Kintla Flatlands DISCOVER · live fast, die young

I wanna discover a territory. ;d

She hadn't left the plateau since the small band of wolves that had survived the aftermath of Bon Dye's destruction had claimed it as their own. It was odd that she hadn't, considering how much she loathed it and all that it seemed to stand for. Abandonment. Broken promises. It was a decent enough garrison, though as difficult as it was for trespassers to get in, it could be just as difficult for pack members to get out. The sides were steep and rocky, except for its northwesternmost edge where the earth sloped gently downwards. This was the path she took to exit the territory, and at the bottom she paused to determine exactly where she planned to go.

Eventually, she moved to skirt southwards along the rocky walls—though with the snow, it looked more like a gentle hill. That, she noted, would be dangerous for those that weren't unfamiliar with the area. As of yet, however, she wasn't attached to anything enough for it to be her problem. Wolves had met worse fates, and if the ungulates made such an error—well, food was always a blessing. Lost in her thoughts, Zombie barely noticed when she had wandered along the plateau's base long enough to meet back up with the mountains.

The ground offered a much more interesting vantage point than the top of the plateau had, it seemed, for what had looked like an awkward clash of stone from the higher altitude now gave up its secret. Before her yawned a wide crevice in the corner where plateau- and mountain-base met. Oddly, Zombie could feel a faint breeze escape the fissure that seemed to taste of equal parts dust and fresh, clear water. Her green eyes narrowed, and she took a hesitant step towards it to investigate.

OOC: I originally was posting this to a different thread that I thought was in Blackfoot Forest but it was actually BDP so half of this post is Jinx hanging out in the forest and then heading back home, sorry if it's confusing. >_>

IC: Blackfoot Forest had been abundant in herbs before the snows had fallen, and some remained useful even after frost had bitten their cores and ruined them. Jinx's stride through the forest she had once owned was devoid of any emotion, as though she no longer cared for it the way she had before. That was in part true; it had been the pack's duty to defend the forest, and they had failed it. They had failed the loa who had come to call it home, and they had failed the gods who had sent them there.

Jinx, too, had failed Sos, in a way. She had not come back in time to give them visions of victory and conquest in this part of the Wilds. Her arrival back from her trip down the river had yielded nothing but the empty echoes of a pack that had abandoned her... And their territory. There was no greater crime in Jinx's mind than abandoning territory. The blood oath had not been about her; it had always been about the forest, chosen by the gods to harbour them in safety.

All that was in the past now, and Jinx's rationality — and concern, it would seem, for what could have been her empire — were shattered and left behind. She wandered in search of plants so she could at least be useful to her present pack, although these things she sought were of a more malicious nature than those she normally kept: baneberry, bryony, comfrey. Things to make the body ill and to desiccate organs; things to keep intruders from ever returning.

It was mere coincidence that brought her across Zombie's trail on her return trip from the forest; she wandered a path she had never taken before, following the line of the mountains by hugging its base. This decision brought her to the other side of the crevasse that her once-subordinate had discovered. While Jinx didn't notice her at first, when Zombie moved, the Horizon Ridge Kappa looked up sharply, and recognition shone in her slightly narrowed eyes.

"Zombie," she rumbled, recalling the name after several heartbeats of silence, during which she watched the mountainous crack warily. "You survived after all." She remembered urging the other woman up from the snow. She also remembered the trust Zombie had placed in her. For once, unlike with Pied and Hawkeye, whom she had only felt mistrust and betrayal toward, she felt a glimmer of guilt... But it was gone just as quickly when she remembered why she had had to leave.

oopth i had the thread prefixes all fudged up, my bad for confusing you. <__<

Zombie was in the process of mustering enough courage to enter the odd rift in the mountain—why, she couldn't begin to explain—when a voice cut through the air and spoke her name. Her head turned, bright eyes falling on the form of one she had never expected to see again. Instinctively, her hackles rose, and Zombie took a step back—away from both the entrance into rock and the ghost that stood off to her side. Waves of emotions raged through her thin body, and she shook as she attempted to sort through them all. Jinx was the wolf that had truly saved her, and in return Zombie had taken the blood oath. It had bound them to the forest and to each other—but it seemed that Jinx, who had demanded it, had broken both promises with little thought. Zombie, at least, had tried to honor it to the best of her ability.

