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
Still I see you, celestial.


Afternoon Overcast
#1
AW
Adventurer
Medic
08-31-2022, 05:50 PM
Tags for reference, no need to join. AW


For long weeks had Maral wasted away, and in the earlier days she genuinely felt that she may perish to the sickness that ravaged her. She'd squirrelled herself away within the heart of the Elk's Crown to sleep through the worst of it after the fainting episode beyond her home, seeking solitude and time to let herself heal. Gradually her appetite returned but her strength did not come to swiftly, so her reign of loneliness continued.

She'd foolishly hoped her mother might seek her to check in, but she had not. @Célnes was likely too busy pretending she didn't exist, devoting her time and care to the more favoured off her original eight - either that or she'd simply been of no recent use to her. It'd hurt, naturally, but after a while the shadow realised she should've known better to expect her lone parent to care enough in acknowledging how truly unwell she'd been.

So Maral withdrew entirely from her family when at last she began to roam again. She figured they might not recognise her, with her hollowed face and jutting hips. She was unaware of the attack on @Faust and that @Warwick still had not returned from his wanderings; she simply existed, and stepped among the wisteria that neighboured Elkshire's forest to stretch her stiffened limbs.


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#2
Adventurer
08-31-2022, 05:56 PM
too BAD


A headache to everything that happened. The waters had been poisoned, now cleansed from time, but the attacks of her young, the deaths, and the sickness of many. Though it seems a few went under noticed, the usual stoicism and withdraw of one of her young was not unusual, although it came to word that it seemed she did also, indulge in the tainted water. There was a crease through her brows, staring in the depths of the Woodlands — troubles that were all too close, and then more-so, the words of @Rohesia that perhaps it was a warning, from the High Elk ; was high in her mind. Her cousin before death always knew well how to read the signs, at least, so Celnes thought.. Maybe she inherited that same way.

As she traversed to the Woodlands, a shadow had caught her eye, and for a moment it seemed like there was a ghost itself, "Maral?" there was an obvious surprise that scorned across Celnes's face as she looked at her young, who had noticeable differences.

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#3
Counsellor
08-31-2022, 06:55 PM (This post was last modified: 09-16-2022, 08:02 AM by Maral. Edited 2 times in total.)
Maral?

The sound of her mother's voice made her blood run cold. The shadow stopped, her tail limp and her head hung low; she was tired, still. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Her mind ran wild with many a thing, her thoughts often plagued by darkness. She did not turn to face the Queen, for she was reluctant for her sunfire eyes to look upon the scorn that was so clearly written on her stained features. Maral felt a great many things for her dam: love, deep down in the deepest parts of her being; spite, for the way she'd favoured siblings over her despite the unwavering loyalty she'd shown; hatred, for the ways she'd seen her neglect the newest cubs she bore. 

Above all, however, Maral felt sorry for Celnes. She'd ruined whatever chance of a genuine familiar bond between them with her own arrogance and pride, and there was no coming back from a lifetime of hoping her mother would want her the way she'd mourned Calhoun and Edith's absences. 

“What?” Maral muttered through gritted teeth, mahogany eyes fixed on the wisteria branches that flowed gently in the Summertime breeze.


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#4
Visionary
08-31-2022, 07:03 PM
"Did something happen to you too, or was it the water?" By the point she was used to any scorn and unruly melancholy her daughter had. She was not a ray of sunshine, someone who walked within the shadows, Elkshire's own little Nightwalker. However she had recently taken up the rope where her siblings were absent due to their wayfaring wanderlust of adventure.. A proudness, although she had no idea the scorn Maral felt toward the Queen, and assumed it was simply.. Her.

Celnes approached, sniffing the girl and observing for any sorts of injuries, especially wandering if the red-eyed man returned for a vengeance she knew not, or had caused damage before reaching the younger brood. Although she was simply.. Underweight, skin and bones, a shadow of her other self. There was a frown, a mixture of though worry, but overall an annoyance of the peace that was broken for some ungodly reason, the High Elk so willed, and for what reason to be? Already a son was taken, what else would there need to be for retribution, she assumed his malice was giving? Rohesia's words were still rummaging through her mind.

