i like to pretend i'm burning bright

Anatole Aston · 01-21-2012, 01:25 PM

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(595) Maybe Anatole can come visit CdM after this; he's gonna be a bit scratched up lololol

Despite his words with Claudius, Anatole felt the air within AniWaya shifting. He was unhappy and on-edge, and felt as if he was unwelcome around the village. There was a true difference between him and the rest of the Tribe; he did not value things as they did, did not live as he did. While he was never chided for such things, he felt that there was something wrong about him not conforming. It was an instinctive desire, something he could not deny. The pack was what mattered, and to have something wrong within it filled him with the desire to expunge such a thing.

In this case, it was a person. The coyote, Matteo. Of all the people…Anatole growled deep in his throat. There was something wrong with the coyote, something that made him sick and made him behave in such a way. He had to go. This was not something he could do without risking his own expulsion; he wanted to rip him asunder. Yet the law of the pack said he could not, and so he had been left with pent-up aggression burning in his heart.

So he traveled, moving outside of the borders of AniWaya on four legs. He traveled with the wolfish trot, his arctic blood apparent despite the dark color of his fur. Anatole was made for this weather and this landscape, and he had thrived in it the season before. An animal made to survive, he could have done such a thing without a pack—it was instinct that drove him to find others. Even when he had abandoned his mother’s pack to find his own place, he had found other bachelors and they had made a small band themselves.

He did not know how far he had gone when the fresh scent of bobcat crossed his nose. Anatole was near a pack; he could smell this on the wind. The bobcat was young, and a male. He had killed one not long ago. As was his instinct to find other wolves, the instinct to eliminate other predators was a strong one indeed. Dark as he was, the snow did not provide much to hide him; the thick forests did, however. Through the blackened trees he slipped to and fro, trailing the cat’s obvious scent and less-obvious trail. Cats did not leave very noticeable tracks, even in snow.

All of his stealth was forgotten when a high puppy yelp broke through the trees. Asphalt colored ears rose to a high peak, the fur along his spine bristling. Instinct, again, demanded he protect the young. The wolf rushed forward, paws tearing up the snow and frozen earth, his head low and tail even with his spine. A snarl rippled across his face, green eyes blazing with savage, terrible fire.

He found the spotted cat and a golden puppy, engaged in the first steps of true combat. If the cat managed to grab the pup it would kill him; Anatole had heard such stories from first-year mothers and known this was not unheard of. The cat spotted him first and wheeled, puffing up its fur. Against an adult wolf, it would have been wiser to run. As it stood, hunger made the young thing mad—he had no intention of abandoning his kill, even outnumbered. Anatole snapped as the cat launched itself forward, batting wildly at his face. Claws ripped across his muzzle, narrowly missed his eye, and he felt his teeth close around the loose fur of the cat. He shook his head, snarling, and the cat darted away.

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