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!

AW
breathe


Midnight Partly Cloudy
#1
AW
Medic
03-19-2022, 03:25 AM (This post was last modified: 03-19-2022, 08:32 PM by 02. Edited 5 times in total.)
A body erupts from the lake, silent and star-shining. Caked in mud, twisted up in stinking algae and fish rot.

He drags himself from the hungering depths, but doesn't get far before a wet mass drops from his mouth. A geyser springs from his throat, and at last he takes a breath, choking, hacking, throwing up. He falls to his knees, overcome with lungs' desperation. The wet mass splutters, spraying mud.

Gasping still, he presses his head into the mass until it fountains. Something small and smooth and wet shimmers in the moonlight. The body's head drops, flanks heaving.
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#2
03-19-2022, 01:53 PM
She had just been walking, traveling. She was alone now... Had she ever had anyone else? For some reason the longer she walked, the less she could remember. In fact, everything around her because blurry and fuzzy and then .

Splash!

She was standing fetlock-deep in water! She blinked, finding that she was able to focus and look around. She didn't recognize this place at all....

She heard a cascade of water, of coughing and hacking, and other unknown noises. She blew air out of her nose and prepared to turn and run away from the sound. She galloped several places before looking back and seeing another horse.

Oh!

She stopped and galloped back over to him, dropping her head to his own when she reached his side. "Are .. are you okay, mister?" Horses were good. Other horses were safe.
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#3
Medic
03-19-2022, 09:05 PM (This post was last modified: 03-19-2022, 09:13 PM by 02. Edited 3 times in total.)
Ashen eyes open, rolling toward the speaker. Water streaming into them forces a headshake, but breathlessly he rasps, "Yes...," the word melting into another bout of hacking. Mud, water, and something else sprays from his lips.

He looks to the wet mass, the muddy lump rising and falling. Haltingly, wetly, but breathing. Next to it, a pebble-like object glimmers. Subtly, he hides the object under his hoof, lifting his barrel out of the mud.

"'S only a midnight dip," he breathes roughly, his voice slowly returning to him, deep, slick, and rumbling.

Gently, he pushes his knee against the lump, encouraging it to spit out yet more water. This time, the fountain is much less spectacular. He slides his head under the mass, lifting it onto his withers. Mud and water drain down his own filthy shoulders.

The horse drops suddenly, slamming his barrel into the ground, the pebble digging into his flesh. Again he vomits, flushing the excesses from his system, and afterward heaves a weary sigh.
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#4
03-20-2022, 01:08 AM
 Oh dear... He assured her that he was fine but he didn't look it. Unfortunately, Strawberry was powerless to really help but she did give him a sympathetic look. When his gaze turned to something else, she followed it as well. There was a strange lump... it was moving. She wondered what it was.

 Was it dangerous? 

 Part of her freaked out, debating if she should run. Run was nearly always screaming in her brain, it was just stronger in some moments than others. Like now. 

 Her eyes looked wildly left and right, as if planning for an escape route. She only calmed, slightly, when the stallion spoke again. He rose to his hooves after a bit and her gaze returned to him. "That's--that's some dip!" Her voice was airy, nervous, and she tittered out laughter. This was stressful. This whole unknown situation. Especially that unknown lump that was moving like some monster! The other horse didn't seem concerned and even moved it to his back.

 And then he collapsed again. 

 Oh "Oh! Oh, mister, please, um, rest." Although she didn't like the "rest" option. Resting when you were injured gave predators a chance to catch you... although in this instance it would be him on the chopping block. "Um, I... I can keep watch. If you want. Until you get your strength back." Being in a group with another horse felt nice anyway.

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#5
Visionary
03-20-2022, 06:15 AM (This post was last modified: 03-21-2022, 05:08 PM by 02. Edited 3 times in total.)
Wordlessly, he buries his hooves, rising, slipping, struggling in the mud, but, eventually, standing, shaking. He feels weak, looks weak, but he will not fall.

"This will pass." A murmur. He nudges the ragged lump on his withers, now sliding into the slope of his back. Alive, if only barely.

Ears, eyes skim past, then around, before finally resting on the stranger. A horse. Mare. Hand taller than him? Little more than shadows can he discern. Perhaps a mark of white here or there.

"Ah," he says, staring. Her demeanor crystallizes. "I am the sacrifice."
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#6
03-20-2022, 08:57 PM
 Her ears flicked forward towards him, trying to catch the murmured words. What will pass? This state of being so weak? Or something else? It was worrisome, this whole situation. How had he gotten here? How had she gotten here? She... she couldn't remember where she'd even come from!

 She eyed the strange lump on his back and decided to ask, "Uh... um, what's that? On your back?" It some strange sodden thing that she couldn't make heads or tails of. She didn't like it. Unknown things were scary and as long as she didn't know what it was, it and he were scary. 