"Where—" she began, anger causing her voice to tremble. Green eyes shifted over the other, older female as the yearling continued to navigate her emotions. Finally, she relaxed; as if all the passion and anger had left her with a gust of wind. "You left," Zombie finally said flatly, though her eyes still burned with accusation. "It always happens like that. I thought you'd be different, though."

For the moment, the mountain's doorway was forgotten.

She had expected a much harsher reaction, to be sure—something along the lines of accusatory hatred, as had been thrown at her by the other former Bon Dye wolves—but Jinx held her ground nonetheless as Zombie instead bristled and moved back in a much milder fashion that she'd imagined. There was no telling what the thin female would do if passion heated her enough, what spleen she might have developed in their time apart. Irrationality fit Jinx like a glove now, and part of her suspected Zombie was susceptible to that same disease of recklessness... But that part of her was wrong, at least for now.

What she got instead was perhaps the most honestly and simply spoken of accusations thus far. While Jinx was unaware that Zombie mentally considered the blood oath of great import, she was glad it was not brought up verbally, since neither Pied nor Hawkeye had understood the point of it when they'd spoken of it. She suspected all of them were the same, and didn't miss her mark by much... But Zombie was quieter about it, and that made it all the more powerful.

Still, Jinx was capricious if nothing else, as inconsistent as the weather, and not terribly prone to bouts of guilt. She made no move toward her former pack mate, anticipating that it would do little more than agitate her; instead, she took her own step backward, placing more space between them in the event Zombie was more volatile than she made out to be. "My god required my presence elsewhere," she stated, as simple and vague an explanation as she had offered Pied the first time she'd been confronted. "I returned to find all my wolves gone. Whose idea was it to elect Hawkeye?" she wondered suddenly. Or maybe the brutish woman had simply seized power from them. "I would not have expected Leto nor you to leave the forest. A wolf is sworn to defend their territory, is that not right?"

All this was said in a somewhat airy voice, as if Jinx sought to turn any guilt back on the other party. After all, she had gone for noble purposes. Her pack was not supposed to have left without her. In Jinx's mind, it was their fault for being so hasty as to think she had abandoned them; so she had maintained with all of her other opposers, and so she would with Zombie, though there was a secret pang in her gut of some other sort of remorse for the rust-brushed female.

It was true that there were some volatile compounds housed in Zombie's spirit, but they were difficult to ignite—for her heart was ice cold and partially stone. Each betrayal, each abandonment had forced the yearling to build up another wall of protection. If a single spark were to make it through all of that, however, the emaciated female would leave a trail as hot and blazing as a comet in the night sky. Those walls were all that kept Zombie from going completely unhinged, though she wasn't exactly stable either. And the wall she had built up against Jinx—a wolf that she once found herself admiring more greatly than any other, a wolf that was likely capable of triggering that spark—was the thickest of them all.

Part of her still thought she might forgive the once-leader, if the right words were said. After all, there was still a modecum of pain and hurt that Zombie still felt, or their reunion would not have gotten a reaction out of the yearling at all. "I know nothing of your god," Zombie answered, but unlike the others it was not to dismiss Jinx's departure, "but it's not because I didn't want to. You left." Unspoken was that Zombie would have followed, had Jinx given her some warning. She would have been devout to Sos, a true disciple—not the farce that Hawkeye played at.

"Not my idea," she growled, though the sound was surprisingly not directed at Jinx. Her resentment towards the plateau's leader and the other ex-Bon Dye wolves was beginning to bubble to her surface—and the spark was dangerously close to flaring into existence. "I was the only one that wanted to stay," Zombie explained. It would be obvious, then, that she had been left with no choice but to follow—there was still very little to the yearling beyond skin and bone, and she would not have survived for more than a week or two without a pack.

She stared at Jinx, her green eyes bright and defiant. There was little else to say, unless the former leader decided to continue her accusations. As if to rescue her from that, a gust of wind emerged from the crevice of the mountain—carrying with it an odd scent of ancient dust and deep earth. Instinctively, Zombie's head snapped towards it, the hackles raising along her neck in suspicion.

