Quote from Kaqurei on October 22, 2024, 4:15 pm

Her pace changed. The white wolf moved always with the fluid grace of a river, but somehow, now, there appeared to be a quickening to it. A danger. If movements could be read as signs, perhaps hers would now read "Warning: Rapids Ahead."

Her ears had swiveled this way and that, listening to the others, while her gaze was fixed in her path, pursuing someone. Until the Alpha's howl. That marked the change. That was when her footsteps began to fall harder, and she veered from her purposefully path first one way, and then another, until it might have become clear to Liam that she was going back and forth, pacing, almost, like an animal caught in a trap.

He would have made this connection probably only moments before she wheeled around to face him, her face serene but a low growl in her throat. The change (not from woman to wolf, for she had been a wolf already) had been swift and sudden, but it had been subtle.

"What are you doing here, really?" she asked. "What did you expect to find?"

She'd led him back into the woods, and they'd gone some distance from the cabins before she'd turned. Close enough to still be in earshot, but far enough away to be out of sight, and she kept her voice low.

Quote from Cat on October 22, 2024, 4:18 pm

Toby looked toward the wolf who had called his name and recognized it as Theo.

Good. He liked Theo. Theo had brought him books once, several months ago while he was recovering-- And a pamphlet about the birth of cows. It was strange, but educational, and the gesture had been so greatly appreciated it had put Theo in a permanent place of honor within the omega's heart.

"Hello Theo." He said softly and with a smile, though he was still feeling disheartened. "Yes, I'm alright for now. Nobody has come out of the woodwork to attack me and I haven't heard any gun shots yet, so I think I'm good."

No sooner had he finished his sentence than he turned and knocked on the door behind him. Then he turned back and smiled at Theo as though nothing had happened.

Quote from Adriana on October 22, 2024, 4:48 pm

The growl of the alpha, the anxiety in the air, the white werewolf's mannerisms-was this part and parcel for the pack, or had he come in a particularly inopportune night?

While he was able to keep up with her pace, the growing tension could not be ignored. Therefore,  he indeed saw it coming, and faced her bravely; he was on his hind legs and standing tall, but as her charge and a trespasser, he recognized his place and did not intend to defy her. His tail stayed low behind him to signify that he was neither a threat nor attempting to establish himself over her, but he was not keen to be physically lower than her at the moment.

He held his hands open and slightly upturned, with his furry padded fingers all spread out as if cupping a sphere, a gesture adjacent of a shrug.

"Closure," he said, simply, with a little tilted of his white head and a keen interest in his almost-white eyes, drawing his hands together to emphasize the gesture, "The men in my pack cannot dissolve a betrothal or marriage, only the women-those are our customs." he inclined his head a little.

"If your Alpha sends me away, I will go; otherwise, I am at your service until spring." he said, his long white hackles catching the breeze and sending the smaller braids in his mane dancing.

Quote from Kaqurei on October 22, 2024, 10:38 pm

"Did she not dissolve it when she left you?" the white wolf inquired, yellow eyes like daggers in the darkness, catching the moon's light just so. "Or is there some token or ritual she must perform to make it final?"

She watched him for the most minute expression in response, seeking to catch what he would or would not share.

He did not strike her as one who hide his true intentions from others, but there were things even the most honest and genuine creatures would keep private. A creature with any ounce of self preservation would hide pain from a stranger. Yet, that is what she sought.

Do you still love her?

Quote from Adriana on October 22, 2024, 11:02 pm

“She was not given a choice in leaving. Time was not on our side, and a lot was left unsaid.” he said, honestly.

“Without her word, I am-was-bound. She bas made new promises, to this pack. Although it was not what I had hoped for, it is what I expected; I have spent months coming to terms with it. I have not known her to say what she doesn’t mean.”

He rubbed the fur at his neck. “It’s done.” there was a little falter in that, almost but not quite a quiver, and he looked up to catch the moon with his white eyes appearing like mirrors of it.

“Anyway, why the interrogation? Is there something else you want to know?” he returned his gaze on Sabrina and leveled his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “For better or worse, I’m at your command.”

Quote from Indy on October 23, 2024, 11:57 am

Theo lifted his eyes to Toby’s and then drew them back again. It had been a long time since they had really, properly talked. He didn’t think Toby was one to hold it against him, but all the same he felt as though something was changed in his companion. He felt a tinge of guilt, wondering if Toby really spent every full moon waiting for the crack of gunfire.

”Oh, um….” The skin beneath his fur burned- though he couldn’t blush now in a proper sense, any talented werewolf would sense it, “If… you aren’t too busy- and if you want to do something else we c-can but um…would you like to make tea? With me?”

Quote from Cat on October 23, 2024, 3:28 pm

Toby tilted his head. "Tea?" He repeated, then looked at the palms of both paws as they were raised for his inspection. He then looked hopefully back at Theo. "Do we have a tea set big enough?"

 

Quote from Mae on October 26, 2024, 1:04 am

The sound of the rails echoed through the halls of his memory with intense feelings of hunger and fear. In the soot-covered ground, and the stones under his bare feet were the memories of home... or a place so near to home that it was considered one and the same.

