Quote from Adriana on January 6, 2019, 12:40 am

"Timothy..." Logan spoke as she turned to face Timothy. Her posture would betray no sign of fear. Nor would her scent, for she was not afraid of the young wolf. Not in ignorance-no... earlier she followed him up a mountain and he seemed to fear her. Now he came, injured, and lacking the same countenance as he did on the mountains spine. It was Timothy, but not as he had departed her.

"You are surprise to see me--this is because you expect someone else here, ah? They have left... but this side of the mountain does not belong to Kratos, I do not think.. I would not fight them. I want to know of the song you sing."

Now she held out the flute by the strap.

"Do you know this?"

Quote from Skyelre on January 11, 2019, 1:22 am

Saber was still now, the rising and falling of his chest the only movement to be seen. However when Sabrina first brought him back to her aunt's cabin, that was not the case.

He seemed restless. Although Saber never did awake while Sabrina had cared for him, he would stir sometimes, small whimpers escaping his throat now and then. While the outside now appeared calm, in the depths of his subconscious he continued to stir, his mind just as restless as when he had first set foot out the cabin door and back into the storm hours earlier.

The mind can be a dangerous place. While it holds all the precious memories and joy one experiences in their life, it also houses all their demons from their past as well. In the state of sleep where the mind has little control, nightmares of the worst kind can easily take shape here. Fear drives the direction. Things that can never be in reality, are. Lost in another time and place, they are trapped in this twisted version of reality their own mind has conjured up; And here they stay until they finally awake.

Quote from Indy on January 15, 2019, 9:42 pm

Jackie was not a creature of hesitation.  Woman and wolf had both made truce to escape the oppressive confines of the darkness.  Momentarily winded, she made quick work of the small space left by Ulric’s departure. By what cost and what means, however, eluded her. But this she would ponder later, for all at once she found herself under the open night sky.

She stood there a moment, transfixed by the faintly illuminated landscape and the cold, fresh air untainted and unsoiled by the cavern.  Her heart sung.  Her bright eyes settled a few paces beside her to Ulric, watching him slowly.  She did not utter a word in her arrival, though surely the heave of her chest could not be missed by him.

Quote from Mae on January 17, 2019, 11:02 pm

When Jackie exited the cave, Ulric was standing on a solid rock platform above a gradual alluvial slope. He stood as if in a daze, staring out on a truly massive wilderness. Hills and valleys, mountains upon mountain stretched out as far as the eye could see. But between Phantom Mountain, where Jackie and Ulric now stood, and the next great ring of mountains in the north, lay a low valley filled with innumerable trees. The forest began at the base of the slope, whereat  a cloven dell, embowered by toughened boughs, lay open.  The moon, bright and brilliant in the sky, cast deep shadows under those trees and caused the whole snowy landscape to glow in rich blue light.  Clouds, marching like silver-clad soldiers to clothe the earth in winter's robes, moved quickly through the sky. Some came high and lofty, passing like a scattered fog very near the moon and causing a ring to appear. Others, dense and heavy under the weight of their load, loomed so low in the valley that the peaks of the crescent-shaped mountains could be seen above them.

It was clear the storm was far from over, for there were yet many clouds crawling on their bellies into the valley. They came over the mountains like great grey lizards, following the curvature of the peaks with their form as if in slow-moving waves. Yet appearing slow and sounding utterly silent, those great giants wreaked havoc where mankind would never know, and were even now rushing to beat upon Phantom Mountain once again.

Ulric's legs trembled. It might have seemed as if he were gazing on the vast scene before him, but in truth he saw nothing at all. His mind was dark, and his vision was obscured in husky crimson hues. He shuddered with his last thought, and then he fell.

*****

"Do you know this?"

Logan's hand was extended. In her palm, the red-wood flute in bounded leather stayed. Timothy looked at it with thirsty, insatiable greed. A slight wind passed into the grove and swayed his misty grey hackles.

