't the slightest clue on how to track and hunt. His nose was bombarded with thousands of smells, and the rocky territory grew all the more foreign as he climbed the slopes. His hopeful, determined demeanour withered as the day wore on and his muscles began to ache. The rain started to fall, causing the cliffs to become all the more dangerous. Finding a small overhang, Haruki rushed to hide underneath it with a shake of his coat and a quiet, sad huff. He just wanted mother.
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#2
Delicious sheep. It was good hunting in this place. The clif was steep, the terrain difficult, and the sheep dull-minded. Spreading her paws wide, the cat had climbed her way up the mountain to chase several sheep until at last, one of them was felled.

Umi had stayed on the cliff after eating, eventually abandoning it to a pair of young eagles that wanted to fight over the scraps. Ten cat naps and many hours later, it was the rain that moved her once more. Well, that and an unexpected sight. At first, she took it for a coyote and thought to ignore, but the smell of tears and fear and wolf spurred the lioness into action. Swiftly, she moved after the wolf pup until she saw it.

It was all white. It was quite young. Afraid that her presence might spook the poor thing, she chirped at him from a short distance before quickly trying to close it. Where's your mum little one? She called as she moved, hoping that there was something she could do to help the seemingly lost wolf cub. She remembered once losing her mother when she was young β€” it had been a frightful day indeed.
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#3
Haruki sniffed, making no effort to hide his distress as he gazed out at the falling rain. Fog now obscured much of the mountain and its surroundings; he could have made his way right up into the clouds for all he knew. Nevermind Reiko, now he was lost as well.

Then over the soft drum of rainfall came a gentle chirping noise. His ears flicked up, and he was hopeful for a moment; the sound was much like his own sibling's whines and yelps. Perhaps they had come to rescue him? The prince got to his feet, tail waving in anticipation before out of the mists came striding a being that was most decidedly not one of his family.

He didn't respond to her kind, inquiring words for several moments, instead staring up at the cat with a mixture of wide-eyed fear and confusion. She definitely wasn't wolf, that was for sure. Haruki had never seen a creature quite like her! Instincts demanded he run but sheer curiousity won out. "Who are you?" he blurted out in awe, her question remaining unanswered for now.
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#4
At first, the cub moved toward her before she had managed to speak. After he saw her shape, he was unsure, naturally. She didn't look like a wolf. She was not a wolf. She was nothing like anything he had probably ever encountered before. But, Umi wanted to help.

The wolf boy did not respond to her attempts for a good while. Her ears lowered. She crept forward, hoping to appease him, hoping to make him no longer afraid. An instinct kept his eyes wide. He did not respond to her question, instead, asking his own. She blinked, then smiled. Umi, my name's Umi, she said. And you? The tip of her tail wiggled curiously as she bent down lower, setting herself upon the ground to make her space feel more inviting to the pup.

He needed help. But in order to help, she knew that he would need to trust her fully. Where are you off to? She asked the question thinking that he either had an intentional destination, or, more likely, he was separated from his mother and needed to find her. She thought not of the pack that he was part of β€” packs were not part of her social vocabulary.

If she could help, she would.
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#5
She crept closer, and Haruki took a single step back with his eyes locked on her own azure ones, cautious yet curious. She didn't appear to be much of a threat β€” in fact, she seemed to be the exact opposite. After she introduced herself, the boy too settled into a sit with slow, hesitant movements. His tail wiggled a little as she requested his own name. "I'm Haruki," he offered, his usual boastful arrogance falling to the side for the moment.

Umi. He had so many questions, mostly about what exactly she was, but her own inquiry caused him to bite his tongue. "'M...looking for my mum," he murmured as his features darkened and his gaze turned to the ground, tears threatening to spill once more. "We dunno where she's gone."
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#6
Poor little tyke. He had a name that reminded her of her own lineage. He seemed so small and helpless; his stained cheeks and soft innocence pressed upon her nurturing instincts. As he explained that his mother had gone missing, she rested her chin on the ground, looking up at him. She wanted to cuddle him and purr and lick him until he felt better, but these weren't appropriate or particularly helpful.

