Dawnlark Plains the twisted mouth

When @Saena left, Pura followed.

She had a head start, but the twisted titan was an accomplished tracker of wolves. His sister's scent blazed like a trail of fire winding north-east from the plateau. When she stopped to rest, Pura was hot on her heels, inhaling the intoxicating scents she left behind - piss, excrement, traces of pale fur. He slept where she slept, rolled in any spot she deigned to spend longer than ten minutes in.

When she eventually settled on the Rise, he watched her.

In the time it had taken the siblings to reach Saena's eventual claim, they had turned a year old. There was nothing left of Pura's uncertainty about the quality of his spirit; he knew what he was and what he wanted, and felt no remorse.

It was a freeing realization. On more than one occasion, a wandering wolf crossed his path, and on a subset of those, Pura successfully lied his way to a successful kill. Once he accepted that socializing was a tool, it was easier to fake it.

One such success occurred where the plains met the Silver Moraine. Pura had eaten more than his fill, and was in the process of covering the unfortunate old codger's remains. Summer inspired wanderlust in so many hopefuls, old and young - for Pura, their migration meant a feast.

-bounds in-

From foxes to mud monster to everything in between, Nochtli couldn't say she wasn't amusing herself. Keeping busy was easy, especially for the scout who wandered and roamed far and wide once she knew Citali or Manauia was around the Amazon Prince. If it was her place to stay near him, then she did not stray. 

Today was not that day. 

And yet, she didn't go as far today, merely staying in direct view of the ridge Tezcacoatl planned on claiming. This was not surprising as her travels and directions were fairly erratic, heading in whatever direction pleased her that day. At some point, she would fancy herself a trip to the sea but for now, she hunted a curious scent, one she didn't often come across; Fresh earth.

Eventually, the dark Amazon with burning eyes found the source, her eyes flickering from the earth to his dirtied feet to his purposeful, methodical work. Curious. Ears pitching forward, she watched for a few moments, wondering. It wasn't often you found wolves digging like this unless to build a cache. Perhaps that's what it was. What an odd place for one.  

"Need help?" She quipped, though the distance between them was not yet closed. 

A chirpy voice lanced through Pura's head. Unless he was purposely avoiding detection, he did not spend much energy concealing his presence - after all, he was the monster under the bed. What was there to be afraid of?

With the echo of her greeting still ringing in his ears, the boy from the plateau turned to face his new little friend. She was a slight wolf - dark, although the setting sun made it difficult to make out any detail. Her eyes burned, accented by the light. She looked at him, curious.

Pura's ears scooped slowly forward, mimicking her expression perfectly. "I have bones," he told her flatly. Indeed, there ribs at his feet - as far as any wolf could tell, they were just any old bones. "You can have one," the strange man offered.

He turned to look at her and there was something there that gave her the slightest of pauses. The feeling was brushed away as his expression became clear; perhaps the intensity of the sun set had distorted her view. It was possible, for they were perpendicular to the horIon and the sun's intended setting point.

He offered her a bone, ignoring her question. 'Curious.' Maybe he hadn't heard her, but the tidbit was stored away just in case. "Thanks but I'm good. I've got a set to chew on back home." They were smaller of course but Citali would have a fit if they wasted anything. Already, they had plans to use the fox pelts for their own purposes.

"Why are you burying them?" Bones weren't that important to bury. If you looked, you could find one almost anywhere. So why was he stashing them? Perhaps he had a fetish or something. Perhaps.

She wisely rejected his offer. Pura was disappointed, but didn't show it, settling onto his belly with the half-clean bones between his forepaws. The rest of the wolf he had murdered lay buried not two inches beneath the ground his tail now rested upon, thoroughly gutted and without a face. Pura kept the ribs as a snack for later.

"In case I come back here," he offered. Packs cached their food - it was pointless for lone wolves to do so, but Pura could not leave a trail of devastation in his wake. If Saena found such evidence, it might rouse suspicion. "Do you live here?" the yearling asked, cocking his head to the side in the manner of someone that did not do it often. His staring eyes and slow movements made it look more creepy than inquisitive.

In case he came back. Her gears churned, thinking. It was one thing to cache food, meals, things that you didn't want others to find. What was it about the bones that he didn't want others to find? The Amazon mentally shook herself. Being suspicious of the wolves in this land would do her little good. She needed to learn their culture and ways, if they were going to be sticking around. However, that didn't mean she was going to make stupid mistakes with this, or any wolf. She dropped that particular line of conversation, even as he began another.

