Searching for a purpose

[narrow width=700]Well, at least it wasn't the plains.

The sun was only a sliver left on the horizon now, and what little light it provided was quickly fading through the steadily-growing onslaught of rain - not even a storm, just heavy, relentless rain, pounding in her ears and soaking her long, fluffy arctic coat to the bone which gave her a look not too far removed from a wet janitor's mop. She darted from tree to tree, trying to find some cover, but her wet pelt dragged heavily as she ran and it was difficult to see with all the hair in her eyes.

Stumbling forward, she could swear she saw a fallen log in the distance - that would make do in the meantime, she reasoned. It was better than getting hosed in the woods altogether, and without much further thought, Valeska hurried toward it as fast as her short legs could carry her. Apart from the furious squelching, she couldn't hear anything else; blindly, she slid beneath the log, and unfortunately didn't bother to check if someone else had been seeking shelter there.

Panting, the little wolf shook the wet fur from her eyes, ears flapping loudly as she did so.

She blinked.

"Oh," she said, eyes turning to saucers. "Oh dear. Many apologies. Did not mean to get you damp. Oh goodness... ah..."[/narrow]
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Even with @Eldra out there searching for the woman who had dared to place demands at their borders, Vengeance was no slacker either and chose to aid in the search by wandering the neutral lands... only the two of them knew exactly what she looked like, the stench with which she holds, and so he was also a candidate to find where she might be hiding.

As the rain began to pour, glistening green leaves pitter-pattering in a soft song that replaced the harmonies of the songbirds hidden within the trees. Here is where the grime and stains began to melt off of his body, still the stench clung to his coat but he would be just mildly cleaner once the water would eventually evaporate from his body.

With the rain soaking everything, including any scents, only now did he chose to take cover under a log. Ducking down and under, laying down into a resting position but making no attempt to shake off any of the excess water from his skin. The dampness didn't bother him after all, the only thing irking the lord of the mist was that all traces of that bitch would be washed away with the rain as well.

And his mood would not lighten as someone else quickly joined him in the shelter he took, immediately splashing water onto him as he offered nothing but a deep, crimson glare in response to her apologies.

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[narrow width=700]The shadows seemed to swell beneath the log, and as they did, two fiery orbs floated dismally in the air in front of her. It was difficult to make out much more beyond the all-encompassing darkness that surrounded them, but as she squinted, she could make out a hulking form that seemed to radiate displeasure. His scent was indescribable; the rain may have dampened it a little in its deluge, but she could tell that he didn't often get a good bath. He was absolutely sour.

Her nostrils flared, but she didn't flinch. Her gaze was unwavering, harboring the feeling that if she looked away from him, he might disappear - or strike like a viper.

What was even more unsettling was his complete and utter silence.

Clearing her throat and clinging with wild abandon to the belief that the gods allowed all things to happen for the greater good, she continued. "Am Valeska. Did not know you were here; blend like shadow in darkness. Hope, ah... could share?" she offered hopefully, motioning to her own thick, tangled mess of a pelt. The little wolf was bred for snow and high mountain peaks, not torrential downpours, and her movements felt sluggish with the weight of so much liquid trapped within. "невозможная погода. — Impossible weather. Wish had snack to offer, but could not find shit in rain. Ah, again, I swear. Forgive."

Smiling apologetically, and feeling that every moment teetered on the precipice of disaster and impending doom, she remained where she was - though the offer of her leaving hung in the air, and if it spared more of his ire, she would depart without much fuss. A white apparition similar in stature and bearing to this wolf had menaced her once before in the past, and she remembered vividly his cruelty. It was not a scenario she wished to recreate.

