OOC Wow! It doesn’t feel like it’s been that long since my last post – got caught up in the holidays. Back to it! =) (3 points)

She tittered gaily at Shawchert’s little joke but did not reel from the proffered hand. Grinning, she slipped her own little fingers in his. “It’s mine, now!” she joked as she looked at their contrasting claws, small and white were hers, large and strong and a deep red were his. They completely clashed, and Orin kind of liked it.

When he spoke about the possibility of one of these places being a book store, she turned her gaze away from their hands and back to the Captain, her ears tipping back in a mixture of worry and disappointment. She gave a sweeping glance to the shops nearby, nodding in accord with Shawchert’s statement. “Yeah, and it looks like most of the rest of these places have been opened.” She sighed and bit her lower lip, working on it idly with a fang while she thought. Though she quickly stopped the little habit as Shawchert started to lead her off. Her ears perked up again and she was soon following almost beside him, for their fingers were still intertwined.

She grinned as they crossed the square. In the distance she could see a few more shops looming, and beyond that some houses that seemed to trail off into a row of housing – Orin had casually wandered by there earlier in the day. They were about to cross the last store and exit the old shopping district when she planted her footpaws, yanking back on Shawchert’s hand. “Hey, wait!” When she was happy that the large wolf was sufficiently subdued and that she would not be going for a drag, she turned her eyes onto the last store in the aisle and pointed to it. “Look there. That door is cracked open but there’s still vines in the way, like someone started but didn’t make it inside. Do you think you may have overlooked it?” She cocked her head, curious for just a moment, before she began to head toward the store, yanking on Shawchert’s hand to bring him with her.

OOC Muahaaaa!! Don't have time to proof read so sorry if there are some funktacular mistakes, must run to school. Enjoy the chaos! =D (3 points)

Something was wrong here! One of her senses screamed at her but Orin was famous for ignoring her nose. The excitement of exploration coursed through her veins and she was determined to trudge forth in the face of all odds. She sauntered up to the cracked door, peering into the shop. There were shadows inside, tall, long shadows that were distorted with cobwebs and dust. She narrowed her eyes – it was obvious these were shelves inside the store, but in this light and under that dust, they could have stored anything.

Orin placed a hand on the wooden door and pushed, and to her surprise the door swung free on its old hinges. So someone had been by here once and even went so far as to free the threshold and loosen the door hinge, but, judging by the undisturbed filth, it still did not look like anyone had entered this shop. Maybe whatever was inside held no value for whomever had crossed by before and they moved on without entering.

Gosh, what is that garlicky smell?

The woman took a step inside, feeling Shawchert’s presence behind her, her fingers still entwined within his. She was about to take another step forward when she hear a faint scratching noise. She gave Shawchert a puzzled look, and when she turned back around a little critter had appeared only a few feet away from her. It was a small little quadruped thing with a pointy nose, and it peered at them with little coal eyes. Orin beamed at the creature.

It wasn’t a cat, she had seen plenty of cats in Florida (though as a prime food source, the alley cat population was dwindling in the slums), this animal was too wide and stout to be a housecat. And it had fascinating markings! Long, deep, ebony fur with two stark white stripes running down the length of it’s back, ending at the tip of a long, flat tail.

“Aww,” Orin crooned and knelt down to the creature’s level, reaching a hand out to the little animal in an attempt to coax it over to her. “Aren’t you just soooo cute! Oh look Shawchert, books!” Momentarily distracted by the sighting of the hardbacks on the shelves, Orin failed to notice the creature as it began to swivel around and lift it’s tail. . .

(3 points)

“Whaaaaa!” she cried some undecipherable word as Shawchert yanked on her arm. Before she knew what was happening she was wrenched off her feet and flying through the air. She cried out the whole time until she landed on top of Shawchert with an audible oof! She lay there dazed for a moment, almost nose-to-nose with her alpha, and then sat up straddling Shawchert’s stomach. Totally oblivious to the interesting position they were in, she glanced over her shoulder, sneezed, then turned back to Shawchert.

“What did you do that for? You scared it! Now look what happened!” She rubbed her nose as though she could rid the awful stench from it. The skunk’s spray was some kind of evil toxin, dominating her sense of smell and making her eyes tear up. She even thought she could taste it and grimaced. “That is foul... just foul!”

She leaned down and took a whiff of her fur then looked at Shawchert in horror. It looked like she was going to vomit right on him, though she managed to hold it in. She took a sniff of his fur too; she had received most of the blast, but Shawchert was pretty ripe himself. Wait... she took most of it?!

“I have to get this off of me!” Panic set in and she looked like she was about to cry. The only thing that kept her from hyperventilating was the fact that she did not want to breathe the air any more than she had to.

Leaping up, Orin made a bee-line for the nearest patch of foliage. It was the only thing she could think to do – horror had set in and she let instinct reign. Once she reached the brush, she dove into the bushes, scratching, rubbing, and rolling in the foliage, dirt, and snow - anything she could do to get the smell off.

3 points

For a moment she ignored Shawchert’s presence, continuing to give in to her canine instincts and try to rub and roll the scent out of her coat. All she was really doing was succeeding in making this patch a little smelly too, but the effect it had on her coat was minimal and to her sensitive nose it felt like there had been no change. Finally she stopped rolling and lay there on her back, staring straight up at the sky, “Why me?” It was meant to be mock grief, but she couldn’t disguise some of the sincerity that came through in her voice.

