Welcome to Canis Major

a wolf and animal rpg (role-playing game)

Canis is a writing community for play-by-post (forum-based), freeform roleplay set in a fictional dream world in the intrusion fantasy genre. Most characters on Canis are wolves; many play elements are focused around wolves and canids, but the world makes room for a large variety of other animal characters such as dogs, horses, cats, bears, deer, and many, many more.

Our community is focused on flexibility, creativity, and collaboration. That boils down to a few important features:

  • There is no set activity requirement to write
  • The setting and plot are member-created and staff-supported
  • The game is continuously improved to increase fun and decrease stress

Learn more in our Rulebook!

P
There's always something, somewhere

#1
P
03-08-2021, 04:13 AM
Since the days she'd fallen from the sky and into the lake, Jesuite had taken her time gathering herself together. It was an odd thing, to her, to walk among the world again. The silver-touched female could remember aging, could remember pieces and bits of a life before, could even remember passing on into the next realm, before she'd been plunged back amongst the living. There was something missing, something deep and intrinsic, something all important. Was it whatever family she'd had? Was it the lack of... anyone or anything familiar? Or the lack of memories?

A sigh left her, lavender eyes scanning the stones that jut so oddly from the ground. She felt... aimless, lost, and lonely and those things together welled together to form a deep, striking sadness in the woman, something not so easily countered with spring sunlight. Distractions were the only thing that would server her well in this moment, and so the silver wolf took to exploring this odd place, marveling silently at how the stones stood without support, sentinels on the plain that stretched so long before her.

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#2
03-09-2021, 05:02 AM
So he set off in search of something, and that something was connected to several hundred somethings that pricked at his neck like a particularly pesky case of fleas. Indistinct memories detailing a series of events leading up to... 

Whatever this was. 

The soreness had (thankfully) subsided after a few minutes of motion, and his stride gradually lengthened to the roving pace of his forebears until he reached a steady trot that consumed the distance with ease. The stone monoliths stretched for miles and miles around, dotting the rolling grasslands, casting ever growing shadows as the sun continued to track across the skies. It had to end somewhere (did it?), he only hoped he was going the right direction. Without the familiar spine of the Salvajes de Norte, Chehalis couldn't make heads nor tails of his location, nor how close he was to the valley proper. All he knew is that he needed to get back to the Plateau, and quick. 

You cannot hope to stop the river once the current has turned against you...

The words sent a ripple down his spine, but his focus honed in on movement ahead. Chehalis halted. A silver slipstream of a woman roved between the stones, and his heart lurched with familiarity that he couldn't immediately place. Both ears cupped, and his head rose as he observed in muddled silence.
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Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#3
03-09-2021, 05:22 AM (This post was last modified: 03-09-2021, 05:22 AM by Valk. Edited 1 time in total.)
Something stopped her. It drew her paws to a halt, grasping at her fur as if it could physically hold her. And perhaps it could, her motion slowing until she stood among the stone spires, the cool spring her only company. Whatever invisible force had brought her to stand here, held her here, wrapping its arms around her and for a moment, Jesuite wondered if she would be dragged back into that limbic space to float endlessly, thoughtlessly. Despite the heavy weight of her heart, the distant memories that plagued her, the silver-touched woman found that she did not want such a thing.

She wasn't sure what told her to turn, she wasn't sure why she listened to it, lithe form turning to adjust her course and... freezing... when she saw him. With a lean and rugged form, draped in copper and tan, she could swear her heart stuttered, an ache piercing her in a place that nothing but those memories could touch. Brows furrowed, tail limp behind her as she studied him, head tilting to the side for a moment as she reached desperately for the memories that so endlessly taunted her.

“Hello,” She said, dulcet voice soft and hesitant. Unsure. And still, familiarity stuck her, again and again, over and over. “Do I... know you?”

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#4
03-09-2021, 05:48 AM
As the woman pulled to a halt, and panned her gaze around to acknowledge him, Chehalis felt his stomach churn with violent apprehension. Not anxiety, but a bone-deep ache rooted deep within his psyche; well-below the fount of memories flashing briefly across his mind like scattered puzzle pieces. Something fundamental. 

Loss. 

His lungs began to burn from a lack of air before he remembered the function of breathing, and nearly choked on a stray droplet of saliva vacuumed from his tongue and down into his lungs.

(How long have I been out?)

Chehalis ink-tipped tail. which had risen almost level with his back as he frantically organized something resembling coherent thought, dropped limply between his hocks. A sliver of instinct willed him to rally, and assert himself, but the rational mind bottled it up and threw it into the rapidly (concerning) growing pile of homeless emotions, needs, and memories. One ear curved backward before pressing forward again, focused on her again. His brows knit, though one slowly arched higher than the other.  

