Let the sun wrap its arms around me

Located in Jawbone Crag - will update when the prefix is added

---

 This time, the wolf was pretty sure he had made it out of a pack's territory. He'd back-tracked this time, back towards the mountains he had passed just a hair. The hills here grew up into massive teeth-like shapes, curving towards the sky in a way that reminded him vaguely of a jaw bone, jammed into the earth. Nevertheless, he remained at the base. The woodlands that spread away from him would eventually meet and absorb into the lands claimed by Elkshire, he figured - but no scent of them clung to these woods.

 Yet again, he was in unclaimed land.

 He exhaled.

 Hometime was nearly here, he could feel it itching in his bones. He wanted to go north, go home, and this was indeed the last leg of the journey. Soon, he would pass through that mountain that Empyrean had claimed and would meet with its queen - though what was there to say? He had already met her, discussed her pack's existence and his own claim. It had been new, early when he had met her.

 His pack was still young, but if all was well, it would be waiting for him when he finally, finally got home.

 Time was ticking.

the staff team luvs u

Despite the bird's best efforts, Brilliance was still thin. @Agrafina dropped prey after prey near her for Brilliance only to eat a bite or two—hopefully enough to appease the bird—and move on. Her stomach churned and protested with pangs of hunger but the thought of eating was enough to turn her nose. She ate what she had to to get through the coming days as she got more and more tired.

 Brilliance looked up for the bird but found her nowhere to be found. She was likely hunting for the girl. Another meal she’d seem ungrateful for with a strained smile and a reluctant bite. Even with the bird over her shoulder, the girl still felt lonely, but as the days dragged on, she was itching with boredom she didn’t know what to do with. Each step she took led her more astray, unable to find anything remotely familiar, and further away from what she used to call home.

 The girl sighed and turned along the forest floor, a wolf moved through the distance. From what she could see, their face resembled hers in a spotty pattern. Neither of her parents had markings like hers, that she could remember, and her siblings were scarce in them too. Her head tilted and she moved closer for a better look.
the staff team luvs u

 The view was quite something, but it was not home.

 So he turned from it, on to see the small form of a not-yet-yearling. He would have missed her among the trees if it weren't for her splash of white across her face - something that reminded him of his own pelt though her features looked just as normal a wolf as his mother and almost every other hound he'd met here. She was inspecting him from afar and he did the same, recognizing with a pang that she looked starved.

 “Are you alright?” he called, voice gentle.

 He would not offer food just yet, in case she were as quick to jump to the worst thought as some of the others he'd met, but the fatherly draw that had pulled him to youngsters like Hawking and Kore flared up again.

 Plus, she'd seen him and was approaching, so he'd wait patiently for her to come.

---

Agrafina is welcome to pop in at any point in the thread, btw! I figure we want to move this along to get her the caretaker status before the May 31 deadline :')

the staff team luvs u

It was no real surprise when the other wolf took notice of her presence but when he swung his head in her direction, Brilliance startled back a step. The girl hadn’t done anything proper to cover her sight or smell but she didn’t really have a long term plan either. She smiled awkwardly and swished her tail with a slight submissive grin of her front teeth.

 Are you alright? he asked and her ears fell back against her head.

 “Yeah…” she said as if she were unsure why he would ask such a question. “I’m just a little lost, I guess,” she explained as some sort of understatement. She still clung to the fact she might find her way home, that she might still want to, when in reality she’d already started to move on. It was a matter of what’s next, not what if, but admitting it out loud sounded sinful. “You kinda look like me.”
the staff team luvs u

 The girl startled and he flicked his ears back apologetically, remembering belatedly that he could indeed be quite intimidating, especially to what appeared to be a young girl, half starved and alone. She reacted submissively, but did not run - a win, in his books, even if she looked very nervous all the same. He remembered vaguely times when he felt like she looked - though even in the Valley, he had never been so starved. This place didn't exactly seem hospitable and the girl looked like she hadn't had a good rest or meal in months.

 She was lost and he gave a little nod.

 “Yeah, we do kind of look alike.” White and black fur, though their markings didn't exactly match up in any regard. They might be related distantly, but he didn't expect them to be even cousins. From what he recalled, his mother's family had more blues and whites versus the black fur he assumed he had inherited from his father's side - the side that had granted him his more peculiar facial and physical features. “Do you have a pack you're looking for?”

 If she didn't... it didn't feel right to let her wander on her own and likely starve to death. “I could try to help you find them? Maybe catch a meal in the meantime?” The child wasn't quite as emaciated as the twins he had rescued within Ichorwood itself, but he didn't smell the heavy scent of others on her. If she had a pack to go back to, it had been quite a while since she had actually seen them.

the staff team luvs u

He didn’t seem as interested in the fact they looked similar as she did. Genetics wasn’t on the forefront of her mind. She didn’t necessarily think they were related. All her littermates looked different between them and she could hardly remember what her mother looked like, but she was certain it wasn’t this. Brilliance hummed quietly to herself.

 Do you have a pack you’re looking for? he asked and she narrowed her gaze just slightly.