"Yes and no," The fire-eyed female replied, making no outward reaction to his creep-factor. Instead, she volleyed the question back at him. "Do you?" At the same time, she mimicked the dark creature, canting her head slightly, pitching her ears forward to catch his words. She thought to ask where he was headed but she kept the question locked within, waiting until a more opportune moment to ask. If she posed too many questions, he might not answer all of them, and something made her (curiosity) want to keep track of each of his answers.

Pura was unnerved by her curiosity and her questions, but kept his irritation at bay. He could not afford a scene - not now. For all he knew, this wolf was not just passing through.

"Yes and no?" he repeated with a questioning inflection. She may as well not have answered. Pura rose slowly to his feet once more, hind legs planted firmly on the grave of the unfortunate that had crossed his path just as the dinner bell rang. "I don't live here. Do you know about that pack?" Pura's blank eyes shifted to Saena's little slice of the world. A second pack had staked their claim nearby - in the coniferous forest at the foot of a mountain. They had pups - Pura could smell it on the mother's pee, but their borders were well-guarded and Pura was not stupid.

She nodded in response to his regurgitation of her words. "Yeah. My home is far away from here but technically it's my new home now, so..." There was a movement from her shoulders, a kind of shrug. Did she want to live here? No, but it was her duty to stay with the Prince and keep him safe and be his eyes around these lands. She would not fail again. He stood again, drawing her attention to the fact that he remained on the spot where he'd disturbed the earth, piquing her curiosity which would continue to go unsated for the moment.

Her gaze followed his, that bright gaze sharpening as she focused on his question. So there was a pack there. The knowledge was stowed away. "Not a thing. My companion and I have only been here about a week." The mention of Citali was deliberate, as there was something that struck her odd about this one. But while she was not the trusting sort, Nochtli would not condemn a wolf, even a male, until they had done something to deserve it. "Is there something I should know about it?" Is there something I should know about you?

She had a companion. Bringing up that fact had the desired effect - Pura begrudgingly put all thoughts of taking her down out of mind. If one friend had followed her here, others might have done the same. The Teekon Wilds had a knack for reuniting scattered families, and Pura did not want to be on the target end of a witch hunt.

Nochtli did not leave it there. She bedded in with further questions, forcing Pura to change tactics. "My companion lives there," he told her with soft emphasis, reflecting the word she had used herself. He blinked - slowly and for the first time in ten minutes, with a standing reminder to do so more frequently. "I miss her," he shared, "Are you looking for someone as well?" An educated guess - she still referred to some far-away land as home, suggesting that she might return. A hunt would not take her this far, so a missing wolf seemed like the most likely reason for her being here.

His companion. Okay... This conversation was clocking on her "Weird-o-meter". It was almost like... they were playing a game, volleying questions back and forth. While normal conversations could flow like that naturally, this one seemed... off. 'Curiouser and curiouser.' Her eyes went the direction indicated again, making a brief note of it, and also of the fact that each thing she seemed to say or do, he mimicked her. 

But then her observation fell by the wayside as he stated that he missed his companion. A slight frown pulled her expression, bright gaze comeing back to him. "Yes. Well... No. It's complicated. We found him but he's not himself anymore." Her frustration edged into the tones of her voice, though she breathed it away with a sigh. There was no sense in getting worked up over it right now. 

"Your companion," That word again. "If you miss her, why do you not go to her?" A simple question, and yet not. Half of her expected him to fire the "It's complicated" line back at her but for now, she waited to hear what he had to say.

Not himself. Pura wondered what Saena would say if she knew about the bodies he had buried. Would she tell him that he was 'not himself', too?

"If you miss her, why do you not go to her?" the stranger suggested. Pura turned his head, looking back at the remains he had just buried. If he left now, Nochtli might unearth them to see what he had hidden. "Tomorrow," he announced, and settled down on the upturned earth in a manner that suggested he would remain there for the foreseeable future. The conversation was over.

Tomorrow. What a procrastinator. But, whatever. She watched him settle down and took that as her cue to leave. "Good luck." Her parting words were the last she spoke to him, turning and leaving the scene and the odd wolf behind. He was a creature who piqued her curiosity but something told her not to push him. She listened to that something all the time and would not change her habits now.

Thread end!