Backwoods Barbie

“UEEEEGGHHH” comes a cry from the Ambarino river. More a disgusting noise than an actual cry — something between a belch and some kind of strangled gurgling. The river, usually so calm and serene, had suddenly spat out onto its shore the figure of a girl; and in a perfect circle of life moment, she was the one spitting out water now.

Or vomiting it. Details.
Soaked to the bone and already starting to tremble from the cold, she took her time to sit down and get her bearings somehow. It was all so strange. She knew exactly what she was and she knew nothing at the same time. She was a newborn, and yet she was perfectly aware and able. She didn’t remember a thing and yet knew exactly she wasn’t supposed to be alone. She couldn’t place a name, not even for herself, but couldn’t forget her love for singing. She had never seen a wolf but knew she was one.

She could even operate her body and understand the few whispers of information the land around her agreed to give. Here, the smell of water. There, the flutter of a pheasant’s feathers in the underbrush not too far from the shore. Food, but she was not hungry, and she needed to know more important things.

Still sitting, almost dizzy from the heaving breaths she was drawing, she tried to calm her heart and glean something more from the smells all around this river. Animals were drawn to this place - of course they were; it seemed like an idyllic drinking spot - and it was far too easy to catch hints of regular passage. Her heart quickened again upon this realisation : was the land occupied ? Claimed ? Fought for ? Would she be driven out ? Was she in danger ? Where was Bull ?

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They choked on their first breath.

The world came back to them, and it was all at once ; the light of the sun in their eyes, the taste of the sea on their tongue, the smell of the earth in their fur. It felt like they were born again, and it was dizzying as they looked for something. They were aware of nothing but the emptiness at their side, the silence in their ears — they knew she wasn’t here.

Pia.

The need to find her voice again, it was stronger than the soreness of their body. And they stood on their paws, even when it felt like burning from the inside. This was familiar, weren’t they always pushing beyond the limits? Weren’t they always biting the bullet? They couldn’t remember, it was still too much from the moment they opened their eyes.

What happened?
They took another breath, and they choked again.

The smell of iron, the taste of blood ; it was stuck at the back of their throat. Soon, they felt it had soaked their nose and their chin, while some had already dried in the grass and disappeared into the earth. It wasn’t running anymore, but it was still there.

Who was it?
Their own? Someone else?

They frowned. With their lips curling slowly and bearing their all too sharp teeths, when it came from the river ; the scream, the voice. And suddenly, they were running, crashing into trees and bushes that shook loudly, making birds suddenly fly from the leaves. But it was them who chirped the most —

PIA! PIA!

Until they were at the riverbed, until they were almost smashing into her.

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The answers came all at once; sadly, she didn’t get the time to react to what sounded like a stampede coming her way — the trees and bushes did try to warn her though (it sounded like something big, maybe a bear or, even worse, a whole pack of wolves) but the poor girl was frozen in place. Was it her own survival instinct ? Freezing instead of fighting or flying ? Or maybe a lack of options — with the fast approaching beast in front of her and the river at her back, she couldn’t really escape easily.

And then she heard it — her name in the form of a bark. A single syllable that was enough to engulf all that she was; barked with an urgency and desperation too strong to be healthy.
Ah, they were so gonna knock her back into the river.

Relief and joy flooded her at once, disregarding entirely all the noise they were making and the attention they could both draw to each other.
“Bull–” was all she managed to get out before they quite literally knocked the wind right out of her lungs. She hadn’t moved far enough from the water and, as expected, fell backwards with a pitiful splash — her head dipping under the surface for a moment.

It almost looked like they were trying to drown her.

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They turned back to the dove, with this grin that always threatened to split their face in two — but it faltered as she was nowhere to be seen, and they could only hear the sound of her body hitting the water.

A splash followed by —
Fuck!

They stretched their body over her silhouette, and they would have stopped to look at her — her fur dancing ethereally in the current, the light catching on the pearls in her curls  — if they didn’t knew this siren couldn’t breathe. Plunging their head under the surface and gently taking her scruff in their mouth, she was pulled out from the river and hauled onto the shore.

As fast as she went under the surface, so light in the jaws that were once crushing some beasts.

They stood over her, their paws on each side of her head and their mismatched ears pointing in her direction.

Didn’t mean to drown ya. They were grinning again, but it was sweeter —  even apologetic for their roughness. Until a drop of red splattered on her bluish fur, and they realized the blood on their face wasn’t dried anymore. Or bleed on ya.

The dove laying there with their bleeding heart while their maw was dripping with blood. Oh, it looked bad but they didn’t see that ; there wasn’t anyone to see it for them.

It- huh, it ain’t mine, i don’t think? They pulled back. Slowly. I can’t remember.

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Her saviour was quick to pull her out; and she didn’t even sputter this time — as if the serenity of the river had washed over her with this renewed baptism. What would have looked like a simple accident to many bore another meaning in Pia's heart: to be immersed in water in such a way, at the exact time she and her companion where thrown in a new world, could only mean one thing... a new rebirth. And what a strange baptist she got: one who looked nothing short of a demon, with the carnivorous smile they were giving her. A smile dripping with blood.

A younger Pia would have panicked at this sight; asked how and when and why; but this she-wolf had seen her fair share of war. And she knew her companion — right now, they didn’t have that crazed look in their eyes like when they were fighting or just coming down from the high of a recent duel. So she stayed calm and observed from where they put her, underneath them; and the reassurance came too quickly for her to question it.