"I... did you awaken here? Or natural born to strange world, to this... other?" Valeska finished, carefully enunciating her words, though her thick accent shone through - mercifully not as rough as before, back before her friends had begun helping her better her Common tongue.[/narrow]
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His gaze was steady and hardened. She was another little grey thing like the girl who had managed to escape his grasp with the aid of another, such thoughts didn't help ease his bitterness as the man focussed on the girl who continued to speak. For now, all he offered in return as she prattled on about the weather and apologies was a slow, flick of the tail as its tip curled lightly only to fall back against the earth in a slow rhythm as if it had a mind all of its own.

“I have yet to meet a local-born.” His maw split to speak deep vocals that rolled off of a thick tongue, saliva stringing between teeth as if tethered together by the sickly substance. Judging by how she spoke, he assumed she too had just "woken up here". How many were finding themselves just randomly dropped here from a life before this and onto this strange land? Were there any who were bred and born here? Were they the first?

“There are other things you can offer in exchange for invading my shelter, Valeska.” His head inched forward beyond its position just above his broad shoulders, leaning in just enough as if threatening to get up and invade her own personal space. With his invitation to offer more than the empty paws she came in with, a grin crawled along his maw as he awaited for her to think of a solution to the issue she now fond herself in.

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[narrow width=700]So he could speak - and as he did, she couldn't help but feel her eyes trail down to the string of saliva pulled taught between his jaws, yellowed teeth glistening eerily in the fading light from the clouds. Thus far, she was convinced that if this was Purgatory after all, she had ended up on the bad side of it; she had thought herself less of a sinner than the general riffraff in the Land Before, but something about this gentleman raised the hair on the back of her neck in a way that suggested maybe she had not, after all, been blameless. Demons surely would not crawl in the same parts as those who were saved, here.

She wished she could be saved.

Golden saucers wide and still mesmerized by the dangling string, she snapped to attention at the mention of offering other things to the grisly stranger. Confused and genuinely startled, she tilted her head to the side, seemingly forgetting that she was sharing an increasingly small space with what she might once have referred to as a Devil Wolf. "What?" she asked incredulously. Her mind raced; what did she have to offer? She possessed no lands, no prey. She didn't even have a formalized pack anymore, scattered to the four winds as they had been. "Have nothing, truly, but... could go to get something for you, perhaps?"

She could swear his smile grew just a little wider; his teeth a little sharper.

"Golden friend collect many strange things. Could see if... maybe you like?"[/narrow]
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“Surely you can think of something.” He drawled deeply, this time, he moved. Rising to his feet and only stopping as the log sheltering them shifted with his neck and back pushing against it, creaking as if beckoning to bet set back down in its previous resting place. Debris shaking loose as he stepped forward, dirt and dried log splinters raining down upon them both while his head remained lowered just enough to let his head graze the log above.

“I have no use for trinkets.” The man declared with only a mild snarl twisting his features in disgust at the offer. The "golden friend" of which she speaks of was not here after all, so why would they hold any interest of his here and now? He crept closer, having little space left between them due to their little hobble away from the rain.

Perhaps the rain was a safer place to be.

“What about you, little one? Surely I can make use of someone like yourself.”

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[narrow width=700]Her eyes widened even further, if that was at all possible, and a lump formed in her throat that she couldn't quite seem to get around. The stranger rose as if to demonstrate his power, shifting the straining log with his hardened back, and lowered his head in a most ominous fashion. He was toying with her, and she hated it. Dishonesty was chief among all sins, and the fact that he was so reveling in her torment with his ambiguous probing drove her ever more wild.

Valeska drew herself up in turn, standing up high on her paws as she very discreetly edged toward one of the open ends of their shelter, but continued to face him. She was certain he saw her doing it, but she was also confident that she was much smaller, and as a result, much quicker on her feet. A body so large would be difficult to maneuver in tight spaces, and the little wolf felt that he would play this game carefully not to lose... whatever he was after.

As she opened her mouth to valiantly protest his treatment of her, a thought popped into her head.