Finally her blank stare focused and she shifted her eyes to Shawchert. Her chest heaved with heavy breaths as she recovered from her sudden exertion, “Well... thanks, I guess.” She was still of the mind that the skunk sprayed because of Shawchert, but dropped the issue. Orin rolled over onto her stomach and stood up, pausing a moment to untangle one of her dreadlocks from a branch. Now she was wet and dusted with snow, streaked with dirt, twigs, and dead foliage, and she smelled bad. She held out her hands, looking at her muddy fingers, and shook her head.

“I guess the worst is over. Let’s go take a look,” the pep was coming back to her voice, and despite looking like some swamp-thing, she strolled off confidently towards the store once more. Though as she neared the doorway, she paused and glanced back at Shawchert. “Are you sure it’s gone?”

Maybe he was about to play some kind of dirty trick! After all, the store smelled just as bad as they did, and she had no way of knowing from scent if the animal had fled. “I don’t think so, I’m not going in first this time.” She skittered behind Shawchert and laid her hands flat on his back, pressing with all her weight (though that wasn’t very much) to shove him into the store first.

5 points

Her fingers grasped the doorframe, knuckles tight, and she peered around the wall and into the bookstore at Shawchert. At first it did not look like she was going to come out from behind her shield, but after taking a moment to scan the shop she slipped out from her hiding place and gingerly stepped into the shop. After a minute she put her hands on her hips and nodded in approval. “Okay, good. Good job. Thank you.”

Another beat passed and Orin was alive again. Her face lit up as she took a good look around the shop. This was just the kind of place she was looking for! Her eyes widened as she peered at the shelves and beamed. “Look at it all! Isn’t it perfect?” Happily, she disappeared into a row of books, only to come out a moment later from behind another stack.

“It’s all in really good condition. Sure, they’re really dusty and a little ripe now, but I might be able to take care of that. Anyway, who cares, books are too valuable to throw out because of a little odor.” She looked at Shawchert as though awaiting confirmation, then turned back to the bookshelf. “Usually if you find an old library or a bookstore the buildings are so old that water has leaked in and molded the books, or they’ve been eaten by moths and rats... Sure, there are a few that are unusable here, but they’re mostly in pretty good condition.”

She grabbed a book off of the shelf at random. It was a hard cover, large in dimension but thin in pages. She blew the earth off of the dust jacket, sneezed, then giggled as she read the title. “Hey, look at this,” she held the book up to Shawchert. On the cover was a faded picture of a running wolf and the title read The Wolf Almanac.

Orin thumbed through the pages, more so skimming the photos rather than the text, and stopped on one particular photo of a wolf pack. She held it up again, “Look, it could be you.” She grinned; the wolf did bear a striking resemblance to Shawchert, though was missing his rusty highlights.

“I wonder if there’s anything we can learn about our history from books like this.” She thought for a moment, then set the book back on the shelf and wandered back into the open floor where her eyes were drawn to a staircase, which immediately had her inspecting the ceiling’s integrity, remembering the incident in the lighthouse.

“I’m curious to see what’s up here...” she muttered as she headed for the stairs. There were not nearly as many as the lighthouse, since this was a much more standard two-story building and did not serve as a life beacon for ships. The door at the top of the stairs swung freely, and she peered into the shuttered room. There was a desk, more shelves and books, and a file cabinet. “This would make a perfect bedroom!”

She turned and poked her head back out, bending over to see past the stairwell wall and appearing to be nearly upside-down at the top of the banister. “This place is perfect. Can I keep it?!”

OOC Ending post, aye? (3 points)

“It’s mine? It’s really mine!” The ivory woman that was now mottled in an array of earthen colors ran down a couple stairs and beamed at Shawchert. He said it, there was no going back – this place was her’s! She had been excited and proud of the lighthouse that she briefly claimed as her home back in Cour des Miracles, but this place was even more of a dream. The lighthouse had been beautiful and romantic, if not a little run down like most old structures, but this place was full of books and storage space for new once! And it would take her at least... oh, at least a week to get through the entire stock here! Okay, if she stuck to her other pack duties and did not become a hermit like she had in the past, this hoard was going to last her a while.

“That would be spectacular!” In one fluid motion she leaped off of her perch halfway down the staircase, her arms outstretched, and like a pro, she collided into Shawchert and wrapped her arms and tail around him in a firm, joyful embrace.

“Can we start working on it tomorrow? I know a little. . .” she pinched her fingers together to punctuate her point, “. . . about carpentry from the lighthouse I was fixing up to live in back in Cour des Miracles. Oh, and look, over there, that wall would be perfect for someone to paint a mural. And that archway looks like it leads to a stock room, I bet there’s all kinds of supplies. Of course, anyone in the pack would be welcome to come in any time and borrow a book or sit down and read. Hmm, I think I will put some furniture there in case people want to take a load off. Oh, do you know how to mix mortar? I bet we could build a fireplace right there!” Still hugging Shawchert, she went on and on about her plans for the place and how great it would be. Somehow, she just knew she would get that pungent odor out, and that this would be a nice little haven for herself and the pack. The plans percolated – she had so many ideas, and to her, all of them were pure genius.

This little old bookstore was going to be grand.

“Ha-ha-ha! But right now, we both need a bath.”