Almost, it seemed Timothy was tempted to take the flute without price; ready to accept Logan's painless invitation and peacefully investigate her findings. Almost - is such a deceptive little word. Deep in Timothy's mind the terrible roots of suspicion had long been nurtured and grown. So ready was he to accept and combat the cunning, that he himself had become wiser than a serpent for meat. There was no trust in his heart.

With renewed determination, Timothy's face curled and his hackles bristled.
*****

Meanwhile...

Thick, black claws appeared in the dark crease above Katie's door.

Quote from Cat on January 18, 2019, 6:31 am

This was stupid...
Everything was stupid!

They had been wandering for hours, or so it seemed, and had not found anyone. The storm had carried on and eventually passed by, allowing the silvery moonlight to cascade down upon the mountain side. The smell of rain was potent, as were the hazards the rain had caused: Landslides, downed trees, overflowing rivers-- Toby was cold, wet and extremely stressed. He'd never felt so unreasonably angry in all of his life. Why had they chosen this stupid mountain to make a pack on? The Phantom Plant was everywhere. It made using their natural born senses practically impossible. Toby almost wished the whole stupid mountain side would get struck by lightning, catch fire and burn this horrible plant away... What kind of flower actually stared at you?! That wasn't right. It wasn't normal. Nothing but cows should live on this stupid mountain! If the dumb mountain had been an ideal place for a werewolf pack, the pack that used to live here would still be here.

And where was the new pack? The call-of-the-thorns pack? Where was his dumb dumb DUMB pack? I'll tell you where. Probably spread thin across the mountain slope: One fighting for their lives against hunters, one cornered by a rival pack, some buried in a landslide, and their alpha completely AWOL!! Worst part was that every scenario was undoubtedly their own fault. They never listened, always thought they knew best, didn't care about anyone except themselves!

Toby grumbled and growled these thoughts to himself while trudging up the hillside on all fours. He hated this place. He hated being a werewolf. He hated this pack and being a part of it! What good was it doing anyone? He was a perfectly decent, upstanding member of human society with a lot of collage experience. He liked to study, he like building things. He could be a pretty fair inventor if he had more time to devote to his machines instead of all this drama.

This was it.

This was the last straw.
After tonight, he was going back to town and staying there. He didn't care if Granny didn't let him into the house. He'd get a job, a decent human job and rent a room someplace. Granny liked werewolves. She was proud of being a werewolf. She could take his place in this pack if she was set on their bloodline being a part of it, because he was fed up! He didn't want to be scared or hurt anymore. This was a dumb pack full of really dumb wolves.

"I don't know where we are going." Toby said suddenly, stopping abruptly. "I can't smell anything through all of these dumb plants, I don't know how we're going to find whoever was out here." Saying this, Toby took a swing at one of the Phantom plants, smacking it hard with the back of his hand. His speed had every intention of ripping both it's leafs and buds off when he did so.

Quote from Adriana on January 18, 2019, 11:17 am

"You are more clever," Logan stated, clutching the pendant in her palm.

"I have my strength. But that right now is not of use to me." she glanced to her limp arm, her shoulder sagging below the socket it was supposed to be connected to. "Even so, you already have shown to me before that is not a match against your skill." she added, crouching down in the earth and taking a meditating position with her legs crossed. She used her thumb to hold the pendant to her palm while her other fingers cleared away a spot in the dirt and snow in front of her to lay it on the leaf litter below.

"You have the look of the one then, who made me this.. I call him lačne oči," she slipped easily into a tongue foreign to Timothy, "It is, 'hungry eyes'."

She looked up to meet Timothy's eyes. There was a time months ago when the sight of them might have caused her blood to turn to ice and her heart to race, but not now.

"Since I have come to this place... it is not the hunger of a beast I fear." she stated slowly, deliberately. "It is the hunger of man's soul." her mind went to the hunters, the cunning Svalnaglas.

"If you took my life... my hope is that you do not know what you do, though you are clever, you answer to a beast as you are now... unlike the hunters and those ehh... Sval-na-glas, who will answer to a power more cunning than theirs because they have their minds."

