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It had simply been her time to go. She felt she needed to get away from the home she'd always known and start new. Of course, that had been back in April when she'd just turned a year old. She'd done quite a bit of traveling since then, never really settling down in one place for very long. Flick wondered if this place would be any different from all the others she'd come across. There had been numerous tribes and packs that had offered to take her in, but she always refused, telling them she wasn't worth their trouble.
There were also those that shunned her because of her bloodlines, laughing behind her back and calling her a halfling. She shrugged them off as best as she could, but sometimes that really got to her. Who were they to judge? Her coyote showed through only in her smaller stature and slightly more angular face. Other than that, she looked more like a wolf than a coyote any day. Her mottled coat had shed into something of an off-white color, and her eyes had only darkened and grown desaturated with time.
Flick wasn't quite sure what had drawn her to this dead forest. It was really quite depressing once she thought about it, but she couldn't help but see the sheer beauty behind it. The hybrid wondered if there had been a fire or some other natural disaster here that caused it to look in such a way, but she couldn't be sure. She'd always preferred walking on two feet, and that was the form she was in now. Still slightly shorter than most wolves in this form, but she didn't mind. She had all the cunningness and stealth of a coyote to make up for her stature.
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[html] Boo. 83
Had there been a fire in this forest, it wouldn't have looked so glum. Wildfires tore down the old and encouraged the new with the cremated ashes. Pretty sick, right? But nature was and is a sick place. Proof of this was Shakadyn's very existence. He grinned, cocky even while verbally abusing himself, black paws taking him up and up again over the hills (and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go... he wasn't sure he remembered what his grandmother looked like). With his fur fluffed out to protect him from the cold, he looked much bigger than he really was —
which proved to be useful, because he smelled coyote. He'd never seen them, but he remembered the tales of their brutality in these parts quite well; well, whatever. Tonight was the night for bravery (if, indeed, "bravery" meant "hiding behind trees"), as he chose to draw closer, a bit of freshly fallen snow masking the sound of his steps. There was wolf here, too. He couldn't help wondering if he'd end up stumbling across some tense scene. Tense, not brutal, because he couldn't smell any blood besides that of a day-old kill and whatever aged tree sap wasn't encased in ice.
At first he didn't see her, and actually came quite near to bumping into her (and though he walked on four legs, she was shorter than him when he walked on two, from what he could tell — so much for being the smallest one around now, eh?). A flicker of movement stopped him in his tracks, though. The slender figure was, in fact, not a cluster of saplings, but a wolf. Not just a wolf, but the source of the coyote scent, too. (One might have thought it strange that he couldn't quite distinguish her from the surrounding trees by scent, but one might also have done well to be informed that trees and wolves were equally alive, and anyway he had a slight cold.)
"Well, hello." As was his nature, it was a little difficult to tell if he was amused, or being a jerk, or perhaps both. |
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She turned to face the voice that had spoken. At first, she expected it to be somebody who was going to attack, but then realized that wasn't the case at all. He looked friendly enough, anyway. Flick wasn't a particularly social wolf, though she wouldn't shy away from a good conversation if one was to be had. She also didn't simply ignore greetings that were obviously enough directed toward herself. Running her fingers through her shorter-than-normal hair, she smiled weakly. Same to you. She considered outstretching her hand and giving the formal handshake, but decided against it. Things like that were way old fashioned and for all those silly "grown ups" anyway, right?
Do you know what happened here? she asked, surveying the landscape once more. She wasn't sure she'd ever seen anything quite like it, but she really hadn't been a lot of places, either. After leaving her parents in April, she'd mostly made a bee-line to the coast after hearing so many wonderful stories about it. Of course, she'd gone slowly, exploring as she went (but not deviating too much off course).
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[html] He shook snow from his fur, scowling privately. Inside of himself, if you will. Actually, he was polite enough to confine that scowl so far inside that it may have been his brain that was scowling and not him. Shakadyn liked snow when there was a fire in front of him and/or a blanket around him (or, better yet, a roof of whatever material was convenient above him), but he was not so thrilled with it when he was standing in it with neither of those things in sight. Worse yet, it was January, by far the coldest month of the year, although sometimes that was February... But at least it was early morning. The silent blue cast the earth took at this hour was one of those things that made life worth living (unless you were blind, in which case life was worth living primarily for alcohol and music. He wasn't even going to contemplate what would happen if you were blind, deaf, and lacked taste buds).
As he was possessed of a womanly intuition, he'd noticed the slight pause after the hybrid girl's claws had run through her fur. For a moment he sarcastically entertained the notion that it was his devastatingly good looks that had done it, and then he got down to business — as in, thinking it was a good thing she hadn't gone for a handshake... perhaps in her pause she'd noticed that he'd had paws, too. (Business indeed. He was a pun formulation engineer.) "As a matter of fact, I've plum fuck of an idea what happened here. An atomic bomb, perhaps." Were this the summer, he could get away with pretending to scratch a flea off of himself (it wouldn't be real, he was far too particular about his grooming), but that wouldn't work in the dead of god-forsaken winter, so he settled on wagging his tail. Far more subtle and confusing an apology (?) for his potty mouth. |
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She flinched at his words, even though she did her best to hide that. It wasn't that she'd never heard a curse word before, it was simply that she considered cursing to be something either used amongst friends or enemies... certainly not strangers such as she considered their current (and very short) relationship so far. Maybe, she replied, though she was pretty sure that wasn't the case at all. The humans were long dead and gone, and the new ruler of the world (or whatever their species was) wouldn't even dream of destroying the earth in such a way... or so she figured. Perhaps, though, some radical had gone and done this just a few years ago. But then, weren't they in danger of some aftermath effects? Radiation and that sort of thing? She certainly hoped not.
But why would somebody do that? she asked, questioning him again. There was something slightly odd about the male, as if he were already picking her apart from the outside in. She nearly felt she was being ripped apart by his eyes at this very moment, though she knew that probably wasn't the case at all. Flick had a habit of overreacting to the simple things (in this case, somebody observing her). She couldn't really say it was a good habit, either.
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[html] Sorry that this is so little! I know you don't have much time to write as it is, though.
Again he found himself having to hide his reaction (manners, manners) — this time a smirk instead of a scowl. He looked away, breeze artistically brushing fringe from his face at just the right moment, the excuse of seeking the sunrise dancing across his mind. Some might have found that rude, but she looked like she might die if he kept looking at her. Apparently she hadn't picked up on his sarcasm, but, fortunately, he didn't much feel like exploiting that today. She raised an interesting question: why would someone do it? Oh, lots of reasons. "War?" It was simple enough. Humans and beasts alike were frightening in their pursuit of justice, truth, hedonism or just whatever they thought was right. He tsked mildly... he was far too civilized for this world. Maybe even passive. His fatal flaw. "Or spite." |
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