"DANCING?" she said at last, the horror in her voice as tangible as the fallen tree they sat beneath. "Surely you do not mean dancing! Have hardly danced before as is!" If there had been any to begin with, the color would have drained from her face. She was, for now, as pale and fluffy as ever, though her cheeks burned even as her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. "Oh! You would never suggest!"[/narrow]
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Dancing, his eyes hardened, sharpened like a well-tapered blade. Did she think of him as some sort of fool? Able to talk her way out of whatever this was. If he were honest and less, well, excited - he would have much preferred her to insist on pledging her loyalty to the Nightwalkers in one way or another. They needed more bodies to fill their numbers - but alas, that didn't seem like the possible cards laid out on the table between them.

She rose to challenge his position within the shelter, not making any moves to dash out into the rain and away from the bogeyman of the woods. Despite her confidence in her stance, the fear in her throat as she spoke was delicious enough as is to keep feeding his in-the-moment thrill.

Rainwater still dribbled from his core now that he was standing. Dripping from stalactite-like formations of hairs along his belly and onto the moistened ground below in soft pats drowned out by the downpour outside. With his maw hanging ajar just enough to taste the damp air, thick blackened lips pulled back into a twisted, open-mouth grin. Oh, they'd dance, but not in the traditional way that she might have wanted.

Pushing back and digging forward, he lunged with every desire to pin her down. The log sitting atop his back slowed his movements just enough as the cave was relatively snug for a beast like him, and so it shook violently with his movement, banging against ground and rock or whatever it sat atop of as he pulled forward with snapping teeth.

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[narrow width=700]It was like being trapped in a nightmare. Time was altered now, every second lasting an eternity. The silence hung between them for only a moment, but as she perceived it now, it had been an entire year of yawning, aching, empty, hungry, dangerous quiet, the looming dread hanging over her like a dark cloud threatening to burst. His lips drew back so slowly, she almost didn't see it happen.
He was not going to give her the luxury of an answer they could pronounce.

"Sacred Wolf Mother," she gulped.

His movements were slow, as lumbering and bulky as he was, the fallen tree above him cracking and splintering violently as he surged forward on great, powerful legs. His jaws snapped at empty air, but with long limbs his claws found purchase and raked across her hindquarters, and Valeska let out a bloodcurdling cry that crackled like the lightning she felt coursing through her limbs. Whipping her head back with a snarl, knowing she was outmatched in strength but slippery in such close quarters, she managed to yank back her hind legs and in a single motion swept a great glob of thick, blinding mud up toward his eyes. He couldn't smell in the rain; gods willing, he also wouldn't be able to see, at least long enough for her to get away.

Scrambling, roach-like, she skittered out from beneath the log he thrashed beneath, and bolted for the safety of the underbrush and back toward the plains. The rain poured down with a vengeance - if only she had possessed the irony of knowing his name - but it helped obscure her retreating figure, light paws making swift work of the ground that sped away beneath her.

She hoped to the gods she would make it out alive, though her flanks stung from his claws. Amaranth would be furious with her for finding herself in such a predicament, and though she longed for the golden woman's gentle embrace, she did not eagerly await her disapproval. And gods forbid - they would never come back to this place, at least not alone.

[Exit Valeska][/narrow]
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He tasted nothing but his own breath as his teeth clicked against one another in a failed attempt to grab the woman's skin. His claws racked against her skin somewhere, but that was nothing to be celebrated as it left him nothing but yearning for more. Their small confines slowed the beast down more so than usual, dragging his skin across the underside of the bark as if holding him back mildly through physics alone.

Mud blinded him momentarily and in that blind fury, he lunged after her fleeting figure just enough out into the rain to let nature clean the gunk off his eyes. It was all just enough to let her slip through his grasp and into the precipitation that would soon wash away her scent as well.

With her now long gone, he slithered back under the log which had now found its place once again along the ground as a makeshift rooft. Its dirt, roots and moss disturbed by the commotion from within, leaving its ground dishevelled and angered, which would be the only lingering note of the disorder that had swiftly come and gone as silence was swiftly replaced by the soothing melody of of the drizzle once more.

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