She rested her hand in her lap.

"I cannot tell you who you answer to... you must know and decide." she lowered her head and closed her eyes, ears back. "The choice is yours."

Quote from Indy on January 18, 2019, 2:18 pm

Cold, soggy, and miserable, Theo was having no better a time than Toby in their aimless wanderings.  He’d given up finding someone in the wreckage, because at present, they needed as much rescue as anyone else.  But the pack could have just been right around the corner and they would not have smelled them…

At first he didn’t notice the Phantom herb, but he could not miss the way smell seemed to disappear around them.  He had heard his pack mention the plant on occasion, but this was his first time he had encountered it here.  His brow furrowed and some rain drops rolled down the groove of his concern. 

He reached a padded finger towards one of the plants, at the same moment Toby had decided to attack one, and rolled it gently along the waxy, prickly leaves.  Then he considered the buds.  The furrow deepened. 

"Toby… Stop," he breathed out wearily with much the same exhaustion Toby was feeling, "I know this plant… it’s Tears of the First".

Suddenly his ears perked to attention.  Not-so-distantly, he could detect a very urgent scraping and splintering sound.

"Come on! That could be… someone helpful," and with only one curiously mournful glance at the plants, he started to head towards it.

———— 

Jackie hadn’t settled besides Ulric only for company.  The moment she saw him drop, her arms were around his torso in a flash !  On the ledge, her weight was balanced most precariously. For a moment, she feared both of them would fall over the edge.  Then taking the ruff of his neck in her snout, she managed to pull him back before any was the wiser.

She heaved from the effort, releasing her snout but not yet daring to release his torso.

"You’re not going that easy," she snapped harshly, "If I need to drag you home, I can and I will".

She considered the slope, then carefully mapped out a less extreme drop to the sandy, silted ground below. Carefully, she started to ease some of his weight onto her shoulders and took a few cautious steps along the firm ground of the rock, waiting to see if Ulric would follow her lead.

"Come on… we can’t stay here. If we’re lucky, careful, and slow, we can make it back in the same number of pieces we started in". 

Quote from Cat on January 19, 2019, 8:24 pm

"Tears of the first what?" Toby asked grumpily, folding his arms like a pouting four year old and not even looking back at Theo. His question went unanswered, however, as a second later there was a very strange sound nearby. Theo took off toward the sound instantly. Toby hesitated, glaring into space and cursing the fickle fates that thought themselves so clever as to lure him into another situation where he would be maimed.

..Oh yes. He knew where this was going. Something horrible was at the source of that sound, hoping to bait them with intrigue-- And he'd suffer for his curiosity. That dratted fabled cat was Toby's spirit animal it seemed, and he was killed every time he answered the call, metaphorically speaking.

Yet grumpy and cross as he was, Toby was still Toby. He wasn't about to let Theo run into danger all on his lonesome. So reluctantly he turned, whined, then bolted off after Theo as though the idea to head toward the sound had been his own.

Quote from Indy on January 20, 2019, 3:06 am

It didn’t take long for Toby to catch Theo, as he’d been reluctant to go too far without Toby in the first place.  His ears kept trained on the sound.  It sounded like it should be a helpful sound, but on second thought, it could also be a very unhelpful sound. His stomach was in knots.  Last thing he wanted was for Toby to get hurt again.

"Tears of the First," he repeated as he carefully negotiated a slick, muddy slope, "Don’t you remember? That story I told you?  Flowers that uh… sprang up after the First werewolf’s wife sacrificed herself for her husband’s sanity…."

His heart thudded in his chest.  Maybe it was just some strange aftereffect, but he could have sworn to have detected a familiar scent ahead.  He squinted.  Something blocky seemed to jeer out ahead of them.

"It’s just a myth, of course.  But the flowers are real enough… and those are them"

"Oh…." he stopped, sitting on his haunches, and taking a very close look at the noise they were approaching, "it's them".