"Dunno," (yes)

He frowned at the rough, sleepless gravel underlying the clarity of his voice, and cleared his throat. 

"Sorry, but where are we?" 
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Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#5
03-09-2021, 06:17 AM
Their eyes met. Again, pain lanced through her. Why? What was it? Who was this?

She wanted to venture closer, wanted to get a better look at him. Her paws stayed glued in their spot, ears twisting round to catch what he said, a pretty frown twisting her maw. 

You do know him, though. Her head tilted as she watched the man, so familiar, so... 

“No... I...” Her frown deepened. “I fell from the sky.” An oddity, no doubt, but it was true. “I awoke in a lake and have recognized nothing since that moment, except...” 

She pulled her eyes up to his again. “Except you.”

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#6
03-09-2021, 06:59 PM (This post was last modified: 03-09-2021, 06:59 PM by Chehalis.)
His copper eyes narrowed with skepticism.

Fell from the sky? Last he knew, wolves didn't fly. But then again, mountains did not normally rise beneath his feet nor did shadows have teeth.

...most shadows, anyway. 

Depths of piercing lavender alighted to his own, and Chehalis was stricken with recollection as a host of memories flooded through him. Shouting, cries, snarls; blood on stone; tears in rain, and his mirror image falling, falling—dead before he hit the ground as the fire-eyed'd shadow laughed, and laughed, and laughed. 

(but that was years ago, a lifetime ago)

He inhaled, and realized his eyes were burning with a sheen of tears. 

A tremble broke across his spine, and his hackles flared, lips quivering with the beginning of a nervous growl. He bit down on his tongue to prevent the sound from escaping, tasting blood.

It didn't help.

"Alright, well, a name might help jog your memory. I'm Chehalis," he offered cautiously.
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#7
03-10-2021, 07:31 AM
Chehalis.

She was sure that she staggered then, the blow to her psyche almost physical. She knew that name, knew that face, but... slightly different. The scars were different. The eyes, too. She remembered conversations surrounding that name; she couldn't hear all the words, but she remembered... something

Bewildered. Shocked. Gentle eyes prickled with heat as she regarded him, confused and unsure. “Jesuite.” Her answer was equally careful, uncertain if she truly knew him or if her mind was simply playing tricks on her. She didn't think it was, but...

No, she knew it wasn't.

“You had a brother...” She said, softly, the tear that rolled down the line of her cheek surprising her. Why... was she crying?

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#8
03-13-2021, 06:11 AM (This post was last modified: 03-13-2021, 06:13 AM by Chehalis. Edited 1 time in total.)
A false-start shot down through his limbs upon seeing the effect his reply had on her; a brief shift of soil beneath his paws as he braced for... anger? He remembered cold disdain—a different stormy cloaked songbird. Bewildered by the wild lashes of emotion, Chehalis blinked away the daze clouding his eyes, accompanied by a slow stroke of his ear toward his neck. Had he hit his head somewhere between then and now? 

He didn't know. Couldn't really figure it out on his own, either. 

Molten copper eyes raked across the blue strokes framing the underside of her eyes, and recalled her with surprising clarity amidst all the fog in his head. An old, albeit distant, friend. He hadn't seen her in years; not since... not since... 

Wait, years? Or months. 

What the fuck was wrong with him? 

"Had, yeah," he offered quickly, unwilling to dwell on that careworn twist of guilt (myfaultmyfault). But his eyes automatically shifted to trace the tear, her unspoken (unrealized?) grief hooking viciously into his heart. 

"... Jesuite," he forced the name out with gentle confidence, as if he had borne the weight of it before. As if recognition, false or otherwise, could styme her tears.

He took a breath, corrected his poise, and lent her a smile. "It'll be alright," he said for lack of something more appropriate, or personally tailored, to say.
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#9
03-14-2021, 03:27 AM (This post was last modified: 03-14-2021, 03:28 AM by Jesuite.)
The confirmation was odd — it both relieved her and hurt her. Relief came because she was not imagining things, not imagining that she knew this man or invented the fact that he had had a sibling, once. Hurt, because she and his brother had been twined together. She could vaguely remember the passion that had brought them close, the whirlwind of feelings, from their union to his death. Hurt, because his name escaped her, because his almost spitting image stood in front of her, reminding her, reviving those memories. 

When, though? When had he died? Yesterday? Months ago? Years? How long had she simply existed in that limbic state? Had her children grown? 

Her name.

Once-teal eyes lifted, refocused on the man that spoke her moniker so gently, so tenderly. The reassurance gave her pause, then realizing that there was wetness tracked down the curve of her muzzle. “Oh, apologies,” The woman spoke softly, shaking her head as if she could shake the memories that had come so unbidden. “I -- Are you alright?” She almost spoke his name again then, but it felt... odd, to utter a name her mind knew to be old and once lost to the ages.

