star sailor

Whilst Tupa would generally say he preferred the nighttime to the day, the in-between was a benison as well. Particularly when one found themselves in a field like this, brilliant in shades of gold and amber gleam.

He was not one to wander from his brothers. Not far, anyway. Tupannguac would occasionally take strolls such as these to clear the mind, and with this transition into a new land, he sought that clarity now more than ever. It was a lovely land, of course, but still novel, and Tupa needed to get used to it. Needed to adjust.

As he walked, the birdsong, which had filled his ears for the duration of his stroll, began to ebb. The wind, his ever-present companion, had stilled. A heaviness filled the air.

And then, he saw it.

A patch of grass shorter than the rest, surrounded by a ring of oddly-symmetrical mushrooms. Tupa tilted his head and approached the misplaced fungi, a chill down his spine at the silence in his ears.

His head lowered and he sniffed at the edge of the ring, brows knitted in confusion.

"Qangaluunniit," — How strange. he mused to himself, a paw reaching out to tap one of the mushrooms ever-so-lightly. "Qanuq tuniuq?" — What is this?

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Using the prompt: A circle of mushrooms is within an open field. Its unusual presence brings a stillness; the closer you get to it, the area seems to grow quieter.

Please forgive me if the translation isn't 100% accurate! I found an Inupiaq translator online but I'm not sure how good it is.

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Wandering was a wonderful way to pass the time. 

In fact, Orso was inclined to believe that wandering was, indeed, the best way to pass the time. Should anyone ask him, wandering was perhaps the most important part of the day. Presently, there wasn't much else he could do, and Orso was a wolf known for sniffing out the best available route just prior to following it directly off the nearest cliff.

No matter.

He was currently on a grand quest for water, a grand quest for food, and a grand quest to figure out where the hell he was. Frankly, he was on three quests too many for his personal preference. The comfort and luxury of two warm bodies and a bellyful of elderberry wine were crudely ripped away from him in favor of some karmic trick of the divines.

The golden field that stretched before him was a glorious sight, no doubt. Flora bowed beneath his heavy paws as he travelled to nowhere in particular. If he walked in a straight line long enough, he'd find something of interest, surely.

Orso was only a few strides into the field when he spotted a body in the distance. A figure stood upon a patch of short-tufted grass. He halted, and his hazel eyes narrowed. The figure was one that he, frustratingly enough, didn't recognize. Had an enemy truly taken the time to cart him miles away from... oh... oh, divines, what was that town's name? This had to be some sycophant’s prank.

With a slight shake of his head, physically casting his hazy memories aside, he pushed himself forward. 

As he approached, the world around him seemed to grow still. The slight breeze that tousled the strands of grass dissipated in favor of an eerie silence. Though he was inclined to frown and furrow his brow, he simply slowed his pace and eyed both the stranger and the circle of mushrooms from a safe distance.

"Greetings!" Orso called out in an even, friendly tone. A charming smile wove upon his handsome, angular features. "Doing a bit of gardening, are we?" he inquired with a brief exhale. His sister had adored gardening, but she would've easily turned her snout up at the idea of handling anything other than her pretty little flowers.
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A visitor was unexpected, but never unwelcome. There was a wariness around strangers that Tupannguac could not quite shake - stemming likely from his size and lack of fighting expertise. He could trust his group to not harm him, but others? Not so.

So wrapped up in his studying was he that he did not realize, at first, that he was being approached at all. That wariness first made itself known in the sudden stiffness in his body that quickly melted away as though it were water off a duck's back. Tupa turned to face the newcomer, a smile of his own gracing his face.

The stranger was a handsome one, no doubt. Much larger than Tupannguac, but that wasn't a difficult feat. The man was smiling, but that hardly meant anything substantial. There were a great many things a smile could hide - Tupannguac was very aware of that fact.

Still, the man spoke in a pleasant voice and stopped a respectable distance away. There was no immediate danger, and so Tupa let himself relax all the more. No need to be so on edge for no reason, after all.

Common tongue was... hard. Tupa knew a little - knew what gardening was, at least. Knew enough to laugh a little in response. "Mushroom gardening?" he asked with a grin, accent thick, tail swishing behind him. "My harvest would be... strange." It didn't sound like the right words, exactly, but hopefully he got the gist of the joke across. "You garden?" he inquired then, tilting his head to the side.

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Though Orso so often sat upon the mantle of hapless fool, he was anything but. His keen hazel eyes often saw more than he let on. What good was information when it fell from a man's maw like water off a cliffside? No. There was hardly a reason to vocalize the stiffness of the smaller stranger. 

Orso was neither here to harm, nor to pick a fight over a measly circle of strange mushrooms. Thankfully, the brown canine seemed to be on the same wavelength.

His attention flitted to the ring of fungi for only a moment, the silent air seemingly stale upon his tongue when he opened his mouth again. "Me?" Orso huffed a brief laugh as if the stranger had uttered a witty jest. "Heavens no." Shaking his head, he took a step forwards with an intent to study the mushrooms more carefully.

"My sister, though..." The male trailed off, his stature and stride betraying a properness deeply ingrained within him. Even as he lowered his head to take a brief sniff of the fungi, each sway of his body was graceful. Each step seemed perfect, and every slight twitch practiced. "Never could pry her away from her flowers for long."

Nose nearly touching the rubbery head of the peculiar plant, his eyes lifted to regard the stranger. "I must admit, I'm not familiar with this area... or this areas customs. You'd be surprised just how..." Orso's lip lifted into a wry, teasing grin. "... strange some wolves are."
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This man seemed to move with such perfect precision that it unsettled Tupannguac. There was nothing inherently wrong, but the way he moved alone spoke of a control far deeper than what Tupa could see. Of course, there was also the simple wariness of this being a larger stranger, but Tupa did not think he needed to be overly concerned with his safety at the moment.

Not a gardener, either, it seemed, though his sibling was. Perhaps that was why he was so interested in the mushrooms. Tupa smiled and leaned down to sniff at one in turn, emboldened now that he didn't think they were some cursed object.

"Did she tend to... qaqatigiit — medicines... ah, doctor's plants?" he inquired then, wondering if that was the reason she might've been so interested in them. Flowers were pretty, yes, but pretty yielded no results.

His tail wagged a bit at the man's next admission. Another newcomer to the area, then? "I am also new!" he said, delighted. "I have not met anyone strange." That must have been the difference between them, he thought, though this man was technically the first person he'd encountered outside of his small group, so he probably had no real reference for the strangeness of the area.

Mischievousness crept into his smile and he tilted his head, observing the stranger. "Are you one of them, then? These strange wolves?" he asked, a light teasing lilt to his voice.

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