Jinx's interest was piqued by Zombie's confessions. She listened intently, her mouth drooping in the way a listening wolf's mouth does, and what she heard pleased her. Much as the Kesuk wanted to blame all of the Bon Dye wolves for failing her, this would could not be blamed. She had merely done what was required of her, which was much as Jinx had done; in the process, Jinx had made enemies, and Zombie had not. But she could not fault the rusted female for that. After all, the Kesuks were no strangers to enemies.

"Then you are the only one worthy of the title of amarok," stated the former Alpha, who found in her breast the tiniest flare of admiration. Zombie had risen from the wreckage of a former pack and devoted herself to Bon Dye, and the Kesuk was delighted to find that, unlike the other deserters, Zombie's devotion had been true. Jinx's had been true as well, but nobody believed her. They couldn't be blamed, but Jinx blamed them anyway. "Wolf. You are the only one."

Was Jinx, then, a wolf? One could not say if she numbered herself among them or not. At present, her concern lay with herself and no other. Perhaps this was why, rather than trying to tempt Zombie back into her circle of favourites—albeit she would have liked to do so, it would take some time—she instead turned to the crack in the wall, mirroring the Blacktail wolf's own shift in interest. A sidelong glance to the red-smattered woman gave indication that she should lead on... And that Jinx would remain out here, if unwelcome.

She didn't know what she had expected from her former leader, but it wasn't the grand pronouncement that Jinx bestowed upon her. Zombie had shifted slightly at that, unsure of what to say or do—and then the gust from the mountain had distracted her attention. She didn't exactly forgive Jinx for leaving; after all, Zombie's life had been a different kind of hell from that day forward. Each day, her resentment for Hawkeye and Pied and the others grew larger. It was a twist in her stomach, worse and more acidic than hunger. But neither did Zombie hate the Kesuk, for as her green eyes burned with defiance something told her that their paths would meet again.

Now, they stood side-by-side, both focused on the crack in the mountainside. Zombie didn't know what to make of the odd smell, or the breeze that seemed to originate in its depths. Jinx glanced at her, those pumpkin-colored eyes speaking volumes in the silence that had fallen between the wolves. No one had ever asked Zombie to lead before; not even in something this small and seemingly insignificant. For a moment, confusion paralyzed the yearling—but Jinx exposed facets of the rust-peppered female that Zombie never knew existed within herself. With a confidence she wasn't sure she truly felt, Zombie stepped towards the entrance.

Pausing there, her face half-cast in shadow, Zombie looked back at the white Kesuk. "What is it like," she began, tone a mixture of awe and fear, "when Sos speaks?"

The subject of Bon Dye was dropped, for which Jinx was thankful. Ultimately, the pack had been Jinx's first and only noteworthy failure in her life—she had led Shearwater Bay savagely and fiercely, and hadn't let it down, and had made known to the Oracle what she had Seen—and being constantly reminded of it sickened her. Aside from that, she blamed others rather than herself, finding wrong in their need to survive that outweighed Jinx's absence; since when was it solely her job to feed a pack, she might have wondered, had it been brought up.

But it wasn't. Zombie took the cue to lead, leaving Jinx to fall in silently behind, alert for the sudden snap of teeth that would signal she was unwelcome. Rather than aiming weaponry at the Mambo's shoulder, or venting agitation on her lissome chest, the rusted fem asked a question. It was one Jinx would be loathe to answer for anybody else, but she respected her former subordinate's loyalty, even if she couldn't count on her to answer her own call any longer.

"It is paralyzing fear when He speaks, yet it is easy to respect Him in those moments. Sos is Lord of Souls and can snatch yours from its body at any instant. Sometimes, His voice is painful... It cuts into the mind like talons, seizes hold. Sometimes, He will wrest control of your body, and dance you like a puppet. It is a great honour to be taken in this way. Sos only takes a body He deems worthy of His presence." Jinx had been taken by her God before, but it had not happened in a long while. More often, she saw Him, in his favoured form of savage, unruly polar bear, and sometimes she merely heard His voice in the cup of her ear; it was rare He visited her in the form of possession.

"It sounds fearsome, and it is... But it is thrilling, to hear Him speak. To know He considers you wooorthy." The musty smell within the crevice piqued her attention then and she sniffed, craning her neck toward it in wonder and curiosity.