Coincidence, or via the will of a the patron..?

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#5
Paladin
Counsellor
08-31-2022, 07:15 PM (This post was last modified: 09-16-2022, 08:02 AM by Maral. Edited 1 time in total.)
The Queen opened her mouth to ask after her condition, at last, too late. Maral hunched her shoulders as though trying to hide her face and the dense fur there bristled somewhat, defensive. She bit back the desire to clack her fangs in annoyance at the question, the feeling of being nothing more than an afterthought, and the very tip of her tail curled in annoyance - betraying her stoic exterior.

She fumed, more so when her dam moved to better investigate her weakened appearance, for she felt that she saw right through the ruse of false affection. Maral recoiled then at the brush of a nose to the tips of her dark furs, side-stepping aside and curling her upper lip in a hissed warning, tongue snaking anxiously between her fangs. She shot the monarch a sharpened glare, dark and unforgiving, and at last she spat: “stop pretending that you care about me.”


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#6
08-31-2022, 07:21 PM
Her appearance was longer child-like, not a cub who would cry at the sign of thunder, but a look that was of scorn and dislike. An intention of every way that those who bared such a expression would often snap and ward away, fangs to clack and fights to run ; but as blood tied them and the title of Queen that there was, no such thing happened. But the expression was familiar, for a moment.. Although Celnes often feared for Calhoun and Rohesia to bare too much of a persona to their previous counterparts, for just a moment, she could see their faces, and even Flynn's, become all too similar to her own.

That same dislike, the same scorn that she couldn't understand. The knowledge that though they disliked her — in the end Celnes never knew why, she gave a home and prestige, listened to woe's as so if they came forth, and encouraged their trades to be honed. But time and time again such a pride and coldness seem to betray, where now such a liege affected even to the young, who had caught her eye.. But not enough, where she shown the same affection to Warwick. Not when she given up doing so, feeling Maral was fine, how she was.

A mask of serenity appeared, fluttered eyes looking at her daughter, "do you truly believe so?"

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#7
Paladin
08-31-2022, 07:32 PM (This post was last modified: 08-31-2022, 07:33 PM by Maral. Edited 1 time in total.)
Maral saw how her mother's expression did not waver. She stared right into the Queen's stare, daring - challenging, perhaps, considering how uncharacteristic she appeared in those tense moments. The shadow would never seek to dethrone Célnes. She was perhaps superior in size, but her body condition had deteriorated in recent weeks. To attack the Queen would surely cast her out into the vast unknown which, while could certainly be a blessing in disguise, Maral was unprepared for life as a loner.

It would kill her. She would rather live a life of misery than die in the wilds, as @Aldritch likely had.

She braced herself, ears splayed. “Yes,” she announced, “do you deny it?”


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#8
09-03-2022, 05:46 PM
"I do." Without a beat-skipped she said, with an honesty. There wasn't a time she truly detested her kids, although there was definitely moments of unwanted. To see how her own litter was drenched with white, colors that deemed both a mention of a path of sin, and the sin's that a parent commits ; although she did elude that away from her childrens teaching. No more did she truly think that, but maybe it was simply her, trying to hide the blasphemy, of what she had done. Although it seems that some may have figured it out.

"In your younger days I would cradle and hold while you were fearful of the storms, and brought up with my own two-paws. Always the little night walker, always finding companionship with none. Yet my love has not faded, and only grow more proud, but it pains me for you to feel that way." It was true to say though she did not try hard enough to form such bonds, pushed away more then a few times, she would give up on certain young. Those same young then wretched in another direction, while her favored.. Are elsewhere.

A shame.

She had thought in the later times to focus on Maral something new would arise, and yet everytime she faced this daughter, a new problem came to be.

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#9
Paladin
Counsellor
09-06-2022, 02:29 PM (This post was last modified: 09-06-2022, 02:30 PM by Maral. Edited 1 time in total.)
"Always the little night walker-" “Don't call me that!” Maral interrupted, her tone sharpened by hatred for anything that linked her to a father who'd never cared to be present in her life. She could only vaguely remember his face and the deep crimson of his eyes that several of her siblings had inherited: Vermillion, Calhoun, Edith. Her own bore a hint of the hue that could be visible to those who looked close enough - that which the shadow refused to see in her own reflection.