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#10
03-17-2021, 02:40 AM
Chehalis wanted nothing to do with her grief, and yet the fault lay with him all the same. His brother died defending him over his stupid, reckless, impulsive—

His long ears twitched stiffly at the recollection, and his heart lurched as if struck, but he swiftly slammed his mind down against the old (old?) memories. He didn't need to feed into this misery, and it certainly didn't need encouragement to grow. A bitter part of him would sooner see it all forgotten, and the hurts smoothed over by time alone, but it never did really work out that way. He just wasn't that lucky. 

An apology tumbled from her lips as if bidden, but he merely shook his head to deflect any inference of wrongdoing on her part. His gaze flit past her, to the rolling grasses, but returned a beat later once satisfied that they were still very much alone. Jesuite spoke again, her question halted by a queer hitch in her choice of words, and he wondered what else may have belonged there were she not suffering from amnesia. Did she truly know him? Or was he just an imperfect mirror of his brother? 

"Eh," he began without much thought, "not exactly? Can't remember how I got here, or where here is. I woke up and... ran into you." He lifted his head as his brow knit in a measure of thought before continuing, albeit a touch hesitantly, softer even. "If we're being honest, I don't rightfully know if this is even real. I've never seen anything like these before," he motioned to the standing stones, "and... I can't—I can't remember where I fell asleep before waking up here." 
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#11
03-25-2021, 06:53 PM
That relief again. It flooded her, though for reasons different than they had been only moments ago. “I have not, either,” Her response came in reply to the remark about the stones, muzzle tipping to look up at them. “They look... old. As if they have been here for some time.” Which was odd to her, though she could not pinpoint why.

“I remember... floating. As if I was in some sort of stasis, until now. But at the same time, I remember feeling old.” Was it just that she had an old soul? Or was it something more? “I remember children, but I don't remember if they were Montesano's. I —” She paused, surprised at how easily, how casually the name had come to her.

“I don't think they were,” The silvered soul continued after a moment, voice pensive and ponderous. If there was one thing that Jesuite was certain of, it was that this world — whatever it was — was a strange one.
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#12
03-25-2021, 07:26 PM (This post was last modified: 03-25-2021, 07:27 PM by Chehalis.)
I remember feeling old.

His breath caught in his throat, and his heart began to pound—feverish and unfettered. The crush of a thousand-thousand memories, feelings, and sensations bearing down on him, cornering him, but his waking mind could not pin logic to it all. A great panic rose in him as his mind darted erratically from one point in time to another, leaving his present self stranded, and abruptly disassociated. Montesano, his brother; his body buried at the base of the Plateau. Athena, their children—Whisper Forest—a volcano... no, Nova Mountain—and...!? 

But it couldn't have. He saw it just last night before the sun set, whole, intact. He met with his family not three days ago.

He clenched his jaw, fighting against the fretful pulse in his temple, and paranoia skittering across his skin. 

Wake up.

"No, they—you would've told me," he said, certain of this somehow, although his voice was suddenly thready.

Wake up.
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Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#13
03-25-2021, 07:34 PM
Her gaze turned to him sharply, the movement of her head snappy and tense. Would she have told him?

Yes.

It whispered through her soul as she met his eyes, her own gaze calm compared to his wide-eyed one. The confidence of that word was comforting, a gentle smile finally taking her expression. “I would have,” She confirmed it for him, sounding more sure than she had since she'd fallen into this existence.

As if sensing his panic, the silverstreak ventured closer, steps careful and slow. Reaching him, Jesuite stretched her neck out to press her nose into the fur of his shoulder. The touch was meant to ground, both of them, and the breath she took of his scent served to corroborate what she was becoming more and more sure of. This was all real.
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#14
03-25-2021, 08:09 PM
While he struggled to remain grounded amidst the crashing waves of his mounting panic, he noted her movement with far more intensity than belied his usual amiability. He couldn't understand the tranquility in her lilac eyes, but felt invariably drawn to it for reasons he couldn't articulate. Chehalis bristled, uncertain. He felt equally wounded, and afraid—fundamental pieces of his soul were missing. Patches in his memories that couldn't be traced to an origin, nor a termination point. The voices, and blurred faces in his mind, once balms to the heart, now only served to fracture him further. 