So, as Haruki stared at the ground, the cat lifted herself back up and took a slow but protective step toward him, stepping sideways as though to shield him from the wind. Well, let's go find her then. What's she look like? Umi figured that it couldn't hurt to help him try to find her.

She realized that based on his use of we, his mother might have been missing for a longer period than an hour. Part of her hoped that the wolf cub might have simply been separated from her for a short spell, but worried it just wasn't so.
Regardless, she could always bring him back wherever they came from if they failed in their quest. Surely he had more family looking after him β€” that was how wolves worked, right?

She took a step toward the slopes, watching and waiting for the little cub to follow and fill her in on the details.
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#7
He sniffed, then looked back up as the cat stood and started to prowl around him, stopping in a way that shielded him from the elements. Haruki stared for a moment at her creamy-coloured paws, the way they splayed as she walked, how much bigger they were compared to his own, before turning his eyes up to her wide, concerned gaze.

His ears flicked forward as Umi offered to help him find Reiko, and a small, hopeful smile split his features as he stood as well. "Well, she's got white fur, like me!" he replied eagerly, taking several bounding leaps to her one sweeping step as they began to head off on their search. Surely two pairs of eyes would be better than one, right?

He looked up again. "And blue eyes, like you!"
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#8
White fur, blue eyes, okay. With a description like that, Umi figured that the wolf cub's mother would be easy enough to spot if she was anywhere nearby. Wolves were usually not white, right? She'd never seen one before. The pair set off as Haruki followed her swiftly, but Umi realized a small problem.

The rain would make the slopes difficult to climb. The feline would have no real trouble with this, but the puppy, well, it was hard to see him getting up so much as a large rock with things getting wetter. Alrighty, let's get you up this ledge, she said calmly, looking at the distance to the nearest flat-ish surface. It didn't look terribly far, but he wasn't a tiny thing either. She was still confident she could carry his weight.

Just hold tight, she said, nodding in a way that sought to comfort him. In a flash she was standing over him, swooping down, and grasping his scruff; the action came very naturally to her.
Oof, heavy boy.
Swiftly but carefully, she pulled herself and the boy up the steepest and most slippery part of the mountainside. Her paw slid out from under her weight once, but she was quick to catch herself, claws splaying out to better grip the rock. It didn't take long before she was setting him down on proper ground.
She stretched herself and felt a light pop of her back. Mothers did this all the time, but that was the first time she'd experimented with it.

We won't find her tracks β€” the rain will wash them away in no time. We'll have to do some exploring to find her, Umi offered, standing straight and tall as though preparing for battle. She knew that without tracks, it was very unlikely they would find her. She didn't have a direction or anything more than the boy's sorrow to go on, but it wasn't going to stop her from trying.
Instilling hope in little Haruki was her only goal.
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#9
He was eager to begin the search, renewed with vigour and hope that somehow now with this kind creature's help, he would definitely find Reiko. The rain would prove to be a challenge, however β€” and in more ways than one. Firstly, Haruki was not a fan of being soaked, and so as they headed out into the wet, he paused every few seconds and shook out his coat with a disgruntled growl. Secondly, Umi figured out it would be slow going with his short legs and the ground being as slick as it was.

At her decisive proposal, Haruki looked up, only to crouch slightly as she stepped over him and uttered a suggestion that he took on board quickly. There was a pressure upon his scruff, and suddenly he was hauled into the air, not unlike the times Reiko and Takeshi had moved him around when he was smaller. The ground disappeared beneath his feet, and Haruki held his hind legs up to his stomach to save them from scraping across the rocks. Then, after a short trip upwards, they were suddenly on higher ground, with the pup in awe of the woman's claws and how they had so easily cut through the cliffside's hard surface.