 “Not anymore,” she guessed with a shrug. It had been weeks, maybe months, since she’d been in Elysium. Honestly, she wasn’t sure anymore. But the man offered to help her and she locked her feet in place, uncertain how it all made her feel. The bird helping her get by day to day was weird enough, she didn’t need every wolf she came across trying to give her a handout. “I don’t think they’re anywhere anymore. I tried. It’s been-a long time since I saw ‘em last.”
the staff team luvs u

 She squinted at him and he held back a introspective sigh. He really did want to help but somehow, half the times he spoke to anyone new, he ended up getting off on the wrong foot. Social anxiety in a nutshell, what a great trait to have for a leader. He'd pissed off at least two wolves in recent months for just trying to have a chat... to be fair, they had seemed like assholes and he'd gotten irritated enough that he'd left them alone, but still it was a crappy feeling.

 The pup spoke about not having a pack anymore and having given up on looking for them, it sounded like.

 He frowned and nodded. “Sounds familiar.” He glanced back towards the forest of the elk and that pack, wondering if they were roaming nearby. “I think that happened to a lot of folk, at least a lot I've met.” His own birth pack had fallen before his eyes, ripped apart by a forest fire and attacking pack. While others were one day in their packs and the next not, he had time to come to terms with being alone before waking up in this strange place, claiming the forest as his own.

 The starlit man looked back at her, tilting his head thoughtfully. “Most of them are also super brown, not a lot of us wolves with black and white around.” He offered a hopeful chuckle, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

the staff team luvs u

I think that happened to a lot of folk.

 Brilliance hummed at the thought. The world was different, slightly askew from what she was used to, but she’d been here long enough that she’d started to forget what was normal. Other wolves she’d run into didn’t know where they came from either and so Brilliance mostly brushed off the feeling. Talking about it left a tickle in the back of her mind as another normal started to slip away from her reach. “I think so, too,” she said in quiet observation.

 The girl offered a huff of a laugh, a twist of her lips. A smile, even crooked. “I haven’t seen many like me. Us,” she corrected and rolled a shoulder. “Not even my brothers.” She couldn’t really remember what her mother looked like and her father was starting to fade. It was a lifetime ago, it seemed. Her spirit had aged well past her body but she rolled it out of her mind. After a while, she just accepted that she was going to look weird compared to most.
the staff team luvs u

 He considered the fact that she had brothers - were they nearby? No, she had said she hadn't seen anyone in a long time. If that was the case, then it was likely that they had been left behind by whatever had happened to bring him - and her - here. He still didn't know the specifics of everything here and he doubted he ever would, but he figured that only sometimes, wolves found those they had known before.

 Some wolves, it seemed, arrived together. Hydra and her husband, their multiple children. Others arrived seemingly together but without actually knowing one another, such as what happened with himself and Mordecai, who was around here somewhere.

 He smiled as she finally smiled, no matter how crooked it was. “I didn't have any other siblings my own age, but all my older siblings looked pretty different too.” He tilted his head, “I'm Crux, by the way.” He wanted to help her, but he didn't want to move too fast and scare her off, like he had for the young boy he'd met previously who had thought him crazy. So... name first, maybe he'd bring up his pack if she seemed comfortable.

the staff team luvs u

Brilliance didn’t know if they truly had much in common outside their looks or if Crux—he introduced—was just trying to relate to her. Mannerisms and social cues were often lost on her. Instead, her smile remained and she rolled a shoulder to try and balance her supposed indifference.

 “I’m Brilliance,” she said after a beat. Her tail waved and she started to relax whether or not she realized it. Crux wasn’t a threat; at least not yet.

 She often thought about her brothers. She missed them a lot. When things got rough, she knew she always had them to count on but these days it was only herself and it got pretty lonely, even with a bird in tow. Brilliance sighed and looked to one side, as if she might have somewhere to be. “This place is weird,” she mused, trailing off with no real direction. She wanted to ask if he thought she might find her family or if, finally, it was time to accept that she needed to move on.
the staff team luvs u

 The youngster responded in kind, acting her age in a way that made his nose twitch in amusement. It was clear she was hungry, lost... probably confused and scared, though she was covering it up well enough if that was her state of mind. Perhaps she had wandered enough to grow used to the hunger, the loneliness...

 He couldn't do it.

 She commented on this place being weird and he gave a nod, peering up at the tooth like projections out of the earth. “It is.” he agreed, “My new home since vakningin — The Awakening is also strange - there are trees that, though it is spring into summer, are as red as the heart of autumn.” The look on his face was nostalgic, thoughts drawing him back to a place far from here that was always far too dry to have normal seasons.

 It was not the same here, but it was home for many years and in a way, so despite everything, he longed for it.

 In other ways, he was glad to be rid of it. He shook himself free of the thought, looking back at the girl. “If you need shelter, a home, whatever - you can follow us. My friend Mordecai is near, likely finding berries to gorge on.” He'd give a little laugh, shaking his head. “The man loves them.” His eyes flicked back to the girl. Perhaps the thought of eating anything, if not entirely offering like at the start, would draw her in.

 He couldn't leave a starving youngster if he could help it.

the staff team luvs u