It was actually Jormag’s favorite time of the day, as he could enjoy the scenery at his own leisure while some creatures closed their eyes to sleep and others woke up to cease the night. Feeling particularly energetic on this early evening the dark male pulled himself upwards. After a yawn and a short stretch he blinked his eyes while thinking adventurously; “Another chance to conquer the world”. A subtle grin curled around the corners of his mouth as his golden eyes twinkled with a newfound amusement.
New to these unclaimed and expanding landscapes, Jormag already found himself a suitable challenge as he peered thirsty towards the shores of Arrow Lake. His tongue flickered out as he licked his leathery lips, already imagine the taste of the water. But before he could reach the safety of the shores he stood in front of a new challenge; how to get there? Was it truly a marvelous droplet of water or was it a poisonous treachery that lured him in like a curious cat?
"But how do I get up there?" she mused aloud, pacing along the lower shore.
Over the crashing of the waterfall, Spine could have sworn she heard something like a flutter. Ears pointed, her golden eyes swept the dark landscape to be met by... nothing. Exhaling sharply in something like irritation, she refocused on searching for a path up the mountain's face.
When she was almost ready to give up, two large, green eyes blinked—one after the other—in front of her. Instinctively, the fur along Spine's backbone raised, and she took a startled step backwards. There was no telling how close or far away the eyes were, for they seemed to appear out of the thin, night air. When they disappeared altogether, the female heard the fluttering sound again, and she watched in amazement as a dark shape nimbly climbed the rock surrounding the waterfall to disappear over its upper edge.
"Um, hellooo-ooo!" she barked loudly, unaware that someone else entirely was trying to get down to the upper part of the lake, from an even higher vantage point. "Can you show me how to do that?"
A voice within the night shattered the silence and made him pause. Jiffy, he wasn’t alone. His golden, lingering eyes fell upon a lithe female. Within the darkness he could trace her feminine figurine. Apparently he was not the only one on a quest for water. It better be special water – he thought – as his leathery lips drew open to reply to Spine. ”Hi! I’m Batman – and you must be Robyn.” This night the cinema probably featured ‘The Dark Knight Rises’, or so he figured, only then the Wolf version of it.
”Actually, compadre, the only way to get to the water is to work together to reach the water.” Hopefully he glanced at direction, as if questioning ”Are you in?”. Because two could do more than one. At the same time they were two complete strangers. The Batman and the Robyn; would they seize the night?
He introduced himself before she had a chance to do so, and evidently he had heard her query from below. To be fair, Spine knew she wasn't exactly quiet, and voices did tend to carry in the mountains. "Um... hello, Batman!" she replied cheerfully, "My name is Spine, but I guess you can call me Robyn if you'd like. I hope this lake is something amazing, so it's worth all this effort!" She grinned at him, glad that neither of them felt the need to posture like some wolves did. They were on neutral territory, after all, and Spine was of the mind that unless someone gave you a reason not to, you might as well trust them.
"Do you have any ideas about how to get down to the mystical, magical water?" she asked, eyes scanning the landscape. With night falling, they'd want to find their footing relatively quickly before it was too dark to see. "And um, hey, you didn't happen to see someone sneaking around down there, did you?"
”I-I hope so too.” Jormag replied hesitantly as he partly wondered what sort of disappointment awaited if all the effort was wasted. ”You mean this water has hocus pocus power?!? Mischievously he threw the question back at her, yet he did wonder all the sudden if the waters truly had some magical properties imbued. That would be cool. Even more thrilled than before he thought of a plan like a rocket scientist. A minute later he muttered an idea, only then, he wasn’t much of a genius. ”There’s a few scarce scattered scents of prey live. They have to get in – and out. That means there is a way or several. We should use our nose and look for paths along the bedding.” No genius, no brains, just the use of the ordinary nose.
”I er…” That last question caught him by surprise. ”..saw something moving.” But he couldn’t quite define what. Suddenly he was glad he was not the only one. ”What did you see?” And so began argentous quest to search for towpaths.
"I don't know for sure," she responded with a wag of her tail, "but it has to be difficult to get to for a very good reason—don't you think? Maybe it's a fountain of youth or something. You don't want too many people to become immortal, so if I were in charge of creating magical places, I'd make 'em hard to find... or, well, at least hard to get to." She realized then, as an afterthought, that what she had just told Batman was very likely why she was having such a hard time finding the otherworld.
At his suggestion, Spine thrust her nose to the ground and began to taste the air for signs of paths the prey might have taken. When he confirmed that she wasn't the only one to see something moving near the lake, however, the female lifted her head back up to look at him. The expression she held was a mixture of surprise and relief—though if he had seen it to, didn't it make it more likely that whatever the shadow was, it was something far more mundane than fairies?
"I saw a shadow, with bright green eyes. It was hard to see, though... It was like the night folded over on itself," she explained, wondering if he thought she was as crazy as she suddenly felt.
Whether he believed her crazed or not, the male humored her, and the two spoke of things not of true consequence as they sought ways to reach the water. When they finally did, they basked in the mythic atmosphere of the place for a time, before going their separate ways.