Looking down, he passed over deep trenches; Muddy holes filled with trash and debris, but not so much as one might expect in a city like Pinerich. Instead, the odd and occasional thing, less sightly and more foreboding; here a bone stuck out of the pitch black mud. There, a rotting hide was left to decay below the cold iron rails; victims of either the pit or the trains that passed over it.

As a boy Samuel frequented his way home from school over the desolate railyard. He once feared the rails for what they concealed. But as a young man, Samuel found danger to be a pleasant distraction; a thrilling objection to the law of the man who ruled over him; the man who claimed ownership of his life. He was not afraid of the evening and waning light, nor of the moon or the panhandlers who slept by the roads. He did not fear the weapons of the desperate. He feared no evil encounter... Yet, ever was his heart attuned to that distant rumble heralding the approach of the iron horses; horses that blew smoke from their nostrils, flying at a wicked pace over iron paths, treading in pieces the bones of animals or the works of men; their hearts were hearts of fiery coal and their eyes the eyes of a steaming engine. Nothing could stop them.

Even now, though most of the railyard was silent, one of the trains roared under the bridge and through the tunnel. Samuel stopped to watch it pass. It belched smoke and gas from its mouth, coating the underside of the bridge in blackness and scattering soot and embers across the beams behind it.

Samuel waited until the last car was gone out of sight, and for the railyard to fall silent once again, before he continued on his way home...

******

Now, the hunt began.

Kratos lowered his head. Sniffing at the earth would be pointless, but, the indication would not be. Timothy watched him keenly, and lowered his head just so.

Kratos began to move, and Timothy watched him still. How the giant bowed, how he moved his head and lowered his body, how he walked with care... his hands came off the dirt and did not fall carelessly, he reached, he touched, and then his shoulder moved into the step ... Timothy understood. His ears came up and forward, his eyes grew sharp and keen. He, like the alpha, lowered himself into a stalking position, and began to search.

******

Staring down at his bare and blackened feet, Samuel walked alone. He balanced over the abyss on cold iron, as if at ease without his arms outspread. His mind wandered. He remembered, as a boy, adjusting his eyes over those deep trenches, playing with a newfound power his father had taught; how to perceive through darkness. He still remembered the pace of his heart when his father closed the door, and then in blackness he found clarity.

Now, as a boy, he played with that power; for power was his plaything, and would always be, though he did not know the weight of it. And lo, through the dark and mangled shapes he saw beneath the rails, a thing more terrifying than the bones of dead animals. It was the white of two small eyes he saw, staring back at him out of darkness.

Samuel's young heart turned into an icy stone. He did not flinch or pull away. He stared down on that hopeless face, - the face of a boy no bigger than himself, standing waist-deep in mud with face and arms blackened by it. The boy, likewise, stared back. He did not ask for help, or beg to be saved. They, two, simply stared into one another's faces and seemed to understand the doom which hung over the one.

******

Kratos could walk without a sound, despite his weight and length. There was a mindfulness in his body that held him off the forest floor. The limbs that conveyed him forward seemed to touch the earth only as necessary, while muscles in other parts of his body were otherwise engaged in securing his weight.

Was this grace? Was it a dance he was dancing, or the posture of a hunter prepared to spring upon a foe? Timothy was intimidated by it. This much was clear in how his ears pulled back at a glance at him. But somehow he was also emboldened by it; glad to be on the alpha's side and not his query. Yet, ever was he mindful, lest at any moment he offend the alpha and come under his gaze unfavorably. He expanded the circle, and this was why Kratos summoned him. Timothy was lithe and swift and keen to take cues. As long as Kratos gave him a direction for his instinct, he would follow it.

Staring down at his bare and blackened feet, Samuel walked alone. He balanced over the abyss on cold iron, as if at ease without his arms outspread. His mind wandered. He remembered, as a boy, adjusting his eyes over those deep trenches, playing with a newfound power his father had taught; how to perceive through darkness. He still remembered the pace of his heart when his father closed the door, and then in blackness he found clarity.

Now, as a boy, he played with that power; for power was his plaything, and would always be, though he did not know the weight of it. And lo, through the dark and mangled shapes he saw beneath the rails, a thing more terrifying than the bones of dead animals. It was the white of two small eyes he saw, staring back at him out of darkness.

Quote from Adriana on October 26, 2024, 3:20 am

Logan keenly observed the Alpha’s movements. Moreso, she observed the way that Timothy fell in step, with the subtleties as his guide; he did not need words or spoken commands. The Alpha was his strength, and he appeared to fear and trust him in equal parts.

Her eyes went back to the tree. She raised her ears up towards it, then turned one towards the Alpha and Timothy.

’Join them,’ she urged her friend, without words.

The lesson would do Jackie well. She was lithe and quick, willing but undisciplined. If she had a place to set her fire, a trajectory and guideance of where to apply her talents and focus, she would be as fierce a protector as any of them. Side by side with Timothy and with Kratos to lead, the Scout would be fierce.

As for Logan, she waited, and would take the flank…. She was not now or ever a hunter.

At the back she would not be so likely to give out their position.