Wake up... WHEREAREYOUWHERE—the river has turned against—

Warm breath against his fur, and he turned, expecting to see a cloak of night thrown across downy snow. But he caught gray—no, silverspun—fur and choked back a startled noise. He hadn't even registered her movements until her touch graced his shoulder. A scarce few seconds passed, ones that likely felt like centuries, before the tension in his shoulders gradually began to unravel. Chehalis eyed her for a moment, before sweeping his muzzle about to lay his chin across her neck. The stiff crick of his tail drooped in surrender, and he heaved a strained sigh.
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#15
03-29-2021, 06:41 PM
She had not expected the embrace, had not expected the sudden warm of his body and breath. There was a moment when her vision faltered, seeing grey fur rather than tan and brown, which she somehow knew was not Montesano but someone else. For the moment, she pushed the thought away, preferring to lean into the taller man and simply breathe him in.

There was something grounding and raw about this moment. She could almost feel the thread that looped around the two of them, entangling them in some inexplicable way. The anxiety that had held her chest since her arrival into this existence finally began to release, the pressure on her chest relieving and giving way to something much more serene. Teal Lavender eyes closed then, giving into the moment wholly and completely, a soft sigh rustling the tan fur against her face.
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#16
03-30-2021, 01:30 AM (This post was last modified: 03-30-2021, 01:31 AM by Chehalis. Edited 1 time in total.)
The erratic drumming of his heart gradually began to slow to a measured beat, blunting the wicked edge of his paranoia, and inviting his immediate thoughts to venture beyond the constricting shell of his body. He hadn't surrendered completely—his eyes remained open, roving across the plains in ceaseless sweeps. Seeing, but not quite comprehending. One ear twisted back as confusion continued to muddle his perception of everything, but Chehalis lingered after she released her own hitched breath. It sounded like relief, but he didn't want to be the one to name the emotion for he wasn't wholly convinced of this situation, or that he wasn't going completely mad. 

At least the echoes were silent, for now. 

He shifted his chin slightly to regard the silverspun woman—Jesuite. His heart knew her, albeit faintly. A long-distant memory. But how, when the wound of his brother's death still wept blood red every time he closed his eyes? How could she be simultaneously so near, yet so far from his mind? He clamped down on those thoughts, and steered them toward the present. With a soft brush of his chin across her spine, Chehalis gently withdrew. 

"It'll be alright," he repeated, stronger now, as if saying it again would make it true. 

"First things first, we need a proper heading. You've been here longer, any thoughts?" The collective we came naturally and, honestly, he didn't exactly want to do this alone.
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#17
03-31-2021, 05:03 AM
Her body remembered touches like this, embraces like this, but the recollection of who it had been escaped her. For the first time, Jesuite chose not to chase that memory, content to live in this particular moment. The world they existed in, the earth they stood upon, the air they breathed, all of it could have been a dream for all she cared just then. Having someone familiar, someone that her heart knew even if she did not remember everything was a reassurance she hadn't imagined having.

“It will be,” She offered back to him, the smile on her face gone even if she looked no less pleased. “Only by a week or so. There's a lake that way,” Her muzzle pointed southwest then before turning back to him. “It may be a good idea to stick near the water. We could see if there's a river to stick close to.” Water would draw prey, and would give them some bearing at the very least. Her acceptance of their decided companionship was given easily, happy to stick near someone she knew and trusted — even if she didn't remember exactly why.
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#18
04-01-2021, 08:08 PM (This post was last modified: 04-02-2021, 05:50 AM by Chehalis. Edited 1 time in total.)
In contrast, Chehalis was altogether numb to the ghostly impressions of former lovers. He knew, somehow, they existed—most vividly was the queen with a soot cloak over a snowy field. But every time he tried to delve deeper, something within him threatened to snap completely. So he reigned back his innate curiosity, and refocused on the present. Rolling plains, the sunlight on his back, and trustworthy company. It was a start. 

Better than Nothing

He was certainly relieved when she didn't rebuff his assumption, and the sharp knit of his brow smoothed at her suggestion. "Sounds fair," he replied, "with any luck we'll run into a local who can give us directions." 

With a flick of his ear, he lifted his head to scan the horizon to chart their next course. Again that errant thought flit through his mind; a vestige of emotion better suited for another life altogether, and he wasn't entirely sure what to think or... if he even should. His copper eyes flit toward Jesuite, but didn't linger. He didn't need her pulling at that thread. 

"C'mon, sun won't be up forever." 
the staff team luvs u
Ramblers in the wilderness we can't find what we need
We get a little restless from the searching
Get a little worn down in between
#19
04-22-2021, 03:42 AM
The quicksilver female fell into step beside him as if his presence had never been absent. Interestingly, she felt as if this was where she belonged, at least for the moment. Unwilling to scrutinize the feeling for too long, Jesuite remained silent. With that, the pair set off, newly reunited in this strange world, this strange life.

Fade.
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