we keep on running through these red lights

Well, this was new.

Midnight stirred in a place she didn't recognize, startled by the piercing cry of a raven overhead. She peered out into the unknown, her head throbbing mercilessly, and did her best to grasp at the memories slipping further and further away with each passing moment. Faces she thought must hold some importance blurred into nothingness, and names disappeared from her memory altogether. It was concerning, of course, but the determination -- no, the need to survive was overwhelming. At first glance she appeared to be healthy enough, but as the charcoal wolf began to rise, she felt a sharp pain shoot down the length of her hip and thigh. Turning her attention to the area, Midnight was met with a brutal wound that still leaked blood as though it were freshly made. It certainly changed her priorities a wee bit; finding a healer was of the utmost importance now. She grumbled to herself, holding her hind leg up against her belly as she began to hobble through the unfamiliar terrain and into the rest of her godforsaken life.

"Hello?"

Surely someone had to be nearby, right? Someone who could help her.

Right?

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Wrong.

Malachi's only credential? That he was nearby. He'd half a mind to leave. Anyone could smell the blood that stained the autumn air. Could he not go five minutes without running into someone who had either washed up ashore, fallen from the skies, or gotten marred by some predator or another? Okay, okay, so the middle was fiction, and the latter was new, but the more time Malachi spent in... wherever he was, the less idly he wondered if he'd wakened in Sheol.

The only thing to counter this was that every day, he opened his eyes, and light flooded through the valleys and hills; that every day he felt those tugs of humanity in his heart; every day he heard, and remembered, and felt strength in his road-wearied bones. Every day he still knew the Giver was present, though perhaps, even now, not far from him... and that was not Sheol. This was simply the world.

And knowing this world enough, Malachi knew better than to assume either fangs or fanfare from any which wolf he met. Though he hadn't been crossed by anyone yet, he couldn't help but feel like he had, and he walked with a caution that had yet to be trained... undergirded by some edge of empathy and simultaneous anger.

"What thing did you upset to get scuffed up like that?" he asked. He kept his distance from the midnight stranger, and gestured with a nod towards her, intending to reference her wound.
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just taking an assumption it's somewhere near the elk's crown if that's okay!
am also cameo unless spoken to!

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There wasn't too many that came to the temperates, as for as the Queen knew ; most stayed away from her realm. She didn't step out too much either, causing the simple assumption of so.. Being locked with children would make anyone stay long into a hibernation, but as they grew older and started to speak, she would take longer, and longer trips outside, continuing a routine she held long before children - a wander to the outside.

Blood was scented in the air, and unusual mix that meant trouble. Within the shadows she crept while sliding through the trees with a wandering orange eye, though upon approaching further was but a dame within the floor, and a man in wonder about so. She stayed downlow from the wind, hiding away and curiously watching the two.

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Midnight walked. And walked. And walked. She had no idea where she was going and likely would have been a tad bit more excited had she not had gaping wounds on her skin, but hey! She'd figure out where she was heading when she got there. Her eyes swept towards a figure as he appeared on the horizon, asking what she'd done to warrant such a bloody appearance.

"Would ya believe me if I told ya I had no idea, darlin'? Must've pissed somethin' big off, though. Is there water nearby I can wash off in? Don't need it gettin' infected and all that." Midnight respected the distance he kept between them and made no move to get closer, only kept her ears trained on him to listen for his advice. "Name's Midnight, by the way. My parents were clever, huh?" Her tail swished idly by her hocks, a surprising amount of patience inhabiting her body as she stood there close to half-dead.

@Malachi

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