Having been placed on solid ground once more, the boy turned to the cougar with newfound respect, tail waving behind him. "Okay!" he said in reply, perhaps a little too boisterously for the grim mission. He was just excited to have made such a powerful seeming friend. She could slice through rock. He bet Hotaru or Lilitu hadn't made such friends!

He shook out his coat again, padding forward a few steps before turning back to Umi. "Maybe we could try and find her scent trail? She smells like, um...lavender!" he stated, wondering if she hunted via smells like wolves did. Did she even know what lavender was? "Like flowers!" he added with a hopeful smile, just in case.
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#10
The boy's voice had already changed to something with gusto and renewed energy. Children were resilient this way, she was discovering. The speed at which he was able to move from being in tears and lost to determination was fascinating. Umi hoped that the white puff would not lose this ability with age.

That's a great idea, she agreed, sniffing at the air with a twitch of her pink nose. If we work as a team, we can track her down!Β The rain was an unwelcome distraction to their quest, jumbling together different smells that weren't normally so overwhelming. Her senses told her of a dead bird not far away in the woods that became quite pungent due to the drizzle. Wet air always made smells strange, but she was sure that if they could just find some lavender, they might be in good shape.

She moved forward, heading into the mountain trees, sighing, lavender, lavender, we're gonna find you. She remembered the peculiar scent of the flower well β€” it had a strong aroma to it. The feline smiled as she took expertly silent steps through the woods, checking on Haruki out of the corner of her eye every few seconds or so to make sure he hadn't wandered away.

The dead bird smell went away over time and was replaced by pine bark and musk from some other animal. Each woodland path told its own story and had its own footprint that the two predators could read with their noses alone. A squirrel sounded an alarm call as they passed, and Umi couldn't help but make a short chatter and hiss at it in the trees. It went on yelling at all its little forest friends that there was a CAT and a WOLF, and Umi moved past, ears swivelled back.

Come ooooon, lavendar! She said, much more cheery, hoping it was close. She definitely smelled something flowery...
61 Posts
Ooc — Laur
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#11
Umi's positivity was infectious, and Haruki soon found himself believing as well as she that they would find Reiko in no time. As she tested the air, so too did the pup, though his senses were not as honed as the cougar's own. The scent of the nearby body of a bird was foul smelling and unfamiliar to Haruki, whose nose scrunched up in disgust as he came across the trail. He immediately pivoted away from it and began following in a zig-zag pattern just behind his feline friend.

Her sweeping, silent strides were a stark contrast to the slap, slap, slap of the boy's clumsy, heavy-footed steps upon the wet ground. It was a good thing stealth wasn't the goal here. The cry of a squirrel caught Haruki's attention, and his head whipped up along with Umi's. His gaze flit to her as she released a strange, guttural chirping sound that scared it off, causing the prince to wonder if that cat was afraid of squirrels. They seemed pretty harmless to him so far, but maybe she knew something about the creatures that those of the Empire did not.

Umi's sing-song call interrupted his thoughts, and Haruki ran to fall into step beside her. "MUUU-UUUUMMMM!" he bellowed, head tilted all the way back. It wasn't like Reiko to disappear for so long, especially without telling anyone. "I dunno where she could have gone," he then mumbled much more quietly, as if to himself as his ears fell back.
60 Posts
Ooc — Zina
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#12
Haruki called out for the lost mother. His voice sounded like a funky little howl. His tiny voice carried in a way that Umi knew wolves were famous for. Her nose continued to twitch, searching for the scent of lavendar on the moist air. The rain continued to come through the branches, though it was less wet than before now that they were properly covered.

She breathed out a length sigh at the boy's concern, slowing down a bit but continuing to move forward. Movement was something she had found helpful whenever in distress. Umi knew that she and he might not be able to find her; she didn't have the context to know that they wouldn't, however. Hope was an important flower to grow.

Maybe she had to do something important just for mommies, she suggested, although she had no idea what that would even entail. When she was a cub, it was common for her own mother to leave she and her brothers behind, but that was always for hunts. She wasn't sure if wolves did that too or not.