 It didn't help with the words that he spoke. "Sacrifice!?" The whites of her eyes showed. "What do you mean sacrifice?! Is there someone after you?" She looked around frantically, her body seemed to dance in place as she prepared to bolt at the slightest hint of danger. She sniffed the air and couldn't find anything immediately worrying but his words had her teetering at the precipice of panic.

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#7
03-21-2022, 05:11 PM (This post was last modified: 03-21-2022, 05:28 PM by 02. Edited 2 times in total.)
An ear twitches. His lip, too, cracking the smallest smirk.

He turns his head and spits, last of the dreaded depths welling up inside him.

"Well," he says, "never mind."

The embedded pebble falls from his flesh, dropping into the mud like a single drip of fire, but fire only in reflection. He stamps it out regardless, again burying it with his hoof.

"This?" He flicks his tail over the lump draining on his back. "It's nothing."

He smiles, but even this is strained. There's an emptiness behind he cannot hide.

"You want to watch? Feel free." The word slips off his tongue like oil: free. "I will wait and you will watch."
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#8
03-21-2022, 05:41 PM
 His mannerisms, the way he smiled… she felt herself slowly being put back on edge. That silent voice in her mind wary and humming to run. She tried to ignore it in favor of helping a fellow horse but it didn’t help when he assured her that the thing on his back was “nothing”. Run. It was unknown, it moved, like the most intimidating thing in the world. She couldn’t forget it when it just lay there…

 But she tried to, in favor of him.

 One ear was trained towards him, the other nervously twitched back to watch behind. She shivered, finding the panic welling inside of her at his strange grin. There was something there, or not there, she didn’t like it. She stepped a pace backwards, feeling sorry that she’d ever offered to keep watch for him. What if he was the predator? What if he was what she should be afraid of?

 ”I… I…” She had offered but now… she didn’t want to anymore. What if there wasn’t danger after him, what if he was the danger? She couldn’t tell him no. She’d offered already. ”O-okay. I’ll keep watch for y-you.” She stepped several paces away and turned partway away. This would allow her to keep watch on the empty fields while also watching him. If he tried anything then she could run. She was on a hare-trigger, her body primed and ready to bolt at any moment. Her eyes were wild and the whites showing while her nostrils flared.

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#9
03-21-2022, 06:43 PM (This post was last modified: 03-21-2022, 06:51 PM by 02. Edited 4 times in total.)
He watches in return, eyes only rarely rolling away from her. To the dark prairie, to the shadowed stars, to the thing rasping hoarsely on his back. He doesn't move and he doesn't speak. He might as well be sleeping with his eyes open.
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#10
03-22-2022, 02:44 PM
[size=medium]
 Even if she wanted to sleep, she couldn’t. She couldn’t peel her eyes from the landscape… from him. The unknown was overpowering, like a thousand cats roaring at her. Her instincts screamed at her, a deafening note adding to the screaming in her mind. It shattered her mind, made it difficult to think beyond anything else. Run. It was the symphony of chaos repeated over and over in her mind. She began to tremble, to shake, eyes darting hither and thither and always landing on his back.[/size]

[size=medium] As time passed, she became more and more of a wreck, the rasping of the unknown item on the other horse’s back. His eerie presence, the darkness of the land, the matter of how she’d gotten here. It primed her to run. Readied her until she was a tightly wound cork ready to explode. There just needed to be a trigger to set her off.
[/size]
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#11
03-22-2022, 05:28 PM
He snorts.
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#12
03-22-2022, 05:53 PM
 It was such a simple action. A snort. Harmless.

 Yet to her, it was the end of the world.

 It was the sound of a dragon roaring to life.

 It was the sound of a thousand tigers descending upon her.

 It was the end and the beginning.

 The beginning of her going into motion to get away from it all.

 She let out a panicked snort, eyes wild as she whinnied and turned in one motion. The screams in her mind overpowered her and her legs carried her swiftly away. She didn’t know where she just knew she needed to be away from here.

-exit stage right-


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#13
Visionary
03-22-2022, 06:19 PM (This post was last modified: 03-22-2022, 08:28 PM by 02. Edited 3 times in total.)
"Run," he breathes, watching the mare take off like a bat out of Hell.

His eyes follow her until she's out of sight, then his ears until he hears her no more.

A deep, long sigh: "Finally."

The horse lifts his leg, picking up the pebble and holding it delicately between his teeth. Out the corner of his eye, he can just see it glinting in the moonlight, almost glowing. A jewel, a soul, a prison. It rolls so smoothly, so warmly in his tongue.

"Leave...," his fading rider rasps.

He hums, murmuring, predicting, "I will regret this."

But he laughs softly to himself and does it anyway, tossing his head, casting the gem into the lake. It drowns without complaint.

Looking to the stars, he moves. Slowly, away from the lake, silent as a dying sun.
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