She didn’t care for the blood that was dripping on her; it was fading quickly anyway, the bright red diluting to a pale hue on her drenched coat.
She started to sit up slowly, rising just as they were backing away, keeping the both of them at the same close distance. Right against each other, barely a hair’s breadth away.

“It’s alright.” I’m alright. We're alright. Or we're gonna be. “It seems like… we’ve forgotten a lot of things, right ?” She looked down at her paws, eyebrows furrowing. But no — no ! She couldn’t give herself to worry and anxiety. She knew she had forgotten something. Something so big, something like a whole life. But the essence of things she still had — what kind of person she was, and what Bulletproof meant to her. That was enough. That was all that mattered.

“I don’t think we’re alone”, she exclaimed with a start, as if she had just remembered it, looking up at the taller wolf. “I mean– Right now we are, but… I think this river might be the water source of someone. Or multiple someones.” Wolves still seemed strange to say. “Don’t you feel it ?” Bull was definitely the survivalist of the duo. If she could see and smell the sign of a presence, then they could too.

“Do you think we should leave ? I don’t wanna bother anyone, especially if we’re intruding in someone’s home…” she added softly, with more worry and concern for those unknowing hosts than for herself.

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We’ve forgotten a lot of things.
They hummed as they lowered their head between her shoulders, nuzzling one of her flowers back into the curls so it wouldn’t be lost too ; she would still feel like home, even if the sea would have stripped her from everything. 

“ We haven’t forgotten about each other. ” Like echoes from her own mind, they were speaking into her ear ; they still hadn’t lost themselves, even when their world ended with a whisper, not a scream — they still had recognized each other in that impossible, aberrant night and they still do as they stand in the light of day, on this unknown land. 

It was going to be different ; 
But it was going to be alright.

They tilted their head at her sudden words. Oh, they knew that they weren’t alone in this valley, like they knew the blood in their mouth didn’t taste like theirs — it was what had made them run when she screamed, run like they wanted to be known by these strangers. 

They knew if they weren’t going after them…
They’d be going after her.

“ I don’t think they gon’ miss a little bit of water. ” They teased with that damn grin as they stepped into the river to wash down the taste of iron. “ But yeah. We should leave. ”

Once the only red that still remained on them was their own fur, they turned back to her and looked toward the forest.

“ I still need to hunt for us, but taking their prey… ” Their ears flicked to the side. “ It ain’t the same. ”

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Misc. skill > hoarder

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An amused smile crept on her face at their laid-back humor — Bull needed no more than a few smart words and an insolent grin to de-escalate any tense situation. They went to the water and she went along, just to keep them close again.

As they were busy cleaning themself, Pia took the time to inspect the riverbed in which she had laid not once, but two times already. It was full of small shells, debris of all kinds, and gravel — the same gravel that had stayed stuck in her coat. She giggled a bit, strangely amazed at the sight of what many would consider mere trash. She plunged her muzzle under the surface and took a particularly colourful pebble to keep as a souvenir of their awakening in this world; she put it in a random place near her shoulder, right alongside the stem of a flower fastened in a stubborn knot. She would probably not lose it if she could secure it there.

The mention of leaving drew her back to their current predicament. She squinted in one direction and then in the opposite: on one side, the horizon revealed the jagged shape of snowy mountains; on the other, the landscape looked more leveled. The choice was easy to make.

“Are you hungry ?” she asked with the same quiet worry as before. She was thankful she didn’t wake up starving, but Bulletproof seemed to have had a much harsher awakening. If their morals would prevent them from hunting on these lands, Pia was sure they could at least forage for something. She didn’t mind berries and roots if it could keep them both going a little farther.

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“ A little. ”
It was a half truth, a white lie — they were hungry, but she didn’t need to worry about them. That ache in their stomach, it was in their nature ; they couldn’t remember if they had ever lived without it, they didn’t even know if their body had ever not eaten itself like it was now. The world had ended, but it did not care for it.

Perhaps, it had been too warped by the hunt.
Those preys that shared the same instinct.

To fight, to tear apart ; to devour whole.

They grinned at their companion as they walked toward the treeline. “What d’you think we’ll find— out there? ” A pause, for the new shine in her curls had caught their eyes for a split second ; it was smoothed by the tide, and colorful like it could still reflect its surface. Oh, it suited her.

So pretty, so perfect. 
Maybe this world would be in her image ; they’d hope so.

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They finally left the water to advance towards the trees and what lay beyond; to adventure and the unknown !
Her tail, still heavy with water, was swishing from left to right in a relaxed manner, dripping droplets in an arc behind them. An easy trail to follow in the eyes of a pragmatic survivalist. In her mind though, those drops meant a blessing she was bestowing upon both of them; a sprinkle of holy water to protect them from hostile encounters.
Looks like it worked.

“New friends, I hope !” she replied with that peculiar optimism of hers. And yet, her joyous smile faltered as she closed her mouth, and a sadness passed in her eyes. Were those hypothetical new friends the ones she really was looking for ? What about old faces ? A long-lost brother, maybe. Oh, at least she knew she would recognize him. She had recognized Bullet even in this form. And him, well, she was always able to know it was him. Even as he tried to hide, even as he changed faces…

The fake smile returned to her lips, and Pia looked straight ahead. They had a little hill to climb, and then what ?

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Thank you for such a nice thread, Nov ! <3

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