She was not like them. She would never be a Nightwalker.

Maral was unaware that her dam had always considered her as such, and she bore her fangs at her again. She had no right to dub her as such, to think her to be her father's daughter when it was two of her most beloved who'd abandoned her for him. They might've come back and the Queen might've forgiven them for it, but the tainted one held onto her spite. Maral emitted a low rumble again, and shot her mother a pointed glare. She'd spoke of nurturing and of loving, of caring, yet had failed to acknowledge her existence while she burned with fever. “Then where were you,” she countered, raising her head and shifting to let the matriarch look upon what was left of her: ribcage protruding, with thinned unkempt furs and a gaunt face. “Where were YOU when I thought I might die!?”


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#10
09-07-2022, 09:52 PM
Her ears flicked, as the other snapped and bared fangs. A sore spot that Celnes didn't realize was touchy ; the more that was spoken, the more emotion that was shown, the more the Queen realized what was the others doubts and woes. The issues that came, the dislike toward her siblings and overall the stem of tainted blood beyond the shrouded vale of the nearby forest ; drenched in blood that they were, and it was not blood she liked — but she was the closest, that looked like them. Her colors stained similar to the Boogeyman — at least, so she thought.

To store these moments in the back of her head, to quench the daughter who felt slighted and unjustice. She accepted her blame, knowing well that it was on her how this daughter slipped so deep into the backdrop, a shadow who held all these emotions until she bursted. Fangs rippled, but it wasn't intimidating when she was skin or bones, just someone who..

Celnes gaze switched to a soft sorrow for a moment, perhaps a true regret to see how far Maral had fallen — but it seems the blame was on her choices.

"Faust was attacked by a red-eyed man within the woodlands — he ran."

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#11
Counsellor
09-11-2022, 09:18 AM (This post was last modified: 09-16-2022, 08:01 AM by Maral. Edited 1 time in total.)
Maral swore she saw a slackening of the Queen's posture, and she looked toward her with... pity? That certainly was not what the shadow sought from her mother, but some small hope was sparked within her heart as silence hung awkardly between them. It was dashed as soon as Célnes opened her maw to divulge her with the latest news of Faust: that her sister had been assaulted in the forest and her attacker was still at large.

She thought she might erupt, then. Even after she barked her complaint, at admitting how alone and neglected she'd felt after a long year of being little more than an afterthought to her family. A growl rumbled in Maral's chest and she glowered at her mother through dark eyes narrowed in dangerous slits. How dare she pretend that Faust's life suddenly mattered! How dare she!

Her dam probably only mentioned it because Maral had been too unwell to serve as the girl's guardian, an announcement meant to deflect - to blame. She'd tried her best by young Faust, had warned and advised that the world was unsafe, yet still she was stupid enough to stick her nose into dangerous situations she was too young to handle. Célnes had failed so many of the children she recklessly bore, and while Maral ached for her younger siblings' trauma she would never accept responsibility for them.

“I reiterate,” she responded coldly, grinding the words out, and lashed her tail, where were you?”

She bore her fangs one more time and turned away from her mother, presenting her back to the monarch. Maral was done with the Queen's refusal to acknowledge where she'd gone wrong, her dismissal of her role in the troubled minds of her offspring. So she did what she did best when stressful situations became to much for her to bear, and removed herself from sight.


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#12
09-28-2022, 07:29 PM
"You ask much of me, Maral." Even that was not satisfactory to Maral, who when she was not their at her daughters demise, she was elsewhere with an attacker.. But even that, would not suit the girl, "I am not so omnipotent that I can be everywhere at once, for though I am with the title of Queen ; I am mortal." At the point her voice was tinted with a light warmth despite the coldness she felt ; for it seemed nothing was enough for her little girl who was dissatisfied..

And she in the end the thought, still would never fully take the blame, not even when Maral turned away and toward the forest. She knew well by the showing of fangs and the broken tooth that even if Celnes chased and pestered, it would not give the results she wanted, or needed. Her tongue swipped by muzzle, as an ear flicker with a hum following.

She was losing a daughter, and was stuck how to fix it.

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